Valentine's Day Feast

We hate going out to dinner on the actually night of Valentine's day, so we always go out for a special meal the night before or the night after. We cook together on Valentine's day and just hope that it turns out well. We hit the jackpot this year. Since we have decided that we will be honeymooning in Spain, we thought a Spain theme meal would be appropriate.



We opened a bottle of Marques de Caceres-Crianza 2005. After the first sip we weren't that impressed, but then after letting it air for an hour it really opened up and went perfectly with our meal. We started our meal with jamon and manchego. As I am new to eating meat, I am still getting used to certain textures; but, flavor was unbelievable. We then made a pizza recipe from one of the Spanish cookbooks we rented from the library with candied (or as my mom would say 'drunk') peppers and onions. Homemade pizza dough is a staple in our diets and we always have it on hand, so we thawed a batch and cooked the peppers and onions in olive oil, sherry or red wine vinegar and sugar. We Placed that deliciousness on top of our stretched out dough and 18 minutes later an amazing pizza emerged from the oven.



After adequate digesting we began to prep and create our own version of paella. We have made Mark Bittman's basic paella many times and love it! We took his basic recipe and added eggplant, tomatoes, mushrooms and chorizo. We couldn't love our dutch oven more when this dish is removed from the oven.