While the rest of you were celebrating the fact that Punxsutawney Phil did not see shadow, forecasting an early Spring, we were celebrating Conor's 25th birthday!
That morning I woke up early to make Conor breakfast before he left for work. As most of you know, I love to sleep; therefore, dragging myself out of bed when unnecessary is a difficult feat! We enjoyed a nice morning together and then Conor headed out. You'd think I would have taken advantage of being up so early and having more hours in my day...but, oh no...I went straight back to bed for another couple of hours!
Each year, I make Conor a delicious dessert for his birthday! This time I decided to bust out the ice cream maker we received as a wedding gift and put it to use. Conor loves all things mint chocolate chip, so I started scouring the Internet for a good mint chip ice cream recipe. All the recipes I found called for peppermint extract, which was disappointing because I wanted to use real mint...Since my sister-in-law Marissa owns an ice cream shop with her husband, Sam, I went straight to her for some tips and a good recipe. She was a huge help and gave me an incredible recipe from David Leibovitz, an ice cream cookbook author.
I had a lot of fun making the ice cream and only one "freak out" moment where I thought I might have ruined the ice cream! You need a thermometer so you don't burn the batter and I was a little weary about how well my digital meat thermometer worked...I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, so I frantically called Conor at work asking him how to work the darn thing without telling him what I'm using it for. Luckily the thermometer started working just as I reached the necessary temperature so the ice cream was safe!
My mint chip ice-cream was absolutely amazing! We just finished off the last of it a few days ago, and I am already planning on what kind to make next. I'm thinking honey rosemary since I found a good recipe in my Bon Appetite magazine. All this ice cream is not helping my waist-line but it is so worth it!
For dinner, Conor & I decided to make sushi! We also received a bunch of sushi accessories as wedding gifts that had yet to be used. We both love sushi, but hadn't made it ourselves before. We headed to Whole Foods to pick out ingredients, hoping to find sushi grade seafood. WF had everything we needed, even soy paper for my rolls! Although I like sushi, I cannot stand the smell or taste of seaweed, yuck! So I always substitute soy paper; so much better. We also picked up a bottle of sake for the occasion...and boy was it delicious.
Once home, we opened up a bottle of sparkling Pinot Noir that we bought at Mumm Napa during our California trip many months ago. We had been saving it for a special occasion and this seemed like a pretty good one. We then started rolling up a couple spicy tuna rolls as well as some rolls with salmon, cream cheese, avocado, carrots, & sprouts...and of course topped them all off with tobiko...yum yum yum. We were quite satisfied with how everything turned out. I have been craving sushi ever since. Once I get on a roll (no pun intended) with something, I want it everyday!
Here are the many pictures we took of our sushi night!
Coming up next on the blog reel: posts from Conor about the last couple groups of visitors we've had. I'll make sure he gets on that ;-) Plus a fun little post from me about our Valentine's Day adventures!
No comments:
Post a Comment