Valentines Day Dinner Party

I love dinner parties, and I love hosting them even more! With Valentines day upon us I thought it might be kinda fun to host a Valentines Day dinner party for some of our closest friends. The planing was a breeze, I simply went to my arsenal of awesome entertaining cookbooks to choose the menu. Once I finalized the food choices I made a shopping list for the grocery store and wrote all the recipes down and put them in a folder. I do this for two reasons, fist it allows for easy accessibility while I am cooking, second in the event that something would spill or splatter all over the recipe page I don't ruin my recipe books.
The Menu:
I will showcase each of these recipes in their own blog entry over the next week. Here is what you have to look forward to.

Appetizers:  

• Brie and Apricot Phyllo Bites
• French Onion Soup Stuffed Mushrooms

Main Meal:

• Beef Tenderloin 
• Gruyere-Parmesan Scalloped Potatoes
• Fresh Garlic Green Beans  

Desert:

• Warm Raspberry Chocolate Cake 

Decor:

I used a very fitting red theme throughout the dinner table and the beverage/ appetizer table. Added some red roses and candlelight and the out come was simple, yet elegant. Instead of place cards I made take home goodie bags . The boys had the hearts and the girls the Eiffel towers.

Unique Touches:

While at a wine tasting event a few weeks ago I learned something new that I wanted to try out at the dinner party. The wine educator was discussing that wine was meant to be enjoyed with food, especially chocolate. He suggested that your rim your wine glasses with chocolate to create a truly unique touch.I served the warm raspberry cake and a California Merlot in the chocolate rimmed wine glasses for desert. They were a hit! Here is how I did it. 

1. Melt 1/2 cup of semi sweet or dark chocolate chips in the microwave 1 minute at a time till smooth. 
2. Dip rim of wine glass in chocolate. 
3. Set in fridge until chocolate is set.