Valentine’s Day 09 – 15 Course Blindfolded Dinner

A LOVE AFFAIR WITH FOOD…

Happy Belated Valentine’s Day! (This is the post for Sunday Feb. 21 and Monday Feb. 22, 2010… couldn’t “waste” it on one day…took a long time to make!)

I didn’t do anything really special on Follow Me Foodie for Valentine’s Day so I’m doing it now.

As you know, my best friend and I really enjoy cooking and baking… well if you didn’t know, now you know. (It really pays off to be friends with us! ;)) This is the same friend I made 3 kinds of crab cakes with for our Christmas dinner – See my post for My Holiday Dinners and Feasts.

Anyways on Valentine’s Day last year we got together and made a 15 course dinner… for the 2 of us. Yay! Fun right?! It was! And we ate it all. Blindfolded too! It was a unique experiment I wanted to test out after hearing about restaurants in Europe that did it. There are no restaurants currently doing it Vancouver so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I wanted to do an appetizer thing so I suggested that we make 3 appetizers each, but leave it to me to always go overboard. I couldn’t stop and ended up making 12 appetizers. Well we actually had 12 savoury and 3 dessert courses which came to 15 courses in total.

So here’s a sneak preview of what happened last year.

Added note: Sorry, but I have no recipes for anything… (well might have an idea by memory, and I’m not sure what her recipes are) but I like to cook and so does she but we’re not professional chefs. We just really really like food and I like to go with the flow when it comes to making food.

15 Course Dinner Menu

1. Deep Fried Mac n’ Cheese Balls with Pomegranate Salsa – by SC
2. Coconut and Panko Crusted Prawns with Sweet Chili Sauce – by SC
3. Chilled Strawberry and Cardamom Soup (palette cleanser) – by SC
4. Baked Creamy Crab and Artichoke Dip with Pine Nuts – by SC
5. Red Beet with Feta, Almonds and Balsamic Reduction – by Me
6. Red Beet with Honey Glazed Pears, Cranberry & Pink Peppercorns – by Me
7. Sicilian Salad – Pasta shells, sun dried tomatoes, basil & lemon caper dressing – by Me
8. Caramelized Onions, Sesame Pork, Garlic Spinach and Candied Walnuts on Baguette – by Me
9. Creamy Chicken Ragout topped on Yam and Sweet Potato Cake – by Me
10. Sweet Potato, Yam & Snap Peas with Caramelized Onions and Sweet Chili Balsamic Glaze – by Me
11. Edamame Pesto Rotini – by Me
12. Lemon Orzo with Feta, Spinach, Almonds & Cranberries – by Me
13. Homemade White Chocolate & Cranberry Cookies with Espresso Ice Cream – by SC
14. Baked Pumpkin with Pumpkin Seed Cookie, Caramel, Vanilla Ice Cream & Pecans – by Me
15. Half Baked Chocolate Brownie with Red Beet Compote & Vanilla Ice Cream – by Me

A few highlights…

Deep Fried Mac n’ Cheese Balls with Pomegranate Salsa – by SC

Coconut and Panko Crusted Prawns with Sweet Chili Sauce – by SC

Chilled Strawberry and Cardamom Soup (palette cleanser) – by SC

Baked Creamy Crab and Artichoke Dip with Pine Nuts – by SC

Red Beet with Feta, Almonds and Balsamic Reduction – by Me

Red Beet with Honey Glazed Pears, Cranberry & Pink Peppercorns – by Me

Caramelized Onions, Sesame Pork, Garlic Spinach and Candied Walnuts on Baguette – by Me

Creamy Chicken Ragout topped on Yam and Sweet Potato Cake – by Me

Dessert 1 – Homemade White Chocolate & Cranberry Cookies with Espresso Ice Cream – by SC

Dessert 2 – Baked Pumpkin with Pumpkin Seed Cookie, Caramel, Vanilla Ice Cream & Pecans – by Me

Dessert 3 – Half Baked Chocolate Brownie with Red Beet Compote & Vanilla Ice Cream – by Me