Cooking Weeknight Meals: Our Boldest Venture Yet

Attention readers: Gus and I have recently made a very important, life-changing vow: to cook dinner for ourselves during the week. And while this may not seem particularly ambitious to some, for us, this is perhaps one of the biggest challenges we have ever had to face together as a couple. What drove us to this monumental decision? Well, it was recently pointed out to us that, aside from our Saturday night ritual of cooking a meal together, we were on a borderline raw foods diet, barely eating anything hot, let alone a cooked meal covering more than two food groups. Our insistence on rarely eating out, while keeping our wallets padded, wasn't exactly doing the same for our tummies.

So we decided to do something about it. The game plan: Gus would cook dinner on Monday nights, in hopes that his faulty measuring would work in our favor to provide us with leftovers until Wednesday. Thursday nights would be our "crazy" night of ordering out, and I would take care of the weekends. We gave this plan its first test run last week, and I'm pleased to report that it worked out quite well. Monday night I came home to a table set with wine glasses and a steamy four-cheese gnocchi bake; It was one of the greatest homecomings I've ever had--a delicious hot meal waiting for me after class and a boyfriend with culinary skills. (This was the first time Gus ventured beyond scrambled eggs and angel hair with jarred tomato sauce, mind you.)

While we soon realized we forgot to factor "variety" into our plan--the gnocchi was getting a little old by the third night in a row--this was working out much better than our previous habit of random snacking. Though the rest of the week followed in an equally successful suit, it really dawned on me how difficult cooking can be--it requires a whole different mentality: Planning out meals, buying certain ingredients ahead of time, factoring in time and cost considerations--it seems obvious enough, but sometimes you don't fully realize how difficult something can be until you try to do it yourself.

In our case, Gus and I have to contend with various obstacles: a half-size refrigerator, limited cabinet space, lack of a freezer, lack of culinary skills, and erratic schedules, to name a few. Sometimes, it seems as if some higher being simply doesn't want us to eat--or at least eat sufficiently well. I know this seems silly in a city brimming with Zagat-rated restaurants, but it's not so silly for busy people with limited funds.

Yet we are determined to make this work, and I am now on the hunt for simple, quick recipes with few and inexpensive ingredients. (I will probably be watching a lot of Clara videos in my downtime.) So I urge you, my readers, to share your favorite recipes that fit this criteria--for me and all of my over-worked, ill-equipped, and underfed brethren.