Valentine’s Day - Chocolate Polenta Cakes with Lemon Ricotta Custard and Strawberry Sauce

This is a warning.  Whatever your boyfriend/husband/lover does for you on Valentine’s Day, you will be disappointed. 

    Unless you start laying hints now—a restaurant review on the refrigerator, brochures for cruises on the commode—he will forget.  For two weeks before Valentine’s Day, every store window is festooned in red and pink, yet he will forget.  His secretary will remind him—three times—yet he will forget.  Even his mother will tell him.  He will forget.

    Perhaps last minute he will stumble home with supermarket flowers—tired red roses with baby’s breath—and chocolates with pink gooey stuff inside.  Why, why, why is it so hard?

    If he does manage to remember to make dinner reservations, the meal won’t be any fun because he will be  wearing that look—you know the one I mean— as if he were attending a parent-teacher conference, that I’m-only-doing-this-because-I-have-to look.

    Men always have an excuse—they will say that Valentine’s Day was invented by florists and candy makers to sell product, that it is completely commercialized, that being told when and how to express love is obnoxious.  While this true, it is also true that all women deserve one day a year when they are worshipped as goddesses.  When the man you love tells you that you are gorgeous and sexy and wonderful, that his life would be nothing without you, and without you, life would cease to exist, the earth would lose its color, music its melody, the wind its soft caress.

    Humph!

    It is not that our men don’t love us.  American men have many wonderful qualities—they are generous and loving, inventive and funny, hard working and conscientious.  They like to please.  They love surprising us with dinners, gifts, and filmy underwear.  They simply hate being told when to do it.  Can you blame them?  Who wants to be told when to feel loving? 

    For the same reason, men hate being reminded about that marriage thing.  If they propose, they want to do it in their own time, their own way, when you least expect it.

    You can’t fight it.  This is how American men are.  Demanding—or requesting sweetly—an appropriate demonstration of their love is like ordering an erection on cue.  It’s not going to happen. 

    The only recourse is to take things into your own hands (no double entendre intended).  I’m not suggesting charging a diamond bracket to his credit card.  Nor making a dinner reservation—that would be coercive.  You also can’t take him out to dinner—that would make him feel guilty.   I’m suggesting the simplest of all solutions—make him a special candlelight meal at home.  Something simple, something exquisite, something different.  Something like sea scallops with pesto, with a simple pasta on the side, and a watercress salad.  Serve with several bottles of Mad Housewife wine, so he gets the point.  And for dessert, something fabulous.

    He will be grateful for your effort.  He will surprise you in his own time.  You hope.

   

Chocolate Polenta Cakes with Lemon Ricotta Custard and Strawberry Sauce 

 

One bite of this amazing desert and your sweetie will know just how much you love him.  A bit of extra work, but then so is love.  Serve with a bottle of Mad Housewife Merlot.

 

First prepare lemon ricotta custard and strawberry sauce (can be made a day ahead):

 

16 ounces ricotta

1 package lemon Jell-O (sugared or no-sugar)

1-1/2 cups milk

½ cup water

 

Dissolve Jell-O in ½ cup boiling water.  Pour milk and ricotta into blender.  Add dissolved Jell-O.  Blend until smooth.  Pour into bowl and let chill for several hours.  Before serving, stir until texture is like pudding.

 

For strawberry sauce:

 

1 quart strawberries (1 cup sliced)

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons water

 

Clean strawberries putting three-fourths of strawberries into the blender with water and sugar.  Puree.  Add to sliced strawberries.   

 

For chocolate cakes:

 

5 tablespoons sugar

8 ounces semisweet chocolate

3 tablespoons butter

¼ cup cornmeal

½ cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 large eggs

1 large egg white

mint sprigs for garnish

 

1.     Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Butter eight 5-ounce ramekins. 

2.     Melt chocolate in the microwave.

3.     In saucepan, melt the butter.  Add cornmeal and cook for 3 minutes.  Add milk, reduce heat, and stir until polenta is thick, about 5 minutes.  Stir in vanilla.

4.     Add polenta to the chocolate and stir until smooth.  Stir in egg yolks and sugar.

5.     In a chilled bowl, beat 4 egg whites until they hold firm peaks.  Fold into chocolate mixture.  Do not overmix.

6.     Pour batter in ramekins, and place them in water bath, with water reaching about halfway up sides. 

7.     Cook 17 minutes.

8.     To serve, unmold cakes onto plates and cool.  Pour ricotta custard around the base with strawberry sauce.  Garnish with mint.

 

Shortcuts:  Instead of making the polenta cakes, I’ve used brownie mix prepared as cupcakes for an easier but no less elegant presentation. 

 

 

 

Comments

[Not Your Average Jennifer]

Excited about the polenta cakes. I will, however, make a real custard instead of the jello shortcut. Happy to see an innovative gluten-free recipe (my cross to bear...) Thanks, Mad Housewife :)