Home Cooked Romance

Two drink minimum enforced.

This year, my husband and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. Nathan is, like every male I know, just not that into St. Valentine, but he knew that our first married February 14th would be special to me.

"Don't worry about dinner tomorrow," he told me (while we were eating at a nice little French restaurant on Sunday evening), "I've got it." I was all aflutter about my romantic husband-cooked dinner, but then he asked me if the type of potatoes we had at home would make good fries.

Romantic Candlelight Dinner

As I drove home from work (middle school on Valentine's Day is, by the way, the worst thing in the world), I wondered if I would get burgers or fish and chips. It turned out to be delicious burgers. He made me #9, The Gypsy, and he even put candles on the table. We didn't have candles. My husband went to Target after grocery shopping to buy candles to serve me a candlelit dinner. I win.

 I wanted to return the favor and make a nice dinner, so on Wednesday I chilled some wine, made some stuffed mushrooms as appetizers and created a pasta dish out of ingredients we had on hand from our bountiful basket and my currently very well stocked freezer.

Pasta seems like a romantic food when it's done right though I'm not sure why. Maybe pasta conjures up images of Italy, or maybe it's because so many first dates happen at Italian restaurants, or maybe it's because we think of Lady and the Tramp slurping a long spaghetti noodle until their lips touch whenever we eat it. Whatever the reason, something about carbs slathered in herbs and sauce feels like a meal for lovers or I guess athletes.

Our Valentine week bountiful basket included mushrooms, green onions, orange bell peppers and broccoli, and there were plenty of chicken breasts in the freezer. I also had cream cheese (for the stuffed mushrooms) and heavy cream leftover from making cream of celery soup earlier in the week. Also, Nathan had bought a wedge of Parmesan for the burgers meaning I didn't have to shop for a single thing.

Mushrooms stuffed with Italian Sausage

Stuffed mushrooms are super simple to make, but they are delicious and feel fancy. I usually use bacon for stuffed mushrooms, but the closest thing I had on hand was some spicy Italian sausage. No matter, it worked just as well. To make the filling, simply fry up your sausage or bacon. Once it's cooked, add sliced green onions and cream cheese and allow the cheese to melt. I had smallish white mushrooms which are perfect for bite-sized appetizers. Just pull out the stems and stuff the mushrooms with the cream cheese mixture, then bake them at 360 for about 10 minutes.

Real cheese makes everything better.

I presented these little morsels of love to my man while I got to making the main course. First, I sliced the chicken breasts into thin strips and seasoned with a few teaspoons of "Cajun Seasoning" from a jar. The Cajun spice along with cream sauce is a really good combination that makes the meal seem a lot more accomplished than normal chicken alfredo. I sauteed the seasoned chicken with peppers and broccoli (par boil the broccoli before sauteing so it doesn't take forever). For the sauce, I simply added about half a cup of heavy cream and some freshly grated Parmesan cheese during the last few minutes of cooking, then tossed with linguine to serve.



Voila, my version of a romantic dinner at home. I think Nathan's beats mine though. His was thoughtful; mine was "anything you can do, I can do better" proving that growing up and getting married hasn't made me any less of a brat. I am a work in progress.

Nyah Nyah

2 Things with Butternut Squash

Huck, clearly impressed.

We got two butternut squash in our bountiful basket this week, and I'm a little souped out, so I decided to go huge and try making the most delicious of dishes: butternut squash ravioli.  I don't have any tools for rolling out pasta (besides a rolling pin), so I thought I couldn't do it on my own.  I planned on cheating and buying won-ton wrappers, but none of the grocery stores I went to had any.  The lady I asked at Trader Joe's said they didn't carry them anymore and that I should go down to any of the Asian markets on Spring Mountain.  It's something I like to do anyway, but I was so frustrated at that point that I decided to just do it myself.

 Since I've never made my own pasta before, I consulted my CIA contacts* for help.  Two young men involved with the CIA who will be known only as Boud and Pool to protect their identities explained the process.  "Flour and eggs," they told me.  "It's just flour and eggs."  They instructed me to create a basin of flour and crack eggs into it until it felt right (Pool said about four), mix it by hand, knead, and let it rest for 20 minutes.  I was instructed that the dough would be stiff, but that this was normal.

 While I fully trust my contacts, I did not trust myself to understand text-based instructions.  I am a visual learner, thankfully, I found this video on youtube.  Armed with instructions, I set out to create ravioli dough.  It turns out making pasta is messy and fun, and I love it.

The delightfully European man in the cooking video that refused embedding says to use egg yolks only or the dough will be stiff.  I chose to include the egg whites because I felt stiff dough would be easier to roll out by had without breaking.  When I get a pasta machine, because now I have to have one, I will switch to using just the yolks.

I managed to mix the flour and eggs into a firm dough and, after letting it sit for 20 minutes or so, rolled it out with a rolling pin.  I ended up with two very narrow ovals of dough which I tried filling in two different ways.  I placed spoonfuls of my butternut squash mixture along one side of the first oval and cut it into strips with a pizza cutter (fancy!)  Then I folded the strips in half with the filling in the middle sealing the edges.  This worked, but wasn't very pretty due to my imprecise dough.

I used a shot glass (fancy!) to cut the second sheet of dough into circles which were pressed together with a scoop of filling between.  These raviolis looked prettier, but wasted some dough.

The whole process was easier than I anticipated, and the raviolis tasted great but were a little thick.  Gotta get that pasta maker.

Butternut Squash Ravioli Filling

• 1 butternut squash, halved and seeded
• olive oil
• butter
• 1 large leek (white part only) halved and cut into small strips (be careful to wash between the layers of the leek; nobody likes sandy raviolis) 
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 10-12 fresh sage leaves

1. Preheat oven to 400, brush olive oil over the cut sides of the squash and season with salt and pepper. Place the squash cut side down in a baking dish and bake for about 40 minutes (until soft).  Scoop the cooked squash out of its skin and place in a food processor to puree.
2. While the squash is cooking, melt 2 tbsp butter and saute the leek until browned.  Add finely chopped sage leaves and Parmesan cheese when the leek is nearly done.
3. Add the leek mixture to the butternut squash in the food processor and puree until smooth.
4. Stuff ravioli dough or won-ton wrappers with the butternut squash mixture and boil 3-4 minutes (until they float to the top)

Tonight's adventure in squash is less ambitious, but equally delicious.  I made a gratin of  butternut squash (skinned, seeded, and sliced with a small mandolin - microwave the squash for about 3 minutes to make slicing easier) to be served with simple pork chops. 

Butternut Squash and Spinach Gratin

1. Skin, seed and slice a butternut squash.
2. Blanch, drain and chop 1 bunch spinach (or use about 1 cup frozen chopped spinach).
3. Saute half a cup of diced onion and two cloves of garlic in 2 tbsp butter. 
4. Add onion and garlic to spinach along with 1/4 tsp nutmeg, salt and pepper, and 1/2 c cream.
5. Layer sliced squash, spinach mixture, and grated Parmesan cheese in a buttered casserole and bake at 400 for about half an hour or until browned and bubbling. 

*Culinary Institute of America