A blank slate no more

At the beginning of April, we celebrated our one year house-a-versary. Perhaps "celebrated" is a bit of an overstatement. In the midst of work, life, and everything else, we realized a few days into April that we had been in the house for a year. See? "Celebrated" sounds much more interesting.

At the one year mark, we realized how sad it was to still have an empty front room, with just a coffee table. The cat loved the mostly empty room, because he was able to slide across the hardwood free of obstructions. For the humans of the house, a largely empty room was a huge waste of space.

I'll admit that part of the hesitation at buying furniture was the inability to form any sort of plan. Interior decorating is intimidating! In the end, we decided on blue! Blue couch! It looks like we will be keeping the walls white (or light) to go with the blue.

For a while now, my husband has talked about wanting a leather recliner. While this wasn't my first choice, I agreed to at least look in the leather section. Some of the recliners reminded me of "Chairry" on Pee Wee's Playhouse, and some were so big that my feet didn't touch the ground. This one seemed to work when we found it in the showroom, and it works well in the room, I think. As a bonus, we purchased a floor sample and saved a few bucks. 

Wow, what a difference. It's like we've instantly added on another room to the house. The front of the house faces west, so this space will be particularly nice for after work beverages. :)

Next up: some sort of area rug and devise a new plan for the old coffee table....

Look a plane! or 2?

I've never been into planes or aerospace, but maybe today was the day to become a fan. Like many in the DC area, I was able to see the space shuttle Discovery's final (piggyback) flight to Dulles airport this morning.

Last year, I was in a plane on the way to Orlando during Discovery's final real mission. Our pilot kept making announcements related to the changing status of the liftoff, and finally he announced that Discovery was in fact going to launch while we were in the air. Half the passengers ran to the plane windows and starting screaming (happily) at seeing the shuttle from the air, but I unfortunately was on the wrong side of the plane. Argh. I'm surprised that (insert least favorite airline here) hasn't started pricing seats based on the likelihood of seeing NASA aircraft. Argh again. I probably just gave them a good idea.

That tiny dot is much larger in real life.

Today, however, was different. I had honestly forgotten about Discovery until I heard a coworker randomly yelling this morning. After her second or third scream I realized what was causing the hysteria. At this point, my brain began working in slow motion....look out window.....find camera....in phone...oh no... I can never remember how to use the camera phone under pressure...no time to ask for help...? Fortunately I did remember how to take a picture in those few seconds. Discovery, to its credit, looked exactly like the news said - like 2 planes on top of each other. Cool, but also kind of strange.

Slightly better.

I realized later that my photo was so blurry that it looked a little fake. Since a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words, I decided to write about it and see if I could come close to equalizing the effects of bad photography. If nothing else, this post allowed me to laugh again at myself, at my successful quick reaction to a weird photo op and to the slight irony of a second chance to see a final flight.

Eggs for Jamericans

I am here is bed trying to determine what sort of cold I have been gifted by my husband, so that I could then move on to figuring out what the most effective remedy. Throat hurts. I have thus far been unsuccessful in self-diagnosis. Instead, I starting thinking that I was hungry and that I should do something about it. Thus far, I have gotten as far as writing about it - I love how everything seems to take extra effort when you're getting sick.

I think I will make what we have dubbed "Jamaica Eggs". I don't think they are a Jamaican specialty; personally they would seem to be British-inspired. What I like most about them is that this is a reconstructed recipe.

We (re)visited Jamaica last spring, as I briefly mentioned here. (Woo hoo! I just linked to a previous post! First time for everything.) One morning, Mr. Tomato-then-Chocolate and I found what the resort dubbed cheese toasts; we spent the next 10 minutes trying to determine how they were made. The general formula was scrambled eggs sitting on an English muffin with mustard and cheese. Reconstructing this state-side was another matter.

For my first attempt, I put raw egg on English muffins and placed both in the toaster oven. This resulted in egg all over the tray but not much on the muffin. During attempt number 2, I tried pre-toasting the muffing and making it concave, with both adaptations aimed at keeping more egg on muffin. The result was not much better than attempt 1.

I then realized that the egg needed to be more stable if it was going to stay on the muffin. The solution was to par-cook the scramble to a stable yet runny consistency. This resulted in eggs staying on top of their English muffins and having the stability to support a cheese topping! Success!

One final adjustment I made during the last iteration of Jamaica eggs was to not mix mustard in with the egg mixture. While it seemed to make logical sense to mix in the mustard, it never quite dissolved/emulsified correctly. I found that putting mustard directly on to the muffin during the "construction" phase resulted in more mustard flavor.

Hungry yet? I am. I'm off to make eggs that only Jamericans could love.

By the way, while it's not quite a recipe, here is the method to all of this egg madness:
Split English muffins (I do one muffin per person) and toast in toaster oven (a conventional oven would work too, I suppose).
Scramble eggs - I usually do one fewer egg than I have muffin halves - with milk, seasoning, etc.
Cook on stove until stable yet runny.
Spread mustard on English muffins (place muffins on a tray of some sort), then top with eggs.
Toast a little, then top with cheese (cheddar is nice) and toast again until everything is set, toasted, and melted.