Valentine's Day Dinner

A few months ago, we tried fennel for the first time. We've been trying to try new vegetables and branch out a little and this was one of the new things we tried! We had it roasted in a pasta the first time and it was delish! It was a little sweet and almost spicy in a licorice spicy way. With Valentine's Day coming up I was planning what to make. I do not like going out to dinner on Valentine's Day, it is way too busy for my tastes. So as part of my gift to Greg for the last few years I've made him a fancy dinner. I've always made salmon since it's Greg's favourite so I decided to stick with tradition and make salmon again. I wanted to make it special and fennel came to mind. With citrus being so tasty right now, I thought it would be really delicious with some oranges. Slowly the menu started to come together. The first course was some bruschetta. Toasted bread, ricotta, spring mix greens, pears and a balsamic reduction. Those were a big hit with Greg. But this orange and fennel salad (recipe below) was one of our favourites from the night. Fennel and orange dressed in some lemon and olive oil on top of perfectly cooked, fatty salmon... The crisp fennel and the bright citrus with that salmon was so excellent. This salad will be a regular for us now. For dessert I decided to try something new that I thought Greg would love. He's a big fan of fruit desserts, but especially lemon desserts. I also like lemon desserts but I am a big fan of textural difference in desserts and usually I find lemon desserts to be very one note texture wise. So I decided to try filo dough for the first time and get it nice and crisp to go with some tart lemon pudding. Layers of buttery, crisp filo with pudding in between, topped with whipped cream and a quick raspberry sauce on the side. It was a hit. I already can't wait to use the rest of the filo dough. Recipe/instructions below.

Orange and Fennel Salad
Ingredients:
1 fennel bulb, core removed and bulb chopped
2 clementines, peels removed, sliced into rounds and divided into the small triangle sections
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp olive oil
Fennel fronds roughly chopped (optional)

After chopping fennel bulb and slicing and separating clementine pieces, put into a bowl. Dress with lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil. Toss well to combine. Add chopped fennel fronds if desired. Eat plain or on top of salmon, chicken or pork.

Bruschetta:
Bruschetta is so easy and can really be anything you want so there's not much too it! Slice a baguette on a diagonal so you have more surface area on your bread. Lay out on a sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 375 for about 6-8 minutes per side or until lightly golden brown. Top with whatever you want! This one was spread with a little ricotta, some greens on top, a slice of pear and then some balsamic vinegar that I cooked down. I put about 1/3 c of balsamic in a small sauce pan and heated it over medium heat. Add a little sugar, maybe 1 tablespoon. Cook until reduced by half. Let cool. That's what I drizzled over the top of this bruschetta.

Dessert:

2 sheets of thawed filo dough
2 T melted butter
1 small pkg cook and serve lemon pudding
Whipped cream (I prefer homemade but am not about the stuff in the can!)
Sunny Anderson's 1-2-3 raspberry sauce from here

Make the lemon pudding according to package directions and make the raspberry sauce. Let both cool in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 375. Carefully fold one sheet of filo dough in half so it resembles a book (I think we called it hamburger style in elementary school?), then fold in half again but this time the other way (hot dog style from elementary?). And fold in half one last time as hamburger style. Take a 2 inch round biscuit or cookie cutter and cut two rounds from the folded filo. You should end up with 12 thin layers of cut outs. Do the same thing with the other sheet of filo. Take a cookie sheet and brush the whole thing with a layer of melted butter. Take 6 rounds of filo and place them individually on the sheet. Brush with a little melted butter and layer another round on top. Repeat by brushing each layer with some melted butter and then topping with filo until you have 4 rounds in each stack.* Bake in the oven. I checked mine at about 8 minutes and then every 2 minutes after that. I pulled mine out at 12 minutes when they are just golden brown. Carefully remove from the baking sheet and let cool. Carefully place one stack of rounds on a plate and gently spoon some lemon pudding on top. Layer with another stack of rounds and then more pudding. Finish with the last stack of rounds and top with whipped cream. Use as much or as little raspberry sauce as you want!

*Note: make sure you read the instructions on your filo dough. You will want to keep it covered when you aren't working with it as it dries out quickly.