Progress!

Well, I mentioned last time that we had made some progress on our mudroom project.  It is true.  A while back (as in several months ago) we actually hung two of the five carcases.  For those who have never read the Time Life handyman series, specifically, the How-To-Build-Cupboards book, the carcase is the basic box that you put stuff into.  Without the shelves or doors.  I would say that they are quite a success.  And I would know, since I have had several months to look at them as they collect things with which we don't know what to do otherwise.  Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on us.  One carcase is actually holding its intended occupants: our china, which came out of long-term storage in the basement recently.  Instead of packing it back up in newspaper, Jeff splurged for a whole set of storage bags for just this purpose.  I have been wanting some for quite a long time, but when I actually look at them in the store, I think, "There are lots of other things that I could spend this $20 on right now.  I'd better wait."  Silly, I know.  They come in handy!  I often pack up a set of dishes to take somewhere for a party or dinner held somewhere other than my house (which, we've established, is not party-ready, especially in the winter).  So it's nice to have a safe vessel in which to carry them.  However, the china is not meant to be stored in them, ultimately.  That would render worthless the glass doors that we will eventually attach to the carcases.  As I wait, though, I have been sufficiently assured that the cupboards are well supported and strong as can be.  My dishes will be safe when they reach their final resting place.

The cupboards are only a small part of the progress, though.  Our next step on this wall unit will be the "locker" space where the kids can hang up coats, backpacks and snowpants, with a space for wet boots and shoes under each locker, and cubby space above for storage of small items, like notebooks and umbrellas.  Since this part of the unit will stretch from the floor to the bottom of the cupboards, we needed to address the floor first.  We have always liked the look of slate, and we especially like that it is textured, thereby providing some protection from slipping.  Since we track lots of snow and rain into the entryway, we decided that slate was the way to go.

So in October, we bought the tiles.









*dead air*








And there they sat.  We had never laid tile before, see, so we were a bit lost as to what needed to be done.  Well, we knew the steps, but there's always this mental wall that keeps us from taking the next step.

Perhaps I am being too hard on us again.  This is no ordinary floor, and this would be no basic tile job.  Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the floor the way it used to be.  I forgot to take the "before" picture.  But here's the thing:  there's a trap door in the middle of it.  It's the only access to the basement.  Up until we demo'd the room, there was an elaborate pulley system that spanned the wall, with old bleach jugs filled with sand acting as counterweights in the basement.  All we had to do was pull the rope down, and the door would lift up, allowing us entry.   Well, that brings up all kinds of issues.  We couldn't put tile on the door.  It would be far too heavy to lift, and the constant movement up and down probably wouldn't be good for the tile, anyway.  The whole floor used to be covered in linoleum.  Nice and lightweight.  But I hate linoleum.  And I wanted slate.  So we decided that we would just get a large rug and attach it to the door to cover up the fact that there is no tile there.  One problem solved.
However, there were a couple of other issues.  For one thing, the space between the exterior door and the basement trap door takes a rather steep dive.  It is highest by the exterior door, and I would say that it drops toward the basement door a good inch.  We were a little unsure about how to deal with that.  And finally, while we intend to continue the slate into the kitchen, we are unable to do the entire floor right now. The footprint of the kitchen will change when we get around to renovating it, so it would be silly to lay the floor now.  So what could be do to avoid having a big gap where slate meets linoleum?

So with all these weird little issues, we managed to find other things to keep us too busy to get to the floor job.

Finally, after Christmas, we had had quite enough.  So we got to work.

These are actually pictures from a while back.  We removed the linoleum some time ago, and look what we found!  An old For Sale sign had been repurposed as a sub-floor.  This may be the time to pull out a Dutch joke (West Michigan has a very high Dutch population), but I feel a little funny, not being Dutch myself.

After we pulled up all the pieces of the For Sale subfloor, we were left with this.  Jeff had a heck of a time getting those hinges out.  

The lockers will go along this wall, and we debated whether to tile all the way under the bench, since it won't be seen unless you get on your hands and knees.  

Here is the first step after our long winter break from the project.  Jeff had already laid the new sub-floor, and then we put down the cement backer board.  We put twice as many screws in as it said to use, because of the wonkiness of the floor.  We didn't want it moving at all.  It doesn't get much more solid than this.

