I'm Jill and this is my totally twisted point of view

[jill]

Oh yeah he wanted to go up to the farm store tonight and get stuff to start a compost!! I said I think you need to wait for it to warm up and get outside and get the place cleaned up. He agreed. Tomorrow night we are suppose to be getting 1-3 inches of snow. I think someone needs to explain to ole man winter his welcome is now void. Crazy Indiana weather. It was 80 at the beginning of the week.

So I've been reading reading and reading all day today/tonight. And now I have all these ideas running through my head.

First thing I will be slowly working on this spring and summer is getting either the mats to make window quilts or finding some old blankets at the yard sales/2nd hand stores. And I say slowly because 1) we have 15 windows 2) I'm having a baby in about 10 weeks and 3) money. I gave away, well sold, my sewing machine last summer because I coudn't figure out how to use the darn thing nor the place to really use it. I have no problem threading a needle and doing it by hand but put me in front of a machine and I am clueless. But I don't know if sewing by hand is a good choice for window quilts. So finding cheap old blankets but be the answer. Oh and rods to hang them. lol

We aren't going to be able to get a garden this year more than likely. So that will be another thing to slowly get things for. Our back yard is a steep hill and completely useless as far as gardening is concerned. raised gardens seems to be the best answer for us.

A compost. I want one just simply to lower the garbage bags and how much they cost.

Well it's very late now and I am starting to not remember what I am reading. Time for bed.

 

[Icu4dzs]

LOL Oh no money isn't an issue. I can get food. It's time. And the clean up. But yes I would love to learn to cook food that I know

But really I hate my kitchen. I can't stand to be in it. And I guess I have never, well don't want to say never. I can throw meat in the crock pot or oven and make something to eat but it's getting in to all the spices and what goes with what. I grew up on salt, pepper and butter.
Would love to be able to make the great food though. Nothing like Bobby Flay just more like Grandma's good stuff. lol

You're gonna love this...cooking info from a guy!

Well Jill, assuming you took some science classes during your education, the one thing that seemed to be most helpful for me learning to cook (and that hasn't stopped happening yet) was following the directions in a protocol written by someone else who DOES know what they are doing. I was a histotechnologist before I went to medical school and that was almost NOTHING but following the directions and keeping the knife sharp. Valuable lessons for later in the kitchen. The reason I mention a science background is that it simply affords a little discipline in "following directions and measuring accurately".

In order to do that for cooking (just as in the laboratory), you might want to get a good set of instructions (read cookbook) (really several of them with foods you like to eat) and follow the directions "TO THE LETTER". You may also discover one of a few options:
a) it tastes lousy. then you can modify the protocols, but wait till you have done a whole lot of similar items. The use of spices and herbs is fraught with disaster when "JUST trying them out" Trust the folks who write those books....they have done it before and it worked for them besides somebody PAID them to write it. They MUST know what they are doing. (Don't ask me how I learned this!)

b) reading the protocol all the way through before starting saves a lot of misery when you find out that you didn't have the right stuff and then you tried to "wing it" thus resulting in what we in the world of science call a "negative outcome". similarly, the protocols are not always written in an INTUITIVE sequence...which is to say they will tell you to do something and then put it aside and do something else. That can get really confusing.

c) be certain to have all the required "lab ware" (read pots/pans, etc)

d) take a moment and try to imagine what it will taste like before embarking on this experimental journey. That will tell you if you even want to go there. If you see a spice or component that really sounds bad to you, trust me it will be as bad as you imagine...just go on to something else. Don't try to "fix it".

I saw a movie about a gal who used Julia Child's cookbook and it sounded so good, I bought it. I follow the instructions without question and I'll tell you that Mrs. Childs is a VERY GoOD cook. Everything I tried when I did exactly like she says turned out really good.
Another lady who writes about Chinese cooking and helped me was Helen Chen.

Cooking is not that hard IF you FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS and you don't try to BS your way through it. Us amateurs have to pay attention to the details but the result is worth the effort...If you ask me. I haven't killed my self or any of my friends yet and that is about all I can tell you about cooking.

O, yeah, the other thing is don't buy junk cookware. Cookware like good hand tools in the shop are the same issue. Cheap ones will fail and good ones help you do a good job. A sharp knife is safer than a dull one. Don't buy cheap knives either (and do sharpen it often)
Best of luck...and
Trim sends

 

[mlynd]

hey Jill If u want a sewing machine I probly have one here u can have if u want just give me the go no go I'll have to dig it out of storage And I'll even show u how to use the darn thing or .... U could come over here this summer a few times and we can work together I have some quilts i need to get done to so it could be what I like to call a stitch and B*&^ day with no guys around ( but the Popcorn and the Itty bitty would be welcome ) and I'm so doing yard sales this yr we need to start looking in our paper

 

[jill]

Hey some of the greatest chefs are men so give it to me! LOL And your post made me laugh so that's good. Never thought of cooking as a science but it does make sense. I did have some cookbooks...but I am thinking they are long gone or maybe hidden somewhere around here. I will have to keep an eye out for the books put out by churches....those little ole church ladies can cook!!!

