Finally, a New Range

This past Wednesday⏤more than 11 months after we initially ordered it from BASCO⏤we finally got our new induction range. I meant to blog about it sooner, but I've been busy trying to get the basement finished.

I was tempted very many times to cancel our order and go elsewhere to buy the appliance, but I wasn't sure we would get it any faster if we had to go back to the end of the line. I freely admit that I would have preferred the green Ilve range, but Jeff is loving the features of the Fisher & Paykel. It has a warming drawer and has a low-heat setting for rising bread dough.

It's been a very long time since we had a glass cooktop. I forgot what a pain they are to clean. On the bright side, though, we can actually cook on top of silicone mats so hopefully, there will be less scratching from the bottom of pots.

I've ordered a couple of round silicone mats that are specifically designed for the purpose.

More News About Our Range

Our Ilve Range finally arrived in Portland, and it's the wrong f-ing color! It is gray, not green. I am not kidding. It is the worst possible color. Needless to say, I am not taking delivery. So, it looks like there won't be a thanksgiving dinner this year.

BASCO is therefore trying to fix it for us. Obviously, it is not really an option to wait for another range to come from Italy. I didn't get the final word yet, but I think we actually ended up ordering the Fisher & Paykel in black because it comes from Mexico and supposedly it will be here by mid-December. They say December, but I don't know if that's a wishful thinking due date. I hope not. I guess we shall see.

I am so tired of this. Though, possibly not as tired as Jeff, who does the cooking.

Outdoor Cooking

With no range in the kitchen, Jeff was motivated to pull our old camp cooker out of the shed. It was a lovely day to do some outdoor cooking.

This past week, he also finished gluing up the small stools we made out of scrap shiplap siding last fall. 

It was originally delayed because we were trying to figure out how to make them more durable than the original stools which were simply nailed together into end-grain. Then we got distracted (as so often happens). Finally, Jeff decided to cut some small pieces to go into the corners so he could screw into both edges.

We found some neat clamping straps to use during glue-up.

Finally, another project checked off the ToDo list. Now I just need to get the motivation to finish the back stairs. LOL

Resurrecting Cooking Blog

Jeff and I have been depressed about the world situation right now. Really depressed. He responded productively by getting extremely active with Indivisible Oregon. Sadly, I responded by diving back into my Elder Scrolls Online game, but this week I have finally decided I need to stop hiding out in the game.

Starting now, I am going to try to make some overdue positive changes in my life. First starters, I've decided to become a lot more proactive in our menu planning because over the last couple of years our eating has drifted back into a lot of store-bought prepared food, i.e. things like canned soup and less healthy foods. Jeff has tried to keep up our nutrition—he still makes a lot of salads—but sometimes he just doesn't feel like cooking. This has resulted in a much larger food budget. I'd like to work to reverse the trend and use more of my time helping out with the cooking tasks.

Last Thanksgiving, the Instant Pot was deeply discounted and since many of our friends had been raving about theirs for months on social media, we decided to give it a try. Jeff has gotten good use out of it, since he uses it most days for making oatmeal for breakfast, but I am going to try and add a lot more recipes to our arsenal. I'm hoping ultimately we will buy less canned foods, especially soups.

Anyway, for folks who are interested in our cooking exploits, we'll be resurrecting Jeff's mostly neglected food blog and resume posting about our successes and failures. I plan to do quite a lot of Instant Pot recipes and I'm hoping to try my hand at some crusty breads and filled pastas (not too much of these because of carbs).

Busy Day

Today was one of those amazing days where I got more done in the morning before 11AM than I usually get done in the entire day. I wish I had more of these days.

I spent another 30 or so minutes stripping paint in the dining room. Then, this afternoon I spent a few minutes stripping paint in the living room, because little chips in the paint made it look like the woodwork in there may be darker.

Unfortunately, it is. Bummer. Now we'll either need to use a dark stain in the dining room to make it match, or spend extra effort in the living room trying to lighten up the woodwork. My preference would be to have lighter woodwork, so we’ll probably go with the latter option.

We also spent another hour or so cleaning up the leaves in the front yard. I’m hoping this will be the last of the raking, as the trees are finally starting to look pretty bare.

Then we came in the house and got to work cleaning up the kitchen and then turned around and made it a mess again cooking! =) We made a new cookie recipe—Chocolate-Peppermint Snaps and Jeff put together a soup from turkey broth he made last week. And this evening, as I write this, Jeff is working on a batch of his favorite cookies—Snickerdoodles.

I’m still struggling with motivation to work on school. Most of my final projects are done and now I need to study. I must be broken, because I’d rather do nearly anything else than sit around and study. But I’ve been like this for years; at least I get a lot done during the couple weeks before finals! =)

I did, luckily, manage at least a couple of hours of studying this afternoon when my computer (incorrectly) thought the internet was down. But then Jeff told me his connection was working and a restart of my computer did the trick.

Update at 7PM. This task goes much faster with two people working at it. One person holds the infrared stripper, while the other scrapes the softened paint.

Productive Weekend

We had one of our more productive weekends this weekend. Saturday, as usual, we both had school until 4PM then we usually both spend the evening doing school work. It's a long day.

