Our Romantic Date Night at Home

The Inspiration for our Latest Date Night at Home

This week something unexpected happened! We received a surprise package from a couple at our local church – our Pastors Wendy and Andrew at C3 Church in Bridgeman Downs.  They are one of the most inspiring couples in my life – setting an example of a life close to God and being a blessing to everyone around you so that they may feel God’s love too.

One of the Best Couples Gift Basket Ideas we’ve seen

The package contained a recipe for Traditional Italian Meatballs and all the ingredients needed to make it! There’s so much to love about it – not only did they gift us an amazing meal, it’s an Italian dish (a favorite destination of ours) and we get to cook it together as a fun couples activity.  How amazing is this as a gift idea for the couples in your life for any occasion such as celebrating the birth of their first child or just to let them know you are thinking of them during a difficult time?

Cooking Traditional Italian Meatballs Together – A Great Date Night Idea!

Here’s the recipe so you can make it too.

I loved that the recipe had two parts to it – the meatballs and the sauce. It made it easy to split up the task and we could work in different areas of our kitchen. I set out to make the meatballs while hubby made the sauce. 

I made the meatballs (left) and hubby made the sauce (right).

I felt so loved packing out the ingredients in our gift basket because some of them were even packed in packets with little hearts on them. You could tell a lot of love and thought went into this couple’s gift basket. As I’m writing this, I’m still very moved by this generous gesture by my church family.

The gift basket we received had little packs of ingredients with hearts on it. It was clearly packed with love.

When it was time to combine the meatballs and sauce, it brought us together in the kitchen and we shared a kiss, excited to see our creation come together.

Simmering meatballs in the sauce 🙂

The meatballs had to simmer in the sauce for an hour, which gave me time to set up a romantic table for two outside. I set it up in an area in the garden that we don’t go to often so we could have a bit of a different experience 😀

What we included in our Date Night at Home Setup  

I just used affordable items we had collected over the years to put it together. These included:

• Our $50 table and chairs from Bunnings
• Two pillows from IKEA
• Lamps I picked up cheaply from Facebook Marketplace 
• A scented candle
• Two pretty placemats
• A string of fairy lights I got from Bunnings for $10
• Two pretty serviettes

I placed the fairy lights in a heart shape on the ground for a lovely romantic effect. 

Romantic Dinner Ideas for Two at Home:
Lady and the Tramp Theme

As we sat down to taste our efforts in the kitchen, I was reminded of the movie Lady and the Tramp, where the two main characters looked at each other in the eyes and ended up eating from both sides of the same spaghetti string before kissing. We had a lot of fun reenacting the romantic scene from the movie!

The meal turned out absolutely delicious! Best of all we can cook it again and so can you – just find the recipe in this blog.

Dessert: Easy Chocolate Pudding with Breadcrumb Hearts

We had some breadcrumbs left of the ingredients we used to make the Italian dish. So I decided to use it to add hearts to the top of our chocolate pudding dessert.

Chocolate desserts with breadcrumb hearts

It’s a super easy dessert called Moir’s Chocolate flavour Instant Pudding. You just add the pack inside the box to 450ml milk and mix it really well. Then let it stand for a few minutes so it can thicken. Yes, it’s truly that easy haha – this dessert is an absolute gem! It tastes like chocolate mouse, only better. You can buy it from any South African grocery store. Don’t think you have to live in South Africa to get hold of one of these instant pudding packs – here in Brisbane there are plenty of South African grocers for example – just ask Google for the closest one to you.

Our Date Night at Home: A Bonding Experience

What a fantastic day this turned out to be for us as a couple – from cooking the meal together, creating a romantic dinner set up in the garden, and then finally sitting down to enjoy each other’s company and one of the most delicious meals we’ve cooked together.

We also learned that gifting a Couples Gift Basket with a meal and recipe is one of the most amazing gifts you could give or receive.

Feeling inspired to create your own Romantic Date Night? Click on the image below to save it to Pinterest

Special Thanks

Special thanks to the team at C3 Church, Pastor Wendy and Andrew, for gifting us this unforgettable experience that we will remember forever. Thank you for thinking of us at this time of the pandemic that is so obviously hard to so many people so we may feel loved and supported . I’m genuinely grateful to be a part of C3 Church – thank you to you and your team for always going the extra mile with teaching, guiding, inspiring, and uplifting us.  For bringing us closer to God.

The Romantic Explorers Date Night at Home Challenge

In this period of 2020, we find ourselves having to stay at home to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. For us in Brisbane and many others around the world, this means dining out at our favorite romantic restaurants for date night isn’t possible.  

Amazingly, it’s inspired us to be more creative in coming up with cute date ideas at home. Date nights and making an effort are crucial for keeping the romance alive in a relationship or marriage – even more so during such a time of stress and uncertainty that a pandemic can bring. That’s why we started the #RomanticExplorers #DateNightatHomeChallenge.

The challenge is to treat your spouse to a romantic date night at home using anything you have or very little (it can be as affordable or as elaborate as you want it to be and any theme).

Then share photos as proof of your efforts in the Facebook Group RomanticExplorers with the hashtags #RomanticExplorers #DateNightatHomeChallenge. Also, tag friends below your post to nominate them for the challenge – this way, you can play a part in our mission to spread some Love and Romance in the world.

Click here for more cute date ideas set up by real couples that aced the challenge!