At Home, Valentines Day Dinner... What Are YOU Making?

I am making homemade spinach ravioli, which we all love and is a special occasion food because it takes more prep time than a typical meal. I'm going to cut them in the shape of hearts this time for valentines day and serve with homemade marinara sauce, some broccoli rabe and crusty bread. I haven't decided on dessert yet, but I'm thinking it will involve cherries, maybe a tart or free form pie and some ice cream.

I was thinking of making chicken parm and a cesear salad. I happen to have everything already except some mozzerella cheese!

My husband works second shift so we went out last night.

LAST time we let the almost five year old choose where we eat. We ended up at Noodles and Company because HE wanted mac and cheese. He wouldn't TOUCH it. My trooper husband really isn't a huge Noodles fan but he agreed because that's what our son wanted. (We're such push-overs.)

Oddly, when we got home he ate his dinner so it wasn't a complete waste.

I was going to make my husband's favorite, Hungarian Goulash. I have an awesome 1960's recipe, fattening and yummy..... :) ....but then I reviewed the recipe and realized it will take too long. It has to simmer for 2 hours and I work til 5, so that won't work. Realistically we wouldn't be sitting down to eat until 8.
So I am making breaded, thin pork cutlets instead...pan fried, schnitzel style....hopefully they turn out good!
Happy Valentines Day!

I'm thinking fajita's. I don't make them often and we all love them. I should have everything at home for them too. I just need to get Jeff to cut the meat up tonight so we don't have to wait until 8 tomorrow night to eat :). And I'll leave 5 cupcakes out for us too!

I'm making a heart-shaped choc. chip cookie and dinner is "whatever" cause my son has a baseball hit-a-thon at 6p. Hubby and I got to go out this weekend.

Heart-shaped meatloaf made with THIS recipe. It's fantastic...and your $10 will cover the ingredients!

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/easy-pleasing-meat-lo...

My hubby is away for work till Wednesday night, so it'll be just me and the kids. I will probably make mac n cheese LOL!

Last year, I made cheeseburgers for the kids, and made them chocolate covered strawberries. Then when they went to bed, hubby and I had clams Italiano in a spicy wine broth with yummy bread for dipping into the broth. We had the chocolate covered strawberries as well as home made truffles for dessert. Yum!

I like your question...my son and husband have basketball, so our V-Day dinner will probably be tonight! I got chocolate chip pink pancake mix, breakfast steaks and am going to slice different colored peppers and cook the eggs inside (saw this on Pinterest!) And also make fruit ka-bobs! So, breakfast for dinner! I hope you are able to come up w/something fun and creative!!!! You'd be surprised what you can pick up for $10 @ Aldi! (that's where I got my stuf!) Let us know what you decide!

We did it last night because my husband will be out of town. I had a voucher for a box of steaks from a local meat market from a band fundraiser and my husband is a meat guy so we had steaks, baked potatoes, ceaser salad and roasted zucchini. I also got strawberries and whipped cream, but we were too full and he had leftovers of his favorite cake I baked, a Valentine's tradition. I'm not a huge meat person so I just had a little steak. Maybe you could make yourself a favorite side dish or dessert if you aren't into pork chops? The cake was from a mix I bought in advance, I had vouchers for the steaks and I had the salad ingredients on hand so I just bought and paid for potatoes, zucchini, strawberries and whipped cream. Can you do the same with anything you have on hand?

This year since we have no children, we get to take our time! It'll be more involved than normal. We're doing oysters rockefeller, then beef wellington, twice baked potatoes, and steamed asparagus, with red wine for him (I don't like drinking wine, just cooking with it), a red plum cider for me. After dinner we can take some time away from the table to hang out, dance, etc but then later we have a choice of chocolate dipped strawberries and champagne (which I do love) or a homemade cheesecake topped with fresh strawberries. (We'll be doing chocolate dipped strawberries today with the boys). We'll be eating on our china since the boys won't be with us.

