Mother's Day Dinner Recipes

"Made for my mom for Mother's Day. Awesome, Awesome, Awesome." – Karen Williams Lewis

This is a great sandwich filling that they make at the diner in the hospital where I work, but I fancied it up a bit with some green onions and pecans. A great way to use up leftover chicken. Delicious!

A classic steakhouse-style spinach salad with the absolute best warm bacon-mustard dressing I've ever had! Looks and tastes like a lot of work, but can be prepared in no time! This salad can easily be converted to a main dish salad by adding strips of grilled chicken breast.

This dish is easy enough for a Tuesday, but looks pretty enough for company. It has a really fresh flavor and goes great with roasted potatoes or rice.

Spinach and cheese stuffed into boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Serve with rice, noodles, or a great Greek salad!

While many have heard of veal scallopini, you can make this Italian dish with most any meat or even vegetables. The trick is to use a demi-glace of the same style -- i.e., a venison demi if using deer. You can 'fake' a demi-glace by reducing an appropriate brown stock and adding a water and flour slurry to thicken. Makes an awesome romantic dinner for two.

This is a great, easy finger appetizer. I came up with it because I love Caprese but it was difficult to serve at large parties. Putting the same ingredients on a toothpick yielded great results.

This is a gorgeous chicken dish with sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and mushrooms. It is so wonderful when served with garlic mashed potatoes. It tastes fantastic!

Quinoa has a light, fluffy texture when cooked, and can be used as an alternative to white rice or couscous in most dishes. The arugula has a rich peppery taste, and has an exceptionally strong flavor for a leafy green which goes well with the slightly nutty flavor of the quinoa.

I've probably been making this recipe since I got it from my Mom in about 1985. I have no idea where she got the recipe from. I've been changing it over the years, and now I call it my own. When we started dating back in 1997, my husband would every now and then order shrimp scampi at a restaurant and always regret it afterwards, saying none of them competed with mine. You can vary the amounts of some of the ingredients, like the cayenne and garlic, to suit your taste. That's what I've done here because we like spicy and garlicky. Yum! Serve over angel hair pasta or any pasta of your choosing.

A tasty summery salad made with fresh oranges, red onions, glazed walnuts, and Gorgonzola cheese, then topped with a homemade citrus vinaigrette! Easy and delicious!

Steak Diane was a staple on menus in fine dining establishments back in the day. Prepared tableside where the server ignited the cognac, it was an impressive sight. You don't need to flame the cognac; just keeping it on the heat will eventually evaporate the alcohol. But be careful--it can still flare up if the heat's high enough when you're reducing the sauce.

For my wedding shower everyone brought a few recipes and this is one of my favorites. It is refreshing and pretty. This salad also travels well, just save the dressing and use it just before serving.

If you enjoy huevos rancheros, you will love this. The way the spicy sauce mingles with just barely set eggs is very similar, and when you start scooping this up with toasted chunks of bread, it gets borderline magical.

This is a Lithuanian dish that my family makes mainly during the holiday season. It goes great with ham or turkey. It is also served in many authentic European restaurants. This recipe is time consuming but well worth the work put into it. This is a 'stick to your ribs' dish and is in no way considered lo-cal or healthy. A dollop of sour cream on top of each piece is a great topping.

This is a wonderful and easy fruit salad that is also pretty for special occasions or holidays.

Easy, quick, and delicious. Serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer, or 4 as a main course over buttered angel-hair pasta.

A local winery/restaurant serves a stuffed eggplant appetizer that is so delicious. While trying to duplicate it at home, I found this to be one of our favorite eggplant dinners. Be sure to select an eggplant that is smooth, blemish-free and kind of heavy for it's size. Serve with a green salad.

Mushrooms stuffed with blue cheese, bacon, caramelized onions and garlic make a delicious appetizer!

Chicken teams up with two of my favorite things: Gorgonzola cheese and bacon!

This is such an easy recipe, but it looks and smells great, and tastes even better! Your guests will think you spent hours on it. You can add cooked Italian sausage, too! Great with a salad and garlic bread.

This dish looks like you slaved over it and has such a rich taste that you don't need any sides. It is a creamy spicy calamari in white wine sauce over pasta. Dinner for two but easily doubled. Serve with the rest of the wine!

At 611 Supreme in Seattle, authentic French crepes are filled with either savory or sweet fillings. In this recipe, a buckwheat crepe is filled with mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, and Gruyere cheese.

Simple, delicious recipe. This may be prepared without the mushrooms. The sauce is delicious over mashed potatoes.