Monday, September 8, 2008

My Favorite Saturday :)

Saturday was my 24th birthday, and it was a very wonderful birthday :)
I started celebrating my birthday by sleeping in (we usually do on Saturday's anyway), then opening the window to listen to the rain from Tropical Storm Hannah. It was a nice steady rain, and oh so pleasant to the ears!

Later we got up, and I made big pancakes topped with a dump-n-stir version of gingered pears/sauce. Yummy!! Somebody gave us a grocery bag of pears, and I thought that would be a fun way to use some of them.

If you're interested, here's how I made the pears:
1 cup water
3-4 Tbsp. sugar
about 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
splash of lemon juice
2 pears, peeled and sliced
Cook everything together until pears are soft. Remove pears from juice. Mix a little juice and cornstarch, pour back into juice, boil until thickened to syrup. Serve with pears! This amount of juice/syrup would do for probably 4 - 6 pears. I had looked up gingered pears on recipezaar, and made my own recipe after looking at theirs.

While we ate our breakfast on the couch, we watched Sarah Plain & Tall (Daniel told me to pick out a movie to watch for my birthday). Then we bummed around for a while until a lunch of tomato sandwiches. Then Daniel had to go on a call.... :(

While he was gone I just enjoyed bumming around, working on stuff here and there, then taking a nap. I woke up when the phone rang - it was Daniel. He wondered where I was in the house, then told me to close my eyes and keep them closed. I heard him pull in the driveway, but kept my eyes closed. He came in the door, and told me I could open my eyes. This is what I saw:
They are soooo pretty!!! The picture does not do them justice. He got lotsa hugs and kisses and "thank you"s. He said a little birdie had told him to get me flowers for my birthday, so he did! (About a month ago he asked what I wanted for my birthday - I told him flowers and a nice dinner.) He also said he wasn't sure how he was going to get flowers for my birthday since he would be home on Saturday, but it was convenient to go out on the call, and stop and pick up flowers on his way home :) They are still beautiful, sitting on the table where I can look at them and remember how much Daniel loves me :)

After the excitement over the flowers settled down (a little), I gave Daniel a haircut, and then we got ready to go out to dinner. This isn't a very good picture, but it's what you get for self-timer, a white wall for the background, and in a hurry:
He took me to O'Charley's for a very nice dinner. We ordered their fiesta chips for the appetizer, I had Strawberry Lemonade to drink, and then I had salad, steak and broccoli, and he had some kind of southern pasta/chicken dish. With their rolls, of course!! I wanted to go there for the rolls :P And their menu is good, too :) When the waiter came and asked if we had room for dessert, Daniel said "do you have any free dessert?" He said not unless it was somebody's birthday. Then Daniel filled him in on it being my birthday, and we both made sure that he was NOT going to make the usual resturant birthday to-do. He brought us some delicious "Sweetened Condensed Milk" pie. I don't know the real name of it, but it was good. It was a graham cracker crust, the filling tasted like you mixed sweetened condensed milk and caramel topping (VERY sweet), it was topped with spray-whipping cream and sprinkled with mini chocolate chips and pecan pieces. It was very sweet, very rich, very good, very fattening, and very free!

Then Daniel took me to pick out a birthday movie for the rest of my birthday present. I wanted to get Sarah Plain & Tall 2, so we went to Barnes & Noble, figuring they would have a good chance of having it if it was available. Nope - the guy said it's out of print. Boohoo. We looked at the Anne of Green Gables trilogy (another set on my wish list), but decided to pass it up at almost $90, and we'd go across the street to Best Buy to check out their selection.

Their movies were all $10 - $20 cheaper than Barnes & Noble. The Anne series was $20 cheaper, but I still couldn't justify that for my birthday when I'd already gotten a very nice flower bouqet and dinner. We settled on:
We left there and came home to watch the first Shreck movie. Last night (Sunday) we watched the second one, and I've a suspicion that Shreck the Third will get watched tonight :)

So that was my birthday! It was a great day, I didn't mind the rain one bit (I was happy that we were getting such nice rain!), and I had a whole day of fun time with my hubby :) What more could I ask for?

5 comments:

Sally said... [Reply to comment]

That all sounds wonderful! I'm really glad you had a good birthday. I hope this year is a wonderful one for you. I'll bet it will be and you'll enjoy staying at home. Thanks for writing about all your adventures.

Jackie said... [Reply to comment]

Miriam -

Thank you so much for stopping by my little blog! I love meeting new people. Happy Belated Birthday...and I just have to tell you that Sarah Plain and Tall was one of my favorites when I was younger. Brought back some good memories when I read that you were trying to find it. :)

I will definitely have to come back here and browse through all of your recipe links...I love to cook and am always on the lookout for new recipes. Have a lovely day!

debbie said... [Reply to comment]

Belated Happy Birthday, Miriam. You are a very lucky young lady to have such a wonderful husband. The flowers are absolutely beautiful. Again, Happy Birthday.
Debbie

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

The pie you ate is called
"Carmel Pie". You take the label off of a can of sweetened condensed milk, put it in a large pot covered in water and boil it for 2 1/2-3 hours. Make sure the can stays covered in water while boiling. Drain water,let it cool for a few minutes, then carefully open can and put in graham cracker crust. Top with cool whip, chocolate chips, nuts. Refrigerate and Enjoy!!!! I usually boil more than one can at a time.

Carol said... [Reply to comment]

I got to your blog from Budget Living and was reading your birthday fun. I know the recipe for the Carmel Pie you had at O'Charleys. You simply take the label off 3 cans of sweetened condensed milk, submerge them in a pan of water (I use my dutch oven). I start with cold water and make sure the cans are covered over with water. Put the cans on their sides, not the flat ends. Put the heat on medium and bring to a boil. Once boiling, let boil for 3 hours. You will need to add water from time to time in order to keep the cans submerged. Gently roll the cans around from time to time too. After 3 hours, gently remove the cans from the water. I have always heard that this is dangerous because the cans could explode, but I have never had that happen. I let the cans set for a while then open them with a can opener and pour into a bowl. Wisk the contents together and pour into a prebought or homemade graham cracker crust. cover and refridgerate. You can top as desired, or not at all!! I've made this many times and used eagle brand as well as generic. If I don't use Eagle brand, I like to use Meadow Gold, but have used others. A friend used to waitress at O'Charleys and that is where I got the recipe. I just read the other comments and see where anonymous gave you basically the same instructions, but the 3 cans will fill one storebought crust. Hope you have a chance to try this sometime!