My Birthday Recipes

First of all I'd like to say that today is my birthday. All the credit of course goes to my mother for going through thirty-three hours of grueling labor to have me (all of my younger brothers and sisters took anywhere from 2-6 hours, guess what they say about the first being the hardest is true!). Anyway, a tradition in our household is that on someones birthday, they get to choose the meal and what kind of cake they get that evening. Our grandparents usually come up the weekend before or after to distribute their gifts and we go out to lunch with them, but on the actual day our wonderful mother cooks for us.

This year I chose chicken alfredo (my mom makes the best) for my birthday dinner and chocolate-chip-cookie-cake for my, well, cake. these are the recipes that we used:

CHOCLOATE-CHIP-COOKIE-CAKE

2-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 ounces unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat over to 350*

Mix first five ingredients (see cinnamon) until lightly blended. Add in butter and mix on low speed (of you're using a mixer) until mixture resembles large crumbs. Add egg and vanilla and mix until dough begins to form. Add chips & nuts (see above) and mix on medium. Spread in cake pan. As gross as it sounds, I found that it was easiest to use my hands to get it as even as possible. The tricky thing is actually baking the cake. All ovens and cakes are different, so what I do is I put it in for 20 minutes, and then decide if it needs to left in a little more. Now this is a recipe that i found online, but you can use your favorite chocolate-chip cookie recipe instead, you just really nee to watch the time. My mom says that cookie cake is like brownies, one minute to little and they're mush, one minute to long and they're hard as rocks.


CHICKEN ALFREDO

1 box uncooked fettuccine
2 cups fresh broccoli florets
1/4 cup zesty Italian dressing
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces
4 oz cream cheese cubed
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 2/3 cups milk

Cook pasta according to directions adding in broccoli in the last 2 minutes of boiling. In the meantime add Italian Dressing and chicken to a nonstick skillet, cook chicken until no longer pink (5 minutes or so) stirring occasionally. Add in remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil stirring constantly for 1-2 minutes until sauce has thickened slightly. Remove from heat. Drain pasta/broccoli add sauce and toss pasta. Serve.