I'm baaaaaaack! With Valentine's Day next week, I wanted to give you a few ideas on what to make for dinner. I am a pro at staying in on Valentine's Day. Many of the best restaurants have prix fixe menus, so you don't get to choose from the entire menu; it's crowded and expensive. Plus, unlike going out to celebrate an anniversary or birthday, everyone and their mother is out trying to have the same romantic night. That's not to say that going out is bad. It's nice to get out of the house, but, personally, a night in with my husband is so much better! 

 

Since it's a holiday, dinner should be more fun and fancier than normal. I will give you a couple of recipes I've personally cooked for V-day. 

We'll start with my absolute favorite: short rib ragu. This is the perfect meal and my go-to for when I need to impress. There is a lot of chopping, and the cooking time is long, but it is so worth it. Plus, most of the cooking time, the short rib is in the oven, and you don't need to do anything. I found this recipe on TikTok (shocking, I know) by @samseats. It honestly doesn't require a bunch of ingredients, and I genuinely think if she read the recipe really well, even Sydney could make this. 

I skipped making pasta from scratch and just purchased the fresh pasta they sell at Whole Foods. I've also made this gluten-free using the Taste Republic GF linguini; you cannot tell it is gluten-free!

 

Here's a pro tip: top homemade pizza with your leftover ragu. It will be life-changing. 

 

Last year, for Valentine's, I made sushi. I didn't want to buy a bunch of sushi-making equipment since I'm not always making sushi, so I decided on this sushi tool from Amazon. The name makes me laugh, but it got the job done. Not amazing, I might add, but it worked enough. 

 

The only thing I had trouble with in Charlotte was finding sushi-grade fish that you could eat raw, so I cut corners and bought the sliced sashimi from Whole Foods and just used that. 

Another thing I did to save time and ensure it turned out perfectly was to use frozen white rice. Turns out perfect every time. While I consider myself a good cook, I can mess up boiling grains. You just have to add a bit of sugar and rice vinegar to it for that sushi rice flavor. I didn't use a recipe, but the ingredients I used included:

- Cucumber

- Carrot

- Avocado

- Sriracha mayo (Kewpie mayo + sriracha + garlic) 

- Bachan's BBQ sauce (it's like a soy sauce/Korean BBQ sauce before you go judging me for including BBQ sauce)

 

You can have fun with this one and try to recreate a personal favorite or keep it simple. It ended up being such a fun activity to do with my husband, and we each could make different combinations that we liked. 

Pro Tip: Serve this with a fun app like dumplings, shumai dumplings, or steam buns that you can grab from the freezer section.

I didn’t make this one for Valentine’s Day, but I think it would make a fun dinner! I made this over the summer as part of a three course meal that I made for my husband and I. It was one of the best things I’ve ever made! This one has a lot of steps, but you can do most of the cooking in a pressure cooker and assemble it once it’s finished. This would pair so well with some margaritas to toast V-day!