Valentine Dinner

Although David and I like to go out for dinner, going out on Valentine's Day - especially when it's on a weekend night - is not something we get excited about.  Too many people, waiting, pricey meals.  But at the same time, we like to recognize that it's a special night.  Which at our house means ordering pizza.  No - I'm kidding.  Seriously, it means making a fabulous meal at home.  So that's what we did last night. 

For an appetizer, I made stuffed mushrooms.  I found a new recipe where you sort of roast the mushrooms first so they aren't as wet when you stuff and bake them.  Boy was I surprised at how small they became after roasting them in the oven for about a half an hour.  (First I 'de-stemmed them, tossed them with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and put them gill side down on a sheet lined with foil)  You know about how big a regular white mushroom is.  I know the sizes vary, but these were what I would call a sort of 'regular' size.  about a dozen in a package.  After roasting them, they were about the size of a quarter.  I stuffed them with some boursin cheese:

The plates that these are on are about 5 inches across the wider side of the oval.  So you can see how tiny they got.  But man oh man were they delicious.  That prebaking gave them a really intense mushroom flavor.  I'm not sure I'd make these for a crowd - even though they were really easy, you'd need a LOT of mushrooms because they definitely become bite-sized when they're done. 

After we had that little snack, we got to work on dinner.  We made risotto with shrimp and asparagus.  David had a choice of working on either the risotto, or getting the shrimp and asparagus ready.  He chose the risotto.  He'd never made it before, and was kind of nervous, but I explained that it's not hard, just a bit tedious.  I'd already put the chicken stock in a pan on the stove to warm, and chopped up some onion, so he just had to follow the recipe on the back of the package.  While he worked on that, I got the shrimp ready.  I'd found a recipe (in the same book the mushroom recipe came from) that suggested a different way to do shrimp.  I've found that often when you are cooking shrimp, they tend to get 'too done'.  This recipe specifically noted that, and so the directions were to bring water and some spices and lemon to a boil, take the pan OFF the heat, dump the shrimp in, and let it sit for about 7 minutes.  (I figured they could sit until we were ready - 7 wasn't critical).First I took all of the tails off.  One of my minor pet peeves is trying to eat shrimp neatly and having to deal with all of the tails.  I mean - the rest of the shell comes off.  Why not the tail too!  After I finished the shrimp I put the asparagus on.  I like to just bring a tiny bit of water to boil in a big pan, put the asparagus in, just let it get crunchy/soft, drain the water, and put a little butter and salt into the hot pan (off the heat again). 

I should mention that the night before I made some parmesan crisps, and a fabulous brownie with caramel and nuts in the middle.

When the risotto was done, we plated it with the shrimp, asparagus and crisps.  Of course we ate in the dining room with a fire in the fireplace.

Doesn't that look fabulous?  And let me tell you, the shrimp was PERFECT.  Cooked, but not rubbery.  I'll do them that way from now on.  Although David had been making fun of the parmesan crisps (which are basically a pile of grated parmesan cheese cooked in the oven until they get crisp) he LOVED them.  I won't tell you how many he had :)

Of course after all of this goodness we had to go watch the Olympics for a while before we could have dessert.  I bought a very small container of vanilla bean ice cream to go with the brownie.  Only a small container because we don't need to have that in the house on a regular basis.  We ate brownies and ice cream in front of the television.  But hey - that's the great part about eating at home instead of in a restaurant.  I think I had my pajamas on by the too. 

I hope you all had a fabulous evening, whatever you chose to do.