How to Make an Easy Valentine’s Day Dinner

My husband and I got married in the local courthouse 5 years ago – on Valentine’s Day. The most cliché decision that was disguised as romantic resulted in us only having to celebrate one sappy love day per year. We love each other, but sappy isn’t really our thing.

 

The Proposal

One night, while we were sitting on the couch watching TV, he looked at me and said, “Should we get married?”  And I said, “Sure. At the courthouse?” And he said, “That sounds good.”  How low maintenance are we?! I found a vintage white gold ring with a solitaire diamond for myself and a simple ivory dress, and we picked a Black Hills Gold ring out for him. We invited our witnesses, and that was that. Planning complete!

 

A Valentine’s Day Anniversary

One thing we didn’t exactly think through was that EVERYONE does something for Valentine’s Day. I didn’t realize this until our first anniversary, when I was trying to plan a weekend trip for us to go to a fun event at Schell’s Brewery in New Ulm, MN. It was a simple plan, but I quickly learned that if you want to do something for Valentine’s Day, you have to plan ahead much more than I remember to do – everything was booked.

We have also found that it is nearly impossible to go out to dinner for our anniversary on Valentine’s Day. For us, it isn’t worth the wait for what normally ends up being a mediocre meal from restaurant employees that are having what may be the craziest night of the year. We rarely go out to eat dinner anyway, so we prefer to wait for a more special night, where every other couple in town isn’t fighting for a seat.

This year, for our 5th anniversary, I think we will make a nice dinner at home on Valentine’s Day, and go do something fun the next day/night instead. It will be much calmer and happier that way.

Create Your Own Fancy Meal at Home

I’m sharing a mix and match list below of some ideas you can use for making a nice dinner at home. The idea is 1 Protein + 1 Vegetable + 1 Starch (or more – for example, Bacon Wrapped Scallops or Steamed Shrimp are amazing with Steak …) None of these things are hard to make, and you can mix and match depending on your preference. There are a variety of flavors, skill levels and budgets that can all be accommodated by choosing your own personalized combination below.

Mix-and-Match Ideas

I selected a sampling of delicious and relatively easy recipes in the links below, though you can use the ideas to find other recipes of your choice. Feel free to check out my other collected recipes on my Pinterest for additional ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few of my favorite kitchen items that we use almost daily no matter what we are cooking are Nordic Ware Cookie/Baking Sheets (perfect for baking crab legs, roasting green beans or Brussels sprouts and for baking bread), my 12-inch Lodge cast iron pan (we have two that live on top of our stove and are used daily for almost every meal), and our Pampered Chef garlic press (if you can’t tell from the above selection of recipes, we LOVE garlic.)

One other thing I feel worth mentioning is that I only Uncle Ben’s Original Long Grain Rice. I have tried countless other brands of rice, and I can’t for the life of me get it to turn out properly.  The plain old regular kind of Uncle Ben’s is getting harder to find in grocery stores because so many people are buying the mixes and pre-made kinds (ick) … so I buy it online in big bags.

Dessert

I almost forgot dessert!  Dessert is usually an afterthought for me and we don’t make it often in our house, though we do always have some sort of Dove chocolates around in case of emergency. You can check out my pinned dessert recipes on Pinterest too, whether you are feeling like cookies, cake, bars, or some healthier dessert options.

One of my favorite desserts to make is Pineapple Upside-Down Cake in my 10.25” Lodge Buffalo Nickel Skillet. When I use this recipe, I double the cake batter part – we like it better that way (less sugar, more cake.)

So, on Valentine’s Day, we will eat whatever we decide to make from the above list while we drink some wine and celebrate that we got married in the courthouse five years ago. Y’all, I wore BOOTS with my wedding dress. I loved that day so much.

If you eat at home for this special day, let me know in the comments what combination you chose! I hope you enjoy.

Did you love this post? Check out my other Holiday posts, too!