Monday, February 14, 2011

The Best Laid Valentine's Plans

There's a reason that Valentine's Day isn't very important to me. Basically, I don't have a romantic bone in my body. I love my husband with all my cold, withered heart, but grand gestures just aren't in my makeup.

In case any of you need a refresher on a typical Valentine's Day at my house, this is what we did last year.

Well, J and I have had a rough few weeks and I felt like, this year especially, I needed to do something nice for him. Since he works nights and the kids are in school during the day, I decided to make him a special romantical lunch. His favorite thing I make is ravioli, so I thought I'd make that, some garlic bread, a salad and (his favorite dessert) chocolate molten lava cake.

Okay! I had the meal all planned out in my head, and I could make it in my sleep! I got up early this morning, got through the tub, did my hair and makeup so I'd look gorgeous for him and headed down to make lunch for him.

I started with the lava cake. Wouldn'tcha know! I forgot to check the box when I bought it, and I needed 5.5 Tbsp. of real butter. Of course I only had 2.5. After some deliberation, I decided that margarine could make up the difference. Got those ready, and in the oven.

Then I started on the ravioli. It doesn't take long. I boil water in the big pan while I make my special sauce (thanks, Liz) then drop in the frozen ravioli while the sauce cooks. I think the whole thing takes about 15 minutes start to finish.

The lava cakes were done just as the ravioli finished, and I cleared the table and put on the table cloth. All I had to do now was take care of the last minute details: put out the dishes, toss salad into bowls and set the food out. I decided that I'd better go get him up because it usually takes him a few minutes to get it together when I get him up to eat. Well, because he knew that I was making him a special lunch, he hopped out of bed and came down to eat...and I still didn't have everything done! As I was finishing the salads, I realized that I forgot to boil an egg for him to eat with his so he got lettuce and salad dressing. Exciting! Then, I grabbed the first bottle of Catalina I saw for him, forgetting that I have this weird thing about throwing away food. Even if it's REALLY old. Even if it's REALLY, REALLY old...

So I finally get everything together, and we sit down to eat. J looks around and says, "Did you make garlic bread?" OH SHOOT! I forgot! But it's the frozen kind and shouldn't take more than a few minutes and the oven is still hot from the cake, so I hurry and grab the bread, look at the directions, and realize that it's supposed to go into the broiler. I don't have a rack in my broiler, so I decide I should put it in my toaster oven - only the bread is twice the length of my toaster oven. So Jeremy and I start hacking away at this frozen bread to cut it down the the right size for the toaster oven, and there's a piece of wax paper inside to make pulling the two halves apart easier (not!), which makes cutting the bread in half an even bigger challenge. So we're cutting and laughing and imagining all the ways that this particular situation could go wrong. Finally, we get the durn thing in the oven, and it's back to the salads.

J takes a few bites of his salad and says, "This salad dressing tastes funny."

It occurs to me that we could be possession of some VERY old Catalina dressing. So I told him to quit eating it. (Don't tell him, but I checked the expiration date before I threw it out, and it expired in 2008.) I don't think he wanted to know how old it was because he didn't even look for a date. Smart man.

He moved on to ravioli. And the bread came out of the toaster oven. We probably should only have put 1/2 of the bread in at a time, because they were all squished together, and while they looked done on the outside, they were COLD on the inside. I tossed 2 of the pieces back in for a couple more minutes.

ARGH!!!

Okay, well. We finished lunch and it was time to get started on the lava cake. Which is supposed to be eaten within 20 minutes of coming out of the oven. I think it had been about 40 minutes at this point. So, I popped them out and plated them, tossed 'em in the microwave, and sprinkled powdered sugar on them. Then I threw some m&m's that J bought me for V Day on the plates for garnish. They just weren't good. That's all. :( Microwaving didn't help them at all. *sigh* Some days, things just don't go right.

We ate the cakes while we watched the romantic movie Salt, which we got from Red Box 3 days ago and needed to watch or return. I liked it!

I'm a good cook. There's nothing that should have given me a hard time today. It just didn't work out. And such is life, I guess.

5 comments:

lizS said...

LOL!! okay, that was a seriously good story. i hate when things like that happen though, urgh. at least it's funny, right? :D

Unknown said...

isn't that the way life goes, sometimes? but you made an effort--and that's what counts!

Mary said...

MVroom, thanks for swingin' by my blog! I have to be honest, I love it when things go wrong because usually I get a GREAT story out of it! And today's lunch was so ridiculous that living it was almost as good as telling it! ;) I hope your Valentine's Day was everything you were trying for!

Liz - you know how I love a funny story! :P

timpani76 said...

My husband got- a tired upset wife for Valentine's Day, so you did better than me!

Mary said...

Well, sometimes that happens, T. Maybe you can try again on a less tiring and upsetting day.