Valentine's Day Part II

So after getting my morning Valentine's Day panic over with, I napped for a couple hours. When I woke up, the sun was shining and the beautiful weather called me on a long walk. I ended up walking around Evanston for five hours and then came home and cooked for two more hours. I think that's why I'm up and typing at 3am; I woke up at 1:45 in so much back pain that it was impossible to fall back asleep. I figured I could lie there drooling onto Abe's sweatshirt for a couple more hours, or I could get up and blog.

My walk was lovely. First I went to the lake and saw three stunning cardinals; two were vibrant, red males and one was a distinctly fat female. I wondered if she was pregnant like me. Then I made my way to the library and checked out three very exciting books: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (for my Hyde Park book club, even though I know I won't make the March meeting), Planet Home: conscious choices for CLEANING and GREENING the world you care about most, and Superbaby: 12 ways to give your child a head start in the first 3 years.  If you read last night's musings, you will understand why Abe was terrified to see that last choice in the house.

After the library, I made my way across the street to Whole Foods. After failed attempts to go vegan and then vegetarian, Abe and I are now happy flexitarians. Basically, a flexitarian is an undisciplined foodie who knows that a plant based diet is best but still occasionally indulges in the guilty pleasure of eating happy animals who were well acquainted with the concept of grass. Okay, okay, I admit--sometimes on a meat night I buy those rotisserie chickens from Jewel--but their little gimpy wings never fail to induce prayers for forgiveness and firm resolutions to opt, once and for all, out of the system. After all those prayers, I still find myself drooling when I pass a KFC... Also, if someone were to analyze my diet, it would probably center around a wonderful little chemical compound called glucose. But sugar is plant based, right?

Anyway, the point is, I don't prepare meat very often, and I can not remember the last time I ate--much less prepared--red meat. But when I perused potential Valentine's Day dinners, a high number featured filet mignon, and I found myself becoming alarmingly attracted to the pictures of those juicy cuts of beef. So I resolved to overcome my fear of red meat, and when I walked into Whole Foods, I made a beeline to the meat counter before I could lose my resolve. My heart did a slight flip flop when I saw the price of filet mignon, but I already had a recipe, so I tried to sound confident when I asked the butcher to give me 16 oz of the stuff.

I spent the next couple hours trying to forget the imminent pre-dinner face off between me and the meat. This amazing recipe for asparagus soup was a wonderful distraction. It's flavored with basil and garnished with goat cheese/basil balls. So yummy! And the green color was a delight to behold:

Isn't that pretty?

Goat cheese and basil balls. They melt in the soup and turn into white and green streaks of salty, tangy goodness.

 And then there was no getting around it. I had to cook that meat. I reread the recipe about 14 1/2 times and then followed it EXACTLY. Without even slight deviation. And it turned out! My grandma always said, "if you can read, you can cook." Thank you, Grandma! If you can read a good recipe, then red meat isn't so scary after all. I will say, though, that neither of us could finish our portion. I felt slightly sick from trying, but Abe has promised to eat the leftovers for dinner tomorrow. Phew.

Here's what the dinner looked like:

Yes, that is a bowl of popcorn on the table. We were too full to make a huge dent on it at dinner, but knowing that a full bowl of chocolate caramel popcorn existed in my house gave me a little extra impetus to get out of bed and blog.