Valentine's Dinner

We had a lovely dinner last night! Or rather, the dinner I planned was wonderful! The execution...was a little sloppy. We were having all of our favorite things: steak, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and chocolate lava cake with ice cream!

I used top sirloin for the steak, and attempted a pan searing, then oven finishing technique. I think my pan was not quite hot enough (plus I don't have a nice heavy cast iron pan), so the crust was not quite as crisp as it should have been. But man, is that steak pink or what! That is the pinkest I have ever left any meat- and it was an internal struggle, let me tell you. But I resisted the urge to cook it in the oven for another 15 minutes (just kidding- it would have been charcoal if I did it that long!). It was probably in the pan for 3 minutes per side, then about 5 minutes in the oven.

(Our pink and juicy steak)

(Looks so good! From The Hungry Mouse)

We also had Pioneer Woman's smashed potatoes. I love these! The onion toppers and green onions make them so delicious. I didn't add bacon- but next time I will for sure. And of course, we had our favorite green bean casserole. It's always such a hit!

(Pioneer Woman's scrumptious smashed potatoes)

Dessert was molten lava cake. I made a half batch of this recipe from Savory Sweet Life. It was the easiest recipe I could find- plus it used chocolate chips instead of chocolate squares! However, I did it in a cupcake pan and so I overcooked them a little. I think I cooked them about 9 minutes, and rather than being molten in the middle, they were spongy with just a little lava. Have you ever had the 5 minute microwave mug cake? It tasted like that!

(Our molten cupcakes and vanilla ice cream)

(Tasty picture from Savory Sweet Life)

Overall, such a great Valentine's Day! I love cooking and not waiting in line at restaurants, so it was just the best! Hope you all had a great day as well.

P.S. Raise your hand if you knew how expensive ham is. Yah, I didn't, and so I was shocked in the grocery store last week when I needed to buy some for the two meals I had planned with ham! We aren't huge ham fans at our house anyway, so I found some turkey ham next to the ham! There was even a Jenny-O brand, so I figured this must not only be legitimate, it must be healthier too! We're having it in dinner tonight (this recipe, it's an experiment!) so we'll see how it tastes in comparison!

But doesn't it look so strange?