I Heart Valentine's Day

Happy (late) Valentine's Day!!


As cliché , overdone, and cheesy this love day may be, I have to admit- I'm a huge sucker for Valentine's Day! 


For Vday, I always like to make a special dinner, that I don't make very often- yesterday I made mussels!!!  Mussels are one of my favorite sea foods- so I made a mussel pasta, and it turned out oh so yummy!


The first thing I did was boil the mussels for about 7 minutes.  Then, I boiled a handful of thin spaghetti- in the mean time, I heated 1/2 cup of olive oil in a pot.  I then put one petitely diced onion into the oil, and waited for it to turn golden.  Soon after, I added 2 tablespoons of fresh minced garlic.  Then, I added 3 diced tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, and about 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro (parsley would taste amazing with it too).  I flavored it with some salt, onion powder, and a little bit of fresh basil.  Then I mixed everything together, and brought them to a simmer.  I then added the boiled mussels, and let them absorb the flavor of the sauce for about 3 minutes.  After that, I added the cooked noodles to the pot and mixed it all together.  Yeah, it's that easy!

My absolutely favorite part about love day is having an excuse to make a big, pretty, mouthwatering cake!  I made the top layer red velvet, and the bottom layer vanilla - and in between them, a layer if rich, whipped icing... yum! I decorated the cake with a thin layer of blush pink fondant, and decorated it with pretty flowers (that I also made from fondant!)  

This is what I did, I baked a red velvet cake in a 13 x 9 pan, then put it aside when it cooled.  I then baked a vanilla cake in the same pan, and set it aside too.  I placed the vanilla cake on a cake cardboard, and frosted the top, then I placed the same sized red velvet cake on top of it.  Using toothpicks, I then made an even heart shape in the two layered cake.  Using that as a template, I cut off all the extra cake- and turned the originally rectangular shaped cake into a heart shaped one (I could have skipped this step if I used a heart-shaped pan, but I don't have one).  I then covered the entire cake with whipped cream cheese frosting.  

Then, I took a block of already colored pink fondant, and rolled it out on a floured surface, it was HARD!  It needs serious muscle to roll out that tough brick! (another reason I should work out my arms more!)  When the fondant was thin enough (about 1/8 of an inch... I think), I placed it on top of the heart cake so it would cover the whole thing.  I then cut off the left over fondant, and attempted to make a drape-like finish on the bottom edge of the cake (wasn't that successful...).  I took the extra fondant and rolled it out once again, as thin as I could get it without it having any holes.  I then took a Wilson 5 petal flower cutter, and cut a bunch of flowers.  I folded the flowers in a way that they look 3 dimensional.  I then lightly painted the outer edge of the heart cake with water, so the flowers can stick, and just placed them on it.  It was fun!

I also made complementary heart sugar cookies to go with the theme!

Decorating is one of my favorite things to do- so this was a definitely blast for me!  All I needed was one pack of construction paper, a glue stick, scissors, a stapler, and a ribbon roll.  I already had most of those things, so I ended up spending only about 5 green ones on valentine decals this year!  yay!

Last but not least, I always love my nails to match any theme!  So, I decided to try Sally Hansen Salon Effects (nail polish strips) for the first time!  I've tried another brand (Kiss) once, and I loved them!  So I was psyched when I saw heart patterned ones- SO CUTE!  But, I just put them on yesterday and they are already starting to flake... bummer... I hope they last 10 days (like what the box says!)

Aren't they adorable?

Love to all,

lovepeonies♥