I'm Back!

My, this has been quite a long absence. After spending awhile looking through other people's blogs today, I got to contemplating on the status of my own blog, and I decided that just because I let my Jerusalem blog fizzle out, that wasn't any reason for the whole blog to suffer an ignominious death. So, though I'll probably never get around to finishing Jerusalem, I am back to blogging (and if it makes you feel any better, as soon as I get home again I'm going to get my Jerusalem pictures on to some picture sharing site, like Photobucket or Flickr, and you can view them there if you feel so inclined. I'm pretty sure the pictures were your favorite part, anyway).

Kind of a lot's happened since my last post in April, the biggest thing probably being the part where I got married. Chris and I have since settled into our cozy lil' basement, gotten everything unpacked, and even fixed up the yard to look semi-presentable (it was kind of an overgrown nightmare when we first moved in). Chris also had himself a birthday last month, and I made him his very own German chocolate cake in celebration.

Sad to say, most of this lovely masterpiece went uneaten, since I don't really like cake and Chris can only eat so much cake. I got to tease him about needing two boxes of candles for his advanced age, though, so it was all worth it.

I made a particularly good-tasting dinner today, if I do say so myself (and Chris has affirmed this statement, so I feel pretty confident in making it). Because church starts absurdly late, meaning we don't get home until about 6 pm when I have no desire to start on dinner, I have declared Sundays to be "Crockpot Day". However, I really only have so many crockpot recipes in my cookbook, and even though I got a Crockpot recipe book from a friend at a bridal shower that's been rather helpful, I've kind of been scrounging around for ideas. Today, I decided to try out a copycat recipe for Cafe Rio's Pork Barbacoa.

Yeah, this isn't a very good picture--the silly camera kept wanting to focus on the Dr. Pepper can. It was a really good burrito, though. Really good. I don't know that it tasted exactly like Cafe Rio's, but it was still really good. I ended up using this recipe that I found on someone's blog, and I pretty much followed their advice for cooking the rice and beans, as well. The key is to cook the pork loin all day in Dr. Pepper, though I've heard Coke works pretty well, too. Then you stir in some brown sugar and green chilies and various other stuff, and that's pretty much it. I also used those tortillas that you can buy from Walmart that you cook yourself. It is an extra step, but it's soo worth it. All other tortillas will seem lacking after you use these tortillas... so maybe you don't want to try them after all. I've spoiled myself, it seems :P

This week I really want to try a recipe I saw recently for strawberry shortcake, so I'll have to get back to you on how that goes. I have this craving for lemon bars, too... but I can't eat them all by myself, and Chris apparently does not like lemon bars. He's not a huge fan of sunshine, happiness, or the sound of children's laughter, either (I love you, Chris!). Maybe I'll make them when I go home for the day on Tuesday.

Oh, and guess what? The lady who did our wedding cake posted about it on her blog! I don't entirely know why my tiny little sketch of how I wanted the cake to look caused her to praise my artistic abilities, but I thought it was cool how she put it on her blog.