Saltine Bark of My Heart!

After my maple cream was only a 50% success last Christmas, I decided it was time to go with something foolproof, quick, delicious, and, most of all, cheap. At that point in the season, days before holiday gift exchange time, saltine bark seemed like my best option.

My roommate used to make it and it was the kind of snack I hated to love: sweet, crispy, salty, chocolatey. Oh. My. It's also almost shamefully easy to make.

It goes like this:
Grab a cookie sheet with a rim and line it with parchment paper. Take a bunch of saltines and spread them out in one even layer. If you have to, break some crackers in half to fill the tray completely. Melt together some butter and brown sugar, pour them over the crackers. Put the whole thing in a hot oven for a few minutes, while the butter and brown sugar soak into the crackers. Try to prevent yourself from shoving molten buttery crackers into your face. Then sprinkle chocolate chips over the whole tray, stick it back in the oven until the chocolate is soft, and then spread the chocolate with a knife or spatula.


Before the whole thing cools, sprinkle with your choice of: chopped nuts, chopped dried fruit, candy sprinkles, crushed peppermint (or other) candies, or whatever else sounds delicious pressed into chocolate on top of toffee. Gently press the topping into the chocolate and let it cool. When the pan is completely cooled, break the saltine bark up into chunks, wrap it in pretty packages using cellophane bags, parchment, or pretty candy boxes with ribbon. 


Here's how Paula Deen does it, and she can't possibly be wrong.


It's a pretty economical treat, by my calculations:
Saltines - $2.50/box, recipe uses 1/4 - $0.60
Butter - $2.99/lb, recipe uses 1/2 - $1.50
Brown sugar - $1.89/ 2lb, recipe uses 1 cup - $0.40
Chocolate chips - $2.99/ 12 oz. bag, go ahead and use the whole bag, it's the holidays!

Without toppings, it works out to about $5.50 for the batch, which you can easily split into 4 gift bags, at least.

Add a homemade cocoa mix in a mug, or fudge, or a jar of caramel sauce, to complete a sweet treat gift for someone on your list. It makes a great teacher gift, or a unique offering at a cookie party or holiday potluck.

Homemade Maple Cream...and the Absence Thereof

Every December, I realize with a shock that I have a group of family, coworkers and acquaintances to exchange gifts with and no freaking idea what to give them. I panic trying to come up with homemmade gifts, then stay awake for hours at night in the weeks before Christmas trying to pull it off.

Last year's experiment was maple cream. (Well, last year's second experiment. Someday I will tell you about the quart of onion jam that is still in my fridge.) It's a simple recipe that involves heating maple syrup to a temperature above boiling, cooling it in a water bath and whipping it with a spoon until it gets a creamy texture and opaque color. It's beautiful, creamy, delicious and addictive. Simple, right? I used a candy thermometer, followed the directions, and the first batch came out beautifully.

The biggest problem was my stove, which is smarter than I am. I got this new GE flat cooktop stove a few months ago, and in general, I love it. I love having choices about burner size and cleaning the smooth, shiny top. I love how everything is digital and magical. But it is NOT designed for making candy. Because, you see, it is too smart to heat things above the boiling point of water, apparently. I spent about half an hour intermittently turning the stove off and then turning it back on, and switching between burners to trick the stove into staying hot enough to get the syrup to about 230 degrees. But in the end, it was a delicious success.

The second batch, however, was doomed. I didn't re-test the thermometer, because I used the same thermometer in the same pot about a week later. Everything seemed fine. I felt like I had mastered the stove, and everything was laid out for the next steps. I put the pot in a water bath, waited a respectable interval, dipped the wooden spoon into the pot and, as it hit the surfce of the syrup, it went, "clank." I don't know if you know, but "clank" is not the sound of creamy things. It is the sound of solid objects hitting other solid objects.

I tried to reheat the syrup,  which seemed like a possible way to get the syrup out of the pan and maybe even salvage some maple hard candy, somehow. Until the volcano of burned maple started puffing out from the edge of the candy's surface. You see, when you heat a solid, it gets warm on the bottom first, and if the heat can't escape through the surface, it burns like freshmen on spring break.

I decided to make fudge instead.

And that's why there was a pot of cloudy brown liquid in my sink, if you happened to wonder during the Christmas party. Thanks for not asking.

DIMDS in the kitchen...with less

I am a great one for bookmarking (and now pinning) recipes and projects to save for "someday" when I have the right tools/materials/space/time. But guess what? I hardly ever do. I watched my mom put aside projects and recipes that we didn't have the space or materials for my whole life and watched her never get around to them again. And you know what? It sucked, and she regrets it.

I felt the same way about home cooking, especially filling my freezer with delicious home-cooked convenience food so I could rely less on cans and drive-thrus. It would be great to have delicious, healthy, frugal food in the house at all times. It would be great if...(if I had the space, if I had a big freezer, if I had a bag sealer, if I had enough storage containers, if I had a week to do it and clean up, if we ate more casseroles) And then I kind of decided to just shut up and go for it. I took some of the recipes I had been meaning to try and decided to make them work, even the ones that call for a dutch oven, a food processor, or sizes and shapes of equipment that I don't have.

I bought a slow-cooker last year. It's kind of the wrong size for me, because five quarts is too big for 1 or 2 people, but it is awesome for a whole pork roast or beef roast. Which, in turn, is awesome for my freezer. Same with a whole crock of marinara or refried beans. Between the slow-cooker and the freezer, it is surprisingly easy to make home-cooked meals that I can pull out later at a moment's notice. I'm always surprised when I do it how easy it is, but I haven't quite made it a routine.

When I was going through a crazy cooking weekend recently, with 2 kinds of beans, marinara, plus dinner for 4 and a loaf of bread, I realized I didn't really have that many tools out. I kept out a cutting board, chef's knife, peeler, and my 9-inch cast iron skillet, which I have been carefully seasoning for about a year now. I have finally gotten it to the point where it cleans up really easily and it is basically everything good about non-stick with only a fraction of the worry about scratching it. During this weekend of mega-cooking, I went through every wooden spoon in the house and a couple of saucers-as-spoon-rests. And you know what? It all worked out just fine, and I managed 3 meals with only one load of dishes in the dishwasher.

