Mother's Day Brunch

I thought it only fitting to blog about the brunch that I prepared for my mom yesterday for Mother's Day. You see, I get my love of all things kitchen gadget, place settings, recipe hunting, bargain finding, taste testing and cooking from my mother. She is the original downhome diva! I wanted a nice, quiet brunch for just the two of us so that we could spend some time together. I don't get to see her as often as I want to (which would probably be as often as we talk on the phone- multiple times a day!) so I wanted some special time with just the two of us.

My mom and I are both chocoholics and so I wanted to incorporate our shared love of all things chocolate into brunch.

On the menu:
Dutch pancake with Nutella, fresh strawberries and powdered sugar
bacon
Bellagio Hot Chocolate
a taste of Amano chocolate for dessert

To prepare the bacon, I used my absolute favorite method. I broiled it! I like to use thick sliced bacon, and yesterday I used some Tyson that I had picked up on sale. It was to die for good and had the perfect combination of crispy and chewy. What I do is place the bacon in a single layer on a broiler pan (that's the one with the slots) and put it under the broiler set on high for a few minutes (I would guess about 4) then I flip it over using tongs and broil it for about two more minutes. Remove from the broiler pan and drain on paper towels (although with this method there is really not much to drain as most of the fat cooks off while leaving the wonderful flavor).

For the dutch pancake, I used a recipe that I found from a nestie. I was bad and forgot to write down which blog I stole it from, so if it is yours please leave me a comment and I will give you credit. Sorry about that. I did make a couple of changes to the pancake since I would be serving it with chocolate and strawberries. I added a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla.

Here is the recipe that I used, with my changes:

Dutch Pancake

Ingredients
4 eggs
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tsp butter

Directions
1. In medium mixing bowl, place first 6 ingredients. Beat with an egg beater on medium for about 2 minutes until frothy and well mixed.
2. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 425. Prepare 2 glass 8x8 dishes, or pie dishes, with 1.5 T butter each. Place in oven while it's preheating, so butter gets a nice brown color.
3. Remove pans and pour 1/2 the mixture into each pan. Return to oven and bake at 425 for 15 minutes.

Top with powdered sugar and cinnamon for a fantastic breakfast treat!

Each pancake makes 4 servings, in my opinion. I topped each serving with about 1/2 teaspoon of nutella and spread it very thin. I then piled on the sliced strawberries. I did not sweeten the strawberries since I topped everything with powdered sugar. My mom and I polished off a whole quart of strawberries together, but I suppose you can never really eat too much fruit.

Now, for a funny story. When I was looking for a small strainer to sift powdered sugar on top of the strawberries I found this small shaker that had what I THOUGHT was powdered sugar in it. Well, it was flour. oops. Luckily it did not ruin anything and I just added the powdered sugar on top of that.

I had a wonderful time and am so lucky to have a mom as wonderful as mine! Happy Mother's Day mom, I love you!