Pandora just picked "sunny came home" also, "Greek" salads and wedding dresses

I woke up at the crack of dawn (8:15) to spend 45 minutes to get to work for a skype conversation that never happened. Oh well. This meant that I got to have *real* pop for the first time in weeks. Yes, I find it necessary to self-congratulate with high-fructose corn syrup and carbonated water. The other real reason for coming into the office today when I could have been otherwise sleeping is the promise of free food stolen from the honors-type undergraduate association for the college of natural science at the University of Texas. I find it a bit scary how quickly my life is approaching PhD comics.

This Saturday will be four weeks in Texas. It still hasn't really sunk in that I've moved halfway across the country for at least the next five years of my life. It also hasn't sunk that I'm getting married in less than six months, but I've finally got my dress and veil. That was a bit of a relief. Thankfully, most things are coming together. My friend Chris is coming to visit on Wednesday and Colby has a job interview later that day. I suspect that there will be much tasty food making in the upcoming couple weeks. :) We've been cooking almost every night, so we've made a few things that I haven't really updated with yet including abomination pie, oatmeal cookies that weren't really noteworthy, and a host of other things that may or may not get mentioned later

Orzo Salad

1 lb box orzo
chicken stock
2 small tomatoes, deseeded and diced
1/4 medium red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 tbs olive oil
3 tbs lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp dried oregano
3 tbs roasted red pepper, diced
1/3 c crumbled feta cheese
salt+pepper

Boil ozro in a combination of half water and half chicken stock. drain, save some liquid for thinning. combine lemon juice, lemon zest, 4 tbs olive oil, oregano, and salt+pepper to taste. Add 1 tbs olive oil to orzo and combine dressing and everything else.

This turned out to taste mostly the way I expected. It was way too salty the first day, but after it sat in the refrigerator for awhile it was pretty good.