Although I often pine for the day that I will have everything I could possibly want at my fingertips in my kitchen, I often come back to earth with a thud when I realize that someone (and it would inevitably be me) would have to wash all that fancy stuff and put it away again. And really, there are very few things I can't do with my simple kitchen equipment.

Here are what I believe to be the basics for Cooking It My Damn Self:

• Large skillet, stainless steel or seasoned cast iron (you can get old cast iron cheap from a yard sale or thrift store and re-season it)
• 4 to 6 qt heavy-bottomed soup pot
• A couple saucepans with lids
• Chef's knife, kept sharp
• Paring knife
• Cutting board - plastic goes in the dishwasher, which is great if you sometimes use it for meat, or vegetables that stain
• A set of wooden spoons
• A set of rubber spatulas
• Can opener
• Vegetable peeler
• Cheese grater
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons

When the time comes, it's nice to have a potato masher (for potatoes or beans), a whisk for baking, some baking pans, and I do love my slow cooker. But I could eat pretty well with none of these things. Luckily, I once had a roommate who foolishly bought lots of expensive kitchen stuff and then flew to another city to become rich and famous and left me lots of nice things. I've also gotten some fabulous gifts, like my chef's knife, a set of cookie sheets and some mixing bowls that have made my cooking easier and more pleasant. Other than that, the cheap stuff and hand-me-downs have held up just fine, thanks.

My kitchen is by no means complete. There is still a list of things I would love to have that I think would let me cook different kinds of food, or in more appropriate quantities. For example, I have my mother's old Kitchenaid, but the attachments got lost when one of us moved and need to be replaced. If I had an stick blender I would be the smoothie QUEEN! If I had a food processor, nothing would stand between me and a freezer full of pesto. I could even use a second loaf pan in case I ever decide to double my bread output.

But for now, I'm happy with my fairly simple little kitchen. What kitchen essentials can you not live without? What has turned out to be a waste of money or space?

Slow Cooker Marinara

My new blog crush is Budget Bytes. I referred to Beth's recipe for crockpot refried beans when I went bean crazy recently, and I pinned her black bean quesadillas and slow cooker marinara, among other recipes. Now I am drooling over her no-knead breads, so jealous of how fluffy they are!! (My last few loaves have been a little dense, but tasty.)

One feature I love on her site is the cost breakdown for her meals. I'm on a self-imposed low food budget, and I'm trying to do as much make-ahead convenience food as I can for when my school and work schedules pick up in the fall.

I decided to try the Budget Bytes slow cooker marinara, since I had the crockpot out from yesterday's beans, anyway. Plus I am having fantasies about freezers full of homemade food.


I increased the recipe based on what I had, so I used:
2 large cans (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes
1 large can tomato puree (what's the difference in terms of how they work in a sauce? no clue.)
1 6 oz can tomato paste
2 yellow onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1 TBSP sugar
1 1/2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
3 bay leaves
fresh ground black pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped

I chucked everything in the slow cooker except the basil, and set it on low for 8 hours. There were 2 reasons for waiting on the basil. First, I didn't want to cook fresh herbs in the slow cooker for 8 hours, because I thought it would be a waste. Second, I didn't have pants on anyway and the basil is growing out back.

The cost came out a bit lower than the Budget Bytes' breakdown, not that I'm competitive or anything, mostly because I got my tomatoes on sale.
3 cans of tomatoes, $0.67 each = $2.00
1 can tomato paste, $0.50
2 onions, who knows, can we call it $0.50?
Spices - let's call them a dollar so I don't have to do that math.

So for roughly $4.00, I have the equivalent of 3 jars and change of homemade pasta sauce. Considering I buy my jarred sauce at rock bottom prices, unless it's an emergency, I think I will probably break even on cost and come out ahead on flavor. I'll take it!

The verdict: It's smooth and has a deep flavor, a little bitter. It's a little much just on bread, but perfect on a bowl of pasta. I added some red pepper flakes and garlic powder at the end, and totally forgot to put the fresh basil in. I have to use some basil before the bugs eat the rest of it. Ugh. I bagged it in quart bags, squished them flat, and put 4 bags in the freezer, right on top of my crockpot refried beans. It's going to be a delicious fall!

Just How Much Do I Want to DIY?

My basic philosophy is that if I DIMDS, I will spend less, learn more and get better results. I'm at a stage in my life where it's worth investing the time in learning how to cook, do repairs and maintenance on my house, and make or build things out of found materials. If I learn to paint now, it will save me thousands over my lifetime in home updates. If I start collecting a good set of basic tools and corresponding know-how, I will gradually master home repair and again, save money in the long run. Most importantly, I want the knowledge to effectively hire experts when I need them and know I'm being treated fairly.

Beyond the basic stuff, there are lots of projects that are very tempting, like this recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent. They remind me of being a kid and mixing together either condiments or cosmetics to come up with some brand-new-never-before-tried creation that would wow my mom and win the hearts of the media. It's science!!

But how much time and money will they really save me over the store brand dry dishwasher detergent? I have set my hourly rate for these projects at $20, because I figure that's what it would take to get me to take on an extra part-time job. For less than $20, I would be better off staying home and getting caught up on chores and reading.

The other day, I got lost down the rabbit hole of DIY/frugal/sustainable projects online. I kept picking up my head and saying to Kevin, "What would you do if I started making my own ___?" I suggested bread, dish detergent, laundry soap, bath soap, taco seasoning, English muffins, curtains, and I still had half a dozen tabs open.

His response? "I would hope you would get bored with it soon and find something that is a more efficient use of your time." OK, so the man has a point. I am a person with a highly specialized skill set. People pay me both directly (when I tutor) and indirectly (when I work for a school district) to teach their children. And yet, and YET, what I really want is to make my own soap sometimes.

There are some things, like bread, where I definitely get a superior product for a lower price, at least during the summer when my schedule is flexible and I can be home to mix up a batch of no-knead bread dough and attend to it 12 hours later. I would love to do a little more wine-making (we've done a few small experiments) for variety and self-sufficiency.

Then there are other things, like laundry soap, that might save me money, but maybe the product isn't as good? And there are some things, like bath soap, that are just not worth the investment in learning, equipment and materials. Frankly, whatever bar soap is on sale is good enough for me. So I don't know where to draw the line.

