Impromtu Valentine's dinner

I like to make the most of opportunities.  When it occurred to me that hubby and I would be home by ourselves on Sunday evening, I decided to turn an ordinary evening into a special occasion and make it a Valentine's dinner.  I will be in Western Australia on Valentine's Day this year and as I like to make it a special day, thought Sunday night was the perfect opportunity to do just that in advance.

I had been pondering what to make for dinner all day as I knew it would be just for two and came up with a simple but tasty meal.

I made salmon patties loosely based on the recipe I found here,

 microwave potatoes in jackets, Waldorf salad, and grated carrot, coconut and currant salad.  I served the potatoes with Greek yogurt and the salmon patties with Tartar sauce.  It was a very simple meal but when you put accompaniments in little glass serving dishes, add some wine, it's all made that little more special.

Can you see hubby's fork on the right of the photo?  Don't know how that happened.  :)

We don't often have dessert but I had stewed some white flesh nectarines in a little brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and ginger earlier in the day and decided to pop some in a glass bowl with vanilla ice cream, some white chocolate shards which you can't see in the photo and some wafer sails/triangles (whatever you think they might be) and called that dessert.  Once again very simple but delicious.

  A little effort on my part made our meal so much more enjoyable.

Anne  xx

Meal planning

Do you plan meals for each day of week or are you a 'fly by the seat of your pants' type cook'?  I've always been a flyer unless it's cooking for Christmas, birthday celebrations or dinner parties.  Come 6.00p.m. I've either got my head buried in the pantry, fridge or freezer looking for inspiration.  I have a big pantry that is crowded, you might even say over stocked with food but it doesn't seem to help me decide what to make for dinner.  So I thought perhaps a meal planning session each Sunday night might help me out.

Google images

 Last week I made three dinners on my list, the favourite being Chicken and Zucchini Patties which I served with another new recipe Pine nut and Currant Couscous.  Last night I made Tuna and Tomato Risotto (adding spinach leaves to make it a more complete meal) which was nice too although I'm having a problem getting the rice just cooked when I make risottos.  It was just a little underdone although I followed the recipe exactly, had the stock simmering as it was added to the rice etc.

Google images

So my two questions are.  Do you use a meal plan for the week and how do you make a successful risotto?
I'd love to hear your answers.

 Have a great day,

Anne  xx