Did you miss valentines with your partner and still don’t fancy going out? Maybe valentines made you realise you don't have enough date nights with your partner, but you also can't afford to go out every week. We’ve got you covered. Here are some simple and easy recipes for some romantic meals and sweet treats to enjoy during love season!
Chocolate covered strawberries
Let’s start with a romantic favourite, strawberries dipped in chocolate! This recipe is very straight forward and provides the most delicious treats to enjoy. The instructions are pretty self-explanatory, but they are as follows:
1. Firstly, get your chosen chocolate and melt it. You can either do this quickly in the microwave or fill a pan with around 2cm of water and let it simmer. Place a heatproof bowl with the chocolate in over the top, and stir until it’s all melted.
2. Then, take your strawberries by the leaves/core and simply dip into the chocolate.
3. If you want the chocolate to harden, then leave them to set for a while on a plate/tray. You can put them in the fridge for a while to speed up the process if you’d like. If you fancy eating them while the chocolate is still melted, then go ahead!
4. You can decorate however you’d like with piping and toppings for example, or just leave them as they are.
Spaghetti Carbonara
Fancy a romantic pasta and wine night from the comfort of your own home? Here it is!
Ingredients: 150g pancetta, 1 garlic glove, 200g spaghetti, 1 tbsp olive oil, 4 egg yolks and 50g parmesan.
Instructions:
1. Get out a big pan and heat up the oil. Then add the pancetta and garlic and fry off for 10 minutes, after this leave the ingredients in the pan but turn off the heat.
2. Bring a large pan of water to a simmer and add your pasta. (If you’re stuck on how long to cook the pasta it’ll say on the packet, but it’s usually around 10 minutes).
3. While your pasta is cooking whisk 2 egg yolks in a bowl, add a pinch of salt if you wish.
4. After your pasta is ready add it to the pan with the pancetta, don’t worry about there being a bit of pasta water in there. If it looks dry then keep adding small amounts of pasta water until it’s stopped getting absorbed, and you can see the excess.
5. Quickly pour the whisked eggs in to the pasta and stir quickly, if the egg starts to come together then pour in more pasta water, repeat this process until you have a double cream-like sauce, add in parmesan.
6. Distribute the pasta between 2 bowls and add the extra egg yolks on top if you wish, tuck in and enjoy!
For the more in-depth instructions: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/next-level-spaghetti-carbonara
Heart shaped cookies
These cookies are perfect for some personalisation, you can decorate them however you’d like and even add some writing! (You’ll need a heart shaped cookie cutter in order to achieve best shape!)
For the cookies you’ll need 375g plain flour, 1tsp baking powder, 200g butter, 200g caster sugar, ½ tsp of salt, 1 egg, 1 tbsp milk and 1 tsp vanilla extract.
Instructions:
1. First you want to add baking powder, flour and salt to a big bowl and mix
2. Then in a separate bowl beat the sugar and butter together until smooth, then add in the egg, vanilla and milk and mix well
3. Once you’ve mixed in the dry ingredients too, refrigerate for an hour
4. After the hour is up, preheat your oven to 180c and line 2 baking trays with parchment paper
5. On a clean surface empty out some flour and roll out your mixture as thick/thin as you’d like (depending on how many you want to make)
6. Place on baking trays and bake in oven for 8-10 minutes
Now it’s time for the frosting:
You’ll need: 225g cream cheese, 110g butter, 500g icing sugar, 1tsp vanilla extract. Also, pink/red food colouring and sprinkles if you wish.
1. Mix the cream cheese and butter together in a bowl until smooth and then add the rest of the ingredients
2. Then split the frosting into three bowls, and add food colouring- one for normal, red and pink
Find recipe here.
Homemade pizza (makes 2)
Homemade pizzas are such fun things to make as you can personalise them as much as you want. If you wish to make the pizzas as quick as possible, then you can easily buy pre-made dough and pizza sauce from supermarkets. However, if you’d like to go all out and make the dough then read below.
You need: 300g bread flour, 1tsp instant yeast, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt, 200ml water
1. In a large bowl mix the flour, yeast and salt and then add the 200ml of warm water and oil
2. Mix together and then move the dough to a clean, floured surface and knead for 5 minutes
3. You can leave it in a bowl covered to set if you wish, but it’s not imperative for the dough to work
4. Split the dough into 2 balls and roll out, make sure to roll it quite thin as it will rise in the oven
5. Then add your pizza sauce/passata and any other toppings you wish
6. Cook for 8-10 minutes at 240c and enjoy!
Find recipe here.
Smokey steak and Cajun potatoes
As steak is not a common dish to have, it’ll be a nice treat to enjoy on a special date night.
What you’ll need: A Bavette steak, 430g of Maris Piper potatoes, 1 tbsp of Cajun seasoning and 2 tbsp of olive oil.
1. Firstly, preheat your oven to 220c and fill a large pan with salted water and boil the potatoes for 5 minutes
2. After this, drain and leave the potatoes to dry in a colander
3. Mix the potatoes with the Cajun spices, the oil and a pinch of salt
4. Then pour onto a baking tray and cook for 25-30 minutes, turning and flipping half-way through
5. While the potatoes are cooking, rub oil and spices into the steak and heat up your pan to a high level
6. Once you can tell the pan is hot, add your steak and cook for 2 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the other
7. When your happy with the steak, remove it from the pan, cover it in foil and leave it to rest for 5 minutes
8. All that’s left is to serve it up with the potatoes
Recipe credit here.