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Photo by Jessica Stewart
Like many men, I am utterly hopeless in the kitchen. My culinary skills don't extend far beyond flipping grilled cheese sandwiches and boiling spaghetti noodles.
My wife and I have grown tired, however, of going out for dinner on Valentine's Day (and so has our bank account). Now, I'm in a bind. I'm the Herman Edwards of cooking (seriously, I once screwed up Kraft macaroni and cheese), but on the most romantic day of the year, I can't willingly let her so much as open an oven door.
The solution: prepare an elegant meal within my capabilities. That's easier said than done, so I've sought out a bit of advice, and hopefully some of you guys out there find it as helpful as I did.
ENTREES
Christopher Robins may be the associate pastor at Living Hope Church in St. Joseph, but he's doing his best Emeril impression these days.
Mr. Robins, who studied catering in England and has worked as a cook for several years, taught 12 married men how to cook a special Valentine's Day dish last Friday. All of the proceeds from the class went to help the Oasis En-Gadi charity that helps to rescue street kids in Guadalajara, Mexico.
By the end of the night, Mr. Robins sent them home with full recipes and pre-measured ingredients to repeat it all on the big day.
"You'll want to rehearse it before you make it on your special evening," Mr. Robins says. "You don't want to make your friends or wives guinea pigs."
Mr. Robins wants those 12 lucky ladies to be totally surprised by their meals, so he wouldn't say what dish the class prepared. However, he does have some helpful pointers for the cuisine- challenged out there.
"Do something you're comfortable doing," he says. "When you branch out and do something a little more adventurous, maybe just do one new dish at a time."
Mr. Robins says that for lots of men, the grill resembles a comfort zone. Cooks.com recommends a great grilled shrimp with wine marinade that uses a simple recipe.
replica bag wholesaleFor those who don't want meat, it doesn't get much easier than a colorful salad. Simply buy the fresh ingredients and mix them together. Some simple favorites are the Caesar salad, three-bean salad, chicken-mango salad and feta cheese salad.
I mentioned my ability to cook spaghetti, so pastas would fit well within my comfort zone. I might try a recipe for angel hair pasta with asparagus that intrigued me.
DESSERTS
Although the whole point Replica fendi wholesale of this venture is to stray away from the typical meal, there's one Valentine's Day mainstay that can't be avoided: chocolate. And the big daddy of all Valentine's treats would have to be chocolate-covered strawberries.
"You can't get them except for just around this time of year," says Doug Hutton, owner and operator of Cold Stone Creamery and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in St. Joseph. "It's special only to Valentine's Day."
The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory uses its highest-grade commercial chocolate to make chocolate-covered strawberries. The store's "choco-vision" machine heats the chocolate to 86 degrees for that creamy, delicious flavor and simply dips in the strawberries.
It's just as easy to do at home, but you might have to deal with the mess
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