My Pantry is so Tumblr....

Inspiration strikes at some of the funniest times, places and circumstances. There are times when you are searching for something in particular; something that will fulfill a need you have – whatever that need might be. And sometimes you’re just stupidly wandering when you’re smacked in the face with an idea.

As I wandered around World Market on Christmas Eve (so that Mikey could grab something in Target I couldn’t see) I came upon this wire rack that hung on the wall. I saw it from across the other side of the store. I was drawn to it. I wanted it. I didn’t know what for. And I do that enough to know that I CANNOT buy something because I think I MIGHT have a use for it. (Incidentally, these are all the really cool things other people end up scoring from me on the BuyNothing site when I finally decide to get rid of them. Sorry Buy Nothing folks, I’m trying to reign myself in.) I walked away. And then I thought of something I could do with it. I have unused space in my pantry! I could put it there, rearrange my kitchen, put all my food in the pantry instead of having it in the cupboards, it would free up space to have easy access to my small kitchen appliances, oh my goodness it would look really cute too….aaaaaannnnnnd, Mikey showed up, “time to go!” And there ended my spiraling idea reel. I said a silent goodbye as I got one last glimpse at the rack….

I COULD NOT stop thinking about it. And, after Christmas, I had EVEN MORE new small kitchen appliances! (As a side note I have made two more meals – one with the InstantPot and one with the zoodler – and both were Ah-mazing.) I told Mikey about my idea. And here’s the thing I love about him: He instantly started asking questions. Where do you want to put it? What will you use it for? How will that help you organize in the kitchen? I had answers to all of those. And so he said, “Well, let’s go look at it.”

After a couple of hours at the thrift store fulfilling our recent book obsession, we ended up at the World Market in Woodinville. At first, I couldn’t find it. But then, hiding in the back corner of the store, was this jewel; this space saving, Tumblr worthy (that’s a term Lil uses – I only pretend to know what it means), fix all my kitchen woes, rack.

Him: (he picks it up and makes a face) “It’s kind of chintzy.”

Me: (in my head) Ugh.

Him: “$129.99! What the fuck?!?!”

Me: (Dreams dashed just a little bit more) “Really, you think it’s chintzy? I like it.”

Him: “I’m sorry sweetheart, I just think it’s overpriced and not well built.”

Me: (in my head) Damn.

And so we meandered back to the front of the store. My pantry wall was doomed to be ugly, bare and useless.

One more stop before we hit home to settle down with a nice charcuterie plate for a quiet New Year’s night. All we wanted at Costco was a package of assorted meats. But my mom had just bought this cat tree, and I thought we should look at them. Maybe that would keep the bastards from clawing up my stair rail. (More on the feline idiots later.) As we walked back to the refrigerated food section we passed by some metal baskets. I picked one up.

Me: “This isn’t chintzy. It’s actually pretty nice. Do you think it would work?”

Him: “These are pretty nice. And they’re less expensive than that chintzy rack.”

Me: “What do you think? They come in pairs…..6?”

Him: “I think we could fit 8. I could definitely affix them to the wall for you.”
Me: “Are you sure? They’re kind of heavy. And I want to put a bunch of food in them.”

Him” “I’m sure. Let’s get them.”

Me: (in my head) YES! Damn I love this man. Pantry bliss is on it’s way!

Who rearranges their kitchen after living in a house for 11 years? I DO! I was so excited to see them going up. I could barely wait for him to have them all installed. I was already pulling everything out of the cupboards and envisioning how I would carefully group everything.

It only took about an hour for Mikey to have it all up and ready to go. He sauntered off to the office to write. I spent the next 2 hours pulling everything out of drawers and cabinets, throwing old stuff away (Seriously? I knew no one ever drank that mixable lemonade but I didn’t know it expired in 2011!), and cleaning out said drawers and cabinets for new kitchen appliance homes (because no one likes moving into a dirty home!)

I can’t thank Mikey enough for not letting me buy the rack from World Market. These baskets hold more, look nicer, are well made and look amazing. Now my pantry’s mission in life is fulfilled: complete usable space. And I get to drink my coffee every morning looking at my Tumblr pantry.

The Holy Grail....I Think I Found It!

Me and my big ideas. I’m always searching. Always on the lookout for something awesome that could make a difference in my world. Sometimes because I’m just curious, and sometimes out of necessity.

