My cat is my child, I have no human offspring — yet. We’d like to adopt when we’re ready. So I can’t say for sure what the ideal mother’s day is. I can only imagine.  If I were a mom, I wouldn’t want to hustle around, squeezing into my Sunday best to be taken out to a fancy dinner.  In fact, I wouldn’t want to out out at all, except for maybe a run with my loved ones. I’d like to laze around on the porch, or perhaps feet kicked up on the coffee table, poring over photo albums and talking.

I wouldn’t want a fuss to be made over a meal. I’d like to eat finger foods, varieties of treats that could be gathered in a napkin or paper plate and consumed at leisure, all afternoon if I liked. I’d wear my leggings and have a cup of wine, and I wouldn’t want to worry about the dishes.

With this in mind, I asked some of my lovely, smart, vegan blogger friends to share some succulent little treats. Things they’d like to make their moms, or receive as moms.

flourless lemon cookies with blueberry whipped cream from pretty pies

Warmed castelvetrano olives with lemon and garlic from cadry’s kitchen

homemade chocolate candy from cake and beans

vegan tea sandwiches from wallflower kitchen 

apple roses from elephantastic vegan

 strawberry bruschetta from connoiseurus veg

eggplant walnut rolls from happy kitchen rocks 

mother’s day toasts from fork and beans

cookie dough truffles from vegan richa

Orange Zest Madelines from Soy Division 

coconut mango panna cotta from my darling vegan

pink nectarine wine pops from kitchen window clovers

mini vegan fritatas from mostly vegan

vegan thin mints from sunnysidehanne

no bake chewy chocolate cookies from vegetarian gastronomy 

 

I pretty much designed this entire list with my mama in mind. These last five, however, have her name written all over them. If she was out to eat and they appeared on the menu, she’d order them without a second thought. If she were browsing the treat section at the grocery store, she’d drop them in her cart. And then she’d probably text me and tell me all about what she ate, and would I make it for here when she came to visit.

roasted broccoli pesto from happy hearted kitchen 

My mom’s favorite color is green. She’d love it for that, but also for it’s healthy, wholesome ingredients and ease of preparation.

pastelitos de guayaba from fried dandelions 

Sarah of Fried Dandelions created this recipe with Puerto Rico in mind, but guayaba is also super popular in Mexican cooking. My mother loves Mexican pastries and pan dulce. She would be so happy eating these with her morning coffee.

beetroot hummus and broccolini baguette slices from green evi

Like many young couples, there are times when Jason and I don’t have a lot of money. About five years ago, when we were still living in Raleigh, we decided that we should start drinking smoothies, for running and health and whatnot. We went out to Target and got a 15 dollar blender, that didn’t blend anything and was a pain to use. The next time my mom came to visit, she brought us a surprise: a Nutribullet. She stood in the kitchen, showing Jason how to use it and sounding like a late-night infomercial. We love our hardy little Nutribullet, and she loves the one that she has. She finds joy in whipping up all kinds of healthy goodies in it — she’d be all over this hummus in a second.

vegan chocolate hazelnut truffles from rhian’s recipes

My mom is a full on chocoholic, and proud of it. But as she gets older, she finds that a lot of ingredients in commercially-processed chocolate are sources of inflammation and joint pain. She’s also having a harder time tolerating refined sugars. These chocolate truffles contain none of those things. Just an assortment of nuts and agave, and a healthy dose of coco powder. She’d be able to enjoy bite after bite without worrying about achy and worn the following day.

nutty citrus granola from kitchen window clovers

my mom actually helped create this recipe-sort of. i was working on a chewy granola bite recipe at her house over the winter holidays. my batches weren’t sticking together like i wanted them to, and i decided to go for a run to brainstorm some better binder ideas. while i was out, my mom took one of the failed batches and baked it into granola. it was lovely. since then, she’s made it over and over. she makes it for herself, for her coworkers, as a small treat to give away, whenever. every time she makes it, she texts me and tells me how much she enjoys it. it’s kind of annoying, but kind of endearing, like all texts-from-mom should be.