Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday today! This means I am not promising a very substantial MoFo post. Not only am I sick AND working today, but it's raining like crazy outside. I actually don't mind the rain, though. When I was growing up in Connecticut, most of my birthdays were rainy. The only thing missing are the autumn leaves, but I'm quite fond of palm trees, too.

On Friday I cashed in my free birthday meal at Moe's Southwest Grill. I got the usual: the tofu rice bowl. Not the prettiest dish you've ever seen, I'm sure, but free food is automatically beautiful, amirite?

The green tomatilla salsa is the BEST. Chock full o' cilantro-y goodness.

Yesterday, Lisa and I met up for tea at Kaleisia. We split a carafe of their PHENOMENAL iced soy pumpkin chai latte. You can taste and feel and SEE the pumpkin in it!

I have some sad news about my beloved tea lounge, though. What I always loved about Kaleisia is that they're super veg-friendly. Their small food menu was all vegan, and they offered cow's milk (as well as soy) for their drinks and the majority of their baked goods had dairy and eggs, but they were always a meat-free cafe. Until recently. Now, all of a sudden, they're serving FRIED CHICKEN. I was so disappointed when I read this on their Facebook page, and I'm still disappointed. They lost a billion cool points with that decision. I realize that they are still veg-friendly, but now they're not as friendly.

Moving on.

Next was the monthly vegan buffet at Trang Viet Cuisine. I totally forgot to take pictures, but the offerings were pretty much the usual. For me, the soup and rolls are the best. My dinner at Trang was also free, as they do complimentary meals for your birthday, and they're closed today. Score! My buddy Amber (who blogs at Zombie Cats Eating Plants) and I share a birthday, so we both scored free birthday meals last night.

From there, a group of us went to the Improv theater in Ybor City, as a friend had free tickets. Little-known stand-up comics can be a little iffy -- they're often a bit too sexist or prejudice for me to find funny, but other than a couple offensive (to me) jokes, the opener and headliner were pretty funny. There were a few moments when I could barely breathe because I was laughing so hard, so that's always a good sign. Plus, the headliner - Godfrey - has been on 30 Rock, so this brings me a little closer to Tina Fey.

After the show and parting ways with the group, I dashed over to the Orpheum and was able to catch the last half of the Mates of State show, which was lovely and made me feel warm and fuzzy, which was nice after scurrying through the rain.

I'm so glad I didn't miss this song, as it holds a special place in my heart.


And then this morning, I woke up barely breathing, this time from congestion, so I just laid in bed for awhile, listening to the rain. I pushed myself out of bed and made a birthday cake for myself because I'm pretty sure it's bad luck to NOT have cake on your birthday. I used this basic Gluten Free Pantry brand of cake mix that I had on hand and added chocolate chips.

Batter up!

While it cooled, I whipped up just enough peanut butter frosting: peanut butter, melted Earth Balance, trickle of vanilla extract, and some confectioner's sugar. I didn't use any precise measurements; I just added until the consistency was right.

And here's my quick and easy birthday cake / breakfast!

And since it's my birthday, I'm going to shamelessly plug my blog's Facebook page. Go ahead and give it a like! It's another way to stay up to date on my blog posts (another option is following with Google Connect), plus I share other fun links, videos, pictures, and other goodies from time to time over there.

What did you do over the weekend? Who else has a birthday during Vegan MoFo?