Spring Brunch Playdate

Since Ava was born and so many of our close friends gave birth soon after, nearly all of our social engagements revolve around the babies. Our favorite thing to do is now have friends over for good food and drink while watching the little ones discover each other. (I'm always worried Ava isn't socializing enough since she's home with Grandma all week. She lights up whenever she has the chance to interact with other kids and it really is the best thing for them.)

We had some great friends over for brunch today. We served mimosas, lattes, strawberries, creamy Greek yogurt, mini crab cakes from TJs (just pop these in the oven for about 9 minutes -- so easy and they're super fancy), and a dozen of these orange marmalade muffins.

They turned out to be more like biscuits, which is fine by me.

Here's my adaptation:

Sift together the following ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar

Cut in 1/2 cup shortening. Set aside.

Beat 1 egg with an electric mixer. Add 1 cup milk. (Both should be room temperature.)
Pour the dry mixture into the egg mixture. Add a tablespoon or two of orange zest. Let sit for about 45 minutes.

Spoon about a tablespoon of the mix into each paper-lined muffin cup. Then make an indentation into the middle of each one with the back of a teaspoon, and fill with a dollop of marmalade. Add another tablespoon or so of the muffin mix. Bake at 400° for 22-25 minutes.

Then, for the main course, I whipped up some garden omelettes with spinach, asparagus, shitake mushrooms, yellow and green onion, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, and some fresh feta cheese straight from the farmer's market earlier this morning. I had chopped and sautéed everything earlier so all I had to do was pour the beaten egg (two per omelette seemed to work best) into the pan over medium heat (after adding a little olive oil) and add the fillings.

It was the perfect light but filling (and pretty healthy) brunch combination.

Of course Ava loved showing her buddy Luke all the fantastic new toys she received for her birthday. She also learned how to share (sometimes painfully so).

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