Cooking for Others

This little rant is brought to you from the foundation of "Bri Promised Her Boyfriend She'd Make Him and His Roommate Dinner on Tuesday". Donations and cooking tips will be accepted.

This was a stupid idea.

I'm fine when I'm cooking for myself. If it sucks, it sucks, and I will say, "Hey Bri, that dish you made completely sucks. Why don't you throw it out and eat another one?" But other people, they're not so blunt. They will gnaw their way through your terrible meal, with masked smiles attempting to hide their grimace, all the while telling you how delicious it is and how much they like it.

It's a terrible, terrible thing.

First off, I'm not saying I want anyone to up front tell me that my meal is bad. That would be a huge blow to my already very small ego, and I would probably spend the rest of the night curled up in a corner with a bowl of raw cookie dough (from the store, since they apparently can get it right) crying over how I will never be a success.

This fear all goes back to me not liking to cook for other people because then they will judge me about what I cooked and not be honest with me whether they like it or not. I always watch out for just the littlest sign of dislike before checking with the victim, er, guest, to see if they really are enjoying it.

I haven't quite decided what I am making for the two of them yet, but I know it can't involve any meat since my boyfriend's roomie is a vegetarian. I will be preparing a salad though, that I am very excited about. I've never made it before but I had a version of it at Panera Bread the other day and it was absolutely delicious.

Recipe:
* Lettuce
* Strawberries
* Blueberries
* Pecans
* Pineapple
* Mandarins
* Poppy Seed Dressing

I'm pretty pumped. It's a great salad because I don't feel like I'm eating salad at all. It's healthy, while being totally delicious too. I'm thinking about adding some spinach too because I will eat anything, and I mean absolutely anything with spinach on it, and we have some fresh leaves from our garden that need using up. Hopefully I can get my version up to the standards of the one I ate the other day, because if I screw this up, then the rest of the meal is definitely not going to work out.

Anyway! Let me know what you think a good meal would be for these two lucky guys. I want it to be a nice balance of it being easy for me to make, but look impressive too, because my boyfriend is definitely one of the wonderful people in my life who like to poke fun at me for my lack of culinary education or skill.

Bon Appetite!