Lazy Valentines Day

At this point I'm sure it's pretty clear to everyone that I love to bake and cook from scratch. It would probably be no surprise that I don't care for the 'semi-homemade' way of doing things. Yesterday I sat a friend down and made them watch Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee, to show them exactly what I didn't want for a mass media project I'm doing (and for a cooking video I'll be shooting soon).

So knowing all this, you'd probably think my semi-homemade Valentine's Day plans were a little strange. (I had Valentine's Day with my boyfriend last week because of scheduling conflicts.) Unfortunately I don't have any pictures for you, but I thought I'd just share my ideas.

I love baking A LOT, but sometimes it's nice to go out to a bakery (I recommend Sweet Tooth on Elmwood.) and pick out a couple little treats to share. For Valentine's Day we just picked up a couple cannolis, a slice of red velvet and a slice of cheesecake and shared the dessert feast. Of course, if you're going to have so much dessert, you can't have a very big dinner so I decided to finally break out my fondue pot.

I used the Pioneer Woman's cheese sauce from her "Welsh Rarebit" recipe and it was crazy delicious. For dipping I just toasted up some chunks of bread and chopped some raw broccoli. It took 10 minutes tops but having the fondue pot made it feel like a special occasion.

I'm sure I'll be repeating this formula since it worked so well and then I will take pictures. But for now I just wanted to remind you that you can have a nice easy Valentine's Day without going to an expensive restaurant.


(Note: If you don't have a fondue pot you can pick one up and all the fixings for fondue for considerably less than the cost of dinner at The Melting Pot.)