Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Roller Derby

Can you imagine?  One of the major highlights of our day today - aside from the Skull Cake and red bird seed - is getting our driveway compacted.  Here's a video of the guy running the compactor... I hope you don't fall asleep watching it so that you can see the rest of the photos below!





Thought you might like to see the progress, and the layout of the new tree island, too. 


The widest end is 30 feet; the shortest is 8 feet; the length is about 40 feet on each side.  We just got the forms today for getting the soil testing done, so maybe we can get going on that pretty soon.  The City is selling trees again this weekend, and we're planning to buy at least one because one of our aspens blew over in the wind yesterday.

Also, Phil just discovered that we have some of the center line paint from the airport runway right by our hangar... um, I mean garage!




Almost as much fun as finding an arrowhead in our yard!  :-)


It's been a really, really long winter here.  It doesn't take much to get excited.  Just getting to be outdoors is a real treat!


c@

The Red Seed

Phil caught the red seed on the deck again yesterday.


Are these guys scattering it?  Or eating it?

Skull Cake

Sometimes you just need to know when to say, "Quit!"


I didn't think Phil would expect an actual birthday cake today - his real birthday - because we celebrated it with two cheesecakes on Sunday.  But I decided to try to "sneak" in a cake today - baking it after he left for work, before I had to leave for work myself. Kind of in a rush.

We only had one cake mix left.  Spice cake.  I don't think it's one of his favorites, but I thought it would just be faster if I used it than trying to come up with a "scratch" recipe really fast.  Still, I wanted it to be more than "just" a spice cake, so I added some grated carrots and walnuts to the mix.  I subbed 1/4 cup rum for part of the water.  It came out of the pans just fine... the layers even came out pretty even.  I had weighed the batter in the pans trying to make sure they'd come out close to even.

But, when I was "torte-ing" the layers, the edges of the cake cracked.  I was hoping that they would kind of "glue" back together with the filling.  But, the more I tried to salvage the cake (because too many crumbs were coming off in the icing - it was too stiff), the worse the situation became.

I decided to just leave it the way it is and call it "Quits!"

I then found myself trying to think of something to put on top of the cake... but I already called it "Quits!"

I wonder if it will even support candles.  Certainly not 65 of them!

The Good.  The Bad.  The Incredibly Bad... AND Ugly.

When Phil got home he said, "I love it!  It looks the way I feel!"  (He'll eat almost anything - except beef tongue.)  He thinks it looks like a skull.



MAN IMITATES CAKE

Things I tried this time:

1.  Making meringue buttercream icing with cream cheese.  Results:  At its thickest, I could pipe an edge around each layer to fill it with filling.  Thinned it to frost the cake.  Maybe it would have worked if the cake itself hadn't cracked and was more substantial.  I wouldn't do this again.  I think I'd invest in cheesecake flavoring (called an "emulsion") and just add it to regular meringue buttercream.  I didn't use the Wilton meringue buttercream recipe, either.  Next time, I think I'd better.

2.  Making pudding filling for the inside: One 3.4 oz. box of pudding mix in Cheesecake flavor.  Plus 3/4 C. milk.  Plus about 1 C. Cool Whip.  I think next time I will use a different recipe that I found that called for 1 C. milk + the whole 8 oz. container of Cool Whip.  I think that would make enough to fill between all four layers without having to make another batch. 

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Speaking of Strawberries...

OK.  Another bird photo that I had to show you.  And another dessert.

We started feeding the robins cherries last year.  We threw some cherries out that were kind of turning icky.  We kind of aim for this one corner at the bottom of the deck when we have fruit that is turning bad.  Like, you never know... maybe if we throw something out there with seeds, maybe we'll get a fruit tree or something!  So far, we haven't seen any orange or grapefruit trees... but maybe we'll end up with a compost pile.  You never know.

Anyway, one time we did this, we saw a robin come and fly away with the cherries!  That is when we first discovered robins like fruit.  We've since discovered that house finches like fruit, too.  So, now we purposely put fruit on our picnic table for them.

This year we tried putting out some grapes.  Success!  Robins and finches will eat grapes, too.  It started with some withered grapes.  Now we buy grapes when they're on sale and put them out for the birds whether they're withered or not. 

Experiment specialists that we are, we decided to try strawberries.  We ended up with a batch early in the season that just wasn't particularly very tasty, so we thought we'd see what would happen if we put them on the picnic table for the birds.

Well... strawberries - or at least those strawberries, weren't that appealing to the birds.  The finches didn't want much to do with them until they got sort of dried out.  

But the robin first attacked the strawberries with gusto!  Be glad that you are not a worm!  You would NOT want a robin to peck at you the way they attack what they're eating!


It even chased away another robin and wouldn't let it on the picnic table to get the strawberries when it was there.  Then for some reason, the robin gave up on the strawberries.

I am guessing it didn't find them very tasty.  Or maybe it was able to find some tastier worms somewhere instead.  Imagine.  Worms more tasty than strawberries!

