The Kitchen - TH

After 2 weeks away from my apartment, and more importantly, away from my kitchen, I was itchin' to come home and both make and eat a homecooked meal.  So it came as a surprise last night when I tried to figure out what I wanted to blog about next and I came up with a big, fat nada.  Don't get me wrong, I made one hell of a dinner/leftovers Monday night.  It was delicious.  And healthy, which I had been craving after 2 weeks of restaurant food.  It was the product of doing a quick walkthrough of my grocery store and buying what was on sale.  It came together without headache and with few ingredients.  It came together easily, but slowly.  It was the perfect welcome home dinner.  And Tuesday lunch leftovers.

 So, of course, there are no pictures.  I wasn't in the mood to have to think about trying to make my food look appetizing.  Or to try to remember to take pictures each step along the way.  Or to find and follow a recipe.  Instead, I let myself enjoy slowly carmelizing long strips of red onions and button mushrooms over the lowest possible heat, deglazing the pan with a hearty dose of balsamic vinegar.  I baked some healthy tilapia in my new Le Cresuet bakeware (yay, Cinci Outlet Mall!), seasoned with some salt, pepper and dried oregano.  And after everything came together with a melted sprinkling of parmesan cheese, I sat and enjoyed each bite.  It was a fabulous welcome back to the Haute dinner.  Unfortunately, no pictures and no real recipe (although this might have to officially become a recipe one day...) means no real blog post.  So instead, I'm giving you what I know you've all been waiting for... my Terre Haute Kitchen Tour!! 

No?  Not what you've all been waiting for?  Interesting... well, it's happening anyways, so smile and pretend to be interested.  Or I suppose you always have the option to stop reading, but you wouldn't do that to poor old me now, would you?

Didn't think so.  So, as far as apartment kitchens go, and I've had a decent share of them, I'm loving my Terre Haute kitchen.  I have 3 usable counters, 1 of which holds my large wooden cutting board, another just large enough to hold my yellow pepper Kitchen Aid when I pull it out and another that basically holds today's mail, dirty dishes and whatever cookbook/recipe I'm using.  I have a panty!  Kind of, I bought myself an industrial wire shelf cause it looks awesome and stocked it up, it is my pantry.  With the rate I'm gathering kitchen stuff, any kitchen I have will never have enough storage space.  But that's a problem for another day.  Another new addition is the knife strip hanging above my sink.  I don't know how I got along without one for so long.  There's something quite fulfilling about needing a knife, whipping around and grabbing what you need from the wall.  It might not exactly be safe, but it's sure fun.  The place has new counters, new linuleum floors, a huge sink with a hose.  Even if it's technically not much bigger than what I had going on in Greenville, it is infinitely better.  Needless to say, it's my Terre Haute Happy Place.

And hopefully soon will be turning out something yummy to share!