Today is Bob's birthday. He's 37 now. O-L-D.
Jen cooked a fantastic dinner: homemade pork dumplings and beef and broccoli stir-fry over rice. I can't say enough about the dumplings. They had minced carrots and bamboo shoots mixed in with the pork. Deee-licious. Jen made a dipping sauce out of soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and red pepper flakes. Bob said he could taste the toasted quality of the sesame, and he didn't like it. (*Cough* Fussbudget. *Cough*) The beef and broccoli was good, too. Jen put orange zest in the cooking liquid, and it really added nicely to the dish. It wasn't overpowering; it was just a nice accent.
I made plain chocolate chip cookies last night to give to Bob today. He always complains when I make some chocolate chip cookie variation, like oatmeal chocolate chip bars with dried cherries. Or when I buy a chocolate chip cookie from Sweet Melissa that has almonds in it. Or when I make my batter out of chickpea and soy flours and put dates but no actual chocolate chips in it. OK, I just made up that last part. The point is, he's made it clear that he likes plain, regular ol' chocolate chip cookies. They turned out OK except that they were flatter than I would have liked. I blame my KitchenAid mixer. It's not working at lower speeds, so I ended up beating the crap out of the batter on medium. I should have just done it all by hand. Sigh.
I took a bottle of pinot noir to dinner that really got me chubbed up. I'll blog about that separately later this week.
Jen got Bob a banjo and banjo lessons for his birthday. Now I really need to get myself a mandolin and learn how to play like Chris.
I got Bob Mario Kart DS. He had borrowed it from Mil and told me I should get it, so I got it for him. I'll probably put it on my wish list for Christmas. I remember cleaning Hal's clock on Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo. Good times, good times.
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