Perhaps we should have the robin taste-test our fruit for us.

Oh - we also discovered that if we put a half-mushy pear on the picnic table, NO birds were interested in it.  It sat on the table all day and, apparently, into the night.  In the morning, though, the pear was gone.  We suspect it was the fox, who we - AND Skippy - have seen on the deck before, often at night.  The fox will also steal bunches of grapes from the birds.

Maybe someday I'll be able to sneak a photo of the fox stealing the food.  Maybe it isn't a fox.  Maybe it's a raccoon.  We might need to get a Wal-Mart parking lot camera for our deck.  But, hey... that might work with our new driveway setup.

Anyway... Here is another idea for using strawberries.  I happened upon it accidentally, and created it using ingredients that I just happened to have on hand.

I'd made a chocolate cake that I was hoping to turn into a torte.  Well, I didn't freeze the cake first because I was in a hurry.  So, it didn't "torte" very well.  I stuck it in the freezer and, for a few days, used it as dessert for Phil and Marge - adding ice cream to bits of it that I'd slice off.

Well, I needed a dessert for one of our Sunday lunches, so decided to make a trifle using what was left of the cake.

This is what it turned out to be:  bits of chocolate cake layered with a combination of strawberry pudding mixed with cheesecake pudding, alternated with layers of leftover chocolate fudge ice cream topping (homemade) and some strawberries that weren't exactly the pick of the season for flavor.  Oh.  Also a lot of Cool Whip.

The dessert did NOT last very long!  Around here on Sundays, you have to move to dessert quickly!  Phil didn't even get much of this dessert that particular Sunday.  He basically got to lick the bowl.

c@

Burgundy Brothers

I had to show you this... only one photo, not a long story...

Several weeks ago we went to a friend's graduate French horn recital at the university.

Her grandparents were there.  We stopped to talk to her grandpa.

I just had to get this photo because, when I looked over at Phil talking to him, it made me laugh.

Apparently they got the same memo about recommended attire for the evening...

Our Ringed Neck Dove

I've been trying for weeks to get good photos of the lone ringed neck dove that has been coming to our bird feeder on the deck.  This is the first year we've had a ringed neck dove at our house.  And we only have one (so it seems... they kind of all look alike to me right now).


It is very skittish.  I have to sneak around in the house, hide behind the plants and try to get photos through the door window at all kinds of crazy angles so it won't see me.  

Actually, the dove doesn't seem to be comfortable at the bird feeder.  Typically, it sits on the deck rail and watches the other birds eat out of the feeder.


The dove is on the far right in the photo.  It walks back and forth.  Stops.  Looks at the birds eating at the feeder.  Like it wants to eat out of the feeder.  It seems to know there are seeds in there.  


You can see there is some kind of "pecking order" going on here.  Those stupid pidgeons are hogs.  They are messy and selfish.  We don't like them much.  They are actually a problem in Laramie.  Cuz people like us feed them, no doubt.  But we like watching the birds - and some of them fly so far to get here this time of year.  They're really hungry when they get here.


But, our little dove watches the other birds eat from the feeder, then hops down onto the deck and eats the seeds that have fallen down there.

It was really weird today.  By the end of the day, the feeder was nearly empty - and there was a pile of sort of a reddish color seed all spread out on the deck.  Like the birds "sorted" out what they didn't want to eat and let it all fall to the deck.  I should have thought to get a photo of it.  It was interesting.  It's gone now, though.  Either some bird came and ate it all, or the wind blew it all away.

If that happens again, I'll show you.  :-)

c@

Polish Enchiladas with Invisible Egg

Today we celebrated Phil's birthday with our Sunday-after-church-lunchtime friends.  We chose a Mexican theme (and got to use our leftover Fiesta napkins!) because we didn't want to have to take everyone out to Phil's favorite restaurant, Corona Andale Rapido - try to find seats for everyone to be together, and serve birthday cake there, too.  Phil wanted Pollo Poblano - his favorite from the menu at Corona Andale.  I had to search the web for a recipe.  The sauce is the green stuff in this photo.  It isn't green at Corona Andale.


I was SO prepared!  I made everything last night so that all I'd have to do was warm it today, cut up fresh fruit (because there wasn't room in the fridge last night) and have Cody make the guacamole.  I even wrote out a list so that I wouldn't forget to take anything out of the fridge.  So there I was... cutting up fruit when we got home from church - and I forgot to put everything in the oven to reheat!

We got a tiny little bit of a late start, but guys munched the tortilla chips, mango salsa that I made with the leftover chipotle/adobo peach stuff, my usual red salsa with black beans and corn, and Cody's guacamole.  Phil voted the mango salsa #1 out of the three; but truthfully, more people ate the guacamole than the others.