My rule of thumb is if the project requires a minimal investment, and not too much time, then I should give it a shot. At worst, I'll learn something and gain a new appreciation for cheap, abundant products and their artisan equivalents. What do you think? When is it worth giving DIY a whirl, and when is it time to leave it up to the professionals?

Rush-Seated Chair

I explained to a co-worker once that I know if I ever went to an animal shelter, I would come home with a near-sighted, 3-legged dog with chronic asthma and the mange. I just pick the thing that needs the most love and attention. She suggested I never get married.


I am the same way about furniture. I have this impulse to uncover the good in each ratty table and chair at the curb, even when it's clearly not worth the time, or the money, to repair and refinish. Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't.

This rush-seated chair, which my dad inherited from his aunts, is one of my proudest furniture rescues. It fell over one night and one of the spindles on top broke. I glued it inexpertly, against my mother's advice, and left it in my room when I went to college. Years later, it ended up in my apartment in desperate need of refinishing and a new rush seat.

First, I cut away the old rush and the cardboard padding in the seat of the chair.

Then I used Citristrip to remove the old stain from the wood. Scrubbing the finish out of the woodwork on the legs was beastly, and it ended up still darker than the rest of the chair. I wiped the whole thing down with a tack cloth. I always think there must be a better way, every time I try to jam that sticky cloth back into a bag for storage.

This project is even more absurd when I remember that I managed it in a 550-square-foot apartment with wall-to-wall carpeting and no outdoor space.

When I finally had the wood clean and sanded, I coated it with stain. I have always used old pantyhose to rub on stain, which becomes harder every year because I am pleased to report that my life rarely requires pantyhose.

I put two coats of polyurethane on the chair frame and got a nice, semi-gloss finish. The wood has some really cool color effects that I never noticed as a kid because the stain was dark and covered with a hefty layer of nicotine. Mmm, nicotine.

Then came the fun part. I bought a roll of paper rush and a little how-to pamphlet from Cane and Reed in Manchester, Connecticut, because it's conveniently near my parents' place. I hoped that buying the materials in a store instead of online would get me some advice or at least some encouragement for my project. I didn't find it at Cane and Reed, but they had what I needed and it didn't cost much.

As you can see, I mostly used materials that I had around the house as place holders - binder clips, pencils and pens. Not only did I not know I would need these things before I got started, I still prefer to scavenge materials from my desk.

I followed the instructions in the book to weave the chair seat. The hardest part about the project was keeping the rush damp, but not too damp, and keeping the weaving even and taut. I used pieces torn from brown paper bags to fill the chair seat starting when I was halfway done, and I hope somewhere I put the date inside the seat, because I know that was all part of the plan.

I finished the chair seat by treating it with Johnson's Floor Wax rubbed into the rush seat and melted in with a hair dryer. This strengthens the paper rush and protects it from moisture and some wear. I repeated the waxing a few weeks after the first coat and, now that I think of it, should probably do it again.

It's definitely not a chair for everyday use, as the rush will wear, but it looks great in the corner and I'm really proud of putting it back in circulation. I just wish the stupid cat didn't like it so much.

There's a woven-seat rocking chair out on the porch, that was hear when I bought the house. Someday it will get the same treatment. Stay tuned!

This Old Hedge

When I moved into this house, it had a Hedge. Not a hedge, like a little group of shrubs providing some kind of border or visual accent in my yard, but a Hedge, designed to fend off invading armies. Once upon a time, it was privet. Once upon a time, it was probably only man-sized, too, but by 2011, it was threatening to overtake my front yard. This is the day I closed on the house, from the street...

And from the inside of the yard...

My aunts came to visit in the spring and in the course of a quiet Saturday visit, it was suggested that maybe we should trim the hedge. I said I was planning to take it out, but my aunt said, "Let's trim it and see how it looks. You don't want to give up such a nice hedge! We can cut it back and it will fill in and look lovely!"

It looked better. It really did. I tried to leave it and let it fill in. Really, I tried to love it, but it was choked with wild roses, bittersweet, and maple saplings. For like, a week, I tried to get used to this new hedge profile, and to appreciate the way it protected my front lawn and gave me privacy. But it was SO ugly and I hated it.

And luckily, my brother likes to dig stuff up. So, since he had a lot of the summer off, I persuaded him to go to town on the hedge. I did a couple hours of digging, sure, but he did the bulk of it. By September, it looked like this.

That big rock in the foreground of the photo was in a the ground among the bushes. We had to dig and lever it out. I think it will become part of the new walkway to my back door...someday. For now, it will just live in the front yard, where it makes the grass impossible to mow.

So now I have a blank slate. I'd like to move the front plantings, some low stuff, a little closer to the road than the hedge was. I did plant some grass, but mostly the weeds (and poison ivy) took over. The soil is terrible and sandy there, and the level of the soil is much lower than the lawn around it. It's basically a huge mess, but it is MY huge mess, and that counts for something.

Eventual plans:
-death to poison ivy in the front yard!
-a bed of low, grassy plants mixed with seasonal flowers
-2 dwarf apple trees in the front yard
-rework the flower/weed bed in front of the windows and the one next to the driveway, before they consume my entire front yard.
-keep one extra parking space in front of the house to supplement the driveway and leave the rest for growing things I actually choose
-use that big rock and a couple others to form an entry to the side yard, possibly with some kind of archway or gate

It's Good To Have A Man Around: Installing a Bathroom Vanity Light

Someone made some, well, questionable choices when outfitting my little bathroom. There is the full-size window in the shower, which looks out on the backyard. There is the hardwood floor. There is the flat yellow paint on the walls. And finally, there is this monstrous light fixture. It goes with nothing else in the bathroom, not the brushed nickel faucets, or the oiled bronze vanity knobs or the stainless steel shower fixtures, or the gold-toned doorknob, or the glass closet doorknob, or the brushed nickel robe hook.

This picture gives you a better idea of the unsuitable color and ornateness (that's a word now) of this fixture for my bathroom.

Aside from the light fixture, each individual fixture varies from functional to quite nice. The light, though. The light had to go.