My Crock Pot has been something of a monkey on my back since I got it. First, I wanted a programmable Crock Pot, and I got one. Except it isn’t programmable on the front end, only in its cook time (start in the morning when you leave and then it holds your food on warm until you turn it off). Second, it cooks FAR hotter than I believe a Crock Pot should cook on low heat. Third, the handle slowly started to crumble – not a huge functional issue, but a pain none the less. Fourth, I must’ve slammed it down on the counter a little too hard one time as one of the legs is dented in so that I must put a kitchen towel underneath so that she stays level during use. Mostly, I just needed a new one.

A shot of the handle on my ghetto Crock Pot with the gangsta lean

In spending some time searching for the Crock Pot of my dreams some other appliances passed through the Google indexes – some of which I had noticed before only briefly, and some that I had never heard of. I was looking for a number of things in a slow cooker:

1. A machine that would take whatever I dumped into it in the morning and make it into a delectable meal by the time I got home from work.
2. A machine that was programmable…ON THE FRONT END! I want to put my food in the pot, and if it only takes 4 hours to cook, and I’m leaving at 8am, and returning at 4pm, it will not start cooking until noon.
3. A machine big enough to cook a roast that is several pounds.

And then I noticed the Instant Pot. I quickly scrolled through article after article on Pinterest. I searched through recipes, through what to do if you’re a beginner, I Googled what it would cook, how it could be used, how big it was, what you could put in it, how easy it was to figure everything out. And when I was done with my research, I KNEW that the Instant Pot was what I wanted. I quickly added it to my Wish List (something I’ll write about another time).

The battle ensued between Mikey and my Momma as to who was going to present this culinary treasure to me on Christmas. My Momma emerged the victor – though Mikey will likely reap most of the spoils. My parents got me the Instant Pot, a lid, and a cookbook to help me start making delicious, healthy meals.

I pulled it out of the box on New Year’s Day and read the entire manual. (Yes, I’m THAT person.) After reading the manual, and a few articles from Pinterest on how to start out, I cooked myself some water – a first step in preparing the machine for other gastronomic magic.

In our house we try to eat healthy – as healthy as possible. And we love to snack on hard boiled eggs. Side note: Did you know hard boiled eggs provide good fats, are naturally high in protein, contain good amounts of vitamin A & D, and is only 80 calories? When I found a recipe to cook hard boiled eggs in 5 minutes – YES PLEASE! Incidentally, being a pressure cooker, the Instant Pot should help us keep out of restaurants so much. To demonstrate how much time it saves: It will cook dry beans in under an hour!

I followed the very simple instructions on how to cook the eggs: 1 cup of water in the pot, add steamer tray, place eggs in, close lid and set timer. That’s it. The recipe promised perfectly cooked eggs, with shells that peel off easily. And it did not disappoint! No more ugly deviled eggs!

I haven’t had a chance to cook anything else in my Instant Pot yet (spent the following day zoodling (more on that later) but I’m ready to roll. I seriously can’t wait to put my ol’ Crock Pot on the Buy Nothing site….and maybe my rice cooker too!

BLTA's & Mushroom Soup

Like many American's my family loves a good BLT. I mean, it's bacon, do I need to say more? The hubs and I have always liked our BLT's with tomato soup but my dear girl isn't much of a fan. When I found this recipe for Mushroom Soup I knew we had to try it - and what better to pair it with than a delicious BLT(A) - my way!

Mushroom Soup
Click on the link for the recipe I re-pinned. I only made super minor modifications

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups of white button mushrooms, sliced thin
1 3/4 cups of baby portobello mushrooms, sliced thin
1/2 c porcini mushrooms
1/2 c portobello mushrooms (gills removed) diced small
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
6 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 c vegetable stock
2 Tbsp flour dissolved in 2 Tbsp water
2 c half-n-half
Dash of nutmeg
Fresh cracked pepper
Wondra for thickening

1. Heat olive oil in a sauce pan. Add butter and lightly sauté garlic on medium heat.
2. Add in mushrooms, thyme, bay leaves and Worcestershire sauce. Cook over medium heat for 6 minutes.
 

