Browsing Archives for Kitchen

My spinach has been growing gangbusters.

Fearing that the warmer weather might cause my spinach crop to bolt…

…like my arugula did.

I decided I better go ahead and harvest most of it and see if I could figure out how to ‘put it up’.

I collected enough spinach to fill a tall kitchen trash bag.

I set the bag into the sink and filled it with water, letting the spinach soak for a while to loosen the dried on dirt.

The boys helped me to remove the stems and any unwanted bits and pieces.

I set up an assembly line on the island.

Here we have cleaned spinach, boiling water, and a large container filled with ice and water.

I placed the clean spinach in the boiling water for one minute, which is called ‘blanching’ because that makes you sound smart and gives you an edge on confusing the heck out of people.

I found several recipes for freezing spinach, and they all had different recomendations for how long to ‘blanch’ your spinach. Some said two minutes, some said thirty seconds, some spoke of enzymes and some spoke of nutrient leaching. I finally gave up on finding a cook time that was predominant, and went with an average… one minute. My spinach will probaby have both bad enzymes and nutrient leaching. I just hope it tastes alright.

After one minute I removed the spinach from the boiling water…

…and placed it in an ice bath.

The ice bath stops the spinach from cooking, which also stops the enzymes from ‘enzyming’ and also stops the nutrients from leaching.

I left my spinach in the ice bath until I had processed all the spinach.

I labeled my freezer bags.

I then drained the spinach and loaded up the bags.

Two small freezer bags.

That is all that came from a trash bag full of spinach.

That stuff cooks down… way down!

I can’t wait to try this out in a batch of spanakopita!

Kitchen Hutch – (from before the house was completely finished)

This is what the hutch now looks like with two coats of “Cottage Cream” paint from Sherwin Williams. 

I have narrowed our countertop choices down from five billion to three. I have crossed out granite, marble, stainless steel, tile, concrete, laminate, wood, stone, quartz, paper, cotton, fingernail clippings, congealed pig blood, fossilized dog bones, fish scales, moss, wheat berries, cracker crumbs, crushed taco shells, and my favorite – texturized horse dung. I have decided on Corian. Why do I feel like there is a chorus of groans to my decision? Oh yeah because that is what my sister does every time I tell her. But Corian it is. Here is why…our cabinet maker installs it and it is affordable. I don’t have to drive to Kansas City or fly to Chicago, or take a subway to Liberia to get it. I just have to stop by the cabinet shop, look at the choices and pick one. It doesn’t cost nearly as much as that stone stuff does, it is durable and comes in a lot of colors. So there!

Here are the three I am currently deciding between…

Leaning pretty heavily to “earth” or the darker one.

This is my lowered baking center.

Because I am such a baker.

So it is a very very good thing that I went to all the trouble of devoting about one fourth of my counter space to a lowered baking center.

This is my foot pointing out some spilled flour on the floor.

When the Country Doctor saw our lowered baking center…

He was less than thrilled.

And his less than thrilling response…

Sent me into a tail spin that lasted for weeks.

During which I doubted every single decision I had ever made in my life.

Because clearly – if I am stupid enough to put a lowered baking center in my house.

When I literally bake about two times a year.

I must be way too dumb to have ever done anything else right.

Then one day as I was sitting, in a sodden anguished slump, on the counter of my lowered baking center.

Because the lowered baking center happens to be the perfect height for sitting in a sodden slump…

I realized something…

I realized that the Country Doctor has made exactly one meal since the day I married him.

And therefore doesn’t really get a VOTE on the lowered baking center…

DOES HE!!!…

And this is my goofball sister…

Demonstrating how to eat…

One of my freshly baked butterhorn rolls…

In the traditional Christmas butterhorn roll eating fashion.

And this is Jack sitting on the lowered baking center…

Which is how we use it…

Most of the time…

We have a kitchen sink…in our kitchen…installed…

and you can turn it on and water comes out!

Right here in our kitchen!

And we can also wash our hands at the sink and fill up the coffee pot and wash fruits and veggies, and wash dishes, and get wet wash cloths and wipe the table and the countertops and fill up pots and pans and make spaghetti…no wait I can’t make spaghetti. I don’t have a stove. But I could soak spaghetti. I wonder if you soaked spaghetti long enough, would it be the same as cooking it?

And look – the world’s cutest drain strainer thingy. This drain strainer thingy is so cute and so beautifully precious that it makes me feel like a movie star! I never knew a drain strainer could make you feel like a movie star, but I do.

I am going to go get a drink of water now…

from my kitchen sink.

I have a thing for old sinks. I have tried all sorts of new age therapies, homemade herbal remedies and straight up chemical detox and I still have a thing for old sinks. I just think they are soooooo beautiful. Why did they stop making them?

Oh! Maybe because they weight 17 tons. People must have been tougher in the old sink days. Because I can’t fathom why they would even bother installing these things when instead, they could just wait until it rains to wash their dishes. That is how heavy these things are! What were the shipping costs? Plumbers must have been former professional weight lifters!

I bought the kitchen sink on E-bay. I looked for a long time trying to find one that I could afford and that had two bowls, at least one side which had to be fairly deep. I was hoping for both an apron front and a backsplash, but the price on this one was hard to beat. This one was listed under “old sinks” instead of “vintage” or “antique” sinks – so it did not get nearly the bids that some of the sinks I was going for received. As a result it was truly a bargain. Until you ADD THE SHIPPING!!!

And above is pictured our lovely laundry room sink which I also got on EBay, for 10 bucks. It was located close by, so I picked it up and paid zero shipping. It is in pretty rough shape. I may have to get it re-surfaced. Which will make it not such a bargain anymore.

Above is pictured our main floor bathroom sink. It was originally a wall sink. When I bought it , it was in almost perfect condition. The large chip happened while at the cabinet shop. They are going to pay for the repair. I decided to have the sink placed on a base. I think a longer “skirt board” is needed as well as a shelf on the lower half to sort of break up those very long legs. I am going to paint the wood when it is all done. Trust me – this is going to look great. You just have to believe.

And here is our free footed tub. Eric, our plumber salvaged it out of a rental house he owns. He told us if we got it out of the house, we could have it. It will also have to be re-finished. I was under the impression we could get it re-finished on site, so we hauled it up the stairs to the master bath. However, since I would like both the inside and the outside of the tub re-finished, it has to be done in the re-finisher’s shop. So now, we have to haul it back down the stairs. A task I will probably try and accomplish today. So if I never post again, you will know that I have perished – crushed beneath a twenty ton tub.