RMDM Kitchen: Our Valentine’s Day Tradition

It was no small coincidence that I inherited the task of cooking in our household, since I set myself up with a critical strategic error – I set the bar too high for myself. On our fifth date I made dinner for my wife at my condo and after only serving the appetizer she told me that she would never be able to cook for me. While I still find it humorous she felt that way after a plate of arugula, I’m more than happy to handle the cooking since it’s become her job to do the cleaning.

After that first meal of arugula salad with roasted garlic basil vinaigrette, filet mignon with shrimp cream sauce and crème brulee, my now wife thanked me for a wonderful dinner and confessed that when I said I’d cook for her that she would have been happy with tomato soup and grilled cheese!

Undeterred, the next time I cooked for her I did exactly what she had hoped for – I made her tomato bisque and paninis. Last Valentine’s Day she was pregnant and when I asked her if she was craving anything I hadn’t made in a while she mentioned the bisque. And so this has kind of become a little Valentine’s Day tradition for us since we generally stay low key on this Hallmark holiday. As I write this post a big pot of what will become tomato bisque is simmering away on the cooktop.

As far as the recipe goes, whenever I’m looking for something new to try I usually start out by stopping at the Food Network’s website, which is where this particular tomato bisque recipe comes from. The only thing that I have done differently is that I substitute 1 cup of chicken broth for 1 cup of Sherry wine to give it just a little different flavor. Also, I have substituted the heavy cream for mascarpone cheese before, which thickened up the soup and gave it a little more texture. However, I generally stick to using the cream and save the mascarpone for a nice garnish along with a chiffenade of basil. It not only adds a little something, but it looks nice, especially if you like a little flair on your soups.

My paninis follow the same basic construction method. I get nice loaf of artisan bread, some basil leaves, prosciutto and sopressata, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes that I’ve sliced to a medium thickness and marinated in some aged balsamic vinegar. After brushing the outside of the bread with some extra virgin olive oil I put the assembled paninis in a hot cast iron grill pan for a few minutes on each side until the mozzarella is nice and melted.

It doesn’t take long to put together and at the end you have a simple, yet sophisticated meal to share. You can get just about everything to make the meal for about $40 and have enough leftover for lunch or dinner the next day.

So that’s it, our fun little Valentine’s Day tradition. So what about you? Do you have a Valentine’s Day tradition? Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear about it.