IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT

Here is my menu for last nights dinner for my Valentine.  At the end of this post I will put a link to my previous post that has all the recipes.  As I mentioned in that post I prefer Cuisine at Home's recipe for the beef Wellington and if anyone wants that recipe I have it in a MS Word format, zip me an email and I will be happy to send to you.

 Guess I need to take a food photography class as this salad does not look so yummy but it was on the chilled plate with the wonderful jalapeno ranch dressing.

Here is exactly what I am talking about when I say it doesn't have to be perfect.  In the photos of the beef Wellington in the recipes the fillets are perfectly round and therefore easy to make the puff pastry PERFECT.  Well my Costco fillets were not perfectly round and I was not about to trim off any of that yummy beef for perfection.  What was perfect however was the taste and the puff pastry was nice and crispy and the steak was cooked perfect.  Since my preference is to NOT include the pate on top of the deuxelles I tried something a little different for that creamy texture, I added a good size teaspoon of cream cheese with chives on top of the deuxelles and it turned out so good.  My house smelled like a fine dining establishment! The individual potato gratin does not look perfect either and they are so yummy and the beans were very tasty too.  You will note a lobster tail on the top right - this was hubby's plate and as I was leaving the meat area in Costco I passed by the shell fish road show and bought one lobster tail as he so loves lobster. We both had leftovers for lunch today, he steak, potatoes and lobster and I steak and potatoes, almost as good on day #2.

 I adapted the apple-cranberry crisp so that it had no sugar and replaced the apple juice with a little Calvados (Fr. apple brandy) and the sugar was not missed at all - the whipped topping is low-fat real whipped cream.

Not perfect looking but almost perfect tasting.  Hope your dinner was a good one too.

Resource

Valentine's Day Dinner Post - Click Here 

Thank you for stopping by.