Food // Valentine’s 2019 and Getting My Bake On

Valentines Day… you either love it or you hate it! I love it but have friends who are not fans at all… I absolutely agree that love should be celebrated every day and all those small tokens everyday like being greeted with a glass of wine after a shitty day or a surprise bunch of flowers shouldn’t be forgotten. Life can get in the way and I think Valentines is defo an excuse for date night 💜
Every year Tim and I will cook a meal rather than going out and buying pressies. We’ve done this since the first year we started going out. I remember Tim transformed his Uni room with fairy lights, candles and made his chest of drawers into a makeshift table with a table cloth and everything – very cute! I made cupcakes but remember Tim making the most amazing meal. He remembers it in a very different way with the fajitas being way too spicy… Honestly I remember it was the first time a guy had done something like this for me, being blown away and eating tasty food. Isn’t it funny how we can remember things so differently!
This year I said I’d cook a meal for us. Normally I can get super stressed when I cook a meal like this but I really enjoyed it this time. Sooooo the menu a la Cathers….
Starter… Camembert – nice and easy and perfect for the cheese lovers we are – we had it with tasty sun dried tomato bread and also apple slices
Main… Cheat’s Porcheta by Donal Skehan (see here for recipe)
Pudding… Raspberry Chocolate Mousse Cake by BBC Good Food (see here for recipe)
The recipes were fairly easy to follow and I’d definitely say give them a go. We’d last had Porchetta in Italy on a food tour in Rome and had loved it. So when this recipe popped up on Insta I had to give it a go – I will defo be making this again! Also… look at that spiral! So proud of himself hehe!
Before
After
Ready to go! Even got a shout out on insta from the chef himself 😀
We’ve been polishing off the chocolate mousse cake this week and got a good 3 days out of it between us. Definitely try and make this the night before you’re planning to have it so it properly firms up. I only made it the morning of, so when we cut into it it didn’t hold together. The next day it was much better 😋
Before all this though I started off the day with breakfast! I made American pancakes 😍 They took me much longer than planned but were worth it! I followed this BBC Good Food recipe and it made 5 thick and fluffy American style pancakes. And because this was our valentines celebrations they had to be served with Nutella and strawberries and stacked high! (Well as far as 2/3 pancakes can be 😋)
Tbh I surprised myself – not the first (or last) time I’ve underestimated myself… I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this. Could you imagine what things would be like if we believed in ourselves more? What I’ve taken away from this all is that I want to cook/ bake more – I mean Tim isn’t complaining as he’ll get to benefit from eating tasty (hopefully!) food! So watch this space!
Anyone else got a love for baking or cooking? 
Any suggestions of bloggers or insta people to follow for inspo?
Here’s to a good weekend! 
Until next time,
Cathers x
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