My Birthday Dinner Recipes: Salmon, Arugula Salad, Wild Rice Salad, Ice Cream Cake

This past week I turned 36, and my mom spoiled us with a delicious homemade meal. She made it all from scratch, and my brother grilled the salmon on cedar planks. I posted about it on instagram, and there were requests for the recipes, so my mom emailed them to me. Cedar plank salmon, wild rice salad, arugula salad, and a gluten free and dairy free ice cream cake were on the menu. The entire meal was amazing! Here are the birthday dinner recipes! And a recent picture of my mom and I. She puts so much effort into making holidays and birthdays extra special, and it means a lot to all of us! 

Each of these recipes are borrowed from other blogs and/or restaurants.

 

Cedar Plank Salmon with Mustard Soy Glaze

Our go-to salmon recipe, and it’s always a hit. You should be able to find the cedar planks at your grocery store, near the fish or butcher counter.

Arugula Salad

The salad consists of arugula, crispy prosciutto, toasted pecans, chopped apples, and goat cheese. She made basically the same salad that I made for her birthday a a couple years ago! Those details with amounts for the salad are in this blog post. She didn’t include the wild rice. This is the balsamic vinaigrette recipe she used – definitely bookmarking this one!

Wild Rice Salad

131 Main is one of our favorite restaurants in Charlotte, and this is like one of their signature side dishes. It’s one of those places that you can go for dinner and be confident that you will always have a good meal. I can’t wait to make this soon! My mom first got the recipe from “Shrimp, Collards, and Grits: Recipes, Stories, and Art from the Creeks and Gardens of the Lowcountry,” which they read in book club. But you can also find the recipe that is like the 131 Main recipe here or here.

Ice Cream Cake

My mom said that she used this recipe as a guide, but that she made changes to make it gluten free and dairy free. So I’d say to read that recipe first, then read the tweaks below to make it gluten free and dairy free.

For the brownie layer she used the King Arthur Flour GF brownie mix and used oil instead of butter. She divided it into a springform pan and a 6″ pan, and cooked in those. Putting all of the brownie mix in the springform pan would’ve made too thick of a layer, which is why she divided it.

To make the chocolate ganache layer and the drizzle on top, she used coconut cream and Enjoy Life chocolate chips. Only use the thick, white part of the can of coconut cream. You can refrigerate the can overnight to help separate the water from the cream. She warmed it in the microwave and then stirred in the Enjoy Life chocolate chips to melt them. Add more coconut cream and/or chocolate chips to achieve the desired consistency.

For the first, main ice cream layer, she used 2 pints of Nadamoo (dairy free) mint chocolate chip. To make the top, vanilla layer, she let 1 pint of Nadamoo (dairy free) vanilla bean ice cream soften a bit, whip it with a spoon, and then spread it out over the top of the cake.

She used the brownies that she baked in the 6″ pan to make the stars on top. 🙂

 

I love a mix of vegetables, salmon, and a sweet treat on my birthday, so this was the perfect meal!