I was surprised at the mango salsa.  I thought the chipotle stuff leftover from the peach experiment was going to make it too spicy, but it was hardly noticeable.  If I do that again, I will add more chipotle.  JUST A LITTLE.  That stuff goes a LOOOOONG way!  I can still remember the pain in my esophagus from the first night we tried the chipotle stuff.

Anyway... The green stuff.  Poblano sauce.  Yuk.  It really looked like the recipe instructions:  blend the peppers with milk; make a roux; add the blended peppers with heavy whipping cream; heat until smooth.  Not at all like Andale Rapido's sauce.  Some people tried it, but we still have a lot of it left.  I'll have to come up with a way to use it... It is, at least, very mild. 

We had the usual chicken that I baked at 450F for 20 minutes after sprinkling Mrs. Dash Chili Lime on half of the chicken, and Penzey's Arizona Dreaming on the other half.  I was trying to come up with an alternate dish so that everyone would have a choice - and to kind of stretch out the chicken a little farther.  We did an AllRecipes search to try to come up with an idea for enchiladas.  I had a lot of cheese that I ended up not using for my original ideas.

We happened upon a breakfast burrito recipe that - of course - I altered to make a little more interesting, and a lot less "breakfast-y".  The original recipe called for ham; I subbed Turkey Polish Kielbasa. "Turkey" as in NOT CHICKEN, not the country.  I also added some other ingredients not in the original recipe.  For now - unless someone gives me a better name, I'm calling them Polish Enchiladas with Invisible Egg.

You start by sauteing red and green bell peppers (chopped) with chopped onion.
I think I even forgot to put in garlic; but because I used about 2-3 Tablespoons of Arizona Dreaming to season it, I don't think it mattered.  Then I added diced turkey kielbasa.  It didn't seem like that was going to be substantial enough for rolling up in tortillas.  So after some thought, I decided to heat up a few red potatoes, which I then diced and added to the whole mix.
That was when I made the final judgment on how much Arizona Dreaming to add.  I increased it to the 2-3 Tablespoons at that point.  It's also when I decided I'd try to sneak in some spinach, too.


So, I chopped the spinach so that someone in the house wouldn't notice it being spinach, sprinkled it on a tortilla, spooned a line of kielbasa-potato mix on top, and then added about 1/4 cup of cheese on top of that.  I just folded the tortilla over on each side, and made 12 of these.  I was able to place all 12 into one large baking pan.


Doesn't matter if there is cheese or anything else on top.  At the end of baking, it will all get covered with cheese.  But, don't put the cheese on top before you bake it!  First you have to pour over a mixture of beaten eggs and milk.  Cover the pan, and set the whole thing in the fridge overnight.  When you're ready to bake it, bake it about 25 minutes, then add the cheese and finish baking it about another 10-15 minutes.  You'll see it bubbling around the edge and the cheese will all be melted.

You really need to let the casserole sit for 10-15 minutes before you serve it.  If you serve it before you do, it is runny, like this:


If you wait, it looks like this:


But, as you can see - YOU CAN'T SEE THE EGG!  The INVISIBLE egg!  Amazing, isn't it?  You could serve these for any meal, but they're pretty rich.  I used a WHOLE 2-lb. bag of cheese for this recipe!

The dish was a HUGE success!  And VERY filling!  We couldn't believe our eyes - not one person went back for seconds after eating that with the chicken, cilantro lime rice, black beans with shredded pork, corn on the cob, salsa and chips.





Anyway, despite the fact that everyone was stuffed after eating lunch, it didn't stop them from having Phil's Birthday Cheesecakes for dessert.  Yes.  I made two cheesecakes.  I wanted to make sure there would be some left so that I wouldn't have to make another cake for Phil's real birthday on Tuesday.


The best one, in my opinion, was the classic Philadelphia cheesecake recipe.  


I used chocolate graham crackers for the crust.  For the topping, I melted butterscotch chips and chocolate chips; first drizzled the butterscotch over the top, then the chocolate.  Saw online that if you add 1-2 tsp. of shortening (Crisco) before melting the chips, it will drizzle better - and keeps it from burning.

This cake cut the best.


The other cake had sort of a pecan "cookie" crust that wasn't really worth the effort.  Hardly noticeable.  But, then, why would anyone notice the crust when it had this gooey pecan mess all over the top?  It didn't slice very easily - or well.




This is it, folks.  The good, the bad... the ugly.  The topping stretches when you try to eat it:




Even lifts the cake off the plate!  Yet, everyone liked the flavor.  It just was really a mess to deal with... I don't recommend it at all.  I should have suspected when the recipe called for an egg yolk (and a white that you have to deal with and figure out what to do with it).  That is just extra work for results that just aren't worth the effort.


So, here are the ingredients that I used for the Polish Enchiladas with Invisible Egg.  I'm pretty sure you can juggle to suit your tastes and what you have on hand.


