Valentine's Day Brunch
Valentine's Day Breakfast
More Valentine's Day Recipes Pick the right Flower! Spoil your
Valentine for 5 Days. Valentine's Day Recipes from famous Chefs.
By Cynthia Bowan
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Set the Way Back Machine, please, Sherman, for the Fall of 1959.
The scene: a high school auditorium. Rehearsals are underway for the Junior Class play, Anastasia. The young woman playing the maid has exactly five lines, but they come in at such weird times, that she must spend a great deal of time backstage.
She thinks she has a crush on the leading actor. But he is on stage most of the time, and so she talks to a friend named Buck, part of the stage crew, during most of each rehearsal. Buck soon asks his buddy, another senior and the stage crew manager, to join them. He works things so that before either of them know it, Buck has disappeared totally and just the two of them are left.
They share a common love of music, especially folk music. During Friday night's performance, they are talking behind the back curtain, and he leans in and kisses her for the first time.
In years to come, she would tell people - especially those on the Marriage Encounter weekends where they took part as team members - that when he kissed her, she saw a ranch house, big yard, several children, a dog, and a wooden picket-type fence.
We never got the dog or the fence.
Where did those 44 years go?
He graduated from high school, went on to college and then optometry school in Chicago. They were married the summer before his last year of school. Then came the Navy, moving to a bedroom community just outside of Pittsburgh, five children, three grandsons and a parade of animals, from cats to snakes, guinea pigs, hermit crabs, chameleons and hamsters, to a two-foot long iguana and a ferret that steals chocolate and anything spongy-feeling.
Somehow, they made it through good times and bad, the loss of two babies, hard times and blessings, sickness and health.
Every so often, she looks at him but does not see a grandfather and a leader in his profession, she sees the boy behind the curtain, so nervous that he moved away quickly after that first kiss, getting her lipstick on his white shirt - something his mother would bring up over the next 30 years or so.
And as for her hero, well...he still tilts at windmills.
He looks at her, knowing all the illnesses she has had, the good times and the bad, sticking with him through thick and thin, trials and joys, and he sees his bride on their wedding day in the gardens at the Great House of Old Economy in Ambridge, flowers and trays of cookies, the wedding cake, friends and family all around.
Oh, there have been times when they each took a hard look and asked themselves why they ever said "yes", and "what would it have been like if?..." But they realize that they had learned the hardest of life's lessons that many people today take for granted or refuse to accept.
True love consists of learning to adapt. To adapt to a person who was brought up differently than you, someone with a totally different set of needs and wants and ideas and dreams. You give a little, so does he. You get angry, you learn to forgive and move on. Intimate diplomacy - give and take. And you also learn that at times, you need to put the other person first - their wants and needs before your own - at times.
All relationships, from love and marriage to a job, to even your faith beliefs, go through cycles. Things change, people change. You hold on for those moments that make it all worth while. You work at love - after all, this is a prime calling.
Do we have arguments and disagreements? Oh, yes...but we have learned that can be positive, when we know the ultimate goal is to fight FOR our relationship.
We both realize we are a rarity anymore. But we both come from a long line of people who were married for many years and made their marriages work. And you know you just might have succeeded, when your children tell you that they want a love like yours.
The final curtains may have gone down on that play so long ago, but the curtains are still up on this one. Perhaps a little dusty and worn...nonetheless, the romance goes on, I am happy to report.
We all need to build romance, to work on it.
So, here is a special menu for Valentine's Day or weekend - give it a try, it couldn't hurt. <GBG>
CYH - consider yourself hugged!!!
Scrambled Eggs and Caviar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3 T. butter
2 T. cream
2 tsp. chopped fresh parsley
1/4 c. red salmon caviar
In bowl, whisk eggs with salt and pepper. Melt butter in large heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Add eggs and cook, stirring almost constantly, until thickened. Stir in cream and parsley; cook for 2-4 more minutes or until eggs are set but still moist. Transfer to warm platter. Form hollow in top; spoon in caviar.
Crepes Cannelloni with Ricotta and Smoked Ham
Crepes:
2 large eggs
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. flour
4 T. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Filling:
1/2 lb. ricotta cheese
1/4 lb. thinly sliced smoked ham, finely diced
3/4 c. freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
2 T. chopped fresh parsley
Salt
2-3 T. unsalted butter, melted
Tomato-Cream Sauce:
1 T. unsalted butter
2 c. canned plum tomatoes with juice
2-3 T. heavy cream
Salt
Put the tomatoes through a food mill to remove the seeds; set tomatoes aside.
