Good green beans, steamed and tossed with olive oil, coarse salt or fleur de sel, fresh lemon, a bit of sesame oil, and roasted cashews as a veg? I'd suggest risotto, but I hate standing at the stove for 1/2 hr when I've got guests (especially a special one), so this potato recipe adapted from from Alex Barker and Sally Mansfield's wonderful food porn book Potato works wonderfully:

Berrichonne Potatoes (serves four)

2 lb small potatoes (yg or fingerling work well)
2 tbsp butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1/4 lb bacon
1.5 c veg or chicken stock
chopped parsley, to garnish
sea salt and ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400F. Peel the potatoes (yes, you really do have to peel them, unfortunately). They suggest trimming them into barrel shapes, but cutting them in half if they're more than 3" works fine for me, and is far less, um, fussy.

Melt the butter in a frying pan. Add onions, stir and cover with a lid. Cook for 2-3 mins, until they are soft but not brown.

Chop the bacon and add to the onions. Cover and cook for 2 mins.

Spoon the onion mixture into the base of a 6 1/4c rectangular shallow ovenproof dish (i.e. a lasagne pan or suchlike). Lay the potatoes over the onion mixture and pour the stock over, making sure that it comes halfway up the sides of the potatoes. Season with s&p (keeping in mind the salt content of your stock and bacon) and cook for 1 hr. Garnish with chopped parsley

I've halved this recipe and made it in smaller dishes very effectively, though the leftovers are dreamy, too. Mmmmmmmmm.

Hope you have a fabulous dinner!

Here's hopin' ya didn't forget the wine, scody.

That said, wild rice & mushrooms (portabellas, shittakes, etc.) are more interesting (in both texture and taste), and more flavorful than most potato dishes. You can add fresh or dried herbs, like basil, sage, rosemary, or marjoram, to the rice mixture to enhance flavor, while you saute the mushrooms, perhaps with some Peruvian sweet onions and celery, perhaps with bacon or chizoro sausage. Combine the mushroom/celery mixture with the wild rice, just before serving.

filet mignon with brandy cream sauce, Oh My. That sounds scrumptious. Wow. I'm drooling.

My favourite since I discovered it has been red chard. I'm crazy for spinach, but red swiss chard is so damn fine. Steamed, drizzle with lemon juice. Might be a good counterpart to the cream sauce main.

Those Berrichonne potatoes sound amazing. But for this dinner, I'd keep it simpler ]no bacon, sorry[ because you'll fall so fast asleep after dinner....you'll miss the movie. *ahem*
So, boiled potatoes with a dab of butter sprinkled generously with dill. No, no sauce. Easy.

Well, that last link to sweetoninons.com was major broken leading you to believe that out-of-seaon Vidalia sweet onions are somehow preferred by me. Don't get me wrong, Vidalia onions are great, and in a few months, I'll be buying them again by the bagful. But now, in the dead of winter in North America, even the Vidalias we put up last summer in pantyhose are a fading memory.

Look to Peru, in your supermarket produce department, for fresh sweet onions, with which to beguile your sweetie.

My standard beef side dish is ginger carrots. They're wonderful, and super easy:

1 T unsalted butter
3/4 lb. baby carrots, sliced lengthwise in half
1 T minced candied ginger
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter in a medium-sized skillet with 2- to 3-inch sides over medium-low heat. Add the carrots and cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid. Cook the carrots over medium-low heat, shaking the pan from time to time; the carrots should be steaming slowly in their own moisture but not browning. Cook until the carrots are crisp-tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. If there is any excess moisture from the carrots remaining in the bottom of the pan, remove the lid and increase the heat until all of the liquid has evaporated.

2. Add the ginger and toss to coat evenly. (I normally cover them to do so, which helps heat and melt the candied ginger.) Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve at once.

From Sarah Leah Chase's Pedaling Through Burgundy

I normally do mashed yukon gold potatoes as the second side with that, but that's generally because they're also easy!

On preview: Ooh! Swiss chard. This recipe is great, and easy.

Wild rice. Great choice. IF you haven't cooked it before though, look out, it takes longer to cook than regular rice. It needs to be soaked for quite a while before hand too.

I'm glad I've already eaten dinner, because this is a hell'a combo.

Oh yum, everything sounds so good -- keep 'em coming (since I don't have to decide till tomorrow)!

Paul, thanks for the reminder about the wine...I'm thinking a nice syrah. (I like that website you linked to, by the way -- definitely gets a bookmark!)

