Sunday, January 14, 2007

Happy B-day to Me!

This past Tuesday was my b-day (thanks for all of the b-day wishes!), but I didn't get to spend it how I always do - having a yummy dinner with the fam. Instead, I was off to Regina, to face weather that we have not yet been accustomed to so far this year in Ottawa - temperatures in the -40 and -50 degree zone (with the wind chill). It was awful!

One good thing about Regina - Earl's Restaurant. Who would have known that a chain restaurant in the prairies would have steamed edamame as an appetizer? I haven't even found that in Ottawa! I also had an awesome salad with an apple-sherry vinaigrette. My god, it was so good. After heading back to the hotel to work out, I couldn't stop thinking about the salad and how I could re-create it. Sure enough, when I got back into town, I found a recipe here, and instead modified it by halving the recipe, and using apple juice concentrate instead of waiting for juice to boil down to a syrup.

With pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries, it tasted just like what I had in the restaurant! I loved it.


Despite being up at 3:30am that day to catch my flight back to Ottawa, I also made a lentil soup from Vegan Italiano. As with most lentil soups that I've tried, I didn't find it had all that much flavour and was a little pasty. It didn't help that I am still being stubborn and not giving in to myself in allowing myself to salt my food.


So the family b-day celebration was last night, and we celebrated mine and my mom's b-day. As always, I made the cake! After eating Brooklyn vs. Boston Cream Cupcakes from VCTOTW back in October, my mom and I were craving Boston Cream Pie as our cake. I had made one from Veggie Life a few years back, so I decided to go that route. I managed to find my issue (it's also on the web here), and only made a couple of subs: I doubled the cake part of the recipe to make two layers (I found the cake too short when only making one layer and cutting it in half), and I used Isa's recipe for chocolate ganache from VCTOTW instead of the one in the recipe. It turned out great! I had forgotten to take a pic of the cake before, because I just wanted to dig in, so here is a shot of what was left when I finally remembered to take a picture (of course it's the side where I dripped some ganache by accident). Fortunately, the link to the recipe also has a picture of an uneaten cake.

7 comments:

bazu said...

That cake looks simply magical. I'd love to give it a go for a special occasion.

I'm glad you survived the cold by the way! A long time ago, my dad had an interview with a company in Regina, so we were *this* close to moving there... brrrr!

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

happy birthday! i really love the combo of pumpkin seeds & cranberries - way to recreating it!

aTxVegn said...

Happy Birthday! That cake looks great. I love Bostom Cream Pie. And the salad is beautiful.

Michelle said...

happy birthday! that cake is making me drooool!

Melissa said...

Happy belated! I've been to the Earl's in Winnipeg before...but I didn't know they had stuff like that.
That cake looks so delicious!

Kati said...

Happy belated Birthday! If your cake is any indication, you must have had a great day! As far as the salt goes, maybe you could use Celtic sea salt? It has lots of trace minerals that your body actually needs, so you wouldn't need to feel bad about using it (in moderation, naturally). :)

Amey said...

Oh man! that cake looks totally outrageously amazing. I wish I could have been there to taste it!

Also, I use to love Veggie Life magazine, I was sad when they folded. Good to know about their recipe database. I guess I remember reading about it, but I hadn't actually checked it out... so thanks!