About two weeks ago when I was thinking ahead to Valentine's Day, the thought crossed my mind that it would be nice to make Mr. Jones a nice romantic dinner here at home to celebrate the day. But about a split second later, that unselfish thought was quickly dispelled by a commercial featuring my almost favorite restaurant: Red Lobster! They were advertising their Flavors of Shrimp special; and their theme, "Come see what's fresh today" was pretty compelling! I could hear a fog horn blowing, the sound of the surf and seagulls in the background, and they presented a plate of their spicy Asian garlic shrimp, their Southwest Tequila lime shrimp, the Caribbean citrus jumbo shrimp, Italian scampi (yum!) and their southern fried shrimp (my absolute favorite) -- and this was a time-limited offer! My mouth was watering! I totally forgot any notion at all about cooking Mr. Jones a special dinner.
But a few days later, I approached the subject with Mr. Jones, and it seems he had other ideas. He said he thought it would be great if I would cook a nice dinner for him here at home. After all, wasn't this the first Valentine's Day of my retirement? Well, he had me there! And I was reminded of how selfish I really am. I am! (I'm not trying to solicit comments to the contrary - honest!) So as I tried to clear the shrimp from my brain, I decided it was about time I did something nice for my husband!
The sad truth of the matter, however, is that I'm not the best cook. I'm pretty good at baking goodies and making them look as nice as they taste (almost). But I just don't have much confidence in the kitchen. I can make a pretty good tuna noodle casserole ~ but that's not very Valentiny! I make acceptable tacos, but Mr. Jones isn't really much for Mexican food. When I thought about making fish here at home, I was reminded about the fish bone from the week before, and decided it was a bad idea.
The card I made for Mr. Jones (note the railroad tracks ~
and there was MORE train stuff on the inside ~ HEY!
he liked it!)
Plus, the candy I MADE for him!
Wednesday night, while Mr. Jones was at choir practice, I made a batch of my Aunt Jan's recipe of extremely yummy peanut-butter and chocolate candy (that are a lot like a buckeye, if you are from Ohio) ~ and then I HID it so that he couldn't find it until the next day. For dinner, I settled on the English Pot Roast recipe that I can make almost in my sleep. I hadn't made it recently and it's pretty delicious. Baby carrots and onions are cooked in with the beef. Mashed potatoes and gravy were easy to make too. I also served green beans & spaetzle in bavarian style sauce (compliments of Birds Eye!) that boasted "a touch of bacon, green onion, and garlic" but I couldn't taste a single one of those flavors! And I have no idea what "spaetzle" is ... it looked nice on the plate anyway! I had completely forgotten all about rolls, but about 10 minutes before dinner was ready, Mr. Jones put crescent dinner rolls into the oven for me.
I hunted up a few candles from around the house ~ which was a challenge ~ you all know how Mr. Jones is about candles! I found these three and we ate by candlelight ... it was really quite nice!
The meal turned out pretty tasty, the ambiance was wonderful, and Mr. Jones cleaned up the dishes afterwards!
P.S. A note about the card Mr. Jones picked out for me. He usually chooses cards that he finds "comical" to give to me. A few years ago, we had gone to Meijer the day before Valentine's Day and we split up to do our shopping. I was curious as to how much time it took him to pick out a card for me, so I watched him incognito (aren't I terrible?) He picked out a card, read the front and the inside, laughed, and tossed it into his cart ~ the very first card he looked at! It didn't even take him 20 seconds! Did I ever give him a hard time about that! This year, his card was very nice and thoughtful too. I didn't watch him pick it out this time. I'm fantasizing that it took him at least ten minutes! ;)
4 comments:
Spaetzle: egg pasta, a ting noodle or dumpling
from a 10 second internet search!
Well, I THOUGHT that I had Terry trained to do a good job of picking a gift and/or card on Valentine's Day. He is very resistant to anything that he considers a "Hallmark" day. Actually I think that it is just an excuse. But I do usually get a nice card and he does take me out to eat. Last night we went to Ruth's Chris because Shari and Mark had given us a gift card at Christmas to go there. I want Don to read this and you watch his expression - The cheapest steak (their specialty) is $32.95! That is with NOTHING with it. Everything is a la carte. Our gift certificate was for $100.00 and we spent $130.00 including tax and tip. For that we got shrimp cocktail (with 4 shrimp) to split, water, bread, a steak, mashed potatoes (to split) and broccoli au gratin (to split). I left there thinking about those poor kids in Africa!!! Also we couldn't get a reservation until 9:30, got a table at 9:45, and finally ate sometime after 10:00. When we left we felt like we had eaten a brick!!
This post made me hungry!
I am looking for that
Green Beans & Spaetzle in Bavarian Style Sauce...what store did you buy it in?
Please drop me line and let me know...mcbee@aic.org I am a youth pastor in MO my wife loves that stuff and we can't find it any where...www.smaic.org is my blog, so check it out so you know I am legit...I would score great beg points if I could bring a box of that stuff home!!!!
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