A Super Fun Bday Cake!

Last night was our little family party for Mr. Vegan Eats & Treats' birthday, and it was really fun! In fact, it was extra special because my friend JJTWH and her awesome little 3 1/2 year old daughter came for a visit too. As my Little Pal pointed out, it was the first time she was old enough to come to our house for dinner. I hope we get 100,000 more chances to eat dinner together!!

Fortunately, Mr. VE&T's dinner selection was pretty kid-friendly : The Mexicali Chop salad from Real Food Daily Cookbook. Have you ever made this? It is SO good. It's a big salad full of beans and corn and bell peppers and tomatoes and with a lemon-lime-cumin dressing. I modify the recipe a little (use canned beans, use 1 avocado instead of 3, use 1 bell pepper instead of 3, and use just a little olive oil - instead of 3/4 c!!!!!!). It's so good and my Little Pal was a big help - she helped pick the lemons and limes, then she juiced them, did some measuring, mixed the dressing, and spun the lettuce until it was the world's most Not Wet Lettuce ever.

The Mexicali Chop salad also has these excellently delicious and fun and easy little tortilla strip chips as a garnish. They take 15 minutes to make and they are so yums.

There was also a big bowl of sugar snap peas ... which I forgot to snap a picture of (har har) until they were almost all gone!

Yummers the cat jumped up and sat in the empty chair, hoping to score a sugar snap pea or two... which totally worked, of course. I love how cute he is when he sits at the dining room table with us!

After dinner, my family came over for some coffee and cake and ice cream to celebrate Mr. VE&T's birthday together. It was so fun. WAY back in October, during Vegan MoFo, I saw this cake on Mo's blog and I knew right away that this was the cake I would make Mr. VE&T for his birthday. For years now he has been trying to get me to order him an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins with a picture of spaghetti and meatballs on top (you know how they can put photos on ice cream cakes now? it's pretty wild). So, obviously, this is even better. Thanks Mo, for the inspiration. It came out pretty creepily great. I couldn't believe how much that frosting looked like actual spaghetti!

Here's another pic after we cut into it. I used my new-mini cake pans to make a 6" round cake - which looked extra special and fancy. I used a basic wacky cake recipe from Joy of Cooking, then in between the two layers is the Mocha Hazelnut Mousse from VCTOTW, and the ganache is my favorite ganache recipe, from Simple Treats. The "meatballs" are little brownie bits - I used my melon baller to scoop out round pieces of brownies, and the "spaghetti sauce" is raspberry jam - which I de-seeded with a sieve so it would look a little more tomatoey. So fun!