This was the first Birthday Party in over 10 years for one of our friends.
Birthday Boy's Hat (he had to wear it!)
That’s because for that time period he’s been locked up in a place that had no provisions for birthday celebrations. Since his release almost a year ago, he’s been living with family in Las Vegas and doing great.
So this was a chance for all his friends to gather, surprise him (he thought he was just having a quiet dinner with family) and have a feast in his honor.
Birthday Cake
I was asked to bring a Caesar Salad. The dressing and the croutons can be made in advance. The Romaine leaves can be cleaned, dried, cut and piled in the bowl a day in advance too.
I tripled the dressing and had some left over. Do that when you make practically anything and you’ll always have food to pull out and put a good meal together with.
Making Caesar Salad Dressing in the Food Processor
Using a food processor, I put in 6 cloves of garlic, 12 anchovy fillets, 2 t. salt, 3 t. pepper, 3 T. lemon juice, 3 t. Worcestershire sauce, 1 ½ t. Dijon mustard, 3 large egg yolks and blended this well. Then 1 cup of extra-virgin olive oil was very slowly added thru the feed tube. This turns into a thick dressing.
Ingredients for the Caesar Dressing
The Romaine was washed in water, dried with paper towels, de-ribbed and sliced into a wooden salad bowl.
Croutons can be made from any leftover bread (store these pieces in your freezer until you need them) that’s diced into squares and gently sautéed in a combination of butter and olive oil and finished with a little pureed garlic (from a garlic press) and salt & pepper.
Croutons toasting in butter/olive oil
Our friend was really shocked at the number of people who turned out for the birthday dinner. Who came over on a weeknight, with gifts, just to let him know he was loved and that we were glad he was here with us.
His sister-in-law made her famous lasagna (delicious!). She made two big pans and I thought sure there’d be leftovers—-no way. It was so good we scraped the pans.
Roe's Homemade Lasagna
We drank a Robert Mondavi Cabernet that felt like velvet and tasted like rich fruit—cherry/berry…. and went beautifully with the pasta.
Mondavi Cab
So red wine, lasagna, salad, bread, birthday cake served with large helpings of love and friendship. It was a great birthday celebration for our friend and a great start for the rest of his lift.
Birthday Boy's Gifts
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