  • 1/2 green bell pepper, diced (small)
  • 1 small red bell pepper, diced (small)
  • 1/2 large sweet onion, diced (small)
  • 1 lb. polish turkey kielbasa, diced (cut sausage into quarters, then dice)
  • 2 medium red potatoes, cooked, diced
  • 2-3 Tbsp. Arizona Dreaming (if you don't have this, use chili powder + ~1 Tbsp. oregano)
  • 2-3 cups fresh spinach, chopped
  • 2 lbs. shredded cheddar (divided, use what you need for tortillas and the rest on top after baking about 20-25 minutes)
  • 8 eggs, beaten (I think that is what I used... I tried 6 at first, but that wasn't enough to cover the tortillas in the pan, so added more eggs beaten with water after I'd already poured the milk batch over the tortillas - I figured it'd all blend together overnight)
  • 1 can evaporated milk + water to make 3 cups; then blend with eggs, pour over rolled tortillas
  • 12 flour tortillas

Spray a large baking pan with nonstick spray before filling it with the rolled up tortillas and pouring the egg/milk mixture over the top.  Cover it; put in fridge overnight.  Bake at 350F for about 35-40 minutes, adding the cheese on the top during the last 10 minutes of baking.  Let the casserole rest for 10-15 minutes before serving - if you can wait that long... IF  you eat it.  

The way I made this recipe, it's really loaded with fat and probably a lot of other stuff that isn't good for a healthy diet.  I only tasted it today to make sure it was good.  All that stuff in it is probably WHY it tastes good!


:-)  c@

Friday, May 27, 2011

Chipotle Peaches with Pork Chops

I didn't think I'd be doing another post today, but tonight's dinner was worthy of one.


I made pork chops with chipotle peaches.  I only took a photo of the peaches.  I love the little bowl that they're in!  I got six of these little bowls at the Goodwill for only $1!

I used a recipe for the peaches from my new Weight Watchers' cookbook; but it seemed like it needed cinnamon, so I added some.

     Mix together:
     1/2 cup peach preserves


     1 tsp. Dijon mustard (I used spicy brown)
     1 Tbsp. tequila lime vinegar - OR apple cider vinegar
     1 tsp. minced chipotle en adobo (for mild/medium) - 
               OR 2 tsp. for extra zingy
     1 tsp. cinnamon


Mix up the sauce and put it in the bottom of a small skillet.  Place fresh, pitted peach halves cut-side down in the sauce.  Heat the peaches in the sauce over medium high heat until the sauce begins to bubble; then turn down the heat and simmer the peaches, uncovered, until the sauce thickens and sticks to the peaches.  The sauce will sort of "brown" or "caramelize".  Pretty yummy, and not as spicy as straight chipotle en adobo sauce!  Believe me.  I tasted the chipotle/adobo straight out of the can - just a tad on the end of my fingertip.  Aiyiyiyiyi!

Looking for chipotle en adobo?  It comes in a little 7 oz. can in the Mexican food section at the grocery store.  I actually only used mostly the sauce part of what came in the can.  There are about six chiles in the can - about 2-3" long each, which could be minced or processed in a food processor, I think, to make it more useful in recipes.  I cannot imagine anyone actually eating anything like that straight out  of the can, but maybe someone does.

We did a Google to see what we could make with the rest of the can, since I used such a little teeny bit out of the whole thing.  We obviously weren't the only ones who ever needed to find out what to do with so much leftover.  It was the #2 item in the list of searches that popped up on Google automatically, and Phil had only entered one word - chipotle!

We've already decided - and these weren't even on other peoples' lists of suggestions that we found - that mixing the leftover peach sauce stuff would be excellent in a mango or peach (or mango AND peach) salsa!  We're going to try it on Sunday when the guys come over to celebrate Phil's birthday here with us.  

I'm also making Pollo Poblano on Sunday (which I've never made before), which should be interesting.  Neither of the grocery stores here had any poblano chiles for sale.  They told me I could use "pasilla" peppers.  So, I ended up buying as many pasilla peppers as the recipe called for using poblanos.  Turns out that pasilla peppers are probably about four times larger than poblanos!  I guess I'll be Googling "pasilla" next!  I wonder if I can just fill them with cream cheese, bread them, and bake them or "fry" them to make giant poppers out of them.  Wikipedia said they are mild-to-medium hot.  Poblanos are supposed to be mild.  Like I said, this should be interesting.

So.  What about the pork chops?  I actually used leftover pork chops that had a tiny bit of Penzey's sate seasoning on them, steaming them in a skillet with a little bit of water, lid on top.  I sprinkled the seasoning on them called for in the original recipe, but I did NOT add the chipotle stuff to them because I think it would have been way too spicy.  They were very good.  You can use the same recipe for the rub that I made at Christmas time, or use the following ingredients:

     Mix together:
     2 tsp. chili powder
     2 tsp. brown sugar
     3/4 tsp. cumin
     1/2 tsp. garlic powder
     1/2 tsp. salt (optional)

Sprinkle on the pork chops and grill, or use leftover pork chops and simmer in a little water, covered, over a low heat until heated through.

