hope everyone had a great Valentine’s day.

Husband’s request this year was something “simple,” and after furthermore prodding he settled on  ”a B-A-M-F meat sauce spaghetti, a salad with citrus fruit, foccacia with salted European butter.”

This request came a week after we finally finished a previous batch of pasta with ragu sauce (albeit a sausage ragu, but still!!!) so I decided to make him something extra special and splurged here and there.
A ragu alla bolognese with Italian pancetta and San Marzano tomatoes, egg tagliatelle (as opposed to our usual Barilla fettucine – twice the price! holyballs!), Sumo oranges in a bitter green salad with shallot vinaigrette, mutha-effin focaccia of doom with some Plugra butter and Himalayan salt, a tiny box of homemade hazelnut “Reeses” truffles…
We’ve sworn off eating out on Valentines day since our last horrible experience (plus, working the hospitality biz), but I feel like the meals are getting more and more… nice… each year. Not extravagant, but they are definitely getting nicer. Maybe we’re getting old or something. Maybe.

Recipes for your reference:
Pasta alla Bolognese
Salad with Winter Citrus and Shallot Dressing (an oldie but a goodie!)
Rosemary and garlic focaccia
Hazelnut Praline (to fill the truffles)

(to clarify, I didn’t prep all of this today. the pasta sauce was made yesterday along with the poolish for the focaccia. the truffles were made over the weekend, hidden from Husband until this morning. Planning and dividing your prep is the most important key to having a sane Valentine’s day.)

 

Ryan said that my caps (the bottom part) was a little thick last year, so I tried to make them thinner this year. the top is this year’s reeses truffle, the bottom is last year’s banana cream pie truffle. not much of a difference it seems… :-\

since chocolate can only be consumed by us hoomans, the feathered children all received dried papayas and the catten got a pack of catnip seeds. happy valentines day everyone!