It's Valentine's Day and You Should Go For It

A home-cooked Valentine's Day dinner should be a little over the top. Roast chicken stuffed with foie gras? Bring it. Pasta carbonara topped with Dungeness crabmeat? Of course. Dark Valrhona chocolate baked into individual soufflé cups? It's a special occasion. Now's not the time to hold back. Give it your all with recipes like these:

Roasted Chicken for Two

Can chicken be sexy? This one is.

Crab Carbonara with Meyer Lemon, Black Pepper, and Parsley

You could eat this Lady and the Tramp–style, but chances are you're not going to want to share.

Blackberry-Glazed Lamb Chops

Perfectly cooked, bone-in lamb chops say, "I care enough to buy the fancy meat."

Warm Valrhona Chocolate Cake

It's rich. It's warm. It requires a double boiler and separating eggs. That's love.

Anya Hoffman is a freelance writer and contributing editor at the James Beard Foundation. Find her on Twitter.