The Further Domestication of Cecilia-Irene

So back in October, our household purchased what we believed at the time to be a nice cut of steak. We were saving it for a nice/fancy dinner. But things never worked out and the "steak" sat in our freezer for months. Finally, about a week or so ago, Christina and I decided that the time to eat "steak" had come. We planned to cook it up on Friday before going out to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." It would be a nice dinner before seeing what turned out to be a fantastic movie.
Then, I took the "steak" out of the freezer and discovered it to be a pork shoulder. Unsure of how to cook this cut of meat, I turned to every cook's best friend. And before you could say BAM! we had a recipe for Roasted Pork Shoulder. It was pretty simple, just required some spices, red wine vinegar, and some time marinating in our fridge. We also added some potatoes to give us some vegetable and starch points. Before we put it in the fridge to marinate, it looked like this:














After marinating for three hours, we put it in the oven for three hours. (But we took the plastic wrap off first...not to worry...) The following picture was taken when the roast had been in the oven for about an hour and a half.


Isn't it pretty?


And I mean the roast, not our oven. Our oven is old but faithful.








The roast was finally done around 6pm, when Christina's fiance, Jake, arrived for dinner. He had grilled cheese and rice while we girls had pork and potatoes and rice. (He didn't want to eat meat on a Friday.) But before serving the meat and potatoes, I made it look all pretty because after all, presentation is key.
Now, this is pretty. The potatoes and the pork were very artistically arranged on the platter. (The rice was in another dish.)











I think I'm getting pretty good at this domestication thing. In the past month, I've made lemon-parsley chicken, east bistro chicken (this semi-spicy chicken and pasta dish), and now the pork.

And Prince Caspian was great. I loved it. It wasn't completely true to the book but whatever...

The Domestication of Cecilia Irene

So my life has been interesting of late. And by of late, I mean over the past two days. Yesterday, Lauren, Nicole, and I left the Mishler homestead around 10 hours ante meridian and arrived in Grand Rapids around noon. Lauren left and went to work while Nicole and I fiddled around our house. Then Nicole went to work around four hours post meridian while I continued to fiddle around the house. (For any interested parties, I can't really fiddle. I was actually doing homework, reading, drinking coffee, taking a trip to Beaner's/Biggby's, and other interesting endeavors.)
Then in the evening, Nicole returned home around 9pm and ate supper. Then we invited Lauren and Alex over and of course, they came. Then we adjourned to Lauren's house to make use of the fact that Sandy and Samson have gone away for the weekend. We also made use of the television and DVD player (and my free rental coupon from Blockbuster) to watch the fourth movie in a classic American adrenaline epic. It was fabulous.
Then today, I went to work at Big Apple Bagels. I had to be there at 9am and I was scheduled to work until close. Now, BABs closes at 3pm on Saturdays so usually you're out of there by 3:15 or 3:30. Today, closing took forever and I didn't clock out until 4:08pm. On the upside, I did get thirteen free bagels. But then I had to stand at the bus stop in the cold and wind for 50 minutes waiting for a bus. I'm still trying to recover. It made me cold,
But then it was when I arrived at home that my real domestication began. Before leaving my parents' house yesterday, my mother gave me the turkey carcass from our Thanksgiving dinner. Combined with the fact that we have a large soup tureen in our kitchen and I had some spare carrots and celery, I made turkey soup for our dinner tonight. We're hoping that when Lauren and Alex and possibly Alex's twin join us later in the evening, they will eat some soup. But Nicole says it was good soup.
I'll show you a picture of the soup and another of Alex.
As you can see, I also put some noodles into the soup as well as the turkey, carrots, and celery. I also found a few green beans that I threw in for good measure. Nicole really liked it. She also enjoyed the free bagel I gave her.
This is a picture of Alex sleeping on bed, partially just to harass D.Cous. Obviously, this is NOT the Alex who came over and watched a movie with us last night.