And finally, we got up the nerve to actually lay the tile.  Turns out, this was a worst case scenario tile job.  I'll be honest.  We got the cheap stuff.  We looked at the tile specialty stores, and the slate was beautiful.  And it was $5.99 per square foot.  Then we looked at the slate at Lowes.  It didn't look that much different.  And it was $1.48 per square foot.  Easy decision, right?

I knew, in the back of my head, that there was a very good reason that the Lowes tile was so much cheaper.  I just shut that voice down and pretended I had never heard it.  

These tiles, while beautiful, have a great tendency to flake.  I read somewhere online that slate is one of the hardest stones available for flooring, but there are differing degrees of hardness, and you have to blast through the "softer" stuff to get to the harder stuff.  They used to discard the softer slate.  Now they sell it to big box stores.....like Lowes.  That would explain the flaking.

The other problem was that the thickness of each tile was significantly different.  They could vary by nearly 1/2 an inch.  While that came in handy when we needed to fish out the thinnest possible tiles to put under where the door would swing open, it did make for a difficult, and only partially successful installation.  I definitely made some mistakes here.  There is one tile that is literally surrounded on all sides by thicker, thus higher tiles.  And there are a couple of spots that simply have too great of a difference in height between two adjacent tiles.  But it's not enough to stub a toe on.  And since I have vowed to approach all house projects with the attitude that nothing is perfect in old houses, so I might as well make the new things fit in, I am okay with this.  I consider it to be a learning experience, and when we branch out to the rest of the kitchen, I will be more diligent to use a thicker coat of thinset under the thinner tiles, and try to make height differences more gradual, rather than putting two tiles that are vastly different thicknesses right next to each other.  I mostly placed the tiles by color, rather than thickness.  Next time I will try to find a balance between the two.

The good news is that, when we get around to renovating the bathroom, the ceramic tile that I put up will be a breeze!  Every tile is identical!

So anyway, it was slightly difficult as tile jobs go, but in the overall scheme of things, it was easy!  I am not afraid of laying tile at all now.  

Two weeks later, I finally got up the nerve to seal the tile.  I had been quite afraid of messing it all up.  Turns out, this job couldn't be much easier.  Think polishing a table--not applying polyurethane to it.  You just wipe the stuff on, and it dries, and you find out that your tile is even prettier than before!  

Buoyed by this victory, I moved right on to grouting.  Again, I was afraid of mixing it wrong, but it seems that even mixing isn't too hard.  I applied the grout, and Jeff came behind me to wipe up the excess.  Easy peasy.

Finally, we had to address the trap door.  I was never really pleased with the idea of the mat.  The only ones big enough to cover the door are those industrial black rubber or commercial black fuzzy things, like you see just inside of a school door.  Yuck.  I can't remember how I thought of it, but I suggested wood to Jeff.  I'm pretty sure I was just thinking about using a thick trim around the edges of the door to facilitate using a nicer rug.  But Jeff said that we could get 1/4" oak veneer plywood, which is not heavy at all.  So that's what we did!  I like it a lot. Would I prefer not having a door in the middle of the slate floor?  Yes.  But given what we had to work with, I think it turned out really well. The pictures don't even do it justice.  The colors are much deeper than they look here.  I absolutely love it.

The before and after is quite astonishing.  Too bad that the "before" is stored in our memories......

Up next:  the lockers!
                             

Caprese Panini

Printable Recipe

Wow.  So I remembered this week that I had started a blog a few months ago. Hmm...sort of forgot about it for a couple of months.  Well, that's only half true. There were reasons beyond my lack of organization and discipline that kept me from posting for so long.  December was super busy (as it is for everyone!), and I was sick through the entire Christmas break. So I never got around to posting more neat kitchen gadget wish list ideas, as I had planned.  Oops.  On the bright side, I got a couple of nifty gifts myself.  My birthday is three days before Christmas, so between my birthday and Christmas, I got the super duper ultra premium ThermaPen truly instant read thermometer that I wished for (!), an incredibly large and awesome America's Test Kitchen cookbook, and a Wusthof bread knife that I didn't know was vital to my life and ultimate happiness until a few weeks before Christmas when I used a friend's to cut up many loaves of bread into cubes for fondue.  I really got spoiled this year.  May have something to do with the fact that I turned 40.  And I'm okay with that.

