Romantic Meal for Two

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen

And whether it's Valentine's Day, an anniversary, or just a day when you want to make the one you love feel real special

a great way to do this is with a romantic home-cooked meal

straight from your heart. Speaking of heart, you know what they say

that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. So first, I'm going to do one of Michael's favorites

oysters in a patty shell. And then for the main course, I'm making a rich maple glazed salmon with the most wonderful pineapple salsa served over my quick and simple polenta hearts

But that's not all, y'all. For dessert, I'm going to be making my sinful chocolate bundles covered with a chocolate ganache

So light some candles and get ready, y'all. Romance is definitely in the air

Hey y'all

Y'all just stepped in and caught me writing a love note to Michael

Today's show is all about a romantic meal for two. So what do you say let's go on in the house and see what kind of mood setting meals we can prepare

One of the first dishes up is an oyster dish. This is going to make a great appetizer for you

It's real easy to make. Now we're going to start with our pastry, and we're using a plain flour, and I'm just going to mix that up

And I'm going to add cream cheese and a stick of butter

This is just one of my favorite pastries. In fact, I use this crust for savory dishes as well as sweet dishes

In fact, this is the original crust for my little mini pecan pies, which are just delicious

There we go. And this should start forming a ball, as you can see it's already starting to, there it

is, there's our ball. Alright, now I'm going to take this out and you'll want to be careful with your blade

so you don't nick yourself. Now I'm going to just wrap this in saran wrap

You can't ever have too much counter space, can you? I think if I had a mile a counter, I'd still use a mile and a quarter

Ooh, that cream cheese smells so good in there. Gertie, I don't have anything ready yet

All right, now I'm just going to kind of work that into a ball just like that

Great. All right, so we're going to switch this out to one that I'd made earlier that has gotten a little firmer

All right, this should take about half of this batter or half of this dough

So I think I'm going to cut it in half, and then we've got seven patty shells to make

So I'm going to divide this into seven pieces, just like that

We're going to try a little something and see if it'll work for this. I've got a glass that's about the size of these openings, and I'm going to just dip

it in some flour, and I'm going to press down and see how that works

Oh, that works good. And we're just going to keep on going until we have every one of them

And then I'm going to come back and I'm going to work it up the sides a little bit, because

I want these shells to have a little lip on it so that the oysters won't fall out

All right, so I'm going to come back in with my fingers, and I'm just going to run this

pastry just like this up the sides of it, so it'll make like a little edible container

That's working just the way I wanted it to. Look how pretty and perfect that is

All right, we're going to put this into a 350 degree oven, and we're going to bake it

for 45 minutes. I'll be checking on it closely, though, but we want a nice kind of medium brown

crust to hold those oysters. Now for the good stuff. I'm gonna start with two

tablespoons of butter. We've got our butter ready and I'm gonna saute our

mushrooms in here until they're kind of soft. All right these are looking good

All right, now I'm gonna just toss some flour in here and stir that up because that gonna act as a thickener All and I going to add a fourth of a teaspoon of garlic salt and a cup of milk and let that cook

We're just going to throw those oysters in there. Speaking of romantical, I think Michael is fixing to get on a ship

but I still want to talk to him. Maybe it'll be all right. What are you doing

Well, I was just looking at these oysters and thinking about you

I can't wait for you to get home. I'm cooking a romantical meal just for the two of us

I love you, too. Bye. I just love romantical men. All right, and I'm going to put like a teaspoon of lemon juice

All right, we're just going to let this simmer until it really thickens up

All right, this has reduced down and gotten thicker, but I think our patty shells should be done

So let's see what they look like. Oh, yeah, they look good

Hey, Rennie. What you doing? Bring our plate around here. Now Michael can probably eat two of these

but I can't eat but one. All right, now all I'm going to do

is just pile the oyster on top of that beautiful piece of pastry

Now if you didn't like oysters, you could use a shrimp or a scallop

Now I'm gonna just sprinkle it with a little parmesan cheese and fresh parsley

And the dish is ready to go, just that simple. And if your companion likes oysters, they'll love this dish

Oh, it's so hot. Mmm

is going to make a perfect mood setter. And when we come back, I'm going to be making a

maple glazed salmon with a pineapple salsa. I've got the water ready for the polenta, so let's start with the polenta

To me it's so much like our grits. I've got about four cups of boiling water

and I'm gonna put about a teaspoon of salt in it. And I'm gonna slowly pour my polenta in

just like I would my grits. In fact, I tell everybody the secret

to a perfect pot of grits is stirring it when you first put them in

And then the butter and the cream doesn't hurt that perfect pot of grits

I'm using a quick polenta. And you'll wanna be careful because once it starts thickening up, it'll bubble up on you, and it's very, very hot

Okay, so that's nice and thick. I think I'm going to add just a little butter to it

All right. I'm just going to dump this over, and depending on how thick a cutout you want would determine your pan size

All right, now I'm just going to cover this and let it chill. This one has been in the refrigerator and it's perfectly cold

Before we start sauteing our polenta, I'm going to make a quick pineapple salsa for our fish

And it's very, very simple, but very, very flavorful. and I've got diced tomatoes

Michael loves hot stuff. So I've got some diced jalapeno peppers that have been deseeded

some red bell pepper, some diced pineapple, a little sugar

and a pinch of salt. And we're just going to mix these up

and let them reduce down and get tender for us. Look at those pretty colors

Doesn't that look good? All right, now we're gonna make the marinade

real quickly for our salmon. This, once again, is a very simple marinade

We're gonna start with maple syrup, teriyaki sauce, pineapple juice and a little fresh ginger

Alright, now I'm gonna bust up a garlic clove. Just smash that so that that flavor can go through there

