Save the well-washed skins from three large potatoes. Toss with oil and salt. Place on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake at 350 F for about 10 minutes until skins brown and puff up.
These sat on the side table to be nibbled all day yesterday.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Potato peel chips
How to make potato peel chips:
Save the well-washed skins from three large potatoes. Toss with oil and salt. Place on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake at 350 F for about 10 minutes until skins brown and puff up.
Save the well-washed skins from three large potatoes. Toss with oil and salt. Place on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake at 350 F for about 10 minutes until skins brown and puff up.
Snow!
When I woke up this morning at 4am the blizzard was already raging, and by the time we were up and dressed and ready to head outside to clear off our driveway and deck, it took both David and I, working without breaks, a total of an hour and a half. And we didn't finish it.
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| Clearing a path to the back porch and throwing the snow against the house as extra insulation. |
Then we poured maple syrup on a particularly fantastic lump of snow and made maple candy.
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And when we came inside, of course, hot chocolate was in order. Here's my recipe for a chocolatey, rich, inexpensive drink.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Domesticity...Timed?
I'm typing out part of this article verbatim, because I can't think how to paraphrase it and not utilize just as many words in an effort to accomplish what will no doubt be an inferior product. I'm curious about opinions, though. Please leave them as blog post comments and not on my facebook wall, so that all can see.
"First, let's tackle the allocation of chores on a day-to-day basis...Very simply, each spouse must contribute the same number of hours each day to productive activities that directly contribute to the well-being of the household. How you do this depends on the wage-earner structure of your family.
If your family has two full-time wage earners, and you work the same hours, each spouse must share in the housework during evenings and weekends until it's completed. If one spouse works just part-time, he or she must take on additional housework equal to the hours of extra work put in by the full-time spouse. By working during the same hours, it's easy to see that the share of the work is equal. If a wage earner works a night shift, then instead of working during the same hours each day, the spouses must agree to put in the same number of productive hours every day.
If your family has one wage earner, the stay-at-home spouse should expect to work an equal amount of time at home, from the time the wage-earner leaves until he or she returns. Any remaining work, including giving kids baths and helping with homework, must be shared equally. During these nine or more hours , the stay-at-home spouse should be able to complete the basic housework and meal preparation, even with caring for young children...
If you are a stay-at-home spouse and your daily activities include chatting on the phone, reading romance novels, watching tv (without doing a productive activity simultaneously), etc., you shouldn't expect your spouse to share in the housework when he or she arrives home.
(Taken from The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn)
Well, what do you think? I was curious about this, I have to admit. It has never occurred to me to 'go to work' when my husband went to work. David worked from 3-11pm tonight, an 8 hour shift with a 1/2 hour unpaid break, and so 7.5 hours of work was what I would have to expect of myself as well.
In the interests of 'science' I gave it a shot this evening. Actually timing myself revealed that I previously had no sweet idea how much time I spent feeding, clothing, changing, cleaning and disciplining my children. In the first two hours or so of 'work time' I spent close to an hour on child-related tasks that couldn't be combined with another chore. Changing a diaper, moving a crawler away from the vacuum cord for the fifth time, looking at the 'Watch this mama! Mama, you watching?" when requested...it takes a lot of my time!
Even so, I assumed that seven and a half hours of work would produce a pretty fantastic result, and I was disappointed. After you factor in all the child related stuff, and the constant interruptions (another dirty diaper? Really? Are you doing this because mama is trying to fold shirts? Tell me the truth now...) I actually didn't accomplish any more than I would have on a normal day at home.
I vacuumed the stairs and hall and two of the three bedrooms.
I made up the guest bed with clean linens from our Christmas guests.
I tidied upstairs, which mostly consisted of removing the plethora of toys from our room.
I swept the floors. Twice.
I washed the dishes.
I 'rebooted' the laundry (take dry clothes off the line and put away, put wet clothes on the line, put another load in the washer).
I did a surface clean of the kitchen and dining room to remove the traces of two excited children playing with green playdough and eating blueberries for supper. Not simultaneously, thank the Lord.
I organized the garbage and recycling.
I corralled the toys in the livingroom.
At 8pm I stopped 'work' around the house because a neighbour had asked me to help her prepare some food for a funeral reception, and I spent an hour doing that. However, the author of the article did say that 'volunteer work' qualified as housework, so I guess this counts.
