Appliance Envy

As you can probably tell, I spend a lot of time either in my kitchen or obsessing about my kitchen. I think this is sort of strange for someone who would never describe herself as a "foodie," but it's an interest I developed after getting married and it seems to have stuck around. Cooking and baking are my favorite non-professional hobby, and one of the best ways for me to relax.

Part of what I'm trying to do in my new kitchen is to really get set up to make a greater variety of foods, and to make my normal foods better, faster, stronger than they were before. In my mind, this means assembling the right set of ingredients and tools. The former is a gradual process, and has involved switching to more organic and bulk food purchases from the "whole foods" style stores in the area.

The latter (tools) is a lot harder, and a lot more expensive. We kept very few of our appliances when we moved. Most of them had been the cheapest versions from Target or Walmart and were already in sad shape, or they were so easy to replace that we just didn't worry about it. I think we only had a waffle maker when we arrived, and that was because it was expensive to begin with (also, a christmas present to my husband). Everything else would have to be purchased when we got here, and hopefully upgraded from what we had before.

So far we've bought two appliances - a coffee maker and a rice cooker. The rice cooker almost wouldn't have made it onto my original list, but after making rice in a pot twice in the last month, it went straight to the top. But these are far from my ideal in the kitchen, and there's a lot of work left to be done.

There's also a lot of appliances to choose from, and while it's fun to wander aimlessly through Bed, Bath, and Beyond to see what strikes my fancy, it's not very prudent to do so. I recommend instead having a plan of what will be most useful and most practical for your needs. In a very particular order, here are the top five appliances I want for my kitchen right now -

1) Food Processor: How could I have never had a food processor before? I don't know, but it's true. I had a blender in California, but it was never useful in the way that people dreamily talk about food processors. Especially now that I'm branching out into the world of canning, I feel like a food processor is a necessity. Oh, and if you need information about whether to choose a blender or food processor? Check out this link here.

2) Stand Mixer: So wonderful in baking. My favorite double chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for mixing the batter for 13 minutes straight, whipping tons of air into it. Lots of bread recipes instruct you to use a stand mixer in place of kneading. I've had a hand mixer before, but I think it's time to bump it up to the next level. The stand mixer is where it's at.

3) Bread Maker: My grandmother-in-law bought me a fabulous book about bread making for christmas this year. It follows the no-knead method from Jim Lahey, and it's astonishingly good. But that's more of an artisan, dip-in-olive-oil sort of bread, and wouldn't be great for making sandwiches. I'd like to stop buying bread at the store altogether, but sandwiches are a staple lunch food for us. Enter, the bread maker. This would be the perfect addition to helping us become more self-sustaining, especially if I can learn to make a whole wheat bread at home.

4) Slow Cooker: Mmm, slow cookers. To me they imply chili and stew and shredded bbq pork. Don't get me wrong, I love my dutch oven, but sometimes I need something easier. The idea of putting dinner on to cook at 8 am is just luxurious.

5) Ice Cream Maker: This is pure indulgence here. One of my loveliest friends pointed me towards Annies Eats a few months ago, and Annie celebrated National Ice Cream Month throughout all of July. Different types of ice creams, sauces, and toppings, and it all looked incredible. I have been craving the ability to make my own ice cream ever since. It just sounds like so much fun!

That's my current plan of attack for filling out my appliances. It's probably going to take months to accomplish (as this lot together? Probably $1000 worth of appliances right there), but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. There's a nice looking stand mixer for $40 at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. We'll see how long I can avoid the temptation.

- Caity

My "Pantry"

I like my new kitchen. It's got a good amount of walking space, and not a bad amount of cabinet space. But I am quite the hoarder when it comes to my kitchen, and since arriving in Champaign I've been trying to buy in bulk when I can. I'm also trying to stock up on some of the kitchen appliances I've never had before (slow cooker! food processor! stand mixer!), and those take up space. What's a girl to do?

There's a fairly awkward space in the first floor bathroom, right off the kitchen. It's an old shower, but I would never suggest anyone use it for that purpose. And instead of just wasting the space, I've erected a set of shelves, and am using the area as a "pantry." Putting my canned, jarred, and otherwise sealed food items in there.

Take a look -

Here's the entrance to it, wedged between my stove and fridge.

And the inside! It's a bit cramped, but it adds about 16 square feet of storage space to the kitchen, which isn't insignificant.

The bottom shelf is storing my cat food and large canning pot. And apparently my worchestershire sauce, which I should move to one of the upper shelves...

