Birthday Party

I warned you that I'd be posting about my birthday until the day had actually passed! Today, I had a little birthday party at my mom's house (thank you, Mom!). As usual, I made and bought too much food, but that just means I have yummy leftovers for the week.

We had MorningStar Farms Grillers Vegan burgers, which are my favorite burgers, and LightLife Smart Dogs on Ezekiel buns. I made two fantastic side salads:

Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango from Veganomicon.

Orange, Mint, and Asparagus Pasta Salad from a Vegetarian Times e-mail.

Since my mom was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease, I wanted to make these salads gluten-free for her. The quinoa salad was naturally gluten-free and I used quinoa pasta for the pasta salad to make that gluten-free, too. Both salads were fantastic! I loved the bright, fresh flavors of the cilantro and mango in the quinoa salad and of the orange and mint in the pasta salad. I'm not sure why those photos look like they were taken under water; they don't do the salads justice!

I turned to Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for dessert, making two cupcake varieties that I'd never attempted.

Cookies 'n' Cream Cupcakes

Sexy Low-Fat Vanilla Cupcakes

Of the two, I preferred the latter. The cake is moist and light and I love that they're topped with (Trader Joe's) organic raspberry jam, raspberries, and a drizzle of glaze. Don't get me wrong; the Cookies 'n' Cream (I used Trader Joe's version of Oreos, called Joe-Joes) were very good, too. I think I'm just not much of a buttercream person. I received a LOT of compliments on the way these looked and tasted, so I was bursting with pride! For my mom, I picked up a box of Cherrybrook Kitchen* gluten-free chocolate cake mix and vanilla frosting mix. They turned out very nicely, as well.

Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to spend their Sunday afternoon celebrating my birthday with me (including fellow blogger Happy Herbivore and her husband, who I met in person for the first time today)! I appreciate all of you very much!

*An added bonus of Cherrybrook Kitchen's products, for my family, at least, is that all their products are completely nut-free and made in a nut-free facility. Both my brother and my mom's husband are deathly allergic to peanuts, making Cherrybrook Kitchen products an excellent choice for their needs.