We got back to working on our mudroom in January, and have actually made some progress, but it's been pretty time-consuming.  And finally, our computer is in the chaotic multi-use room that we very descriptively refer to as "the back room."  This room was the last of the additions to the original house, and there's not even a real crawl space under it. Just dirt, about a foot under my feet.  It also has three exterior walls.  This room is cold.  Very cold.  It's not a pleasant place to spend time.  I am convinced that I need a laptop, since I could use it in the warmth of my living room, snuggled in between a couch cushion and a fuzzy blanket.  I may have to settle for a space heater for a while, though.  This isn't our permanent office, after all.  It's a laundry room and pantry.  We only put the desk in here as a temporary solution, until the bedroom upstairs gets remodeled, including adding a closet.  So temporarily, we are sleeping in the small room that is supposed to be the den.  Temporary apparently means five years and counting.  Fortunately, the bedroom is getting closer to the top of the list.  We only have to finish up the mudroom and complete the long-ignored half-finished front entryway, and we'll start getting the bedroom ready for move in.  So hopefully, I'll be typing away here from the real office next December, without having to take breaks to thaw my toes in warm water.

Oh!  I got another present for my birthday!  Well, I don't actually have it yet, but my husband, friends and some extended family members all chipped in to get me a really nice camera!  Unfortunately, with the Christmas rush, there weren't any of the ones that our friends recommended, so he just told me about it, and we have to go get one now that the rush is over.  I'm pretty sure they're restocked by now. I hear that it will vastly improve the look of the pictures I post here.  I may even go back into some of the old posts and replace the most egregious photos.  I promise, my guacamole really isn't grey!  And Spaghetti Caprese is so much more appetizing than the picture implies.

Speaking of Caprese, I didn't realize it until I signed back on here today, but Spaghetti Caprese was the last recipe that I posted....two months ago.  I sang the praises of this wonderful combination of fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella then.  I really do love it. I made these Caprese Panini about a month ago, and wow.  Just wow.  So very good.  These panini are a fabulous way to experience a bit of summer in the midst of the cold winter that finally showed up here in West Michigan.

So the good news is that the prep work is significantly less for this panino than for the spaghetti.  The bad news is that you can't just slice everything and throw it on.  Let's get started.

Get a sheet pan out and place a cooling rack inside of it.  Slice tomatoes and lay them out in a single layer on the rack.  Now sprinkle coarse salt, somewhat liberally, on the tomato slices.  Turn them over and repeat the salting.  This may seem extraneous, but it's important.  Tomatoes are very juicy.  And fresh mozzarella contains a lot of moisture.  You can't do much about the mozzarella, but if don't salt the tomatoes, then the panini will end up soggy and sloppy.  Salt draws the moisture out of foods, so you will find some juices in the pan after a while, and that is moisture that won't end up in your bread.  

While the salt does its thing to the tomatoes, you can prep the rest of your ingredients.  You want to have everything ready, because once you start, it really does go quickly.

First, get your pan going.  If you have a grill pan, here is the place to use it.  Mine is cast iron, and I love it.  It wasn't too expensive, either.  However, if you don't have a grill pan, any heavy skillet will do. You won't have the cool grill marks, but it will still taste good.  If you have cast iron, I highly recommend it here.  It holds heat very well, and heats evenly.  So you won't have one side beautifully golden brown, and the other side pale beige, because the pan wasn't hot enough to cook the second side well.  Have I mentioned how much I love cast iron?  I do.  If only it wasn't so heavy.  Although, heaviness has its benefits, which you will see in a minute.

Oh, and of course, if you have one of those electric panini presses or a Foreman grill, you can use it instead.  Get it heating up.

Now, slice up your bread.  Any hearty, sturdy bread will work--I used country Italian bread that I found at Meijer, but sourdough or ciabatta work well, too.  Slice the mozzarella thinly.  I buy the big double packages from Sam's Club.  It is, by far, the least expensive way to go.  It comes pre-sliced, but I actually slice each slice in half, because you want the cheese to be very thin, or else you will have a mess on your hands.  You will also need to have lots of fresh basil leaves ready, and a small bowl of olive oil with a pastry brush.

I don't know why I can't space the pictures the right way.  The options seem to be a bit thin.  Anyone?

   

   

Now build your sandwich.  Lay out two slices of bread, and cover it with thin slices of mozzarella.  Top those with fresh basil leaves.  I like a lot of basil, but you can add as little or as much as you like.  Use a paper towel to gently sop any liquid from the surface of the tomato slices, and lay a few slices on top of the basil.  Top the tomato slices with some more mozzarella.  See?  You still get plenty of cheese.  You just separate the layers, and then they won't make a mess.  Finally, put the other piece of bread on top, and brush it with olive oil.  You want to be generous with the oil.  It doesn't have to be thick, but you want to make sure that you cover the bread completely.  Unlubricated bread absolutely will stick to a hot pan.  And that would be bad.

