Make a Decorative Valentine's Day Meal

You can show the whole family you love them with a fun Valentine's Day meal made from scratch. Get out your boneless chicken breast, one of your wooden cutting boards, heart shaped cookie cutters, and a sharp knife to get started.

Place your boneless chicken breast on one of your cutting boards. Wooden cutting boards are my favorite because they last the longest and carry with them memories of years of home cooked meals. Trim the fat off of the chicken breasts. Next, place a heart shaped cookie cutter on top of the chicken breast and trim around it. Put the trimmings in a bowl. Now make your favorite barbeque chicken recipe and place the cooked chicken on top of a bed of creamy potato salad. Outline the meal with baked beans or your favorite vegetable and serve with your favorite red wine.

Once you have the barbeque chicken cooking, move on to the children's Valentine's Day meal. You don't have to switch cutting boards because you are still working with chicken. Take the chicken trimmings and chop them up into fine pieces. Put together your best chicken nugget mixture, usually including oats, egg, and seasoning. You can either shape the chicken nuggets into hearts using your heart shaped cookie cutter and baking the nuggets, or you can pan fry the chicken nuggets.

To pan fry the chicken nuggets, first prepare your pan to be a nonstick surface using butter or oil. Once the oil is heated, place your metal, heart shaped cookie cutter in the bottom of the pan. Fill the cookie cutter with the chicken nugget mixture. Allow the mixture to brown. Remove the cookie cutter and brown the other side. Turn the heat down and allow the nuggets to cook.

Either take out another of your wooden cutting boards or deep clean the one you used for cutting the chicken. Slice small red potatoes on your cutting board to make colorful French fries. This allows you to cook a colorful, kid friendly Valentine's Day meal that is a simple variation of a childhood favorite. Deep fry or bake the potato slices and use them to decorate around the chicken nugget hearts on the child's plate.