Tea, Soup, and Catching up

Hi All!

For the new followers YAY! Thanks for joining this crazy ride :)

Anonymous - Your request for honeymoon pics has been heard and being worked on. I have to get the laptop they are saved on up and running so I can pull them off.

So it's been a busy time. I've been working on the spring cleaning that I mentioned in my last blog, and have been moving away from electronic cleaning up of clutter to the more demanding, (sorely needed) task of the physical cleaning.

With a break for Valentines Weekend (I can't believe it's been almost 4 weeks since I posted something! Yikes!) Which was memorable, for good and bad. We started off that Friday night with a dinner out at a local place (not a big chain like Olive Garden), tried some new drinks, tried some new food, got some new sparklies for my Pandora bracelet. Then for the second year in a row we went to All Fired Up! and painted some pottery! I chose a large plate, and Hubby made a second storage bowl for us.

These shots are from before they were glazed and fired. Sadly when my husband went to pick them up, the piece next to his had exploded and embedded chunks of pottery into his incredible piece of art! BOO!!! At least they were kind enough to give us a gift certificate to cover the cost of painting another of the same.

Mine made it through unscathed: My mental image of Yggdrasil (very simplified). 

We also got a really cool version of Monopoly since Hubby loves that game, and has many fond memories of playing with his father. It's a vintage version, in a real wooden box (not fake wood painting to look like wood) with the original colors and playing pieces. Unfortunately, neither of us felt very well that weekend, so playing got put off until last week.

Hubby also "adopted" two Red Pandas for me!! Best Valentines Gift. EVER.

We also made a trip to my favorite tea shop, and was able to introduce a friend to their delicious selection of teas! One of my favorite things to do, is to bake goodies to go with tea, and have friends over. Yes, I still love having tea parties, I never out grew that, my friends are just a wee bit different now. They actually CAN drink the tea :-) I find that the most enjoyable times spent catching up with old friends, are generally over a glass of a good drink.

Spring Cleaning

I figured the best place to start is the room we use most. Those that know us, know we LOVE to cook and bake. Of course it also helped that we were in the process of moving the washing machine and dryer out of the kitchen to be put in a newly created laundry room.

I can't find what I did with the old pictures of the kitchen, but with everything in the kitchen, you really couldn't fit more than one person in there very well unless they are REALLY skinny, like supermodel skinny. We love to cook, we love to eat...we are not those people!

Any way, since we had someone out to run new drain, water line, and gas line for the dryer I used that opportunity to really get to cleaning in the kitchen. I started off with my favorite cleaner, Murphy's Oil Soap. It pulls the grime from fingers, cooking, whatever, off quickly and easily. So, here's my list of what get's cleaned when Spring Cleaning in the kitchen comes around.

• Wipe off cupboard doors and handles, inside and out
• Remove all contents from cupboard, wipe off shelves
• Wash all dishes removed from cupboards, wipe off containers and check contents, especially herbs and spices. Toss any that have lost what it means to be flavorful
• Repeat  above three steps with drawers
• EVERYTHING on the counter tops are cleaned, and moved so the counter itself gets scrubbed down
• Scrub the stove, including the front of the oven, and inside. Soak the grates and scrub them clean. It's amazing how dirty they get. 
• Remove all magnets, pictures, papers etc from the fridge, and scrub it down too. For this I like Windex, or rubbing alcohol. Don't forget the top (like I did and just realized it!)
• Move the movables, like the stove and fridge, so you can clean under and behind them.
• Scrub down the walls and base boards, paying special attention to messy areas like the stove, and by the trash can. 
• Finally, time to scrub down the floor
• When dry, put everything back!

The floor after moving the stove...YUCK!

This is where the stove was, and that counter was turned 90 degrees to make an L with the stove .
That left just enough room for the fridge door to open

The stove has now been moved to where the dryer was

See how shiny my floor got after scrubbing over it with  Murphy's Oil Soap?! It Sparkles!!

Then we pulled the washer out....Yes, that really is all the counter space we have.

Grimy Nasty stove front

Even more hideous behind the knobs

Again, Murphy's Oil Soap to the rescue! Amazing Difference!

Finally, all done, everything scrubbed. We will some day be putting a dishwasher in that empty spot, and expanding the countertop all the way to the wall!!!

So, now that I have this wonderfully opened up kitchen, and actually have to take more than half a step to get to anything, and it's all nice and clean....TIME TO COOK!!!

I'd been craving some stuffed cabbage, but didn't want to take the time to make all those little yummy rolls of goodness. So I made soup. It was a hit! 

What I did:

1 medium - large onion, diced

Celery - enough that when diced is equal to the same amount of onion ( I think I used 4 stalks)

Carrot - roughly half as much as you have of onion, so I used 2 large carrots

1 stick butter

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground sausage (I used plain not spicy or sage)

One head cabbage, diced into bite sized pieces

1 packet Lipton soup (I used the lot of a noodle chicken noodle)

1 large can diced tomatoes

about a gallon of water (that's about 16 cups, or 128 oz)

Beef bouillon to make the water into broth (although next time I might just buy broth)

Salt, garlic, oregano, basil, and sugar (to counter the sour from the tomatoes) to taste

The onion, celery, and carrot mixture is called Mirepoix, and is the BEST start to any soup. 

I started off by sauteing the mirepoix with the stick of butter in my stock pot, until the onion were soft, but not translucent. While this was going, I browned and drained the beef and sausage, then added to the stock pot, along with water, and bouillon until I had a good flavor. Then I dumped in the cabbage, soup packet, and tomatoes, and let everything simmer for about an hour so the cabbage was tender. 

I wasn't too happy with the flavor at this point, so I added in a few generous pinches of coarse salt, as well as a generous sprinkle of granulated garlic. Let it simmer more, and it was getting there but not quite. 

So when tasting, I try to keep in mind that the flavors need to balance. If it's too salty, I need to a little sour or sweet. If it's too sour, I need to add a little bitter or sweet, if it's too sweet, then add sour or salty. See how that works? In this case, the tomatoes had made it a bit too sour for my tastes, so I sprinkled in a little sugar. That really helped mellow out the tomato, but it was still there. After added some oregano, and basil, (which adds a little bitter along with their own distinct flavors), and letting it simmer for a while, it was spot on! Served over some freshly cooked rice and YUM!

Remodeling

Now...those big appliances that got moved out of the kitchen....they got switched around to our hall closet, turned laundry room. We are still working on finishing up the walls in that area, but over the weekend, we were able to build a raised floor to set the machines on, and I LOVE how it looks! I was just a tad bit too busy helping hubby build the frame, and then attaching the boards to the frame to remember to stop and take pictures! 

Had to grab a shot before the washer went in.

Well, that's most of what's happened in the past month. Thanks for sticking with my during my long breaks! Hope to try experimenting with more cooking this week, and get a few more recipes up. Take care all!