Another Year, Another Birthday

Another birthday has come and gone leaving me another year older and wiser... well, maybe not wiser but considering my health issues, being left another year older comes as good news!

This year's birthday found the weather sunny and hot... and I mean HOT! The weather was brutally hot and very oppressing which, unfortunately, is not agreeable with my health. My health deteriorates very quickly and oftentimes quite severely in warm environments nevermind in oppressing, suffocating heat. Fortunately, I was thinking ahead and spent the day fighting off the effects of the heat on my health by taking extra medications (a LOT of extra medications) and a few cool showers over the course of the day to cool my body down. My health held up and I enjoyed a nice, relatively quiet birthday at home.

Liza and the grandchildren joined us for dinner and cake. I had spent the afternoon preparing a few new dishes for dinner. I have no idea why I chose my birthday to put together a couple of new dishes but I did. Worse yet, I have no idea why I chose one of the hottest days of the year to spend time cooking in the kitchen. Regardless, it all turned out well.

Of course, I grilled some nice, thick ribeye steaks since beef is always my first choice of meat and this day was my birthday... I made a halfway decent steak sauce... I browned some chunked potatoes and chopped shallots in a big pan and then left the rest of this dish to Sheila... near the end of cooking, I had her add some halved cherry tomatoes... after adding some select spices, I moved this mixture to a bowl and Sheila added chopped avocado too. This dish turned out quite well and I am sure we will make this a few more times this summer. It was a refreshing change!

I changed up my usual tomato caprese salad a little... I laid out some fresh, sliced mozzarella (it needs to be fresh because that other hard, old stuff is nasty and inedible, in my opinion)... covered it with some coarsely chopped fresh basil... covered the basil with freshly sliced beefsteak tomatoes...  and then drizzled a balsamic glaze over the top... then I topped the dish with some freshly ground sea salt, some oregano and a freshly ground pepper medley. This dish was really nice too and I'm sure we will be revisiting this dish a few times this summer.

Sheila's parents joined us after dinner for cake. As you can see in the photos, the kids really enjoyed my birthday cake... a chocolate truffle cake. I think the kids wore as much of the cake as they ate! This is a delicious cake but it literally did not hold up well to the melting hot weather. Within an hour, what little was left of the cake was a gooey pile of chocolate mush. 

All in all, it was a really nice birthday!