Most people associate Valentine’s Day with romantic candlelit dinners, but there’s no reason why the other meals of the day can’t be special occasions as well. Whether it’s a homemade breakfast or a special brunch at a restaurant, there are plenty of ways to make every meal romantic.
Breakfast
Not surprisingly, many Valentine’s Day breakfast recipes are heart-shaped variations on familiar favorites. Both Taste of Home and CDKitchen offer recipes for almond French toast hearts, adding to the sweetness of the dish (and the Valentine’s Day color scheme) with a garnish of strawberries.
In a similar vein, Taste of Home’s Sweetheart Pancakes recipe forgoes the traditional pancake stack and spreads three pancakes out to allow a whipped cream heart to occupy the center of the dish. The heart is then filled with cherry sauce to give it the appropriate appearance. The recipe makes four servings.
CDKitchen has some more elaborate variations on the theme. The Heart Breakfast Ring features seven dough hearts in a circle, along with an almond filling and snipped cherries. The Breakfast Heart Casserole places an egg and bacon (or sausage and ham) casserole in a heart-shaped pan.
Brunch
If you don’t feel like cooking yourself and want a more elaborate early to midday Valentine’s meal, there are many restaurants that offer specially themed brunches on or before Valentine’s Day. Bistro St. Tropez in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has a three-course brunch on Feb. 13, 2011, starting with a wild mushroom soup and tartare appetizer, a main course of confit and profiterole, and a choice of a French cheese plate or caramelized bananas for dessert.
The Hornblower cruise line in Sacramento, California has a brunch geared towards couples who would rather take to the water than remain land bound. Their Champagne Brunch cruise along the Sacramento River promises “free flowing sparkling wine” and a menu containing a variety of salads, traditional breakfast entrees, and chocolate bread pudding.
In keeping with the traditional association of Italy with romance, the 3 Olives Italian Restaurant in Katy, Texas has a special brunch buffet for Valentine’s Day. In addition to the usual offerings such as omelets, bacon, sausage, and Belgian waffles, it includes a variety of Italian pastas and drink specials.
Should you find it more romantic to prepare a brunch at home, Williams-Sonoma offers a guide that includes recipes for French-style baked eggs, cider-glazed sausages, raspberry-lemon muffins, and mimosas.
Lunch
The Gazebo restaurant at the Ski Apache resort in Ruidoso, New Mexico features a Valentine’s Day lunch as elaborate as some restaurants’ brunch offerings. It’s a three-course meal, beginning with canapés and spring greens before progressing to a choice of two main courses: Chilean sea bass or prime rib. The dessert is a bread pudding in passion fruit whiskey sauce.
The Imperial Palace in San Francisco, California combines lunch with a musical revue, “Motown Madness”. The lunch is a Chinese buffet, fitting since the restaurant is situated in Chinatown. The show is also available at dinner, with a seven-course meal available in addition to the buffet.
The Farm at South Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona has a more outdoors-oriented lunch, the Valentine’s Picnic in The Grove. Situated at picnic tables underneath a grove of pecan trees, the lunch offers a cheeseboard for two, a turkey or chicken salad sandwich, a side salad, an a red velvet cupcake and chocolate truffles for dessert.
Paul Brown - Paul Ferrell Brown graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1994 with a B.A. in English literature, and completed his M.A. in ...
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