foodI made a last-minute Valentine’s Day dinner beneath $100 with out even stepping out of my home

Good meals is the language of affection, however selecting a dinner spot for Valentine’s Day has all the time been a irritating occasion.

From in search of a romantic spot that won’t depart a gap in your pocket, to creating positive the menu (eating places sometimes solely have one menu for Valentine’s Day) is to your important different’s style, it is no marvel some {couples} are selecting to dine at residence.

And it makes much more sense this 12 months because the variety of Covid-positive instances in Singapore is at an all-time excessive.

To counter all of these issues, I made a decision to whip up a meal for 2 at residence with a finances of $100 with the assistance of foodpanda and a finances of $100. And sure, wine and desserts included.

The menu

The gastronomic affair begins with a easy appetiser – a caprese salad – shortly thrown along with slices of truffle brie, tomatoes, basil and topped with olive oil (and maybe some balsamic vinegar in case you have some in your pantry).

Subsequent, now we have the mains – a ‘meat’ sauce pasta.

Begin by blistering the tomatoes until they kind type of a paste, then transfer on to frying the chopped up mushrooms, and at last let your scorching pan, oil, and your alternative of meat do its Maillard response magic – all individually. Mix all of your components, add in some purple wine to deglaze your pan, season with salt, pepper and a few pasta water, prime it over some cooked penne, and viola – the pasta’s able to serve.

Pour your self and your important different some purple wine, gentle a candle (additionally out there on foodpanda!), and revel in the remainder of the night as a result of your desserts might be delivered to the doorstep with only a contact of a button. Learn on to learn the way you may get a fast, scrumptious candy deal with whereas nonetheless staying on finances!

Tricks to wine and dine on a good finances

To spend inside your finances, one tip I’ve is to plan your menu. Because the saying goes, should you fail to plan, you intend to fail. At all times decide your mains and wine first as they’re the priciest objects in your record.

Second is to make use of the identical components in varied components of your meal. For instance, the cherry tomatoes and basil used within the caprese salad appetiser have been additionally used within the mains. Even the wine was used for deglazing the pan whereas I used to be making ready the ‘meat’ for the primary dish – meat sauce pasta.

Third, get all of your components on the identical day as spoiled or expired produce means cash misplaced! And what higher option to get your meals and groceries contemporary than to get all of them delivered to the doorstep. As an alternative of getting to schedule deliveries days upfront, I ordered every part from pandamart and obtained the objects in half-hour!

Here is a listing of what I bought:

Past Meat Past Beef – $22.10

Swiss brown mushroom – $4.40

Penne – $2.45

Cherry tomatoes – $1.70

Contemporary basil – $2.20

Castello White truffle cheese – $10.95

19 Crimes Shiraz – $24

Creamier Handcrafted Ice Cream & Espresso ice cream pints – $32.80 for 2

Supply and platform charge for pandamart – $1.68

Supply and platform charge for meals supply – $4.48

Whole: $106.76

Whereas it appeared like I might burst my finances of $100, with pandapro, foodpanda’s all-in-one subscription programme, I had a ten per cent off pandamart voucher so my complete invoice got here as much as $99.05 – that is $7.71 saved!

In case you do not wish to spend time within the kitchen in any respect, pandapro has bought you coated as nicely – get free supply and as much as 35 per cent off chosen eating places or 20 per cent off for pick-up orders.

However wait, it will get even higher! For a restricted time solely, pandapro’s annual plan goes for $2.99/month (U.P. $3.99) and the six-month plan going for $3.99/month (U.P. $4.99). For comparability, their traditional month-to-month subscription prices $7.99 monthly. There is no higher time to subscribe and avoid wasting moolahs.

Pandapro subscribers also can look ahead to having fun with levelled-up perks throughout pandapro week from Feb 21 to 27, corresponding to 30 per cent off supply orders (as an alternative of the present 20 per cent off) and as much as 50 per cent off full menu whenever you dine-in at collaborating eating places (as an alternative of the present 30 per cent off)!

Able to go professional? Merely join pandapro on the foodpanda web site or app. Do additionally try foodpanda’s Telegram group for extra particulars of upcoming promos.

This text is dropped at you in partnership with foodpanda.