This year, I’m making a simple tray of cheese cubes and veggie sticks for an appetizer. I might also cut up some fresh pineapple if I have time.
Haven’t decided yet on the main dish… but probably either the Pot Pie (made in individual ramekins) or the Chicken with Mustard Cream Sauce from Pioneer Woman’s website. We’ll also have deviled eggs and a garden salad (iceburg lettuce, mixed greens, and spinach, with grape tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, shredded cheese, and various optional salad toppings) on the side. If we do Pot Pie, then I won’t bother with potatoes, but if not, then I’ll bake some small Yukon Gold potatoes, too.
Then for dessert, I’m deciding between a chocolate cake (Thunder Cake) with a chocolate-cream cheese glaze, or cream-cheese brownies cut into heart shapes.
Not the cheapest meal, at around $4 a serving for us, but still cheaper than going out.
Last year, I needed to go
really inexpensive, so I just used what I had and took more time to make everything look pretty–had the kids make heart-themed placemats, used a red flat bedsheet as a tablecloth, and lit a couple of candles for the table. I cut hearts out of sliced cheese and deli meats and put them on round butter crackers, some with a dab of mustard. I made a basic stir fry with rice, chopped broccoli, frozen peas, shredded carrot, and leftover cooked pork chops (cut into bite-size cubes). Used soy sauce, ground ginger, garlic powder, onion powder, brown sugar, a teaspoon of orange juice concentrate, and a dab of peanut butter (since I didn’t have sesame oil) to make a nice Asian-inspired sauce. (I’ve left out the orange juice and peanut butter before, and it’s still pretty tasty that way, too.)
We had fresh sugar snap peas as a side because I already had them in the fridge and we all love them, but I could have skipped that. There was plenty in the stir-fry to make it a “one-dish” meal!
For dessert I made peanut butter cookies (1 cup peanut butter, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 egg, bake at 350*F, make them fairly small and watch them closely so they don’t burn) and stuck a small heart-shaped chocolate on top of each while they were still warm.
Most pastas (especially meatless), soups, stews, and casseroles are pretty inexpensive and filling, so there is a lot of room for “play” here. Make the meal special with pretty plates and/or decorations, and a favorite dessert (especially if you can make individual serving sizes or “plate” each serving ahead of time, the way restaurants do). Add a little chocolate sauce and whipped cream on a dessert as a special treat, or let little ones use fancy plastic picks (if they aren’t too young) to pick up tidbits of fresh fruit or cheese cubes from their plates. Or come up with other creative ideas!
HTH!
Wanted to add: we also like to use the nice glasses (I get cheap wine glasses from the thrift store) and put anything red or pink in it–like strawberry Kool-Aid or sparkling cranberry juice, or 7up with a maraschino cherry added–whatever you like!
