Ah yes, Valentine’s Day is upon us. Whether you like the holiday or not, if you have a significant other, they will be wanting a nice, romantic dinner. We’re here to help! Here’s a recipe that’s sure to impress, while not breaking the bank:

Appetizer: Broccoli and Cheese Tots

Main Course: New York Strip with Mashed Cauliflower and Sautéed Asparagus

Dessert: Chocolate-Covered Strawberries and Pretzel Crisps

INGREDIENTS:

For Appetizer –

• One bag of Green Giant broccoli cheese tots
• (Optional) Mexican shredded cheese to your liking

For Main Course –

• 2 New York Strip steaks (let them sit out of fridge until they are at room temperature. Sounds gross but trust us, it makes the steaks turn out amazing)
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• One bunch of asparagus spears
• One package of Green Giant frozen mashed cauliflower

For Dessert –

• 3 cups semi-sweet morsels
• 2 tbsp of vegetable oil or coconut oil
• 1 box of strawberries
• Pretzel crisps

TIP: It’s best if you make the dessert first because the chocolate needs to harden in the fridge for a while!

DIRECTIONS:

Appetizer

1. Cook broccoli tots in the oven according to directions.
2. With about 2 minutes to spare, add a lil cheese and place back in oven

Main Course

1. Break off the bottom ends of the asparagus spears (about an inch and a half) and discard. This is very important because if you don’t do this, you’re gonna hate asparagus.
2. Using a tbsp of olive oil, sautée asparagus on medium high heat for about 5 minutes or until tender.
3. Begin to cook mashed cauliflower in the microwave or oven according to directions on box.
4. Salt and pepper both sides of room temperature steaks
5. In a cast iron skillet, heat remaining olive oil on medium high – high heat. Add one steak and let sit on one side for 2:30 minutes. Flip steak and let it cook for 2:30 minutes more. Crush a clove of garlic and add to skillet. With a minute to spare, add 1 tbsp of butter and, with a spoon, baste the steak with melted butter.
6. Repeat Step 5 with the second(uncooked) steak.
7. Let steaks sit for 3-5 minutes (a good way to let them sit without losing a lot of heat is to put them in the microwave – DO NOT turn the microwave on though. The ‘wave traps heat very well).
8. Plate, serve, and enjoy!

Dessert (to be prepared FIRST)

1. In your smallest saucepan, add vegetable or coconut oil and then chocolate morsels. Begin to melt the chocolate on LOW heat. Make SURE it is on LOW because chocolate burns very easily. Stir the melting chocolate continuously until it is smooth.
2. Once the chocolate is smooth, dip the strawberries in the chocolate (a wooden spoon or spatula is very helpful to spoon the chocolate up to the strawberry). Place dipped strawberries on a plastic tray large enough for all strawberries to be spaced out adequately. **If you have parchment paper or wax paper, this would be a great time to use it.
3. Dip your pretzel crisps with the leftover chocolate. (We only dipped half of the pretzels because its much easier than covering the entire thing.)
4. Place dipped strawberries and pretzels in fridge while you prepare the other courses.

This meal pairs well with a nice boxed red. We love boxed wine because it’s cheaper AND it lasts way longer. Our drink of choice? Bota Box “Nighthawk Red.” It had notes of cherry and a woodsy aftertaste, but most importantly, it was 6 dollars off at Kroger, which was great. Cheers to that!

Now our cuts of meat weren’t the greatest things in the world. We would love to say that we went and got them from our local butcher but considering that we don’t make any money, that’s not quite in our price range. To counter this, Kroger was offering a slab of meat – 7 cuts of New York Strip – for about $5 per steak. Now that’s a deal we can all get behind.

This meal is a little tougher than our meals in the past because there are so many moving parts, but don’t get overwhelmed. We incorporated the microwave a good bit to keep things realistic. If you keep your cool, the end result will be fantastic and your date will be very impressed. As always… Eat up!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

-Catherine and Ford

Feel free to leave us any comments, concerns, OR recipe ideas. We are open to ALL of your feedback. Thanks for reading!