Birthday Week: Celebration of Food

Last Monday, since it was Steve's "Birthday Week," I asked him what he wanted to eat for lunch for the week.  For two days we'd had Chicken Divan that I made that Monday (featuring curry, one of his favorite flavors!).  This is a recipe I got through an email recipe exchange that we both really love (recipe below; I always halve it)!  (And it's easy!  Don't let the curry scare you, it's not very strong.)

1 standard bunch of broccoli - lightly steamed
6 cooked large boneless chicken breasts (gently boil for 20-30 minutes, pull apart or cut into bite-sized pieces)
2 cans cream of mushroom soup (Or cream of chicken or celery)
1 cup mayo
1 teas curry powder
3-4 Tbl melted butter
4 slices - torn whole grain bread
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Place steamed broccoli in 13x9 baking dish and layer chicken on top. Mix the cream of mushroom soup, mayo, and curry powder.  Spoon over chicken and smooth to cover chicken to edges of baking dish.  Mix together torn bread and cheddar cheese and spread on top of it all and drizzle with melted butter.  Bake at 350 (F) for 30 minutes.  (I serve with rice.)

Steve's first birthday week lunch request was Zuppa Toscana (Olive Garden copycat recipe).  So I made this for lunch on Wednesday.  (You may recall that this is the dish his love is conditioned upon! Haha!)  I tried a different recipe from the first time, but I'm not sure what, if anything, was terribly different.  The recipe is here (with modifications as in the first comment, dated January 22, 2009).  It's hearty, creamy, and zesty thanks to the hot Italian sausage. And must be served with warm bread-in-a-can (Pillsbury Italian loaf)... yum! (Soup must be served with bread!)

For those who don't know, Steve LOVES him some soup!  At some point I asked him what his favorite food was, and he said that his mom's chicken soup was at the top of the list (along with Hostess Ding Dongs!).  Whenever this was that I asked, I knew then that I'd have to at some point get her recipe and try to make it for him. And what better time than Birthday Week?

So after a call to Mama Miko, I got to it!  And the results were delicious! (Thanks Mom!)  As you can see, Steve really enjoyed it :)  (Also, isn't he so cute?!?!)

And to top it off, we had German chocolate cupcakes... another Steve-o favorite.

The cake was from a box, but the frosting was homemade.  (Side note: this photo was taken the day after they were made because the previous evening, I could not convince the frosting to set!  It was a very upsetting, runny, disaster-mess because I put it in a Ziplock instead of a bowl where it would be exposed to the air.  However, we persevered and ate them anyway because they still tasted good despite their looks!)  I learned a lot from doing this... besides how to get this frosting to set, I learned to not do too much at once!  This I found out after burning both the coconut and pecans while trying to toast them for the frosting because I was still finishing up the soup!  UGH!  (Good thing I had enough coconut still and could forgo the pecans!)

Anyway, Birthday Week was a great success overall! (Yes, these two soups got us through the week!)  I'll post next time about celebrating with church friends, so you have to come back for more buzz soon :)  And to see what else Steve milks out of Birthday Week (which he now thinks is Birthday Two-Weeks, haha!).