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Starting a new chapter

We just rented a house in Tucker. It’s OTP (Outside the Perimeter aka I-285 for those not Atlanta based) and the neighborhood is great. The house is, too!
Ivanhoe!
Just wait until you see the BACK yard! It is beautiful. This place is SO awesome!

It’s my first foray into OTP living, which is SCARY, but I’m sick to DEATH of the ghetto shit. Living in a neighborhood that is lily white will be a nice change after 25 years in the ghetto. It’s just a few miles OTP, but OTP nonetheless. It’s going to take some getting used to! I like Tucker and I’ll be close to TEV, which is nice. Nick will be close to work and can get there without touching 285, which is VERY nice. So I’ll put up with being away from Decatur and Downtown in exchange for nice neighbors and QUIET.

I will not miss loud ass bass w/ offensive rap coming from a Buick with 22s rattling the windows at 2am. Not even a little bit.

So, back to the house. It’s a 1965 ranch basement, which is my favorite style. It is very similar to the house we almost bought a couple of months ago. It’s got carpet in the front room, living room and hall, but hardwoods in the bedrooms. The three bedrooms are small, but doable. It was billed as a 2 bath, but it’s actually 1.5. The bathroom is a dual, with two toilets/sinks and one tub separated by a door. It’s kinda cool! So the master BR has the full bath and the hall is the half, with a door so the tub is shared. Crafty! The basement is partially finished, which is what we wanted. There’s no carpet in 3/4 of it, which is perfect for working on projects like arcade games or messy art. There’s a small room with carpet down there that we are making the exercise room with the treadmill and weight bench.

Needless to say, we’ve not got enough furniture for such lavish quarters! Down the road I think we’ll get a Sleep Number bed for us and move the regular bed to the guest room. The other bedroom will be the office. The room next to the kitchen (which has the sliding door to the deck) will be full of bookshelves and the front room will be our TV room. The kitchen is eat in and very roomy and there’s a laundry room at the end of that. I’ll need a china hutch for sure. I’ll also need two large rugs and one long runner to cover up that WHITE carpet. WHITE. GAH! I’m scared to death I’ll spill fucking wine all over it. I tell you what, tho, having carpet in the TV room will break us from eating at the sofa – I hope.

The landlord might be open to yanking up the carpet at some point. He’s very cool about us modding the house, mainly because we all have very similar taste. He knows we are used to owning, and we’ll treat his house like it’s ours. He’s fine with us running ethernet to the AppleTV, even! Thank the gods that this place has updated electrical so that’s not a worry. I think he’s down with the mods because he wants to live in this house and the stuff we add will benefit him in the long run. Which means we are ALL happy. :)

The downside is that the kitchen is old skool, which means an electric cooktop and in-wall TINY oven (too small for a half sheet pan!). Suck. It also has brown linoleum. Brown. The landlord – who is AWESOME – has already said that I can add a gas range if I like. LOVE HIM! So, we’ll see. I just might take him up on it if the electric is as heinous as I think it’ll be. I could get a decent gas range and slide it in, just like I’d planned for the house we almost bought, or I could go super easy and just get a gas cooktop. The landlord will buy the hardware if I pay to have it installed, which is totally fair. I might even install the Jenn Air and leave it with him when we eventually leave. He said I could if I wanted! He appreciates a good stove!

Another small downside is the fairly steep driveway. I hope my car doesn’t drag every freaking time I back out. >:( But other than being OTP, the kitchen and the drive, this place is SWEET. We are IN LOVE. The bennies FAR outweigh the problems.

So, yah. We are moving to IVANHOE! WOOHOO! We will miss our awesome friends Noah and Wes TERRIBLY, but we gotta do this.

