chefberghoff.com

As promised here is one of the Valentine’s dinner recipes. I hope you enjoy it! 

Ingredients
1 whole head garlic
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 10 oz package chopped spinach, frozen
¼ cup milk, skim
1 dash hot pepper sauce
1 8oz package cream cheese

Directions
Cut off pointed top portion of head (1/4 inch) with a knife, leaving the bulb intact. Place on double thick square of foil. Drizzle oil over garlic. Fold foil up around head to enclose. Bake in 375 oven for 20 minutes or until garlic is soft. Let cook so that removing garlic can be done quickly and without burning yourself.

Cook spinach according to package directions, omitting salt. Drain well, press out excess liquid. Squeeze pulp from garlic cloves and dice place in saucepan. Add drained spinach, milk, hot pepper sauce, and pinch of salt. Stir until well combined. Add cream cheese, process until nearly smooth. Cook and stir over medium-low heat until heated through. Serve with sliced French bread.

As always here is also a ready to print recipe as well: Roasted Garlic Spinach Dip

For Valentines Day we had not planned on doing much and then Victoria started asking everyone she worked with what they were doing. No one else was doing anything but sitting at home too. While I probably be there with them doing nothing. We both thought about having everyone over for a dinner party. After come careful negotiations with Victoria, I came up with a mini-theme Italian Valentines Day dinner. I say mini-themed because I can just be strict enough to stick to it. I had an appetizer or two that had it and both entrees had the theme too. For desert I forgot the theme entirely and brought in the Valentines Day into it. Here is what we enjoyed.

Appetizers
Homemade red and white sangrias
Bruchetta de Pomadoro
Bruchetta Grecca
Roasted garlic and spinach dip
Vegetable Crudités (aka veggie tray)
Entrées
Mediterranean Chicken and Pasta
Penne pasta with hand rolled meat balls
Desserts
Waldorf Astoria cake (aka red velvet cake) with cream cheese frosting
Chocolate fondue with marshmallows, strawberries, bananas, and pound cake
Vanilla bean ice cream

Most items I made from scratch if I had the time. The recipes I guess would give away how much work I put into it. I will say it was a ton of work and I was nervous that I would run out of time. It was a blast! There are always lessons learned but I probably couldn’t have done it better than what I had planned. I’ll be posting all the recipes that I used in a couple of days. Keep an eye out…