Making a Romantic Meal for Your Significant Other for the Cooking Impaired

There is nothing more sweet than spending time slaving over a hot stove for the one you love, but this can be a stressful issue for those who, like me, can’t cook. I mean, I have trouble boiling water! Yet on my boyfriend and my one year aniversary, I wanted to make him a romantic meal. I thought and thought and thought, and then I found the perfect solution!

The first step is to disassociate yourself with the “rule” that it has to be dinner. I knew my boyfriend was probably going to pick me up pretty early (well, eleven-ish, but that’s early for me on a Saturday!), so I got to thinking – what about breakfast? In my opinion, breakfast is a lot easier to make than dinner and doesn’t have to be as fancy, while you can still make it special and thoughtful.

My next step was, of course, to call my Nana. Isn’t that the ultimate source for cooking knowledge? She pointed out to me the incredibly obvious solution that I hadn’t thought of even though it was staring me straight in the face – the omelets in a bag that we made at her house at Christmas! Yes, that’s right, omelets in a bag. All you have to know how to do is crack eggs, seal a Ziploc baggie, and boil water, and you’re all set.

First, get all your stuff together on the counter. Get two eggs for each of you (well, if your lover has a hardy appetite, you might want to play it safe with three) and anything you can find that would be good in an omelet. Scrounge the fridge. Tear up lunchmeat ham, throw in pre-cooked bacon bits, add a pinch of rosemary, and of course, don’t forget the cheese! Just remember to make sure that any meat you decide to throw in is already cooked! Gather all your omelet additives together, but here’s something I learned from experience: Don’t let your eggs roll off the counter! Be sure to place them securely between boxes or bottles or something. Trust me – when you’re nervous and in a hurry, nothing stresses you out more than the impending mess of that sickening crunch.

Get two quart-sized freezer bags. Make sure they’re freezer bags because they have to be strong enough to stand up to boiling water. It’s a little messy if you crack your eggs directly into the bags (another thing I learned the hard way), so crack each set of two (or three) eggs into a small bowl and then pour them into the bags. Seal each bag up and squish the eggs around until the yolks are broken, and then re-open them. Add a teeny dash of milk into each bag. I personally don’t see why, but my Nana told me to, so it must be good. Just do it. Now stand your bags up against something on the counter (don’t let them tip!) and start adding the mix-ins. Don’t go too crazy, but put enough stuff in to make it interesting.

Once you’re all done and everything that you want in your omelets are in the baggies, seal them, making sure to get as much air as you can out of the bag. Fill a small-ish (but big enough to comfortably accommodate the bags) pot up with enough water that you can submerge the omelets into and get it boiling. Once it’s at a full boil, put your bags in. At Nana’s she somehow got them to stand up and cook perfectly, but I had to ghetto-fy it a little by holding the top of the bags up using kitchen tongs to prevent steamburn while pressing the egg bit down into the water with a big, long plastic spoon. Do whatever works for you with whatever you have handy.

Now, if you’re anything like me, I bet you’re freaking out right now and going, “Liz! Hold up! I have no idea how long to cook these! I don’t have inner omelet instinct!” Okay, maybe you all aren’t as weird as I am, but you’re probably wondering that at least. Well, if your bags have two eggs in them, boil for exactly 13 minutes. If one or both has three eggs, that takes 15 minutes. That means that if one has two and one has three, you’re going to have to take the smaller one out two minutes early.

Once you’ve cooked for the allotted time, pull the baggies out of the water. When Nana made them, you could just open the bag and slide onto a plate, but the heat made the zippers of my bags get all weird, so I just cut the top of the bags off and then slid them out onto each plate.

Now, the most important thing when making a meal for your love is effort, but presentation’s up there too. I sprinkled the omelets with a few sprigs from the fresh rosemary plant off the deck, but if you are not lucky enough to be blessed with fresh herbs, at least try to garnish with some dried rosemary or something. Yes, I love rosemary. Make your place setting all fancy with a folded napkin and perfectly placed silverware. I guess a candle, traditional for romantic dinners, isn’t really possible here, but open the blinds so that the room is nice and bright and sunny. The perfect final touch is orange juice in the nicest champagne flutes you have.

Well, there you have it. If you can’t do that, well, is it really possible not to be able to do that? This sweet, thoughtful gesture is sure to impress any significant other.