Do you have a special menu planned for Valentine's Day? Here's our red-themed meal as well as the rest of the meals we'll be enjoying this week. What's on your menu?

Meatless Monday

Tomato soup

I think I am going to use the recipe for Easy Creamy Tomato Soup.   I plan to use less butter and then puree it all in the blender for a smooth creamy soup.

Spinach salad

Wheat rolls

Tuesday

Sesame ginger tofu with spinach and saffron rice

Vegetable stir fry (using Steamfresh veggies on sale BOGO with .50 coupon through 2/12 at Harris Teeter)

Veggie egg rolls

Wednesday

Veggie Boca chicken sandwiches

Garlic and herb hash browns (from Simply Potatoes BOGO sale with coupon at HT last week)

Steamed carrots (from baby carrots deal at Aldi’s last week)

Thursday – Valentine’s Day!

I'll be serving dinner on the special dishes with candles for our Valentine’s themed family meal including:

Parmesan Garlic baked chicken breast (using the Kraft Fresh Take Rosemary Garlic breadcrumb mix) – we had it recently and the kids and hubby raved about it – so here it is again!

Baked sweet potatoes (hubby adores sweet potatoes so those are made especially for him)

Valentine’s crudités with sliced red peppers, grape tomatoes and radishes with a bowl of light ranch dressing tinted pink with some pureed red peppers.

Sparkly cranberry punch (cranberry ginger ale mixed and a splash of orange juice)

Strawberry cheesecake
I am making a somewhat lighter and smaller version of the traditional cheesecake using a recipe on the Kraft website. Instead of fat free cream cheese, though, I am using 1/3 less fat Neufchâtel cream cheese. I bought the cream cheese a few weeks ago when it was on sale for $1.00 per 8 oz package. The strawberries are a very good price at Aldi and Lowes Foods through 2/12.

For breakfast, I am serving the kids heart shaped pancakes (using a big cookie cutter) and outlining them in strawberries. I am making the pancakes the night before since mornings are so busy on school days.

We also have a Valentine’s tradition that when the kids wake up on Valentine’s morning, there is a little gift bag with some Valentine’s treats and some kind of small gift (like a stuffed animal or piece of jewelry) waiting on the kitchen table. This year I am also picking up a few Valentine’s Day balloons at the Dollar Tree to put on their gift bags for some extra fun.

Friday

Breakfast for dinner!

French toast (using eggs from the Davidson's egg deal at Lowes Foods through 2/12)

Turkey bacon (using Butterball turkey bacon on sale through 2/12 at Lowes Foods for $2.69 - .55 coupon in paper recently = $1.59)

Fruit salad