Mother Daughter Luncheon

I like my mom.

I love my mom too... she is my mom after all.  But I LIKE my mom. Do you get the difference?

So I invited my mom over for a special mother-daughter luncheon.  What's the difference between a luncheon and lunch you say?  A luncheon is fancy.  My mom deserves fancy.

MENU

Salmon Cakes over seasonal greens w/ lemon vinaigrette

Artisan Bread

Chocolate Nirvana Cake

Here is my menu & planning.  For a meal like this I had to do some planning and spread some stuff out over a few days.  I do have a family and household to run afterall.

I started on wednesday by making the bread dough & refrigerate it.  I used a basic no-knead Artisan bread recipe.

No Knead Artisan Bread

Get a big container. 

Add 3 C lukewarm water, 1 1/2 T yeast, 1 T salt.  Mix.

Add 6 1/2 C flour all at once.  Stir.  Sit on counter w/ lid on but cracked for 2 hours.  Refriderate.  That is it!  This makes 4 small loaves.

About 3 hours before you want to eat it, pull out about a grapefruit size ball of dough.  Flour, shape into a ball and sit for 1 hour or so.  Preheat oven w/ stone in it to 450.  Dust stone w/ cornmeal, slide dough on to it.  Put a pan w/ 1C HOT water on the rack under the stone and bake for 30m.  Cool on a rack for 30m.  Enjoy! (you can use 1/2 whole wheat flour if you want)

This was the final loave.  Can you smell it?

On thursday I make the Flourless Chocolate cake.  This was the first step in the Chocolate Nirvana Cake. This recipe is from Karen Krasne's Extraordinary Cakes Cookbook.  This is the finished fully assembled cake.  Yum!

Karen owns Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego.  If you are ever every in San Diego you MUST go here and eat Dessert.  Everything she makes is amazing. EXTRAORDINARY. My mother and I share her cookbook. This cake is the first thing either of us have attempted.  If you are looking for a special occassion cookbook I recommend THIS one.

Friday I made the Salmon Cakes.  I start with Rachael Ray's recipe.  You can see that HERE.

 

Then saturday morning was the marathon of final prep before my mom arrived at 11am.  Or at least that was the plan.  All 3 of my kids came down with ear infections and tonsilitis so I couldn't very well shuffle them out of the house for the morning with my husband so I took my luncheon on the road and set up at my moms house.

I made the ganache and formed the bread loaf at home.  Assembled the cake and chilled it.  Then packed up and went to her house!

It turned out lovely!  The bread rose in the car on the way & I baked it there for that "fresh baked bread smell".  And the cake had time to come to room temp as Karen suggests.

I served the Salmon Cakes over some spring greens tossed in lemon vinaigrette. 

Lemon Vinaigrette
3 T olive oil
1 T fresh squeezed lemon
10 cranks for cracked pepper
pinch salt
Shake shake shake

 And the piece de resistance......  It was FANTASTIC. 

I love you mom!