And here you can see all my lovely jars of peaches and tomatoes! We did eat one of the tomato jars, and had no ill effects we could determine. And it took a bottle opener to get that lid off, it was sealed so tight. I bought strawberries at the store yesterday, so hopefully I'll be making jam in the next two or three days. I'm excited!

If you have any creative space tricks, please leave a comment! I'd love to hear about it.

- Caity

Peaches and Tomatoes

We have no internet at home right now, so I'm ensconced in the Champaign public library a few blocks from my house. The library (or Panera) is where I always go when I have need of internet. Comcast is coming tomorrow, which is great, but I had a few things that needed taking care of today. One of which was sharing my great adventure in canning this weekend!

This is the canning set I got from amazon, courtesy of my fabulous former co-workers at the historical society (thanks guys!). It includes, clockwise from left, the giant canning pot, the jar rack to go on the bottom of the pot, a funnel, a magnet for picking up boiling lids, a lid tightener, tongs for lifting potential hot foods, and a jar lifter. I also got the "Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving" to get me started.

These were the poor fruits (yes, tomatoes are a fruit) that would be the subject of my experiment. I had been scouting out the Urbana farmer's market the first few weeks, and noticed that many stands had large bins of "seconded" produce. Meaning they were either unattractive, bruised, or overripe. The tomatoes I got at $1 a pound ($6 total for that pile there), and the peaches came at $5 for a large bag (the bowl).

The peaches were in worse shape than the tomatoes, so I started with them in case I only had time for one group on Saturday. First I boiled them to get the skins off, and started the "simple syrup" (water and sugar) that would go into the jars to fill them.

What I quickly learned about canning - and I imagine it'll get easier with experience - is that it was a lot like juggling. I had so many things heating on the stove at once, as well as all the chopping, washing of the jars, and tracking times, that it was a little overwhelming. Here I've got the peaches boiling, the syrup thickening, and the canning pot boiling to heat up the jars (you heat them so they don't crack during all the heat transfers).

I was also cutting up the peaches that had their skins removed, and trying to estimate how many jars I would need.

Once I was done prepping jars and peaches, I removed them one at a time from the canner's bubbling water, using my jar lifter tool.

Filled them up with peaches and simple syrup, wiped off the rim, and placed the lids on top.

And placed them in the canner, got the water boiling, and let them cook until they (hopefully) sealed.

And here they are! What I approximate was five pounds of peaches made four jars! I'm looking forward to making a pie or cobbler, and putting peaches in my oatmeal in the dead of winter. One of the lessons here though? I can pack my jars much tighter with fruit.

I did wind up canning the tomatoes that day too, though the process looked so similar I didn't bother with pictures. Boil the tomatoes to get the skins off, chop them up, fill the jars with boiling water, seal, and boil in the canner. These took a lot longer though, boiling for 45 minutes as opposed to the 20 that the peaches took.

$6 of tomatoes turned into four (much more packed) jars, which will be delicious in spaghetti and other dishes.

I'm not convinced I did this correctly, as the lids don't seem as concave as the books all tell me they should be. But I was still happy to give this an honest shot, and keep working towards buying locally and seasonally. I promise to make updates as I continue canning and preserving, hopefully with jams up next!

- Caity

The latest addition

Today I'm going to take a bit of an interlude from my usual postings to tell you about the latest addition to our household. My most recent lizard, Neb, didn't make it during the journey from California. It was shocking and heartbreaking, and I felt incredibly guilty over it. The cats arrived safe and sound, but I'd had Neb for almost seven years. He wasn't just a creature kept in a tank, he was my companion. I loved him to pieces.

I wasn't sure when I would get another lizard. But as so often happens, when I made a tentative inquiry to a breeder a few weeks ago about whether they might have the next species I wanted to keep, of course he had a baby and would I like it? He was born last year, and ready to go, and they can ship him to me tomorrow if I really wanted. All this while my brain was still reeling from the loss of my other pet.

I took some time to think about it, and decided that it probably was a good opportunity to get a new friend, especially in case I didn't get another opportunity like this one soon (they're not the most common species). Even once I'd said yes I asked if he could be shipped in two weeks, so that I had time to prepare a tank and put together the lights he would need, etc.

Well, today was the big day. I got up at 8 am, just to make sure I didn't miss the fedex guy, and sat on my couch staring anxiously out the window with every vehicle that drove down the road. And then, just before noon, the fedex truck pulled up. And my husband and I held our breaths as the man got out with a small white box in his hands, stood in the middle of the street looking at the addresses, and then confidently walked up to our door.