It was productive, but it wasn't, you know, holy-cow-this-is-an-amazing-day productive or anything. My house does not look like you could do surgery in the bathroom or film a cooking show in the kitchen. I wouldn't be cringing if unexpected company came over, but I wouldn't be inviting anyone, let's put it that way.
So I guess what I'm saying is that yes, you probably do need that much time every day to keep the house running. Anyway, I'd be curious to hear what other people think.
"First, let's tackle the allocation of chores on a day-to-day basis...Very simply, each spouse must contribute the same number of hours each day to productive activities that directly contribute to the well-being of the household. How you do this depends on the wage-earner structure of your family.
If your family has two full-time wage earners, and you work the same hours, each spouse must share in the housework during evenings and weekends until it's completed. If one spouse works just part-time, he or she must take on additional housework equal to the hours of extra work put in by the full-time spouse. By working during the same hours, it's easy to see that the share of the work is equal. If a wage earner works a night shift, then instead of working during the same hours each day, the spouses must agree to put in the same number of productive hours every day.
If your family has one wage earner, the stay-at-home spouse should expect to work an equal amount of time at home, from the time the wage-earner leaves until he or she returns. Any remaining work, including giving kids baths and helping with homework, must be shared equally. During these nine or more hours , the stay-at-home spouse should be able to complete the basic housework and meal preparation, even with caring for young children...
If you are a stay-at-home spouse and your daily activities include chatting on the phone, reading romance novels, watching tv (without doing a productive activity simultaneously), etc., you shouldn't expect your spouse to share in the housework when he or she arrives home.
(Taken from The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn)
Well, what do you think? I was curious about this, I have to admit. It has never occurred to me to 'go to work' when my husband went to work. David worked from 3-11pm tonight, an 8 hour shift with a 1/2 hour unpaid break, and so 7.5 hours of work was what I would have to expect of myself as well.
In the interests of 'science' I gave it a shot this evening. Actually timing myself revealed that I previously had no sweet idea how much time I spent feeding, clothing, changing, cleaning and disciplining my children. In the first two hours or so of 'work time' I spent close to an hour on child-related tasks that couldn't be combined with another chore. Changing a diaper, moving a crawler away from the vacuum cord for the fifth time, looking at the 'Watch this mama! Mama, you watching?" when requested...it takes a lot of my time!
Even so, I assumed that seven and a half hours of work would produce a pretty fantastic result, and I was disappointed. After you factor in all the child related stuff, and the constant interruptions (another dirty diaper? Really? Are you doing this because mama is trying to fold shirts? Tell me the truth now...) I actually didn't accomplish any more than I would have on a normal day at home.
I vacuumed the stairs and hall and two of the three bedrooms.
I made up the guest bed with clean linens from our Christmas guests.
I tidied upstairs, which mostly consisted of removing the plethora of toys from our room.
I swept the floors. Twice.
I washed the dishes.
I 'rebooted' the laundry (take dry clothes off the line and put away, put wet clothes on the line, put another load in the washer).
I did a surface clean of the kitchen and dining room to remove the traces of two excited children playing with green playdough and eating blueberries for supper. Not simultaneously, thank the Lord.
I organized the garbage and recycling.
I corralled the toys in the livingroom.
At 8pm I stopped 'work' around the house because a neighbour had asked me to help her prepare some food for a funeral reception, and I spent an hour doing that. However, the author of the article did say that 'volunteer work' qualified as housework, so I guess this counts.
It was productive, but it wasn't, you know, holy-cow-this-is-an-amazing-day productive or anything. My house does not look like you could do surgery in the bathroom or film a cooking show in the kitchen. I wouldn't be cringing if unexpected company came over, but I wouldn't be inviting anyone, let's put it that way.
So I guess what I'm saying is that yes, you probably do need that much time every day to keep the house running. Anyway, I'd be curious to hear what other people think.
Seven Quick Takes
Boy oh boy did the children ever get a lot of toys this year for Christmas. This was despite our attempts to make the gift-giving very low-key, and clearly failing miserably. All the same, I'm not one to begrudge my children having fun and beautiful things (although with two little ones the beauty tends to be short lived) and I thought that in the absence of anything pithy to say, the weekly Quick Takes would be just the place to show you their loot presents. You know, so you can feel better about your own livingrooms.
