A Romantic Meal for Two

Last year for Valentine’s Day, B treated me to a wonderful day filled with love, flowers and food. What a difference a year makes. Now that we’re married, no such plans were in the works. Actually, that’s not true. We mutually decided to be a little more low-key this year. B’s been working really hard, and I, well I have not been working at all. And our quest to find the perfect kitchen, I mean home, has us on a strict budget.

So I offered to cook a lovely meal.

At first B refused. He insisted we go out to eat. I thought it was sweet at first, until I realized he was probably just trying to avoid my cooking. Now, on a day to day basis my cooking is fine. (Not great, mind you, but “fine.”) But as you know, I do tend to overshoot the special occasion and waste a lot of time and money on what turns out to be a culinary disaster.

But I swore this meal would be different. And you know what? It was…

First of all, I learned from past mistakes and found a menu that looked harder than it was – I wanted to make a good impression without setting myself up to fail. Thank you to Tasting Table for sharing a romantic, French inspired, four course dinner menu especially for Valentine’s Day. It included Oysters with Apple Granita, French Onion Soup, Sole en Papillote and Sweet Cherry and Almond Clafouti. (Visit HERE for the exact recipes.)

For the most part, everything was great. There were slight problems with each of the courses, but nothing crazy.

• The Apple Granita didn’t freeze at all, and therefore was served as a mignonette and not a frozen concoction (which I was bummed about, because it sounded really cool to serve on top of raw oysters). Some of the onions got a little too crispy in the soup, but B thought it added some nice flavor. And the soup crocks I bought didn’t clearly state that they were safe for the broiler, so instead of broiling the cheese to melt it, I baked it. Not the same thing, but probably better than having two shattered soup crocks in a hot oven.
• The sole was very tasty – maybe a bit too lemony , and I always struggle with getting parchment paper to form a tight seal by folding it (so I stapled it. Sorry, but it worked).
• I substituted raspberries for the cherries, initially because I thought B would like raspberries better but ultimately because my grocery store didn’t have frozen cherries. It was tasty, but it was a little more bitter than sweet (and I did toss the raspberries in some sugar, even though the recipe didn’t call for it).

Here are some pictures of the oysters and the soup. Nothing says romantic dinner like stopping to take pictures of each course with your iPhone, so I didn’t take a shot of every plate.



Yummy oysters with apple cider mignonette (if not apple granita).

  

Okay the cheese could have been a little more brown and bubbly, but it was still pretty good!

Because I can’t take anything at face value, nor leave well enough alone, I had to add a course. I wanted to do something along the lines of an amuse bouche. Okay, I wanted to do an amuse bouche but what I ended up doing was more like four bites than one, so I’m now calling it “something along the lines of an amuse bouche.” I could have just called it something else, like a starter, but B recently ate at Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas and kept calling it a l’amusement de bouchee and I couldn’t resist the urge to correct him (mostly because I’m still not over the fact that he ate at Joel Robuchon without me).

The inspiration for my “something along the lines of an amuse bouche” came from Martha Stewart and the fine folks at Martha Stewart Living magazine – a heart shaped ravioli. The recipe was courtesy of Epicurious.com (basically pureed peas with fresh mint and parmesan cheese in a wonton wrapper), but I altered it slightly by adding more parmesan cheese. I sautéed some minced garlic in some butter and poured the mixture over the raviolis and then topped them with some fresh mint and some more parmesan. The garlic was slightly overcooked, but I’m pretending that was on purpose and I did it for some added texture.

In all serious, the ravioli was delicious. And my bullshit about the overcooked garlic was totally believable – it actually made sense! And tasted good! I know I’m bragging, but look how pretty and delicious!!




Before...

 

... After

 All in all, it was a great meal. I served it in courses, which made getting everything done on time so much easier (since it didn’t need to all be ready at once). It was a long day in the kitchen – I started prepping around 1 o’clock and we finished eating around 8. But it was a great, romantic meal. Well worth those seven hours.

But next year, he’s taking me to a restaurant.