Valentines Day and meal

Happy Valentines Day to all! I hope you and your loved ones take the day to declare your love, maybe thru some pretty flowers or a special meal. (Poetic huh!?!)

Brad and I rarely celebrate valentines as a couple, more often than not, we volunteer to babysit or have others over for dinner. This year is no exception. We have our nephew, my grandmothers, my brother, and our best friend and her daughters all coming for dinner. That’s not to say that we don’t try to make it special. The little girls, particularly Hailey, are really into holiday celebrations right now so I try to make the most of it. My house has little foam hearts all around, some of the picture frames have been adorned with cute valentines wrapping paper and we will be making tomorrow as special as we can, on a budget. I bought some valentines for the girls to make for their family. I also have some construction paper to make place mats for dinner. We picked out some single flower vases for the grandma’s, a dollar picture frame and we will all be helping to make a yummy dinner. Hailey asked to play restaurant for tonight so we will make up menu’s for her to pass out as well.

Mommas Valentines Café Appetizers Sliced Apples with cinnamon peanut butter dip Or Apricot Chipotle cream cheese spread with crackers Main Course House Salad with choice of dressing (Blue cheese, Ranch, Italian, Creamy Cesar) Roasted tomato bread grilled cheese sandwiches Or Whole wheat bread grilled cheese And Tomato soup Or Chicken noodle soup Desert Spice cake with peanut butter marshmallow frosting And/Or Homemade chocolate chip ice cream Drinks Root beer Sprite Chocolate milk with whipped cream Hazelnut Coffee Rose wine White Wine Spritzer

The Apricot Chipotle recipe idea came from the Kraft foods website here. I made it for the Super Bowl and aside from the chicken wings my brother made, it was the only dish completely polished off. I even saw a few finger swipes across the plate to get the last few smears.

1 pkg cream cheese

½ cup apricot preserves (I used sugar free)

1-3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce finely chopped

Smear the softened cream cheese out on a small serving plate or butterfly the brick of cream cheese and lay flat. In a separate bowl combine the preserves with the diced up peppers and some of the adobo sauce. I started out following the Kraft recipe and only used one pepper but decided that it needed more heat to cut the sweet. (I’m a poet and didn’t know it!) So, I added two more, bringing the total to 3 diced peppers and a few teaspoons of the adobo sauce. Spread over the cream cheese and serve with sturdy crackers, like Wheat Thins.

Here's Hailey working on her Tinker Bell Valentines

Here's Dinner: Tomato soup with heart shaped grilled cheese on roasted tomato bread.

 And finally, desert, heart shaped spice cake with peanut butter marshmallo frosting (my hubby's favorite)

I have to say, the roasted tomato bread made the meal. Everyone was sneeking into the kitchen for the scraps left from the heart cookie cutter. Here's the recipe:

2-3 roasted tomatoes

5 roasted garlic bulbs

1/2 cup melted butter

1/2 cup warm water

1/4 cup warm milk

1 egg

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp itallian seasoning

3 3/4 cup flour

2 1/2 tsp yeast

Roast 2-3 tomatoes, sliced, coated in olive oil, at 375 for one hour.

Before Roast:

After roast:

I also like to roast a bulb of garlic if I have it on hand. Just cut the top off, drizzle some oil over it and close it up in foil.

Before roast

 After roast::

Just squeeze the garlic and the bulbs slide right out.

In your bread machine, add the ingreedients in the order listed. I combine the milk and water into a glass measuring cup, add the butter stick then microwave for 1 min, then add it all in. Set your machine to the dough setting and watch the mixture combine. Depending on the type and ripeness of the tomato the dough often needs either more water or more flour.

When the dough cycle is done, turn out onto the counter, kneed out the air and shape into a loaf. Coat your pan with olive oil and set your dough in to rise, covered, again until doubled. Cook at 375 until internal tempature is 180.

Yum!

I hope everyone had a great valentines! I'm ready to pass out!