{GUEST POST} 7 Easy Valentine’s Day Meals to fill his Heart (and stomach!)
Hi there! I am happy to present Liquesantics' very first guest post! Please welcome Glaiza, as she shares these yummy treats to prepare for Valentine's Day. Photos are by Glaiza too.
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What are your plans for this coming Valentine's Day? Why not spend it at home?
Do you want to avoid the Valentine’s rush at the malls and restaurants? Are you saving up for something and want to spend less on this day but still want to make it special? Or you just want to showcase your cooking and baking skills to your husband, at home?
Did you just say yes to all those questions? Then this post is for you!
I’ve been married for 9 months now and all I can say is life really changes after marriage. I grew up in a home where my mom does all the cooking. As a child, I just spent most of my time studying and attending school activities. As an adult, I just spent most of my time working and working and working. I didn’t really get the time to learn how to cook. But during special occasions, I would always be my mom’s assistant in the kitchen, slicing and dicing the ingredients or mixing them up. After being a workaholic for a few years, I decided I want to learn and do something aside from Finance and Control. I got interested in cooking and baking. I didn’t practice it right away but I started browsing books in bookstores and watching videos in YouTube. And after our wedding, I officially entered the world of cooking and baking (which I categorized in my blog as Sugar and Spice).
So in the few months of being a career woman turned domesticated wife (but still working from 9-6 only!), I have tried preparing food which I think can fit the Valentine’s theme or just make your date not an ordinary one. I am not an expert yet so I don’t have my own recipes at the moment but I know where to get the best recipes!
Here are a few ideas that you can try to prepare at home on the 14th of February.
Let’s start with the Sweet Category. When I think of Valentine’s, I imagine hearts, chocolates, sweets, reds and pinks:
1. Red Velvet Cupcake paired with Red Velvet Latte
Red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting, topped with a heart is the perfect treat for Valentine’s Day. And what’s the drink to pair with it? Red Velvet Latte with whipped cream, topped with red sanding sugar. Click the links to watch the Pop Sugar videos where they featured the Red Velvet Cupcakes of Georgetown Cupcakes and Red Velvet Latte Recipe inspired by Dunkin Donuts in their Get the Dish Segment. If you don’t have a baking oven, but have a microwave oven, you can also try the Red Velvet Mug Cake for Two, also from Pop Sugar Food.
This is very simple to prepare, all you need is your usual pancake mix and a heart-shaped cookie cutter set and you can serve your husband hearts for breakfast! Pair them with Hot Chocolate, I recommend using the Tsokolate Tablea just because it’s the best.
3. Strawberry Chocolate Cupcake
Strawberries and Chocolates – best combination ever! And you can do the same combination in a cupcake, with chocolate as the base cupcake and strawberry as frosting. You can put heart toppings or fresh strawberries on top of the frosting for decoration. Here are the recipes: Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake from the Brown Eyed Baker and the Simple Strawberry Buttercream Frosting from Rose Bakes.
Moving on to the Savory Category…
4. Garlic Butter Shrimp
This is a favorite of mine and very memorable because this is the first dish I cooked for my husband. It’s also easy to prepare, you only need four ingredients (aside from salt and pepper): Shrimp, Lemon Soda (Sprite), Butter, and Minced Garlic. Here’s the recipe from Panlasang Pinoy. And what’s cute is you can actually form a heart with two shrimps ☺
5. Creamy Chicken Alphabet Soup or Alphabet Carbonara
I love the Alphabet Pasta because it can be used to create a short message to the husband. I used it in a creamy chicken soup instead of macaroni. You can do the same and just follow the Macaroni Soup recipe from Panlasang Pinoy. I also used this pasta in Carbonara and here’s the recipe from Nestle Club.
6. Japanese Dinner: Chicken Teriyaki, Salad, and Sushi
If you and your husband love Japanese food, why don’t you prepare a Japanese dinner? What I prepared before are the following: Chicken Teriyaki (Recipe Here), Vegetable Salad (you can make it really Japanese by adding crab sticks and avocado), and some sushi bought from the supermarket. Don’t forget the rice! And if you have some Japanese dinnerware, use them for the complete Japanese feel.
7. Beefy Saturday
Does your husband love beef? There are actually a lot of beef dishes out there. I remember one Saturday; I cooked 3 balanced meals with beef as the star of each plate. You can try them, too.
Breakfast: Corned Beef, Rice, Grilled Eggplant and Bananas
Lunch: Meatballs with Gravy (Recipe here), Boiled Potatoes, Buttered Mixed Vegetables, and Apples
Dinner: Beef Stroganoff with Fusilli Pasta (Recipe here), Cucumber and Green Grapes
Hope you’ll have happy kitchen adventures and a romantic date with your husbands!
Happy Valentine’s Day in advance!
Glai
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About the Author: Glaiza Villanueva-De Leon, also known as Glai, is a happy wife, Financial Analyst by Day, Homemaker and Blogger by Night and Weekends. She loves to learn, travel, plan events, cook, bake, eat, create and collect everything nice and writes about them in her blog: Oh My Glai! | Discoveries in and out of home.
Lique and Glai met in their first Wednesday class in UP Diliman: a Chess class! Then they discovered that they were actually neighbors in Kalayaan Residence Hall (rooms 218 and 219). They call each other Kambal because they are “kalokalikes” and they also have a lot in common: both Batanguenas who married their high school sweethearts named Jejo and Jelo! How cool is that?!
13 comments
The garlic and butter shrimp sounds like a divine idea. My hubby loves shrimps. Thanks for the suggestions!
ReplyDeletevery nice idea, thank you! :)
ReplyDeleteJapanese Dinner sounds very cool! I guess I'll be preparing this one for my hubby on the v-day... maybe even try to go bento.. :D
ReplyDeletecupcakes with hearts love love love! and I love shrimps!!! ma try nga this vday :D
ReplyDeleteThese v-day posts are pressuring me! I don't know what to do for my partner on v-day yet! haha.
ReplyDeleteI love the pancake hearts idea! Will definitely do that on v-day! :)
ReplyDeleteLove the list. Easy nga. And red velvet cupcakes will always be my favorite :)
ReplyDeleteHi Ladies, try nyo na! and let me and Lique know if any of these hearty recipes worked (by next week). Enjoy cooking and/or baking. :)
ReplyDeleteLove this easy to do list! Happy V day!
ReplyDeleteLove everything on this list! I can't decide which one's best but I want to try the heart pancakes. Cute!
ReplyDeleteOh everything on this list is delicious! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteEverything looks delicious, from the dessert down to the main dishes.. Amazing :)
ReplyDeleteWOW I love everything listed! I should prepare all the ingredients needed... I'm sure we'll have a happy Valentines day albeit spent home :) Thank you for sharing!
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