Anniversaries are the ultimate couple's meal, even more so than Valentine's Day because it commemorates not only your love but your history. To me, this is the time to pull out all the stops, but I think you should do so together. This particular menu requires both experienced cooking skills and little or no skill. But in case you're both learning to cook, the hardest dish includes a detailed how to and is best made a day, or more, in advance.
Appetizer - Romaine with Blue Cheese Finger Salad: Tear some leaves of romaine lettuce into 1 1/2-inch squares. Place a small dollop of the blue cheese dressing in the center of each square (or stuff into celery stalks) and serve. Painless, delicious, delightful before the beef.
Entree - Individual Beef Wellingtons: You want to prep these a day in advance, and then finish baking them on the day of celebration - wrap each Wellington in a layer of plastic and store in a sealed container until ready to bake. Or you can make them several weeks in advance, store tightly wrapped in the freezer, and thaw overnight in the fridge. (How to make Beef Wellington.)
Side - Sauteed Green Beans: This link actually takes you to a recipe for Sauteed Brocolli Rabe. But this basic recipe is one of my absolute favorites. In this case I think rabe can be too bitter, and not quite substantial enough for this menu - besides, we have greens in the finger salad. So substitute green beans for the rabe and follow the recipe as is.
Side - Roasted Cauliflower: If you've only eaten cauliflower raw you've never eaten cauliflower. Roasted it becomes an extraordinarily light but flavorful side dish that's delicious with almost everything. Best of all, it's one of the few veggies that travels well and so is as good in the middle of the summer as the dead of winter. Note: Cook the cauliflower at the same 400 degree temperature as the beef.
Cake: It's an anniversary, celebrate with a small reprise of your wedding cake that you buy at a quality bakery. Don't obsess with making everything, make sure you have time to relax with your partner.
Plan: Have one partner make the appetizer while the other blanches the beans (leave the beans in a colander until just before dinner) and preps ingredients for the beans. The other partner can prep the cauliflower. Slide the cauliflower and Wellingtons into the oven at the same time. Sit down to enjoy the appetizer/finger salad with a glass of wine or champagne for 20 minutes before checking on things. When the beef and cauliflower are done, quickly saute the beans.