Last week, Jeff worked out a nice food-for-tutoring barter arrangement with one of his classmates and he got some produce yesterday. He brought home about 20 pounds of roma tomatoes, chard, spinach, a zucchini and some other veges. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo.) So, today we had to figure out how to process them or they'd likely go bad in the next couple of days.

We decided to make tomato sauce for use during the next couple of weeks. On the first batch we went through the hassle of peeling the tomatoes and cooking them down, but the second batch we just processed the tomatoes through the food processor, skin and all, and that seemed to work fine. It sure saved time. =)

The rest of the tomatoes we just washed and put in the freezer so we can make another batch of sauce on another weekend.

We also managed to spend a few minutes out in the garage working to unbury the cherry entertainment center out there. It's taking up a ton of space and we need to get it gone. We cleaned it up and I listed it on craigslist. We're going to try and sell it until January, and then we'll go ahead and donate it and the rest of the furniture if we haven't found new homes for them by then.

Yes We Canned!

We have been canning and baking up a storm this weekend. We found a good deal on local apricots so we ended up buying 2 full boxes (about 30 pounds worth). We actually would have bought more, but the store realized they were undercharging for the fruit and raised the price right after us.
We finished up the last of the peaches in a batch of apricot-peach-blueberry jam. That batch was a really pretty color.

Jeff also baked up one the six apricot pie fillings with the addition of a handful of blueberries and this morning he made jam cookies. We are eating good food this weekend! Yum.

We're thinking about going Monday morning and doing some U-Pick to get some more peaches. We'd really like to try doing more canning of fruit slices.

3 Risotti Dinner

Dinner was wonderful and we really enjoyed our visit with friends. We went off to Scott and Pattie's house in Mountain View. And we were joined by Chris and Jenny for dinner. Somehow, we didn't quite manage to catch pictures of Scott and Pattie together, but we got Chris & Jenny.

Dinner was three types of risotto. Two from the Cucina & Famiglia cookbook: Risotto alla Milanese (Traditional Risotto from Milan) and Risotto con Gamberetti (Risotto with Shrimp). They also made a pesto risotto.

Working on My To Do List

Jeff and I are hoping to go visit Oregon again next week, so I am spending this week working on my To Do list. Some of the tasks are fairly old, and it's good to get them out of the way. I've scheduled a couple of appointments for later in April and I've taken care of some other errands I've been neglecting.

In school, I have a midterm due tonight, which I've finished. Also, I finished an extra credit book and report. On Thursday, I'm planning to spend the afternoon in the law library, working on a couple more projects being assigned in class tonight. I'm really trying to stay on top of things this semester, since I tend to get so distracted with house matters.

I've also finished the first pass on our Federal and state taxes. I have to go look up a few small details for the Federal taxes, but it looks like overall we'll be getting money back. That's a shocker! But I guess that's the benefit of employer's withholding taxes out of exercised stock options before they turn the proceeds over to you. We owe taxes to the state of California; I wonder how they would respond if we sent them an IOU? =)

Over the weekend, Jeff was quite the cook. On Saturday, we got to have vege pizza he made from scratch. And on Sunday, he made two loaves of bread. He was disappointed with the bread, because it was heavier than he was hoping, but I thought it was quite tasty. They sure looked pretty!

Vegetable Prep Night!

This afternoon we got this week's CSA delivery. This week we got: chard, 2 kinds of lettuce, rutabagas, green garlic, carrots, new potatoes, beets, and bok choy. We also got rosemary, but I traded it for another bunch of chard; we still have rosemary growing in one of our barrels.So, tonight was another vegetable prep night. I washed all the vegetables and then cut up the salad greens for salad. Jeff cooked the vegetables for putting into dishes during the week. He also made Roasted Honeyed Rutabagas and Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes out of this week's produce. OMG, the Rosemary and Garlic Potatoes were so good! (I can provide the recipes, just post a comment or email me and I'll send it.)

Then he used up all of last week's vegetables (from the freezer) and made up a vegetable fritatta. (A fritatta is basically a quiche without a crust.) I'm looking forward to trying that for lunch tomorrow.

First Produce Delivery

I mentioned quite a while ago that we had subscribed to an organic farm and we got our first delivery today! (The programs are called CSAs/Community Supported Agriculture if you want to look up the same kind of program in your area.) Here is today's delivery:We spent all evening washing, chopping and cooking vegetables. Okay, I washed; Jeff did the chopping and cooking... Now we've got almost all the vegetables packed up into small containers so we can add it to all the meals this week. Jeff is so awesome!


And here was dinner tonight. We used up some old veges from the refrigerator as well as used some of the new stuff. Lots of variety compared to our normal one-dish meals. Though, I probably went a bit over my calories for the day; I wasn't keeping close track because there were so many things in the prep stage at once.

Successful Food Experimentation

Anybody who knows me, knows I am not the cook in this house. Jeff is the cook and a good one; he makes beautiful, tasty food. But with him working full time and me still unemployed, I have tried a lot more crockpot cooking experimentation this year. I usually look to some recipes for inspiration, but I've mostly been throwing a bunch of ingredients, usually what we have in the refrigerator, together in the crockpot.