I shopped around online and picked an assortment of three-light vanity fixtures, varying from curvy, modern metal to traditional straight bars with classic bell-shaped glass shades. I even looked at LED bathroom fixtures, but decided I didn't want to spend an extra $30 for LED when the one available at Lowe's put out less light than a traditional fixture and it would take me (according to Kevin's calculation) something like 28 years to realize the electricity savings.

In the end I settled on this fixture, which was in stock at Lowe's. It got the thumbs-up from both my sister-in-law and my friend, both of whom have impeccable taste. Plus it was only $69, a bargain compared to some of the other fixtures I looked at. Plus it didn't have that generic, contractor's-special look and feel that I got so sick of in all my years in apartments. 

I picked it up in the morning of my painting day because I wanted to make sure I had a new fixture to install before I took down the old one and started painting. I thought it would probably be smarter to uninstall the light when someone else was here to help me find the right circuit breaker and perform CPR if I electrocuted myself. But...then I got impatient and really wanted a pink bathroom, so I decided to wing it. 

It took me, no joke, 15 trips up and down the basement stairs to figure out which circuit breaker to turn off to kill the bathroom lights. Spoiler alert: It's wired to the same circuit as the kitchen light and the boiler. Go figure. Geniuses wired my house, without a doubt. Who needs a gym membership? I AM the Stairmaster!!

Taking the light down was no problem. I unscrewed the two philips-head screws and two nuts that held the fixture to the wall and to the outlet box, and unscrewed the wire connectors connecting the wires: black to black, white to white, uncoated to ground. 

I painted the bathroom and was all set to wait until Saturday morning to put the new light up because I was exhausted, sore, and sweaty AGAIN after my 5:00 PM shower. Except, guess what else runs off that circuit, the one that was still off because of the dangly wires in the bathroom? Did I hear you say bedroom air conditioner? Because you are right!! You win the bucket of sweat I produced while trying to install the new light so I could put on the air conditioning and collapse in a sleepy heap!

Luckily, Kevin was there by then, both to calm me down and to save me from myself by spotting me on the stepstool and handing me things. It was all going swimmingly until I looked up at the wall and saw this:

Count them with me: one (white), two (black) three (copper - ground).

Then I looked down at the new fixture and saw this:

Apparently this is the only picture I took of the new fixture in my exhausted rage, but there are three white wires, three black wires and one ground wire. That is not the math I counted on.

I said this: FUCK. I know just enough about electrical wiring to know that 1) it can be dangerous, 2) I am not qualified to do anything beyond the most basic-est of basics and 3) wires are supposed to connect to other wires that are the same color, and that's what makes it all go.

I had extra wires. There was nothing in the installation instructions indicating that there would be that many wires. Luckily, Kevin is a calm and smart person, so we retired to our laptops and while I looked for additional information about this light in particular, he branched out and confirmed his theory that we could just group the white wires from the fixture together and connect all three to the white wire from the outlet, and then do the same with the black wires. He was very proud to be the one to find the answer, in the most unlikely of places. I quote, "I can't believe my favorite gaming message board has the answer you need." 

(I can't help it, I love a geek. Anyone looking to form a support group? Anyone? Bueller?)

Anyway, we were a little unsure if all four white wires would fit into the same wire connector, but they did! And so far my house hasn't burned down. Not even a little bit!

While I ran around the house looking for three matching light bulbs, because I thought it would be a classy upgrade to my new fixture, Kevin attached - er, tried to attach - the glass shades. First, as he tried to wedge his big paws inside the glass globe to attach the ring that holds it in place, he complained, "This fixture was made for ladies with lady hands. It's a lady fixture."

Then I remembered, the fixture came with a weird little tool to reach in and screw those rings into place. I handed it over, and he said, "It looks like a personal massager you find at the back of the Sears catalog." Reservations aside, it worked.

Well, in the sense that we assembled it. Because there was a problem. See it?

Nope, it's not the angle. The shades definitely prevent the medicine cabinet from opening. Kevin's suggestions, "You could just take the door off the medicine cabinet," and "What if we just take the glass shades off?" were not well received. 

I ended up getting back up on my trusty step stool, unscrewing the fixture and hanging it upside down. It's totally a legitimate way to hang it, according to the instruction book. I even saw a fixture that I really liked that was hung like this, somewhere online, but let it go when I found that affordable one at Lowe's. 

It works fine, and the bonus is it distributes light much better with the bulbs pointing up. The light reflects off the ceiling and gives the whole room a soft, warm glow. It even lights the shower better, which means I may be able to shave my legs at night for the first time since I moved here! You're going to have to take my word for how great the quality of the light is, because I couldn't find the battery charger for my real camera, for like, weeks, and my cell phone doesn't deal so well with taking pictures of light bulbs.

Anyway, my bathroom is (about half) finished (for now) and I'm really happy with how it came out. 

Now I just need to hire a psychic or something to tell me what the rest of the circuit breakers in my house do. Anyone else dealing with wiring installed by drunks or small children? Advice?

It's Pink!!

It is THE pinkest bathroom.

When I bought the house, the bathroom was painted like this:

 

The walls were painted with a flat, pale yellow paint over improperly prepared walls. The paint was peeling on the walls and ceiling, the wall was dirty around the wall switch (you can see it on the picture on the left). The window inside the bathroom was wood framed and leaking down the wall into my basement. 

And, bonus, it had hardwood floors. Hard. Wood. Floors. They're nice, but it has been a big topic of conversation how long they will look good and what I will do when they start to look crappy from shower water. It works fine while my shower is used by a small number (1-3, historically) adults, but will it survive smaller people? Years of daily use? Summers like this where all I want to do is shower, and I want a shower after my shower?

Anyway, I guess I'll let you know what happens. 

I knew I wanted the bathroom to be pink, because I really like the pink in my shower curtain and towels, and I look good in pink, so I thought having all that pink light reflected off my face would make me feel beautiful on dreary mornings. As good a reason as any, right? Plus the bathroom has lots of natural light, especially in the morning, so I figured it could handle a pale pink. 

