Valentine's Day - This Dude Can Cook!

Call me Nova, short for...Casanova.

So this year for Valentine's Day, I decided to avoid the restaurants since I knew they'd be a mad house and brought the fine dining experience home.  How, you might ask? Simple. I moved a table into our gallery and set it up so it was like a private table. Now a nice table would be useless if  the food weren't good.  Don't worry, I had that covered.  I devised a 5 course meal.  That's right, FIVE COURSES. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

To complete the gourmet dining experience, I created a menu and printed it on the finest resume paper I could find (in our basement).  I had to get Linda out of the house to surprise her so I had her get dressed up so that we could head out of the house by 5:45 pm.  We drove for about 2 blocks before we arrived at the...masseuse.  SURPRISE!!! Yep, Linda got to enjoy an hour long full body massage by a woman named Heidi (Btw, I believe there should be no such thing as male masseuses. No man in their right mind would let another man massage their wife and that same man should have even less desire to be massaged by a man).  Linda's addiction to sugar is only surpassed by her addiction to massages.  To quote Linda, "I lub muh sah hays." (Muh sah hays are how little Peruvian women say "massage" when they accost you in Cusco. Peruvian massages cost the exorbitant price of...wait for it...FIFTEEN BUX for an hour.)

So while Linda was gone, I got busy creating her a nice 5 course dinner.  Here's what was in the feast.

Starter

Avocado & Beet Salad

Orange Vinaigrette

Appetizer

Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli

Served with a Sage Brown Butter Sauce

Main

Cast-Iron Pan Seared Ribeye

Yukon Gold Potato Puree w/ Basil & Chili infused Green Peas

Pre-Dessert

Lemon Ricotta Granita

Lemon granita topped with Ricotta Cheese

Dessert

Caramel Croissant Pudding

Using Croissants I bought On Friday When I pretended I had a Craving for Croissants

Let's just say Linda was relaxed and extremely full after all was said and done.  Even though Linda received the massage and  5 course meal, I may have been the ultimate winner because she got me some tasty macarons and some triple cream brie (my favorite cheese b/c it tastes pretty much like heavy cream but with a cheese taste-my descriptive writing abilities are unparalleled if you haven't noticed by now).

Because we're not gluttons (ok it was because we were stuffed to the gills from the amazing dinner) we only ate two macarons that night. We ate a raspberry w/ dark chocolate ganache macaron and a vanilla version. Talk about the perfect way to end this year's Valentine's dinner!