In years past, we've done smothered filet mignon topped with gorgonzola (the marinade is awesome, you can find it on allrecipes.com), garlic red mashed potatoes, and green beans.....another year we made crawfish etouffe, french bread, and dessert.....one year we were more "financially lean" than normal and we picked up Lady and the Tramp at the library (free) and had a great spaghetti dinner (spaghetti can be delicious, and isn't expensive to make)---it was cute to have the same meal Lady and the Tramp had on their date, and my son who was 2 at the time like that. We went to the Botanical Garden (free) as our date that year. I've also made my grandma's special lasagna with a salad another time. (Special because she had 2 lasagnas: one was "normal" and one was only for special occasions like an anniversary, V-day, or Christmas).

What will you eat on V-day if you don't eat pork? I'd vote for spending your $10 on something everyone can have together like spaghetti and a salad, or chicken fettucini alfredo (I like to add spinach to mine) and save the pork chops for a day that you don't "need" to eat with the family. Me, I really love pork chops though, as long as they're not cooked like my mom's: DRY. Sawdust. She never could get those right, but we eat them here whenever they're on sale. :)

I'll be making pork scallopeni (?). I bought the pork cutlets (around $6) plus the German seasoning packets (maybe $3) and we have mashed potatoes, corn and green beans at home. I bought vanilla ice cream so we'll have that with some of my daughter's candy she got from school sprinkled on it (well maybe just the kids...LOL).

It will be a very busy day for me, our house is befing re-floored this week, and I'll be at the school all afternoon for the VDay party then we're bringing another kid home with us to save them daycare for that day and I'll offer his mom (my friend) something to eat when she picks him up at 6:00ish.....soooooo.......pizza it is!
It's also our anniversary, but we beat the rush & went out and celebrated that this past weekend :)

Home made pizza for the kids.

My husband told me last night he wants to go to a new restaurant in the next town. We haven't been out since before Christmas so I'm all for it. They are having queen cut prime rib, 2 crab legs and a 4oz lobster tail with full salad bar for $20 a person.

Hmmm, I believe I'll be making chicken roll-ups with cheese and marinara sauce along with steamed carrots. I purchased thinly cut chicken breasts for less than $5, marinara sauce for $1, carrots for $.69 for four large-sized ones and I already have cheese. Unfortunately I didn't plan on a dessert.

It's just me and the kids so probably pizza.

I'm glad you asked this. I wanted to make something I've never made before. I have a special dessert already figured out: I wanted to try fondue so I found a $30 Chocolate Xpress BRAND NEW AND UNOPENED at Goodwill for $4...YIPPEEEE!!! So we are going to melt choc and have fun dipping yummy things in it. =) Maybe start a new Vday tradition...

Now, back to dinner...hubby loves meat and potatoes and we normally don't eat it much so I thought about getting good steaks and grilling them. But now I think I may try to do a meatloaf. I've never made one before because I don't like to touch raw meat, let alone MIXING it!!! But I may get some gloves and see if I can try it. With homemade mashed potatoes and some steamed veggie. I asked my son what he wanted for dinner and he said Martinelli's Apple Cider in our "special glasses". We have Martinelli's for Tgiving and the kids drink it in our wine glasses and they think its so special since they don't drink it any other time of the year. So I may get a couple bottles of that too.

R., you seem to be good at just throwing things together and making it work. I would try to do something new since its a special day. It doesn't have to cost alot, even a new pasta or even something special for dessert. Hope you find something that works for you. =)

Either steaks or the crab-stuffed salmon they sell at Costco, which we keep meaning to try. My husband hates sweets except for ice cream, so I guess it'll be ice cream for dessert!

Im making my sweetie some Ribeye steaks with garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, with garlic and cheese rolls. With a Tiramisu cake for desert.

We'll watch a movie to but not sure which one yet.

Have fun ladies!

My husband asked for stuffed pasta shells; I've never made them, but I'll give them a try since that's what he requested and he really doesn't ask for meals often, plus I think the kids may like them too.
That shouldn't to expensive I don't think, pasta, tomato sauce, cheese and ground beef. For desert, anything chocolate works for him, one bite browies or chocolate cake (at the supermarket you can just buy a couple slices).
Good luck to you and Happy Valentines Day!