Kitchen Ideas and Confussion

I've been obsessing over what type of stove/oven/range I want in a new kitchen we are planning and feel like I want a 48" range. It seems more confusing with more education on the subject and so I haven't really settled on a final decision yet, but here are some of the pros and cons according to my apparent wants and needs.

1.  I really like the look of a colored range in leu of a stainless steel look, but the colored ones are either too expensive to think it would be worth it, too boxy and untested, or somewhat unavailable.

2.  Most of the 48" ranges have a 30 inch oven as well as a small oven although the expensive colored one has a small oven that the company claims will fit lots of food so I shouldn't worry about that.

3. As part of the stove top, I have been interested in a French plaque which is a large cast iron flat unit that is hot in the center and gradually moves through cooler temperatures as it reaches the outer rings of the unit. The concept is really great in my eyes, but I really have no idea if it works any different or easy than a regular gas unit.
Anyway... a few of the stove tops have one of these, and I think I'd like to have one, but don't really know.

4.  A couple of the ranges come with a warming oven, which would be nice as then I wouldn't need to place a warming oven elsewhere in the kitchen.

5. One of the ranges also has a steam oven which I also have been investigating and if I don't get that range, I do think I'll get a wall steam oven.

Hashtag Quilt

I got the patterns for a few simple quilts done by Camille Roskelly and decided that this one would be a great place to start. The design uses 2.5 inch "jelly roll" from any line and I chose a cute little old fashioned line by Moda called Chloe's Closet.  Reminds me of my Grandma Kelly, or her kitchen, or something there about.

I had some white on white floralesque fabric that I thought would set it off well and so "a cutting we went." A lot of 2.5 inch strips (which a jelly roll comes prepped for) and 7 - 9.5 inch lengths cut then it was all ready to sew.

All sewn together with 2.5 inch white borders and then a 5 inch floral all the way around.

 A little machine embroidery for the inscription on the back of the quilt with a little information sets it off well.

 I took the quilt into my standard long arm quilter Jenny at Finally Finished Quilts. We decided with the playful geometrics and 1930's style floral fabrics, a nice little flower quilted all over the quilt would compliment it well.  Turned out just right.

Keeping me warm while watching a little television in our outdoor living room. This is the best place to be.

Not A Lot of Comfort Food Here

So ... I'm out in the garden gleaning this morning and I discover several things that I really need to address. I'll just talk about one of those things now.
The eggplants are a little bit out of control, and how many eggplants do we really need in any given year? We planted just one plant thinking we'd get a few for some Ratatouille, and other than that, I'm not sure what to do with them. In the back of my head I think, "Oh, (light going on) I wonder if it's easy to make Baba Ghanoush?"
Turns out - it is. I have all the ingredients right in my very own kitchen. (and garden I might add)

 I looked up, thanks to the internet, if I can use old Tahini. Turns out, it lives a long time so no worries.

The picture above, taken a few weeks ago, shows my pretty white and purple eggplant.
Todays crop featured some that were twice as big.
I grilled the eggplant on the BBQ because I was already using it to grill some other veggies. I just turned it to medium and put the eggplant on whole for about 40 minutes. Then I ran to my hair appointment which I was late for because I decided at the last minute to make Baba Ghanoush in addition to the White Gazpacho I was making for some friends tonight.
I fear this kind of activity is not being grown out of just because I don't have children at home anymore.
I wanted to miraculously become an on time person when I reached this stage in life. But .... I digress.

 Then after I came home several hours later, the eggplants were easily peeled and the ingredients blended together. I ate some of the wonderful spread with some of the grilled crook neck squash and it was wonderful.
I liked it anyway.

The people I'm taking dinner to tonight are probably not expecting weird food like I make, so I'm taking them a big variety. Hopefully we can hit on a few desirable tastes for them.
Wish me (them) luck.

What's for Breakfast?

I have been trying to eat more protein for my early morning meal these days. Eating an egg, protein infused green smoothy, or greek yogurt seems to keep my appetite in check when 3:00pm rolls around each day.
The Hubby has taken on the roll of fixing me a protein shake on Sunday mornings. While I'm getting ready for church he brings me a nice cold thick drink and I don't have to think about it at least one day a week. What a nice guy I married.
Saturday mornings are a little more up in the air and we often go to the Saratoga Farmers Market and decide what to eat from there.
But I digress. I just wanted to post some great looking/tasting yogurt parfait's here.
So a couple Saturdays ago, I brought the Hubby out some simple parfait for Saturday breakfast. Bu "out" I mean he was in the backyard cleaning up the pool and so we ate underneath the big arbor on the couch. What a great breakfast spot. REALLY great! Perfect!

