I was going to see if I could some of your favortie recipes to cook for a romantic evening with a lady friend. I'm pretty good around the kitchen but would like to do something special, kind of fancy for a girl. Any ideas? Any help?

Bryan

From "Intercourses, an Aphrodisiac Cook Book" and I've made it for many a Valentine's day and other romantic meals. It's super easy too. Goes great with a really rich chocolate desert and a bottle of champagne:

Strawberry Pasta

1 pint fresh strawberries
half pound spaghetti
1/4 cup grated pecorni or parmasan cheese
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
mint sprigs for garnish

Puree the strawberries in a blender, strain to remove seeds. Cook the spaghetti using package directions, drain and toss with the cheese. Heat the butter and cream in a small saucepan. Move the pasta to a serving bowl, cover with strawberries, then the butter sauce. Toss well, service with additional cheese and garnish with mint.


My notes, if you want to add some meat to this dish, I usually grill up some nice filets to serve in the middle of it.

I wouldn't have thought, but that actually sounds delicious. I'll have to give that a try.

----
If you rack a bear in the nuts, be prepared to die.

So I finally got around to trying this. If we have fresh strawberries, we usually eat them without sacrificing them to the slaughter that is experimental cooking. However, with about a half pound looking to go bad in the next day or so, I gave it a shot.

I changed it, of course. I was looking for something a little more savory than sweet. I added a splash of good olive oil to the butter/cream sauce, and a splash of red wine as well. Not too much, though. At the end, I topped with a pinch of black pepper and some parmesan cheese.

The result was a mutant of the original, I'm sure. Thankfully, it was still very much a strawberry-dominated dish, but the pepper and that tiny amount of wine really mellowed out the sweet. It also made the dish and excellent pairing with the same red that I used in the sauce.

I think grilled red meat with a simple salt/garlic/pepper rub would achieve basically the same thing, but alas, I was looking for a quick dinner tonight.

Thanks, I enjoyed it!

Well, if you're going to cook it yourself I'd recommend making it at least three times first yourself so it doesn't come out poorly. These are not "healthy" meals, just good ones. Fine for dating, not typical cuisine:

1) Homemade alfredo sauce with pasta. Alfredo sauce is very simple to make. I recommend using a blender to get a good texture. Serve with either homemade raviolis/tortellini and mushrooms (a dash of curry on the mushrooms makes for delicious flavor). If you can't get homemade see if you can buy them locally non-frozen.

2) Homemade tomato cream sauce with penne. Serve with shrimp or fresh bread (I prefer fresh bread but a lot of people feel the need for some sort of meat).

3) Shrimp scampi served with pesto linguine and tomatoes with fresh mozzarella (try to find somewhere that you can buy homemade mozzarella or fontina).

4) Shrimp bisque with homemade bread. Its vital to make the bread yourself, it needs to be fresh. I like to preface it with mussels in a white wine, lemon and pepper sauce.

In general you can go with either a white or red wine pairing. I personally like a good sangiovese or pinot grigio.

Amazed the insanely easy/good chicken parm (in all it's delicious variations) wasn't part of your list.

PS I have cooked all but #4. Damn, shrimp bisque my man? The ladyfolk must love you.

Soups in general are pretty easy to make. I don't only cook italian food but italian food and seafood go hand in hand with dating. I make a mean pierogie & stroganoff dish as well but I wouldn't recommend it for a date heh.

Regarding Chicken Parm - its a bit commonplace. I might instead opt for egglant parm or veal marsala.

Disclaimer: I am not at the professional chef level by a wide margin, just a run-of-the-mill good cook. (I'm also a chemist by training, which I swear helps.)

One thing we've enjoyed is taking cooking classes together. The good news is that if it works, you can plan subsequent (and less expensive) evenings at home as a couple or with friends.

Look around at local high-end restaurants, especially if you're near a bigger city which attracts 'name' chefs. If you can't find something like that, you might be able to find a cooking academy that offers courses for non-professionals at night. The one we use frequently does "date night" classes. Avoid the mechanics-oriented ones (knifework is fun, but not date-ish!), and look for something that comes with wine.

We've since had a lot of fun using our class skills to host sushi night for our friends. (And her parents. Valg is brave!) Sushi's quite expensive if you go out, but if you know how to make your own, it's very reasonable even when you're buying top-end fish, since a little goes a long way. (We've done sushi dinners for 4 for $30-$40 plus sake, and had more food than we could eat. If you go this route, make sure you buy your fish from a top place-- ask a reputable sushi restaurant where they buy their fish.)

On a lower budget, we've also made our own pasta and done some quality Italian stuff. This is time-consuming, but fun in a hands-on kind of way. Note: Italian chefs will try to pick up every lady at the class. That's not just my opinion, that's science.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com