Door color...

We're less than a month away from completion on our brand new house. It's really very exciting. I've been meeting with landscapers and making final detail decisions. After a ton of rain and delays, the house was finally painted this week.

It went from this:



To this:



Obviously, there is still some detail work that will be finished with the trim.

Originally, I had been convinced that I wanted a red door-a gray house with a red door.

Something along these lines:



But then somewhere along the line, the color we chose ended up being a bit more blue than gray (and that's ok!).

Trent, our foreman, also told us that the door is "stain grade" and that we'd be killing him to paint it instead of stain it.

So then our possibilities expanded to staining it the same color as our interior floors (Ranch Oak):



Or painting the door black, preferably with the side lights white like this:



Of course, if I lived with someone other than my husband, maybe I'd have the possibility of a lime green or orange door. But who are we kidding here?

So what would you have chosen? We've decided...but maybe I'll share the photo in a future post...

Yummy Summer Steak

Do I really expect to get any followers with a post that has yummy in the title? So descriptive. It's also taken me 3 days to post this-I have to work on getting more ideas and fast!

In any case, here is a recipe that I love to make on warm spring and summer evenings. It's a marinated skirt steak served with chimichurri. I serve the meat and sauce with some roasted potatoes (I'll give you the recipe) and a green vegetable-the asparagus looked great, so that's what I chose.

Let me preface this post, and well, this blog, with a fact about me. I love olive oil. And garlic. But especially olive oil. I use a ton of it and I think it's healthy and yummy.

That being said, let's begin.

First off, let's start with the meat. The best cut for this recipe is a hangar steak. Unfortunately, that's not that easy to find (the rumor is that it's the best cut so the butchers keep it for themselves). So, the next best option is a skirt steak, followed by a flank steak. Flank can be a bit tougher than the skirt or hangar, so be warned.

Steak:


I then throw the whole hunk of meat (and yes, it will be long and thin) into a large ziploc bag. I then add the following ingredients to the bag:



Honestly, you can put the ingredients in any amounts, depending on your taste. I find i put a generous helping of the olive oil to make more liquid. I usually crush or press 2 large cloves of garlic, then add a dash of worcesteshire and a good swig of the soy and balsamic.

Squeeze the air out of the bag as much as possible and zip it up.



Throw it in the fridge-the longer the better, but I'd say for at least 2 hours.

You can make the chimichurri for this dish up to a couple of hours before hand, as long as you cover it with some saran wrap before you are ready to serve.

Take the following ingredients: bunch of parsley, bunch of mint, bunch of cilantro, a couple of shallots, a couple of cloves of garlic, some lemon juice , sherry vinegar (about 2 tbsp) and some olive oil and throw it in your mini blender:



Grind well and put it in a nice serving dish and it will look like this:



When you're ready, grill the meat. Be SURE not to overcook it, as it will get tough if it's more than medium.



The grill should be at least 500-600 degrees when you throw the meat on and you should cook it for only about 4 minutes each side..it's ok if it smokes!



When hot, slice the meat on an angle and arrange it on a plate with the chimichurri:



When served with your lovely veggies, the plate looks like it is bursting with spring and summer!

My plate looked like this:



And my daughter's plate looked like this:



Pretty, no? In case you think I starve my child, she also had some rice on the side!

Side note:
Here's my roasted potatoes recipe...it's a bit "a la Grecque":

Take small round potatoes and cut into small pieces (I do quarters).
Grease a small pan with some Pam.
Throw the potatoes in a single layer and then generously pour...yop, you guessed it.. Olive oil!
Add some pressed garlic and kosher salt and toss and then arrange back in a single layer.
Roast at 425 for about 30 minutes...Squeeze some lemon on the potatoes about 20 minutes in.
YUM!

I start a million blogs...

I have two or three blogs in my profile. I've deleted several more. There was the photography blog, the restaurant reviews blog. The "did you dress yourself?" blog. I have the blog of my kids and the blog of my house. They're all pretty much dormant because I am only focusing on the house...so I occasionally update the house blog.

I've been inspired by my friend's new blog. And by all her bloggy friends. Hey, I can do that! I can post a recipe with cool pictures or a before and after of my living room. I have cool know how. But it doesn't all fit together, you know? So I decided..what the hell. I'm just going to put it all out there, because that's just me. I can't commit. I mean, I did commit to my husband, but that's about it. I like to change it up.

So here goes...now what to post first?