A Gourmet Birthday

Wednesday was my mother-in-law Shelley's birthday! 

None of the kids could make it out to celebrate with her that day, so we planned on making her dinner on Thursday. 

A few weeks ago I posted a memory on Facebook of a "gourmet" cooking night with Rachel & Kyle. We all have these gourmet sets, so they picked one up as a gift for Shelley and planned a fantastic dinner! 

The mini frying pans are too cute.

Drooling yet?

We had an amazing spread of steak, pork, meatballs, chicken, crab, shrimp, onions, peppers, garlic, mushrooms, potatoes, garlic bread, Bearnaise sauce, and LOTS of butter! Can't go wrong with that eh!

Cooking up a storm! I feel like we're on Master Chef or Chopped or something, making our own stir-fry concoctions.

The pans are heated by an oil flame beneath them. Shelley has had bad experiences with oil fondues - every single time ending in a ball of fire that is rushed outside to burn out. Needless to say she was a little nervous about having 8 fires going on her kitchen table at one time. 

Beggar.

We were all fairly confident it would be fine, as we'd never seen things go awry. Naturally, our certainty and Shelley's tentativeness were two forces that couldn't coexist. We had a minor mishap with one of the burners. Some oil had leaked, and when lit it proceeded to drip flames all over the floor and table. The floor was on fire, and there was fire spreading on the tablecloth while the dogs ran to and fro and everyone realized what would happen in case of emergency - FREEZE! That's something we'll need to work on!

In the end, the only damage was to the table cloth, with just a few small holes burned through it. The floor came out unscathed and the burner was put out on the concrete patio to allow the oil to burn off before bringing it back inside. What an adventure!

Fire: 1    Tablecloth: 0

After this we were all a little more wary of the open flames, but there were no more mishaps to speak of. Dinner was DELICIOUS!

Now I'm definitely drooling again

Poor Sherlock feeling left out of the dinner festivities.

We followed dinner up with a cake baked and frosted by Allana. By this time, we'd apparently forgotten about the earlier event, and we topped the cake with (maybe too) many candles. Nothing more than a few wax drips to speak of there!

Quickly blowing out the hazard!

Happy Birthday!! It's tough having a birthday soon after Christmas (maybe harder than a December birthday), but hopefully you felt special and spoiled for your special day!

This weekend David and I are babysitting two young boys from church while their parents go on a MUCH deserved weekend get-away to Manning Park. We headed home after dessert to get some rest as this is sure to be a full (and fun) weekend!

Wish us luck!