Pie!

Today is Dan's birthday - he's a whopping 34 years old! Which means he's the same age as me... for at least another five months. Happy birthday, Dan!

In celebration, he had a horrible day at work and I spent all day cooking. My day was tastier and, fortunately, helped improve his day. Why? Cause I made him a tasty birthday dinner!

Dan's birthday meal sounds a bit like it is out of a kindergartener's nightmare: liver and onions with lima beans. Of course, he loves all of those things so it wasn't the punishment it might sound like.

Honestly, it's not the prettiest meal but you can't really expect much from organ meat, can you? It got Dan's stamp of approval so I'm taking it as a success. Personally, I'm not too sure if I like liver yet, but I had some difficulty cooking it (well, difficulty preparing it - the cooking went fine) so I feel the need to cook it again (and again) until I have defeated it. Which means we'll be having it again so I'll have time to decide if I like it or not.

One thing I don't need to decide if I like ('cause I totally do) was Dan's dessert. I had asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he mentioned angel food, which is my least favorite cake ever. And honestly, if I am going to cook a dessert, I'd like one I am willing to eat. So he mentioned apple pie. Yeah, sorry, you've now managed to pick my least favorite pie.

Feeling a bit lost, I stumbled across a recipe for my favorite pie and fortunately it turned out that Dan liked it too. So his birthday cake was key lime pie!

It's super tasty! It's got lime zest in it in addition to the key lime juice so it's got a nice added tang over the more typical key lime pies. And the crust turned out perfect, which was pretty darn exciting! Honestly, I'm stuffed to the gills but I'm seriously tempted to go have another piece of pie. Yummy.

Anyway, my last bit of cooking for today wasn't technically part of Dan's birthday. The key lime pie used some egg yolks which meant I ended up with some leftover egg whites and a few hours before I had to start cooking the liver. So I made almond meringue cookies.

It might look like tiny albino elephants went through the kitchen and left us presents, but no, meringue cookies. The original recipe I found was for strawberry meringue cookies, but I didn't have strawberry extract, so I let Dan pick between orange and almond extract. The recipe didn't work at all as far as cooking times, but once I consulted my Joy of Cooking, things turned out much better and we now have tasty cookies.

Not that we need more sweets with a pie hanging out in the fridge, but at least I didn't waste the egg whites!

Anyway, happy birthday to Dan! I hope you enjoyed the culinary evidence of how much I love you! (Hmm, which apparently isn't angel food level of love, but somehow I think liver levels of love are much higher.)