Kitchen Nightmares?

Let's start with the good news: Ramadan is over (!!), which will make life much easier. We can finally take a sip of water in public whenever we want! Ramadan was certainly one of the hardest aspects of adjustment so far. Basically any time we were out in public before sundown, we were unable to eat or drink (H could, but we still tried to be discreet about it). Another issue is that once restaurants opened after sundown, most served Iftar buffets to break the fast. I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of buffets. You end up spending more money and don't necessarily eat your money's worth. Case in point, we went to a restaurant and spent 50 dirhams each and here's what I ate: pita chips and hummus, rice (2 differents kinds), and a couple of (bite-size) pieces of chicken. E ate more but he is a little more adventurous in terms of the food available here.

Anyway, the bad news is: we are STILL living in a hotel. We're not sure when we'll be moving into our apartment. The rumor mill is:

1. We will be moving into our apartments in 2 weeks.

2. We will be moving into our apartments in 6 months.

3. The apartments are spacious and very nice.

4. The apartments are tiny and dirty.

5. The apartment complex has a pool.

6. The apartment complex does not have a pool.

Well, with all this information, logic tells us...um, nothing. So, we are trying to "go with the flow" and be patient as we wait and wait.

Meanwhile, we were tired of spending money every day to take a taxi to a restaurant, pay for said taxi, pay for a meal which we (read I) didn't necessarily enjoy, take a taxi back to the hotel, and pay for said taxi. At the end of the meal, we were spending at least 140 dirhams, if not more. And our hotel has several restaurants but they are pretty expensive (and we are not into spending money when we could make it better and cheaper ourselves).

So, we took matters into our own hands.

Our hotel room comes equipped with a small kitchen area (a sink, countertops, and cabinets). Here it is in all its spacious glory:

Our tools:

A 99 dirham electric "multicooker."

A 49 dirham hot plate.

With this small investment, we (well, mostly E) started cooking our own meals at the hotel. He has actually produced some really good meals. Here he is preparing our steaks for fajitas:

And our guacamole made in a hotel mug:

The final product:

Mary and Dave would think this meat was wayyyy overcooked, but it was fine for me!

We eat our meals out on our balcony, which is enjoyable, but mostly a result of trying to keep the mess made by H on the tile floor rather than the hotel carpet.

(A different meal, obviously. I'm not yet a very organized blogger.)

H enjoying his meal (a different one again) on his plates

brought from home (so glad we remembered these!).

Some of E's beset efforts: fajitas, whole wheat pasta with pesto and sausage, and garlic-rubbed steaks (steaks are actually very cheap here so I think we will be eating a lot of red meat while we're here...yeah! a break from buying tons of chicken when it was on sale for $1.99 a pound at Kroger).