1st Married Valentine's Day!

Jake has always done very well at buying me presents and is even better at keeping the secret until the right moment! And on this first Valentine's Day as husband and wife, he did not let me down.

Wednesday, February 13th:
He called me on Wednesday after I left for work to tell me that when I got home I was NOT allowed in the kitchen. It was very difficult but I managed to keep myself from going near the kitchen (thanks Jknotties for the entertainment!).

The final surprise revealed...
...an Ultimate Chocolate Cake!

The weekend leading up to Valentine's Day I had a major craving for chocolate. Every show on the Food Network was dedicated to chocolate, thus fueling my need for chocolate. I drooled over the recipes by all my favorite chefs: Giada, Jamie Oliver, Tyler Florence. But my favorite was Tyler's Ultimate Chocolate Cake! Apparently, it was then that Jake decided what to get me for Valentine's day.
He even researched and found a specialty baking store to buy real chocolate. He said the store was amazing. We are planning to go visit together this coming weekend. Stay tuned for a review (as I hope to come home with a few new kitchen items!).
His master plan was to make the cake, do all the dished and then hide the cake behind a curtain until he got home. Well, his timing was ruined when the weather caused me to have a short work day. Thus, the phone call telling me to stay out of the kitchen. He hadn't had enough time to finish. Well, I was still very much surprised!
The recipe can be found here. The only change Jake made was a raspberry syrup instead of the liqueur because we didn't have any raspberry liqueur.
The frosting was a little rich the first day. I liked it much better the morning after!


Thursday, February 14th:
Jake and I had both requested to take the day off because we were going to go to the taping of a television show. Unfortunately the tickets never came through. We decided since it was Valentine's day that we still keep the day off and celebrate together.
We have been working opposite schedules for quite a few weeks and the time we have had together has been spent doing stuff like laundry and grocery shopping. So, some quality time together for Valentine's day was exactly what I wanted!
Instead of a big heavy meal that neither of us really needed. I wanted something light and relatively healthy (especially now that there is a chocolate cake in the house!). I read another blog that had the idea to do a picnic. Perfect!
It didn't turn out to be super healthy in terms of fat grams but it was certainly wasn't heavy and we had a lot of fun! It was an indoor picnic of course, watching No Reservations.

Our picnic:
apples
kiwi
bread
variety of cheese: brie, sliced mozzarella and sharp cheddar
spinach-artichoke dip
nutella (chocolate-hazelnut spread)



A perfect First Valentine's Day! :)