Gluten Free Birthday Feast

 My entire family has birthdays that land in April/May which makes it a crazy month for birthday presents.  This year since my spring break fell right in between all of them I decided to make a birthday dinner for my mom and dad.  My sister has them on this new meal plan  (which is working very well even though I let me dad buy baked goods at Costco...sorry Jen) so I made homemade gluten free pasta with two different kinds of sauce.  The actually tried two different gluten free pasta recipes and we picked the best one.  I had to substitute the quinoa flour for tapioca flour because I couldn't find it.  This was my first attempt at homemade pasta and it was pretty easy.  I definitely have to use that pasta maker more.

gluten free pasta dough

Another use for my drying rack.  =)

rolling out the dough

The lamb ragu was very easy and the best tasting sauce.  The second sauce I made up taking the ingredients from my crostata from the last post.  I sauteed swiss chard, leeks, red pepper flakes, and garlic.  Then threw in some ricotta and some of the pasta water.   My sister liked it which means it had to be good, but she said it would have been even better with some pancetta and I agree..  She is even pickier than Rob.

 For as long as I remember my mom has talked about Baked Alaska.  She has never tried it so I decided to make it for her instead of the gluten free strawberry shortcake I was going to try and create myself.  I found a gluten free recipe for the cake.  It was a little on the dry side but still tasty.

I filled mine with a mix of chocolate
and vanilla, vanilla and strawberry
and butter pecan.

I then whipped up some meringue and covered the cake and ice cream.

Then I popped them into a 500 degree oven for three minutes.  We watched them carefully so that they wouldn't burn.  Next time I am hoping to use one of those mini blow torches.  =)

Overall it was a very successful birthday feast that just happened to be gluten free!