1. The 'it' gift for the boy was undoubtedly this big Tonka dumptruck. My parents hit the big time and it's been used every single day, multiple times. As in, constantly. Did I mention it makes a vrooming noise?
2. Aunt J and Uncle C gave our daughter a wooden alligator pull toy made by Plan Toys. Big win on that one.
3. Also by the Aunt and Uncle (They were on a roll this year) is the Black and Decker children's tool kit.
4. Toy Story 2 - a gift from us. Toy Story 1 is on repeat in our house so for my own sanity this was a nice change.
5. The 'it' gift for the babe? This wooden stacking toy from her mama and daddy.
6. A set of play dishes. It's been in frequent use, although I won't pretend it can hold a candle to the truck.
7. Alphabet puzzle! It's huge, sturdy, huge, colourful and huge. What's not to love?
I don't know much about the inside lives of toddlers and babies, but I think they seriously scored. Check out Jen for more 7 Quick Takes.
1. The 'it' gift for the boy was undoubtedly this big Tonka dumptruck. My parents hit the big time and it's been used every single day, multiple times. As in, constantly. Did I mention it makes a vrooming noise?
2. Aunt J and Uncle C gave our daughter a wooden alligator pull toy made by Plan Toys. Big win on that one.
3. Also by the Aunt and Uncle (They were on a roll this year) is the Black and Decker children's tool kit.
4. Toy Story 2 - a gift from us. Toy Story 1 is on repeat in our house so for my own sanity this was a nice change.
5. The 'it' gift for the babe? This wooden stacking toy from her mama and daddy.
6. A set of play dishes. It's been in frequent use, although I won't pretend it can hold a candle to the truck.
7. Alphabet puzzle! It's huge, sturdy, huge, colourful and huge. What's not to love?
I don't know much about the inside lives of toddlers and babies, but I think they seriously scored. Check out Jen for more 7 Quick Takes.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Small Scale Composting
We're planning a garden this year, and I'm just so excited. This is our very first attempt at keeping plants alive outside to any great extent and I have high hopes.
But everything I've read about growing big, healthy, amazing vegetables seems to suggest that the way to dinner plate sized tomatoes and green peppers as large as a baby's head is compost. As in rotted vegetation.
Like most children of former hippies and back-to-the-landers, I grew up with a composter in the backyard. It was a big, black heavy plastic monstrosity and we fed it our kitchen scraps as though sacrificing to some sort of pagan God.
There were very specific rules governing what could and could not be given to the composter. Meat was a big no-no. Potato peels were okay. There was a debate raging about eggshells and teabags. Once a year my parents spread a tarp on the lawn and emptied the composter. Dirt went on the garden, large pieces of stuff that hadn't rotted got chopped up smaller, worms were added to the resulting debris and it went into the composter again until next year.
Now that our own garden is going to require the same delicious dirt I want to get started on my composter - but a big black plastic box is not in our budget. What to do, what to do?
I decided to try a 72 L heavy plastic storage tote. I had one where the nice snapping handles had snapped off, making the tote very much not handy for carrying around anything, but the tote itself still just fine. Reading up on the the composting world (there's a composting WORLD out there, my friends. People whose hobby it is to rot vegetables on their back porch. I will never feel weird again.) I figured out that the process I was going to use was called Cold Composting, that it would produce useable soil in 6-12 months (please let it be closer to 6), that I needed to turn the stuff over every week, keep it warm and moist but not wet, and alternate layers of kitchen scraps with 'brown matter', also known as leaves and shredded paper.
Well, I am up for the challenge. Behold our composter:
But everything I've read about growing big, healthy, amazing vegetables seems to suggest that the way to dinner plate sized tomatoes and green peppers as large as a baby's head is compost. As in rotted vegetation.
Like most children of former hippies and back-to-the-landers, I grew up with a composter in the backyard. It was a big, black heavy plastic monstrosity and we fed it our kitchen scraps as though sacrificing to some sort of pagan God.
 |
| photo source |
Now that our own garden is going to require the same delicious dirt I want to get started on my composter - but a big black plastic box is not in our budget. What to do, what to do?
