The Big 2-8

Well, today was my birthday. I thought I'd share some of it with you in the form of photos...

Early this morning, Daiku brought me breakfast in bed: soy yogurt and granola parfaits, bananas, juice, coffee for him, Teecino for me.

Don't these blueberries make the yogurt look like it's smiling? It's a good thing we ate breakfast, too. It's a tradition for Daiku and me to go to the gym together on my birthday, and today I wanted to try a spinning class for the first time. The workout was *wow*. But now, we're in severe pain, including some of our unmentionable spots! In any case, we needed the energy that our breakfast gave us!

It's a spring miracle! I love this time of year so much. My real name, in Farsi, means "spring" so I've always felt a connection to this time. First, the new year, then, my birthday. And, surprises like seeing our flower bulbs peek out for the first time!

I only noticed these a few days ago- in a matter of days, we went from snow and ice to budding flowers. I think as much as I complain about the snow in Syracuse, it is undeniably responsible for bringing on a lush, beautiful spring. (These are the bulbs we planted way back when...)

The cats got to celebrate spring, too! Here they are coming back into the house after their first field trip to the backyard to munch on some grass. They loved it.

Daiku works very late on Tuesdays, and often grabs a late lunch at work. This gives me the perfect excuse to have my kind of dinner on these nights- light and fresh. Tonight's birthday dinner was some potatoes and chard cooked with garlic and red pepper flakes, topped with some truffle oil. Behind it, you can see a simple spring salad. I know it's still not exactly the right time for them, but when I saw vine-ripened tomatoes at the supermarket, I couldn't resist buying some.

I also decided to bake myself a birthday cake- a vegan pound cake!! Pre-veg, Sara Lee pound cakes were my absolute favorites, but I'd never tried my hand at a vegan version until I came upon this recipe. Thanks to Tracy's blog, because this cake was kickass. I let it bake a little too long (60 minutes instead of the suggested 50- I didn't realize it would keep baking a bit even after it came out of the oven.) I also used both vanilla and lemon extract, instead of choosing between the two.

The results were very very good anyway. Here's the cake right after I'd blown out my candle- no way was I going to try and fit (and light) 28 candles on there! I didn't want so many holes in my perfect little pound cake!

To serve it, I made a sauce using frozen mixed berries, lemon juice and zest, a drop of orange juice, and sugar. I finished it off with a dollop of soy yogurt.

All in all, a pretty good day. I received some nice gifts (I'll post about them later) and we are planning on getting out and celebrating some more this weekend. Stay tuned!

The Big 2-8