The Perfect Meal

Yesterday the New York Times Food section had published two recipes for the perfect Valentine's Day dinner and dessert. Upon closer inspection both could make a great weekend meal. Thanks to both David Tanis and Melissa Clark , home chefs can make and bake something not only for their sweethearts but for their sweet families.

David Tanis of A City Kitchen gives us the meal part -  simple rib eye steak and potatoes. Double it's perfect for a family of four.He recommends gettng one large steak which will have juicier results when cooked.Also skip the supermarket and head to the butcher's for a perfect cut.Prepare it simply with generous dashes of salt and pepper along with some roughly chopped rosemary and a little garlic.Cooking it is easy too, especially if  you have a cast iron skillet.Heat over a flame and then pop the entire skillet into an oven to roast. Let it stay there  until the meat's interior temp reaches 120 degrees Farenheit (have a meat thermometer on hand for this).Of course a steak this good deserve to be paired with the best of the spuds. Mr. Tanis suggests peewee ones which are even smaller than the baby ones. They're boiled in heavily salted water and then tossing them with melted butter, garlic, lemon and parsley.It doesn't get any better than this.

Actually it does. Melissa Clark's A Good Appetite is devoted to homemade chocolate cookies with white chocolate and dried cherries. The flavors are a perfect marriage of sweet and tart.It's based on a favorite cookie of hers from a Manhattan bakery. Those were saucer sized dark chocolate ones, rich with  white chocolate chunks and pecans.They reminded her of the corner brownies, gooey in the middle and crisp around the edges.Hers is a grown up version, housing dried cherries to offset the sweetness. Also to make it a bit more interesting is adding melted bittersweet chocolate chips. If that's too much, Ms. Clark then suggests reducing the amount of granulated sugar used. Unsweetened Dutch cocoa is also used in the recipe along with a pinch of sea salt and vanilla. It is a tad more labor intensive than the average homemade cookie recipe. The dark chocolate and butter are first melted together in a saucepan or even in the microwave The sugar and eggs are also beaten separately until the mixture is pale and foamy. The other ingredients are added t this until a dough forms. Sea salt is sprinkled on top to cut the sweetness and bring out the other flavors.

Put these together and it's a delicious meal for the family.The simplicity is a complex wedding of  flavors that work well. Nothing beats a steak and potatoes with a dessert of home made chocolate cookies.