Birthday food: shrimp scampi, tacos, mussels

The past week has included mine and Jake's twenty-third birthdays, and we've had a ton of great food and a ton of fun celebrating. 

Tuesday was my birthday, and I wanted shrimp scampi for dinner. Jake surprised me with those gorgeous yellow roses, but sadly I don't actually own a vase so they are now living in a juice bottle.

Some friends came over that night to celebrate and watch Glee. They brought CUPCAKES!!!

YUMMMM, oh man these were delicious!!


Next up was Jake's birthday - his favorite is tacos. So we stopped on the way home at Panam International downtown (the Latin market by our old house) for chorizo, queso fresco and some other taco fixings.

It's not terribly organized, but we had chorizo, steak, the queso fresco, onions, cilantro, and corn and black beans cooked with tequila and some spices. I topped them off with homemade salsa and homemade guacamole.

Yesterday we were in Baltimore for the day and had lunch at Bertha's Mussels on a recommendation from a friend. Jake had a phenomenally sour and salty bloody mary, our appetizer was four gorgeous shrimp coated in jalapeno cream cheese, then wrapped in bacon. This giant bowl of mussels was my main course:

We found dessert in Little Italy at a nice, casual desserts-only place called Vaccaro's. The. Best. Cannolis. Ever. See below:

I've had cannolis before - lots of them. But these had a decadent, creamy extra sweet filling, and were thick with chocolate chips and were just all around fantastic.

So, happy birthday to me and Jake!! We had a great time. :)