Valentine's Day at Home

Ahhh... Valentine's Day.  A good day for greeting card and flower sales.  Oh, and also for geeky Star Wars M&M dispenser sales, like this one I got for my husband:

And this is what he got for me:

I'd much prefer to stay home on Valentine's Day than go out, mostly because of the crowds and poor service you are bound to encounter.  But now that we have a baby, it's not like we could go out on a dinner date even if we wanted to.  I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could make that would be comparable to something I'd want to order in a restaurant.  This is what I came up with:

This is actually a similar filet mignon recipe to the one I posted here, with a couple small changes.  1) I added mushrooms to the pan as I was cooking the filets.  2) I substituted half of the balsamic vinegar for red wine vinegar.  Other than that, it is the same.

For the shrimp pasta, I didn't measure anything, but I'll give you my best estimates for how I made it.

Shrimp Pasta with Cream Sauce

Makes 2 small servings (as seen in pictures). Double recipe to make full-sized portions.

Ingredients:

Shrimp, peeled and deveined

1-2 garlic cloves, chopped

about 6 ounces of spaghetti noodles

3 TBSP butter

3 TBSP cream cheese

1/4 cup of shredded parmesan cheese 

1/3-1/2 cup whipping cream

Olive oil to coat pan

Directions:

Cook shrimp and garlic in the olive oil.  Set aside.  Prepare the pasta according to directions on the box.  For the sauce:  Combine butter, cream cheese, parmesan cheese, and cream in a small sauce pan.  Heat on low, and stir frequently until melted and creamy.  Top pasta with shrimp, followed by cream sauce.  Sprinkle with parsley, and a little salt and pepper if desired. 

For the asparagus, I sprinkled it with a little grated parmesan cheese and roasted it for about 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees.

I spent about $25 on the ingredients for this dinner, and that includes the wine (obviously we don't buy expensive wine).  I'll let you figure out how much of a savings that is from what you would pay at a nice restaurant (and an $8 glass of wine at a restaurant is going to be cheap wine also).  If you haven't prepared a fancy dinner at home before, I highly recommend giving it a try.  As fancy and this dinner looks, it was actually really easy to make.  Chris told me that it was probably the best meal, not just that I have ever made, but that he had ever eaten.  And I don't even consider myself that great of a cook.  You should try it for your next date night.  Really.


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