Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Wes! Today is my darling husband's 31st birthday. I've always heard food is the key to a man's heart so I thought I'd test that saying this year. I decided to have a week of birthday festivities all revolving around food! Perhaps that is a little self-indulgent but don't tell him!! The marathon began on Sunday when we had Thanksgiving dinner, except in April. I made a wonderful discovery with this meal - turkey cooked in the crockpot. Wow, if you've never tried it, you MUST try it. The key is to make sure the turkey you choose will fit in your crockpot and the rest is so easy. Although there are many variations, the one I chose was to mix a can of cranberry sauce and a package of dry onion soup mix together and pour it over the turkey. I would strongly suggest purchasing one of my new favorite products, the crockpot liners that I think Reynolds Wrap makes. They are essentially just a giant plastic bag that fits in your crockpot, making cleanup a snap! Do I sound like an infomercial?! Okay, so that's really it, you rinse and pat the turkey dry, add the cranberry-onion mixture, and then cook it on high for 2 hours and low for 8-10 hours. The result is a fall-off-the-bone, moist turkey breast. Once I removed the meat, I spooned the sauce over the meat. (We did have other "Thanksgiving" type accompaniments to go with this, which were all good but I'll spare the 12 page long post!)

The second food related birthday surprise was yesterday. We went to Wallace Station in Midway for their Monday night fried chicken! I am not a huge fan of chicken and I'm even less of a fan of chicken that I haven't prepared, so this was a HUGE sacrifice for me. All in the name of love. I wanted this to be a surprise so before Wes left for work yesterday morning, I hid an envelope and my cell phone in the glove box of his car. The envelope had directions how to get there, using no road names or other distinguishable directions. Since he would be taking mostly country roads, they were mostly road numbers. He was supposed to get off at Exit 65, which is the Midway exit. I was hoping that would throw him off since we frequently go to Heirloom, The Black Tulip, and Holly Hill Inn. Well, that is if he would have followed my directions! Since yesterday was my mom's day to watch Colin, she was nice enough to meet me out there with him. We wanted both she and my Dad to join us, but my Dad is helping coach Dunbar's girls softball team and he had a game. So I went straight there from work and Mom promptly tells me to call Wes because he is lost. She had already had to tell him to get on Paris Pike, then New Circle, then Old Frankfort. I knew right then that he would know where he was going. At this point, I was hungry and I just wanted him to get there safe and sound. I wasn't so concerned with the surprise factor. Come to find out he is a self proclaimed idiot (those are not my words, they are straight from the horse's mouth), and forgot that there was a short stint on I-64 that turned into I-75, before turning back into I-64. So while he was on the I-75 part, he saw exit number 113 and thought I was wrong, that there wasn't an exit 65. Thus the call to my mom, and thus the rerouting. In the end it was all worth it because it was a beautiful day, we all got there safe and sound, and the food was SUPERB! Wes couldn't stop talking about how much he enjoyed the food. He says that he is a self proclaimed fried chicken connessuier and that was the best he had ever had. Wow, what a great compliment! If you are ever in the market for a good down home meal of fried chicken and the fixin's, I'd strongly suggest Wallace Station. The meal consisted of 1 generous chicken breast, mashed potatoes, green beans (not your average green beans because they had carrots, kale, along with the beans), and a biscuit.

Today we were supposed to meet for lunch downtown. He was going to bring Colin so I could show him off to my coworkers and then we could again enjoy the beautiful weather by walking to the restaurant. Well Colin had different plans because as of 1:15, he was still taking his morning nap. Oh well, he needed the rest more than Wes and I needed yet another meal out. He'll still get a raincheck for that one though.

Tonight is mini-burgers at Danielle's Cafe. Tomorrow night my Mom is cooking him a special meal. Thursday I'm cooking again and we'll be having homemade corndogs (his favorite, not mine). Friday I think we're going to get a stuffed crust pizza and Saturday is a surprise dinner at a surprise location. Sorry, I can't post about it because I'm afraid he might read this and ruin the surprise. I'll post about it later. He has received some clues about the destination though. I have to be so vague because he's too good with my clues. I hate it when he guesses it right off. I love nothing more than a wrong guess - is that wrong?!

All this to say, Happy Birthday Wes! Oh, I'll post his cake later.