3. Add in chicken broth. Stir occasionally until broth boils, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
4 Add diluted flour in, and stir constantly (while simmering) until the mixture thickens. Season with salt and nutmeg. Taste and adjust seasoning.
5. Finally, add half-n-half, and bring to a simmer. Turn heat off.
6. Serve hot in your soup bowl. Add freshly ground black pepper.

I specified the mushrooms I used and liked and also left out the choices of dried vs. fresh thyme (I aways prefer fresh herbs and I happen to have a ton of thyme growing outside). I also try not to use heavy whipping cream anytime I can avoid it. I LOVE LOVE LOVE vegetable broth and use it often in place of chicken broth. Usually I buy the Knorr brand vegetable broth cubes. They dissolve quickly and easily and have great flavor. Also, I generally totally shy away from the use of nutmeg - for some reason I can taste it in almost anything and, for me, it overpowers a lot of dishes, but I did use just a pinch and it really worked.

BLTA's
I know you probably know how to make a BLT. But I like to put a little twist on all of the sandwiches I make - just so you know I made it :)

Ingredients:

1 lb bacon
4 large leaves of iceberg lettuce
3 lg Roma tomatoes
1 lg avocado
1 tsp lime juice
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp lemon pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
mayonnaise
sea salt & pepper to taste
8 slices multi-grain bread

1. Cook the bacon. I don't know about you but I hate when I bite into a BLT and the bacon all falls out the back. I've seen this technique across the internet for weaving and baking bacon for burgers and so I tried it for our BLT's and it works amazingly well.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Separate bacon into 4 groups of 4 slices. With the four slices stacked on top of each other, cut one third of the bacon off.

Next, line a large aluminum pan (with a lip) with tin foil. Place each of the four bacon slices next to each other. Using the pieces you cut off weave the bacon through, starting by alternating one piece over, one piece under to make a woven piece of bacon the size of your bread. Repeat for each of the 4 bacon groups.

Put the pan in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

2. Slice tomatoes. Sprinkle with fresh sea salt and lemon pepper

3. Peel the avocado and place in a bowl. Mash with a fork until it looks something like a really chunky guacamole. (Simply slicing avocados and adding them to your sandwich will have the same "fall out the back" effect as the bacon and again, I hate that!) Add the lime juice, the garlic powder and salt & pepper to taste.

4. Toast bread.

5. Take the bacon out of the oven and drain on paper towels.

6. Assemble your sandwich by spreading some of the avocado spread on one side of the bread and mayonnaise on the other. Lightly sprinkle oregano on the mayonnaise. Add tomatoes to the avocado side, and lettuce on the mayonnaise side. Place bacon weave on the tomatoes, close the sandwich and cut at an angle (perfect for dipping).

Like I said, I know we can all throw together a BLT. I just like to give mine a little bit of flair!

My Newest (Old) Project

It started snowing here on January 14th. Over the course of 6 days approximately 24 inches of snow fell at our house. As of Tuesday at 4:30pm I have been at home....with the kids....and the hubs. Now, granted I had to work on contract language and I was answering questions from my Union brothers and sisters about OT, but other than that, I didn't do ANYTHING. I seriously wonder what it would be like if I wasn't normally so busy. I think I would turn into a couch potato. It's not that I was was watching TV the whole time - we played in the snow, we played legos, we played on the computer, we Skyped Murmur, we taught the kids how to play Hearts, and Spades, we played Euchre, and Sorry, we made cookies, and I did clean up the house. But the week was wrought with organization possibilities that now, on Sunday Eve, are blown. By this afternoon I was so mad at myself I had to kick my butt into gear and decide to do something. So I'm tackling a project that's been ongoing for years.

I am a magazine article keeper. Somehow I've justified to myself that if I just pull out the stuff that I'm going to look at again, or do, or cook, it will be much more space saving than keeping all those "whole" magazines. (And really, it is! I've been tearing these out for years and this is what I've got!) Unfortunately, with the exception of a few things over the years that I've remembered and searched through all of this to find, most of it has just sat in this pile. I think this is like the paper form of Pinterest...

Tonight, however, I decided to once and for all organize all of these into some useful reference guides. I bought binders for all of these years ago. And some of them I have actually filed away. But as I tear out more and more the pile just grows. The plan: to organize into similar categories, slide into page covers, label binders accordingly and actually be able to use them!

