Mothers Day.

I might have been a lame daughter. I mostly just cooked, a lot of it with my mom, which was fun.
Breakfast I finally tried adding an apple glaze on top of my baked oatmeal. She suggests it every time I make the oatmeal. I don't do it because it seems to work against the two core principles of baked oatmeal: a, it's easy. b, it's healthy(ish). But I thought hey, it's mothers day, let's try it. And so we did. And we liked it.

Then, a few hours later, we decided to make a sort of salsa/dip. It was a hit. This was more exciting for my mom than you realize. She is an expiramenter. I am not... not at cooking. It doesn't go well for me. And it nearly always works for her. But have you tried getting directions from one of those sorts of cooks? This is a literal piece of conversation Kristin witnessed while I was making dinner.
Katrina: "Mom, how much juice do you put in? The recipe says half a cup."
Mom: Oh, I usually put in a bit more than the recipe.
Katrina: Right, so the recipe says a half cup.
Mom: Yeah, I usually do that, plus.... some.
Katrina: Mom, people don't measure in "Some"- HOW MUCH DO I PUT IN? Is "this" good?
Mom: Oh yeah, sure.
Kristin and Katrina: :/

So, with the salsa, I experimented with my mom. An act of adventure, love, and... beautiful reklessness (?) - okay maybe not. But it ended up good. And my mom even added as we were eating "We should write this down so we don't forget!" (not like my mom.)

You might also be interested to know, I cooked more meat. I also bought it. I bought the WRONG meat it turns out. But oh well. We made something, similar. lol. My sister Kristin laughed at my mom when she was telling it and adds "You sent the daughter who doesn't eat meat, to buy the meat... surprised?"

Yeah, mom wasn't really when I walked in with the wrong meat. She just asked, "What did you buy?" It had all the key words in it, just not the right order. As I'd been at the store strolling the meat aisle, I was thinking to myself, "I hope my husband will buy the meat some day." Not my favorite. I WILL do it, and I'm sure I'll get used to it in time, but yeah, not my favorite. But, with my mom's instruction, I cooked a delicious meat-filled meal. Apple and Sage Pork Chops.

While at the store, I also picked up Cilantro. :) I put it in the salad, the salsa/dip, and tried talking the fam into trying it with the pork chops. I got mom to try one bite. She wasn't a big fan. I, however, loved it in the pork chops. I also began threatening to purchase it weekly and rub it on my wrists as a natural perfume... so I might not be a good reference point on if it was a good addition to the flavor or not.

Hope all you moms had wonderful mothers days. We certainly owe you all so much, our love and honor and gratitude for.... life and all the extras. ;)

PS, dinner WAS ready by 7pm... ;) (believe it or not friends!)
My mom might kill me for that last picture, but I just thought my dad's OVERSIZED card, with "mother of our children" in all caps was way too funny for Kim to not see... haha.