And Michele, Orleans town wide yard sales April 29th and 30th I do believe...and yes already told Chet he couldn't work because I, we, whom ever are going! Have not a clue if our town has them anymore? And I never buy the paper. I figure if it's important someone will tell me lol.


Well it's just me and my 2 younger kids today. I am going to try to clean a bit without over doing it. I will be happy when this baby gets here and I recover so that I can do something again!!! Never thought I would actually MISS cleaning my own house. But I think it's because no one here does it like I would. Oh well that shouldn't be a problem in say....about 12 weeks.

Well gotta stop thinking and get to doing.

 

[jill]

My husband is going out to the woods today to get some cedar trees to make into raised garden beds. I'm kinda unsure about this. The good news is they will be either FREE or very cheap. His uncle owns the land and the saw mill. And he offered his cedar!!!

The unsure part is we, as a family, really don't eat a lot of veggies. I mean I buy them, frozen but it's not such a huge cost. Because we don't eat all veggies. We are ALL picky when it comes to food. For me I will only eat sugar snap peas. My kids will only eat green beans and corn. And I have no clue how much to plant because well ya never know if it's gonna grow or not.

But I guess the point is we are at least going to do it. Not sure if we will be able to plant this year or not. Depends on when the snow and ole man winter decide to finally go away for a while! Plus we gotta get dirt/soil and the seeds/plants.

Work in progress I say.

 

[savingdogs]

My husband is going out to the woods today to get some cedar trees to make into raised garden beds. I'm kinda unsure about this. The good news is they will be either FREE or very cheap. His uncle owns the land and the saw mill. And he offered his cedar!!!

The unsure part is we, as a family, really don't eat a lot of veggies. I mean I buy them, frozen but it's not such a huge cost. Because we don't eat all veggies. We are ALL picky when it comes to food. For me I will only eat sugar snap peas. My kids will only eat green beans and corn. And I have no clue how much to plant because well ya never know if it's gonna grow or not.

But I guess the point is we are at least going to do it. Not sure if we will be able to plant this year or not. Depends on when the snow and ole man winter decide to finally go away for a while! Plus we gotta get dirt/soil and the seeds/plants.

Work in progress I say.

Hi, Jill, nice to meetcha.

I'm one of the laundry soap makers if you need any help, I've been making mine awhile and love it.

I relate to the story of your kitchen and how you hate to be there. Mine is very old as well and no remodeling funds are going to be forthcoming for awhile, so I have to make-do. I did find that re-arranging things really helped, especially using a hanging pot rack that really freed up a lot of space. That was my best "fix", but I need an influx of cash to do the other things I want to do. I'm not much of a cook but found that The Joy of Cooking is my friend, and I also find lots of good recipes online, or on this forum. I always look up recipes including the word "easy" ......

Regarding the garden, I've got a somewhat black thumb when it comes to veggies although I do excellent with landscape plants. Dunno why. But in any event, for your raised beds, I'd suggest you plant green beans, corn and sugar snap peas since that is what your family will eat. Corn takes a lot of space though. If you throw in a couple tomato plants you might like tomatos better (store bought ones are just never as good). We like to grow our own herbs and I've done those in the house on a windowsill before and they have done okay. I'd start small, we have tried to plant too huge of a garden before and just never had enough time to weed it. Finding a way to block the weeds from growing helps too. Also, looking up the dates when to plant things instead of just guessing or doing it all in one day. Those are mistakes we have already made!

I'm late to the welcome bandwagen, but at least I showed up, huh?

 

[sheaviance1]

Hey Jill!
About that kitchen....I totally understand. There are cheap little things that you can do to make it a more welcoming space for you. I had issues with mine too when I moved in. Our house is 90 years old. My husbands ex had it decorated with the ugliest paneling I have ever seen. One gallon of paint later, and my walls are a mossy green, and with the cedar cabinets in there, it looks fantastic!!! We had an old butcher block (the standing kind that you used to see in grocery store meat departments) out in the garage, so I brought it into the kitchen, covered it with fabric and a table runner, add a vinyl shower curtain (until I can afford to get a stainless steel top for it) and voila! I have added working space in my kitchen. When we are processing deer in the fall/winter, the vinyl top serves as an easy clean up feature. During the summer, off it comes and it serves as a place to work on all the canning that we do. I keep my pressure canner under it as well as storing extra jars. A few new charming curtains, a baker's rack, some houseplants thrown in, and a deeper sink and I now love my kitchen. Two of the things that I plan to do over the course of this summer is convert my son's closet bedroom to a pantry. There is very little storage space in this house. Also, new flooring. When we refloored the kitchen a few years ago, hubby decided he wanted to go with the vinyl tiles. I hate them. They come up all the time. Anyway, that is the last change I want to make in there.

While you are yard saling this spring and summer, look at different items to make your kitchen "yours". Just about anything can be made better with a little effort. Good luck!

 

[Marianne]

Welcome!