I carried the box upstairs, absolutely terrified, and imagining a scenario like Schrodingers Cat playing out inside the cardboard. What would I find when I opened it?

Inside that box there? Was a styrofoam box, which was packed with newspaper, under which was a plastic box, in which was a lizard.

A pretty unhappy little lizard, who we promptly removed from the plastic box and let warm up in our hands for a few minutes.

And here he is, safely deposited in his tank and rather grumpily warming up under his basking light. He has slightly prettier colors than that (his face became white with yellow stripes with the heat), but after being in a box for 24 hours he was a dull gray.

Now, you're probably asking yourself what he is (besides a lizard). Our new friend is an Egyptian Uromastyx, which is a type of vegetarian desert lizard. They like it hot and they like to eat mainly dandelion greens, endive, and seeds. Very low maintenance once you have the proper set up. And this little guy, being from the Egyptian species, will grow over two feet long. How awesome is that?!

Now, how does my new lizard fit into my domestic theme for the blog? Simple. My pets are a daily part of my home life, and a place doesn't feel like home without them. I've kept lizards since I was eight years old, and have no intention of stopping anytime soon. This little guy is going to live in the guest room for as long as he fits in there, and I sure hope my visitors don't mind sharing their room with a scaly friend.

While I'm certainly worried about my new companion and his health and comfort, I already feel more at ease for having a lizard again. He doesn't have a name yet, though I'll let you know when he does. I've been looking at north african deities, but don't like anything so far. Now I'm looking at general baby names with meanings like "plants" and "gray" and "huge." Any of which I think would be appropriate for our (for now) tiny friend.

- Cait

Furnishings

So, I have to say. 1700 square feet is a lot of space to fill, especially when you've arrived with absolutely no furniture, and most of your worldly possessions consist of small trinkety decorations and cats. I knew that this process could be really daunting, and that going in without some idea of how to tackle the issue would just make us anxious. Where the heck do you start with that much space? In our case we focused on the practical first, mixed with solid dose of more fun and luxury items.

When we arrived, we knew we had three goals for the first 24 hours. Priority number one was a bed, as we definitely needed something to sleep on. We had tried going without a bed once, the day we arrived in Boston, and just made a few piles and clothes with pillows on top. Needless to say, this was not something I ever wanted to repeat and so a bed was a must. We managed to purchase one and have it delivered before 5 pm the first day, which was a great success.

Number two was an air conditioner. The midwest just went through a nasty heat wave, and we caught the tail end of it. Our first stop was Lowes, thinking they must have something available. Usually there are rows and rows of air conditioners at these places! This was not something we thought through especially well (re: the second sentence of the paragraph), and Lowes only had one (very) expensive machine left. Home Depot had zero, so we bought a fan and hoped that would be good enough. After turning it on at home for a while, it was clearly not adequate, and we luckily found a fairly cheap one on craigslist that we ran out and bought immediately. Score for number two.

The third major thing we purchased quickly was our "fun luxury" item. In the weeks leading up to our move, I spent many hours scouring craigslist and other websites for interesting items or places to visit when we got to Champaign. Copasetic Consignments was one of the shops I discovered, and upon scanning their website for deals I fell head over heels in love with this dining room table.

It was part of their summer sale, and cost only $175 for the table and six chairs. But it was late May, and I wasn't arriving until early August. I sighed over what might have been, and kept looking, checking in every once in a while to see if it was still there. A few weeks passed and it still didn't have "sold" tagged to it. And then we were moving, and the store posted that they were hosting a moving sale, and anyone could come in and make them an offer. I was so excited that we visited the store the first day we were in town, and as luck would have it my treasure was still there. As the bed was our priority we waited until our second day in town, and made our move.

My husband offered $125 and they accepted it on the spot. He's pretty sure they would have taken $100 if he'd started there. They delivered for $25, and a few hours later I had my fabulous dining room table.

The lesson today, of course, is that researching ahead of time and being persistent can pay off. Or maybe sometimes, if you just wish hard enough, you might get lucky.

- Cait

Humidity and Mechanics

When we got here, we noticed that our fridge wasn't working very well. The butter was always a little squishy, and the water wasn't particularly cold. The freezer seemed fine though, as it made ice without a problem. We knew we had a real problem, though, when the milk didn't just spoil but curdled in four days. No bueno.

So we told our landlord, who insisted that we test it out. He asked me what the temperature inside the fridge was, and I said I didn't know exactly, but that I could tell it wasn't working right. He gave me a quizzical look, and said "What type of scientist were you again?" (for the record, I was a biology major in college, but never practiced "science" professionally) I stammered a bit while he ran out to his garage for an outdoor thermometer. Popping it in the fridge, he ducked back out and told me to call in an hour with the temperature.

