valentine's dinner

How about a nice hearty stoup? (Thicker than soup, thinner than stew)

If you got about hour and a half to spare to prepare, I can post a fairly simple/easy to do beef-stoup (I gave up on calling it stew since it never really gets that thick)...just takes a while to cook.

Not having an oven meaning you don't have ability to bake, that's it, right?

If you've got a good season-ed cast iron skillet and you're willing to put the work into it, I can see if I can get my mom's stewed-hamburger-steak receipe. It's just basically thick hamburgers with small bits of veggies (which you can skip optionally), stewed in a thick, tomato-demiglas based sauce with onions and mushrooms.

I like to eat both above with a nice bowl of rice on the side but I'm sure western style of dining with bread and salad and side of mashed potato and what not is also very appropriate for the occasion.

My boyfriend's step-mom does heart-shaped hamburgers for the family dinner on Valentines day, which I think is very cute and innovative. The meal itself isn't very fancy, but she does table scapes that are both fun and romantic so it's all about the atmosphere.

And also lastly to answer the garlic sauce question, basically any sort of starchy grain / vegitable based product would be appropriate for garlic. Bread and/or pasta is almost said to be much better with garlic, my favorite veggies I like to infuse garlic flavor when I'm cooking them are things like grean beans, asparagus, broccoli, spinach.

Jam it back in, in the dark.