food - valentine's feast

so as previously mentioned i was in desperate need for a recipe to make on valentine's day. my boyfriend and i have been a bit strapped for cash lately. i bought a couch (oh god! find out which one on monday!) and he ended up having to pay all the fees to get his greencard (more on that in a later post). so not having the finances to make a big deal of the day, we opted for a nice dinner at home. i'm sure he thought it would just another night at home. and i was super eager to make it anything but.

my search for a recipe began at 8am. i hopped onto thekitchn.com (one of my new favorite food blogs) and started searching their database of valentine's day articles. lots of recipes presented themselves. pulled pork, smoked ribs, lobster, and many others. all with a hitch. they either take a gazillion hours (i'm planning on using the next weekends to make them), ingredients i definitely couldn't get my hands on at the last minute, or were things my boyfriend doesn't eat (kind of against the point of valentine's day). so the search went nowhere.

then somehow i stumbled onto smittenkitchen.com (another new favorite food blog). i'm sure that thekitchn.com linked me to it, and as i went through her recipes i was encountering the same problem as before, too large, exotic (the ingredients), too time consuming, or all wrong. and cataloged a couple of recipes, then moved on. i don't know how i stumbled upon this recipe but holy crap! was it good.

the pork was perfect tender ( it helps that i got it at a local butcher) and the apple sauce wasn't too sweet (the pork drippings gave it plenty of umami. we had it with mashed potatoes which soaked up the delicious sauce and asparagus. the boyfriend set a romantic scene with tablecloth, candle, and rose.

i hope you had just as lovely a valentine's day!