My 30th Birthday Dinner!

Over the weekend I turned another decade older or as I prefer to think of it... another decade wiser! Turning 30 wasn't an overly big deal to me. I know there are some who have a hard time seeing their 20's head into the past, but not me. I'm in such a wonderful place in my life that I have no desire to revisit all the life lessons the 20's dealt me. I have a wonderful husband and two beautiful children whom I am blessed to stay at home with and raise. I have an ever growing relationship with my Father in Heaven and for the first time in my life I'm in a great church, surrounded by fellow Christians who I can learn from, talk with, be friends with and overall help me grow closer to our Savior.

We had a variety of plans for ways to celebrate my birthday, but none of them panned out as planned (I hurt my back earlier in the week and was still having a hard time moving around too much which left me not able to do a whole lot). In the end we had a relaxing weekend at home, and simply went with the flow of how the days were going. Probably one of the best parts of the weekend was when my son (he'll be 3 in late August) came into the bathroom while I was getting dressed. He climbed up on the toilet (because he knew I couldn't bend over with my back hurting) and tells me he's going to give me a big squeeze. He grabs me around my waste and hugs as tight as he can and then tells me happy birthday. Awesome!! I love my boy. :-)

One activity we did for my b-day was make a wonderful meal with some of my favorite ingredients... seafood, truffles, wine, pasta!!! My husband and I decided to have a little cook off to see who could make the best dish. It made for a bit of madness in the kitchen, especially when I accidentally forgot I had bread slices under the broiler in the oven. Give you a guess as to what happened to them, I'll just tell you it involved flames and baking soda and we'll leave it at that! :-)

Below are some of the pictures from our meal.

Honestly, can you beat fresh basil, tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. This was the starting point for bruschetta.

Of course I had to have some fresh homemade pasta. Pasta is one of those items that once you've had it homemade it's very hard to go back to the store bought stuff. Fresh pasta is delicious!!!

Garlic and pine nuts where part of my husband's stuffed squid dish.

One ingredient I've always wanted to use but could never justify spending the money on is truffles. One of the best dishes I've ever had was in Italy. It was fresh pasta tossed in butter with white truffles. For our dinner I couldn't afford white truffles which where on sale for a mere $60 for 10 grams, so I went with black truffles instead.

To my great disappointment, the black truffles didn't have the flavor I was hoping for, but they were still good and I'm glad I finally was able to include them in a pasta dish.

I made fresh pasta and tossed it with the truffles, parmesan cheese and my homemade butter. It was delish!

For seafood we purchased soft shell crab, squid and sea scallops. I seared mine in olive oil (I did lightly flour and salt the crab) and placed them in a white wine and lemon cream sauce.

My husband made seared scallops with a white wine and lime sauce with fresh mint and topped with fried squid. Although we used similar ingredients the end flavors were very different and both were very good.

My hubby also made a spicy flour mixture which he coated his soft shell crab in and fried them in a little bit of coconut oil. Yum!

To finish the evening off, my husband gave me an awesome card he designed and 2 tickets to see The Swell Season in concert.

All in all I give my 30th birthday two thumbs up!