The Necessity of the Birthday Cupcake

In honor of my birthday, I decided it was time for a post that I have had stored up my sleeve for some time now.  Yesterday, on my other blog, Go Somewhere That's Green, I wrote about teaching and other school related musings.  One item I failed to mention, because goodness gracious I have such a love/hate relationship with it, was birthdays.  Being a September baby, I grew used to teachers never celebrating my birthday or realizing at the end of the day that they had forgotten it.  Even in high school it is a big deal to have your birthday celebrated.  So when in October that one elective teacher decides to be cute and start doing something special for her students' birthdays, the poor September baby rolls her eyes and carries on.  

Of course, in elementary school I helped them remember by bringing in cupcakes.      

Ah, cupcakes.  The instant smile bringer in any classroom.

At the mention of cupcakes, students who previously had their heads attached to their desks perk up, suddenly seemingly interested in everything happening in the classroom.  Eyes wander from the window to the door, hoping to be the first one to see the delivery of the promised cupcakes.

The mood of the room has automatically shifted from students unable to learn due to afternoon tiredness to students unable to learn due to eagerness at the promise of sugar and freedom from their studies.

Cupcakes are a terribly wonderfully tragic part of a teacher's life.

For starters, the birthday student has been unable to contain their excitement for their birthday for at least the entire week preceding their birthday.*  I've had students in the past who reminded me every single day of their birthday month that their birthday was coming up--at the very end of the month.

*This may be more significant with younger students, however, I've known my share of middle and high schoolers who have gone berserk over their birthdays.

Then that student eventually gets some of the more excitable students to get on board the crazy train for their birthday.  If you are in a classroom where an anything but basic calendar is used, naturally, birthdays are marked on the calendar.  For all to see.  So by the day of the student's birthday, the class is a wreck with excitement over the celebration and...of course, the cupcakes.  

I have a difficult time refusing cupcakes from students.  Let's be honest, I have a difficult time refusing cupcakes from anyone.  Especially if the cupcake has that look of perfection that practically screams out, "I taste delicious!" 

But I have a particularly difficult time refusing a cupcake from a student on their birthday.  It's even harder when they aren't one of my students.  I'm sure you've heard of the door to door cupcake student.  The one who desperately wants to get out of class on their birthday so they use their leftover cupcakes as a guise for why they need to leave the classroom.

And ten hands go up around the room of students who are suddenly their best friend and want to 'help' them deliver. 

Yes, this is one of the parts of teaching that I will love to hate to miss.  There will be moments when I'll miss the delight of surprise treats, then moments when my thighs will scream out thanks for being able to fit into my skinny jeans comfortably again.

Ultimately, I do truly love the birthday cupcake.  They are that momentary way a student, or anyone, can share their special day with others.  They are a silent, "Here's to me!" that can be easily passed out, and eagerly accepted by all.    

If only I could give you all a cupcake today.

Go Big or Go Home: Gram's Birthday Dinner

As mentioned over at Go Somewhere That's Green, Gram turned 81 yesterday.

Initially, my parents wanted to have a family dinner of store bought fried chicken.  While I love fried chicken, my sister-in-law, Kristina, and I thought we could do better.  Anytime I plan a meal, it can not be simple.  I suppose it's the Italian running through my veins.  It isn't a real meal if the table isn't filled with food, leaving little to no space for things like plates, silverware, glassware, etc.

Here is the menu we planned:

Appetizer: shrimp cocktail, salad, Italian bread

Main Course: fresh lobster, London broil, roast chicken (Surf, Turf, and.....Air!)

Sides: butternut squash with kale, mashed potatoes, broccoli, Red Lobster biscuits

Dessert: strawberry shortcake, chocolate trifle

Kristina was the one who thought to add lobster to the menu.  In fact, it may have been the first suggestion out of her mouth when we began planning.  We made live lobster once before and she desperately wanted the opportunity to be the one to put the lobster into the pot.  For more about this first time experience go here.*

*Looking through my old posts always makes me realize how far my blog has come.  That said, don't judge the poor layout my blog had back then.

We picked up the lobster in the afternoon, then headed to my mom's to cook our feast.

