There's no reason to be alone on Valentine's Day. Gather together all your "Lonely Hearts", put them all in one room, and leave the rest up to Cupid. I really like this black and pink motif for this party. I would use a black paper tablecloth, hot pink plates and untensil. The utensils, would be wrapped in black napkins tied with hot pink ribbons. Small pink paper hearts would be strewn about the table. In the center would be a bouquet of pink roses. Pretty cool huh? For those of you who are not as "cutting edge", you can use traditional red and white. I find the red a little over powering, so I use it as my accent color. My tablecloth will be white, red plates, red utensils wrapped in white napkins, tied with red ribbon, and red hearts strewn about the table. I'm going to use red carnations, for my flower arrangements, to capture the proper shade of red, along with baby's breath. This will be a buffet, of course. There are plenty of heart shaped plastic dishes available to use for your dips and condiments. Purchase some heart pins for your guests and ask them to wear red. We'll be using recipes from previous parties, and links will be provided to those pages, where you will find the recipes. There will be some new recipes here also. Wait until you taste Regina's chocolate mousse pie! This is one night you won't want to stay home!

* Recipe below

Shrimp Mousse

This dish is usually prepared in a mold. If you don’t have a heart shaped mold, you can use a plastic heart shaped dish as a mold.

2 6 oz. cans of shrimp (chopped)

1/4 of shrimp liquid

2 pkgs. unflavored gelatin

1 oz. cream cheese

1 can Cream of Tomato soup

1/2 cup of diced celery

1/2 cup of diced green pepper

1/2 cup diced scallion

1 cup of mayonnaise ( you know which brand…the Best!)

In a saucepan , soften gelatin by simmering in the shrimp juice. Blend in soup and shrimp and allow to cool. In a large bowl, combine remaining ingredients, and add the cooled shrimp mixture. Spray heart-shaped mold or dish with cooking spray and pour in the mixture. Chill for 24 hours. When ready to serve, flip the mold onto a plate and serve with crackers. The mousse will have a light pinkish hue to it.

Baked Ham

I usually order my ham already cooked and razor sliced on the bone. Sliced Virginia Ham from the deli will work just as well.

Potato Salad garnish

Once the potato salad is prepared and placed in it’s serving bowl, place a small paper heart in the center. Sprinkle the top of the dish, with paprika and then remove the heart. This will give you a heart shaped design on top of the salad.

Regina’s Chocolate Mousse Pie***

You will need a 10” spring form pan for this recipe. I use a heart shaped one for this occasion. This can be made well ahead of time and frozen. Thaw overnight in refrigerator.

Ingredients:

CRUST

3 cups chocolate wafer crumbs**

1/2 c. (1 stick) margarine (melted)

Combine crumbs and margarine and press into and up the sides of the pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes

**in the absence of the chocolate wafer, I have substituted Pepperidge Farm Brownies, or Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies.

FILLING

1 pound of semi-sweet chocolate

2 eggs

4 egg yolks

2 cups heavy whipping cream

6 T. powdered sugar

4 egg whites

Melt chocolate in a double boiler and allow to cool to luke-warm. Add the 2 whole eggs and mix well. Add yolks and mix until thoroughly blended.

Whip the cream with the powdered sugar until soft peaks are formed.

Beat the egg whites until stiff, but not dry.

Stir a little of the cream mixture and egg whites into the chocolate to lighten. Fold in the remaining cream and egg white. When well blended, pour into pan, cover with aluminum foil and place in the freezer. Defrost in the refrigerator for about 8 hours. Serve with unsweetened whipped cream on the side. Save up those fat grams!

***I have made this pie using egg substitute for the whole eggs and yolks, and reduced fat Cool Whip instead of heavy cream. If you choose to do this, I would recommend that you serve the pie, not quite defrosted, so it will be firm.

Well there you have it! A Valentine's Day, that's fun for all!

Have a Happy! :o)

If you're interested in some others parties, I've done..then take a peek and see what's stored in the Wine Cellar

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Or...you can just go