   

Just to be sure that you don't have any stickage, you might want to brush the surface of the pan with a bit of oil.  It will smoke, because you have a screaming hot pan, which is good.  Now lay the panini down on the pan, oiled side down, and then brush the dry side with oil.

In order to get the sandwich's elements to kind of meld together, rather than slip-sliding around, you need to apply some weight.  I have a grill press, but there are two problems with using it here.  For one thing, it's only large enough for one sandwich, and since I usually grill two sandwiches at one time, that's not helpful.  But really, I like more weight to be applied.  I like the deep indentations that I get in the bread with a lot of weight.  They add texture and crunch to the bread.  So to solve both problems, I haul out the largest cast iron skillet that I have.  It covers both panini, and then I put the grill press on top, just for the extra weight, and to help balance the pan if it's sitting a little wonky.  If you don't have a cast iron pan or grill press, just use the heaviest pan you have, and set a few heavy canned goods in it for weight.

After a few minutes, the panini are ready to be flipped.  To be honest, I don't remember if this panino was a little too light, or if the lighting just made it look that way.  At any rate, it should be deep brown, with a few bits of char.  After flipping, replace the weight and grill until the other side is brown and crisp.

And there you have it.  Make sure that you cut it in half at a deep angle.  Because that's how it's supposed to be.  And because it looks fancy. And you get to see the way that the cheese is slowly dripping out of the panino.  Oh, I am really wishing that I had some tomatoes, basil and mozzarella in the house right now.

And if you want, you can serve it with soup, like this Tuscan Soup that I created as a knock-off of Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana, with sausage, potatoes and kale.  I have to admit, though....it was a bit much.  A lighter soup or salad is enough to make this a great dinner, and the panino is enough to stand alone for a very yummy lunch.  Enjoy!

Spaghetti Caprese -- My Favorite Meal

Printable Recipe

Have you heard of Insalata Caprese? If you have been in a decent Italian restaurant, you have probably seen it on the menu.  It consists of fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella cheese, and usually some good olive oil, maybe a bit of vinegar or lemon juice, and salt.  It can be prepared in a variety of ways.  I've seen it diced and tossed together.  I've often sliced the tomatoes and cheese to roughly the same size, and layered them with a whole basil leaf tucked between.  You can use a beefsteak tomato slice and a large ball of mozzarella, and serve a single stack with tiny ribbons of basil scattered over the top, as a first course or lunch in the summer.  Or you can make a platter full, alternating tomato, basil and cheese in rows.  I once even made little hors d'oeuvres by skewering a grape tomato, basil leaf and bocconcini (the little balls of fresh mozzarella that you can buy in a tub or on the olive bar) on a toothpick.  Any way you serve it, it is the most perfect combination of flavors, textures and colors that I can think of.  In fact, pizza Margherita uses these same basic ingredients.  Supposedly, it was first made for the queen, and the colors were a nod to the Italian flag.  Being the corndog that I am, that story makes it even better.

Well, I love pasta.  And years ago, I made a pasta sauce from fresh garden tomatoes.  It was a process, but delicious.  So I figured, why not bring some mozzarella to the party?  The results are fantastic, and this is absolutely my favorite meal ever.  That's saying something, because I loves me some beef, and there is no meat to be found here.  But the freshness of the ingredients, the simplicity of it, and the pure pleasure of the process of creating it, make this my number one.

I should note that this dish, in its simplicity, relies heavily on the quality of its ingredients.  Especially the tomatoes.  Fresh tomatoes from your garden or the farmers market are the best.  However, it is November in Michigan, and there is not a decent tomato to be found, right? Well, I discovered campari tomatoes a few years ago, and they get me through the long, dreary, tomatoless winter.  They come in a clamshell package, and you can get them at Meijer or Sam's Club, at least.  They are not cheap, and they are small, which means a little more work. But they at least taste like tomatoes, which is a far cry from the pallid, rock hard balls with frosty white flesh inside that they label as tomatoes at the supermarket.  Of course, Sam's Club has the better price, but I found them on sale at Meijer this week, and I snatched up a couple of boxes.  As for cheese, I've heard that freshly made mozzarella is the best. Alas, I have never had the pleasure of eating mozzarella that is house-made, so I don't know what I am missing.  Therefore, the stuff you get at Aldi or Meijer or any other supermarket, is just fine. Once again, though, Sam's Club has a great price on a large package.

