Quick Update and some Bachelor Chow

I might have forgotten to mention, but my intent is to publish to this blog every Monday and Thursday, at some point during those days, more than likely in the evening because I’m a big time procrastinator (something to work on, perhaps?). With that, I don’t foresee having any post of value for tomorrow, so I’m just going to give a quick update on what I’ve been doing.

I’m on vacation this week. In spite of that, I’ve gotten up at 6 am every day because I’m in process of finding a new place to live and have been seeing 8-10 houses a day, every day, except for today. Today I had to spend my morning at DMV because I let my license expire last week, and getting my car inspected with the added surprise of a leaking rear strut. Also, 6 months ago I scheduled a Dr’s appointment for this week, because I’m a f*cking genius like that.

So yeah… I’m buying a house. It took me approximately 2 years to get to this point emotionally where I could make the decision to buy a house. That was about a month ago. Since then I’ve been going full bore on this like it was my job. There are a lot of arguments out there for and against buying a house, all of them financial. After  whole lot of deliberation on the matter, I decided I just needed to buy and move into a house because I can’t stand apartment living anymore. Costs be damned, the peace of mind is worth it. My intent is to celebrate Christmas in my new house.

I experimented in the kitchen to come up with a healthy meal that I can tolerate on a daily basis. Diet can be a tricky thing, but in order to live healthy you really just need to follow a few simple guidelines:

1. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables (I read this online somewhere).
2. Eat natural foods, nothing processed. If it didn’t grow in the ground, fly around in the sky, swim in the water or walk around then don’t eat it.
3. Use spices to make it interesting.

Try this… Skillet Roasted Chicken and Vegetables with Brown Rice.

What You Need:

• 12″ Cast Iron Skillet
• 2 Split Chicken Breasts (remove the skins if you like)
• 1 Red Bell Pepper
• 1/4 Red onion
• Handful of Baby Red potatoes
• 2 Carrots, peeled
• 1 small Zucchini
• Brown Rice (Minute Rice makes these 1 serving cups of pre-made rice that cook in 1 minute, or use regular minute rice)
• Coarse Salt and Fresh Pepper
• Cajun spice mix (you can get it at any grocery store)
• Olive oil

What to Do:

• This makes enough for 2, or keep some as leftovers.
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
• Cut up all of the vegetables into roughly 1/2″ pieces and chuck them into a plastic ziplock bag.
• Pour in a few glugs of olive oil, a few pinches of salt and a good number of grinds of pepper.
• Close the bag up and toss it around to coat everything evenly.
• Coat the chicken breasts on all sizes with a generous amount of cajun spices. Rub it in to make sure it’s stuck on well.
• Pour a few glugs of olive oil into the skillet and place on a medium-high heat.
• When the oil just starts to smoke a little, place the chicken breasts on the skillet, skin/meat side down and sear for 2-3 minutes, depending on how crispy you like it.
• Remove from the heat and flip the chicken over. Pour the vegetables from the bag around the chicken breasts.
• Place the skillet in the oven for 25 minutes.
• Cook your rice as you need to.
• Eat!

Enjoy… I eat this stuff most nights now, mixing up the spices with Jamaican Jerk seasoning, Italian seasoning, or just salt and pepper. Try different vegetables too, but be careful because the softer stuff doesn’t need to roast as long or isn’t good for roasting at all (hence why I don’t use yellow squash anymore). Sometimes I mix up the chicken for some lean pork chops. I loves me some pork chops.