When our daughters were younger, we always had a special family Valentine’s Day celebration! Everyone got a fun bag of gifts and I cooked a special dinner! Everyone still gets gifts, even though they’re not all living close by, and I have my grandsons to spoil!

This year, Valentine’s Day will just be Baldy and me, and he’s cooking spaghetti! We’ll probably have a glass of champagne and watch something on Netflix and that’s just fine with me!

I also want to tell you about something exciting that’s happening this weekend! I’m going to be a guest on Jeanne Robertson’s Facebook Live show! If you don’t know Jeanne, you’re in for a real treat! She is a comedian and humorist that is well known all over the country. When Covid started, she could no longer travel to perform, so she decided to start a Facebook Live show and invite comedians (and others) to come to her every Saturday! I am so flattered that this Saturday, she has invited me! You all know that I’m not a comedian…people usually laugh at me and not with me, but Jeanne can make anyone funny! The best part is…we are having a charcuterie board competition. It should be hilarious because no one in the competition has ever made a charcuterie board before. There will be prizes and rules to follow and I’ll be there to help! I hope you’ll join us tomorrow at 12:00 pm EST for this fun event! If you miss it, you can catch the video on Jeanne’s Facebook page and on her YouTube channel!

Watch me tomorrow…Live on Jeanne Robertson’s Facebook Live show! It starts at 12:00 pm EST and you’ll love it!

One thing I do know about our Valentine’s Day plans, is that I’ll make a small charcuterie board while Baldy is preparing our spaghetti! I guess I should explain about the spaghetti…it’s very simple…it’s the only thing he knows how to cook, so I’ll take it! Actually it’s really delicious, but an unlikely meal for Valentine’s Day!

I made the video below several weeks ago for Instagram. Several of my Instagram friends and I got together to share our ideas for Valentine’s Day decor and festive food. I created a little party to give ideas about how to make an interesting table that looks great and is easy to pull together. I always include a cheese board and for this video, I gave it some special Valentine’s Day touches!

For Valentine’s Day, and really any other day, I love to include chocolate! You’ll be surprised at how well chocolate goes with cheese! Even if you don’t prefer to eat chocolate with a bite of cheese, it’s still a nice addition to a board. Everyone loves a bite of chocolate and it’s a great little surprise!

The board above was easy to put together, but it still has some nice extra touches that make it festive. I used a cookie cutter to cut a heart shape from a small wheel of brie cheese and filled the heart cutout with strawberry preserves. You could certainly use hot pepper jelly, or raspberry jam…anything red works. I sprinkled dried cranberries over the gouda cheese and added sweet pecans and chocolate covered pretzels. Strawberries are always a good idea and everyone loves a bite of salami. This board comes together in minutes and everyone will love it!

The next board I created is a little fancier. I found these amazing heart shaped cheeses at the grocery store. They’re packaged in wax, so I simply cut the tops off and served in the wax containers. The cheeses are soft, so it’s a perfect presentation. Watch the video below to see more. Another touch that makes this a special platter is the salami rosette (here’s a tutorial I found on YouTube). I made it by rolling layers of salami and securing them with a toothpick. I added cashews, pistachios, mozzarella cheese rolled with prosciutto, apricots, strawberries, crackers, blackberries, cherries and garnished with fresh rosemary and small pink roses! The grocery stores are filled with specialty items just for Valentine’s Day right now, making it really easy to create a Valentine’s Day themed board. I love the way this turned out.

I like to use a variety of cheeses from hard to soft, but there really are no rules…just use what you like and play around with it until it makes you happy! This is such a great way to share your love with your family and everyone loves cheese! For more decadent Valentine’s Day desserts, be sure to check out this post!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and don’t forget to watch me Live on Facebook with Jeanne Robertson…Saturday at 12:00 pm EST!