Date Night Menu

You can find me, on Saturday night, in the kitchen at 10pm cooking dinner for or with my hubby. This was a tradition we started over a year ago and have continued it with as much enthusiasum as we had before. We usually plan it on Saturday morning so that we can get all of the goodies for this night when we are out running errands. This weekend we thought about it around 5pm, oops. So I quickly took inventory of any foods we had that maybe the kids didn't like that we could enjoy. Here is what we had:


Lemon Drop Martini, Cheese,Fruit, and Nut Tray, Scallop Scampi, and Brownie Shortcake

Ryan had to go out and get some cheeses for our appetizer tray but he had to anyway for some coke deals at our local grocery store. Here are the recipes for our date night.


Lemon Drop Martini - I wanted to get rid of some lemons in my fruit bowl so this fun drink came to mind. It was also a drink that Ryan and I had when we first met at a
dance club we went to.  I just googled Lemon Drop Martini. Here is the one I used.


Cheese, fruit, and nut tray. I am a sucker for fruit and cheese...I think I was meant to be born in Napa or Italy. Again, I had some grapes that needed to be eaten and a pear that was about to be thrown away...so what goes better with grapes and pears than cheese. I am not a professional pairer when it comes to these two things so again, I googled cheese and fruit pairings. Within a few minutes I had a list of 3 cheese we needed. You really only need one, we just like cheese! We went with a Smoky Gouda, Swiss/Cheddar Mix, and a Danish Blue. We added grapes, peach, pear, and some walnuts. I have to say my favorite combo of the night...walnuts and blue cheese. Yummy delish!!

For our main course, we had some scallop scampi. This is a totally made up dish from me. There are no exact measurements, sorry.


I started with some whole wheat pasta...thin spaghetti is our favorite with any scampi. I always cook the pasta first and get it draining when I start the sauce. This dish is super fast so you don't want the scallops to get chewy.


Put a couple tablespoons of butter with a about the same olive oil. Throw in some garlic....oh probably one or two cloves diced up really small. Let that cook on medium until it gets nice and golden. Throw in some diced fresh tomatoes. I also threw in some seasonings here. Salt, pepper, steak seasonings, lemon pepper, whatever you have in your spice cabinet that you like.  Then throw in about 1 - 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. Let that all cook for about 2 minutes.


Add a little love. You don't need a whole lot maybe 1/4 cup. At this point I also threw in a little more butter to get the creamy-ness back.


Now its time for your scallops. Always make sure that you wash your scallops and pull off their side muscle. Pat them dry or lay them on a napkin covered plate...just be sure not to add any napkin to your recipe :). I cooked this for about 4 minutes...I think. I have learned over the past year or two cooking with scallops...longer cooking does HORRIBLE things to these fantastic little gems. You want them to melt in your mouth. Plus they will continue to cook even after you take them off the burner.


Throw the spaghetti in with the sauce and turn a few times. Then plate it or bowl it like we did!! You can throw some parsley as a nice green garnish, I just didn't have any.  You can also substitute shrimp for the scallops.


For desert we had a brownie strawberry shortcake that I found on Duncan Hines website. Here is the recipe . You will notice I did mine a little different. I just crumbled up the brownies and made a little trifle in a wine glass. It was delish!!

Our date nights are a great way to spoil each other with good food and reconnect with each other after a busy week. We try to keep the cost of this night down but we always end up spending less than we would if we went out at an actual restaurant. Consider giving date nights a try around your house, it is worth it.