Wife Lessons: Cooking for two!

Before I get into the actual blog post, I have to make a quick apology about my lack of blogposts in the past month and a half. I had great dreams and desires of blogging more often than my dear hubby, however I have not yet been able to reach that. (And of course, he recently stepped it up in the blogging atmosphere making me look even worse!). Anyways, while I can't promise that this won't happen again, I definitely want to blog more frequently - just have to switch my after work priorities from watching DVRed episodes of Law & Order to blogging and THEN watching DVRed episode of Law & Order.

Now for the actual post:

Neel and I are now 2 months in to wedded bliss and I am learning daily about being a wife! A recent focus for me is cooking. I LOVE trying out new recipes and sometimes even wow-ing my dear hubby.

Back story on this: Coming into our marriage, I was not a bad cook, but I was also not ready to audition for the next season of Top Chef. I always had my go-to meals: chicken with (instant) mashed potatoes, eggs and toast (i love breakfast for dinner!), and, for those nights that I was feeling particularly lazy, healthy frozen dinners or a nice bowl of cereal. While some of you may be thinking "Neel could eat these things", you are absolutely correct, and we sometimes do. But with the opportunity to now cook for two, I have taken it as a challenge to discover my culinary abilities.

Things I am learning to be important in cooking:

Lesson 1) Any meal that can be made on Sunday and last for several days after is a major SUCCESS. After a long day at work, the last thing either of us want to do is slave over a hot meal. A few things I have cooked thus far that fit this criteria: turkey meatloaf, turkey tacos, and marinated chicken and mashed potatoes (actual ones this time). My latest experiment was chicken enchiladas and it was indeed a MAJOR SUCCESS! They tasted good on Sunday and still tasted good for 3 days after that. That's right folks, we were still eating the enchiladas on Wednesday! Take a look below at last week's cooking win:

Lesson 2) Pursue an equal amount of baking experiments as meal experiments. In my opinion, there is much less pressure when baking then when cooking. Desserts are not a staple of our diet - just an added treat. If it turns out, woohoo! If not, no big deal. Eat what's good, and throw out the rest.

Attempt #1: FAIL

The cake batter ended up outside of the bowl instead of in it. (Luckily, the hubby volunteered to walk to the grocery store to get another cake mix while I cleaned up the mess - 10 points for Neel.)

Attempt #2: Success!

Now this treat was several days in, but it was a delicious strawberry and vanilla ice cream cake.

Lesson 3) Don't live too far away from take out. That way if dinner doesn't turn out, it won't take too long to get a replacement.

Those are all my cooking lessons for now. I look forward to sharing with you any of my latest culinary wins, and, probably more amusingly and likely, my culinary fails.

Cheers!