The tarragon really made this dish.
As a change of pace, my wife decided she wanted to cook the Valentine’s Day meal. Granted I still helped with some of the preparation, but she made sure to keep me from taking over. The menu was simpler than some things she has done before, but it was still fairly involved. While rich it was also far healthier than some of the past meals I have made for the occasion, which I believe was to keep us from feeling too stuffed after dinner.
She started with a pâté we found at Fresh Market for the appetizer. After our trip to Ireland, we decided that store-bought pâté could be very good. Although this one was OK it could have been better and thus our search for pâté has begun.
Dinner was salmon wellington, spinach gratin, and rice pilaf. The salmon was very good, but we decided to not make the heavy wine butter sauce that went with it. In retrospect I think the sauce would have balanced the dish a little bit and in the future I plan to make it with half the butter called for. The spinach was courtesy of Julia Childs’ Mastering the Art of French Cooking and what more do I have to say about that except it was really good.
We had a Marsanne from Mendocino that balanced the heavy fish very well. A Pinot Noir would have been just as good.
Dessert was strawberries in Grand Marnier. All in all, I thought everything came out really good except I had to do the clean up. Luckily, I had two hungry dogs to help me out.
Rufus' Food and Spirits Guide 
That does sound lovely and light. I am bad about saucing salmon, I rarely ever give it one. I tend to just to a slight drizzle of olive oil, some garlic, salt, pepper, and maybe some champagne vinegar. I find this helps keep the calories down 🙂
The salmon sounds amazing! My Hubby doesn’t cook, and sometimes (rarely) he tries to cook (try being the operative word!) – I have to take over I get frustrated, things are burning, not getting chopped or getting missed! It would have been easier (and tastier – how cruel am I?) to have done it myself 99% of the time. Apart from beans on toast – that turns out okay. Boy he’d strangle me if he read this – Jo
🙂