A slightly belated V-Day dinner

Since The Boy and I opted for a quick pho for dinner on Saturday, the dinner I originally planned on making got pushed to last night. I have to say, this is the first time I made a dinner where NOTHING came from a heavily reviewed recipe. (Yul's bday dinner came close ... only the chicken dish was a reviewed recipe.)

What I made:

• Steak Diane (filet mignon recipe from the Bitten blog)
• Leek and tomato tart (recipe from a baking book I got for Christmas)

Conclusions:

• McKinnon's Meat Market rocks! ($6.99/lb for the filet mignon cuts)
• Frozen pie tarts from the market are a life saver. (and it was over a year old! hahah don't worry, the expiry date was for March ... whew!)
• Hard goat cheese will not melt in the oven. Oh well!
• That baking book rocks! (Thanks to my cousin Lyd!)
• Cooking within an hour seems super short compared to my usual 1.5-2hr cook offs ... I gotta start being less ambitious.

Other things I've made lately include blueberry buckle, but I used only half of the blueberries recommended ... and I regret it! Now I won't eat it 'cause it doesn't have enough blueberries. Sad ...

I also made Dutch babies twice now!! All thanks to Joy. :) (Dutch babies are my fave thing to order at the Original House of Pancakes whenever I go home to CA.)

Next up? Panna cotta with a lemon-strawberry sauce (I absolutely adored the one I had in Venice) and carbonara. Oh, and puttanesca whenever I finally decide to get those fresh olives. I've made it before, but I'll do it again if anyone would like to do a dinner party. Anyone?