Mother's Day Baskets

I (barely) survived the weekend!! Wow. We did SO much. 

But in the middle of it all, I assembled my Mother's Day Breakfast Baskets and took photos. I am just that amazing. So here's what I did:

I started with... A Basket.

I love baskets. Baskets hold things. Baskets keep stuff organized. Baskets help organize clutter. I know a lot about clutter. I found this basket and I knew it was exactly what I needed. It's my mother's favorite color. And it is perky, isn't it? This basket, even when its breakfast goodies are long gone, will be awesome for holding all sorts of things. My mom crochets so maybe she will put some yarn in it. She has piles of catalogs in "her" space; maybe she'll put some catalogs in it. When she goes out to her garden, she can use it to help harvest her fruits and vegetables. She has a great little bakers rack in her kitchen. Maybe she'll put it there to hold her bags of snacks. Who knows? There are so many possibilities with a great little basket like this one. 

Then I added two flour sack towels.

I love flour sacks. I don't know if they're hip or if they're woefully out of date, but I like them. What's not to like about 100% untreated cotton? I looked at napkins but they all had that stain resistant stuff on them, which makes them have that strange, unnatural texture to them. Flour sacks are natural and soft and flowy and lovely.

It turned out that the flour sacks were much much larger than the basket, but even folded into quarters, they laided nicely in the basket and looked simple and natural. Despite my expertise in juggling clutter, my style is rather simple. I laid them askew because that was extra artsy of me.

Next came the date nut bread.

I wish I could say this was an original idea but I cannot. I watched Ina make this date nut bread last weekend on Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics and I knew it would be perfect in my basket. Just to warn you: Ina Garten is a liar. Maybe it would be better to say that her television show is misleading. When Ina makes shortbread, it rolls beautifully into a television perfect form. Her cookie cutters cut beautifully and her dough does not crumble. When Ina chops dates, they chop perfectly and she does not battle sticky knives. Ina's hands never get messy when she cooks and she can level that flour with a lovely clean, dry finger, and yet, she never, ever has to stop and wash and dry her hands between steps.

This is not my kitchen reality. I still managed to make a double batch of date nut batter and bake two loaves on Friday evening. And just like Ina, I added a ramekin of orange cream cheese.

That's right. I forced myself to go to the kitchen p0rn store to purchase two perfect little ramekins for Ina's date nut bread spread. Oh the sacrifices I make. The picture is horrible but the best part of making it was watching the cream cheese actually turn color in my Kitchen Aid. I could not figure how Ina got her cream cheese so orange on the show. That part was not misleading.

Next came the coffee.

A pound of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Viennese coffee to be exact. I am sure that there are other fine coffees out there but this is one of my favorites. My sister and I love the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, much more so than our mother does. But one time my mom happened in with my sister and found out that she really enjoyed the Viennese coffee. Now I get her a pound here and there. DaddyDoc made a special trip to a Coffee Bean location near his office to pick up three one-pound bags, two for the baskets and one for home!

Flavored syrup is a little bit too easy to make.

Again, my trip to the kitchen p0rn store produced two glass bottles for flavored simple syrup for our moms' breakfast coffee. My mom likes peppermint coffee, so even though it really does not "go" with orange cream cheese and date nut bread, I made her what she likes. Vanilla syrup really made more sense for this basket, so I made some vanilla syrup for his mom.

Actually, to be honest, DaddyDoc made both batches of syrup. Early Saturday morning I realized that I completely forgot to make the syrup. Being a scientist, Doc has said that recipes are simply chemical methods to be followed. I gave him my secret method (equal parts of sugar and water, boil to dissolve, throw in about a tablespoon of corn syrup to stabilize the sugar crystals,) and I measured out the extracts for him. I assembled the bottles just in time to take these pictures.

When it was all said and done we had two lovely breakfast baskets. Not too bad if you ask me.