Romantic Dinner for One

Is it possible? To romance yourself? For a lover of food, the answer is yes, yes, yes! In honor of being alone when everyone else is celebrating each other, I decided to cook a nice meal for...me.

The upside of this is that creativity runs rampant. Cooking for one means being more adventurous in the kitchen when creating your own recipes, and when trying other peoples' recipes, picking one with ingredients that appeal to you. There's no worrying if the other person will like it; only one opinion matters.

So tonight, I pulled out a favorite bottle of wine (Root 1's complex and spicy carmenere), put on a favorite movie (The Jane Austen Book Club, starring a whole slew of strong female leads), and served myself a four course gastronomic celebration.

The opening course was where I really let my creativity explode, with a crostini slathered with dried apricot and orange chutney and drizzled with balsamic reduction.


I followed this with a main course of pasta, using a recipe from Jamie Oliver's cookbook Jamie's Italy, which can be found here. The main components of the sauce include anchovies, red wine, raisins, and tomato puree. It seemed a perfect selection, because I adore anchovies and know that many other people don't--a great dish to make for myself. The anchovies literally melted down, providing their unique salty fishiness to the sauce, which I find quite sexy.


The next course was a very simple brussel sprout salad. I sliced the brussel sprouts into slivers and tossed with sliced almonds, sea salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and zest. The perfect fresh flavors to cleanse my palate for a very special dessert...


In honor of Valentine's Day, my fabulous mother sent me indulgent chocolate-covered figs. A perfect end to my romantic meal for one.


Yum.


For those interested, the recipe for my crostini:

Crostini with Apricot-Orange Chutney, Pecorino, and Balsamic Reduction

Ingredients
For the chutney:
2 T butter
3 slices of an orange, with rind, diced
5 dried apricots, diced
one small onion, diced
1/4 c sugar
2 or 3 T apple cider vinegar
1/4 t cumin (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

For the crostini:
A few slices of ciabatta
olive oil
garlic

To top:
Pecorino cheese, grated
3 T balsamic vinegar

First, make the chutney. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium low heat, then add onions and apricot. Saute about 3 minutes, until onions are slightly translucent. Add all other ingredients and saute about 5 more minutes. Take off heat and keep covered, at room temperature until ready to use.

To make crostini, brush slices of ciabatta with olive oil and toast in a skillet until golden brown on both sides. Once toasted, take a clove of garlic, cut in half lengthwise, and rub cut side on top of each slice of bread.

Simmer balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan until reduced by about half. While the balsamic is simmering, top each crostini with some chutney and grated pecorino cheese. Drizzle with balsamic reduction. Enjoy!