bill's birthday report

Well - I was prepared for the entire meal to be a flop with all the other things that had happened that day...(remember?)

But everything came out stellar!

I'll post some recipes at the end....The cake was the real surprise. I used an angel food cake recipe and a caramel icing and it was a perfect combination with the chocolate ice cream and cookie crumbles. They are setting off party poppers. You can kind of see the streamers in the air. (The bottle is sparkling pear juice FYI)Enoch was not a fan of the noise!

Almond Crusted Salmon recipe here
It's actually for Macadamia-crusted Salmon, but I didn't have any macadamia nuts on hand. I love a recipe with ratings! I did triple the lemon juice and didn't serve it with rice.

Sourdough recipe here

It's not true San Francisco...but I liked it. I subbed 1 C ww flour and 1/4 C vital wheat gluten for 1 1/4 C bread flour. I omitted the onions - although I may try that sometime.

Carmel icing recipe here

Ice cream was Meijer brand organic chocolate.

Cookies were Newman's own Oreo knockoffs.

Angel food cake recipe here

This isn't a recipe with ratings, but I would give it 5 stars! I've made it a dozen times, never a problem!

The Pearl Onion Cream sauce:

10 oz pearl onions peeled

3 Tbs butter

3 Tbs flour

1 1/2 C milk heated to almost boiling

2 Tbs cooking sherry

1 drop hot sauce

nutmeg

salt & pepper to taste

cook onion for 10 minutes & drain. melt butter over med-high heat, add flour whisk until butter is absorbed, turn heat down to low & add milk slowly while stirring with whisk. Add sherry, hot sauce, nutmeg, salt & pepper.

I steamed the broccoli, tossed it with the onions, then poured the sauce over it. This recipe came from the pearl onion wrapper.