New Look

Saturday afternoon I took a couple hours to wander around my favorite thrift stores while Daniel stayed home with Mari. One of those stores is right next to the Habitat store, so I took a look in there as well. Happily, they had marked down all light fixtures from $25 to $5-15! So, I spontaneously bought a new ceiling light. Daniel put it up as soon as I got home. It's much brighter than the old one, which was better suited to a kids room (notice the moon and stars on it). Every time I go in the kitchen, turning on the light makes me so happy. 

Taking down the old light (with old refrigerator)

This new light prompted a serious urge to redo our kitchen and some even more serious craigslist searches for stainless appliances. We've always wanted stainless appliances, but didn't want to spend the money, since we don't plan to live here forever. So, used seemed the best option. After a couple days of searching, we looked at this kitchenaid superba model someone was selling. It's about 10 years old, but in good working condition. I like how the brushed finish doesn't show finger prints very well, even after smearing my hands all over it.

New light and refrigerator

So, now we have two refrigerators; one for the kitchen and one for the living room. =-) Unless Daniel decides he wants it in the shed, we will probably list the white one on craigslist or donate it to habitat. It's in our living room right now, the most out of the way spot in the house.

We also found a stainless dishwasher on craigslist that is sitting the the tool-room. It needs a new hinge. I'm sad about loosing our chalkboard dishwasher, but the soap dispenser broke and a new one would be so much more functional (as soon as we fix the hinge).

Getting the dishwasher home was easy, since the two of use could easily lift and place it in the back of the Matrix. The refrigerator took some work. I rented a pickup truck and appliance dolly from U-haul and Daniel and the seller managed to get it into the truck, keeping it upright the whole time. Our friendly neighbor helped unload it into the kitchen. Daniel made some ramps out of scrap wood that were essential in the transport. The whole process of getting the U-haul, picking up Daniel, buying and unloading the refrigerator, cleaning and setting it up, and returning the u-haul took about eight hours. At least 4 of those Daniel and I spent cleaning the new appliance.

Close up view

One thing that is kind of a pain is that we have no place to hang a dishtowel. We used to put one through the door handle. Another small downside is I have to keep my kitchen timer on the side instead of the front, since magnets won't stick to the stainless. It was worth it though. Not only do we have a newer, more aesthetically pleasing refrigerator, but now I know how to rent from U-haul and that Daniel really does have muscles of steel.

On a side note, the weather has been super hot down here lately. Here is a look at how Mari stays cool.

Ice Cream & Donuts

This weekend we made homemade ice cream and donuts. Those were the most exciting  events of the weekend. All the rest of our time was taken up with lounging around and general maintenance stuff like spraying for bugs, trimming our monstrous hedges and working on Mari's toy kitchen (I am waiting until completion for the big reveal).
Back to the food, on Saturday evening, we tried a recipe for Vanilla Bean Ice Cream from The Sweet Kitchen cookbook. Using the basic ingredients of egg yolks, 1/2 and 1/2, sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla beans, this was our first attempt at  making a custard based ice cream. Usually, we are too impatient to cook and cool it. Our first attempt at this recipe was a total failure. I whisked the egg yolks too much as Daniel poured in the hot cream, morphing them into a frothy mess. Then, as this was supposed to be thickening into custard over medium heat, I accidentally boiled it, turning everything from silky smooth creaminess into congealed egg. Very disappointed, we threw it out, drove to the store for more 1/2 and 1/2 and tried again. The upside of a second try is that now I have 12 egg whites in the fridge, enough for angel food cake! Attempt # 2 = pure bliss. Everything worked like it was supposed to (despite watching an old episode of Home Improvement while we cooked) and after rapidly cooling the custard in a bowl of ice water, we ice-cream-machined it into perfection.

P.S. We ate some more this evening and even after 24 hours in the freezer, it was very, very good. We will definitely be trying this recipe again, except next time maybe cinnamon or coffee flavored. 


