Saturday, February 14, 2009

Valentine's Day

I promise I will add words later... its past midnight and I just got all the photos uploaded and need to go to sleep! We had a great day though!

Evie got me up bright and early a little before 8 am. So much for sleeping in, normally D gets up with her on Saturday mornin g so I can get a bit of uninterrupted sleep(we cosleep and she is squirmy) but he was sick from work Friday and still not feeling the greatest. So I took advantage of the time he was absent and we finished up his Valentine cards and I baked the cake - recipe below.

After D got up Evie and he opened their Valentines... nothing fancy, a fleece stuffed heart "hug" for Evie since she still enjoys snacking on paper and for D a handmade card, movie snackies and a fun little stack of "things to do" that we put into a red bowl and drew at random throughout the day just so we didn't fall into the trap of sitting and watching tv and playing on the internet all day(can you guess which one I am?) and the card from Evie. I didn't get the customary dozen red roses, I never have for this day because I have told D from the start that her would be in trouble because of how much they cost - I am a very frugal person and it irks me how they jack the prices up, but hey supply and demand I guess.
So, we had a breakfast of blueberry bagels with strawberry cream cheese (D isn't much of a breakfast guy :) Then Evie drew our first activity - 5 minute massages! So after I got the soup going for our dinner appetizer we set the timer and each gave the other a 5 minute back massage.
Then D went out and shoveled our back deck off from the big snow the day before and he had a little help from Miss Evie.
After that it was time for Evie to
take her nap then we drew our next activity... Sweetheart Scrabble. The basic premise is that you can only use words that are relational to sweethearts. Well... that is A LOT harder than it sounds. So we got creative... we laughed, a lot!
Then after Evie got up from her nap we made a run to get propane for the grill and then when we got home we went outside to play in the snow and I finished shoveling the snow on the sidewalk around our house... our great neighbor across the street had already done the driveway (and it wasn't the first time he's done that!). Evie could hardly stand up in her snowpants and coat but she didn't get upset when she did fall down, she just ate some snow :)
Then next activity was questions about each other that we think we might know but I thought we should go over them just in case - things like fave color, food, season... etc.
For dinner we made steaks on the grill with sauteed mushrooms, baked potatoes, steamed brocolli and of course the black tie tomato soup that I made earlier (that recipe is also below - it is yum yum yummy! and really good with fresh bread or croutons. After dinner our activity was playing a board game so we chose Sequence - I won! Then Evie got a bath and went to bed and D and I had some of that wonderful cake! I had another piece today! Then we finished watching the movie Enchanted (very corny but sweet - perfect for Valentine's Day!) and then went to bed. I have to say that in the last few months with all the craziness it was the most connected I felt to my husband in a long time. It was
really nice! I hope you all had wonderful weekends as well!






Recipe section:
Black-Tie Tomato Soup
1. Melt 1 cube of butter (or you could use olive oil or whatever) and saute 1 pound of mushrooms, 6 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp of basil, 1/2 tsp of thyme for 15 minutes over medium heat.2. Add 1 package of bacon cooked and chopped or 1 package of real bacon bits/pieces3. Add the following ingredients and simmer for 20 minutes: 1 tsp pepper, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp salt, 3 cans (or the equivalent of) 28oz each of diced tomatoes4 turn down heat to low and add in this order, 1 cup of heavy cream and then 2 cups of half and half. Be careful not to let it boil after these have been added.

Suzy Q Chocolate Cake
You can use your favorite chocolate cake recipe or even a box recipe - I put mine below. I used two round pans but you can do cupcakes and fill them or just top them, or a 9x13 cake and slice it in half top and bottom and put the filling between... be creative.
Super Moist Chocolate Cake:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup baking cocoa
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk (I use rice milk)
1/2 cup oil (I sub applesauce)
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water
1. heat oven to 350 degrees F, grease and flour 2 9 inch round baking pans
2. stir together the first five ingredients (all the dry ingredients), then add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes then stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). pour into pans.
3 bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean
4 cool before icing - very important b/c the filling/icing will melt!
Cream Filling:
1 cup milk (I again used rice milk)
5 tbsp flour
-combine these two ingredients in sauce pan over med high heat and whisk/stir frequently until thickened, then set in sink of cool water
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 tbsp vanilla
-beat these ingredients together on high until fluffy, then add the flour/milk mixture and again beat until fluffy, use half for between layers and top with remaining half of cream
then I used semisweet chocolate chips to make a design on the top
Let me know if you have questions about either of these recipes and I would be glad to help. I don't know the source of either.

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