 We had some fresh blueberries and strawberries in the fridge, and so I thought they would make a beautiful and tasty layer in my morning yogurt. I usually add a teaspoon of agave to my Fage 0% yogurt, but this week I had some cream cheese frosting in the fridge so I plopped a big tablespoon of that into twice as much yogurt ('cause I was making two today.)

 The first layer was crunchy granola and then yogurt blend, followed by berries.
Repeat.

 Good stuff, Maynard!

The outside couch also makes an excellent spot for answering a couple emails.

Faux Fire Crackers

I "pinned" some crafty wood fire cracker decorations last year and after saving our old 4 x 4 posts from the backyard redo, I thought I should use them up. I like using things up because then I can clean out a cupboard or nook & cranny that they are holding up in.
I added my little touches without purchasing anything except a new jar of mod podge. Pretty good deal.
I sent some to my two girls for their homes and my DIL who lives close by helped by saving me some postage.

 When I'm in the middle of a craft project, my kitchen island tends to look like .... a huge mess. This time was no exception.

I used one power tool, and this cut a 1 1/2 inch circle in the top of the square crackers so I could insert a tea light candle in case some one really wants to "light" it up. I had our carpenter from the house project cut up my firecrackers last year when he was redoing the back yard so that saved me a few minutes.
Always thinking ahead.

 I had plenty of fancy papers to use for what ended up to be 6 sets of "firecrackers."  I made 4 inch square ones in 3 heights, and 2 inch circular crackers also in 3 different heights. One of my favorite additions was these cute old fashioned advertisements from the early 1900's. I just glued them right onto the sides of the crackers.

 I also had some little candles that look like pop bottle rockets that made a fun addition to some of the sets.

Hope everyones July was fine and Yankee Doodle Dandy!

Wedding Food Pix

We hired a caterer that we used for Katz wedding in 2006. The daughter of the owner was a teammate of Stephanie in high school, and she ended up taking charge of our event.
So Desiree of High Five Catering was the girl. She helped plan, and took our ideas and ran with them. She did a really good job.

 We had the drinks set up on the bar for the outside kitchen. Lots of soda's, water, and a pineapple punch in a beautiful silver punchbowl that I borrowed from a dear friend.

 Kathryn did the chalk art including this menu sign. We chose not to have printed menu's at the place settings.

 The caterers set up things pretty well with us gone to Oakland for the wedding. The blue tablecloth was wrong side out, and the chair covers for the head table weren't put on, but it was really because I thought I'd have time in the morning to tackle this project before I left to the temple.

 A little fruit and bruschetta to start us off. The hit of the appetizers was the sushi rolls that the groomsmen seemed to wolf down. I had told the caterer that sushi was a favorite of my DD and her husband, and they did it up well. Passed hors devours were on silver platters that I had borrowed from various friends of mine. Thanks to all of my wonderful friends.

We served the main meal family style, and had strawberry salad, salmon, beef tenderloin, grilled asparagus, roasted fingerling potatoes and focaccia bread. The food was all very yummy and we got a lot of compliments. We did have issue with having just one thing at a time delivered to the tables. I was nearly finished with my salmon before receiving anything else to eat it with. I think if we ever serve a meal like this again, I will make sure that each respective table receive their full meal to pass around the table at the same time. 17 tables can't all be served at once and I'd rather each table have their full meal than have all the steak delivered to all the tables, then all the asparagus, etc.

 Not a lot of pictures of food were taken, but here's a lovely one of the salad.

The cake was done by our friend Jen of Jen's Cakes in San Jose. She had her wedding reception at our home in May.
We also served yummy chocolate covered strawberries that my friend Cindy made for us. She did a great job.

 And cotton candy, which the caterer had to figure out after my request for it. We used sturdy paper straws to put the little cotton candy lollipops on, and they were flavored two ways with raspberry and coconut. Both white.

Food did turn out really well. Thanks everyone.

Reduce, REUSE, Recycle

Back in November as a tractor was tearing up our back yard, I asked the operator to save me our in ground wooden bench for a little redo project.

Uncared for yet reliable patio seating

It was about 20 inches wide by 7 feet long and had been placed near our family room door right in front of a brick planter probably 40 years ago when the back yard was first done well.

