A Birthday Party

My son's birthday is this week and, because he will be out of town on business on the actual day, we celebrated Saturday night.  I love to cook for my family because they are a very enthusiastic and appreciative bunch, and dinner, once it's on the table, is a  happy and leisurely affair where we catch up on each other's busy lives.  It can get pretty chaotic before the meal is ready and once again I was too busy getting everything to the table hot and I didn't take any pictures.  I prepared crab cakes, fried razor clams, pasta with sauteed garlic and shallots, roasted asparagus and the dessert my son asks for every birthday, a strawberry whipped cream roll.

What you see in the above photo is what I did with the leftover acini di pepe pasta from our dinner.  If you haven't tried this pasta you are in for a treat.  Acini di pepe, also called pastina, is Italian for "peppercorn" and it looks like tiny beads.  I combined the cold pasta (sauteed shallots and garlic already added)  with chopped tomato, Kalamata olives, crumbled feta cheese, lots of chopped fresh parsley and oregano and tossed it all with a generous squeeze of lemon juice and a little olive oil.  A few grinds of black pepper and you've got a wonderful side dish or a stand alone pasta salad.  I served it for lunch yesterday with grilled salmon.  Delicious.

This is a photo of last year's strawberry whipped cream roll and you can find the recipe and step-by-step directions here.   This year's version looked exactly the same and was sliced and eaten before I had any chance of snapping a photos.  My son loves this and asks for it every birthday.  I found some decent strawberries at the market and the cake was wonderful.  I hope you will make it for your family.  I'll bet they will be asking for it over and over just like my family does.