today is k’s birthday!!
he’s twenty ancient eight!

today’s thursday, and i normally would share a recipe that i’ve created or adapted that we’ve made and enjoyed recently. since it’s kevin’s birthday, however, and since any birthday/holiday/daythatendsin”y” is basically an excuse for us to celebrate through food, you know we’re planning to consume lots of good stuff today. i thought i’d use this week’s post to share what we’re going to eat (and have already eaten).

this morning, we started off with ricotta pancakes. i saw this recipe posted on one of my favorite blogs just yesterday and immediately knew it was what i was going to make for k’s birthday breakfast. kevin loveeeeessss pancakes. personally, i’ve never been a big fan, unless they’re homemade. we happened to have some ricotta in the fridge from another recipe, so this worked out perfectly. i usually would cook pancakes in butter, but i fried these in oil as the recipe called for and they turned out golden brown and crispy on the outside but super creamy on the inside. we didn’t do them colored/ombre like they did because, let’s face it, boys don’t care if their pancakes are cute and pink, but we might try  it another time.

ricotta pancakes via a beautiful mess

when i asked kevin last week what he thought he might like me to make for his birthday lunch or dinner, he immediately told me he wanted lentil sloppy joe’s. we made these for the first time about a month ago, not sure what to expect, but they were actually very, very good. i even liked them better than the real sloppy joe’s. i love that the flavors in the recipe are totally reminiscent of the real ones we used to eat in preschool and growing up, but since it’s with lentils, it’s a lot healthier and definitely unique. i bought some pretzel rolls that we can eat the lentil joe’s on; we’ll be having these when k comes home for lunch today!

lentil sloppy joe’s via chocolate covered katie

i don’t really know what else to say, except that no celebration in our house would be complete without roasted brussels sprouts. brussies, as we affectionately call them, are basically a religion around here. we’ll probably just roast them simply with olive oil, salt, and pepper, but if i’m feeling a little fancier, i’ll add the shallots and balsamic like the below recipe calls for. oh, and in case you’re in the market for another good brussie recipe (why wouldn’t you be?), we made these last christmas and they were fan.tas.tic.

roasted brussels sprouts via serious eats

last night we went out to sushi at blue downtown, and decided to get their vegetarian lettuce wraps as an appetizer. i’ve had lettuce wraps at other restaurants before and have enjoyed them, but never at blue. they came with several pieces of lettuce for “wrapping,” along with hummus, brown rice, noodles, cucumber, carrot, cilantro, and sprouts for mixing. they also came with three different dipping sauces – creamy cilantro, yellow curry, and spicy peanut – all of which we were delicious. we decided we’d like to try to recreate these at home for dinner tonight, so we bought some similar ingredients last night at whole foods and are going to give it a shot! there are about a million renditions of lettuce wraps online, but here’s one that looks similar and has some of the same sauces we’d like to try.

vegetarian lettuce wraps via veg kitchen 

we momentarily considered getting an almond cake from our wedding cupcake baker, but instead decided to do something kinda special and different and try our hand at this gin + tonic cake we discovered on how sweet it is a while back. gin + tonic and gin gimlets are among our favorite cocktails, so we figured DUH let’s put it in a cake. i’ve already got the cake made, and if the how the batter tasted is any indication of how the cake will be, it’s gonna be pretty fabulous. i’m pretty excited to try this tonight…with a gin + tonic on the side, obvi.

gin + tonic cake via how sweet it is

so there you have it. everything we’re planning to make and eat today to celebrate kevin :) hope you all have a wonderful, cake-filled thursday!