Alright, let's get started! 

This is all you need, plus some olive oil.  Tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella, garlic, salt, red pepper flakes, and spaghetti.  Get everything together, because this moves pretty quickly.

First, get a large pot of water on to boil.  While you are waiting for that to happen, rinse your tomatoes off.  I use the same pot for the tomatoes and the pasta, so you just want to make sure that there is no dirt or dust on the tomatoes.

Fill a large bowl with cold water, about halfway, and drop in a few ice cubes. Then get a smaller bowl and put a mesh strainer in it.  I've got this down to a science.  I used to use about 5 bowls, but now I only use these two.

Now prep your rinsed tomatoes by cutting a shallow X in the bottom of each with the tip of a sharp paring knife.  You only need to go just through the skin.

I don't know how your stove works, but I was still waiting for the water to boil, so I went ahead and prepared my garlic.  I use a whole head of garlic, and I chop it roughly...no need to really mince it here.  Just no bigger than you mind biting into.

Finally, my water boiled, so I turned it down to a simmer and dropped in some tomatoes, using my handy spider.  You don't want to add too many tomatoes at one time, because it will bring down the temperature of the water too much.  Plus, the timing works out perfectly.  These tomatoes are small, so I did four at a time.  For larger garden tomatoes, do about two, maybe three at a time.

There....see the crack in the skin?  That means that it is done....well, more than done.  It took me a few tries to get a decent picture.  Once you see the X getting longer, you can get them out.  It doesn't take long--maybe 30 seconds, so don't walk away.

Now you can plunge them into the ice water.  Immediately put another batch of tomatoes into the simmering water.  Then get a tomato out of the ice water and pull the skin away.  It comes right off.

Like that.  Of course, if you have ever canned tomatoes, you are familiar with this process.  It's as simple as can be.  The only thing I do differently is to do a few at a time instead of all at once.  I find that the peel comes off more easily if the tomato is still just a little warm.  The longer they sit in the ice bath, the more the skin wants to adhere.  And as soon as you get the peel off of one batch, the next one is ready to come out of the hot water and into the ice bath, so there really isn't any extra time involved.  

As I peel each tomato, I set it into the strainer inside the bowl.  This is just so that any extra water can drip off.

Once all the tomatoes are peeled, you might need to add some water to the pot in order to have enough to cook the pasta.  Once you add the water, you can put the pot on a back burner and turn it back up to high.  Then add enough good olive oil to a skillet to cover the bottom.  I like green, fruity olive oils, but that's just my taste.  In this recipe, the oil is adding flavor, not just lubricating the pan, so use what you like.  Put the pan over medium-low heat and add the garlic.  This will slowly heat up together, and the flavor of the garlic will infuse into the oil.  Your house will smell wonderful, and you will be happy.  If the oil gets above a low simmer, turn it down a little.  You want to hear a mild sizzle, but not much more than that.  

Now finish prepping the tomatoes.  Empty the ice water bath.  Now empty any water from the small bowl, and then drop the tomatoes into the bowl.  Then put the strainer into the larger bowl.  It's like musical chairs, except with bowls instead of chairs, and no music.  You will need to work over the strainer, because the tomatoes are going to drip as you cut them, and you want to catch all the juices in the bowl.  The strainer is to catch the seeds.  Of course, if you don't mind seeds, you can skip all of this and just core the tomatoes, then tear them up.  I don't like tomato seeds, especially in my pasta sauce.  Use the tip of your paring knife to cut a v-shaped circle around the core of the tomato (the stem end).  You want the cut to be shaped like a cone, I guess.  Then reach in with your fingers and grab the little cone and pull it out, taking as little flesh as you can.  Drop the cone into the strainer.  Now just dig your thumbs into the hole and pull the tomato apart.  Slide your fingers along the inside of the tomato wall to push most of the seeds out.  That jelly-like stuff around the seeds will come with them.  That's okay...we'll deal with that in a minute.  The picture above shows what it will look like when you are done.  The empty shell of a tomato goes into the bowl under the strainer.  The seeds have all been captured by the strainer, and much of the juice is collecting in the large bowl underneath.  When all of the tomatoes have been emptied, use your spider to transfer the tomato flesh back to the smaller bowl.  The spider will allow the juice to drain away from the flesh, but you don't have to go crazy.  Now reach into the strainer and grab fistfuls of seeds/gel and squeeze to break up the gel.  Do this for a minute or so, over the strainer, and then you can just swish your hand around to push most of the liquid out into the bowl.  At this point, the strainer should be rinsed off.  Dry seeds will stick, and that's a mess you don't want to deal with. Plus, you can use the strainer to drain the pasta later, and you'll want it clean.

