Today is one of the busiest days I’ve had yet! I’m just going to write a short post before we head out tomorrow to the Island for Valentine’s Day stuff and snowboarding.

When I woke up today, I had no intention of cooking a Valentine’s Day dinner… however by the end of the day I suddenly decided I wanted to cook something up before we left to eat while watching “Lost”. In fact, I shouldn’t even really call it a Valentine’s Day dinner because it’s definitely not how I would have liked to do it. Our real V-Day dinner out is tomorrow

I knew I wanted to buy Allan the pasta maker he’s been eyeing at Williams-Sonoma, so I headed over there at the end of the day. I got him a couple supplies to get started quickly if he wanted to.. even though in the future I want to make the pasta from scratch.

I also picked up a little present for myself while I was there… a Cuisinart Pressure Cooker! What I desperately want one day is a beautiful proper slow cooker, but for now… and for my busy life, I think a pressure cooker is more appropriate.

So Allan opened his presents after work today and he was super stoked. He got an Imperia pasta maker made in Italy, a silicon rolling pin (these things are amazing), some pasta sauce, and some pasta flour.

I didn’t really have a plan for dinner tonight so I decided to make something with the new pressure cooker… Caribbean style braised beef short ribs. I picked up some nice Alberta fed short ribs from Granville Island and grabbed some mushrooms, carrots, and potatoes to go with it.

While it cooked in the pressure cooker for an hour and a half, Allan started using his new pasta maker! It did a really nice job.

The ribs didn’t turn out too bad. I was a little disappointed with how fatty they were, but they really were tender. They literally fell off the bone while cooking. The sauce was nice but next time I think I will pick a less fatty cut of meat.

It all went together pretty good… it was a neat experiment. Next time we’ll make the pasta a lot thinner and I want to season it a bit more to be more flavourful. I think a cream sauce would have been better with the fresh pasta.

Anyway, all in all, a fun experiment and I can’t wait to cook more!

Tomorrow morning I have a quick skate at 8 Rinks and then it is off on the ferry to Victoria! We’re staying in my favourite BC hotel… the Fairmont Empress.. and eating at one of my favourite restaurants… the Empress Room. Wohooo! I can’t wait. It’ll be nice to have a mini getaway with all the stress that’s been going on lately. Then it’s up to Courtenay for the snowboarding weekend.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine’s Day and weekend!