Yesterday was Eric’s birthday! He’s now an old man, and we’ve entered the 20-something days before my birthday where Eric appears to be two years older than me, making me extra youthful.
Now, I love birthdays, so I had planned on making Eric’s birthday super exciting right from the start, with a big exclamation of “Happy Birthday!” when we woke up. But when that alarm clock went off at 5:30 in the morning, I think I only managed to grumble an incoherent “happy birthday” before rolling over to go back to sleep. Sorry, Eric.
But once I actually woke up, I redeemed myself and got to work on Eric’s birthday breakfast. The dish I intended to make was a big hit a few months ago, so I was going to make it again for Eric’s birthday breakfast. I didn’t take a look at the recipe before I went grocery shopping, thinking I remembered everything I needed. Wrong. So I ended up doing a variation of the meal, which turned out to be equally delicious. Still, you should try out Southern Living’s bite-sized cinnamon-pecan twirls for breakfast sometime.
After breakfast Eric headed out to work (it really stinks that you have to do responsible things on your birthday once you enter the real world), so I went about my spring break (hooray, hooray, hooray for no school) and did nothing useful (aside from some dishwashing and a haircut). It was wonderful.
Once Eric came home, we went out to a delicious birthday dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse (thanks to a generous birthday gift card from my grandparents). Now, we don’t generally eat a lot of meat around here, as meat is expensive; but when we do eat meat, we love eating steak. And we ate a meal that would make Ron Swanson proud. I wish I had taken photos of the deliciousness that was our dinner, but you’ll just have to imagine it for yourself. Eric had some fillet wrapped in bacon and topped with grilled shrimp. Yum. And I had a fillet stuffed with crab and topped with more crab and some magnificent (and surely very healthy) cream sauce. Oh my goodness. I told Eric that we’re going to have to move near the ocean and become seafood connoisseurs. He looked at me like I was crazy, but once I reminded him of the delicious lobster and grouper we ate on our honeymoon, he was totally on board.
After dinner we came home and opened presents! I’m afraid that I didn’t get Eric anything that you might find exciting, but I think he was pretty pumped about his SmartWool socks, Starburst jellybeans, and Dancing Goats coffee. If you’ve never had Dancing Goats coffee, you must try it. I think it was the coffee that made me like coffee in the first place. Just the smell of it is enough to whisk you off to a coffee-filled heaven. We immediately brewed some coffee (word of advice: drinking coffee at 7 pm is not going to help you go to sleep at 9:30) to enjoy with our birthday dessert.
And what did we have for birthday dessert? I’m glad you asked. I haven’t really been in a cake mood lately, and as I was the one creating the birthday dessert, I suppose my opinion was somewhat important. So I decided to make a dessert that I know Eric loves: fruit pizza. Yum, yum, yum. I would assume this is a healthier alternative to cake, anyway, as it is covered in fruit. If you want to read all about fruit pizzas, check out a post from the baking blog.
So now Eric’s birthday is over and we’ve moved onto the less exciting day of March 16. At least we have leftover fruit pizza!
Here’s the recipe for what I actually made for Eric’s birthday breakfast (warning: this is not at all healthy):
Cinnamon-Almond Monkey Bread
adapted from Southern Living
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
3 teaspoons cinnamon, divided
1 can refrigerated biscuit dough
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake almonds and butter in an 8-inch round cake pan for 2 minutes. Swirl pan to combine, and bake for 2 more minutes. Remove from oven and stir in brown sugar, honey, a 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Spread the mixture over the bottom of the pan.
Separate the biscuit dough and cut each biscuit into 4 pieces. Stir sugar and remaining cinnamon together in a small bowl. Roll each cut piece of biscuit dough into the mixture until completely covered. Depending on how much cinnamon/sugar sticks to your biscuits, you may need to use more. Place biscuit slices into the prepared pan. You’ll can press them close together, and some will probably have to stack on top.
Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes, or until the center biscuits are golden brown and done. Remove pan from oven and immediately invert pan onto a serving plate. Spoon any topping in pan over the biscuits.
Have a happy day!
-Ally
Betsy says
Ally! Eric is certainly blessed to have such a wonderful wife who treats him so well!! And we are so very blessed to have YOU for a daughter-in-law!! I love how you write and can just picture the two of you enjoying simple pleasures!! Love you dearly!!