Chris Makes Dinner

In the 4+ years that we’ve been together, Chris has made me dinner about 3 times. It’s not that he refuses to cook, but since I enjoy cooking so much, he doesn’t usually find himself in the kitchen unless he's hovering over a pot of noodles and cheese (from a box). He isn’t a bad cook either— Chris has a few specialties: eggs cooked perfectly over easy….aaaannndd….I just asked him what his other specialties are and he said he doesn’t have any. 

I’ve mentioned before that I love to grocery shop. I try to leave Chris out of it because he doesn’t enjoy it as much as I do and frankly, bringing him along can ruin the experience for me. I like to stop, read the labels, compare brands, and this drives him crazy. Chris likes to get in and get out. HOWEVER, sometimes when I’m trying to teach him a lesson in responsibility (ha!) I make him come with me. Take this weekend for example. On Friday night we went out for pizza (delicious) and had a pretty low-key night. On Saturday my friend Emily took me out for dinner, and Chris went out with his friends. Emily and I were back at the apartment by 11:30, sweatpants on, drinking wine, hanging my new artwork, and dancing to Beyonce’s song, Drunk In Love (“we woke up in the kitchen saying how the hell did this S*** happen, oh baby…druuuunk in looovee!!!” seriously such a good song I love Beyonce). Meanwhile, on the other side of town Chris is doing ‘guy things’ such as beer pong, telling bad jokes, and sports stuff. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda I go to sleep, his night goes on and eventually it’s Sunday morning and he is not feeling so hot. I had planned on getting groceries anyway and wanted him to come along so we could have some QT (quality time). Chris was not into this idea in the slightest. I can’t say that I didn’t see this coming but to be honest the guy works so hard all week, and I don’t blame him for wanting to let loose. And I would be lying if there haven’t been times that I’ve texted him and said “OMGGG I’m having the BEST NIGHT EVER” and he rolls his eyes because he knows I’m going to regret it the next day. I think that’s one of the funnier parts of our relationship because we know each other well enough to predict how things are going to turn out for the other person before they realize it.

ANYWAY, Sunday was one of those days and he had to opt out of grocery shopping. Being the kind person that he is, he felt really bad for leaving me with our one chore of the weekend, so he promised to make me dinner on Monday night. I hesitated to say yes because I didn’t know how it would turn out and considering his first suggestion for dinner was a BBQ chicken grilled cheese that he saw on food gawker, I don’t think I should be blamed for not immediately jumping at the opportunity. After I talked him down from that ledge, we settled on a creamy pasta dish with mushrooms, and a caesar salad with home-made dressing. For the record it’s not that I wouldn’t want the grilled cheese but since this is time #4 that he’s making me dinner I need to take advantage and get something a little more luxurious out of it. 

As I head out the door I tell him to text me the ingredients so I can pick them up at the store. 10 minutes go by and I receive this text: 

Chris: For the pasta: shell pasta, button mushrooms, red bell pepper, onion, garlic, parsley, basil, flour. 

Me: I don’t know the amounts we need.

Chris: one pepper one onion. Pack of mushrooms. Pack of pasta.

Me: haha..the pack sizes vary. I’ll figure it out.

Chris: Haha sorry. I suck. For the salad: one head of romaine, red wine vinegar, Worcester sauce, parmesan. 

Hmm….just let that marinate for a bit. My favourite part of this exchange is that he acknowledges that he is giving me a terrible list of groceries but he doesn’t try to text me the actual amounts for the salad either. I had to laugh. Also, if you’ve ever made caesar salad before you’ll notice one glaring omission…ANCHOVIES!! He says he left them off the list because he doesn’t like them (except I know he does because he likes caesar salad), but anchovies are essential to a good caesar dressing, are they not?? Don’t be scared of the harmless little anchovy. They are so delicious and add such great flavour to dishes such as: caesar salad, puttanesca, and pizza. So without further ado, here is the dinner I was treated to! I have attached the recipes on the bottom with links. 

PS. we ended up going out to get Anchovies on Monday but since it was a holiday we really had to hunt them down. Chris and I drove up the street and I ran into stores to ask if they had them. When I finally found a jar, I ran out of the store with such excitement that I tripped on a loose brick and went flying across the sidewalk. It was one of those times when you know you're going to fall and there's nothing you can do about it so you just do your best to tuck and roll. When I got to the car Chris asked me if I fell because he said that one minute I was on one side of the sidewalk and the next I was all the way on the other side. Yikes. 


Chris cooking, with sardines in foreground:

Caesar Salad:

My contribution was some garlic bread:

The finished product all plated up:

The pasta was great but we made a few changes: we used rice pasta and doubled the amount of noodles. The recipe doesn't actually make that much and the directions kind of suck but the finished product was pretty good.

You can find the pasta recipe here
You can find the caesar salad recipe here
You can find the garlic bread recipe here

ENJOY!