Special Dinner..Valentine's Day 3

OK so for Valentine's Day 3 I wanted to make a yummy dinner, something I have never really made before, I have to say this was quite ambitious of me because all 3 of the things had to be cooked and I was trying to entertain Karson and make the food, we had a few minor mishaps but all in all it turned out pretty well. I made the above menu for Ty and thought it turned out pretty cute.

I tried to set the table as festive as I could, but I don't have a lot of Valentine's stuff, not even a table cloth! Karson kept taking the candy hearts off the table putting them in his mouth and then back on the table, because he did not like them.

I have always wanted to make bruschetta, and I have to say this turned out so yummy, so I was very happy with the results. What I did was roast 2 pints ( I only did 1, but recipe calls for 2) of grape tomatoes. You put the tomatoes on a cookie sheet, drizzle extra virgin olive oil over them salt and pepper and then mix it up with your hands. Put in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 mins, you will know when they are done with the tomatoes have burst open. Put the tomatoes in a bowl and mash with a fork, add 6-9 green onions chopped up, 1/2 cup of basil, I just used the dried basil I have at home, because I didn't want to pay $4 for fresh basil. Mix that all together. At the very end before you eat, broil some french bread ( cut the loaf in half) I pretty much burnt the bread, because I had too much going on, lucky for me Ty likes burnt bread, any way you take the bread out and rub garlic cloves all over the bread. So tasty and pretty easy!

These are the delicious red potatoes that I made. I make something like this already, this recipe was just a little different.What you do is you cut up some red poatoes, cut up 2 green peppers and one onion. Put this all on a cookie sheet, and coat with 2 to 3 tlbs of extra virgin olive oil, mix around. Add salt and pepper and then you add 4 garlic cloves, mashed up or sliced or whatever you want.I have a garlic masher thing so I use that. You cook these at 450 in the oven for about 25 minutes, at the last minute I add a sprink of chedder cheese on them! MMMMM good!

The finished product!

Now the chicken was the tricky part. I hate cooking chicken in a skillet because I always feel like I over cook it and dry it out. This recipe told me to cook it for 7 minutes on each side, and it turned out juicy and perfect! The only issue was the recipe called for SHREDDED parmesean cheese and for some reason in my head, I thought it said GRATED, so I got the wrong kind of cheese, but it still worked out. I got 4 boneless chicken breasts, poured the parmesean on tin foil and pounded the chicken into the cheese, tried to coat it as best I could. You heat a large skillet over medium heat with 1 tlbs of evoo, you could add a little more if you think it neccessary. Oh and I added some halved garlic cloves to the skillet for seasoning, the recipe didn't call for that but I thought it would be good. Season the chicken with pepper as well but no salt. Set the chicken into the skillet and coook for 7 minutes of each side as I already said above. Tyler ate the chicken plain but it says to serve with chopped up tomoatoes and basil. I ate some of mine like that and I thought it was good. But what I was actually thinking was that the bruschetta sauce would be excellent over this chicken, and the chicken in pasta! So I might try that another time.

You want the chicken to get this golden color.

And for dessert....a scrumptious chocolate cup! I actually made this first before everything else because it needs to set up in the fridge. For this you need:

2/3 cups whole milk

1 egg

2 tlbs sugar

pinch of salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 1.2 tsp of vanilla

( this would also be good with almond flavoring)

In a blender or food processor combine egg, sugar, pinch of salt, semisweet chocolate chips and vanilla, run blender to mix this together. Heat milk in a small pan on stove top until it comes to a boil, pour milk in a slow stream while blender is running, the hot milk will melt the chocolate and cook the egg. This can make 4 small servings or 2 larger ones. It is quite rich, so you decide on what sizes you want! I let my chill for about 3 hours. It is like pudding, but much thicker and richer, and very good. I made real whip cream to top it off with.

It was a lot of fun making this meal for Tyler and also a lot of work! One day I hope to have more time to explore new recipes and try them out!

For Valentines Day 4 I gave Tyler a six pack of Coke and some chocolate covered pretzels, for Valentines Day 5 I gave him the gift of TIME! Meaning he was able to watch the Superbowl in peace by himself on a nice reclining lazy boy in our family friends home theatre in thier basement, while I watched and played with Karson for 4 hours straight! I saw the half time show of the Superbowl and that was it. :)