Valentine's Dinner

Hubs surprised me with dinner this year at home! I was shocked. Making dinner is a huge ordeal for him because he doesn't know how to cook!

Tomatoes + Fresh Mozzarella + Basil = Yum!

Plated..

Lasagna!

Mini Red velvet Cake from Martha's Country Bakery - It's good but much heavier than most Red Velvet's I've sampled. Hubs loves the cream cheese frosting. I found it to be a bit heavy. My favorite is still at Sugar Sweet Sunshine!


He really earned his brownie points. The house was clean and dinner was home made. I don't ask for a lot (well sometimes I do) but it's the simple things that make me feel loved.

And there's more! The next morning, Hubs made us Banana Bread. It was made with whole wheat flour + he substituted Splenda instead of using sugar. Not too bad healthwise eh? The bread was super moist and really good, perfect with my cup of home brewed coffee!

Banana Bread Recipe (adapted from a blogger who I forgot to jot down and now I feel awful, sorry!)

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup Splenda
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 large bananas)
2 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional - no nuts for us)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease one 8 1/4 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan and dust with flour.

In a bowl stir together: flour, baking soda, salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, beat together: butter and splenda until blended. Beat in the banana (just drop it into the mixer, you don't have to pre-mash), then beat in the eggs until completely mixed. Don't worry if the mixture looks lumpy and curdled. Stir in the nuts.

Add the dry ingredients and stir until just blended.

Pour into pan and bake until a toothpick (or chopstick as I always use) inserted into the center of the loaves comes out clean, about 50 minutes.