Shakshuka

Valentine’sDay/Home/Cheap

For February 2014

Going out to dinner on Valentine’s Day might sound romantic, but if you’ve ever done it then you know it can be anything but. Restaurants are crowded and noisy, the service isn’t up to par and somehow, everything on the menu seems, shall we say, “enhanced” for the evening. So, while this suggestion might seem unfriendly, unromantic and un-American, here’s a thought: why not go out on some other evening and spend Valentine’s Day at home, where you and your soul mate can cook together, spend time alone together and have a quiet, romantic and much cheaper dinner for two?

Our dinner menu will make it easy for you.

Start with the soup. When you’re in the supermarket shopping for the ingredients, you’ll see that beef and veal soup bones can be entirely clean of meat and yet are so expensive! You can skip those. Many supermarkets now sell chicken bones, which, though pricey enough, are a better deal. These bones are the pieces left over after the butcher cuts off the breast (or thigh) meat for filets. You can also buy chicken backs, which have been hacked off and not included in the packs of cut-up pieces. Packaged chicken bones are loaded with enough meat to be perfect for soup.

Get out your aprons and cutting boards and chop up the veggies, working in tandem. Open a can of beans, enjoy the perfume of freshly cut dill and marvel together about how easy it is to make a filling, nourishing, tasty soup without spending a fortune. The soup will be done in about two hours, although you can let it simmer longer, and even prep this part of the dinner a day or so before. The recipe makes about 8 servings, but you can easily halve it.

While the soup is cooking you can start on dessert. Something chocolate of course: fudge cake, dense, sweet, creamy and enticing. It’s best still warm, a little while after it comes from the oven, and topped with cold, homemade whipped cream. The bonus? Unlike any cake you might have ordered at a restaurant, there’s 8 more portions to savor the next day, and the next.

If you can splurge at all, buy good quality chocolate, but if you can’t, this fudge cake is still memorable even if you make it with packaged, commercial chocolate bars. Use pure vanilla extract though, it’s worth the extra money because imitation vanilla won’t give you enough flavor.

For dinner, think Shakshuka, one of the most popular dishes in the Middle East and North Africa, where it is eaten at all times of the day, for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Basically, Shakshuka is comprised of eggs that have been poached on top of a vibrant, judiciously seasoned salsa made with peppers, onions and tomatoes; kind of a Middle Eastern version of Huevos Rancheros. It’s filling enough, especially after soup, and the ingredient cost won’t bust your budget. The recipe is flexible too. You can add crumbled feta cheese or cooked vegetables (zucchini, carrots, spinach) if you like.

Zatar is a spice blend ubiquitous in Middle Eastern cuisine, but it can be used to season chicken or fish and sprinkled on top of roasted vegetables or used in vinaigrette. It is the classic spice for Shakshuka. If you don’t have any and don’t want to buy a jar, this fabulously tender, rich-and-spicy dish will be fine without it.

If you want a side dish with Shakshuka, have some hummus on hand. You’ll eat most of the salsa with the eggs, but you might want to include some crusty bread (such as ciabatta or Italian bread), or warm pitas to sop what’s left.

Enjoy the evening, the food, the time spent together.