Day of Love

For Valentines Day this year, we decided that we'd rather stay in and have a nice dinner instead of going out to eat. And you all know how excited I was to make a fancy dinner! It was also really fun for me to plan the fancy table setting. It brought me back to my days of working for Catering at BYU; tablecloths, setting the silverware and goblets, folding napkins.

Lest you think I am really cool enough to have a fancy table cloth, I just used a clean bed sheet. And the napkins: matching pillowcases. It'a nice effect though.

(Side Note: Did you know that other grocery stores outside of Utah don't have cases and cases of sparkling Apple Cider right by the checkout around Valentines Day?!?!? The store I went to had wine displays! It took we a while to even find 1 of their 5 bottles of sparkling cider, tucked away in the juice aisle. Apparently I'm still getting used to life out of Utah.)

To add to the Valentines decor, I made a Valentine line, kind of like my Christmas card line.

I hung pictures from when Mckay and I were dating, and things like movie ticket stubs, notes to each other and other dating memorabilia. It was fun to look back over our years together as we ate.

For the appetizer, we had Twice-Baked Potatoes.

And for the main course, we had Chicken Cordon Bleu with Lemon Garlic Green Beans served with a Mornay Sauce.

The chicken was easier than I thought it would be to make and it was all soooo delicious! It was much better than the Chicken Cordon Bleu from the Morris Center.

We were so stuffed from dinner that we didn't even have room for dessert: Heart Shaped Cream Puffs.

We just had to eat them the next night.

For the filling, I just did a box of french vanilla pudding, much easier than last time when I made my own pudding. I thought I'd be cute and add food coloring to make the pudding pink to go with the Valentines theme. I didn't think about how "french" vanilla pudding is more of a yellow color than regular vanilla, and how adding red coloring to yellow would make an orange-ish pudding. It still tasted great.

And the cream puffs actually came out looking heart shaped.

We had a great day of Love.