Valentine's Day Dinner

She Said:

In years past, we have gone out to a restaurant for Valentine's Day and in other years past, it simply wasn't important. Valentine's Day is really one of those made-up holidays and we don't normally fall into the whole cards-flowers-chocolate thing. But we do try to get a nice meal out of it!

Last night, we decided to stay home and cook, which is really becoming more and more prevalent in our lives. We do like our home-cooked meals! But we had been running around like crazy people all day so we sort of took a few short cuts. But not completely.

Our meal started with some baked clams (already prepared and ready to cook from Wegmans, our favorite grocery store - ever!) and Champagne. We went with our standard, Moet & Chandon White Star. It's tried and true.

For dinner, we had a twice-baked potato - absolutely heavenly with green onions, bacon, and Cheddar cheese - a small Spring mix salad with a tarragon vinaigrette, and a crab cake (also, already prepared and ready to cook from Wegmans). While Wegmans' crab cakes are only second on the list of best crab cakes (the ones we make are the best), they were still really, really good. We complemented the dinner very nicely with a Gary Farrell Sauvignon Blanc.

For dessert, we had some pre-made individual trifles (yes, from Wegmans). He had a chocolate/strawberry trifle and I had a vanilla/raspberry/white chocolate trifle. We paired them with a Stump Jump Sticky Chardonnay, which, admittedly, went better with my vanilla trifle than with His chocolate trifle. His would have been better with a glass of port, I think.

All-in-all, a fabulous dinner and remarkably well put-together for as little time as we spent planning it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Stuffed Mushrooms

$4.19 for two mushrooms

She Said:

I don't like going to the Giant supermarket here any more. It's always so crowded and I'm old and I get anxious in a crowded store. Plus, I'm bound to punch someone right in the throat if they annoy me too much, so it's best if I stay away from the crowds, no? But, the Giant was the closest store tonight and we went in for salmon.

While we were shopping for the salmon, I spied their famous stuffed mushrooms. They stuff them with crab imperial and they are absolutely fantastic. They're just about the same size as my head, too, so that's nice. We got two of them.

We brought the salmon home and gave it a coating of some ancho pepper dry rub and stuck it in the fridge to season. In the meantime, we indulged in these stuffed mushrooms. Hello! They were just amazing. And quite enough for a meal!

We left the salmon in the fridge for an early dinner tomorrow night.

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He Said:

Back in the day, if you bought pre-made food stuff from the grocery store you were really going out on a limb. The quality was a little, let's say, sketchy. Not to mention, risky. These days, however, it's quite another story. These days you can actually buy some pretty great stuff at the grocery store. I put the stuffed mushrooms from Giant in that 'pretty great' category. Simply pick up a couple of those overstuffed babies, stick 'em in a hot oven for 15 - 20 minutes and voilà! You are now an appetizer hero.

Bask in the glory, my friends. Bask in the glory.