Valentine’s Day Pasta Dinner

Yesterday’s post was all about my favorite love language: FOOD! As a follow up, I’m sharing some recipes from a Valentine’s lunch we enjoyed last year with my mother-in-law and my daughter’s boyfriend (now her fiancé! Talk about love!). This is a menu I’ve made for different occasions but found it to be perfect for Valentine’s Day.

I’ve not made these recipes in a year, and last night when I pulled the cookbook off the shelf to work on this post, I noticed something really special. The title of the cookbook is The Gathering of Friends, which I had remembered. But what I’d never noticed, was the very small subtitle which reads “Let’s make food your love language”! This thrilled me since I’d just posted about the love language of food! What sweet timing.

Recipe files are attached at the end of this post.

Italian Shrimp Pasta

This pasta is so delicious and creamy but not as heavy as an alfredo. For the shrimp, I’ve used frozen shrimp (thawed first) and it works just fine. This is one of those pasta dishes that doesn’t need to sit, so it has to be made right before serving. To make the last-minute cooking more manageable, I prepare my ingredients ahead of time and have them ready to go.

Italian Chop Salad

I like to think of this salad as an Italian Cobb! When making this salad as a main dish, I add the salami, but when serving it with a meat dish, I leave out the salami. You can easily substitute any Italian cheese for the cheeses in the recipe, any Italian meats for the salami, and another lettuce for the romaine, depending on what you have on hand. I sometimes add chopped cucumber and chopped tomatoes in place of bell peppers. And of course, I add kalamatas to everything. Lots of flexibility with this salad. It has a deliciously tangy vinaigrette dressing to go with it too!

Rosemary Bread

They had me at rosemary with this recipe! I love rosemary. And I love a crusty bread with a salty herb top. When I made these for the Valentine lunch, I did so the day before so they would already be done. They are still mighty good on day 2, but nothing beats crusty bread fresh out of the oven. So, I prefer to make these shortly before serving them. These are more the size of 2 dinner rolls which the men love.
I eat half.

I set up a buffet on my island with the pasta, salad, and vinaigrette dressing, but placed the bread on the dining table. Bread on the table just always seems so inviting to me.

And here’s a fixed plate–wow, thats a full plate!

Tomorrow I’ll share the dessert recipe and it is very pink and pretty, so you don’t want to miss it!