The anniversary dinner was a success!

A few days ago, I posted about what I decided to make for our anniversary dinner - "Steak with Spinach Couscous." Check out my "A Dinner Idea" post from Sunday, to get the recipe.

Yesterday was our 2nd Eighth anniversary (click here to get the story on why it's the 2nd eighth, if you haven't read it yet) - so it was the day I was going to make the "Steak with Spinach Couscous" recipe.

Livie doesn't go to Pre-K on Tuesdays, so she went with me to Target so I could get an anniversary card for Andrew. Then we went to the grocery store to get the ingredients for dinner.

I also got some sparkling grape juice, so we could do a toast and say "Cin Cin" before we started eating. The sparkling juice had to go into the fridge right away so it would be nice and cold at dinner time. (Andrew doesn't drink wine and Livie is obviously too young, so I thought the sparkling grape juice was the best choice for a toast.)

When we got home I set the table and reviewed the recipe, so I could familiarize myself with it before it came time to actually start cooking.

 Here's what the place setting looked like:

 

Yes, Liv put some of her art projects on the table after I set it. What you see on the right, just to the right of my wine glass, is a cow. And I'm not Emily Post, so I'm sure I didn't put everything in its correct place. But I liked how it looked, and neither Andrew nor Livie would know the difference. (Oh, and I left my table cloth on, even though it didn't exactly go with the navy blue, simply because my table is glass, and I wanted to keep it somewhat protected from scratches.)

I had some chores to do first, since it was still early in the afternoon and way too early to start dinner.

Then it was time to read some books with Livie.

Finally, it was about time to start dinner. I'd bought one of those pre-made cherry pies for dessert (that's Andrew's favorite). Somehow I'd forgotten to get that started earlier, so I got that in the oven, first.

Then, it was on to the recipe. It all smelled so good while I was preparing it, with the garlic, the olive oil, pine nuts, steak . . . I couldn't wait to try it.

I timed it well, because Andrew got home in time to wash up just as I was preparing to serve the meal.

Here's how it turned out:

It turned out to be really tasty!

To top it all off, both Andrew and Livie gave the meal a thumbs-up. Andrew said he definitely wanted me to make it again in the future.

And Livie? While she said she didn't like couscous, she did try a big bite of it before asking if she could eat just the spinach instead. Then she'd pick out a piece of spinach, and wipe off the couscous onto my nice place mats. Ahh, well, what can I do? She's 4. At least she really liked the steak. She said it was yummy, and ate it up.

After Liv's bath, she got a small scoop of peppermint ice cream, while Andrew and I each ate pie. What a way to end the evening.

By the way, I had a photo of the mess I made in the kitchen, but I've decided I just don't want to expose that aspect of such a lovely, dinner.