Gram loves Red Lobster biscuits, so naturally they made the menu.  They are insanely easy to make and taste exactly like the real thing.

Here's the recipe:

Red Lobster Biscuits

Hubby found this awesome parody cookbook of the book Fifty Shades of Grey: Fifty Shades of Chicken.  Not only is it hysterical, the recipes are different from ordinary roaster chicken recipes such as herb roasted chicken which I'm pretty sure everyone on earth has some variation of.  We made the first recipe: plain vanilla chicken. 

Are you ready for it?

The spread made of vanilla, brandy, sugar, and butter is rubbed, get this, under the skin of the chicken and then roasted for a little over an hour.

I had planned our menu out by the minute and found that despite the vast number of items we were making, there was a lot of down time.

After the chicken was on, Kristina began chopping veggies for the salad, while I prepared the veggies and herbs for the lobster pot.



I love the fancy way of chopping cucumber that Kristina recently discovered.  If you haven't tried this before, drag a fork down the sides of the cucumber before slicing.  

My inspiration to make lobster came from the book/movie Julie and Julia.  While I'm sure there are other guides to steaming live lobsters, I find no reason to use anything other than Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking as my guide.

We didn't want to get too fancy, so I used the steaming portion of the recipe for Lobster Thermidor.  Three cups of white wine, 2 cups of water, with sliced carrot, onion, celery, and seasonings simmers together for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, the heat is turned up until the water reaches a rapid boil.

Cooking live lobster is ridiculously easy.  It sounds like something that would be difficult, terrifying, and intimidating, but it couldn't be further from that.

Oh yeah, except for the part where you have to put a LIVE lobster into a pot.

Kristina did so good, at first.  She picked the lobster up, she held it for a good minute....but then she chickened out.  I'm not sure if it was her conscience speaking to her over the murder she was about to commit or just the thought of plopping that bad boy into a pot of boiling water.*

*Note: Last time, the first lobster I put in the pot jumped.  It was terrifying.

Kristina placed the lobster back down on the shopping bag and I had to grab him, get over the previous terror I had faced, and take care of business.

I felt like a drill sergeant as I ordered Kristina to get the second lobster into the pot.

One way or another, she made it happen.

As the lobsters steamed (and no, there are no scary shrills or sounds that come from the pot during the 20 minute steaming time) we prepared the shrimp cocktails.

I thought about being overly ridiculous and buying the shrimp fresh, but the flash frozen bag of shrimp that was on sale seemed like a better choice, all things considered.

After five minutes of thawing in water, they were ready for assembly.

My mashed potatoes were divine, the butternut squash was sweet (the kale a little under cooked--that recipe to come another time), and the chicken was moist, roasted to perfection.

And this....the London Broil.  There isn't much you can do to a London broil to make it better than it is naturally.  It was probably a little rare for some folks preferences, however, in my house we like it rare so this was a thing of beauty.

Not bad for 81, right?

My grandmother loves anything strawberry.  I usually make this Strawberry Shortcake Trifle for her.  However, on my ever growing list of recipes to try was Pioneer Woman's Strawberry Shortcake.  I figured this was the time to do it.

The icing, instead of the typical whipped cream topping that is plopped on ordinary strawberry shortcake, was made of butter, powdered sugar, and cream cheese.  The three of the most sacred things in the world of baking.

It was surprisingly delightful.

Taco Party aka Birthday Party aka I Love My New Dishes Party

I've been slacking, I know it.  This blog post happened during the end of May, and I've made so many different meals since then.  Again, as is often my motto, I guess it's better late than never.

Every Sunday, my family has dinner together.  It's a nice tradition that we've tried our best to uphold throughout the years as our family has grown and changed.  Plus, it's very Italian of us to have a huge meal together in the late afternoon after we've been in church all morning.

It's very unItalian of us that we don't usually cook the meal ourselves.  

It is usually made by one of our surrounding pizza parlors or delis....and paid for by mom and dad.   (Note: If I didn't say it, they would have commented about it later.  I figure it's best to be open and honest right from the start.)

Hubby's birthday was on a Saturday this year.  I thought, as a way to celebrate hubby with the family and to reprieve my dad of having to buy lunch, I'd make lunch for the family.

