Finished Apartment

The last two weeks have been more of the usual.  Jason went up to Malongo for a few days for work, we had a few dinners out and saw a movie.  We also got massage this past weekend- we heard about a good place from friends and tried out out- really nice- I will be back for sure!

I promised some "after" photos of the apartment so here they are.  The touches from home do make a lot of difference!

Main Living Area

The kitchen - the island works great and adds a lot of counter space

The office/storage room.  A bit tight but manageable.  Directly to the right in the first photo is the closet.  

 The gym - we put down interlocking padded flooring and then added 2 "stall" mats which are 1 inch rubber mats.  There is also a rower - it is stored in the corner of the room you can't see in the photo.  It is stored broken down into 2 parts which works better then expected.  Jason closets are also in this  room :)

The bedroom

The balcony - amazing it all fit well!

Storage is an issue!  This is the bathroom off the office - the shower holds our storage bins plus a few other items and I use this bathroom to dry clothes.  FYI air drying clothes with a dehumidifier is AMAZING! I might be buying one in the US for that reason alone. 

 This is the shower in the master bath (my bathroom) - this photo tries to capture the poor design - the shower door  opens out but there is a towel rack it hits so you can use it but only if you can squeeze in the opening!  So instead we are using it for storage - golf clubs, tennis bags, outdoor chairs and few other items.  Plus hanging full length mirror and shoe storage.

 Then there is the bathtub- never going to use it so we filled it with suitcases and random items and got a shower rod and curtain from an expat who left and voila!

Let the baking begin

Now that I have a full kitchen I can properly attempt to bake!  For those of you new to the scene - I baked in Norway about once a week and then shared it on the blog - it helped to structure the week and made me venture outside my comfort zone of baking.  I plan to start that again in Angola.  I have more time on my hands, more social events to use as guinea pigs and a few new baking books to try out. One main difference is access to ingredients - shopping here is more like the Food Network show "Chopped" you never quite know what you might get.  The stores seem to have all the basics until they don't - one week they might not have milk, last week they didn't have eggs.  So I (and the other expats) shop like we are always "stocking up" - the new motto is see something, buy it!  Case in point- this last weekend a local store got an American shipment of food - we bought all the refried beans plus some salsa, nacho cheese, rolled oats, granola  and a few other items.  Jason was disappointed we were not allowed to buy the Pop Tarts as they were not priced yet.  Maybe I will go back.

Haul from the local grocery store - don't mind us with $25 worth of beans

This week I made a few items.  First up Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread.  Wasn't sure Jason would eat it but he loved it!  Zucchini are pretty easy to find here so they are a good veggie to use.  The zucchini made the bread really moist and it could have used a few extra minutes in the oven as it stuck to the bottom of the pan due to the wetness.

Gathering my ingredients 

Final product

Second up was Nectarine Upside Down Cake.  I have found really nice fruit here but the downside is that as soon as you soak it in the bleach water you have to use it within a day or so.  So baked items with fruit may help with that.  These nectarines were potentially the best ones I have eaten ever!  The cake was not quite done in the middle - guess I need to figure the oven out a bit more!  But it was really good cake- just cut out the underdone section.

Third was not baking but keeps with the theme of using what you have when you have it.  I made some Creamy Pesto sauce from fresh basil I found and greek yogurt.   We had it for dinner and then I froze the rest.