By this time, the garlic should just barely be turning golden around the edges. If that starts to happen earlier, just turn the heat down until you are ready.  Keep an eye on it, because you don't want burnt garlic.  If, on the other hand, you see no sign of golden color and there is no sizzle at all, just turn the heat up for a minute or two, until you see some.  

Then turn the heat up to high and drop in the red pepper flakes.  If you have never used red pepper flakes, I highly recommend that you buy the mild version.  These little puppies pack some heat!  The thing that I have found with pepper flakes is that they seem to get milder as they sit in your pantry.  But you kind of play roulette every time you use them.  If you are sensitive to heat, just use a pinch, or use a bit of black pepper instead.  But I like a punch, so I used about 1/2 teaspoon here.  It was bracing.  

After only about 10 seconds, add the tomato flesh.  Sprinkle well with coarse salt and then toss around, and press the tomatoes to the bottom of the pan.  The combination of salt (which draws moisture out) and heat breaks down the tomatoes pretty quickly.  

At this point, your water should be boiling again.  Salt the water well, and put the pasta in, and don't forget to stir it around well to keep it from sticking to itself.  

After only a few minutes, the tomatoes have broken down to this.  You can help the progress along at this point by pressing on them with your tongs or a spoon.  They are pretty soft, so they will break apart easily.  Don't go crazy, though.  A few chunks are good, and well, I think they make the dish prettier.  Yes, that matters.

When the tomatoes are broken down to this, you can go ahead and add the reserved juice.

Then just stir it around and let it keep cooking away over high heat.  This is a thin sauce, and you want some of the moisture to evaporate, but you want the body and flavor from the juice, so don't skip it.

Somewhere in here you will need to drain your pasta.  I like to pour the pasta into the strainer, and then immediately place the pot underneath the strainer.  It will catch around 1 cup of water as it drains, and you might need that later.

Now it's time to prepare the basil.  Don't do this ahead of time.  It only takes a minute, and the basil will start to discolor if cut and exposed to air for too long.  Tear all of the leaves off of the stems.  Discard the stems, and place the largest leaf you have underneath a stack of all the rest.

This package had an enormous leaf, which was very convenient.  Now just roll up the outer leaf, wrapping it around the rest of the basil, and slice thinly across the roll.

Here's what you end up with.  For what it's worth, this is a chiffonade of basil.  Oooh, French!

Turn the heat off and toss the basil chiffonade into the sauce.  You don't want to cook the basil.  The residual heat is enough to pull the flavor into the sauce without turning the basil to mush.  Seriously, isn't this pretty?

Now add the pasta and toss it around.  I go slowly when adding my pasta.  If I have a little leftover, I can throw it in the fridge and use it for something later.  But I don't want to be left with dry pasta without enough sauce.  If you accidentally add more pasta than you need, go ahead and drizzle in a bit of pasta cooking water.  It will help to loosen the pasta up, while the starch in the water keeps the sauce from becoming too thin.  I realize that this doesn't look as red and saucy as you may be used to.  Again, this is a thin sauce, unlike the stuff you find in a jar.  It hasn't been cooked down to near paste.  But it is more than saucy enough to coat the pasta, and the freshness makes up for the lack of redness.  

Now just cube up the cheese and scatter it over the spaghetti.  Toss with your tongs, and get the cheese kind of covered up.  The residual heat of the pasta will soften the cheese, so that when you serve and eat it......

........this will happen!  Oh, yum.......

Give yourself a little taste of summer!  Get your hands on some campari tomatoes and pretend that we're not on the cusp of snowfall.  I always have fun making this, and I hope you will, too!

All I Want for Christmas.....

