Cooking Dinner

I did something yesterday I don’t normally do.

I cooked.

Mark and I aren’t home together at night since we work opposite shifts, so I usually make do with cereal, peanut butter sandwiches…. Umm….. cheese sticks…. That might be it.

But last night Mark was off and I decided to pull out a recipe I’d tried before and liked – Quick and Easy Lasagna. It has all the fab flavor of lasagna but the ease of a casserole (see?… I make it sound easy, right?)

I’m horribly out of practice!! I stumbled and bumbled my way through the grocery store. Studying the ground rounds, number of ounces in a can of tomato sauce and wondered why they don’t make any 8 oz bags of medium egg noodles. Why are they all 12 or 16 ounces?

Realizing that cooking is nothing like baking – which is an exact science that I’m MUCH more comfortable with – I thought it’d be okay if I fudged a few things here and there.

I kept thinking, “I could just go to Subway….” “Subway sure would be easier…” but I wanted to cook for Mark since I never get to.

So, I boiled the noodles and mixed my cheese mixture. Estimated the tomato sauce, and the ground round. I had to buy 1.34 lbs of ground round as opposed to 1 lb. And does that matter? I didn’t know. Ginger enjoyed a few extras of this and that while I had cheese, pans, sauce and noodles spread throughout the entire kitchen, on all counter surfaces and even a bit on the floor (again, it’s good to have Ging around). I certainly made a production of it.

I was happily singing to myself and mixing, dicing, and boiling when Mark came thundering out of his office, hollering down the stairs,
“Erica?! ERICA!”
“What?”
“What’s burning?!?!”

Niiiiice. That’s not quite the scent I was hoping to use to lure him away from him work project.

“Umm… just a little something I’m working on.” Which was NOT burning by the way… it just smelled like it was.
“You’re cooking?!?!?!?”

I listened for a squeal of delight from Mark when I said yes but I didn’t hear it. He merely said, “Okay,” clearly relieved the house wasn’t burning around him, and went back to work.

Nevertheless, I continued. I tossed my masterpiece in the oven, along with the garlic bread I’d picked up. Mixed up some brownies for dessert, and waited for my praise.

What a great wife I am! How sweet is this?! He’s working and I’m doing laundry AND cooking dinner!

Mark came down, asked if I concocted this dish on my own, sat down and ate. I sat there thinking, ‘Umm… you know this is the first time I’ve done this in years… don’t you?’ I waited for an “Oooohhh,” or an “aaahhhh” or a “Wow this is good! How nice!”

The look on my face must’ve said it all because Mark finally said “What?! I like it.”

I’m not railing on Mark for not gushing about my silly feast. I’m mostly frustrated with myself that I turned the kitchen into something that looks like a Thanksgiving meal for 20 was prepared in, I spent FAR more time than the 20 minutes the recipe told me I would, and I only made a marginal meal.

Mark is great. He’ll eat anything – even if I had burned it. But I think… probably… he’d rather have had the Subway sandwich!