cook: birthday breakfast burritos and a cake

For a Saturday morning to celebrate my neighbor, Helen's birthday at a breakfast party, I volunteered to make burritos AND bake the cake. She wanted bacon in her burrito, and so I decided to cook San Diego-style burritos with chorizo (fried the day before), bacon, eggs, tater tots, refried beans (also prepared beforehand), cheese, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole.                        

And first, the bacon and the tater tots, which I baked in the oven. I think I overcooked the bacon, but I knew the guests would want the meat very crisp.

I beat the 5 eggs for 7 burritos with heavy cream and dashes of Old Bay seasoning. And then I soft scrambled them in lots of butter. I constructed each burrito with a slathering of refried beans, slices of cheddar, sprinklings of chopped cilantro and red onion, the chorizo and bacon atop the scrambled eggs, then tater tots and a stream of my red salsa with chipotles in adobo sauce and roasted tomatoes with onions, garlic, and chili peppers.

 

Then it was a process of rolling and enfolding in aluminum foil and then setting in a 250 degree oven to stay warm.

Giant breakfast burritos done, but wait there was more and not really. And since I didn't want to add guacamole to the burrito to then bake in the oven, I opted to have my Christmas salsas alongside--the cooked red salsa and the raw green salsa with tomatillos and avocados.

I declined the steak and shrimp birthday dinner the night before, so I could bake Helen's cake. Unfortunately when I finished decorating, the cake resembled a mouse more than the dog that I wanted the cake to look like. I tried moving the ears. Nope.                         

 

And so I ran the cake over to my neighbor, Nancy's home, where Cecilia happened to also be and asked help. They had me flop the ears to look more like Sassy and Rosie (the white dogs belonging to the birthday girls), and that difference made it look much more dog-like. I also ran my fingertips through the icing to resemble dog fur, even better looking. 

 

The next day, I lit the candles and we sang happy birthday and sliced into the cake.

I love any occasion to bake a pride cake, and especially a pride puppy cake.