Phew.  I'm tired.  So tired that I can't even put the proper exclamation mark after "phew".  It's been a busy fall, and it's really ramped up in the last couple of weeks.  A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday, I told a friend that I had a pretty clear week.  That was a really good thing, I thought, because my house was trashed.  We had pulled out the Christmas decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving, as usual.  What was unusual, however, was that we are still working (very, nay....painfully slowly) on the entryway/eventual mudroom.  We found ourselves with a Saturday that Jeff wasn't going to go to work, and we decided to squeeze in a little time to work on the room.  Well, as projects tend to do, the task list multiplied, and we found ourselves at Home Depot a couple of times.  So that ate up more time than we thought it would.  On top of that, there was more decluttering to do than in normal years.  Have I mentioned that this entryway is right next to the kitchen?  The kitchen that is already too cramped and hard to work in?  Well, it is.  And since we have this long-standing project going on, the tools, materials, and other necessities tend to spill out to the surrounding rooms.  We had a shelf set up to hold most of the stuff, but it was right in the dining room window (our basement is only accessible through a trap door....in the floor of the entryway.....so keeping the things that we need there is not practical until this project is finished), and that window is where we put our Christmas tree.  Our house was a bit like those puzzles where there is one spot open, and you have to keep moving the tiles, one at a time, until you finally get all of them where they need to be.  The point is, the Christmas decorations didn't get finished that weekend.  That meant that the bins were taking up valuable space, things were getting moved from one inconvenient place to another, and basically, I was going mad.

Well, I was sadly wrong about my clear week.  Every single day, something came up that caused me to leave the house for several hours. Plus, we had some big decisions to make around here, which took up any mental energy that I had left in the evenings.  Fortunately, I am now beginning to dig out.  The decorations are almost all out, so the bins can go back into hiding soon.  The kitchen has recovered.  I still must address Mount Laundry, but I think that will happen tomorrow.

So that's why I haven't written anything since before Thanksgiving.  I really haven't cooked a whole lot, and the times that I have cooked, I was time-crunched.  Hopefully I will get back to cooking in the next few days.  I miss it.

In the meantime, though, I figured I could start on a series about kitchen tools and equipment that I can't live without.  Well, I could, but I wouldn't want to.  There are several tools that just make life so much easier in the kitchen, and I want to share.  I don't know about you, but there were lots of things that I registered for before I was married, that now reside in my basement.  Things that were all the rage, or just looked cool.  But knives?  Oh, whatever.....I'm sure I can pick a paring knife up for a couple of bucks at Target.  What more do I need?  Oh, I was young and foolish.  It turns out that making bread actually requires nothing more than a large bowl, a wooden spoon, and a stone or bread pan.  Those enormous, precious-counter-space-hogging, unitasking small appliances aren't actually necessary.  But I didn't know that back then.  I want to save anyone who reads this some money and frustration by sharing the things that I have found to be enormously helpful, fun, useful and/or beautiful in my own cooking experience.  And what do you know?  Christmas is coming!

So to start, I want to let you all know about some great seasonal deals at Aldi.  I was just there the other day, and I saw that they have their Le Creuset knock-off Dutch ovens!  I bought two over a year ago for $39.99 each.  I have used them quite a bit, and they are still in fantastic shape.  These Dutch ovens are made of cast iron that is enamel-coated.  So you have the heat retention of the cast iron without the leaching of iron into your food.  They are also easier to clean than uncoated cast iron.  You can't put them in the dishwasher, but they are generally easy to clean with soapy water.  You can't clean cast iron with soap, because the soap will absorb into the metal and make your food taste soapy.  That's not a problem with enameled cast iron.  Don't get me wrong.  I love uncoated cast iron.  I don't even mind the leaching.  I can use all the extra iron I can get.  Never the less, there are times when I use a fair amount of wine or tomatoes and cook them for a long time, and for that, non-reactive pots are the way to go.

As for the Dutch oven in particular, well, what's not to love?  They come in pretty red or blue, and they go beautifully from the stovetop to the oven to the table.  They work well for stews, soups, braises, and one pot meals, many of which can be started on the stovetop (searing meat, bringing liquids up to a boil, etc) and then placed in an oven to continue cooking in a more gentle environment.  It's what I always use for my arroz con pollo, and I never end up with burnt rice!  At this moment, I have some beef simmering in red wine to tenderize it before I turn it into stroganoff.