Oh.  Another thing we discovered tonight.  If you end up with too much  "HOT" on your lips, tongue and/or esophagus, eat some watermelon.  It seems to help.

c@

What is it? Driveway? Wal-Mart Parking Lot? Or Air Field?

Time to bring you up-to-date on our driveway rehab project.  I thought it was to "repair" our driveway, which had ruts, potholes - and a pond or two in it.  Though, it looks like a Wal-Mart parking lot right now.  We are so close to the airport, I hope that we don't have planes landing here - oh, wait.  We don't have lights out there, so maybe we're OK.

This is what the driveway looked like before we started... and it's been this way - maybe not quite as bad last year, but close - for a number of years.


Every year we have to warn people to not fall into the holes when they get out of their cars.  And we really don't want to go to jail if people drown in the ponds.

This is a pond.  I know.  It looks like snow.  The snow was just before I took these photos.  Think of it. When we DO have snow - like several inches, navigating our driveway by foot is an interesting event.  Trying to keep people from mudding in their ATVs is something else.  One year we had a guy come through our yard on a snowmobile!

Which brings up another issue:  Why is it that, just because we don't have a fence around our yard, people think that they can walk, hunt, fly kites - or snowmobile - through our yard?  The snowmobile guy ran over my little flower garden out front.  Just an annoyance I think about often when I see people doing these things.

Anyway, back to the driveway.


Phil and I had a little "meeting of the minds" about the design of the new "driveway" yesterday.  Turns out, in his mind, he was building a "parking lot" for our cars.  In my mind, we were supposed to be building a "turn-around" for vehicles, which would have a spot in the middle dedicated to be my "tree island."  Turns out there is no "plan," no "drawing," no "design" for what we're having built out there.  It is HUGE... but I'll show you pictures of that in a minute.

Of note, the first thing that was constructed - the very first day (this is about the 3rd day of construction) - was a "path" to our front door.




Having a "sidewalk" to our front door was something that has been on my list for a long time.  I am thinking now that this was installed probably intending it to be a distraction to me so that maybe I wouldn't notice what was going on in the driveway.  However, I also wanted to have the stairs moved to the front door, which is around the corner a bit from this view, so that people wouldn't have to walk by our bedroom window to get to the front door.  But, I think (in my mind, mind you) that we have come to a compromise on the "path" (Phil's mind - was to put gravel down in a different color from the driveway).  MY "sidewalk" will be flagstone.  I am hoping that maybe we can still move the stairs to the other side of the front porch area.


The first thing the guys had to do for the driveway was to remove the "sod." It was actually just weeds, crab grass - anything that would grow in river terrace (BAD) soil. 





Then they heaped most of that into a big pile that is supposed to be my "tree island," I think.



It was yesterday (meeting of the minds day) that I realized that "tree island" was awfully small compared to the grand scope of our "driveway" / "parking lot".  I hope this photo of the "overview" of our "parking lot" will give you an idea of what we've got.




 .
The photo above is the boundary of the "parking lot".  Add this photo to the one above it and you'll get an idea of how big it is.  Look at it from the perspective of how big the cars look by comparison.  Phil's car hauler is 24-feet long.


Anyway, today the culvert is being emptied of dirt and ground squirrel homes.  I have this great video that I am hoping you'll be able to see when I try to insert it here.  Shows the construction guys pounding the culvert pipe to get everything out of it.  There is no sound.  I didn't want you to hear the ground squirrels screaming.




Then, maybe if our yard floods again this year,  will the water go into someone else's yard down the street?  But if it floods that much, the commons area will also be flooded - so where will the water go if the river is already out of its banks?  

"They" say that even though snow pack is 223% of normal this year (last year when it flooded it was 80% of normal), we had rapid heating of air temp over a short period of time last year, so snow melt was faster last year than it is this year.  The river is out of its banks now, but still 1-1/2 feet below "flood" stage.  That will be another post down the road if anything happens!

Back from the rabbit trail... Today the guys are also spreading recycled asphalt pavement -- which we got free from the airport -- all over what they graded.  I hope it doesn't come with runway lights!

c@



Thursday, May 26, 2011

O-O the Wells Fargo Wagon Brought Me Thumthin' Thpecial!

We just watched The Music Man (remake with Matthew Broderick) again the other night, so this song has been going through my head for days... just waiting for my curtain rods to arrive!  They arrived today - a day earlier than expected.  I think maybe the UPS driver wanted to get out of Tornado Alley really fast!  They came from Florida, through Alabama, Missouri and Kansas to Commerce City, Colorado before they were delivered.

So, my baking pan cabinet is all reorganized and I'm pretty happy with it!  All the pans are in one place now.  Though I haven't actually tried using any of the pans yet to see if it is easy enough to access what I need.


