Happy Birthday Brooke!

This past weekend I traveled up to The College of New Jersey to visit my friend Brooke to celebrate her 21st birthday! Yay Brooke!

And I of course had to provide a baked good.

I based everything on the knowledge that Brooke loves peanut butter and chocolate (what fool doesn't?).

What did I come up with?

Chocolate cake with a peanut butter buttercream coated in a layer of chocolate ganache and garnished with chopped roasted peanuts.

That's a mouthful--a delicious one at that.

Sam and I ate that pool of leftover ganache in its entirety.

This cake is a testament to why I'm not allowed to ice the cakes at work.

Well, I'm allowed to, but I usually get yelled at because they look something like this.

Just kidding, it's not usually that bad.

I'm very thankful for ganache that covers up my horrendous top coat.

The cake was a hit. But, as you might assume, it was super rich so Brooke still has about half the cake to munch on. I hope she enjoys it for many more days.

Oh. And then I went to work. And then I cut my hand opening a can of beans. Yup. It's a pretty dignified stitch job.

And now that I'm stitched it barely looks like an injury despite the fact that I've been severely limited mobility-wise. Couldn't it at least look like something terrible happened?

-Meri

She's 21!

Of my six close friends at college, four of them have birthdays in September. You already heard about Sam's, and you'll be hearing about Amelia and Ana's soon.

Well, this weekend, Sarah turned 21! She is the first of the group to reach the legal drinking age (and is probably the least inclined to drink anything involving alcohol). Last night we went to Dave and Busters (she did quite well as you can tell from the picture) and at midnight she ordered her first ever alcoholic beverage!

She had a chocolate milkshake for an appetizer.

I told the waiter that she wanted something that tasted NOTHING like alcohol. He came through with a berry iced tea type thing.

She finished it!

As a big celebration of all the September birthdays, I made a big dinner Sunday night with a request from each birthday girl.

Sarah asked for lasagna.

One side was cheese-less for the lactose intolerant and one side was meat-less for the vegetarian.

The meat side had ground beef and sauteed mushrooms.

The veggie side had ricotta, mozzarella, and pecorino romano cheeses. Then it had finely chopped zucchini and summer squash sauteed with garlic.

Yummy.

Sam requested fried artichoke hearts. I sorta followed a recipe but also just kinda used my gut on this one. I think it worked out! I'm just happy they didn't fall apart.

My dredging station for the artichoke hearts

For a dipping sauce, I made an aioli: mayo, lemon juice, lemon zest, minced garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper. It was a hit!

Yay frying!

Ana asked for broccoli. I did my favorite version: roasted with lemon zest and pecorino romano cheese and finished with a squeeze of lemon juice.

The table of goodies

And Amelia asked for a simple salad: mixed greens with carrots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and a lemon-y--balsamic vinaigrette.

And finally, there was obviously dessert: Hot Fudge Pudding Cake.

Delicious!

Happy Birthday everyone!

-Meri