Roast beef

I have never, until after my wedding a few weeks ago, been one to cook much more than a grilled chicken breast and vegetables. Sure, baking is fun and I’ve drooled over my share of cookbook photos, but a large cooking repertoire is not something with which I was raised.

Growing up, it was a pretty consistent rotation of several basics — chicken, hamburgers, pizza, spaghetti, etc. — with the occasional “fancy” meals thrown in — stroganoff, Italian beef, etc.

It’s not that my mom can’t cook or hates cooking, it’s just that work and other obligations keep her plenty busy with not much time for cooking. This lack of time was much more pronounced from the time I was about 8 until I could drive (and until my sister could drive) because we were both hyper-involved and always running to the next class or practice or rehearsal or meeting.

But come Christmas break, she pulled out all the stops and baked, baked, baked.

So, it was with this background of pretty much non-cooking that I married CG, the son of a stay-at-home mother who constantly searches for new recipes. She’s always trying something new, and it almost always turns out stellar.

I figured, after 24 years of living with that kind of cooking, CG had come to expect it, and I have cooked more new things in the past five weeks than I have the entire time I’ve lived on my own.

On Thursday, the fateful day of water heater crap-outness, I decided to attempt roast beef. I read a few recipes, thinking it was easy enough to rub some stuff on a piece of meat and stick it in the oven.

Everything I read said the key was to keep the cooking temperature low — I stuck with 275 degrees — and roast for 20 minutes per pound.

With those instructions, I figured that 40 minutes for a 1.5-pound roast would be plenty, right?

Wrong.

I pulled the roast out, which smelled fabulous and looked perfect (from the outside), and sliced into it. Bright. red.

Crap.

So, I sliced up enough for the two of us and stuck the thing back in the oven for about 15 minutes. The slices were cooked well enough — luckily, they tasted good, too — but the rest wasn’t. When it came time for CG’s second helping (I take it as a blessing that the stuff I cook isn’t awful enough that he foregoes the second helping), I needed to stick more in.

Another 15 minutes in the oven and my husband is dancing around the kitchen singing, “Hungry! Hungry!” Argh.

Anyone else have a bad experience roasting something for the first time?

Ah, homeownership…

Five weeks to the day after our house became, well, ours, the water heater took a crap.

Yay.

So, CG and his dad have spent the last two nights taking out the old water heater — which spewed water all over our entryway floor as we were preparing to go to bed — with a tankless heater.

A few minutes ago, CG came in, instruction booklet in hand (I knew something was wrong at this point because he NEVER reads instructions unless he screws something up), sits on the couch and tells me they got the cold water and hot water hookups mixed up.

This comes AFTER they actually took the 2.5 seconds to look in the instruction booklet to find out about the hookups.

Le sigh.

The water-heater shenanigans follow a week in which we’ve had to set mouse traps in the kitchen because the little buggers are chewing through my Special K bars and my Instant Breakfast packets.

I’ve lived in central Illinois my whole life (minus those 3.5 months I lived in the UK), but I’ve never lived in this rural of a setting, so I’ve never given mice in my house a second thought. Now that I’ve had to deal with them, ick. No more.

Of course, there is no way I am dealing with the dead mice once the traps catch them. I just run away screaming.

Here’s hoping this whole homeownership thing gets a little less … eventful.

Snicker.

UPDATE: The new water heater is in and working, but my kitchen and dining room are a mess. Lesson: Never let the men do something in your house while you have to work all weekend. It will end up taking you three times as long to clean up as it took them to mess it up.

Thursday (almost) perfect happiness

Here are the things which made me happy today:

1. A cool, crisp morning and a nice warm afternoon. In October. In Illinois.

2. Already-changing leaves on trees, unlike last year when leaves didn’t really change until November. But, the beauty of it all is that the weather has been so ADD that the trees are changing SLOWLY and not all at once. Yay!

3.

Hamlet

This adorable, crazy cat who slept ALLLLLL day on the warm blanket on my bed after actually sleeping through the night curled up at my side.

4.

My first-ever brand-new episode of The Office. I’ve been waiting two weeks for this.

5. 22 days until the wedding!

6. Finally finishing the cover story for our October Progress edition of the paper, the story which has been the bane of my existence for weeks upon weeks.

7.

My only in-home Halloween decorations. I’ve been driving around town for weeks wishing I could put up all the pumpkins and scarecrows other people have on their lawns but, alas, I do not yet have my own yard (Next year!)

8. This brave woman and her wonderful, beautiful family. I want to be her.

9.

Chocolate chip cookie pie (recipe forthcoming)

A piece of warm chocolate chip cookie pie (well, two) that I made last week.

Crust = not happy

But not enough to eat the crust.

10.

Being able to see my wonderful, fabulous, amazing CG tomorrow and looking forward to a great weekend full of bridal showers, haunted houses, Knox County Scenic Drive and planning our future together!

Happy almost-weekend to everyone!

Loves,

MW

Welcome!

Hello! I’m starting this blog to feed a recent obsession with cooking and trying out new recipes.

A little about me:

I’m not yet Midwestern Wife, although I will be come Nov. 1, when I marry the wonderful Computer Guy. At that point, we will embark on one of the great adventures of life: homeownership. We’re in the process of purchasing a great 110-year-old house in a small town in Illinois (where many ingredients are pretty much impossible to find without driving 30 minutes in either direction).

I’ve lived on my own for about two years (well, six if you count college), so cooking for someone else will be an adventure, as will balancing work and home life. It’s pretty easy to ignore piles of unfolded clean laundry when you’re the only one who needs the clothes, but it’s more difficult when you have a man who can hardly run the washing machine!

In this blog, you’ll find my musings on being a new wife, including housekeeping, my crazy cat Hamlet and everything in between. But mostly (I hope), you’ll find food. You’ll find the tried-and-true easy recipes, my experiments, the successes and the failures.

I hope you enjoy!