Best Valentine's Day Ever?

Even though Valentine's Day didn't turn out exactly as I wanted it to, it definitely ranks as one of the best Valentine's Days ever.

I had high hopes for enjoying the first bacon of our pig along with homemade pumpkin-oat-bread French toast. I made the dough from the artisan bread in 5 min a day book last night, but didn't realize until I woke up this morning that the bread needed 2 hours to rise before baking for another hour. Thankfully, Martha had a pumpkin pancake recipe on her website that was quite possibly the best pancake recipe I've ever made (OK, maybe #3). The only pork we've eaten from our pig was Italian sausage, which was great. The bacon was pretty darn good, though less salty than run-of-the-mill bacon, which wasn't necessarily bad.

After refreshing Pain de Campagne part II, we headed to Montpelier for a cheese, chocolate and beer tasting at our favorite beer haunt.

And what an event it was. Lots of delicious pairings, but one of the most amazing things were these truffles from Laughing Moon chocolates which were quite literally this amazing cheese from Jasper Hill Farms (Willoughby) dipped in dark chocolate. :swoon My favorite match-up of the day was that same cheese (Willoughby) with a really nice Trappist trippel. Nom.

We were just going to stay for a glass of the cask beer (Allagash Black!) but ended up having another. And another. And another. Whoops! Luckily we stopped at a friends' house for a bit to sober up and made it home in one piece. And luckily there was leftover soup in our fridge to chow down on....

Now I just have to stay awake long enough to let the bread rise and bake...