An amazing birthday and backyard late summer party!

An amazing birthday and backyard late summer party!

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• 9.16.2013

I'm feeling so happy and grateful as I reflect on my wonderful birthday last Sunday. I don't usually do much for my birthday, normally just dinner with my parents and husband, and not many gifts. (Last year was an exception--a lovely party thrown by my dear party planner friend!) But this year I wanted to spend time with family, mine and my husband's, and so a week before my birthday we decided to throw this little backyard party at my parents' place.

So, enjoying every last bit of summer - this gorgeous weather, amazing garden harvests, our CSA box,  and eating outdoors - I had an amazing birthday dinner! And almost everything was über fresh, from within only a few miles!

What we ended up with was a pretty random, but all amazing!!, bunch of food. (This was probably the first party we've thrown since I started eating meat again and eating a Paleo-inspired diet as opposed to a raw vegan one, and it was exciting to share some recipes with family. Like the honey mustard chicken drumsticks from The Paleo Slow Cooker cookbook--literally, honey, mustard, coconut oil, salt, and chicken in the slow cooker for a few hours, and they're amaaaaaazing.)

Menu

Appetizers

Bacon-wrapped dates

Shrimp and cocktail sauce

Yellow watermelon!

Main Course

Green bean salad

My mother-in-law's fancy cole slaw

Slow cooker chicken drumsticks with mother-in-law's homemade BBQ sauce

Slow cooker honey mustard chicken drumsticks

On the Grill

Zucchini and onions

Sliders from local grassfed cows - with tomatoes and sauteed red onions

Dessert

Paleo (grain and dairy free) Boston Cream Pie

Everything was SO, SO GOOD!!

I tried to sneak in some pictures...

Yellow watermelon! One of the more exotic treasures in our CSA boxes this summer.

My mother-in-law's delicious kitchen sink coleslaw--it has jicama, pumkin seeds, cranberries... all kinds of good stuff.

My pretty plate. So full!

And I got to blow out a candle.

This cake was seriously one of the most amazing ones I've ever made. (And I made a lot of cakes in my pre-raw vegan days.) Got this recipe from one of my favorite podcasters, and I'm so glad I found it right before my birthday! I'd never had Boston Cream Pie before, but I'm pretty sure this is the best one there is! ;) It's grain- and gluten-free and Paleo friendly--I made it from almond flour which I also made--as shown in this tutorial!

Hooray for backyard parties in the late summer. Family, food, and time to relax. Makes me love my birthday even more!