Good evening, friends! I hope your day has gone well!
We’re leaving in the morning for Pennsylvania, so my sister and her husband came over tonight and my parents cooked up a big (vegan!) goodbye dinner!
My birthday is January 20th, so it was also an early birthday dinner for yours truly.
Ryan and I were busy, busy, busy packing up our car this afternoon, so my parents were on their own cooking our meal. They ended up cooking lemon herb risotto with wild mushrooms, as well as roasted winter vegetables and a salad.
Lemon Herb Risotto with Wild Mushrooms
3 tbsp. olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 12 oz. package shitake mushrooms
3 cups of Arborio rice
10-12 cups of vegetable broth or water, warmed in a saucepan
1/2 cup white wine
Directions:
Heat olive oil in heavy-bottom pan. Add garlic and onion and cook for 3-5 minutes, until translucent. Add mushrooms and cook for another minute.
Add rice and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Pour in wine and stir until wine has been absorbed by the rice. Stir in the broth a cup at a time, stirring slowly until the liquid is absorbed. Once it has been absorbed, add another cup. Continue to add broth a cup at a time until the rice is soft and the starches have been fully released and the risotto is creamy, about thirty minutes.
*optional: right before serving, stir a 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese into the risotto for even more creaminess.
Roasted Winter Vegetables:
1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
1 turnip, chopped
1 rutabaga, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 sweet potato, chopped
1/2 head purple cabbage, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp. herbes de provence
1/4 cup white wine
salt and pepper
Directions:
Toss all ingredients together and cook at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
I came in while my parents were prepping dinner, and found my dad playing with the food:
What a goofball!
Soon, they looked like this:
Here’s the purple cabbage that we found at the grocery store this afternoon. Isn’t it beautiful?
Mmmm…these roasted veggies were so good! Here they are coming out of the oven:
With dinner, of course, we enjoyed some wine:
My plate:
My mom picked up these beautiful roses today:
Delicious! A great birthday meal!
Of course, no birthday meal is complete without birthday cake…errr, birthday vegan streudel. Yum! My mom had this vegan streudel specially made by Katie and John at Earthereal.
Topped with non-dairy frozen dessert, of course! This was Purely Decadent coconut milk “ice cream.” To be honest, it didn’t blow me away. It was fine as a topping for the streudel, but I don’t think I’d want to sit down to an entire bowl of it. Oh well!
After we finished eating, we finally got to my favorite part of a birthday: presents! Of course, Ryan will give me his present on my actual birthday…and I’m told the dogs have been doing a little shopping too.
My sister gave me this beautiful tray:
My parents gave me some beautiful earrings as well! Great birthday gifts, without a doubt!
Sigh. I can’t believe we have to leave and go back to Pennsylvania tomorrow. It’s been such a nice, long break.
I actually just had a little mini-emotion fest and shed a few tears. It’s always sad when we have to leave Louisiana and go back up to Pennsylvania. Altoona is a fine town, but almost my entire family lives in Shreveport. I hate leaving my parents and sister…especially now that Sophie is on the way! It’s just hard being so far away.
Oh well. As sad as I am to leave, it will be good to be back at our own house and back into our weekly routine. I’m excited for the start of a new semester!
Tomorrow, we’re setting the alarm for 4 am…now THAT is an early wakeup call! We’re going to try to do the entire trip in one day (20 hours), but if the weather gets bad, we might have to break it up. Hope we can find a dog-friendly motel!
I’ll take pictures of my eats tomorrow, but I won’t be able to post, so I’ll do a big road-trip recap on Saturday.
Goodnight, dear readers!
