A Homemade Anniversary Dinner with Store-bought Desserts

When you need to make something special for someone special, consider making lamb, rack of lamb! It's fairly simple to make and has a big wow factor if done right with sides like the ones I chose to serve. I served the rack of lamb with some garlicky sauteed rainbow chard and some fancy roasted red new potatoes and I made a quick sauce from reduced balsamic vinegar. If you look at the picture below, you might be wondering how I prepped those beautiful potatoes? My food styling might not be that great, but dinner certainly was! Keep scrolling...

To create the beautiful roasted potatoes pictured above, take a wooden spoon and place a small potato in the depression. With your knife, make thin, parallel slices in the potato until you hit the edges of the spoon; the spoon will prevent your knife from cutting all the way through and keep the potato 'chips' held together. Repeat for each potato, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper and chopped fresh rosemary, then roast in the oven until cooked through and crispy - about 40 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

Having spent all my time preparing and cooking dinner on this night, I totally cheated on dessert. I bought a few of the pre-made tarts at Whole Foods, one blueberry crumble, one key lime pie, and one chocolaty, caramely, nutty turtle-like tart; they were all very good.