Valentine Dinner

Happy Valentines!! Steak or seafood or both are typical valentine foods, but I hate fish and Will doesn't really like shrimp, scallops or lobster, so steak it is. I made the steakhouse steaks which can found in a previous post. Although this time I heated my cast iron skillet on med not med high. Oh yeah, I wrapped applewood smoked bacon around the steaks this time too. So yummy, Mmm like butta!! With the steak I served bundles of asparagus also wrapped in bacon with a poached egg atop and a simple pasta. You know how to do the steak, so I lets move onto to asparagus. My bundles were huge, and I could've gotten four bundles out of the bunch, but hey, it's V-Day! So, I drizzled the asparagus with olive oil and sprinkled with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper and I wrapped my bacon strip around the bundle. BTW, I preheated my Breville Toaster Oven to 400 degrees (don't knock the toaster oven this thing rocks-check out their website.) I placed them in the oven and I roasted for 25 minutes. While those were roasting, I started my water for my pasta and my poached eggs. I chopped up a handful of fresh flat leaf parsley and 2 cloves of garlic. When the pasta was finished cooking I added the garlic and parsley and 1/2 of a container of Boursin Cheese (see photo if you don't know what Boursin is). Boursin has such a delightful flavor and I use it a lot in pasta and potato dishes and it's great mixed with italian sausage and stuffed in mushrooms. I also reserved a cup of the pasta water and poured into the pasta so that that it didn't stick together and set aside. Poached eggs represent fertility, so why not it's V-Day? I poached the eggs for 2 minutes and just laid them atop the asparagus bundles. Mmm, so easy to do and so yummy. Ok, so that's it. The time to prepare this meal was probably 30-45 minutes and it was so easy. Once I plated the food, I sprinkled the pasta and the asparagus bundles with some parmegiano reggiano cheese and fresh ground pepper. The wine we served is a Cabernet Sauvignon called Educated Guess, price $19.99 a bottle. It has a lot of complexity and very smooth. This is a fun meal to prepare and it tastes great. Dessert are BonBon cupcakes from the Manna Cupcake in Lebanon Ohio. Bon Appetit.