All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…

I can’t believe it’s been a whole month since I last posted that the House of Annie is moving to Malaysia.  Since then, our house has been a frenzy of activity, with running multiple garage sales, re-sodding the backyard, selling off almost all of our furniture, and seemingly endless trips to drop off donations at Goodwill.  I have had no time or energy to blog at all!

Well, the movers have come and gone.  All our kitchen supplies and other stuff are in a big box heading to Malaysia.  We’ve turned our keys back to the landlord and now we’re actually living out of our suitcases, staying at our Pastor’s house in these final few days before we fly off as well.

Since we don’t have our kitchen to cook in and our pots, pans and ingredients to cook with, this week has been a whirlwind of eating out with many of our friends. While it has been very nice to spend time with them over a meal without having to fuss over a stove, eating out is taking a toll.  We’ve found ourselves longing for some good, home-cooked food.

The Last Supper

Fortunately, we still had a few things we had left over from our kitchen, including a couple of pork tenderloins, some soy sauce, a few lemons, a head of garlic, and a box of fettuccine. Combined with a few more ingredients from our Pastor’s kitchen, and we had the makings of an easy House of Annie (almost) home-cooked meal.

I marinated the pork tenderloins in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, sugar, lemon zest and lemon slices from one lemon. They all went together in a ziplock bag and sat in the fridge for about 6 hours.  Annie roasted them in the oven at 425*F for 20 minutes.  After resting for a few minutes, I sliced them on the bias.

While the tenderloins were roasting, Annie cooked the fettuccine in salted water until they were al dente.  In the meantime, she sliced half a head’s worth of garlic cloves.  She heated a half cup of vegetable oil in a saucepan then added the garlic slices to the oil.  After adding the garlic slices, she turned the heat down low and gently cooked the garlic until golden brown (careful not to burn them!).

One of our friends kindly gave us a few beefsteak tomatoes from her garden. Annie diced them up and added them to the saucepan. She seasoned with some soy sauce, salt and pepper, and a pinch of chili pepper flakes and simmered the whole sauce till the tomatoes had melded with the garlic oil, about 7-10 minutes.  Finally, she tossed in the drained fettucine and stirred to combine.

Pork Tenderloin with Fettuccine

This meal was seriously easy and seriously good.  Some fresh herbs would have made it perfect, but you can’t always have perfection.

Since we used someone’s homegrown tomatoes in this dinner, I am entering this post in the next Grow Your Own roundup, hosted by MomGateway.

This meal was probably the last Annie-cooked meal we’ll have for a while.  We fly out for Kuala Lumpur next week. Then it’ll be another whirlwind of meeting (and eating!) with the family there.  Then sometime after that, we fly out to the city of Kuching in Sarawak, East Malaysia, to settle in before I start my new job there.

What’s this about Kuching?  This is a new development!  Read more about it on my Xanga blog.

Aloha,  Nate