February 14th Menu

My sweetie first imagined exactly what she wanted to make for our Valentines day dinner, then she found a number of recipes that provided a helpful starting point, bought all of the freshest ingredients and prepped things over the weekend (like the Harissa and Chermoula), and proceeded to orchestrate the most awe inspiring meal of our lives (no exaggeration):

Organic Lamb burgers, with an Artichoke, Pepper, and Chickpea Tagine with Olives and Preserve Lemons, a side of cous cous and a red wine that we drank in Spain (Marques de Caceres). The ground lamb we got from a local farmer, literally from their farm, and Zannah used a Cooking Light recipe (Lamb burgers with Indian spices and yogurt-mint sauce, July 2010) to make the most succulent and lightly brazed burger. The Tagine is really what rocked our world. It is nothing, nothing, I would have imagined, but somehow she knows these concoctions exist (and found it in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone): steamed baby artichokes, large colorful bell peppers, chickpeas, cilantro and parsley (think tabouli flavors), add Kalamata olives (now imagine a layer of salty, meaty-ness), add preserved lemons for a kick that's more heavenly than just lemon zest, and top it all with Chermoula - a Moroccan green sauce that everyone should just keep in the fridge for topping vegetables - it's got cilantro, parsley, garlic, cumin, cayenne, olive oil and more lemon.

To top it off we could barely make room for dessert, but had to make room, you know? She used our frozen nectarines from the summer to make a nectarine pie with a ginger crumb crust. I made lots more room for dessert this morning, for breakfast;)