Here's a photo that shows the curtain rods installed vertically, supporting the pans that are on edge:




There are two rods between each section.  I put items that I use the most on the inside divided areas; things used least against the sides of the cabinet.  However, I have all the baking pans in one place now - excluding cake pans, which I think will replace the muffin pans that were in The Pantry... but I'm still working on The Pantry, so we'll see.  


I'm excited because now when I look at my special bread baking pans, mini bundt cake pans and donut pan, maybe I'll feel more like baking something in them.  Not that I haven't wanted to, but out of sight - out of mind... I hadn't done any baking with them.


Anyway, the top shelf of The Pantry was freed up (mostly) with the removal of the muffin pans.  So I moved some things around, and got rid of a small food processor that I think I only used once.  It was "too complicated" to deal with it (I have the manual somewhere, but need to find it), so it was just taking up space.


We compromised on the George Forman grill - moved it to the cupboard above the fridge.  I have a hard time reaching it there, but Phil can reach it and he usually likes to be in charge of it, anyway.  However, the only way he'd let me move it there was if I moved the air popper to that cupboard, too.  So, since we really mostly only use the air popper at Christmas time for caramel corn, I agreed to move it.  




Yesterday I found this divided rack for $1.99 at the Goodwill.  Wasn't sure I'd need it for anything, but it worked pretty well for the roasting pan and roasting racks - and a very heavy cast iron gingerbread house pan.  Also a wooden tray that I never use, so we'll see how long it stays there.  It'll be the first thing to go as soon as I find something else that can fit in the rack.  Problem is that the cabinet is above the fridge, so have to put things there that we don't use too often, or it isn't very convenient to have things there.  This photo shows half the cabinet.  The other side has the Forman grill and air popper.



Well, then I was inspired to work on The Pantry.   I moved my cake decorating stuff from The Cove into the top shelf of The Pantry. 

 

I still have to deal with the cookbooks and notebooks that I keep some recipes in that I use often.  But, that left the cookie cutters still in The Cove.  They were in 4 plastic baskets, somewhat sorted by theme plastic zipper storage bags (quart & gallon).  So I dragged them out and, once I figured what I was up against (a LOT of cookie cutters for someone who really rarely ever made cutout cookies!), I Googled to find ways to organize them.  


I opted to try using over-the-door shoe organizer bags... white with clear plastic - EXPANDABLE - pockets.  K-Mart had an ad for these that starts this coming Sunday, showing they'd be on sale for $8.99 each.  So, I went to check them out and found out they were on sale for $8.04 this week!  So, I bought three... two for The Pantry, and one for my closet when I get motivated to get it organized.


Phil had to pound hooks into the doors, though, because the doors wouldn't close with the over-the-door hooks that came with the shoe bags.  On the left side, I put cookie cutters organized by season and/or holiday, and where those fell on the calendar.  



For example, February/Valentine's Day is toward the top of the sorter, and Thanksgiving is toward the bottom.  I was at a loss as to where to put a cookie cutter which we're not sure if it is a coffee canister (vertical) or Iowa (horizontal).  I stuck it in with a church cookie cutter because, years ago when I did the RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa), there was a "small church" town that was one of the stops on one of the day's rides.  In between are categories such as, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Graduation".  Also one for summer, which includes a turtle and an ice cream cone for lack of any other idea where to include them.


On the right side, I put my very large assortments of "western" and "Christmas" cookie cutters.  








At first I was kind of disappointed because I have a round plastic container that has a lot of mini Christmas cutters in it.  I couldn't get it to fit into the pocket that I tried the first time.  But, it looked like my snowflake boxed sets had a larger pocket, so I switched them around and the round container fit in the pocket!  So, now I don't need to try to figure out where to put that one odd cookie cutter set.  

Everything fit into the pockets - and I think I even have room for more cutters!  I know... that is a pretty crazy thought.  But, I love this way of storing them... I can pretty much see what I have at a glance.  I'm really happy with the shoe bag idea!


So... that leaves some empty space in The Cove.  Also still in The Cove are all my cookie/cake sprinkles and cupcake paper filler things.  I found a clear canister at a thrift shop - and saw more of them (and kind of pricey) at Wal-Mart some time ago; but if I could find more, I'd like to get some for my sprinkles to sort them... or something.  Right now they are in baskets - and I could leave them like that.  They aren't hard to deal with; but I'll see how much room I end up with in The Pantry.


I have some really cool slide out wire baskets at the bottom of The Pantry, so those will need to be sorted next.  



Maybe my sprinkles and papers will end up in one of those. And I have to figure out where I'll keep my large tube that houses my rolling pin. And then I need to deal with cookbooks...


c@


Saturday, May 21, 2011

Kitchen Organization

Just in case you've been wondering about the progress of my kitchen organization, which I began during the cooking-making process, I took a few photos today.

I am currently waiting the arrival of 5 pairs of 11"-18" tension curtain rods that I am going to use to organize my baking pan cupboard.  I got the idea from a Martha Stewart or BHG web page - can't remember which.  Maybe BHG got the idea from Martha Stewart.  Anyway, I am eager to get the curtain rods because my pans are all over the place right now!  I'll post more photos when the rods arrive!