Crepes: Place eggs, milk, flour and 1 T. of the melted butter in the bowl of a food processor; process until smooth. Transfer batter to a bowl and let it rest for about one hour. (Batter also can be assembled in a bowl and whisked until smooth.)
Heat an 8-inch crepe pan or nonstick skillet on medium-high heat; brush with some of the melted butter. When butter begins to smoke, pour just enough batter in the pan to cover the bottom lightly. Tilt and rotate the pan immediately to spread the batter evenly. After 30-40 seconds, when the top of the crepe begins to solidify and small bubbles appear on the surface, check the bottom of the crepe, which should be lightly golden. Turn the crepe over with a spatula and cook 15-20 seconds longer. Place the crepe on a flat dish and proceed to cook the other crepes. Stack them so they are done and cool completely. (Place a small sheet of waxed paper between each crepe if they stick together.)
Filling: In a small bowl, thoroughly combine ricotta, ham, 1/3 c. of the Parmigiano, egg, nutmeg and parsley; season with salt.
Preheat the oven to 400F. Butter a baking dish large enough to fill cannelloni in one layer.
Lay crepes on work surface; place 1-2 heaping T. of the filling horizontally in the center of each crepe. Fold crepes over filling to make the cannelloni. Place them in the butter dish, brush lightly with melted butter and sprinkle generously with remaining Parmigiano.
Sauce: Heat 1 T. of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add tomatoes and cook 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cream and season with salt. Let the sauce bubble a few more minutes, then reduce heat to very low. Keep sauce warm while you bake the cannelloni.
Place the baking dish on the middle level of the oven, and bake until the cheese is melted and has a light golden color, 6-8 minutes.
Spoon some sauce in the center of two flat serving dishes. Swirl the sauce around to cover the bottom. Place cannelloni in the center of each dish and serve at once.
Note: You can prepare everything through the sauce several hours or one day ahead. Refrigerate. Reheat sauce gently at time of serving. Do not preheat oven until ready to bake. This is from Leo Buscaglia's Love Cookbook, with Biba Caggiano.
Perfect Yeast Rolls (ABM)
Water
1 cup
1 medium-large egg
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. vegetable shortening
3 1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
2 tsp. SAF Perfect Rise Yeast
Place ingredients into bread machine according to manufacturer's directions. Use dough setting. When dough cycle is completed, shape dough into small ball shapes, and place on greased pan. Let dough rise until double in size.
Bake at 400F until golden brown.
Raspberry Sorbet in Chocolate Cups
Raspberry Sorbet (bought or recipe follows)
2 oz. Semisweet chocolate
1 tsp. vegetable shortening
Raspberry Sorbet
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. sugar
10 oz. pkg. frozen raspberries, thawed
2 T. fresh lemon juice
If not using bought sorbet, make the recipe.
Chocolate Cups: Melt chocolate and shortening in small saucepan over very low heat. Place 2 greased cupcake papers in muffin tin. Divide chocolate mixture between papers. Spread chocolate evenly on bottoms and sides of papers with back of spoon. Place in freezer until hardened, about 30 minutes.
Carefully peel papers from chocolate. Store cups in freezer. At serving time, spoon sorbet into cups.
Serves 2.
Note: Chocolate cups can be made 1 week in advance. Store, loosely covered, in freezer.
Raspberry Sorbet: Heat water and sugar over high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes.
Process raspberries in blender or food processor until smooth. Strain and discard seeds. Stir raspberries into sugar mixture; stir in lemon juice. Pour mixture into shallow baking pan. Freeze until firm, 8 hr. or overnight.
Makes about 1 1/2 c.
Sweetheart Cookies
3/4 c. unsalted butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg yolk
2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 T. lemon juice
Red decorator's sugar or candy hearts
Cream butter, adding sugar gradually, and beating until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk. Add flour and salt, stirring just to combine. Stir in lemon juice. Gather dough into a ball. If desired, wrap in waxed paper and chill.
Using half the dough at a time, roll out on lightly floured surface until 1/8" thick. Cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter; place on a cold ungreased baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar or press a candy heart in center of each. Bake in preheated 400F. oven, 6-8 minutes, or until golden. Cool on baking sheet. Makes about 4 dozen 2" cookies.
By Cynthia Bowan
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Crepes Cannelloni with Ricotta and Smoked Ham | Perfect Yeast Rolls
Scrambled Eggs with Caviar | Raspberry Sorbet in Chocolate Cups | Sweetheart cookies
