Another Day And Another Year Older

Birthday dinners are one of my favorites. This year, I asked to have a sashimi and sushi dinner at home and my parents delivered big time.

My Dad carved up a variety of fish to make a sashimi platter.

My Mom made miso soup, California hand rolls...

& Futomaki, and picked up some Seaweed Salad.

For dessert, we had a spongecake with custard and blueberries.

Happy Birthday to Me! Thanks Dad & Mom! Cheers to another year of health, happiness, and fantastic meals with family and friends!!!

Spring Rolls for Summer

Ickity and LQ kindly accommodated my request for spring rolls and we had a spring roll extravaganza!

Home made spring rolls are a fair amount of work. You have to clean, cook, and cut all of your ingredients and only then are you ready for the assembly process.

Spring Roll Ingredients

Apparently purchasing pre-cooked, shelled, and de-veined shrimp is considered cheating, who knew? Sorry Ickity! I was just trying to expedite the process. I promise there will be no cheating next time.

My Second Spring Roll Unwrapped

I didn't realize that there was an art to assembling spring rolls until after I had made my first feeble attempt and then saw Ickity's spring rolls. Her spring rolls were fit for a magazine cover and mine were... quickly consumed.

My Second Spring Roll Ready to Eat

Thankfully, my tummy didn't seem to mind my amateur attempts because pretty or not, they were undoubtedly delish!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ever since I had peanut butter chocolate cake at MH's cousin's wedding I couldn't stop thinking about it! Then, RAK told me about these awesome treats she had and I couldn't help myself. I had to make them to fulfill my peanut butter desires.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Whipped Cream

I changed the recipe by using box mix (sorry!) for the chocolate cake and made whipped cream instead of butter frosting.

Inside View

Unfortunately, MH was underwhelmed by them but I thought they were great. In retrospect, I should have anticipated MH's lackluster response since I was much more excited about the previous peanut butter chocolate cake than he was but oh well.

I would definitely make this again. However, a couple other peanut butter recipes have caught my eye so I might have to try those first. What do you think? (a) Peanut butter pudding, (b) peanut butter pie, (c) peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting, or (d) peanut butter cake filled with jelly.

Cabo Wabo

After months of looking forward to a trip with my girlfriends, my boss revoked all our of pre-approved vacation requests in the month of July due to accelerated deadlines for our company's pending sale. I understand why I can't go, but I am beyond disappointed. Sometimes life sucks and this is one of those times.

I'm supposed to be in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico enjoying an all-inclusive hotel with swim up bars and easy access to Mexico's beautiful sandy beaches. I'm supposed to be in this picture of El Arco, with my girlfriends, our big floppy hats, sun-kissed skin, smiling ear to ear.

Girls, have a drink, or two, or three for me. Hopefully I'll be there next year, where ever "there" may be.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

A few weeks ago the Nana Queen's Pudding & Wings truck was parked across the street from my office and I have had banana pudding on the brain ever since.

Bakerella has a great post with instructions how to make it yourself.

Homemade Banana Pudding

The store was out of regular Nilla Wafers so MH bought Mini Nilla Wafers instead. Aren't they the cutest?!? You can't really see the pudding in the picture, but I promise it is down there beneath the stack of bananas and Mini Nilla Wafers. Yum!

A 4th Of July Weekend Wedding

MH and I attended a spectacular wedding at the Rengstorff House for MH's cousin. The Bride was radiant, the Groom was dashing, and nothing was more evident that evening than their love for each other.

After dinner, it was time for cake and I was delighted to discover there were three different flavors: peanut butter chocolate, mango, and coconut! Yes, I tried all three flavors. I couldn't resist. They were all delicious, but I thought the peanut butter chocolate cake came in first, the mango cake was a close second, and the coconut cake was third.

If you were still hungry, the Bride and Groom had a taco truck for their guests too! Unfortunately, since I was already filled to my ears with cake I had to pass on the tacos. MH said they were fantastic.

At the end of the evening there was a fabulous fireworks show and guests danced the rest of the night away.

It was a special night and definitely an event to remember. Congrats to the newlyweds!