In the meantime, I thought I'd document the organization process.  Here is the cupboard above my oven...


 All my roasting pans and large, rectangular baking pans are stacked within each other.  The cooling racks keep getting tangled... some stacked, some on edge that fall onto the stacked ones.  I found some really cool baguette baking pans at some thrift shops.  Eager to make some bread in them one of these days.

When my rods arrive, I'll insert them into the cupboard so that my pans can all stand on edge.  Hoping all will fit into one cupboard!

Right now my muffin pans and related types of baking pans (including a way cool doughnut baker that I found at a thrift shop, but haven't found a good recipe for using it yet) are all in the pantry.


Really, the pantry is just a huge appliance garage.  I used to have my cookbooks on this shelf, but moved them out when I found a bookshelf at a thrift shop.  It was senior day, so I got an additional 25% off on the purchase; but, found out when I got home that the shelves weren't deep enough to even hold most of my cookbooks, or high enough between the shelves, either.  Right now the shelf is temporary storage for things that need to find a final "home".

I am still trying to find a good way to store all my cake and cookie decorating stuff.  The Lowe's project booklet arrived in the mail today.  It has a cool little cart - which Phil could build someday (ha!) - that I thought might be a good idea for all that stuff.  If I put all of it onto a cart, I could just roll the whole thing out of The Tornado Shelter into the kitchen when I work on cakes and cookies.  If I can't get Phil to build one, maybe I can find something useful at a thrift shop.

Anyway, I moved that little brown shelf into The Tornado Shelter - which is actually the midget closet under the stairwell.  This is where Marge and I, and the two cats and our 3-legged beagle all had to cram into when we had the tornado come through here a few years ago.  If I put all my cake/cookie decorating stuff on a cart in here, I could easily roll it out if we have to get into the shelter again.  BTW, the dimensions of this little "room" are about 4' W x 8' L x 4' H, so it's pretty tight in there with two people and three animals - without the shelves and such!  But there is a light and electricity.  We just need a good weather radio because, during the tornado, we couldn't hear the radio in the kitchen over the sound of the hail and wind!


Anyway, maybe you can see the dark brown shelf in the back on the left side - next to the shredded lampshade that was on a huge lamp in the living room.  (Keep watching my blog for how I plan to salvage the lampshade...one of these days.)  I moved my cookie mold collection to the floor in The Tornado Shelter because I needed the space in The Cove, but I'm not sure that is their final resting place.  Maybe I can move them to narrower baskets and put them on the brown shelf?  We'll see!

Everything else on the shelves that Phil installed toward the front, in the blue dollar store baskets - believe this or not - is MOSTLY paper napkins, paper plates, plastic or paper coffee cups, and plastic utensils.... many of which were left over from Marge's 90th birthday party from 3 years ago.  Something tells me we haven't been having enough parties!

Phil's birthday is coming up, though.  I wonder if I have enough time to plan a party large enough to use up some of these party supplies...

c@

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Crash Course in Cut-Out Cookies

So, this is what has been keeping me so busy this past week:  Cookies, Cookies, Cookies.



God bless Karen at KarensCookies.net for all the info she put online... videos, tutorials, recipes...!  And thanks to all the people who put cookie decorating things on YouTube - too many people, names and URLs I don't remember!


Prior to this past week, I think I decorated cookies - hmmm... maybe three times?  I'm not sure what ever possessed me to think that I could do a cookie decorating demonstration for the ladies at church, but I crammed and learned a LOT in a week's time. 


I started on a Friday, I think, making cookie dough.  I used to hate making rolled cut-out cookies because just the process of rolling and cutting the cookies seemed to be so time-consuming.  Now I think that is the easiest part!  I made at least four batches of dough:  two different recipes of "plain" sugar cookies - one with leavening, one without, and a brown sugar cookie dough - one with chocolate chips, one without.

I made three kinds of icing:  meringue buttercream, corn syrup icing, and royal icing. 


I needed to make some cookies on sticks for table centerpieces.  (Unfortunately, it appears that I neglected to get any photos of the bouquets that I made in plastic watering cans for table decorations.)  

Cookies on Sticks.  Now, that was an interesting experiment.  As promised, this is where you get to see what NOT to do when making cookies on a stick!  I definitely have a favorite way of doing those now, but it's not the way Karen suggests doing it.  

Karen suggested putting the stick into the dough before baking, and then patching over the stick to hold the stick in place.  I didn't have much success with that technique.  When I picked up the cookies by the stick, the dough on back fell off.

The plain sugar cookies were the worst... the patches on the backs of the cookies fell off, so the sticks fell out.

Here is the "before" photo.  Patch on back on the left, front of the cookie on right.  Sure.  Looks okay until you pick up the cookie to stick it in a bouquet.


