#exceptforthewine

Let’s talk for a minute about house hunting.

Specifically, how much it sucks.

We’ve been priced out of just about every neighborhood and house we’ve fallen in love with, and finally had to start thinking (with our brains, not our hearts) about finding the right place at the right price. We found a fixer-upper that is truly a FUMF (Fixer-Upper Mother F*cker) and finally had an offer accepted, only because we went over asking price.

A couple weeks ago, getting an offer accepted seemed like it would be the hardest part. After that it would be smooth sailing, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHA No.

Today we’ve got our inspection scheduled, which is where we find out what’s really wrong with this place and exactly how deep of a money pit it’s going to be. I’m so nervous about it I can hardly sit still. And all I can think about is stress-eating an entire bag of cheddar and sour cream Ruffles.

All this trying to buy a house has made me SO BUSY for the last two weeks. Honestly, didn’t I just finish Whole30 last week? It’s just flown by and I don’t know what I’ve done with all that time.

The funny thing about the process so far is that there isn’t much I’ve done, personally. I’ve Docu-signed my face off, and answered about a gazillion texts and emails from our lender and realtor. I’ve wrangled up all the paperwork they’ve asked for. So you know, last month’s pay stubs, bank statements, our cats’ birth certificates, the Scantron form I took my first algebra test on, declarations of what we’ll name our first-born child… All that stuff.

I think what it is, is that it’s a total energy-suck. I’m so exhausted and stressed out that by the end of the day, I just want to collapse in front of the TV and not think about anything. Including what I’m going to cook for dinner. I’ve meal prepped schmaybe twice in the last two weeks. We’ve eaten at so many restaurants (there may or may not have been an incident that involved French fries covered with cheddar cheese and bacon) and ordered so much take-out, because really, I literally can’t even.

Last night, I made it a point to cook. It was actually kind of a stress reliever to just focus on making a delicious home-cooked meal. Of course, the glass of wine I had while cooking might have helped ease my mind a bit.

We bought some awesome looking pork chops at the market on Sunday, and I wanted to try a pork chop recipe in the Whole30 book. I forgot, until I got started cooking, that they made an applesauce to serve with the chops. So the only seasoning the recipe called for was salt and pepper. I sure as sh*t didn’t have the time or energy to make applesauce from scratch (although it was probably pretty simple), and that preparation for the pork chops seemed boring and basic. I wanted a little something more.

So, I improvised.

And, it was delicious.

And, it was easy.

This is literally all I did. In small bowl, I combined salt, pepper, mustard powder, garlic powder and onion powder. In hindsight, I would have added some dried rosemary to brighten things up a bit. Stir it and mix it all up, and then sprinkle it all across the pork chops. Rub it in. Flip ‘em. Rinse and repeat.

I had a baking dish on standby and my oven heated to 350°. Meanwhile, on the stovetop I melted about a tablespoon of ghee into a non-stick skillet, and at a very high heat, I seared the chops on each side about 2-3 minutes. Basically, you just want it flash-browned before you finish cooking them in the oven.

Real quick side note: I still can’t say, read or type the word ghee without a little voice in my head going “gheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Once the second side is browned, place the chops onto your baking dish and finish them off in the oven about 10 minutes, give or take depending on size. I did mine about 12 minutes and the smaller ones were a little overdone.

While your chops are in the oven, go back and look at the skillet. If you did it right, there is going to be a bunch of browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. DO NOT LET THIS GO TO WASTE. It’s the best part. Deglaze your pan with some apple cider or apple juice, and use a rubber spatula to scrape up those brown bits and mix it all up with the juices. You can either (a) use this to make a sauce to dunk your pork chops in, or (2) do what I did, and pan fry some Brussels Sprouts in it. It’s so flavorful already; you won’t need any additional seasoning. I salted mine a little, but that’s just cause I’m so salty.

You can round this out with a baked sweet potato or some cauliflower mash, if you have the time and energy. Which clearly, I don’t, because I ate this deliciously simple dinner and immediately zonked on the sofa. My dirty dishes are still in the sink, if anyone feels like coming over to do them.