Additionally, one of my goals for 2010 is to learn how to cook dry beans. I'm on my third batch already—this week was pinto beans. I've also made red beans and black beans and they worked out pretty well, though one batch was a bit overcooked.

Today I tried my hand at crockpot chili. I had (grass fed) ground beef defrosted in the refrigerator as well as some black and pinto beans. I browned the beef along with some pork sausage and tossed it into the crockpot. I added the last of the black beans (about a cup) and a couple cups of pinto beans. I processed an onion and a couple carrots in the food processor and tossed them in and we had a can of chiles we needed to use up; I threw that in too! In went a can of diced tomatoes and chili-type spices and then I cooked it all day in the crockpot on low. It turned out very good—though maybe a bit spicy for my taste!

I have been working on clearing out the foods in the freezer. Every time I find an unidentified package, I pull it out. If it's good—we cook it. If not, we toss it. We need this freezer empty. We are not in stock-up mode because we still continue to hope that we'll be moving later this year.

This Week Zoomed By

I have been keeping so busy between school and the internship this week, I hardly know how it got to be Friday afternoon.

I worked at my internship on Monday and Thursday. On Wednesday, I spent 5 hours at the law library. Tuesday was my one "goof off" day. I sort of watched Jane Eyre (I mostly listened) on Netflix while I was formatting and getting started on my final project for Legal Research and Writing.

I typed up the contents and the table of authorities and started the rough draft. I'm quite determined to get my final project done by Thanksgiving, then I can enjoy the holidays. I can simply attend classes and take notes, and I'll have all the homework done. At the end of the semester, all I'll have to worry about is two in-class finals, which hopefully won't be too difficult.

Today I had planned to spend several hours at the law library again, but I think the house simply got too messy for me to ignore it. One minute I was packing up my school stuff, and the next I found myself doing dishes and sifting piles. Oh well, it will be nice to have the piles reduced somewhat. Unfortunately, it is still not clean, just a bit less of a disaster.

We've been terribly neglectful of cooking dinners at home lately. With Jeff working full time and me as busy as I am, we've been buying dinners several nights a week. It's quite shocking for us, since we are normally so thrifty about our eating habits. Tonight, however, we'll be cooking Beef Barley Soup. We have two quarts of beef broth and veges we need to use up, so we're going to make this recipe. We made this recipe, sort of, a couple weeks ago and it was quite good. (We rarely follow recipes exactly.) And we'll also have some leftovers for lunches, too.

We really need to get back into the habit of cooking again. Hopefully once I get into coast-mode at school, I'll have the attention span to deal with putting together crock-pot meals in the morning. We do love crock-potting!

On Tuesday, I have an interview arranged for another internship, this one with an intellectual property firm. I hope it goes well. I do sometimes say such stupid things...(for an interview, anyway).

Finally, to follow up with my whining about my current internship, it has gotten better. As of next week, I'm changing my hours and now I'll be working on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The attorney I'm working for will be in at least one of the days. And I'll also get to work on Jeff's and my will and estate docs in a few weeks. I'll get to learn by doing! I've also decided that I'm going to work on getting my notary public commission. I'm not going to pay for a class; they're expensive. Instead, I'm going to do a cheap at-home study course and then go take the test. Unfortunately, the testing, fingerprinting and supplies cost more than $200, but it should help me find a position when I'm done with school.

Fruit Season!

We're having a really productive day today. Jeff went and picked the rest of the plums off the tree in the backyard (about two lunch size ice chests) and we have the flat of apricots he bought at farmers market yesterday. We decided that today would be a good day to get through the fruit.


Yesterday, we grabbed the last of the packed canning jars out of storage and got the last of the cabinet in the garage unpacked. I had expected we would need to sell some, but they all fit. I think we're set for jars, at least until we start canning fruit slices. We mostly can jams, butters and syrups. We tend to just buy canned fruit, probably because we've never had a cheap and plentiful source of fruit (excluding blueberries, that I only like in very small quantities).

We mixed up four apricot pie fillings and put them in the freezer. Plus, Jeff is going to make up a pie this afternoon for us to enjoy this week, as a reward.

We've also worked through two batches of jam. One batch was just plum and the other we did about half plum and half apricot. That batch actually cooked much faster and looks better (less foamy), so I think that's what we'll do for the rest of the batches.

We're taking a well-deserved break for a couple of hours this afternoon and then we'll resume our canning efforts. We'll probably do another two batches today, and if there is anything left, I'll do some more tomorrow.

We've also got two small peach trees in the backyard, and they're starting to look close to being ripe. Maybe we'll have a batch of peaches for next weekend.

This morning, the last of our furniture sold on craigslist. Now we're mostly down to the vintage old stuff left from my grandmother and my Dad's stuff. I'm still trying to decide between having another garage sale and just donating it all. I guess we'll see.

Update later in the day. Jeff's Pie:

Solar Cooking

One thing this too-hot weather is good for is solar cooking. Yesterday, Jeff made brownies and then asparagus for dinner. They were both yummy; and he didn't make any heat in the house by turning on the oven (not to mention the energy we saved).