I decided to try a 72 L heavy plastic storage tote. I had one where the nice snapping handles had snapped off, making the tote very much not handy for carrying around anything, but the tote itself still just fine. Reading up on the the composting world (there's a composting WORLD out there, my friends. People whose hobby it is to rot vegetables on their back porch. I will never feel weird again.) I figured out that the process I was going to use was called Cold Composting, that it would produce useable soil in 6-12 months (please let it be closer to 6), that I needed to turn the stuff over every week, keep it warm and moist but not wet, and alternate layers of kitchen scraps with 'brown matter', also known as leaves and shredded paper.
Well, I am up for the challenge. Behold our composter:
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
'Leftover' Popsicles
I wish that somehow you could step into my kitchen and really grasp how much I detest throwing away food. It's physically painful for me, truly it is. I'm like Erma Bombeck, surreptitiously eating the last spoonfuls off of every child's plate, except that I don't eat those spoonfuls, I put them in the fridge in wee little tupperware containers and think about them for days on end. That's much healthier, right?
I broke out the new popsicle molds for your admiration. $2, marked down to 74 cents, at 50% off. 37 cents! Oh I love a bargain.
And here's the trick I've found. The first time you use your popsicle molds, fill up a measuring cup with water and check to see how much you need to fill up all of the molds. Then when you're mixing your odds and ends, you can use the same cup to make sure you don't have too much or too little.
Well, if you also suffer from this affliction, take heart. I'm going to help you right now. I'm going to introduce you to the world of leftover popsicles. No, no, sit down and hush up and stop making that stinky poo poo face or I'll make you go sit on the stairs with the two year old. I'm not going to tell you to grind up your leftover Christmas ham and freeze it on a stick (although...hamsicles? Hmmmm....). No, the trick to a good leftover popsicle is balance.
First of all, you need a liquid. The only thing I've learned about this step is not to use a carbonated drink, because they really don't freeze very well. Although, this being said, I always tried it with a large ratio of carbonated drink to other ingredients - perhaps it would work better with a small ratio; you crazy experimenters out there will have to give me the low down on that.
And then, Bob's your uncle, really. Go nuts. Lots of stuff will freeze suspended (or dissolved) in your liquid of choice and use up all sorts of bits and pieces. Canned cranberry sauce, for some reason, is not great at setting, but again maybe in a better mixture would work.
Now, this being said, the more traditional among you are probably going to want to use more 'standard' popsicle ingredients, but may I suggest stretching your minds just a tiny bit? That last spoonful of hot chocolate powder can go in there. The half-eaten container of raisins, yes. A yogurt cup that's expiring tomorrow and no one is going to eat, absolutely. How about the endless reams of apple peels that appear on your counters because of little people who insist on de-skinned fruit? Those are great to puree and toss in. Or when you buy oranges and they aren't actually those nice oranges that you wanted to buy but the ones that are all hard and don't have enough juice and you're all like "oh wow I cannot eat this orange" and you want to throw it away but holy hannah in a handbasket have you seen the price of oranges today? Those too.
I made some up today and here they are:
Some cranberry cocktail, a bit of prune juice, and two yogurt cups of different flavours (I used nectarine and strawberry). The toddler has been having a "touchy tummy", and hopefully these will help. I won't go into details.
I broke out the new popsicle molds for your admiration. $2, marked down to 74 cents, at 50% off. 37 cents! Oh I love a bargain.
And here's the trick I've found. The first time you use your popsicle molds, fill up a measuring cup with water and check to see how much you need to fill up all of the molds. Then when you're mixing your odds and ends, you can use the same cup to make sure you don't have too much or too little.
My 7 molds required 2 cups of liquid. And it tasted quite nice.
Now go! And make sure to share your creations with me!
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Newish Blog
It's not perfect, but this is where I'm landing for now, my friends. I've hashed and re-hashed ad nauseum and ultimately it came down to this truth: If I don't write something really soon we're going to need to buy a share in Cadbury, bless their sinful little hearts, to handle the fallout. And so here I am.
If you're joining me from the intergoogleweb, welcome. I've blogged for many years over here, and you may or more likely may not find anything there that could interest you. If you already follow me there, you're going to need to switch your allegiance over here, because here's where the party's at.
Theoretically, at least. If I can stop eating leftover stuffing sandwiches.
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