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February 15, 2006
Valentine's Day
We decided against reservations for Valentine's Day dinner and did it ourselves. We kept it simple: asparagus and artichokes with hollandaise, wine, and some good bread and cheese. With candlelight and flowers and good music, this feels really cozy and special. I highly recommend it.
The only down side was that once I've made hollandaise, I can't leave the room without finishing every last drop of it, so I felt a little quesy later on. The hollandaise recipe we use is the "quick" one in the New York Times Cookbook -- Mom has been using if for years (most notably for the eggs benedict we have for Christmas brunch). It's very easy and quite good -- put a melted stick of butter, salt, juice of half a lemon, and three egg yolks in a blender and blend. That's it. It's on the lemony side, which we like. It is nothing like the yellow muck you tend to get in restaurants.
Personally, while I really like it on asparagus, I think I'll stick to melted butter for the artichokes. I like their flavor too much as is. I don't think my body can handle that much hollandaise, anyway.
Posted by csageday at February 15, 2006 04:02 PM