I've done this before, as you might recall from this post: Chili Family Fun Day.  This was in the time before the Orange Strainer.  You'll also notice it was a time before I took pictures of every minute of my life.

Whenever I cook for my whole family I have to plot out my time table before hand so that my head will not explode from over thinking about what I need to get done.  I got smart this time and wrote my schedule on a huge post it note that I found the perfect place for in my kitchen as the madness began.

Before I tell of how crazy my kitchen was in the two hours before dinner time, let me start with the real reason for why I wanted to have my family over for dinner.  My hubby's birthday was a great facade for what this dinner was truly for.  Ultimately....and honestly, it was all about the dishes.

These beautiful dishes that I found at Pier 1 and absolutely needed to have in my life.
These beautiful dishes that hubby bought me eight of, then said, "Are you sure you don't want ten?"
To which I said, "No darling, eight is fine".  Then days later said, "Dearest darling, I think I want ten."
To which hubby then willingly drove me back and forth across the greater parts of Central Jersey in order to find stores that still had my number nine and ten dishes in stock.

I love him.

My appetizer for Taco Sunday aka Birthday Sunday (secretly named Fiesta Plate Sunday) was Katie's Roasted Corn Salad from Pioneer Woman's first book: The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl.  I chose this because I could make most of it the night before and finish it off a few hours before dinner time and then not have to think about it any longer.

The hardest part about making this is cutting all the delicious veggies up into tiny scoopable pieces.

Scoopable.  Yup, it's a word.  I don't care what spell check says.

It's delicious, and super healthy which is a total bonus considering delicious and healthy do not compute in my brain.

I had a little under two hours to complete my main dish: Fried Chicken Tacos, also a Pioneer Woman recipe deeply loved by all that I have made it for.  The recipe is in her newest cookbook, but it's also on her website:  Click here and your thighs will hate me

I've made this recipe for a large crowd before all by my lonesome-ness and it worked.  This day I was fortunate because my big brother and his wife came by early and wanted to help.  I don't take an offer of help lightly, so after double checking that they really wanted to help I set them to right to work.

As I was chopping my chicken for the tacos, I had them shredding cheese, dicing tomatoes, scrubbing my kitchen floor....okay, maybe not that last one.

The most difficult part of Fried Chicken Tacos is the frying part.  Hubby is adverse to corn tortillas so that is the one substitution I make.  Typically, I will use the huge burrito style flour tortillas and go light on the chicken so that the taco can be loaded down with sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomato, etc.  This time I used the tiny shells.

I created an assembly line with the servants, I mean helpers that I had.  Hubby was the chicken part of the assembly line.  He was a little generous with how much chicken he gave per taco and I think it through me off completely when it was time to fry them.

Usually they will come out perfectly crisp, utterly delicious, and simply fattening.  As I pulled them out of the hot oil, I realized they were a little on the softer side.  My time constraints and perfectionist mentality had a little battle and the time constraints won out.  Though I kept complaining that they weren't crisp enough, I didn't fret so much over it to force them to become crispier.

My sister-in-law was the third part of the assembly line (hubby=first, me=second).  After the tacos appeared close enough to done, I would grab then from the hot oil and plop them into a paper towel my she had laid out in preparation.  She was a good sport considering I had a blazing hot pocket of meat flying at her every four minutes or so.

My brother was the final step of the assembly line.  He would fill each taco with cheese, wrap them up in the paper towel, and then put them into a warm serving tray.

Deep fried chicken taco.

Warm, gooey cheese melted to perfection inside.  

I did not leave the kitchen without my share of battle scars.  The oil got out of control at one point and splattered all over, leaving my arms spotted with tiny polka dots of brown.  It was at that point that hubby grabbed my apron and made me wear it.

I always seem to forget that aprons are not pretty decorations for the kitchen walls but actually an additional cooking item.

When my dad arrived, he got to work blending up margaritas and pina coladas.  That blender in the background is my mom's from I'm assuming the year 1892.  I'm amazed at how all her appliances have lasted so long.  I lost my blender in the battle of 2012, when ice and a fork made mine magically crack.

