"Karina, will you make my birthday party cake?"
"Yes, yes I will. What flavors do you want?"
"Surprise me, I trust you."
"Done."
Mango, Lime, Basil Cake with Ginger and Cinnamon... I'll make it vegan.
I'll use my favorite go-to vegan cake recipe as a base and add my mango-basil puree. Better use a little less water than it calls for since this is a lot of green liquid.
Wow...good. 
Now for frosting. I have earth balance and powdered sugar to start with and I guess I'll mix it with the other half of this mango, basil, lime, and ginger. I think I'll add these dates too. And some more cinnamon. It needs an extra kick...this splash of Jameson I have in the freezer...
(This actually may be the best frosting I've made...)
My favorite garnishes, figs, are back. Gotta use them. These oranges will look good too with some more fresh basil and dates.
This looks kinda alright...
I have to start trying to sell my cakes...
Here, let me arrange the candles for you (hands off my cake.)
Another Happy Birthday for the books.
When I arrived over at my friend Jen's the other night for a small dinner gathering, she quickly introduced me to the pile of fresh produce on her counter that she wasn't sure what to do with. I was thrilled when she asked me to step in. There was a large eggplant, an apple, onions, garlic, asparagus, a half an avocado and part of a tomato. 
She also had a bunch of pasta, so we decided to go that route and immediately started sauteing onions in olive oil and added some garlic and the chopped up eggplant to make the base of a sauce. 
I spiced the eggplant mix with salt, pepper, chili flakes, Teriyaki Sauce, sesame seeds, lemon and dried basil, and when it was soft and cooked, I added a little over half of it to the blender where some pine nuts and the leftover avocado and tomato were waiting to mix up a sauce. The blender had a hard time going, so I added a little more olive oil and water to it, and within a minute we had a delicious and creamy thick eggplant sauce. I added more garlic, salt, cayenne and lemon to get the flavor just right.
I returned to the remaining onions, garlic and eggplant in the saute pan, and added the apple and asparagus that Jen had chopped up. 
We started boiling vermicelli noodles and later added cooked udon noodles to the mix to make more.
Once the cooking veggies were perfected, I added in our spicy eggplant sauce to get it all nice and warm for the noodles. 
Job Well Done. Delicious! 
Sometimes you have to be creative when there is a shortage of matching dishes!
