Valentine’s Day Dinner Retrospective

Yesterday I didn’t have the chance to post about my plans for our special Valentine’s Day Dinner here at Casa Dandelion because I was too busy preparing it. I seriously need a sous chef!

DandeDave, being a red-blooded American Male, is all about steak, and our son is virtually 100% carnivorous. So I wanted to do a “meat and potatoes with a chocolate dessert” kind of menu, but with a little twist. I think this would work for any special romantic occasion.

Our menu was as follows below. Hopefully I’ve set it up correctly so that you can link to each recipe.

Salad Course – Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing and Cheddar Garlic Biscuits
Entrée – Filet Mignon with Sauteed Mushrooms and Onions, Oven Roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes, and Oven Roasted Baby Artichokes
Dessert – Milk Chocolate Fondue

I don’t usually serve in true courses, but it was a nice treat to be able to focus on my salad while the remainder of dinner finished in the oven. Pulling this off all comes down to timing. You have to have everything perfectly choreographed to go into the oven at the appropriate time so that you can pull it all out at the end of the salad course and serve the entrée hot from the oven.

This is roughly what my kitchen timeline looked like:

90 minutes before dinner – do all the chopping and prep.
75 minutes before dinner – preheat the oven.
60 minutes before dinner – put the potatoes into the oven and assemble all of the salad except for the bacon and the dressing. Set the table.
45 minutes before dinner – make the biscuits.
30 minutes before dinner – pull out the potatoes and put the biscuits into the oven. Stir the potatoes.
25 minutes before dinner – cook the bacon and add to the salad. Reserve the drippings for finishing the hot bacon dressing.
20 minutes before dinner – assemble the baby artichokes to go into the oven. Make the chocolate fondue to be re-warmed on the fondue burner during the entrée.
15 minutes before dinner – saute the mushrooms and onions and start browning the steaks.
10 minutes before dinner – pull the biscuits out of the oven.
5 minutes before dinner – finish making the hot bacon dressing.
Immediately before dinner begins – return potatoes to the oven. Put artichokes and steaks into the oven. Assuming the salad course takes 25-30 minutes, everything should be done in time to pull for the entrée.
25-30 minutes after serving salad course – pull entrée and serve hot. Set up fondue service for dessert.