Mother’s Day 2015
On Friday, after spending a few hours at my favourite hair salon on Dunkley Square, Gardens, we decided that lunch at Maria’s a few metres away from the salon, would be the perfect spot for lunch. This must have been our tenth visit to Maria’s, but if a restaurant is consistently excellent, that is a very good reason to visit again…and again. Deon ordered grilled calamari and I decided on my favourite dish – moussaka with a side salad of cabbage, lemon juice and olive oil. Divine! For dessert we shared the semolina cake which was a very interesting dessert, served with fresh cream. Yes, and Deon enjoyed his Greek coffee.
The visit to the Greek restaurant was also to get us into the mood for Sunday’s Mother’s day lunch which would take place at our home. We would have a Greek theme. On Saturday afternoon, after a morning of hard work and even a wedding ceremony, we rolled up our sleeves and the preparations for the next day’s lunch started.
Deon was responsible for the pulled lamb’s shoulder, slowly cooked until tender and then drizzled with the juices of the cooked meat. He also made the fiery harissa tomato sauce for the Greek meatballs which my mother-in-law promised to make. I prepared a lemony chicken dish with green olives and then I tried to copy the halva cake we enjoyed at Maria’s. I made a semolina cake with a sticky orange sauce, served on Mother’s day with crème fraiche. Elda, one of our guests, promised to treat us with a Greek dessert, which turned out to be a delicious dark chocolate and almond baklava with a coffee and Amarula liquor sauce. It was to die for… served together, the two desserts were complimentary of each other.
On Sunday morning the potatoes – with lots of olive oil and rosemary – were baked, I prepared the ratatouille, Deon made a Greek salad and then the guests arrived. The first course was homemade Bourekas, which are feta parcels with herbs in filo. That was served with olives, Tzatziki and Hummus. The main meal was pulled shoulder of lamb, lemon chicken with green olives, roast potatoes with rosemary; Greek meatballs with a harissa sauce and ratatouille. Dessert was baklava and semolina cake. We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with family and friends and although we had load shedding at 14:00, we managed to keep everybody happy with coffee, thanks to alternative heating methods.
We had a relaxed afternoon with good food and conversation. Happy Mother’s Day! Opa!
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