Birthday Full course is right here! Even though it was a busy weekend, but I made it with my appreciation.

For an appetizer, I made my favorite roasted winter root vegetable plate. I love a salad like this; ones that can be considered a salad and a side dish. It is great for the first plate because we can eat it both warm and cold.

The first plate was pasta Pescatore, which is simply pasta topped with mixed seafood tomato sauce. The seafood within the sauce may change depending on what is fresh that day, but generally, there are at least 4 or 5 different types of seafood within the sauce. Who doesn't adore freshly made in-house pasta and local farm fresh veggies?

The main dish was braised lamb belly, which is rubbed with fresh herbs before braised until tender then crisped. While super easy to make, it does take some time although I definitely think it is worth it especially for special occasions.

A process I did for this dish was that lightly salted the lamb belly and rested it at room temperature for 1 hour. In a baking pan, I combined duck fat and lamb fat (trimmed from other parts) with garlic, shallots and thyme Added the marinated lamb belly to the pan and put in an oven. Cooked it with 200F for about 8 hours. A lot of the fat is cooked out in the browning process here but in an ideal world you'd make the dish the day before, put it in the fridge and skim off any remaining fat when it was cold. Or just blot the surface with some kitchen roll.

This dark, rich Fit Vine, Cabernet Sauvignon has met its match in this Lamb Belly. The ripe and pure dark fruit flavors are complimented wonderfully by the savory spiced lamb and toffee glazed mushroom. Delicious!