How Cooking Dinner Together Will Better Your Relationship

Typically, I'm the cook in our household—I truly enjoy food shopping and making dinner so, when my husband and I first moved in together and divided up our "chores," these became two of my designated tasks. On a given night, I'm either making dinner solo or I give myself the evening "off" and we just eat whatever we can scrounge from the pantry or fridge. But I was getting tired of leftovers and we were stuck in a rut. Photo by Daria Shevtsova  I hear a lot about Blue Apron—a new meal service that sends you pre-planned meals in a box, all ingredients needed, fresh food, and perfectly portioned for two people. I love cooking and we thought it would be fun to give it a try. During our week of Blue Apron, my husband and I decided to cook together for three nights in a row. The experience was totally different from what we're used to and it allowed us to discover the following things about our relationship and ourselves. Meal prep can be quality time. While we washed the fresh ingredients, we talked about our days. As we started adding items to the heated skillet, we stood side-by-side in front of the stove evaluating our progress. Just being in the same room, engaged with each other, made the experience super bonding. As the days progressed, I felt like we'd spent more time together during the week, even though the actual amount of time we were home together was the same. You learn a lot about the other person when you're in the kitchen. Even though Blue Apron provides really easy-to-follow steps (with pictures), there were times when I went rogue and did my own thing. Sometimes, this totally worked. Other times, like when I mixed the crème fraiche with shallots, it didn't. My husband, on the other hand, is very methodical, wanting to follow the directions to a T. Our personalities totally came out as we were cooking and this forced us to compromise and work with each other's different methods. Cooking allows you to try new things—and go outside your comfort zone—together. Of the three recipes we received for the week, the one we were least looking forward to was the Turkey Kibbeh with Mint Yogurt Sauce. Many of the ingredients were foreign to us, my husband isn’t a big fan of mint (who knew?), and I'm more or less terrified of eating white foods because I'm totally weird. Naturally, we made this dish first to get it over with. And you know what? It was amazing! We ended up having a completely new, completely unexpected culinary experience together, right in our own kitchen. What started out as a meal we were skeptical about became a dinner we'll never forget. (In fact, we can't want to make it again!) You appreciate dinner (and each other!) more when making it was a collaborative experience. There's just something different about creating dinner together that makes it more special—you negotiate tasks and work as a team, you sample ingredients as you chop them, you compliment each other's cooking skills and you forgive the mistakes. And now, the folks at Blue Apron are extending a special offer to our readers. You can follow this link to get your first two meals FREE!