The Lunch Bunch Girls Celebrate Birthdays!

For those of you who did not catch my post awhile back about who the Lunch Bunch Girls are, let me catch you up!  The Lunch Bunch Girls are 6 ladies who have all eaten lunch together for the past 3 or 4 years.  We have a lot in common and one of our favorite things to do is talk about food, cook food, share food, and celebrate with food!  Yes, we celebrate everything with a meal!  Sometimes we just celebrate the fact that we still feel like cooking and bring enough for everyone to share at lunch!  So, it is only befitting that when one of us has a birthday...we've got to have a meal.  Last week we celebrated the birthdays of Donna and Lesli.  Donna's birthday is January 20 and Lesli's birthday is July 29 but since it's so hard for us to get together in the summer (we are all in education and just go wild in the summer when we have a little freedom and you just can't get us all together at the same time!) we celebrate Lesli's half birthday in January.  Everyone met at my house for our birthday dinner and decided our menu would consist of salads!  Now I didn't say salads as in "diet" because our salads were far from calorie free!  We each prepared a different salad (except for the honorees...they just show up and eat and open presents!  What fun!!) and I prepared apps and dessert which was homemade coconut ice cream and birthday cake.  I have been decorating cakes for 27 years and one day I'll have to do a post on my many adventures in cake decorating, but for now I will just share a picture of the cake I made for Donna and Lesli and tell you... it is such a joy to be able to make a special cake for such special friends!  Here are a few pictures of our celebration...we had so much fun and the best food we had all night was of course....laughter!



Happy Birthday!



Happy Birthday Donna!



Happy Birthday Lesli



The Lunch Bunch Girls (minus me!) Sara, Joyce, Donna, Lesli, and Diane

Here is a picture of another cake I baked last week for a dear friend who needed a birthday cake.  I no longer do cakes everytime someone asks for one, but on occasion someone will ask if I still bake cakes and if time and energy permits, I will do it!

Now for the recipes I used for the Coconut ice cream and Curried Rice salad.  Everytime I take the curried rice salad to a function it is always a hit...it is especially good with barbecue and it's the perfect dish for a tailgate!  This recipe was meant to be made in 2 steps but if you are running short of time don't worry about it...I've thrown it all together at once!

Curried Rice Salad

1 cup rice cooked as usual with 3 chicken boullion cubes added to the water
1/4 cup minced onion
1 cup diced celery
1 tsp. curry powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 box green peas (English peas) thawed
1/2 cup Italian dressing plus 2 tablespoons
1/2 cup mayonnaise

Cook rice as usual using 3 boullion cubes in the water.  Pour frozen peas into a collander and rinse with hot water until they are completely thawed and at room temperature.  Add the peas to the rice and add onion, curry, salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons Italian dressing.  Stir and refrigerate this mixture overnight.  (you can skip that part and go right to the next!)  The next day add the celery, 1/2 cup Italian dressing and 1/2 cup mayonnaise and stir well.  This keeps a while in the fridge but it probably won't last too long on your dinner table!

Curried Rice Salad

One night I was eating a delicious coconut creamcicle or popcicle, I'm not sure what it was, but there I was in seventh heaven and what did I say....of course...I'm gonna try to make this!  So...this is the recipe I came up with and everyone seems to enjoy it.  I have a Cuisinart Countertop Ice Cream Maker that I LOVE and that is what I used to make this ice cream.  If you don't have a countertop ice cream maker and love ice cream you definitely need to get one of these babies!  It makes just the right amount of ice cream and you can really get creative with the flavors. 

Here is my version of coconut ice cream!

Becky's Coconut Icecream

1 can coconut cream (you can find this where they have drink mixes for pina coladas)
Half and Half
1 tsp. coconut flavoring
3/4 cup angel flake coconut

Using a 4 cup measuring cup pour the can of coconut cream in and then fill to the 4 cup line with half and half.  Add coconut flavoring and stir well.  Start countertop ice cream maker and pour liquid into the frozen bowl.  Let churn for 30-40 minutes and then add the angel flake coconut.  Let ice cream churn for about 2 minutes and spoon into a freezer container and freeze until firm.

That's all there is to it and it is soooo good...it would probably be even better with some chocolate chips mixed in or hot fudge on top....yum...my mouth is watering as I type this!  Well, that's about all for now!

                                                                                              ~Becky