32nd Birthday Eats!

I've totally sucked at keeping with my Mofo sandwich theme this week, but it's my birth week, so I've decided to eat whatever I want. I promise to give you a sandwich tomorrow though, and holy crap y'all, it's a good one.

But tonight, I'm sharing pictures of my Sunday birthday dinner with my family. Since my birthday fell on a Tuesday this year and my parents are out of town this week anyway, I decided to do my birthday with them last Sunday. They live an hour away in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

When my mama asked me what I wanted to eat for my birthday, the answer was simple — fried stuff! I'm a Southern girl through and through, and I love a good fried veggie. If you have Cookin' Crunk, you already know. I've included several fried recipes there (fried squash, fried cucumbers, fried green tomatoes, etc.).

When I arrived at my parents' house on Sunday around lunchtime, my mama and granny were already hard at work, battering and frying with two different Fry Daddies at the same time. We had fried squash, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, vegan dumplins, and just for good measure, baked sweet potatoes. Hey, the USDA says half our plate should be filled with veggies, right? Does it matter if they're fried? Probably. But I don't care. I do what I want on my birthday.

Plus, there was good ole beans 'n' cornbread. A Southern meal is not complete without those:

Granny had fried okra duty. She used a Cajun seafood boil seasoning in the cornbread batter, and they were so good. You can see my mama's fried squash here too. I love how she slices it super thin:

Granny also made fried green tomatoes:

My mom tossed some cubed sweet potatoes with onion dip mix and baked them. Really tasty:

But the star of the show for me were my mama's homemade dumplins. This is like a vegan version of chicken 'n' dumplins. I don't know how she makes them so tender, but she really does make the best dumplins in the world:

Of course, mama made me cake too! Red velvet cupcakes with vegan cream cheese frosting, served with coconut milk vanilla bean ice cream.

I definitely got my birthday wish with this decadent meal!