V Day Special.

The past three years for Valentine's Day, P.I.C. and I menu plan and pick out a meal to make at home. While we love going out for dinner, we enjoy the intimacy of being at home, turning all external noise off, and just enjoying each other's company. We also probably drink too much for a school night, but that's neither here nor there. This year, I elected to try cooking mussels for the first time.

I went with this recipe, and decided to cook three pounds of mussels rather than the five pounds suggested. It was just the two of us after all.

We got our mussels from the amazing Dirk's Fish and Gourmet Shop, which, if you're in Chicago, you MUST patronize. Seriously. I get all serious seafood purchases from there. They are friendly, the entire place smells amazing, and the prices seem fair for the quality.

I entrusted my sous chef, P.I.C., with the task of debearding and scrubbing the mussels. (Full confession? We had to youtube a how to video.) Luckily, most of them were already debearded, so it wasn't a huge task

NO BEARDS HERE.

The mussels turned out fantastic. I would definitely make this recipe again. You must like a punch of mustard though. It, along with the herbs, gives quite a bite, in the best way possible. I love mustard, though.

I cheated and bought cheese and fruit for an appetizer (try the triple cream gorgonzola from Trader Joe's...it's AMAZING). The good? We love cheese, and the creamy blue paired brilliantly with the cava we cracked. The bad? We ate so much damn cheese that we had to toss quite a bit of our mussels. That was sad for me. Additionally, three pounds of mussels is WAY too much for two people. Lesson learned.