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Is life on Valentine’s Day really like a box of chocolates? You almost always know what you’re going to get, and it’s usually more and more boxes of chocolates.

But there’s more to a holiday that’s all about love than the traditional sweets typically associated with it. The love can also be poured into the perfect meal that features both sweet and savory heartwarming dishes with ingredients — you guessed it — made with more love than any other meal. This two-course Valentine’s Day meal requires effort but not too much time, good technique but not too much skill, and most importantly, the right amount of passion that you’d want to invest in a dish for your significant other.

Main course: Lemon garlic pasta

This pasta recipe blends the aspects of convenience and hard work that will lead to a Valentine’s Day meal you’ll be proud of. Use one box of thin, versatile angel hair pasta that cooks in no more than five minutes, which won’t impede the tangy, creamy sauce it’s served with.

To prepare the ingredients for the sauce, begin chopping broccoli until you have about 1 cup to 1 ½ cup of chopped florets, and place about 2 cups of baby spinach in a bowl (this will cook down a lot). Then, set aside the juice of one lemon and 2 tablespoons of cold, unsalted butter, along with 2 minced or crushed garlic cloves.

Before making the sauce, start boiling a large pot of water that is generously salted. It’s very hard to over-salt your pasta water, so don’t worry about how much you’re adding.

Heat two medium-sized pans (if your stove top allows): one over medium heat and the other over medium-low. Drizzle each with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. In the pan over medium heat, add your chopped broccoli and season with salt and pepper, making sure to stir frequently to avoid burning the florets. Once the broccoli has somewhat softened, add your spinach. It won’t take long for your spinach leaves to wilt, so don’t add them too early.

In the medium-low pan, add your garlic — and red pepper flakes for a little spice — and after 30 seconds, whisk in your butter so it doesn’t clump or begin to burn. Stir in your lemon juice and let it reduce, stirring occasionally.

Your pasta water should be boiling at this point. It only takes about 10 minutes depending on the size of the pot. Add your dry angel hair pasta, and cook for 1 minute less than the package calls for. Right before removing the pasta from the pot, add your cooked vegetables to your sauce, reserving 1/4 cup of the starchy pasta water from the pot. Now you can strain your pasta into a colander and immediately add to your sauce, tossing it for about 2 minutes before serving.

If you’re a stickler about presentation — and you should be, because it’s Valentine’s Day after all — use a carving fork if you have one and twirl half your pasta around it. With angel hair, you shouldn’t have to worry about it tightly adhering to the carving fork. Have your plate nearby so you can easily slide your coiled pasta onto it. Finally, add the vegetables, a generous amount of sauce and top it off with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Dessert: Chocolate-covered strawberries

It wouldn’t be a Valentine’s Day meal without the chocolate. In the end, Feb. 14 is all about the sweets. But instead of indulging on the traditional store-bought heart shaped chocolates, this recipe gives you a chocolate sauce that when done right, will perfectly congeal around your strawberries, or any food you’d like to dip.

Start with 16 ounces of dark chocolate, which will yield 2 cups of melted chocolate. First, set up a medium-sized pot of simmering water over medium-high heat, and place about 2/3 of your chocolate in a large heatproof, ideally a metal, bowl. With the remaining 1/3, finely chop it into small shreds, leaving no noticeable chunks, and set aside.

Once the water has come up to temperature, place the bowl with the uncut chocolate over the simmering liquid and begin to move the slowly melting chocolate around with a rubber spatula. Let the chocolate fully melt until it reaches 115 degrees F or for about 20 minutes, then immediately remove from the pot. Make sure to keep the chopped chocolate bits close so you can immediately add them little by little to the melted chocolate, making sure each shred is fully melted before adding the next batch. This will allow the melted chocolate to cool down to the benchmark temperature of 85 F.

Place the bowl back over the simmering water about five times for 5-10 second increments to keep the chocolate between 85 F and 90 F, no more and no less. Once you have your working temperature, the chocolate is finished, and you can set it aside at room temperature to let the chocolate firm up a bit. Meanwhile, place your whole strawberries in a bowl and gather some skewers or any other dipping utensil.

Now it’s time to dip. Your chocolate should congeal perfectly to the strawberries instead of leaving a drippy mess. The chocolate will be in its “tempered” state for a while, so no need to rush through the romantic pasta dish to get to dessert.

Published on February 13, 2022 at 11:24 pm