Valentine's Day Dinner

May be it stems from watching Lady and the Tramp as a youngster, but I believe spaghetti and love are synonymous. So, on Valentine's Day my family celebrates with a spaghetti dinner. We have this meal every February 14th and I love the tradition. Here's the menu:

You have to serve heart shaped meatballs with your spaghetti. Use your favorite meatball recipe. I like to add some Italian bread crumbs to mine. Then, with a heart shaped cookie cutter, make your meatballs by filling the cutter with your ground beef mixture.

I am always pleasantly surprised how well they keep their shape after being baked.

With the spaghetti and meatballs, we have Cesar salad and heart shaped bread sticks. For the bread sticks, buy ready made pizza dough. After unrolling the dough, cut out hearts using cookie cutters. I like to have a variety of sizes. Place your heart shaped pizza dough on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush each heart with a little melted butter, garlic salt and oregano. Then, sprinkle with shredded Parmesan cheese before baking.

Finally, for the drink, I make heart shaped fruit punch ice cubes ahead of time. You can find a heart shaped ice cube tray really at any store this time of year. We fill our glass goblets with Sprite before dropping one or two ice cubes in. Buon Appetito!