As much as moving sucks ass, I don’t even care. We can take our time and then get some big strong boys to do the heavy lifting when we’re ready to bolt outta here. We need this SO badly. If this doesn’t shake up our energy, nothing will. Oh, and Wells Fargo can CHOKE on this place. ;)

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Roasted Pepper Soup

This is one of the best versions of roasted pepper soup I’ve ever made! I typically do garlic, onions and celery as my base, but I liked it just as well with only the garlic and shallots. This soup has a wonderful smooth, thick texture that you’ll love!
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Roasted Pepper Soup

3 Roasted red, orange or yellow peppers (see method below)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small or half a large shallot, small dice
pinch ground ancho or other chile
1/2 tsp oregano
1 small can tomato sauce
Olive Oil
1 Tbl butter
1 cup chicken stock (more or less)
1/3 cup heavy cream
S/P to taste

Cover the bottom of a 2qt saucepan with olive oil and put on med low heat. Add garlic and shallots, keep an eye on them so they don’t burn. Remove skins from peppers and cut up in large dice and add to pan when shallots are translucent. Add first round of S/P. Turn up heat to med hi and add ancho, oregano, butter and bring to hard saute. Add tomato sauce and just enough stock to make everything slightly less thick. Take off heat and purée with hand blender. Add heavy cream and more stock if needed to get the consistency you want. Recheck seasoning.

Method for Roasted Peppers
Cut peppers in half, remove stems, seeds and ribs and coat in olive oil. Roast on a grill, gas stove or under a HI broiler until the skin is black and charred. I like grilling the best, but any of the above will work. When charred, put in a plastic zip bag or covered bowl to steam for 15 minutes. The skin should come right off after they’ve steamed. The peppers should be soft and cooked. I always grill peppers when we cook out and hold them until I need them. They can be frozen, but I just keep them in the fridge up to a week.

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Mushroom Mélange soup

I made this soup today because I felt like cooking (in withdrawal since I’ve not cooked in 3 weeks) and I have a bunch of sample shrooms from Marx Foods that I really need to use. The soup turned out AMAZING!!
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Mushroom Mélange Soup

DRIED SHROOMS:
1/4 cup Black Trumpet
1/4 cup Maitake (broken up if large)
1/4 cup Matsutake
1/4 cup Morels
1/3 cup Lobster
Soak dried shrooms in about 2 cups of boiling water while prepping the rest of the veg.

3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small or 1/2 large shallot, small dice
1/2 small container of creminis, sliced
1 grilled portobello, sliced (I happened to have this, it’s optional)
Olive oil
1 Tbl butter
1 rounded Tbl flour
1/4 cup marsala (or dry sherry would work)
1.5 cups of chicken stock (more or less)
1/2 cup heavy cream
10 drops of L&P (worcestershire)
S/P to taste

Cover the bottom of a 2qt saucepan with olive oil and put over med low heat. Add garlic and shallot. Let these soften – keep an eye on them and adjust heat so you don’t burn them. When they are translucent, drain all but a couple of Tbl of the mushroom water and put the water in with the garlic/shallot. Chop up the softened shrooms. Add to pan. Bring up heat to Med Hi. Add butter and flour. Stir with shrooms to coat and let cook for a coupla minutes. Add the rest of the shrooms. When they start getting a bit dry, add marsala and bring to a hard simmer. Let marsala cook out for a coupla minutes. Add stock to cover shrooms and bring back to boil. Boil a coupla minutes then cut heat. Purée soup until you get all the shrooms broken down. Add more stock to make a fairly thick soup. Add heavy cream, L&P and S/P to taste. Yields about 3/4 quart.

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DJ: Dec 17, 1997 – May 3, 2014

Our sweet DJ had a seizure and passed just a few minutes ago. I’m glad it’s over for him, he was barely hanging on. I think he hung on until I got back home. He even gave me a weak purr yesterday. The nice people at Deceased Pet Care are meeting us at their crematory in a little while.

DJ in sunbeam, Feb 27, 2014
DJ in sunbeam, Feb 27, 2014

This is the last good shot of DJ before his final decline. He was an awesome cat. He was sweet and always had a purr for anyone who’d pet him. I’m grateful to have had him in my life for 16 years. He will be missed. May he rest in the warmth of Bast and always nap in a sunbeam.