I have yet to get over that loss.  

And no, I don't want to talk about it.

I'm all about serving up dinner buffet style.

While I was rushing around my kitchen splattering oil and tossing hot things at my sister-in-law, I also made two pounds of taco beef, rice and beans, and yummy cheese quesadillas.

It looks like so little spread out on my table, but it definitely didn't feel that way as it was being made.

Although I couldn't live with myself for the fact that my chicken tacos weren't the crisp crunchy delights that I know and love, my family put up a good front and said they were delicious.

I ate one and although my perfectionist side disagreed, my normal person side agreed.

I made delicious dessert, which aren't pictured so I will have to leave your imagination with thoughts of moist chocolate bundt cake, sweet strawberry shortcake trifle, and heavenly, creamy, and did I say heavenly?....Halo Farm ice cream.

Hubby's 29th Birthday Dinner

Hubby turned 29 on Saturday....I feel so bad for him.  I've managed to celebrate my 25th birthday three times so far, yet he keeps moving on up in age.

Deciding what to do for his birthday in means of gifting and celebratory dinner has been a constant battle ever since I've known him.  He never knows where he wants to go to eat and never can name anything he wants to get.

I can't imagine living in such a world.

I can rattle off ten different restaurants I've been wanting to try and create a four-page list of things I want at a moment's notice all while my birthday is still months away.   

Hubby is a special case, I suppose.  Even more so because this year after I had already prepared myself to have to make all his choices for him, he decided to be extremely decisive.  He told me affirmatively that he wanted to go clothes shopping for his birthday present from me.

Such words make a wife's heart jump for joy.

1. Because that meant I didn't need to stress over what gift to get him.

2. Because he wanted to go clothes shopping.

3. Because, brilliant genius that I am, I recognized that if he was going clothes shopping, that meant I was going clothes shopping.

The birthday boy donning his new facial hair, a look that made him fit in quite well with the Gordon's frozen fish guy.

But this post is not about the uncontrolled shopping that hubby and I both did.  It is about the food we ate in the midst of trying to hit every single store we wanted to go to within a five-hour time period.

Hubby made this experience rather interesting for me because he picked to go shopping at the Tanger Outlets in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  His birthday fell on Saturday, a day I have commitments that keep me at home until 1:30 pm.  This meant we didn't reach Rehoboth until 4:00 in the afternoon.

My prior experience of outlet shopping dictates that it occurs in the early morning and lasts until late at night.  How was this trip going to turn out successful with out shopping starting at 4:00?

But again, this post is about the food we ate.  I'll just tell you that the shopping, in the end, turned out to be a success.  I know this to be true because I bought just about as much as hubby did.  I felt bad for a minute, then when I realized he didn't care, I was at complete inner peace.

While Hubby had been gracious enough to pick out the location where he wanted to go shopping, he was not as helpful in picking our place to dine.  After I narrowed the search for him, he chose Big Fish Grill.

I love places that don't take reservations, don't you?  Their website warned that they did not take reservations and that on Memorial Day weekend they suggested getting there early.  Considering we had only reached Rehoboth at 4:00 pm, we planned to shop until at least 5:30.

5:30 quickly turned into 6:00, then 6:15, and we ended up at the restaurant around 6:30.  The parking lot was packed and I began having a mini panic attack that we would find ourselves waiting all night to eat dinner rather than finishing up our shopping.

We were quoted 45 minutes to an hour wait, which all things considered, wasn't too bad.  Hubby came up with the brilliant idea that if the wait was long we would head back to the outlets (which were five minutes down the road) and keep shopping.  We figured there wasn't a chance that the packed restaurant would under quote the time, especially on Memorial Day weekend, so we headed back shopping.

While standing in the checkout line at Nike, Hubby received a text from the restaurant telling us that our table was ready.  (Can I just take this moment to say that I'm loving that restaurants are starting to use texting instead of those buzzy things to let you know your table is ready?  It's brilliant.  Simply brilliant).

I shouted curses at the restaurant for being so time efficient, rushed to pay for a pair of sneakers for Hubby, then we flew into our car to zoom down the road hoping to still be able to claim our table.