After quizzing everyone who used my bathroom about these colors from Valspar, 

I settled on the palest one, Pink Breeze. I happened to be near an Ace Hardware when I decided to buy paint, so I had them make a quart of Clark + Kensington Paint and Primer in One satin finish latex paint in this color. This was my first experience using a paint and primer in one, so you can look forward to a review of my experience soon. 

Let me tell you a couple things about how I paint. One, I do not use tape. This isn't really a philosophical thing, it's really just a matter of the age and condition of my house. I very carefully taped off the ceiling in my bedroom as I prepared to move in here, and the result, frankly, sucked. The old plaster walls don't quite, exactly, meet the ceiling at right angles in straight lines, so even if my tape made great lines, the paint didn't quite follow them.

It's just too frustrating, so I don't do it. I'd rather touch up with a tiny brush after the fact than go through the process of taping (then removing tape) only to be disappointed. 

I also do not do drop cloths. Because I am clumsy, and I trip on things and slip on things. Plus, if I were to leave drips of paint on a drop cloth, I would inevitably step in that paint and track it throughout the house anyway. So instead, I paint with a big cotton rag handy and use it to clean up drips as they happen. If I don't see them until they are dry, a cloth moistened with ammonia does a great job of cleaning up drips of paint on hardwood, plastic toilet seats, porcelain, vinyl shower surrounds, and painted radiators. Any other surfaces you want me to test?

Another thing you should know about my painting is that I am terrified of heights, which makes it all the more ridiculous that I had to do a good chunk of this painting while balanced on the side of my bathtub. I tried to channel the Fab Five U.S. women's gymnastic team, and managed to get everything painted without killing myself. 

Next steps include prepping and painting the wood trim and doors and the lower half of the walls, which are covered in wood paneling. I also need to pick out and install some towel bars and a toilet paper holder, and some shelving. I have an awesome, cedar lined, linen closet in the bathroom, but I would like some more towel hooks and an open shelf to hold my radio and a few other items and keep them off the floor.

But I'm really happy with the color and it makes the bathroom really feel like it belongs to me.

Here's the general procedure I used for painting the bathroom:

1. Move everything movable out of the bathroom, including the shower curtain rod and towels.

2. Using a three-inch metal putty knife, scrape all loose paint, trying not to gouge holes in the wall in your enthusiasm. 

3. While you're at it, improperly use the putty knife to remove the screws on your switch plates and outlet covers and put them somewhere safe. Either put the screws back in the wall or tape them to the switch plates. You'll thank me later!

4. Using a sanding block, smooth the areas where you scraped paint, any drips the last painter left, and anything else that won't look nice under a new coat of paint.

My prep equipment: spackle, a putty knife, and a sanding block made from a scrap of 1x4 with sandpaper tacked to it.

5. Using spackle and your (newly cleaned) putty knife, put a thin layer of spackle on any scratch, hole, or dent too deep to be covered by paint.
6. Wander around your house spackling other holes in areas that will be painted soon while you wait for the spackle to dry. Or sit and watch the Olympics, whatever.
7. Sand the spackle with your trusty sanding block, all the while plotting to pull a Tom Sawyer on your eventual children and convince them that sanding is both "fun" and "rewarding" so you never have to do this again.
8. Use a broom and dustpan or your trusty Shop-Vac, Rosie, to clean up the mess of scraped paint, sanding dust, and garden-variety dust and lint from all surfaces of the bathroom.
9. Wash the walls using a bucket of soapy water (I used a couple tablespoons of powdered laundry detergent in a 2-gallon bucket of hot water, and an enormous sponge, which worked great) and a sponge, and then rinse each section with a sponge wrung out in clear water. Make sure you get all the dust, hair and sanding dust.
10. When the walls are dry, use a small paint brush to cut in around the trim, ceiling and floor, being careful not to overload your paintbrush and drip pink paint everywhere.
11. Use a larger brush or roller to paint the big areas of the wall.

12. After the paint dries, look at it in good light and touch up any spots you missed. Lightly sand and repaint any drips or dramatic brush marks. 

13. Feel proud and enjoy your new bathroom!

Blueberry Jalapeno Jam for the Fridge

I picture myself in my own little house on the prairie, making a larder full of pickles and preserves. What actually happens is I buy fruit and vegetables and they mummify in the back of my fridge unless I have a very specific recipe in mind.

That is nearly what happened this week. I bought a pound of blueberries on Thursday, and accidentally left them home instead of bringing them when I went away for the weekend. So I came home to a bunch of blueberries and three nectarines on their last legs. I had a handful of berries with my yogurt for breakfast, but I decided I needed to act fast or lose these berries.

I looked at some small batch blueberry jams, including this one from Food in Jars and this one from Local Kitchen Blog. I love Marissa's small scale, but I didn't have any ginger. I did, however, have half a jalapeno left from some recent cooking.

I followed Marisa's sugar to berry ratio from the ginger jam and took some advice from Local Kitchen about ingredients. Here's how it went down:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of blueberries, rinsed and picked over (2 cups once mashed)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Mash the berries, pour in a saucepan. I guess you could mash them in the saucepan, but then how would you know how much you had?
2. Add sugar, pepper, lemon juice and cinnamon.
3. Heat over medium heat for 20 minutes or so until it is thick (if I knew what I was talking about I would tell you something about degrees or the plate test, but I don't, so I just pretended). Please feel free to refer to the recipes I mentioned for the science-y stuff.
4. Pour into jars. I got about 2 half pints (but I only had one half pint jar so I had to put the rest in a (very clean) salsa jar I had in the cabinet. (Yay for nested parentheses!)). Store in the fridge.

It's good. It isn't spicy, probably because the pepper was surprisingly mild, but it has a bit of a pepper smell/flavor. It is sort of...lip-warming. It's going to be awesome on buttered bread, or cornbread. I'm also thinking maybe about quesadillas with sharp cheddar and this jam, since I read this blueberry cheddar dip recipe. I can't wait!

Bachelor's Jam

I first read about Bachelor's Jam back in the winter in this article from the NY Times and was captivated. It combines two of my favorite things: preserving fruit and drinking booze. I didn't think I'd get around to it until I lost my ever-loving mind and did Target supermarket-sweep style visited the kitchen section in Target tonight and made some carefully considered purchases.

