Happy 24th Birthday Me!
I recently celebrated my 24th Birthday. My birthday was fortunately on a Friday, so after a day at work, I had a whole weekend to celebrate my gluten free birthday! We spent it in Manchester… find out what we ate.. gluten free style!
So you might have already read my blog post on my early birthday weekend in London earlier this month. Well I thought I would give a little round up of my actual birthday weekend as well in terms of any foodie delights!
As I mentioned… my birthday fell on a Friday this year which meant I was at work on my birthday! This is never the best thing but if I could choose any weekday to have my birthday on I would always choose Friday. For one we finish at 5 instead of half 5 & secondly I had the whole weekend to celebrate!
Gluten Free & Dairy Free CALZONE!
So really my birthday began when I arrived home from work. Mark had planned to make me a special gluten free birthday dinner (which for his benefit was also dairy free). Mark always tries incredibly hard to make things that I can’t generally eat as a gluten intolerant. My 24th Birthday was definitely no exception to this rule. It was probably the best thing he has ever made… a gluten free & dairy free CALZONE! When and where can a gluten intolerant and a dairy intolerant sit and enjoy a delicious calzone together?
I had no idea what he was making until it was placed in front of me… I was banished from the kitchen until it was ready.
The calzone was massive, it smelled amazing & it tasted even better. I was really impressed as Mark has never cooked anything similar to this before and it came out great. He used a gluten free pizza dough mix for the dough and then filled it with all sorts of delicious delights. Our calzones were Hawaiian flavoured so they had a tomato pizza sauce, dairy free cheese, herbs, pineapple & prosciutto.
Delicious Gluten Free Chocolate Orange Brownie and Dairy Free Ice Cream!
If you were wondering the cheese Mark chose to use this time was brand new to us and I would definitely use it again. It is by the brand Tofutti and was a grated creamy mozzarella style cheese. It tasted amazing all melting and oozing as I sliced into my calzone. I’ve never tried tofu based dairy free cheeses before, but I definitely would again. I can imagine this working great on pizzas and in pasta as well. (We even put some in our mash potato the other night!)
So yeah the calzone was just amazing. I will try and get a recipe on the blog at some stage as I know that we will be making it again. I will demand it on a weekly basis… amazing!
Our calzone’s were huge and we definitely needed a rest in between eating these and having our extra delicious desserts that Mark had grabbed earlier in the day at the 8th Day Cooperative along Oxford Road in Manchester. He got me an amazing gluten free chocolate orange brownie with some soy ice cream & himself a vegan blueberry caramel crumble style slice. I have been assured his dessert was amazing too. I even got a candle in mine 🙂
On the Saturday Mark arranged for us to go out for a gluten free birthday meal at Alberts in Didsbury. It is one of my favourite restaurants.. I love the buzzing atmosphere as well as the great food. They have a delicious gluten free menu that I am very partial too. I struggled to decide what to have but in the end went for fish stew, filled with king prawns, smoked haddock, mussels and a fillet of pan-fried sea bass on top – it even came with some tasty gluten free ciabatta. A perfect evening out for sure. I can’t wait to go back & I highly recommend it for a special occasion if you are in the Manchester area.
Gluten Free Fish Stew – Alberts, Didsbury
On Sunday we used one of my birthday presents to make the most amazing smoothies. I got the Nutribullet Pro for my birthday which is something I have been wanting for ages. Mark and I have been making smoothies ever since with the Nutribullet and I am hoping to put up some recipes of our favourite smoothies we have created over the coming year. So far we have been using a mix of different fresh and frozen fruits, coconut water, almond milk, soya yoghurt & even spinach (you can’t taste it but its a good source of so many nutrients). I am so so happy with it!
Gluten Free & Dairy Free Katsu Curry to finish off a great Birthday weekend!
For dinner we opted for a Gluten Free Cuppa Tea RECIPE favourite… Gluten & Dairy Free Chicken Katsu curry. It is one of my favourites! If you haven’t already checked out our recipe please click here!
We finished the weekend with a delicious gluten and dairy free cinnamon & pecan apple crumble that I baked with some soya custard and squirty cream. I know that apple crumble is a very simple thing to make gluten free & dairy free or not but I plan to put the recipe on here at some point soon. In my opinion there are apple crumbles… and then there are apple crumbles. Our version is pretty delicious – Mark and I constantly make it and eat it nearly every single day at this time of year!
So there you have it… that was my actual gluten free birthday weekend. I hope you enjoyed my recap of it foodie style! I hope that you all have a great gluten free birthday too whenever they are in 2015!
Thanks for reading,
