Moving Doesn't Totally Suck

This past weekend, we moved from a cramped apartment to a fairly spacious house.  While everything has been mostly amazeballs throughout the entire move, there's one tiny thing that has SUCKED: the water heater is broken, thus, we have been taking ice cold showers since last Friday.  It doesn't sound that bad on paper; but, give it a try tomorrow morning when you're getting ready for work, and let me know how you feel afterwards.  K?  Thankfully, they're coming to either fix it or replace it tomorrow morning.  I'm thinking about making dinner in the shower, a la Cosmo Kramer, just because I'll finally be warm and spend more than five minutes in there.

One huge positive is now that we're in a bigger place with a bigger kitchen, and more space to move freely about without playing ass tag with each other, I'm able to prepare meals SO much easier.  I made our first "real" meal in our new house last night!  While I failed to take a picture of it, I can tell you that it tasted extra yummy since we ate it on our back patio, with only the sounds of birds and the occasional passing car in the background.  Not three different languages being heard from our "ethnic" neighbors, no tiny ankle-biter dogs barking, and the best part?  The smell of Marlboro Reds wafting through the air was non-existent.  To us, these things are major victories and make us even happier to have moved out of our stank ass apartment complex.

Tonight after work, I'm entertaining my first guest for some snacky snacks (a term you'll hear frequently, coined by my brother-in-law during a game of Scattegories) and wine, which makes me super happy.  I just wish I didn't have to work all day, then go home and get our appetizers ready.  I keep telling my husband I should be a stay-at-home wife, because damn, I could drink the shit out of some pinot grigio at 2 in the afternoon while making fancy food. 

I've decided I'm going to close out each post with pictures, recipes, etc. (basically food porn), so here it is!

I promise I'll capture the awesomeness of my creations on film tonight and make you drool in the morning.  But for now, I CAN at least give you the rundown and recipes of dinner last night.

Boneless pork chops, roasted asparagus, and teriyaki rice
I marinated the pork chops (buy one pack, get one free at Weis - SCORE!) in basic bottled Ken's teryaki marinade all day, and seasoned the chops with garlic powder and fresh ground black pepper.  I threw them on the grill for about 5 minutes per side, and they were absolutely perf.

If you've never roasted vegetables this way, I demand that you make it happen for your next meal.  I tossed the asparagus with olive oil, salt, pepper, and crushed garlic cloves, then baked it at 375 for about 15 minutes.  That's it.  BOOM, flavor explosion in your mouth.

My husband insisted that we own a rice cooker (he's half Filipino and therefore, he could eat rice with his breakfast), so that's how I cooked the plain, white rice.  BUT I found a recipe for restaurant teryaki sauce, and made that to go over the rice, or dip the pork chops in, or do shots of.  Whatever we felt like doing at the dinner table.  The original recipe was a little sweet, so I had to add some more soy sauce, and also threw in a couple squirts of hoisin sauce.  I think next time, I'll use less brown sugar, and probably cut the recipe in half if it's just the two of us.

Tonight's Menu: hot spinach and artichoke dip with pita chips and crostinis, tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil with a balsamic reduction, and fresh salsa that's hanging out in my fridge all day, with the flavors and ingredients marrying together harmoniously.  Yum!