A dinner revelation

One of the things I've been wrestling with since we got married is meal prep. Once we got settled in our apartment, I started really wanting to be all wife-y and make dinner for the two of us each night. It happened a few times, sporadically, but never with planning ahead and main dishes and side dishes and stuff. It took until finals week for me to realize what my problem was. You're gonna laugh when you hear it, but...

Guys. Did you know that people get recipes from COOKBOOKS??

Seriously. I am ridiculous but I never had thought of that in the two months we'd been married! We got about 5 cookbooks as gifts and they were on the shelf in the kitchen, but in my head I just thought people got recipes from their ancestors (secretly and memorized) or from the interwebs. And my ancestors and I hadn't yet chatted, and we didn't have access to the interwebs at our apartment, and so...no recipes, duh. Which meant no dinner. 

It all became clear, though, when we went to watch the BYU basketball game with some friends at their apartment, and hostess Eryn made a delicious roasted red pepper dip, and I asked, "Wow, where'd you come up with this?" And she answered, "It's in my favorite cookbook!" 

I'm pretty sure my brain exploded in that moment. But I managed to put my jaw back in place and respond with something appropriate, all the while wondering what magical dips must be in the pages of my own cookbooks. 

So the next day I pulled out my Secret Recipes cookbook and put sticky notes on everything I wanted to try out, and we have since been working our way through them all. We've found a yummy kung pao chicken which converted me to the idea of peanut flavor for dinner and we've found a really nasty casserole which Joe was gracious enough to eat almost completely alone. This week's docket includes BBQ hamburgers (I think they'll be like sloppy joes) and taco salad (which is actually a bit of a cop out because I did already know that one, but whatev). 

Anyways, I am loving this. I never thought I'd say that about cooking, but I think what I love most about it is just the chance to learn new skills and see (taste?) instant applications. I feel like each meal I make gives me a new level of competence on some specific kitchen skill (or two or five), and that feels nice. It's like passing a level on Eggbert or something. (Eggbert? Anyone? Anyone know Eggbert?)

So if you're ever hungry, just holla at me. Cuz this girl now makes dinner.

#adults #broccoli

Picture!

This was Joe's Instagram of the first deliberate meal I made. We hadn't yet gone grocery shopping for our (my) new hobby, so I made the cookbook's "Fancy Tuna-Wiches" recipe since we already had all the ingredients. It was surprisingly delicious.