Birthday dinner

 scallops for him.

 leftover pot roast smothered in pea shoots for me.

dessert was Chocolate Almond Joy Bars.

It was a simple birthday dinner because I've been out of commission.  But he said it was good.

The sea scallops were purchased at the farmer's market on Saturday (our terrific source for local fresh catch) and then placed in the freezer.  They were thawed today and baked tonight with Kerrygold butter and homemade GF breadcrumbs (sounds fancy, but it ain't: an Udi's end piece blitzed in the mini-food processor), a dash of sea salt sprinkled on top.  This recipe, from Cap's mom, is a classic.  Tonight's bonus was that all the scallops were for Cap because I am eating Paleo and the kids do not like scallops.

I was deeeelighted to find pea shoots at Trader Joe's today.  I first had them with Barbra and Audrey, a simple pea shoots stir fry from their favorite Chinese restaurant.  For the past few years, I've thought of pea shoots as something I could have only with them when I visited Oakland.  But, no more.  Tonight I took a handful of lovely green, rinsed them, shook off the excess water, and tossed them atop the leftover pot roast as it reheated gently in a pan.  (We never replaced our microwave when it went kaput.)  My dinner was heaven.  So, so good.

The Almond Joy bars were...good.  After watching the faces of my three guys as they sampled/ate this new-to-us baked sweet (Gem did not care for it, Sag asked for a second piece, Cap liked it, but made suggestions for tweaking), I could not resist...I had a tiny bite that had no chocolate in it (the dark chocolate was the only element of the dessert that had sugar in it)...I was desperately curious.  I honestly don't have an opinion.  Without the taste/texture of chocolate or coconut, my bite was pretty almond cake-y rather than "almond joy" bar-like.  When I make this again, I am going to mix some shredded coconut into the batter.  Also, may look for coconut with a bigger "shred".  The stuff I used today was so fine that it burned.  (It didn't help that I used the toaster oven which is relatively new and I am still learning the ropes of.)

The kids ate dinner first tonight.  Cap whipped up a batch of his tuna pasta salad for them.  They were happy.

Peace.