Why Go Out for Your Valentine's Dinner?

The weather's still cold in most places, and restaurant (not to mention gasoline) prices are high—why not take a fraction of what you'd spend on a fancy dinner out and treat your Valentine to a home-cooked meal? This menu relies on inexpensive ingredients and simple preparations that leave you plenty of time to spend with your loved one. Who knows, maybe your loved one will be grateful enough to do the dishes . . .

First course (main course for vegetarians): Pasta with Silky Squash Sauce

Main course: Easy Peasy Roast Chicken 

Vegetable dish: Tian with Winter Vegetables

Dessert: Pavlova 

Wine: See our previous post

And for those of you who don't have a Valentine this year—who, in fact, have had it uptohere with all the red hearts and doilies and saccharine commercial crap—why not make yourselves a good dinner? Why not set a nice table, turn on your favorite music, pour yourself a delicious glass of something, and toast your own fine company (and your own good sense in not having settled for a jerk)?