{"id":3700,"date":"2011-02-15T13:11:40","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T21:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/?p=3700"},"modified":"2011-02-15T13:12:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T21:12:14","slug":"valentines-day-take-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/?p=3700","title":{"rendered":"Valentine’s Day – Take II"},"content":{"rendered":"

I became obsessed with making sure I picked the right recipe for Valentine’s dinner. I think the whole holiday puts a lot of pressure on couples – and I totally got sucked into that. I wanted to make something that Dan would like, but I also wanted to take it up a notch from our every day meals. I was on my 6th cookbook before realizing that I had wasted the entire morning. I switched gears and went with my more creative side. I 86’d plans for a fabulous dinner and decided to work on the whole “experience” instead.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I set up some old beer crates with trays filled with movie watching eats. I had the plastic popcorn containers and hot dog holders already. I had red and white crazy straws from Christmas stocking stuffers a few years back… all I needed was movie snacks and hot dogs. No problem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I grabbed some movie theater microwave popcorn, a package of Milk Duds and Raisinetes, Red Vines and we already had Coca-Cola – Dan’s drink of choice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The popcorn was the best part for me. I haven’t had it in a while and I usually get the Smart Pop, no butter, low fat kind. Movie Theater Popcorn is the way to go!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Red Vines are also a movie essential. We had the movie “The Town” from Netflix and it ended up being the perfect evening. Casual, no pressure, no\u00a0meal prep\/timing to deal with… just a wonderful evening of bullets, bank robberies and Boston. A++<\/p>\n

I did however spend time in the kitchen making special cupcakes. I went with a simple recipe from AllRecipes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Ingredients:
\n<\/strong>3 Cups Self Rising Flour
\n1\/2 Teaspoon Salt
\n1 Cup Unsalted Butter – room temp.
\n2 Cups White Sugar
\n4 Eggs – room temp
\n1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
\n2 Tablespoons Lemon Zest
\n1 Cup Whole Milk
\n1\u00a0Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice
\nI also added a few drops of yellow food coloring<\/p>\n

Directions:
\n<\/strong>Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
\nLine cupcake pans with paper liners – Mine used all 24 and I had some batter left over
\nSift the self-rising flour and salt together in a bowl. In another bowl, beat the unsalted butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy.
\nBeat in the eggs one at a time, beating each egg until incorporated before adding the next.
\nMix in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.
\nGently beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture – one third at a time, alternating with half the milk and half the lemon juice after each of the first 2 additions of flour. Beat until just combined – do not over mix.
\nFill the cupcake liners with batter (3\/4 full), and bake in the oven about 18 minutes.<\/p>\n

Buttercream Icing –<\/strong> I used a recipe I had cut out and put in my recipe box – I have no idea where it came from.
\n1 Cup Butter – softened
\n3-4 Cups Confectioners Sugar – sifted – I used 4 cups
\n1\/2 Teaspoon Table Salt
\n1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
\nUp to 4 Tablespoons Milk or Heavy Cream – I used whole milk<\/p>\n

Beat the butter for several minutes with a paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups of the powdered sugar and turn mixer to low until the sugar has been mixed into the butter. Increase speed to medium and add the vanilla, salt and\u00a02 tablespoons of the milk and beat for another 3-4 minutes. At this point I added a little lemon juice – probably was a little too much – so I added more sugar to get it to the consistency I wanted. It turned out great!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I used a pastry bag and some new tips I got – I then sprinkled yellow decorating sugar and lemon zest on top of my buttercream.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I used a red heart shaped platter I already had to display the cupcakes. This was my first time making cupcakes from scratch. I am usually a box girl and I never care what the frosting looks like. I am forever changed…LOL. It really was a lot of fun and besides tasting great, I think they look pretty awesome.<\/p>\n

We both ate 1 cupcake and I will probably bring the rest into work. Dan started his work’s Biggest Loser Challenge<\/em> yesterday – they never know when it will start. The boss brings in a scale, all of the guys put 20 bucks into the pot, and they go for 6-8 weeks. This time around it is a 7 week challenge and there are weekly penalties if you don’t lose – If the scale stays the same or goes up, you have to put an additional 5 bucks into the pot.<\/p>\n

This should be interesting. I’m headed to the grocery store after work to gather stuff for his lunches, dinners, etc. I will have to fit in treadmill time the minute I get home, now there will be two of us competing for workout time.<\/p>\n

We had a great night. Keeping it simple is sometimes the best way to go.
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Mental note: I stress out way too much. I even stress out about stressing out too much, ha! ha!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I became obsessed with making sure I picked the right recipe for Valentine’s dinner. I think the whole holiday puts a lot of pressure on couples – and I totally got sucked into that. I wanted to make something that Dan would like, but I also wanted to take it up a notch from our … <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,6,12,50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3700"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3718,"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700\/revisions\/3718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiddy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}