vday dinner

[taken last summer while mini-golfing in provo]

For Valentine's day this year we kept it low key. Actually, I think we keep it low key every year. We're cool like that. I gave Ryan a booklet of 14 dates to keep Vday alive throughout the year, with ideas for both at-home dates and going-out dates and Ryan wrote me adorable little notes, one for each room and how each room reminds him of me, for one reason or another. He's cute like that.

I let him pick the main dish and he picked the confetti rice dish from Mel's Kitchen Cafe. He loves that dish and I do too. It's a cinch to put together. I usually mostly let the rice cool down (sometimes I stick it in the freezer when I'm running behind) and don't let the flavors meld because I make it for dinner and I don't have two hours to just hang out, but it tastes great right after throwing all the ingredients together, and great days after as well.

I also made these awesome peanut crunch brownies from One Lovely Life. Spectacular. After eating amazing sweets it's seriously so baffling to me that I don't make them more often. However, my waistline is grateful, since I probably eat too many calories from cheese than I should anyhow…

Also, on an unrelated, but kindof related pregnancy note, I've decided that even though a pregnant woman gains weight at the end because the babe is gaining the most weight, really, you gain weight because there are all these Braxton-Hicks fake contractions going on and all you want to eat is trader Joe's Ultra Chocolate ice cream for dinner. Or maybe it's just me?