Fortunately, the restaurant didn't cling too tightly to their printed two minute warning for coming in when notified that your table is ready.

This made me wonder if they also didn't cling as tightly to the "no reservations" warning.

This is something I will not think about at this moment.

What seemed when we first entered to be a tiny fish restaurant turned out to be a very large one as we were escorted to the left side which held even more seating.  The restaurant was decked ceiling to ceiling and wall to wall with fish which I needed Hubby to explain to me that they were not real fish because real fish would not be so flawless.

I had assumed that, I just wanted to be sure.

Hubby ordered the Maryland Crab soup because he thought for a second we were in Maryland.

I'm not sure what that detail has to do with anything, I just thought I'd share.

He wasn't too impressed.  Then we had and appetizer of hand breaded tilapia fingers.  Hubby found them to be much better as he defined the soup as tasting as it "could have come from the can" but the tilapia fingers he said clearly had a breading that was created in house.

Although the tilapia was good, at this point I was a little worried.  Did I pick a stinker?  How could I have done that?  And on his birthday?

Then our entrees came and the angels in heaven danced for joy.

Yes, it was that good.

When it comes to picking my meal, I do not tend to be daring, at all.  I want to be daring, but I will typically go with a safe choice because I don't want to be disappointed with my meal.  It will ruin my entire night.  It's really that important.

Yet tonight I left my fate up to the waitress.  Something I also do not tend to do.  I knew I wanted scallops, so I gave her the option of their hand breaded fried scallops (an item that had a little blue fish symbol indicating that it was a popular item there) and a special of the day: scallops, shrimp, and lobster with asparagus in a tomato cream sauce.

She chose the latter.

While I feared what was to come, the instant I sunk my teeth into the soft scallops I knew she had made a good choice.  I've always said that scallops are the filet minon of the sea.  These were the type of scallops that made me make such a claim.  I'm not usually a shrimp gal, and I typically go for crab over lobster but even those aspects of this dish were superb.  The cream sauce blended all the flavors together beautifully and made me want to give our waitress an I-love-you-so-much hug.  Yet I refrained.

Now, Hubby's meal.

I have to say, I was jealous.  Hubby's meal was my very first choice, yet I avoided it because I order a similar meal in Cape May at Oyster Bay.  Their meal is filet minon topped with jumbo lump crab and it makes me reconsider my thoughts about not really wanting to ever live at the shore.

Don't judge a book by it's cover.  I know this is not the classiest picture, and I deeply apologize.  I had already dug into my meal when I realized, duh, I needed to take some pictures.  Neither of our dishes were really picturesque at that point, yet Hubby had done less damage to his.

Let's start with the cream colored peaks to the right of the broccoli.  Hubby gave me a bite of this and in the first instant I seriously thought he had just given me a scoop of the lobster sauce that is adorning most of the plate.  As I let it sink in, I realized the creaminess I was tasting was the most delicious mashed potatoes I have ever eaten in my entire life.  They were beyond creamy, with a slightly peppery flavor.  In that moment I was ready to send my plate back and ask for just a bowl of the mashers.  Then I looked back at my scallops and decided I was really okay.

Hubby's meal doesn't end there.  His filet minon was topped with lobster which was absolutely divine, but the true winner was the steak itself.  It was so moist I'm pretty sure a butter knife would have sliced through.

The food being outstanding would have been enough, but the other point I must mention is the price.  We ended up paying $76 (not including tip) for our entire meal.  All things considered (soup, appetizer, seafood pasta, steak and seafood entree, and drinks) that price is fantastic.

After dinner, we still had an hour left to finish up our shopping.  We then drove around searching for ice cream and wound up at Gelato Gal.  Despite the confusing smell of smoked salmon (which we learned was another one of their delicacies) and the older hipsters who were in front of us in line, we left delighted by their award winning Chocolate Zen flavor of gelato.

Somehow that wasn't enough.  I had been mesmorized by the Candy Kitchen as we passed it coming in.  We simply had to stop in on our way home.

We chose our chocoalte sparingly.  M&M bark, a chocolate covered oreo, milk chocolate champagne truffles, and tirimisu truffles filled our bag and were quickly emptied from our bag as we drove home.