Ina Garten Inspired Birthday Brunch

March 2nd, 2015 by justJENN

My mom’s birthday is in March and in years past she’s asked me to cook family dinners from cajun meals to seafood but her favorite foods always tend go back to the flavors of Ina Garten. My mom loves the Barefoot Contessa style of cooking: rustic, family style and usually – full of seafood. This year she asked me for another Ina inspired brunch and I went through the recipes and decided on a soup and sandwich style brunch that would please my mom as well as our other family members who weren’t such big seafood fans.

First up was Ina’s Lobster Rolls which were creamy and full of lobster but a little heavy on the dill. I’d probably cut that in half next time. Still, the family loved them and they were gone in an instant.

For the meat eaters I made Beef and Horseradish Sandwiches. These were fabulous! The sauce was especially good and not at all spicy, just a nice smooth accompaniment to the beef.

Since it was cold (by LA standards) hot soup hit the spot. I’ve made Ina’s East Hampton Clam Chowder in the past and it’s always wonderful. The roux give it a nice thick consistency and the clam juice adds the perfect amount of flavor. This is a great soup for winter.

Again, since I have non-seafood fans I needed another hot dish so I rounded out the meal with my Crock Pot Jambalaya. This always works great for a crowd since you can just set it and forget and move on to prepping other dishes.

For a side salad Ina’s Middle Eastern Vegetable Salad was a clean crisp side to the sandwiches and soup.

Prepping all this food is hard work, luckily my 9-year-old is a great sous chef. I put him in charge of dessert and he easily handled Ina Garten’s famous Lemon Cake. My mom adores anything lemon and this cake is full of lemon flavor. The kid had to zest and juice 6 lemons and he was exhausted but it was so worth it. The cake itself is lemony, but add to that a lemon sugar sauce that infuses into the warm cake then top it off with a lemon glaze, and it’s downright irresistible. The cake is supposed to be make into two loaf pans but it fits perfectly into one beautiful bundt. I served it with a side of vanilla ice cream and small scoop of raspberry sorbet.

The meal was well received by the family and there were hardly any leftovers, a sure sign of success!

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