Valentines Day!

I've noticed that people seem to take Valentines Day seriously. On the one hand, you have the people buying excessively ostentatious cards and over-sized bouquets of flowers and going out for over-priced meals in restaurants filled with identikit couples; on the other, the people who see celebrating Valentines Day as proof of superficiality or stupidity, or of a failing relationship that can only express itself through artificial occasions. I like to occupy a middle ground. I like Valentines Day because it offers an excuse to spoil yourself and drink champagne; it obviously doesn't mean that you ignore each other the rest of the year, but nor does it mean embracing the Cult of Romance and making Hallmark and Marks and Spencers even richer than they are already. Yesterday I went to M and S after work to pick up some single cream and it was even busier than usual, jam-packed with men and women clutching bouquets and bottles of pink cava and ready meals. We already had the wherewithall for dinner apart from the cream, but I waited a long time for that cream.

Anyway, for dinner I made a recipe from the book that came out recently full of recipes from Delicious magazine, for stuffed chicken breasts with pesto and mascarpone. I stuffed the chicken breasts with a mixture of pancetta, onion, breadcrumbs, egg and Parmesan, baked, and served with a sauce made from white wine, mascarpone and pesto. It was good - simple, so I wasn't in the kitchen all night, but tasty.


For dessert I made Jo Pratt's Exotic Chocolate Cups. I should reiterate at this point how much I love this book; Jo's food is easy and stylish and fun. These chocolate cups are made with chocolate, cream, orange zest, all-spice, rum, butter and yolk. I fell in love with the espresso cups that figure in Jo's image of the chocolate cups and managed to find some the same (albeit with an extra red spoon!) in Fenwicks last week, so I bought them. I stand guilty as accused of schmultzy kitsch.


The chocolate pots taste a bit exotic, with the allspice, rum and orange; they are really good and exceptionally easy. A lovely Valentine dessert. Oh, and Simon bought me some lovely pinky purpley earrings, The Fishmongers Book by Mitchell Tonks which looks really good - watch this space for more fishy dishes - and some heart-shaped cerise Le Creuset ramekins that I had been hinting towards. Earrings, pretty kitchen equipment and a cookbook - he knows me well. Shame we can't have Valentine's Day and an excuse for champagne and gifts every Wednesday night!