It was hovering between 55 and 65 degrees farenheit, which definitely isn't right. Googling "fridge temperatures" revealed that it should be between 36 and 42 ideally. Our landlord said he would have his engineer friend come in yesterday morning, and if he couldn't fix it they would replace it in the afternoon. In the meantime, though, he had called his friend to see if he could diagnose the fridge over the phone. The symptoms were:

- Fridge not reaching optimal temperature

- Freezer working fine

The diagnosis was that the humidity of the summer had clogged up the vents between the two, and the cold air wasn't getting through to the fridge. The remedy was to unplug it for a day and let it defrost. After moving all our food into coolers and our landlords fridge, we let it sit and think about what it had done.

The next morning we plugged it back in, and after a few hours of cooling back down, it worked great! It's getting down to mid-30s on the top shelf (closest to the vent), and low-40s on the bottom. We were very pleased with this quick fix, and I thought I should share it with you. If your fridge is acting up, and you're able to let it defrost for a while, I recommend giving it a try before calling a mechanic. Might save you at least a little bit of money.

- Cait

Herbs and Greenhouses

A few months ago, a good friend of mine showed me a trick for keeping her cut herbs fresh for more than a few days. She cut the tips off (diagonally, like you would with flowers), stuck them in water, covered with a plastic bag, and put them in her fridge. I know this is a pretty common method, but I'd never seen it before and thought it was brilliant. I ran home, chopped off the ends of the cilantro I'd just bought, and promptly forgot it in the back of my own refrigerator. I was so surprised when, a month later, I stumbled upon the still fresh herbs on the middle shelf. I swore that I would remember this for after I moved, and hopefully save some money at the grocery store.

Well, my first batch of store-bought thyme came and went already, and while we're having problems with our fridge, I think my negligence was to blame there. Even the basil I bought at the farmers market last week was already wilting, and I thought all was lost. I was an herb failure.

The voice in the back of my head said to give it a shot anyway, and so I dutifully cut off the tips and stuck them in a glass of water. Lo and behold -

Ta da! Within an hour, they were looking good as new (for my plant nerd friends, the leaves had regained their turgidity). I had the problem, though, that my fridge wasn't working, and I didn't have any plastic bags on hand. So I stuck the basil on the three season porch, where my cat (Faust) promptly started to eat it. This poor basil just couldn't catch a break.

Enter the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. If you've never been to one, you should stop what you're doing right now and find the nearest shop. Go on, google map it. Think high-end goodwill or salvation army. Still used, and certainly some useless odds and ends around. But in general, if you're on a budget like me, this is the place to go to restock on furniture, kitchenware, etc.

Sometimes, you can even find a hidden gem on the shelves. In this case, I walked past this beauty at least twice before registering what it was.

A tiny little greenhouse! Which was perfect, as I had been planning to buy a few belljars to put plants in, and decorate my house a little more naturally. But belljars are expensive, and I figured it would be months before I could invest any real money into decorating. Lucky for me, I found this guy for the brilliant price of $1. New treasure in hand, I came home, windexed the heck out of it, and promptly set it to use.

For now, the basil couldn't be happier. And I just saved myself $2 at the farmers market tomorrow.

- Cait

Window washing

This house has a lot of windows. A lot of windows. There are so many doors between rooms, and even windows in the walls, that it's going to require a lot of effort to keep them sparkly clean. For example...

This space here. It's technically my "mud room" though I'm pretty sure it was added later. Why else would you have a window to another room? I like to think it's because my house was visited by Mrs. Winchester once upon a time. She's just trying to protect us from the spirits, obviously.

Then there are these doors between the living room and three season porch. I love them to pieces, but the windows...so many windows...

The place wasn't particularly clean when I arrived, and I knew that swift action was required to take advantage of the summer sunlight. I grabbed my windex and paper towels, and set forth...only to be disappointed with unsightly streaks and a lot of effort for nothing.

Enter the fabulous Home Depot, and a fortuitous fifteen minutes spent wandering their cleaning aisles for inspiration. You'll never guess what I found there...

A squeegee! Specifically, an 8'' miniature squeegee, for only $4. This, I knew, was going to be my window cleaning savior. And it already has been. I tried taking before-and-after photos to show you how marvelous my windows now look, but the lighting was not agreeable. You'll have to take my word for it, the post-squeegee windows are where it's at. As my husband would say, they are "the location."