Now, to be honest, I put off purchasing one of these pots for over a year.  I wanted the real deal.  I couldn't imagine that Aldi carried anything as good as Le Creuset.  And maybe it's not.  I can't say, because I haven't used Le Creuset.  I probably never will, since one pot costs nearly $400.00.  So I could buy a new Aldi pot every year for ten years before working off the cost of one Le Creuset.  However, these pots have already lasted me over a year without showing any significant signs of wear, so they are certainly a good deal.  Of course, if you don't have an Aldi nearby...well, first, I am so sorry!.....but don't worry.  There are actually many knock-offs these days.  Lodge has its own line of enameled cast iron.  It costs closer to $80.00 for the 5-6 quart size, but it's still a bargain.  Whatever you have to do to get an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, I highly recommend that you get one of these pots into your kitchen soon.  I absolutely love mine.

Aldi also has their silicone baking sheets back in stock, just in time for the baking season.  If you have never used them, you will be amazed. Absolutely nothing sticks to them.  I have a Silpat (the brand name of the original), and there is really very little difference between the two. For some reason, the Aldi sheets seem to discolor a bit, where the Silpat sheets do not.  But no worries....you're not serving anything on these sheets.  They just keep you from ruining sticky cookies and the sheet pans which would adhere to them.  Don't imagine that parchment works just as well.  Would you make caramel on parchment paper?  I wouldn't.  But caramel peels right off of silicone baking sheets like wax paper peels off of butter.  I always put it on the sheet pan under homemade granola.  And just the other day, I made cookies that would have been a disaster without the silicone sheet.  Coconut macaroons, which "bled" sweetened coconut cream all over the sheet and would have adhered something fierce to my sheet pan, and lace cookies, which, if you've never had them, are pretty much doilies made out of toffee and nuts.  Both cookies slide right off of the silicone.  I also put the sheets under other foods that might make a mess of a sheet pan.  Anything breaded, and anything that may leak and leave a sticky mess, I put on top of the silicone, and the mess slides right off into the trash.  Wipe off the silicone sheet in your dishwater, and you're done.  Again, I love this product.

I also saw some microplane graters at Aldi.  In fact, I picked one up.  I haven't used it, but it is the type that has a wider, shorter grating surface.  I already had the long skinny type, and it is amazing.  I can't imagine zesting citrus fruit with anything else.  It removes the flavorful zest (the colorful part of the peel) without getting into the bitter pith (the white part).  And it doesn't so much grate parmesan and other hard cheese as it transforms it into a cheesey cloud, which then melts into alfredo sauce beautifully.  It also grates chocolate over desserts, and in a pinch, I even grate nutmeg with it.  However, there are times when the long grating surface is difficult to use, and I have to admit that I have grated my knuckles a couple of times.  So the wider surface and finger guard on the grater that I just bought at Aldi will hopefully help.

I saw a Wilton cookie press at Aldi.  I didn't get it, even though I have been wanting a cookie press for years.  I am just not at all confident that I will take the time to make spritz cookies this Christmas (see above), and I don't want to spend money on anything that I don't need in the short term!

There are several other items that Aldi is carrying right now for a good price, but those are the stand-outs in my mind.

Finally, there is an item on my wish list that is not available at Aldi, and I want to recommend it to the elves in your life, as well.  I am very much hoping to find a Thermapen instant read thermometer in my stocking this year.  It's another thing that I have wanted for years, but could never before justify, since it costs around $90.00.  However, this year's Thanksgiving turkey banished any doubts.

Thermapen is the favorite thermometer of Cook's Illustrated / America's Test Kitchen, which does product testing for kitchen and food items, much like Consumer Reports.  I've read and seen them rave about the Thermapen for years.  Its accuracy, quick register, and ease of use have all gotten high marks, consistently.  But how do you spend $90.00 on a thermometer when you can get one for $10.00 at Meijer?

Well, when your $10.00 thermometer that you thought was accurate  finally registers an internal temperature of 161 degrees in your turkey's breast, and you take it out of the oven, only to notice that the pop-up timer that came in the turkey has popped-up, which happens at 180 degrees, you start to see the sense in a $90.00 thermometer.  That's what happened to me.  Thank goodness I ignored all the current naysaying about brining your turkey, because it was still juicy, though not quite as juicy as what we have become accustomed to.

And here's the thing:  You don't brine beef, so there will be no such protection for the Christmas prime rib roast.  What good timing it would be to find the Thermapen under the tree on the very morning that I cook said roast!  Not that I am throwing out any hints, or anything (*cough* I like the red one because it won't get lost in the kitchen as easily! *cough*).

That's it for now.  Oh, there are plenty of other tools that I highly recommend.  After all, I refer to Sur la Table as my DisneyWorld.  I will try to get some other recommendations on here in time for you to drop hints of your own.