On to the donuts. I attribute the urge to make these to baby #2. I REALLY craved homemade donuts. Not the store bought kind from Dunkin Donuts or Kroger (although I never turn those down), but the homemade kind, coated with butter & sugar. Not having time before church, we made and ate these for lunch. I used the Pioneer Woman's Homemade Donut Recipe, and they tasted fabulous. The only thing I did differently was let the dough rise for 1 hour in a warm over instead of overnight in the refrigerator.  Daniel went to the market while the dough was rising to buy a candy thermometer so we could heat the oil to just the right temperature. Cooking for less than a minute per side, frying was speedy.

Both of us love donuts rolled in granulated sugar, but the confectioner's sugar glaze came out really great too. Ahhhh, these hit the spot.

Best Lemon Cake

I made this cake last night and it's soooo good. It was so good that I let Mari try some, breaking our no sweets until she knows what she's missing rule. So much easier than making lemon bars from scratch, it really hits the spot if your in a lemon kind of mood. I was in a fruit kind of mood, but we had no fruit except strawberries... Kind of a cross between pudding and cake, it's wonderful with whipped cream or strawberries.

Lemon Syrup
Combine and let sugar dissolve:
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar

Lemon Cake
3/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2  large eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tea. baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter an 8-inch square metal baking pan.
Cream butter, sugar and lemon peel until fluffy. Add eggs, then dry ingredients.
Pour the batter into pan and bake about 25 minutes.
Placing the pan on a rack, poke holes in the top of the cake and spoon over the lemon syrup, allowing it to soak in. Cool completely (we ate some before it was all the way cooled, and I prefer it slightly warm).

Adapted from Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea by Nancy Atherton. 

Spring Cleaning

I have been cleaning a lot lately. My spree started last week when Mari pulled our bedroom curtains down (rods attached). In her defense, they were not affixed to the wall very well. I bought and assembled the curtain rods and hung the curtains without Daniel's knowledge (as a surprise), so I didn't use anchors or look for studs... Daniel rehung the curtain rods a few days ago.  "Why in the world didn't I hang these in the first place," he yelled when he saw the couple dozen screw holes in the wall. In my defense, I don't remember making all those mistakes, so some of those holes were probably already there. I'm glad the rods are firmly attached now.  =-) If it wouldn't encourage bad behavior, I'd have Mari try swinging on our newly hung curtains. Daniel's work inspires that much confidence.
Since the curtains were already down, I washed and ironed them. That was a big chore, not having a big ironing board. I'm not complaining, since we hardly ever need a big ironing board. It was just a little tricky to maneuver on our mini one. Piled on the floor, our curtains picked up some dust, so that motivated me to wash all the floors and vacuum the rugs.  Then I washed our bedding and our pillows. I LOVE how our bedroom feels when it's perfectly clean and tidy. Every evening after Mari goes to sleep we've been relaxing in there, reading side by side on the bed and drinking mugs of hot tea. It's so nice to have a clean bedroom.

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Another reason I love this room is it's brightness. During the day, I can leave the shades pulled halfway down and lots of light still streams in. After living in an apartment with only three windows (north facing), I really appreciate sunlit rooms. Upgrading from a three window apartment to a 20 window house meant we needed lots of window treatments, but that's another post.

Knitting

Stuff I've always wanted to do but never thought that I could:

Drive a standard

Shuffle cards and do that cool bridge thing with them

Run over a mile

Knit

Happily for me, now I can do all those thing! This week I learned how to knit.  Several how-to videos and many hours later, the beginnings of a scarf were created. My yarn is a not very attractive teal color that we already had. Combined with uneven and missed stitches, this scarf may never see the outdoors. Trying a new hobby is fun though, and I'd like to improve enough to knit a hat or mittens. Once a month our library has a knit night where patrons take their projects and  knit together. If I can work up enough confidence, I may go next month.



I saw these Provincial Garden Mittens on Ravelry and think they are so pretty! Last week at my favorite thrift store I found some lovely, handmade, tan children's sized mittens for 50¢. After seeing these, I'm considering embroidering them.


Here's some other stuff on my list that hasn't been done yet:

Cook a delicious souffle (I tried this once - with expensive, disastrous results)

Ski down black diamond slopes, and like it