Valentines Day dinner recipes ideas at home

Valentines Day is fast approaching and if you are looking for budget-friendly stay at home dinner,  we got you covered with these recipes.

Coke & Red Wine Roast Beef recipe

This recipe is courtesy of Stuffed! and features some pantry staples but cash out for that roast beef, it will be worth it.

Roast beef. Picture: iStock

Ingredients
2 Cups Coca-cola
½ Cup Red Wine
3 Sprigs of fresh thyme
1.2kg Roast Beef
1 tsp crushed Garlic
Salt and pepper
Steak and chop spice
2 heaped tsp Maizena, mixed with some water
2 onions, peeled and whole

Method

Preheat oven to 180˚C. Spray some spray and cook on a roasting tray.
Season meat with salt, pepper, steak & chop spice and garlic. Rub it into the beef. Place on the roasting tray, along with the peeled, washed and whole onions.

Pour the coke and red wine around the beef and place the sprigs of thyme around as well.

Once the oven is preheated, place roast in the oven and roast for an hour and 20 minutes (for well done), turning it every 30 minutes.

When turning the roast make sure you baste it with the juices from the pan. If the juices seem to be evaporating, add some extra coke-a-cola.

Once cooked, allow to rest for at least 20 minutes and slice for serving thereafter.

While waiting for the meat to settle, make a gravy using the juices from the roasting pan.

Place roasting tray with the juices on the stove, heat up and allow to bubble.

Dissolve about two heaped teaspoons of maizena in a cup and gradually pour the maizena into the bubbling juices. Make sure to stir continuously at this point to avoid lumps.

Continue to do this until the gravy is a slightly thicker consistency.

Roast potatoes

Ingredients
8 medium-size potatoes peeled and cut in half through the waist
Ina Paarman’s Potato Spice
8 T (120g) duck fat or olive oil

Roast potatoes. Picture: iStock

Method

Put the potatoes in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil.

Cook only for 5 minutes. Drain well, return to the pan and shake the potatoes to roughen up the surface a bit. Season generously with Potato Spice, shake again to coat potatoes with seasoning. Put the potatoes on a baking sheet, leave to cool completely, then open-freeze. Once hard, tip the potatoes into a freezer proof container and freeze for up to a month.

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Put the duck fat into a large roasting pan and place the pan in the oven.

When it the fat is really hot, add the frozen potatoes (don’t thaw), tossing and rolling them in the hot fat so they are completely coated.

Cooking note, it’s a good idea to roast other vegetables such as green beans and broccoli with the left over oil.

Dessert

3 Ingredient Chocolate Mousse

This is a quick and easy dessert recipe, from Bits of Sunshine food blog. Best to do this first thing in the morning.

Chocolate Mousse. Picture: iStock

Ingredients
2 cups fresh cream *
1 small bag marshmallows (150g)
200g dark (semi-sweet) chocolate

Method

Break the chocolate into pieces. Add the chocolate pieces, marshmallows, and about ¼ cup cream to a heavy-based pot.

Melt on a very low heat, stirring constantly. When marshmallows are completely melted and the mixture is rich and smooth, take off the heat and leave to cool completely!

When cool, whip the remaining cream until soft peaks form. Fold the cool marshmallow mixture onto the cream

Pour into a serving dish and leave to set in the refrigerator.

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