A happy birthday dinner

Today is James' birthday.  I gave him his birthday present a few days ago since he knew what it was. I had the poster from his Schumann concert, signed by all the orchestra members, framed.  I think it turned out real well.

  James is always great about writing me a letter or a poem for special occasions but since I'm not as gifted a poet as he and and our son Adam, I did what I like to do, and like to think James likes.  I cooked for him.  I cooked a meal I knew he'd appreciate since much of it came from our own farm.  I made lasagna, a salad and a chocolate angel food cake.  The meal was chosen around what we had in our refrigerator, freezer, cupboards and our garden that we grew ourselves.  We have an abundance of cheeses and jars of tomatoes so that's how the lasagna came about.  I also put asparagus from the garden in it.  We've just started picking it and only got maybe 10 spears today.  The salad was simple with different lettuces and chives from the garden along with peas from last year.  I love peas in a salad.  I've never made an angel food cake from scratch but since we had so many eggs to use I chose angel food for dessert.  It takes 16 egg whites.  I used a few of the yolks in the lasagna mixed with the ricotta.  The cake was more of a challenge than I thought but I think it turned out pretty tasty.  We topped it with a raspberry sauce made with raspberries (wine berries) we had frozen that James picked from up the mountain.  The cake was also topped with powdered sugar and grated dark chocolate but unfortunately we can't grow that. 

I had planned to make ice cream so I could use up some of our milk but I didnt' have enough ice for the ice cream maker.  We have friends coming for dinner in a few days to celebrate their birthdays too so I'll make it then.

James, I hope your birthday was a good one.