I'm pretty good at keeping secrets. However, this one was hard to hold in. But now... finally... I can make the announcement: after months of looking at properties, Eric and I have purchased a house. Our home.
Since the fall, our weekends have been spent going from open house to open house looking at places, many of which were out of our price range or in a bad location or in complete disrepair. Eventually, we got pretty good at going through these quickly, but it took a lot of time and energy and left us feeling like there wasn't much on the market.
A couple of weeks ago, we were sent a listing from our agent that looked promising. The location was great and the pictures presented it well enough (though you can never tell how a place is until you've seen it in person... photos can be deceptive). As soon as we saw the house, though, we knew it was the right one for us and immediately got an offer in. That weekend was a roller-coaster of emotions; the excitement of waiting to hear if our offer had been accepted, the let down when we heard that we'd been outbid. By the time Sunday came around, we were totally exhausted and spent the afternoon distracting ourselves from thinking about houses for a bit. We ran errands and got makings for a nice dinner. That evening we cozied up on the couch with Maki and zoned out on some TV. And that's when we got the call informing us that the initial offer had fallen through. Were we still interested in the house? Yes... yes we were.
Everything since then has gone smoothly. The report from the inspection presented exactly what we'd expected. The house was in wonderful condition and was obviously well loved.
We now begin the process of packing and figuring out what we take with us and what's left behind. Until now, I've just been relishing in the excitement of purchasing a home, planning exactly how we'll decorate each room (Eric's been a sport and has gone along with most of my ideas). But there's lots of work to do and the time between now and the closing will be here before we know it.
Amidst all the house activity and photo projects, I spent a little time digging into some recipe development. While we've been seeing a lot of root vegetables and citrus, there have also been substantial amounts of greens in our CSA box. Now, if you've never had dandelion greens, you should know that they're bitter. Like, really bitter. Which I don't have a problem with, but I just wanted to prepare you. I've seen a lot of recipes that call for sautéing them, and while that's fine, I really had my heart set on a salad. I found that by dressing the greens and letting them sit for a little bit, it cures them and removes some of that bitterness. The dressing is sweet as well and, once the whole salad is topped with bright citrus, you almost enjoy the bite from the greens.
Dandelion Green and Citrus Salad
Yield 4 servings
Ingredients
1 bunch dandelion greens, washed, dried and trimmed 1 pink grapefruit, segmented 1 orange, segmented 2 tsps honey 1 organic lime, juice and zest 1/4 tsp smoked paprika 1 tsp salt 2 tbsps olive oil Pecan halves 1/4 small red onion, thinly sliced
Instructions
1. In a bowl, whisk together the honey, lime juice, lime zest, smoked paprika, salt and olive oil.
2. Cut the dandelion greens in half and transfer to the bowl with the dressing. Toss the greens with the dressing and let sit for 10 minutes.
3. Transfer the dandelion greens to a platter and top with grapefruit and citrus segments, pecan halves, and red onion.
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