Hearts And Flowers

For our meal on Valentine’s Day, I put my ‘vintage milk bottle’ with three silk tulips on the table. I think they look pretty convincing, and they won’t droop like the real ones! Then I made my salad vegetables into flowers as well, so we each had a little bouquet to eat. I first used this idea a few summers ago, it came from a Marie Claire Magazine

• Radish ‘roses’ [trimmed and left in iced water to open up a little]
• Cherry tomatoes – ‘vandyked’ with a jagged edge
• Crescent shaped celery slices
• Orange peppers and cucumber slices, cut out with a small circular pastry cutter with a crimped edge.
• Short lengths of spring onion
• The central leaves of a ‘Little Gem’ Lettuce

The ‘flowers’ were skewered onto cocktail sticks, then arranged by sticking them into half a pear which I had place round the bottom of a bowl. I used the lettuce leaves and spring onions as ‘foliage’ I served the ‘bouquet’ with breast of chicken [poached, and drizzled with sweet chilli sauce, then cut into bite sized pieces] There’s also a rosette of mayonnaise on each plate too.

For dessert, I diced another pear and divided between two dishes, topped it with Greek yogurt, then cut half-strawberries into heart shapes. I presented the food on my shiny red Christmas ‘chargers’ and lit a candle. All very romantic…and not a red rose in sight!