Here's where I started:

I spent the evening sorting them into categories and getting rid of the things that I can't figure out why I kept. Then, I slid them into page protectors and put them into binders. Next, I will label them all and create my self a reference guide of ideas. I will post a picture of the final product when I'm done.

As you can imagine, many of these are recipes. What I have done, and will continue to do - only in a little more organized fashion - is tear out new recipes I think we should try. Then, after I've made the meal once, the family votes on whether or not it's a keeper. If it's not, it goes in the trash. If it is, I transfer the recipe to a recipe card and file it in the box. The problem is I don't get them written down all that quickly a lot of the time. My cookbook cupboard is then overflowing with random loose papers and pieces of magazine articles.

In an effort to make it more organized I am instead going to create The Reedy Family Cookbook. I am going to design a template to enter all of our favorite recipes into, print, slide into sheet protectors and put in a binder that will serve as our central cookbook. No more trying to explain to Brandon when I'm running late what kind of paper the recipe is on, where I stashed it, or what kind of stain is on it! (Believe me, I've run late before and he's had to cook unexpectedly and we've spent a half hour on the phone while he runs from pile to pile looking for a recipe. He LOVES that.)

As a bonus to creating the cookbook and having all of our favorites in one place, I have had it in the back of my mind for years to write down all of the kids favorites (along with the family standbys) and make them a cookbook for when they move out. I remember in college making Stuffed Peppers out of the Betty Crocker cookbook (a rare, yummy, home cooked dinner in college that did not come out of a bag with Chinese writing on the side) and after taking one bite thinking, "this does NOT taste like Mom's!" When I called her to ask what I did wrong? "Oh honey, I don't make it like that. I changed some things. Here's what I do...." I figure if I start now I won't be scrambling to type and print recipe pages as she packs her final bags to leave. And this way, she'll know the crazy things I do to recipes to make them "mine."

So that's on my agenda; on the short term list. Getting my pile of magazine articles out has renewed my energy and my mood. I'm just no good at sitting around! More to come on this one...

My Dinner Planning Method

I grew up with a Mom that could cook. We had family dinner's every night at the dinner table and they were (usually) really good. We also went to restaurant's a lot when I was a kid and I had the opportunity to try a lot of different kinds of foods. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that now. I am NOT a picky eater. There isn't anything I won't try once.

Brandon and I saw eye-to-eye on keeping the dinner every night together thing alive right away. He also grew up having family dinner's. And he also will try almost any food. And so will our kids. Because we've exposed them to things they didn't think they'd like and made them try it anyway.

Not to toot my own horn or anything but I think I'm a pretty good cook (guess my Momma taught me well.) I seem to have a knack for knowing what spices or other foods would complement whatever I'm throwing together. And I like to cook. I love to try new foods and, as a result, I like to try to cook new foods. In fact, we try to work at least one new food a week in. Sometimes it's a hit, sometimes not so much. But because I work, and cooking when you get home from work is not always a desirable, I make a menu and shop two weeks in advance. I get asked occasionally by friends for my menu. It makes me laugh when they read it and say, "What is this?"

So tonight I'm sharing my list with you. Here is a sample of one of my menus:

• Baked seasoned chicken - my special veggie rice - green beans
• Homemade Crock Pot Chili
• Bacon swiss & spinach quiche
• Chicken Tacos (we have a new "no-tomato" salsa to try with this one)
• Marinated steak - fried fingerlings (red/yellow/purples) - broccoli
• Baked pork chops with mushroom gravy - wild mushroom couscous - corn
• Pasta Primavera
• Stir Fry (this is an easy one to try new things in - try bamboo shoots)
• Homemade Pad Thai
• Chicken Tortilla Soup
• Sauce Marco Polo (a recipe my mom got off Mr. Roger's Neighborhood when I was a kid)
• Hors de Oeuvre's (Lilly's Birthday. I'm making a bunch of stuff that night)
• Red Robin (Lilly's Birthday Party)
• Free night....I'm looking for a good recipe for Red Curry....

So that's what we'll be eating. Of course things change and we keep it flexible. Nothing has to be made on a particular night (except Lilly's Birthday this week). It really is fun to work new things into your menu. They say variety is the spice of life - I say I'd like to know what's in "variety" so that I could see what I could cook with it!