Happy Lincoln’s Birthday! When I was a kid we actually celebrated Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthday separately and on their actual birthdates. I think, though, we only got Washington’s birthday off from school. Well, anyway, to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday we were going to have Dungeness crab because Lincoln always looks pretty crabby in his pictures. But the crab didn’t thaw in time so we decided to have a multi-course vegetable dinner. Our amuse bouche were artichokes zapped in the microwave for a few minutes each and served with some faux butter spray. In my hurry to eat the artichoke, I forgot to take a picture.

During the artichoke course, I turned on the oven and stuck in some potatoes for baking. I also put in some asparagus that cooked much more quickly than the potatoes. So, first course, asparagus.

Obviously, once again I was in too much of a hurry to eat the asparagus so this is an asparagus picture from Wikipedia.

On our way back from Carmel a couple of weeks ago we stopped at a farm stand and bought a stalk of Brussels sprouts. I find that they last better in the refrigerator attached to their stalk rather than loose. We had about 10 sprouts left so I put them in the oven with the potatoes which were finishing up cooking. Our main course turned out to be baked potatoes with roasted Brussels sprouts. This was an exceptionally good dinner and we didn’t miss the crab at all.