A Birthday celebration for Matt

Yesterday was my boyfriend Matt's Birthday.  About a month ago I had sent him a text asking if I could have a secret meeting with his daughters to discuss some secret information.  His response was something to the affect of, 'does this have anything to do with my birthday?  I don't really like celebrating my birthday.'  

Naturally, I started planning his birthday.  Ha!  

In my family, as I'm sure like many families, its the choice of the Birthday person as to the dinner.  As well, my kids get to choose the flavor of their cake but the rest is a secret until the big reveal on their special day.  I have been known to stay up until 2am putting the finishing touches on a four year old's birthday cake although that was back when my only job was to be a Mom/maid/animal feeder/ etc whereas these days I also have to hold down a full time job and my bedtime is rarely much later than 9:30.  

Matt asked for Indian food for his birthday dinner and his favorite cake is Angel food.  I love making ethnic food especially for people who appreciate it.  Matt's specialty is Thai food(and it is pretty much to die for) and that was my choice for my birthday dinner back in May.

For the dinner menu I decided to try my hand at Chicken Tikka Masala.  I wasn't in the mood for firing up the BBQ so I did the chicken in the oven before simmering it in the oh so delicious sauce to finish it off.  As well as Chicken Tikka Masala pictured below in the white bowls we had naan(store bought) Aloo Gobi, Aloo Tikki, basmati rice, mango chutney and Indian lime pickle.  I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty freakin' delicious! 

Matt is an outdoorsy kinda guy; he likes chopping firewood and camping, fishing, hiking etc so I made him his favorite angel food cake with a twist - chocolate butter cream and chocolate bark to make it look like a cross section of a log.  It turned out pretty great! 

A gift of a couple of novels and a new Stanfield wool shirt completed the night and despite not liking to celebrate his birthday, I think the Birthday Guy enjoyed it all.