Pantries are Us!

As it turns out, finding a house we can afford with the features we want in a neighborhood we like is no easy endeavor.  We’re going to keep looking, but we’ve decided that in the meantime, if we can address some of the ongoing issues we have with this house, our lives will be simpler, easier, and less annoying.  That can only be good!  So Saturday Derek put together a pantry in the basement from cabinets that were taking up space in the garage. All of our pantry items are now easy to find because they're organized by category, frequency of use and expiration date, and I'm so happy I could wee wee on myself!  Last night I was tempted to get liquored up and just sit downstairs and look at it all night.

Baked penne with mushrooms and broccoli

Last night I made baked penned with chicken, broccoli and mushrooms, and three Italian cheeses: Asiago, Romano and Parmesan.  I had planned to make it on Saturday, but I was too tired from all the organizing, so we ordered Chinese.  I like to use a combination of spinach and whole wheat penne, and we had some leftover broccoli from our garden that’s a lovely bright green.  I used some fresh white mushrooms and an assortment of dried mushroom.  We still have a lot of arugula from our garden, so I made my favorite salad of arugula, tomatoes, red onion, pine nuts and parmesan curls with lemon vinaigrette.  I had every intention of grilling some sliced ciabatta brushed with olive oil, then rubbed with garlic and tomato.  I completely forgot about it!

Earlier this week, I tried Cooks’ Illustrated’s recipe for thin grilled pork chops.  The trick is you pat them dry, salt them and freeze them for a half hour or so, then rub them with a compound butter that has a little brown sugar in it.  Freezing them for a bit keeps them for getting overcooked inside while you’re getting them nicely browned.  This week I’m going to try them again with a black olive tapenade spread on them at the end.  If they look good enough, I’ll post a picture. 

Hope you all had a great weekend.  I think I’m going to go downstairs and gaze at my pantry for a little while.