HAPPY BIRTHDAY, M!

April is a BIG birthday month for my family. Within the span of 2 weeks, we celebrate my sister's birthday, my birthday and M's birthday.

Lucky for me, this year my sister was in town to celebrate both of our birthdays!

Here we are singing happy birthday to each other:)

M's birthday concludes the April birthday circuit. Rather than going out to dinner, this year I decided to make him one of his favorite meals - a chicken pot pie! I also chose to make one of my favorite desserts - Ina Garten's coconut cupcake recipe with chocolate ice cream (a win win for both of us!). This was an especially ambitious undertaking since we had completed our first 5 mile run in HK earlier that day. With the humidity levels at nearly 90%, the run definitely depleted us of most of our energy.

But it was a special day and I really wanted to test out my new mixer, a birthday present from M. I am one lucky baker! 

We made a trip to City Super, one of our local grocery stores, in search for the ingredients. To save time, we bought bags of frozen chopped vegetables, some grilled chicken breasts and premade pie crusts for the pot pie... Very Sandra Lee of me. I also took home their entire stock of butter (well sort of). You would be appalled if you knew how many sticks of butter the cupcake recipe called for!

Once home, I started by making the coconut cupcakes. If you have watched as many Ina Garten Barefoot Contesa episodes as I have (and I hope you haven't!), you know to always start by making the dessert first. I actually don't know that I have ever heard her explain why, but there must be a good reason, or at least I can think of a few.

When it comes to cooking, Ina Garten and my Aunt Jenny can do no wrong. My Aunt Jenny believes that vanilla bean paste should always be used to substitute vanilla extract since according to her, the finished product tastes better. When her grocery store in South Dakota stopped carrying vanilla bean paste, she had me looking all over New York for it so I could mail it to her. Well Aunt Jenny, you won't believe what I found in Hong Kong when I was looking for vanilla extract!

I will be making the substitution again in the future. Baked goods really do taste better with vanilla bean paste!

 

 

After about an hour and a half, the cupcakes were baked, frosted and ready to eat.

Next I got started on the chicken pot pie. We chose the pillsbury chicken pot pie recipe, since the recipe looked fairly easy and had good reviews.

And now for the finished product...

It was a wonderful and intimate birthday dinner with delicious, homemade food!