Well, if you wanna stick with the 'sparagus (which has a reputation for making people taste, um, funny.) you could try this Romesco sauce on it:

1 cup hazelnuts, toasted
1/2 cup almonds, toasted
4 cloves garlic
2 red peppers, large, roasted, peeled, sliced.
1 cup fire-roasted diced tomatos (canned)
1/2 Tbsp chili powder (+/- to taste)
1 Tbsp smoked Paprika
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 cup Olive oil
dash salt & pepper

Pulse ingredients Hazelnuts through Paprika (#1-8) in a processor to blend mostly. slowly add olive oil to get a smooth sauce. season w/ salt & pepper.

It's nutty, smoky, almost like a tomato pasta sauce, but... not. Arrange steamed asparagus spears on the plate, and artfully ladle the romanesco over the 'gus. Yum.

Props to Chef MikeC of Kitchen on Fire in Berkeley for the recipie.

Er, that's ingredients Hazelnuts through Vinegar, which is to say, everything but the oil and the salt. This makes enough to serve 6-8, and it's really yummy on stout pasta like penne, and lasts in the fridge for weeks.

A tool that helps with small dinners a lot, such that you might want to make a side trip, is a small pressure cooker. Wild rice, from scratch, is a 20 minute proposition. Tough veggies like turnips, artichokes, yams, red cabbage and rutabagas become 15 minute menu builders.

Just because you're "cooking at his place," doesn't mean you have to cook without tools. $30 for a pressure cooker, and your own apron, accurate measuring cups & spoons, etc. is pretty small consideration for making dinners your boy can remember the following day.

You add some basics, like a small bottle of good balsamic vinegar, a couple bottles of decent wine, some broth, some basic spices, and some staples to his pantry, such that you can whip up something good, most of the time, on little notice and no shopping, and he's gonna miss nights you don't spend at his place, something fierce.

You shop for the stuff at his closest grocery. You leave the containers of what you use on his counter, as his replenishment list, and it's his responsiblity to keep the larder at his place stocked appropriately (and the kitchen clean), if you're cooking.

Dinner as foreplay needn't be restricted to Valentine's Day.

i was gonna suggest some simple mixed wild mushrooms all french style in shallots, butter, and wine (always remember salt and fresh pepper) and some simple brussel sprouts or other simple things but looks like you're well in hand.
Come back and tell us what you picked and how it went.
i tried to think of something aphrodelicious but i'm brain just laughed at me, that that's what you think, you're lucky you're still conscious laugh and started muttering weird crap about jeruselum artichokes and palate cleansing acids.

i have to knock it unconscious before it asks about chocolately dessert foods and fruits.

Kiss 'im like he's someday good enough to kiss Paul Weller.

Creamed spinach!

It has spinach in it - and cream!

I think I'm in love with you all. (Well, maybe elizard especially...)

scody, can I come over for dinner?

Wheeeeeee!

Oh, and to explain about the potato recipe: They cook uncovered, and soak up the stock and the flavour from the bacon & onions, so when they're done they're crispy on the outside and magically non-butter-needing good on the inside, and you have a glorious amount of bacon & onions to serve with them, with little if any liquid in the bottom of the pan.

*swoons*

wowee. I want to eat everything everybody has posted here RIGHT NOW.

My husband makes a lovely, simple dish of sauteed mushrooms that goes great with beef - he just slices the mushrooms and sautees them in butter, and adds a little balsamic vinegar, plus salt and fresh ground pepper, and thyme, I think. Yummy! And it might be nice to have in addition to your other veggie choice.

I'm thinkin' tater tots.

Garlic wasabi mashed potatoes.

Make your favorite mashed potatoes and mix in a couple cloves of crushed garlic and enough wasabi paste to get your attention.

Oh and if you can get them, haricots verts, pan cooked with chopped tomatoes, garlic, salt and herbes de provence.

Blanch some green beans, toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper, then bundle them together, 5 or 6 to a bundle, wrap each bundle with a slice of bacon.

Put bundles on rack in roasting pan in 350 oven. Cook 'til bacon is cooked 15 - 20 minutes or so.

Thanks everyone for the ideas -- I've been wanting to start cooking since 10 o'clock last night!

When I talked to my boyfriend last night, he said, "you are making those roasted potatoes, right? I love your roasted potatoes" (dirty!) to which I immediately replied, "of course, darling, don't be silly" (*silently crosses 'wild rice' off list*). So roasted potatoes for side #1 it shall be!

As for side #2, I finally settled on some lovely haricots verts, as several people recommended that and the thought made my mouth water (I'm going to try those ginger carrots one of these days, too!). I'll also do a small tomato and avocado salad to start, and dessert (which I'd normally make myself, but just didn't feel like it this time around) will be individual chocolate mousse tortes from Whole Foods, with mixed berries on top.

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum!

My CSA delivered some baby swiss chard this morning, so that just got added to my menu...