I would first like to say that although I loved the experience of working in the food industry (because in so many ways it has made me the person that I am today), I am so much more excited about the fact that Mattie and I have nights off together more often than not. Added bonus to having nights off is the fact that there are all sorts of wonderful meals that I can tell the world (however small this one might be) about.
So, Valentines Day.
I did not cook! Mattie told me he wanted to cook dinner for me. We have a standing rule not to add to the stress and chaos of Valentine's Day by going to a sit down restaurant. Which was a good thing because we heard there was atleast a two hour wait at most places. Which would not have been a fun option to have been waiting (and still have a long wait ahead of you) when the torrential downpour started here in Cypress. I searched the web high and low for something wonderful (and not awfully challenging) for Matt to make. I settled on a few and emailed them to him to choose from. However, once Saturday rolled around he had worked until 4, I had been grading papers all day, and both of us were running a little behind schedule on getting stuff for dinner ready. With all of this mounting up against us, we were about to go get groceries with the aforementioned downpour began. While we are not daunted by the rain, we are hesitant to do all of our grocery shopping in a downpour for the simple fact of having to carry the groceries out and put them in the car. So
we went to plan B.
Plan B.
We called up Wood-Fired Pizza around the corner. This pizza is expensive, but very good. I will have to devote a blog to all the wonderful pizza's in my life where Wood-Fired will be included...it doesn't get first place though (that honor goes to Lombardi's in NYC). Wood-Fired is wonderfully authentic in that it actually takes time to make your pizza...their oven is only so big. So they kindly offered to call us when our pizza was being put in the oven. We had time to run to Blockbuster and grab a few movies (we truly enj
oy the 3 for $20 deal) and into Kroger for salad stuff and ice cream (vanilla...more on that later). We had our salad and pizza while watching Wedding Crashers (so romantic...I know). The vanilla ice cream was a very special part of the meal though. My mom sent us a Godiva chocolate brownie with dark chocolate chunks! We warmed part of it up, let the vanilla ice cream ooze over the brownie, covered it in chocolate syrup and waited for the chocolate overload to set in. The brownie was amazingly fudgy and chocolate filled. The vanilla ice cream was needed to add the cold texture
without overpowering the chocolate brownie.
Mattie's Meal!!!
Sunday (the next day) Matt went ahead and made me my special dinner. We decided on Rachel Ray's Bruschetta Topped, Parmesan Crusted Chicken served with Gnocchi and wilted spinach. The option was good. Our only mutual "complaint" was that we wished we had used chicken cutlets (so it would have cooked faster) or cooked at
a lower temperature because the parmesan (while delicious when nutty and seared) got a little too toasty for our liking. While I can make gnocchi, because this was Matt's meal, we bought pre-made gnocchi. There is a fairly good brand (we have found it at Kroger) from a company called Dellallo. We are also finding that we really enjoy fresh spinach that we just barely sautee, throw into salads, or wilt into pasta. We continued to eat on the Godiva brownie that night, but tried it with a "Mediterranean Mint" gelato from the grocery store. It was too flavorful to let the brownie stand out, so we prefer the vanilla (and switched back to vanilla the next night).
All in all, it was a good Valentine's Day weekend!
