Food, Food, Glorious Food

Mark and I love food. We love everything about it. We love shopping for it together, we love making it together and we love eating it. (Which is probably why my pants feel like they are getting smaller. I'm not sure why the exact reverse is happening to my husband. He actually is buying pants 2-4 sizes smaller than he normally does, but I am feeding the poor boy, I promise I am!)

When we were dating we took turns cooking for each other. I have heard it said that most people have 10 recipes that they make over and over again on a rotating basis, so Mark and I decided that we would each make 10 meals for each other before we could repeat one of those meals again. We had a blast doing it and ate some yummy things.

I like to cook things I have grown up eating, recipes I have gathered from roommates or friends over the years but do not branch out a lot. Mark on the other hand loves to try new recipes. He hardly ever makes the same thing twice (unless I request it), and even makes up his own meals. (Don't tell him this, but I think he is a much better cook than I am, except for salmon. My salmon is much better than his is, but he too will admit this.)

It's kind of funny because when we go to a restaurant and order food I usually order between the same 3-4 things, just rotating them between visits. Mark hardly ever orders the same thing. The sad thing is that I usually end up preferring what he ordered! (I have thought about just letting him order for me because he does a much better job, but I actually kind of enjoy stealing bites of his food :)).

A couple of weeks ago we were trying to think of what to eat for dinner and decided to make a list of all the things one of us have cooked for the other (or cooked together). I think the list also came about because we have some married friends that eat the same 3 things all the time. (They are really skinny-maybe there is something to that :)) With our list we also rated the foods. Stars are really hard to make a whole bunch of and it is super hard to make just a half star so our rating system is as follows: Mark gets up to 3 orange circles. I get up to 3 green circles. We are also allowed to give 1/2 circles by not coloring in the circle. It was actually interesting to rate these recipes because some of the foods I love to cook and eat (crock pot chicken for example-you know cream cheese, Italian seasoning, cream of chicken soup mix) Mark only gave it 1 1/2 circles and I gave it 3! The meals we both agree on at a 6 star recipe are Teriyaki Salmon Sandwiches (made by me) and Chicken Bacon Ranch Wraps (made by Mark).

A dish that did not even make the book was Mark's stuffed shell pasta. I tried to eat it, but it was so bad. Come to find out the recipe had asked for 1/4 cup of lime juice and Mark made the mistake of putting in 1/4 cup of lime juice concentrate! (It was so sour and sour is not a taste I like!) Needless to say I will be requesting that meal anytime soon.

We have over 35 main dishes on our list and more being added all the time. What's for dinner at your house? We're looking forward to having spaghetti squash spaghetti sometime soon (unless Mark sprayed that plant too :))