In addition to some pint canning jars (because I have used every single Ball jar I own plus all the glass jars I can scavenge from salsa and pasta sauce without actually managing to do any canning) I picked up a one-gallon glass jar for bachelor's jam. It was about $8.00, so not an extravagant investment. And I figure if I don't make bachelor's jam every year of my life (for some reason) it will look really nice with cookies or something in it.

No matter what recipe I look at, they seem to be pretty much the same, probably because they all refer to the NY Times article.

I ended up buying vodka because reasonably good vodka was cheaper than reasonably good rum. I had two nectarines I wanted to rescue before I leave on vacation, so I peeled and chopped them, tossed them in the jar, covered them with about 1/3 cup of sugar and poured vodka over the whole mess. I put it in a dark cabinet and I hope I will remember it when I am at the grocery store and pick up some berries. Mmmm boozy berries.

I'm thinking it will be ready in time for the Christmas party, or maybe for New Year's.

Beef Taco Bake

I pinned this recipe from Thirty Handmade Days a while ago, thinking it be a nice change of pace from my usual Mexican routine: rice and bean burritos, refried bean nachos, and turkey tacos. I love one-dish meals but I'm usually cooking for one or two, so I am loathe to make a big pan of something that might not change my life.

But then a few things happened. One, it was a 90+ degree day where I had nothing better to do than cook all the things I'd been saving up all week while I sat in class. Two, my brother was going to be by for dinner, eventually. Three, I found some ground beef in the freezer. Four, I was sick to death of burritos.

So I popped open this recipe and that's when things got weird. I love the idea of the shredded tortillas and ground beef all mixed up in a tomatoey, cheesy sauce, and I love the sour cream sitting on top to cool it all off. But I am not a huge fan of tomato soup in recipes, and I wanted to use vegetables to give it a bit more texture, color, nutrition and flavor.

Anyway, here's what I used:


4 burrito sized tortillas, torn into 2" pieces
3/4 lb of ground beef
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1/4 of a large jalapeno, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 can red enchilada sauce
1 cup chunky salsa
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup of frozen corn kernels
4 scallions, chopped
sour cream, for serving

Then I did this:

1. Sautee a chopped onion, green pepper, 2 cloves of garlic and a quarter of a jalapeno in bacon fat. (Oh, because another thing that happened is I already had the cast iron skillet out to cook bacon and onion for some baked beans).

2. Remove the veggies and brown the ground beef. I tossed in some chili powder and ground cumin, because who was going to stop me?
3. Toss the veggies back in the skillet, add a can of red enchilada sauce, salsa, 1 cup of shredded cheese and torn tortillas into a casserole.

4. Add a couple handfuls of frozen corn kernels.
5. Put the whole delicious disaster in an 8x8 13x9 baking dish
6. Bake, covered, at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover for 5 minutes or so to make the cheese crispy and bubbly and try not to dance around the kitchen.
7. Top with remaining shredded cheese and chopped scallions.
8. Completely forget to take a finished picture of the dish and serve with sour cream and beer.

I ended up making a larger pan than the recipe called for, because with the added vegetables, it would have overflowed the 8x8 pan. The four of us ate 80% of it. There was about one good-sized scoop left. I put it in a bowl in the fridge and put it in a burrito for brunch a couple days later. Still. So. Good.

Beans 2 Ways or Ingredient Obsession

During the school year, I am busier than I want to be, and it seems like in the summer there is always something going on that trumps the household stuff. But this year, I am making an effort to live in my house and cook in my kitchen.

I'm also on a frugality/nutrition/novelty/planning-ahead kick. All these forces have combined to make me a dried bean nut! It started out with some obsessive pinning to my food experiments board on Pinterest. And then came the reading about the bean-soaking controversy that apparently rages...somewhere.

In the end, I soaked a pound and a half of black beans, thinking I would throw them all in the slow cooker and make black refried beans like these to fill my tummy and my freezer. But then those beans, when soaked, FILLED a three-quart pot, so I had to expand my horizons. I put about 3 cups of them in the slow cooker in that freakishly simple recipe from 100 Days of Real Food.

Then I took the remaining cup and a half, simmered them on the stove, and started thinking baked beans.

I have only made baked beans once before, so I had about 7 browser tabs open while I compared techniques, recipes and traditions. I referred mostly to these:
-Boston Baked Beans from allrecipes.com
-Baked Beans from Scratch from Delightful Repast

I ended up with:

1/2 pound of bacon, roughly chopped and cooked until it renders some delicious fat, with the rationale that my cast iron skillet can always use a little more seasoning
1 onion, slivered and sauteed in the rendered bacon fat
1 1/2 cup black beans, simmered for about an hour in 6 cups of water

Sauce:
1/2 cup ketchup
2 or 3 TBSP spicy brown mustard
1 TBSP Worcestershire
1/2 tsp black pepper, fresh ground
1 tsp salt
3 TBSP brown sugar

I put the sauce ingredients in a saucepan like I was going to cook them, which I did once before, and then I decided they were going to be in the oven for hours and hours and that was really overkill, so I just scraped them over the beans.

Here's what went wrong:
The beans split while they were simmering, maybe because I cooked them in cold water and it took them so long to get up to a boil so I could simmer them.
I was out of brown sugar and I never have molasses in the house, so I had to wait for my brother, who was on his way over, to finish the sauce.
I don't have a casserole with a lid, so I had to cover the beans with foil.
It was 90 damned degrees out and I was slaving over a hot stove.

Then I got started thinking about what I was going to do with all these baked beans, so I threw together a loaf of no-knead bread to bake on Sunday morning. The beans smell amazing, carmelized and bacony. I can't wait until they happen to my face.

Update: I had them for breakfast with tea and toast Sunday morning. They were a little too rich and sweet, because there were not quite enough beans for the amount of bacon and sugar. I probably could have drained the bacon a little better, too. When I defrost the rest, I plan to serve them with something very simple, like a (not sweet) cornbread, or some slow-cooker roasted pork or beef.

Did I mention none of this wasn't even for dinner tonight? For dinner we had what started out as this Beef Taco Bake, with many modifications. We will have to chat about that later.

