Flavors of Kentucky

Give your valentine the gift of a homemade meal

Home cooking, it’s been said, is the way to a man’s heart. And what woman wouldn’t be pleased by a homemade meal prepared by the man in her life?

If the economy has put a chill on your Valentine’s Day plans, you can opt for a lovely meal at home, with money left for a dozen roses.

Men and women who aren’t accomplished cooks can make an Italian dinner easily. There are so many choices in pastas and tomato sauces that you can mix and match and come up with your own creations.

Choices for the main dish include beef, sausage, chicken, seafood and vegetables. The shape of the pasta can change the look of a dish, and the store-bought tomato sauce can make or break the flavor.

Most cooks buy a jarred sauce when making an Italian dish, and they have a favorite brand. But if you’re not pleased with the one you buy most often, go by what the experts at America’s Test Kitchen recommend. They rated Bertolli tomato and basil sauce tops because it had “a good balance of flavors,” “a nice chunky texture” and tasted “the most like fresh-cooked tomatoes.”

It’s fun to take a chance on some unfamiliar brands. Recently, Home Goods in Woodhill Shopping Center had a variety of Napa Valley Harvest pasta sauces. The artichoke and sweet red pepper pasta sauce, at $4.99 for a 24-ounce jar (suggested retail is $7.69), is one of the best sauces I’ve found.

When making pasta dishes, be sure to choose a pasta shape and sauce that complement each other. Thin, delicate pastas like angel hair or thin spaghetti should be served with light, thin sauces. Thicker pasta shapes, like fettuccine, work well with heavier sauces. Pasta shapes with holes or ridges, like mostaccioli or radiatore, are perfect for chunkier sauces, according to the National Pasta Association.

We’ve selected a Valentine’s Day menu that is easy to prepare and affordable. Set the table with your best dinnerware, nicest linens, flowers and candles. Play your sweetheart’s favorite music, and start cooking together.

Here’s a simple menu: hearts of romaine salad, easy lasagna, garlic bread and rustic red tart or raspberry sorbet.

The salad calls for a gorgonzola dressing, but you can use a store-bought one if you prefer. The easy lasagna is made with refrigerated ravioli layered with fresh spinach, pasta sauce and mozzarella cheese. The tart can be made a day ahead, and if there’s not enough time for a homemade dessert, simply spoon raspberry sorbet into a fancy goblet or dessert dish and jazz it up with a couple of rolled wafer cookies.

Garlic bread adds a nice touch to any Italian meal.
Garlic is a strong-flavored cousin to onions, shallots, leeks and chives. It grows underground and releases most of its flavor once it has been crushed, chopped, pressed or pureed. Here are tips for buying and storing fresh garlic from Bon Appetit.

• How to buy: Look for firm, plump bulbs with dry skin. Avoid bulbs with shriveled skins, sprouting or skins that cover the cloves loosely (an indication that the garlic has dried out and shrunk).
• How to store: You do not need to store garlic in the refrigerator. Keep it in an open container in a cool, dark spot. Unbroken bulbs can last 2 months, but cloves broken from the bulb keep for only a few days. If your garlic starts to sprout a little, it’s OK to use it, but cut out the green sprout because it has a bitter taste.
• How to prepare garlic: To separate a whole head of garlic quickly, wrap it in a dish towel and give it a good thwack with a heavy frying pan. The cloves will fall away from each other easily, and the dish towel will keep them together and prevent them from getting bruised.
• To remove the skin from a clove, place the clove on a cutting board and hit it with the flat side of a chef’s knife just enough to bruise it. After that, the peel will come off easily.
• Some recipes will ask you to mash garlic to a paste in a bowl or mortar. Try mashing the garlic with a chef’s knife. Put a chopped clove and coarse salt on a cutting board. With the blade at a 45-degree angle to the work surface, bear down on the garlic and salt. Use the same motion you would to butter bread, twisting your wrist and using the top half of the knife blade. Mash on, and soon you’ll have a creamy paste.
• To roast cloves: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place unpeeled cloves in a single layer in a small ovenproof dish. Drizzle some olive oil and a tablespoon of water over the garlic. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Cover the dish with foil. Bake garlic until it is tender, about 50 minutes. Peel cloves and mash as needed, or, for a puree, put them in a food processor and through a sieve.

Roasted garlic
6 heads garlic
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove any loose skin from garlic heads and cut a 1/4-inch slice off tops, exposing tips of cloves. Set garlic heads cut side up on sheet of aluminum foil and sprinkle with olive oil and salt. Wrap heads in foil and roast until tender, about 45 minutes. Let cool before peeling.
From Every Day With Rachael Ray

Garlic bread
1 to 2 teaspoons roasted garlic puree, or more if desired
1 stick butter, melted
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt
1 loaf (1 pound) French bread
4 ounces Parmesan cheese, cut in chunks and grated
Parsley, fresh or dried, optional

Combine garlic puree with melted butter, olive oil and pinch of salt. Slice bread in half lengthwise. Spread cut halves with garlic mixture. Bake bread in preheated 400 degree oven about 10 minutes, or until topping is bubbly and edges of the bread start to brown. Remove bread from oven; sprinkle immediately with the grated Parmesan and parsley.

Hearts of romaine salad
8 strips good-quality bacon
1 large egg
2 hearts romaine lettuce
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Gorgonzola dressing (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lay bacon strips on roasting rack and bake until crisp, about 20 minutes. (To make bacon curls: Wrap each slice of raw bacon around a metal skewer in a barber-pole fashion and lay the skewers on the roasting rack.) Pat dry with a paper towel. When cool enough to handle, break into pieces or in half, if using curls.
Put egg in a small saucepan with enough cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and remove from heat. Set aside for 10 minutes. Drain egg and roll it between your palm and the counter to crack the shell, then peel under cool running water. Rub egg through a fine-mesh strainer and set aside.

Remove large outer leaves from romaine hearts and rinse. Chop these leaves into bite-size pieces and spin dry. (Use an extremely sharp knife to minimize bruising the edges.) Halve hearts through cores to make 4 wedges. Rinse under cold running water and shake to air dry.

Divide wedges among 4 plates. Mound some of the chopped romaine on top and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Spoon about 1/4 cup gorgonzola cheese dressing over each salad and top with some of the sieved egg and bacon. Pass remaining dressing at the table.

Gorgonzola dressing
1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
8 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup canola oil

In a blender or food processor, combine vinegar, sugar, 1 cup Gorgonzola, onion, mustard, garlic and salt. Cover and process until smooth. While processing, gradually add oil in a steady stream until dressing is thickened. Stir in remaining Gorgonzola. Serve over salad. Cover and refrigerate leftover dressing. Makes 2 1/2 cups.

Easy valentine lasagna
24-ounce jar pasta sauce
18- or 20-ounce bag refrigerated large cheese ravioli
10 ounces fresh spinach
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup (about 2 ounces) freshly grated Parmesan

Combine remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon; sprinkle over tart. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and apples are tender. Let stand 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes 6 servings.
Source: Cherry Marketing Institute