Birthday celebration & more cookin

What a treat to have Natalie here at home on her 25th birthday!  This is the first year that we have celebrated her day together since she left home for college in 2003.  Yesterday I asked her what she wanted for her birthday breakfast (always in bed on your birthday) and dinner, as well as what type of cake.  She had been looking through my cookbooks (Jamie Oliver's "Jamie's Kitchen") and picked out a cake recipe.  She decided she wanted to try baking bread for the first time, too.

Breakfast in bed!

While Bizzi stands guard, Natalie is served a veggie/cheese omelet,

fruit scone and apple butter, milk, and a fresh-picked satsuma orange

Her father made coffee and brought it up to her

we used  both golden and red beets for the cake.

Later, we roasted the greens and made a warm salad for dinner

Natalie scrapes the vanilla beans from the pod

creating a wonderful aroma!

using a spoon to chop fresh ginger

Let me go on record to say that a ricer does NOT work well for cooked beets.

This was my idea, and it was a bad one.  We resorted to the food processor soon after this shot.

Think fake murder scene........

here are the finished baked goods

Natalie's serving is on the red plate, and it blends pretty well, doesn't it?