An Early Birthday Celebration & Desserts Galore [Weekend Recap]

Hi friends!

I haven’t been around the past bunch of days, and I’ve missed blogging! The reason I’ve been a bit MIA is because my father-in-law flew in from the east coast to visit my hubby and me. I’ve been busy having fun around town and hosting him in our new home.

Although we had a couple of days of overcast skies, we also had a few days with gorgeous weather to enjoy. We spent all Sunday afternoon at the beach soaking up the sun in Carlsbad:

When guests come to town, I inevitably wind up whipping up a lot of yummy food for us to enjoy. What can I say, I show my love with food! My father-in-law went gluten free earlier this year, so I had a bit of a fun challenge in coming up with all GF fare.

He also has a huge sweet tooth, so I knew that dessert was a must. One dessert hit was gluten free fudgey brownies, which I made using Pamela’s brownie mix.

I had heard a lot of good things about Pamela’s mixes, and this gave me a chance to try one of them. I used apple sauce instead of oil and substituted a flaxseed egg for a regular one to keep the dessert vegan and a bit healthier… and they were delicious!

One night for dinner I made rosti potatoes, roasted red pepper hummus, and whole wheat garlic bread knots:

Saturday was an especially nice day, because my hubby’s dad and I had planned an early birthday surprise for A. His birthday is July 31st, but his dad and him haven’t been together for a birthday in a bunch of years, so we thought it’d be fun to celebrate it while he was in town.

I kicked off the day by making us a nutritious and delicious breakfast to enjoy on our patio: salted caramel granola bars (more on those later this week – they were amazing!), green juice and strawberries.

This was the first fresh fruit & veggie juice for my father-in-law and he actually didn’t think it was bad at all. That’s better than me – it took me awhile to start liking green juice! This one had apple, cucumber, ginger, mango, carrots and spinach. I suppose it was more orange than green huh?

We then let A in on the surprise and gave him some gifts. We teamed up to buy him a grill, and I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty excited about it too! You better believe that we’ll be grilling up a storm from now on.

We grilled in the afternoon and ate corn, zucchini and burgers (veg for me, obviously):

I also made a Mexican dip and Greek pasta salad (using brown rice pasta to keep things gluten free):

As part of A’s birthday celebration, his dad nabbed tickets for us to see a Padres game, so Saturday evening we headed downtown to Petco Park to watch them play the Mets. This was the liveliest baseball game I’ve been to in San Diego, and the Padres whooped some butt!

When we got home from the game, we sang “Happy Birthday” to a cake I had made earlier that day, but not just any cake — one of my all-time favorite desserts — Chocolate Kahlua Cake! I modified the recipe by using a gluten free chocolate cake mix, and didn’t notice a difference in taste at all. I must warn you, it isn’t healthy for you but is so worth the splurge…especially with vanilla bean ice cream, which we all had two nights in a row!

During my father-in-law’s stay, we also had a few good meals out. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant that my hubby and I have been wanting to try in downtown Carlsbad called Vigilucci’s. I tried their minestrone soup, which tasted really fresh and full of goodness:

I also ordered a margherita pizza, adding artichokes to spice it up a little:

We always have a favorite ltalian joint wherever we live, and this could be it! We will definitely be going back there for dinner again.

For dinner another night, I had a kale salad with almonds, feta cheese, figs and multigrain crisps. It was a tasty combo, and just the dose of greens that I felt like I was in need of:

For dessert on the last night he was in town, the guys and I stumbled upon Sub Zero, a really interesting ice cream and fro yo place that makes your frozen creation on-the-spot. Per their website:

Thanks to Chemistry, Sub Zero uses Liquid Nitrogen to instantly freeze a custom ice cream, at -321 degrees Fahrenheit! You don’t need a degree in molecular gastronomy to experience how in seconds, the freshest, smoothest ice cream you’ll ever taste will appear out of a cloud of smoke!

You completely customize your order at Sub Zero, choosing from fro yo, ice cream, or custard; tons of flavors and toppings; and you even have the possibility of ordering almond or soy milk nondairy desserts. I think it took us way too long to figure out what we wanted! I wound up going with a mint & brownie batter cup of fro yo:

If it seems to you like I ate a lot of dessert the past bunch of days, you’re completely correct. I certainly have a sweet tooth, but dessert 5 days in a row was definitely overdoing it for me. I enjoyed all of the yummy desserts I ate, but I believe it’s all about moderation, and woke up this morning ready to not have dessert for a few days. After all, healthy living is all about balance right?

Anyways, we ate our desserts on the beach while watching the sunset, and it was the perfect way to end my father-in-law’s visit!

Questions: Have you ever been to an ice cream place where they make your dessert on- the-spot? Do you ever overdo it on sweets? What’s your favorite thing to eat off the grill?