Craigslist Chair - Deconstructed and Reconstructed

I monitor the free page on my local Craigslist site daily. I am always looking for a piece of solid wood furniture, pretty much for any part of the house, that needs cleaning and TLC. One day recently, I hit the jackpot. I dragged my brother across town to pick up this chair. I got so excited that I didn't even take a before picture.

It was covered in pet hair, and the cushions were kind of dingy. The rubber webbing for the seat was cracked, dry, and broken in a few spots. Not a problem, because I planned to paint the frame, pull out the rubber webbing and replace it with jute, and make new cushions. Easy peasy!

Fast forward to a year later. I dragged the chair in off the enclosed porch and pulled off the dry, cracked webbing. No problem...EXCEPT that the hammer-wielding demons who put the chair together put in cheap staples and nails that were not removable. I tried to pull them out and the heads came right off the nails.

Crap. So we went to plan B. Kevin did some research and promised me that vinegar (in the spray bottle pictured below) would dissolve the wood glue holding the strips of wood ruined by nails and staples. I sprayed and scraped, sprayed and hammered, sprayed and mopped the living room floor (oops) over the course of one afternoon and then I was able to hammer the pieces loose. You can see one piece on the towel below and the other waiting to meet its end.

Eventually I got the pieces of wood off and bought an eight-foot 1x3 from Home Depot for $1.27. I had the guy cut it in half so it would fit in Thor, my Civic. At home, I measured the chair and cut two pieces, 23 inches each, with my trusty $5 toolbox saw. Yep, while wearing flip-flops and a dress.

I used this thingamabobber -  that I bought for a dollar at a yard sale because a lady should have tools, even if she doesn't know what they are called, exactly, really, or at all - did the job of shaving a bit off one end of the board to make it fit in the slot in the chair. The piece of wood I was replacing was narrower.

This part of the project, cutting, fitting and installing the replacement board, took less than an hour. I could have kept it to 30 minutes, except one of the screws hit a knot in the new wood and I stripped the head and had to go rummaging for wood screws.

I had very few choices, but the smaller one worked.

BUT I managed to outdo my own personal rule that every project takes 3 trips to the hardware store. I got this done in just one trip to the HD for wood!

This is starting to look like a chair! I am really excited to buy some jute strapping (next time I get a Jo-Ann's coupon) and then I have to track down foam and fabric for the cushions. Reading chair, here I come!

Black Raspberries! Literally homemade!!

My yard grows a few things well: a butterfly bush, forsythia, tall, grassy, mower-resistant weeds, poison ivy (like a boss) and black raspberries. Since the raspberries are currently my only food crop, I hold them very dear. But they grow in small numbers. One Saturday a couple weeks ago, I picked a single cup of them and made the teensiest batch of jam.

Over the next week, I picked another generous cup and decided to try my hand at black raspberry shrub. Fruity syrup with vinegar sounds a little crazy at first, but it's a formula I had come across in some of my vintage cookbooks and homemaking books, and when I saw this recipe at Food in Jars, I had to try it.

Like Marisa at Food in Jars says, I mashed the berries with a nearly equal amount of sugar, put them in a class spaghetti sauce jar, and ignored them in the fridge for about 5 days. (Um, she didn't say to use a spaghetti sauce jar, that is just how I roll. Don't judge her.) Then I strained the syrup (I need a food mill or something, this metal sieve and spoon thing is for the birds).

I ended up with 1 1/3 cups of syrup, so I added about 2/3 cup of apple cider vinegar to bring the total to 2 cups. Then I put the shrub back in the same (newly washed) jar. I put a piece of plastic wrap over the opening before I screwed the lid on because a) I am classy, and ii) the lid smells a little tomato-y, even after a fun-filled ride through the dishwasher.

Will it be delicious? Very possibly! I am trying to let it sit a couple days to "mellow" and I'll bring it to my brother and sister-in-law's on Friday. They are adventurous eaters, and I feel like maybe I will need a support system for this.

Furthermore, can we talk about my blackberry fixation these days? I bought this Wild Black beer the other day because it is blackberry flavored and has a creepy purple dog on the label. It's too sweet and not fruity enough, but it satisfied my curiosity.

Prepare for Christmas: The List

Every year, usually around December first, I start a list of people I will exchange Christmas gifts with. My immediate family is pretty small, just my parents, my brother and my sister-in-law. Over the years the list of family we exchange gifts with has gotten shorter as kids grow up and the economy shrinks everyone's disposable income.

Then there are a few friends, but that list is short, too, since I introduced the "Why don't we get together for a nice dinner in January?" policy.

Then come the co-workers, including the few people I supervise. For these people, I'm always looking for something unique, personal, inexpensive, and fair, so that each person in the group gets something that is exactly comparable to all the others. These kinds of gifts of obligation are my least favorite. Of course I appreciate my co-workers and of course I don't spend enough time expressing that, but something about doing it at Christmas just feels false, like I can never quite do the right thing to express how much I appreciate them in a season where we are all too busy to stop and appreciate a damn thing.

And then there is a Secret Santa in at least one group, and then...my list isn't short anymore.

I hate the idea of giving gifts just to have something in your hand at a party. I feel like everyone loses when I stand in front of the pre-boxed gifts at Target and pick the thing that will get me closest to the $10.00 gift limit set by the governing body of each social group.

Always, as the pressure mounts and the Christmas countdown accelerates and the lines get longer and my bank account gets smaller, I wish I had planned ahead. I start getting really creative with homemade gift ideas when the only way to finish them is to cut my sleep down to zero and eat Taco Bell every night so I don't have to give up any precious craft space for cooking. (Which, yes, defeats the purpose of homemade gifts to save money.)

So this year, I'm doing it differently. I'm going to start my list in the summer, set up space in my guest room for each project, and prepare everything I can, short of the edibles. Maybe I'll try shopping for those, too, stocking up on flour and sugar, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips, as soon as it's practical.

If you'd like to play along at home, today is the day to make your list. Don't forget anyone:

• immediate family
• secondary family: Now is the time to plant the seed of a Secret Santa gift exchange for everyone over the age of, say, 15, or a household-to-household Secret Santa exchange if you have a herd of in-laws, nieces and nephews.
• friends
• co-workers: Again, is it possible to inspire your office to give to a charitable organization or all chip in for a special lunch instead of individual gifts?
• business associates: Not a category I have, but I know it's a big one for some individuals and small business-people
• the "Help": This can be anyone from the paper boy to your children's teachers, all those people you have some kind of non-personal relationship with that you feel a need to recognize during the holidays - more on this group later as we plan gifts.
• charity - Think now about what organizations you would like to, or will be asked to, support as the holiday season goes on. 