And that's all it is to it. And I'm gonna take our salmon fillets and just cover them with our marinade

And I'm gonna let these marinate for 24 hours and really soak up those flavors

I think you'll love that marinade. All right, I've got my salmon that I marinated last night

and it's ready to go on the grill. All right, well, I'm gonna give it a quick spray

because I don't want our salmon to stick to it and tear up

Okay, so let's check out our fish here. You know, Michael and I just got back from our honeymoon

and we went on a crystal cruise line to Alaska, and it was so fabulous

We went salmon fishing up there in Alaska, and we even had our salmon flash frozen and shipped to us at home

In fact, this is what I'm cooking our honeymoon fish for him tonight

All right, so we've got that going. Now, the polenta that we cooked earlier is nice and chilled

and we're going to just take our heart-shaped cutters and cut out hearts

Look how pretty that is. And I should be able to get about four out of here

Aren't these just adorable? Two for each plate will be pretty. Well, I need to go ahead and put this in

Now we're just gonna saute this off with our olive oil. Oh, ooh I can smell the maple

All right, let's see how our polenta's looking. You know, this is already done

so we just really need it hot. And I think I'm ready to plate our meal for us

Oh, look at those pretty little hearts. That looks so good

And I'm just gonna top it with the pineapple salsa. Just that simple and it's ready

I'll take a bite out of my end. Mmm. That salmon is so good

I don't know if I can wait for him to get home. Well, y'all be sure and come back and help me finish up this meal

because Michael has got a tremendous sweet tooth, and I've learned the way to his heart is definitely through his stomach

I'm going to be making him chocolate bundles. So I'll see y'all back in a few minutes

Oh, now I'm getting to the very, very best part, dessert

And I just call it chocolate bundles. Michael's going to call it fabulously delicious

But we're going to start with a puff pastry, just a frozen puff pastry that you buy at the grocery store

And you're going to be just tickled pink when you find out just how quick and easy this dessert is

It's going to look like you spent a lot of time when you hadn't. You'll find the instructions to work in the puff pastry on the box

It'll tell you to let it sit out on the counter for about 20 minutes and thaw out

And then you can very gently just unwrap it. And I'm going to cut these into about a four inch square

So that will give us four servings from one sheet. Now, I'm gonna make an egg wash

because we're gonna bundle these up like a little beggar's purse. Now I'm gonna add a little heavy cream to our eggs

Give those a quick beat. If y'all have ever seen me do Brie on Crute

Sometimes I do my breeze in bundles. Well, this is kind of the same idea for this dessert

Now I'm gonna brush this entire inside with the egg because when we do it up in our little purses

we want that dough to be able to stick to each other. All right

Now for the good part. You can do anything you want to do

but I'm using one of Michael's favorite candies. So I'm gonna put a couple of chocolate candies in it

and then I just gonna bundle this up and I gonna give it a twist And it looks just like a little purse I heard the other day in fact we were having a discussion

that men react very romantically to the smell of bacon bread. And another little tidbit of information is

they say that chocolate releases something in the female brain that is the same feeling that you have when we're in love

So, I've got the best of both here. I've got bread and I've got the candy

A perfect combination. All right, now I'm going to put these on the cookie sheet

And now I'm going to brush the outside with the milk and egg combination

so that they'll be nice and shiny and have a pretty finish to them

You can have these done in just a matter of a few minutes for any occasion

But to me, this is a little bit romantical because of the combinations of the foods

All right, now we're going to stick these in a 350 preheated degree oven until they're nice and brown

All right, let's get these in the oven. And while these are making, we're not done with those bundles yet

I'm going to make a chocolate ganache just in case there's not enough chocolate oozing out of that bread

Ganache is just a fancy word for chocolate and heavy cream. So we're just going to scald this off

and then we're going to pour it over our broken chocolate. And the heat from the heavy cream is going to melt that chocolate

All right. Our cream's hot. Just going to stir that together. It won't take it but just a minute to melt that chocolate

chocolate because chocolate melts pretty fast. You can see it. You know, it's just really

really chocolatey. But look at this ganache, how pretty that is. Perfect. I've got some bundles in

the other oven. Oh yeah. Oh my goodness. Look at the chocolate bubbling out of that one. I want to

show y'all how I'm gonna serve this to Michael. I'm gonna put the ganache on the bottom

And the strawberry and mint right there. And then just a little dribble on top. You can have this

fabulous dessert within a matter of a few minutes. Let's see what we've got. Why

don't we kind of cut him open and see see what's gonna happen. Oh look at that

chocolate. Mmm. I think it needs whipping cream too. Just put down in that little hole. Mmm

I'm gonna have him eatin' out of the palm of my hand. Y'all don't miss this one

Your man or your woman will love you for it. Y'all stick around because coming up next

I've got a few tips to share with you. I want to share with y'all some options for your chocolate covered strawberries

You can do all different varieties with your strawberries. I'm going to dip this one in the white chocolate for white chocolate lovers and cover him with coconut

With the strawberries, the only limitations you have is your own imagination

I love the coconut and white chocolate. All right, let's move on down because I've got these wonderful little edible magic markers

You can use it to write on your plates like I've done here. This has all been done with this little marker

So you wash it and it comes right off. And I think for this plate, for Michael's dessert

I think I'm going to write him a special note. Meet me upstairs

Hope y'all can use some of these tips. I think you can have a lot of fun with them

You know, I really gave this menu a lot of thought today because this is a romantic meal

and I wanted the foods to suggest that there was romance in the air

and I think I've done that. These dishes will really warm up your belly

even on a nippy day like today. So until next time, we send you best dishes, hugs, and kisses from our kitchen to yours

Bon appetit