An easy anniversary meal

The Valentine's Day before Trillian and I started our relationship, mere days before, we looked through the special ads in our university newspaper and cackled over the mushy proclamations on a Hallmark holiday.

Now, with our anniversary so soon after the holiday, Valentine's Day feels a bit superfluous. We might do things like a fun dessert--any excuse for chocolate!--but we save our special meal for our anniversary. Sometimes we'll take the opportunity to try a particularly nice restaurant, but we've also been known to cook up a nice meal at home.

This year, I looked at the calendar and sighed. Not only is our anniversary on a weeknight, it's on the one night I have to take Scooter to Capital City for gymnastics. We'd be able to have a late-ish dinner, but the thought of starting to cook that late when I knew I'd be tired was not appealing.

And then the epiphany: why not a crockpot meal? I started to look through recipes I'd saved, but Trillian knew immediately what she wanted. It's a recipe I originally wanted to try because of how very simple it is: Sundried Tomatoes and Feta Tri-Tip. Even better, it tastes wonderful.

I'm planning on trying my hand at the crockpot creme brulee recipe a day or two earlier so that I can just broil it a little before dinner. And I'll serve the tri-tip with some of our frozen haricots verts. A fancy, satisfying meal with a minimum of preparation!

Sundried Tomatoes and Feta Tri-Tip

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of tri-tip steak (it's a triangular cut from the sirloin butt--I don't remember exactly what cuts I've ended up using, but this has worked well with any cut I've tried.)
• 1 jar of sundried tomatoes, drained (I've also used some that were vacuum-packed without liquid and just threw in a tiny bit of oil.)
• approx. 8 ounces of feta cheese--or more, which is Trillian's preference
• 1/3 cup liquid (the recipe calls for white wine, I've used chicken stock successfully.)

1. Put the meat in the crockpot, frozen is fine.
2. Put the tomatoes on top of the meat, repeat with the feta. Toss in the liquid.
3. Cook on low, 6-10 hours, depending on the thickness and frozen-ness of the meat.

Seriously, it's that easy. And so delicious. I'm looking forward to enjoying it with whatever excellent wine Trillian picks to go with it.