Beautiful Birthday Food

Tomorrow my beautiful boy turns 21! My parents always treat the birthday family celebrant to dinner at a place of their choosing, so tomorrow we’ll have a Mexican food dinner at Curra’s Grill. Tonight I made Chase a special birthday dinner my way, incorporating his favorite foods, tofu and peanut butter, and keeping it as healthy and low fat as possible. He would have loved to have Indian food again, so instead I took him shopping yesterday at Gandhi Bazar and got him lots of spice mixes and other goodies, then we ate next door at Curry in a Hurry. It wasn’t great, but dinners are only $4.99. We also went shopping at the Asian supermarket so I could restock his kitchen, and to Circuit City to pick out his birthday gift. It was sunny and 80 degrees and we had a blast spending the afternoon together.



Tonight’s entrée was inspired by a recipe from Japanese Vegetable Cooking - veggie sausage patties made with Gimme Lean sausage, onion, ginger, and soy sauce, pan sauted and topped with lotus root chips.

This cold salad is also inspired from the same book – edamame with grated daikon and carrot, simply seasoned with a sweet vinegar dressing, and oh so good. Surprisingly, this easy dish was everyone’s favorite.

For the tofu dish, a crustless asparagus and sundried tomato quiche – low fat, low cal, and delicious with big fat fresh asparagus.

The requisite steamed broccoli, this time with peanut sauce.

Ready to dig in!

Dessert is from Peanut Butter Planet – Coconut Peanut Butter Wonton Cups with Fresh Mango. The plates are decorated with candy coated sesame seeds I found at Gandhi Bazar. These little treats were a delicious bit of exotic decadence.

All that was left of tonight’s meal was one patty. We all took a walk after dinner.

After dinner tomorrow night, we’ll go back to my folks’ house to open cards and gifts, then have champagne provided by my mom, and strawberry pie provided by me, at Chase’s request, instead of cake. I made the pie today. The strawberries aren’t local (not in yet), but the ones I got were quite sweet so I didn’t need to add a lot of sugar. I think this lovely filling in the oatmeal crust will be just what Chase had in mind.

Of course Chase could see the pie I had made and I asked him to take it over to my parents’ house for me. He said he would try not to eat it before tomorrow night. I remembered I had about a cup and a half of leftover filling in a bowl. So I asked him if he would like to have some, and he was so happy, filling his little wonton cup with strawberry pie filling, again and again, until all the leftovers were gone.

I reminded Chase that I was scared to death he would be born on April Fools Day, so I held him in. I went into labor shortly after midnight on April 1 and he arrived at 8:00 the next morning.

I love you, Sweet Pea! Happy Birthday!