If you’re looking for a sign to plan Galentine’s Day with your friends, this is it! The best way to celebrate the month of love is by eating food with your girlies, so to start planning this year’s party, I’ve got five delicious recipes for you to try at your lovely celebration:
- A Fruity Pink Mocktail
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Themed drinks are a great way to celebrate Galentine’s Day, and they’re not only for those over 21! It’s really easy and fun to create and name your own mocktail for any occasion.
For a simple mocktail formula, you’ll need four parts of a base, which can be fruit juice, sparkling water, or soda. Next, you’ll want one part of something tangy to balance out the sweetness that you’ll add later. For a tart flavor, you can add anything from kombucha to classic citrus flavors like lemon or lime. Finally, for some sweetness, add some simple syrup, which you can make easily at home by dissolving one part sugar with one part water over heat. Don’t forget the garnish! A sprig of mint, a lemon slice, or a maraschino cherry goes a long way.
My own recipe that I recommend is called “Sweet on You.” You’ll want to grab a cute glass and spread a little bit of honey on the rim, then pour some granulated white sugar on a plate and coat the entire rim in the sugar. To create the mocktail, add half a cup of cranberry juice and half a cup of sparkling water as the base. Then, add one-quarter cup of lemon juice and two tablespoons of simple syrup. For the garnish, add a heart-shaped slice of strawberry on the rim or on a skewer, and enjoy!
- Fruit skewers
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These fruit skewers are a cute and healthy snack that’ll make for some aesthetic photos! You can use almost any fruit or berry for these skewers, which makes them easy to personalize for you and your friend’s taste!
For the Galentine’s Day aesthetic, there are a ton of pink and red fruits that would work beautifully. Some of my favorites are strawberries, cherries, and raspberries. You can cut them into cute shapes like stars or hearts, or to save time, you can cut the fruit into easier shapes like triangles or squares.
If you want to go for heart-shaped strawberries, just slice your strawberries half lengthwise, then cut a small V-shape at the top of each strawberry. Add them to skewers with some other fruit for variety, and you have a quick and sweet treat for your girls! If you want to take this snack to the next level and add some extra crunch, you can try sugar-coating your fruit to make tanghulu (Chinese candied fruit).
- Bacon-Wrapped Dates
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While these aren’t as easy as fruit skewers, I think they’re more delicious and decadent. Medjool dates — which you can grab at nearly any grocery store — have a sweet, soft, and caramel-like taste. These pair perfectly with a creamy, tangy cheese like fresh goat’s cheese. However, you can use any cheese you want!
Cut a slit into your dates to remove the pits and stuff them entirely with cheese. Be sure to experiment with the ratio of date-to-cheese that you desire by tasting a few (well-deserved) samples. Wrap each stuffed date with a strip of raw bacon and arrange them on a baking tray. After 10-15 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees, the bacon should be perfectly crispy, and the cheese should be warm and gooey.
For a vegetarian option, you can serve the dates stuffed with cheese as is! They taste delicious and are another easy no-bake dish!
- Heart-shaped pizzas
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Heart-shaped pizzas are cute and tasty and provide a fun activity for you and your friends to do while you snack on some of the other appetizers (or the pizza ingredients)! If you don’t have the time to make homemade pizza dough, this activity is made easy by Publix’s pre-made pizza dough, which can be purchased in the bakery section!
If you decide to use Publix pizza dough, one package can be cut to make three or four small pizzas, which are enough for one serving. After cutting the dough into sections, take each dough ball and flatten it out using a rolling pin or the side of a cup. You can make any shape you want, but for the holiday theme, I’d recommend shaping your pizzas into a heart.
Next, spread your tomato sauce over the dough, or, if you want, you can make a white pizza and skip the sauce altogether. Add shredded cheese of your choosing, but I’d go with either mozzarella or Italian-style shredded cheese.
Now that you have the dough covered, it’s time to decorate your pizza! There are tons of different toppings that you can prepare for pizza decoration. Some of my favorite pizza toppings are olives, basil, cherry tomatoes, and pepperoni.
Toppings are also where you can be creative! You can halve some tomatoes and use them to make little cherries with cut pieces of spinach or arugula for stems. Use some mozzarella pearls and cut a circular piece of pineapple to create a cute daisy. Or, cut heart-shaped pieces of pepperoni to make a heart-shaped pepperoni pizza! After you finish creating your adorable pizza, bake it in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the crust and the amount of toppings.
- Strawberry Love notes
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Dessert might be the most important part of a Galentine’s Day meal, and these strawberry love notes won’t disappoint. Unlike overused chocolate-covered strawberries, this dessert is buttery, flakey, warm, gooey, and so loveable! They look complicated, but with some store-bought strawberry jam and frozen puff pastry, these sweet treats will be the showstopper.
To make them, you’ll need a sheet of frozen puff pastry, a filling of your choice, one egg, a tablespoon of water, and some optional powdered sugar.
For the filling, instead of strawberry jam, there are tons of other substitutions that you can make for your own taste! Any flavor of fruit jam can be used for the filling, but a pink or red one will look the best for the Galentine’s Day theme. You can always use a dollop of Nutella for any chocolate lover, or you can keep it simple with a few slices of fresh fruit like strawberries or apples! Also, for extra love, you can cut out or shape mini puff pastry hearts to put on the center of your envelope.
Pop them in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 375 degrees until they’re golden and crispy. Let them cool, then arrange them on a plate to serve. Dust the love letters in a flurry of powdered sugar and then enjoy them warm in all their sweet and flakey glory.
However you plan to celebrate this month, a Galentine’s Day celebration is the perfect opportunity to show some love to your friends! You can treat them to these sweet and savory recipes that are sure to amaze and be picture-perfect. Happy cooking!
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