Here's how I've been accomplishing my streak-free window glory. It may not be themosteffective way, but the results are pretty great.

First, take your windex and get some paper towels nice and sudsy. Scrub at your window like you normally would.

Take your squeegee and wipe the liquid away to one side (always moving in the same direction!)

This will leave you with a trail of windex down the side of the window (which is a problem, I'll admit), so I keep a dry paper towel on hand to dab the excess moisture away.

And voila! The once streaky window is now significantly clearer. I won't say streak free, but it's a major improvement.

Remember. $4 at Home Depot. Try it today, and I promise your windows will look cleaner than they did before.

- Cait

This Old House

About a week ago I moved from Hayward, CA (in the San Francisco Bay area) to Champaign, IL (in the Middle of Cornfields). My husband's starting his PhD at UIUC in a few weeks, and so we moved. I was a little conflicted about this, as I really liked living in California, but ultimately the move was the right decision. As a native Chicagoan, I'd been craving the calmer, seemingly simpler life that you can find in the Midwest. Not to say there aren't exciting and captivating things to accomplish here, it's just...different. Hard to describe in most cases.

One thing that's not hard to describe though is the difference in housing prices here in Champaign. We'd been excited about getting away from our 1-bedroom white washed apartment in Hayward, and hopefully moving up a bit in the world. After a few weeks of searching on craigslist for a place, it was pretty obvious we would be able to do that, but the end result has startled just about everyone.

For significantly less than we paid in Hayward for our 700 square foot place, we are now the proud renters of a 1700 square foot, 95-year-old brick duplex. This place is less than 2 miles from campus, 3 blocks from the brand new public library, parks in all directions, and did I mention 1700 square feet? All told, we have a basement, living room, dining room, kitchen, three season porch, mud room, three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, and an attic. I have a few "before" pictures to share, though I'm sorry about the blurriness! I unfortunately did not take these, and will try to make sure things are clearer in the future.

Here's a shot of the outside of the house. We occupy the right side of it, split perfectly down the middle. Isn't it lovely?

My new kitchen. Less cabinet space than in my apartment in Hayward, but I already have a solution to that, which I will share with you very soon! I think you'll be entertained by it.

Here's my blessedly large dining room, peeking through to the living room at the front of the house (no, I don't expect you to follow the layout, it will make more sense when I post my pictures later). Check out those hardwood floors and wood trim. They're absolutely stunning.

Not a great shot of the living room, but it shows the fireplace and adorable built-in cabinet on the side. The fireplace doesn't work unfortunately (in the landlord's words, "do not use the fireplace. You will die."), but there are plenty of decorating tricks to make it a useful space. That cabinet, though? Already my husband's favorite spot in the whole house.

I don't have many good photos of the bedrooms, but this is a decent shot of the "closets." Each of the three bedrooms has wall-to-wall cabinets. It's almost like the world was giving me an excuse to buy more clothes...

Many more photos to come over the next few weeks, focusing in on the different rooms, how we've put them together, and the little tricks I'm discovering to keep it all cohesive.

- Cait

Welcome to My Domestic Life

A few months ago I woke up with an idea. As with many things, I waited for a while to make sure this was actually a reasonable idea and that I honestly wanted to pursue it. My idea was to start a blog, chronicling my move to Champaign, IL and the surprising living situation I've found myself in. Well, here I am a week after my move and the blog seems to have manifested. Whether or not it's really a good idea has yet to be seen, and I hope you'll bear with me in the meantime.

As I don't anticipate anyone but my friends and family reading this, I'm going to skip the "who am I" part of introducing a blog (for now), and go straight to "why am I doing this." My thoughts on the matter are two-fold:

1) I recently volunteered to administrate a blog that has the potential to become a nationally utilized resource in it's field. And while I've "journaled online" before, I've never really given this blogging thing a real try, with maintaining a voice and themes and consistency. As administrator of this other blog, I will likely be responsible for all of these things, as well as writing posts and advising other contributors. Without practical experience in the method myself, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing these things. Thus, practicing with my own blog, focusing on a topic near and dear to my heart.

2) Despite knowing that I won't be sharing much that's truly insightful or new, there's always the underlying hope that "maybe this will be really useful to someone after all." Even if it's just a handful of my friends that find this useful, or it only inspires one or two "Oh!" moments during it's run, that alone will leave me pleased as punch.

So! With that, I hope that you enjoy my new project, and that if you have any feedback you won't be afraid to share it. Given goal numero uno, feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

- Cait