Home-Improvement ADD

There is no neurological, medical or psychological reason for my lack of follow-through right now. But I can not focus on a single home-improvement project (or craft project, or other personal project) long enough to get the job done.

It's May. I did manage to put in one small (3x4 or 4x5?) vegetable bed, and put down some (but not all) the grass seed needed in the front yard. But these are small victories, considering I am a year and a half into owning this home and I have only painted one full room.

Last weekend, I was sitting in the living room, reading a work-related book (something I have to finish to do an upcoming, if not time-sensitive, project) and about every 10 minutes, I put my finger in the book and started to plan a household project. First, I said to Kevin, "I need to pick a color for the living room."

"Aren't you reading?" he asked.

Ten minutes later, I said, "Remind me to pick up some webbing for that chair when we go out."

He said, "I thought you were reading."

A little bit after that, I declared, "I should see if I can borrow a steamer and do that wallpaper when school gets out."

"You're not reading, are you?"

I have big hopes for this summer, but first I need a plan. A daily small project? A large one that I spend a couple weeks on? I don't know. Kevin would have me spend the summer at war with creeping charlie and poison ivy, planting grass and whacking weeds. The peeling paint in the bathroom, the filthy back porch, the unsightly kitchen wallpaper and the untouched guest room are all calling my name. Oh, and the slugs are eating my newly planted basil. Where do I begin?

I am thinking small right now. I have the primer out to paint the inside of the living room window seat, hoping that it will give me functional storage and free up space for the next project. First I just need to remove some old carpet, vacuum and wipe out the debris, hope there's nothing gross under the pink carpet, and then prime and paint.

Oh, and did I mention I am taking 3 classes this summer? And that I volunteered to help a friend paint her nursery, out of town?

Right, and I wonder why I never get anything done.

An Internet FULL of Bathroom Updates!

I have been thinking in a vague sort of way about tackling my bathroom this spring. I got a brand new window back in the fall (the old one was leaking water from the shower down through the wall) and it's time to make the paint and other details just as new and shiny.

And then I was doing the reading-blogs-instead-of-doing-laundry thing and I figured out that everyone else is thinking about bathrooms this week, too.

The lovely people at Young House Love, who are pretty much the home improvers I want to be when I grow up, just painted their bathroom walls gray. It brings out the gray accents in the beige (or maybe it's cream?) tile in the bathroom. Maybe someday I will be as brave with color as they are.

Then I meandered over to Ducks in a Row. I sympathize with her neglect of her bathroom, decoration-wise. Luckily, I don't need kid-friendly storage myself, but I am definitely going for a functional, low-maintenance bathroom.

My thoughts? It looks a little like this so far.

It's in a sad state now:

The bottom half of the walls are white-painted wood paneling and the upper walls are painted in flat yellow paint, which is flaking, as is the ceiling paint.

The sink and vanity are newish but nothing special. The floor is inexplicably hardwood, but pretty nice hardwood.

The tub needs to be reglazed or whatever it is that tubs need. Eventually, I hope to take down the vinyl shower surround, put up tile, and replace the wooden window trim with PVC. There is a fabulously placed shower window, which I am used to now and it gives a nice breeze during a shower on a warm day.

Currently, there is one towel hook, no bars, no toilet paper hanger. I have a fantastic cedar closet that I don't use very efficiently. That needs to change.

And the light fixture needs to go. I am going to stick with brushed nickel for the metal finish and I hope I can eventually get all the hardware in the same finish.

Next summer's project, maybe, is to clean and repaint the radiator. It also drips on the hardwood and that can't be good.

I haven't started anything yet, but I think it might happen suddenly, as soon as I find a good deal on a gallon of pink paint and the light fixture I am looking for.

I will keep you posted, of course.

Wallpaper of Doom! - The Before

A guy owned my house for about two years before he sold it to me, and before that, it had been owned since the 1950s by a couple named Muriel and Ray. The one thing I know about Muriel and Ray is that one of them had a passion for wallpaper. The owner in between ignored some, and seems to have painted over some more (can't wait to find out for sure!) so it has been handed down to me.

I couldn't even think about the kitchen wallpaper with three adults trying to share that little kitchen for a while, so I started with the small, awkward closet-ish space between the dining room and the cellar door. The original layout is something of a mystery. The doors don't add up, and it is part plaster and part drywall, which makes me think it was changed after it was built. I wonder about these things when I should be doing homework.

And I had plenty of time to ponder it as I stripped the wallpaper from hell. Here's how it looked originally.

If you guessed that the long-time owners were smokers, you guessed right! The kitchen is the most recent addition to the house, and that looks like it hasn't been repainted or scrubbed in the 30 years since it was expanded, so I'm guessing we are looking at about 30 years of cigarette smoke. 

This picture shows the view from the top of the cellar stairs, and gives the best perspective on the two types of wallpaper, accented by the enormous cobwebs festooning the ceiling. Above and to the right, you see the shelf and closet bar that form my dining room coat closet. It is not what you would call "attractive" or "functional," but it is mine, and that's something.

(Don't let the floral wreath fool you. It could be years before you see another decorative item in my house. That one was a gift from co-workers at my last job.)

Here, from the top of the stairs, you see that once there were baseboards.  You can also see that the basement door has taken some heavy traffic. I am weighing my options for cleaning, scraping and repainting that beast.

I couldn't help myself. Even before I got the pictures taken, I had to start peeling the striped, more recent vintage, wallpaper.

And I'm so glad I did, because there is nowhere else in the house where the smoke damage is so apparent. Having scrubbed years of cigarette residue from walls, from curtains, from floors, I can only imagine the years of focused effort required to make this space THIS gross.

I couldn't wait to start stripping it. The sooner it was out of my life, the better. So that's how I spent New Year's Day last year. I decided I couldn't stand even the beginning of 2011 with that wallpaper. I'll show you how it all turned out very, very soon.