Cooking Dinner

I feel like I just accomplished a huge feat. I feel a little like super mom at the moment because I just cooked a delicious and nutritious dinner.

Once upon a time, I cooked frequently and could pull a pretty decent meal together. In middle and high school I cooked somewhat regularly, and in college we had homemade meals most nights.

Then I started dating a cute Asian who liked to cook. Cooking together was one of the first ways I really learned to trust Chou. He did things completely opposite of how I thought they needed to be accomplished and it drove me absolutely crazy until I realized that the end result was fabulous. Well, most of the time. We won't talk about the time he mistook salt for sugar. We learned to embrace our differences and create together. In one of Chou's college classes he was asked to define diversity. His answer was "I cook the rice and Megan cooks the pasta."

My sister lamented that it wasn't fair I snagged a guy who could cook, because I was more than capable of feeding myself. Gradually my boyfriend turned fiance turned husband cooked more and more as I cooked less and less. He eventually even took over the pasta. We still enjoy spending time in the kitchen together, but more often than not I'm doing dishes while he's preparing the food. One of the many things I love about my husband is that he truly loves people. One of his favorite ways to express love is by preparing and sharing great home-cooked meals or desserts. He loves experimenting and creating and perfecting amazingly good eats. E and I benefit from this every night. Chou (mostly) loves the challenge of cooking healthy and delicious meals because he knows how much it means to me. We both love how much E loves healthy, real food and will often choose the healthy food over the junk, simply because it's what she's used to eating. We ordered a plain pizza the other night and topped it with basil from the back yard and sliced local tomatoes. E ate the basil and tomato off the top and refused the touch the rest. We ended up searching the fridge and found some raw peas and green beans that she quickly devoured.

Tonight was one of the very few nights in recent history that I've had to cook without everything carefully thought out and prepared by Chou. He normally leaves us prepared food if he's not going to be around for dinner, or at the very least he has a meal plan and everything put together for me. This time he had some stuff come up last minute and didn't have time to plan for us. He left me with the ingredients for chili (but it's 80 degrees and humid here) and some take out menus to our favorite places.

I was planning on ordering sandwiches but I really wanted something healthy so I had no choice but to open my fridge, turn on my stove, and actually cook. E helped by snatching a tomato before I had the chance to even slice it.

She tried to steal a second one and got strapped down wrapped on my back instead. She had already eaten my entire lunch, I had to protect dinner :) Can you say growth spurt?!

Anyway, here's to all you amazing moms (and dads) who put dinner on the table every night, or most nights, or occasionally... Your family appreciates it!