Last week, my cousins suggested I cook for our Mommy’s birthday. We had quite a blast with her surprise party last year, which included belly dancers and an Arabian Nights theme. This time, we settled for a quiet dinner with just us relatives, although nothing is ever quiet when we’re together.

The menu planning was quite hard since my elder cousin, Marianne, is based abroad and she was the one bugging us all the time. In the end, we decided on a pasta, a beef dish, salmon, and a non-cake dessert since Brian and his fiancee, Aimee, would be surprising Mommy with a cake.

Menu
Anchovy Pasta with Olives and Capers
Salpicado
Baked Salmon with Lemon Butter Sauce
Tiramisu

Here’s a live blog of my cooking…

2 pm Tiramisu (T) Separating yolks is a b*tch. Now double boiling crema.

2:35 pm T Making extra strong coffee. Mixing crema with cream cheese.

2:45 pm Salmon (S) Preparing salmon. Cleaning and scaling. Ew! Rubbing with salt, pepper, and thyme.

3:10 pm Beef (B) Chopping garlic and onions (by assistant).
Pasta (P) Chopping garlic and olives.

3:35 pm B Dicing red and green bell peppers.

3:45 pm Hi there back pain!

4:15 pm T Whipping the cream.

4:30 pm Adding the cooled crema to the whipped cream.

4:50 pm Assembling the Tiramisu.

5:15 pm P Cooking the anchovy sauce.

5:30 pm S Salmon into the oven.

5:40 pm B Sauteeing the Salpicao. My mistake here is I forgot to sear the beef to seal in the juices. The beef came out yummy but a bit tough.

6:40 pm Everything is ready. Dinner is served.

Notes and Review at this LINK.