Then... it fell off on the plain sugar cookie recipe.  


So, I tried doubling up the cookies - putting a stick in the middle.  It was WAY too HUGE! 



So, I also tried just using a cookie-shaped patch, but that was before I knew the patches weren't going to stick.




 OK.  Maybe I should try this again ... WITH THE OVEN WORKING!!!  It wasn't until the Wednesday before I needed to have all my cookies done for the demo on Saturday that we realized the oven wasn't working!  I had thought that, because I was making cookies so much thicker in order to get the sticks in them, that they were taking longer to bake.  NO!  The fan in the convection oven quit working!  Fortunately, the repair guy came out the very next day (Thursday), but by that time I was ready to get into full force decorating.

The brown sugar chocolate chip cookie dough held together pretty well.  You could see where the dough was patched, which would be okay in a bouquet; but I needed to make sure all the cookies would hold together for my centerpieces.


I returned to an old favorite website, kitchengifts.com, to see if Lesley had any recommendations for doing cookies on sticks. I really liked her technique better, where you couldn't see any patching.  I baked the cookies until they were nearly done, and then inserted a cookie stick (actually, I used lollipop sticks because they were thinner), and popped the cookies back into the oven a little while longer to make sure the sticks were really baked in place in the dough.  Lesley even recommended "gluing" the stick in place at the base of the cookie with a little bit of royal icing, but I didn't need to do that on any of mine. 


By Thursday, I realized I was baking too many cookies because I was probably intimidated about actually having to decorate them - I really hadn't done much decorating, and that was what I needed to demo!  I'd spent a long time looking at tools and accessories online, videos on how to decorate cookies, books with pictures of ideas for decorating cookies... I knew I couldn't put that decorating off any longer or the cookies would never get done on time, nor would I actually even learn how to decorate cookies well enough to show the ladies at church how to decorate them. 


I had to just dig in and get it done. So, I ended up with some really pretty cookies...

Some wildly colored flowers...




Some bright pansy-ish flowers...




Not sure what you'd call these... very abstract flowers....





More bright flowers that don't resemble anything in real life (not that they needed to)...






A bunch of yellow and white flowers, some of which looked like they had egg yolks in the middle of them...






And my favorites... brush embroidery cookies...


I filled the plastic watering cans with floral foam, stuffed in some green tissue paper around the foam to resemble "leaves", and stuck cookies-on-a-stick into the foam to make a flower arrangement.  

This is the only photo I got of one of the watering can centerpieces, and it isn't very clear.  It's my friend Lisa acting like she was going to take a bite out of one of the cookies.




At the church, Careta set up a beautiful main table display with birds, a mini bird bath, watering cans, and some real flowers...





We had eight card tables set up, each one with a watering can cookie flower arrangement in the middle...




I can hardly believe it, but I managed to get a pretty good night's sleep on Friday night, so by my demo on Saturday I was feeling "okay."  I had extra batches of icing made up, blank cookies to use to show starting techniques, and some cookies that had the base glazing done already so that I could show how to finish techniques.  I felt pretty comfortable demonstrating techniques when I realized everyone was enjoying the presentation and having as much fun with it as I was.

There was one minor "equipment malfunction" when I was demonstrating how to fill a pastry bag with meringue buttercream using Karen's technique... plopping the icing in the middle of plastic wrap, folding the wrap over the icing, twirling the whole package in mid-air in order to get the air out of the wrap... then sliding the whole thing down into a pastry bag.  I know.  This description leaves a lot to the imagination.  You should go to her website and watch the video to get the full picture.


Well... what happened next was simply amazing.  I was twirling the icing around when all of a sudden the plastic wrap split and icing went flying everywhere!  People standing in front of me to watch quickly flew backward as the icing was propelled directly at them.

Now, if THAT wasn't impressive, I don't know what else was!  They loved the "feathering" technique, and they loved learning about different kinds of icing, and seeing how to do the brush embroidery.  I think everyone left feeling pretty confident that, if I could learn how to do all this decorating in just a week's time, they could do it at home, too.  I was relieved that everyone seemed to enjoy the demo.  I was relieved that it was over, too.  I know they loved eating the cookies, and I gave them a chance to decorate a few for themselves, too.

So, in between making meals for family and pets, working at my part time job, and searching the internet for instructions on how to do things - including filling those little icing bottles with icing, I managed to get some cookies made.  I learned a LOT.

It turned out to be a super learning experience for me.  :-)  It was one crazy week... but I think I have a good handle on cookie decorating.  Now I just need practice.


Oh... one of the side benefits of this week was that, in my search for the little ends for my rolling pin so that I could make sure my cookie dough was the same thickness everywhere when I rolled it, I had to clean out some more cabinets (this was also a diversion so that I wouldn't have to face learning all that I needed to learn).  I just hauled a huge pile of stuff down to Colorado yesterday to get rid of all the stuff that we decided to get rid of to make room for better organization of the rest of our "stuff".