Apartment Living

Apartment living can be pretty hit-or-miss in terms of amenities. My first solo apartment was a modified studio. It had terrible drafts, a living room so long and narrow that any other place would have called it a hallway, and a kitchen with incredibly limited counter space. We're talking two 12" square counters, here. One on either side of the sink. Put in a tiny microwave and a toaster, and well... you can probably imagine why I didn't do a whole lot of cooking.

My second apartment was also a studio, although a much nicer one. It had the same stove as my first apartment--a very tiny apartment gas stove/oven. The top was maybe 12" x 16". I couldn't use some of my cookie sheets in the oven because they were too long. At least Apartment #2's stove looked like it was made in the last 10 years, unlike Apartment #1, and it had more counter space. Apartment #2 also had a dishwasher and a washer & dryer in unit. I've since decided that those are amenities I do not want to live without.

When my dear husband and I married (9 and a half months ago!) he moved in with me. It was definitely a challenge to share a studio apartment with someone else. I enjoy the quiet; my husband was used to leaving South Park dvd's on in the background all day. I had a full size bed; my husband was used to having a queen sized bed to sprawl out over. I go to work at 8; my husband has to be at work by 6. It was rough, but we managed to overcome our differences (and sleep deprivation) and now I can look back with fondness on our first few months sharing a studio meant for one.

Our current place is much bigger--two whole bedrooms! Real ones! With doors! A dining room! A fireplace! We got our in-unit laundry, and our kitchen has a dishwasher (although it's so old we have to completely wash everything by hand before we use it, which kind of defeats the purpose.) It has a full sized refrigerator (oh, the space!!) and best of all--a full sized electric stove and oven. I don't have to worry as much about burning everything I cook (if you've never had a cheap gas stove, I'll tell you--it has two temperatures. "Fire" and "off." There is no "low.") I have multiple oven racks so I can put more than one thing in the oven at a time.  The counter space still leaves something to be desired, although it is an improvement over that first apartment I had.

I'm waxing poetic over things like counter space because I just cooked another dinner where I occupied every square inch of available space before I was done cooking. Fortunately my husband and I have this deal worked out where if I cook the dinner, he does the dishes. Works for me!

Tonight I tried a recipe from a blog I just discovered this week--My Kitchen Apron. All of her recipes seem very down-to-earth--no esoteric ingredients or specialized equipment required. I read all the way through the entire blog and only found a couple of things that didn't sound like something I would like to try. My husband is very anti-"foodie" so anything too "out there" doesn't fly. I think I'll be visiting My Kitchen Apron a lot in the future to find good new things to feed my man! 

I also made mashed potatoes for the first time. A few weeks ago I tried making Pioneer Woman's Smashed Potatoes, except that recipe calls for a potato masher and I didn't have one. In what can only be classified as a moment of sheer idiocy, I thought a meat mallet would work as a decent substitute. I'm sure you can imagine the results. (Potatoes on the walls, anyone?) My mom took pity on me and the next time I saw her, she gave me my very own potato masher. I figured it was past time to put it to use!

So for dinner tonight we had Double Crunch Honey Garlic Pork chops and Perfect Golden Mashed Potatoes. The pork chops were really tasty, and I'm not usually a big fan of pork. The coating was crunchy and a little spicy; the sauce was a sweet honey/soy sauce glaze that really added a nice kick. The potatoes turned out well, I think, although I still am working on timing things to get done at the same time, so I had to reheat them a little and add a touch more milk which might have made them too creamy. I don't think my husband is used to Yukon gold potatoes, either, so he kind of thought that they "didn't taste like potatoes". He still ate them, though, so I don't think they were bad. He said the consistency was good. I'll definitely try making my own potatoes again another time.

Here are a couple of photos of our dinner--again, cell phone pictures of less than stellar quality, but enough to give you an idea.

So now I'll kick back, put my feet up, and relax while my husband does the dishes. :)