Happy Valentine's Day (And The Results Of The Fancy Meal I Made My Husband)!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

I hope you're all being spoiled by your SOs. Or guilting them if you're not (I kid, I kid!).

But being that it's Monday, and considering we did most of our V-Day celebrating this weekend, it almost felt like today wasn't the real holiday. That was, until I got to work this morning, and found these on my desk!

So sweet! My husband knows that I usually don't care about flowers at all, but it's important to show off for co-workers! ;)

And I totally deserved flowers after the AMAZING dinner that I made for him on Saturday (and served in a sexy outfit!).

There were a few things that changed or didn't go as I'd planned last week, but overall, I'd say it was a huge success. But enough patting myself on the back, let's see some of the food!

We started with some yummy Cheese Stuffed Italian Herb Bread with oil and vinegar, which I didn't plan on making, until I decided we needed an appetizer. It was pretty good, although not as fluffy as I was expecting. But I'd never made bread before, except in my parent's bread machine, so I'd say it was a good first attempt!

Then, a salad course.

And while the meat was still marinating, we started a fire and opened a bottle of wine we'd been saving since we bought it in Sonoma in 2009.

With the meat there was a little hiccup. I couldn't find lamb! We even went to the fancy grocery store, but they didn't have any, and I have no idea if/where we have a butcher near us. So I bought filet mignon instead, and it was fab! After marinating it in the port, olive oil and herb mixture for 2 hours, it was a nice purple color, and ready to be pan-seared for a couple minutes on either side, and then broiled in the oven. I'm not sure if that's the right way to cook it, since we usually just grill steaks on the BBQer, but that's what I decided to do, and it did the trick.

I also cheated a little on the recipe, by cooking the garlic in my garlic roasting machine. Waiting an hour and fifteen minutes to cook the garlic on the stove top seemed like a waste of time if I can cook it so much quicker in my machine. And I also got confused by the instructions for the Sauce Vierge "Persillade." It said to combine all the ingredients to make the sauce, so I did. But then later I found that it said to put the garlic directly on the meat, so I had to dig some of the roasted garlic cloves out of the sauce. But oh well, it all tasted great! We didn't even need the Sauce Vierge, in my opinion. The Port Syrup was to die for, and the meat was already so juicy that we didn't even try the Sauce Vierge until the last couple bites.

Here's a look at the ready-to-eat filet mignon and the Glazed Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes (which were good, although nothing really that special, and a little brown because of the balsamic vinegar).

Finally, for dessert I made Carrot Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing, which was a different recipe than I posted last week. This one looked a little easier, and was SO DELISH! This was another first for me, making cupcakes from scratch, and I still can't believe how yummy and moist they turned out. And the hint of orange and white chocolate in the icing was so good, even to someone like me, who doesn't care for sweets or chocolate that much.

(Please excuse my kindergarten cupcake decorating skills)

So that was our Valentine's Day meal, the fanciest meal I've ever made by myself, two days early! And celebrating early actually worked out nicely, because it was also our 8 month wedding anniversary on Saturday. And now I don't have to worry about trying to get home early from work to slave over a stove!

What are your Valentine's Day plans? Or did you celebrate this weekend like we did?

My Fancy Valentine's Day Meal Plan (Um, This Might Be Hard!)

Imagine this:

You get to spend all day playing video games and messing around with circuit boards, while delicious smells of garlic, rosemary and carrot drift out of the kitchen. Then, your lovely wife lights a fire, places candles around the room, and puts on some music. Next, she serves you “Frenched rack of lamb, cut into finger-food lollipops, soaked in Port, caramelized on the grill, then topped with a fresh, biting sauce made from soft, sweet garlic and parsley,” along with garlic-rosemary-balsamic potatoes, salad, and carrot cake cupcakes for dessert.

{Source}

Oh yeah, and while you’re imagining this, pretend you’re a dude. My husband, specifically.

So, sound good?

It sounds pretty damn good to me! But after looking at these recipes, it sounds hard. Very, very hard to make for this culinary amateur, especially the lamb, which I’ve never made before.

Grilled Port Lamb Chops with Garlic Confit and Sauce Vierge "Persillade"
Glazed Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes
Carrot Cake Cupcakes

But you know what? I’m going to try it anyway! This is what I’m going to attempt to make for my husband this weekend for Valentine’s Day. It will be my most challenging cooking attempt ever, and hopefully everything will turn out good. But if not, I know my husband loves me enough to eat it anyway. Or order take out. But it can’t turn out much worse than pizza and TV reruns, which I think is what last year’s Valentine’s Day entailed (he was in charge of our plans last year).

So wish me luck, and I’ll be sure to report back next week on how these dishes turned out!