New finished length for table top

So it sat for several months, cause I wasn't sure which saw to use and or if we even had a saw that would cut through the 4 inch sides. Then I enlisted the help of The Hubby. He cut it in about ⅔ its original length and then took off the top of the short end that was mitered, to replace it onto the cut side of the long end. He also had to miter the 2 edge pieces. I told him it didn't need to be exact because it was supposed to look "rustic",  but he did it pretty perfectly anyway. 

 We also saved the 4 x 4 posts from the cabana overhang that needed to be replaced, and cut them for legs. First we were cutting for a regular coffee table height of about 15 inches, but then we changed our minds and made it more like 20 inches so we can play games or what have you on the table in front of the outdoor couch. At least for some reason or other we decided we liked the taller height for a coffee table this time.

 Now I had to sand down the post for the new legs.

 Then paint them.

A few different colors, so it would look old and as if it had been repainted several times over the last hundred years. (Now it's going to be an antique.)

 Then I did the sanding and painting of the table top. I had to start with a base white coat on this, because the legs had started with white.

 Then I added bright yellow (left over from baby Ellery's newborn bedroom.)

 Then a light blue color was painted on (color left over from the kitchen paint probably 15 years ago.)
Followed by a tan color that we have 4-5 versions of in our shed.

 The Hubby then helped add the legs to the table with brackets as well as screws through the sides of the table. I was not worried about screws showing, but he did have to do a little more nail repair as many of the nails were loosely working their way out.

 We put a rotating wheel on the bottom of each leg, so it'll be easy to move around. Actually maybe a little too easy, so I will place a stop under a couple of the wheels.

 I then sanded it all down so each color of paint shows through in some areas, followed by a complete varnishing.

Lookin' pretty good. Now we'll just put it with some brand spanking new furniture and it'll be right at home. The Hubby thinks this is awfully peculiar, but he humors me and goes along with my hair brained ideas with a smile.

So now we have a nice little memory clad coffee table for our new outdoor covered living space.
Nice save? Silly project? What think ye?

Boxes or Toys

I love that kids can find joy in the everyday.
We have been getting some new outdoor furniture, and it comes in very large boxes.

Some of these cardboard sensations were out on our driveway when all the grandchildren were at our house last week so naturally they were playing in one heck of a big box. I told Kathryn to hop into one of the smaller boxes so we could fold up the lid and then have the kids "find" her.

This turned into a favorite activity du jour. They were all piling in and burying each other in the box. We even had the presence of mind to go get bubbles out before someone got locked up and started to cry. Good avoidance, wouldn't you say?

2 of my 3 middle kids that were here.

It was great to have my chillens and their chillens home.

May Yard Progress

I am obviously past May for this post, but I am still going to show just the month of May in the progress here. That way when I show June and the yard looks more finished, it will be such a surprise to everyone that we will all shout for JOY!!!!

And then we will JUMP for JOY!!!!

But we probably won't be able to jump into the pool by then.

Anyway, I digress...

 We have seen much progress this last month beginning with the layout of all the A/V wires and equipment.

 The kitchen area was stone faced and concrete filled.

 And a couple of concrete pours were made.

 The garage looks like there was a bomb blown there.

 …But the mess in front of the pool house - casita - was cleaned up.

 Here is Vince the concrete man, smoothing out the pool coping immediately after the forms were taken off.

 These forms were styrofoam and got removed as soon as the concrete began to set up. That allowed the concrete to be smoothed and tweaked just right before it dried. Notice the concrete color is a brownish/green called "Palomino."

 You heard about this, right?

 Pipes peaking through the concrete pad so the equipment for the pool and irrigation can be nice and neat.

 The pool equipment bunker was erected.

 I think the coping is gorgemous.

 A couple weeks later the pool deck was poured and worked out thoroughly.

 This is the 5th set of stairs to be poured and is the only one that is to be just concrete with no stone. There is a nice little lip of concrete on each overhang of the stairs and the surrounding areas by the pool are looking good.

Oooh, a partial roof over the new patio area. Nice.

The next week the concrete guys were back so they could sandblast the deck area and make it look slightly different than the coping color. Here's Vince trying out his new look.

There is no sign of the pool man or his helpers. We haven't seen him for a couple of months and he isn't returning phone calls, so we are starting to worry whether or not this project will ever finish for summer swimming.

Hindsight wise, now that I'm in mid June (even though this post hasn't caught up,) I have come to grips with my company/family not being able to use the yard for this nice graduation weekend that we just spent together. I was quite riled up and upset at the beginning of June when I realized it wasn't going to happen and my hopes were dashed, but now I do in fact see and end in sight and I'm over it to a great extent.

Stand by for news. (name that commentator)