Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen

This is my spice rack. It is a seltzer bottle holder tipped over onto its side. I really like it, and I've been trying to sort out to get all the same bottles to fit inside. The silver capped ones come from Whole Foods, and while I like it, it looks very.... something. Like something lots of other people might have. And while I think mass-produced items are awesome, I didn't want them for my spice jars. Oh and also I could not afford 40 jars at the Whole Foods price. $80. Gulp! So I bought a whole bunch (40) plain glass jars with white caps at China Fair and personalized them. They're the ones in the right hand compartments. They were .69 cents each. Not too bad. I took an old cookbook and cut out the index pages (because I can't actually defile the cookbook part). Then I made a few pages of spice labels on pretty blue paper (blue is always fashionable!) and pasted a round cut from the index to the jar lid. Then I affixed the spice name and sprayed the whole gamilla w...

Snowfall in February is a lot less intimidating than a snowfall in November but it makes up for it by being more depressing. This long slow crawl t'ward green is not helped out by the white fluffy stuff. I am ready for spring, dammit! Yes, yes, I know, I know. Just wait until the summer when I complain about the heat and the humidity. And if THIS post sounds alot like an earlier post, it's because pretty much I do the same thing every time it snows: come home, dry off, get warm, make shepherds pie, complain about the weather, blog, make some hot chocolate, hop into my fleecy bed, read, and fall asleep. So it stands to reason that I am going to start repeating myself at some point. Wait, what? Oh yeah, shepherds pie. I call it that, but really my way is any kind of ground - pork, beef, lamb, turkey, textured vegetable protein - which I saute together with garlic, onions, peas, corn, carrots, a little broth/plain water to moisten, some tomato paste, season with Worcestershire sa...

I am not going to lie, February is one tough cookie of a month. Winter seems to have already gone on forever with seemingly no end in sight, and frankly March is just going to be more of the same. I go to bed chilly, wake up chilly, the sun is bright and cold, I've ceased to care that I look like a molten chocolate cake on legs in my coat and hat as long as I am warmish, and then there is the nagging thought that snow can blast in on us at anytime. Woof. You have to be prepared for anything in February, and you have to be prepared to tough it out until April. Maybe May. My coping skills include a deliciously easy shepherds pie and a hearty cranberry-carrot cake. Anything that involves turning on the oven for a while. Shepherd's pie made in the perfect pot. It makes just enough for dinner and lunch the next day. Cranberry-carrot cake I usually make in a loaf pan unless I need it for a birthday cake. Or sometimes I make muffins. This is the only "cake" recipe I have th...

I haven't been doing a whole lot of blogging lately. Sorry, my bad. Even though I have been cooking for survival lately - mostly to feed myself nightly - canning and other sorts of food preservation methods haven't been far from my mind. I would like to get to a point where I make all the food I eat. Not knowing where my food comes from is something that is often on my mind, and not always in a positive way. Mostly I try to block out the truth, which frankly is not a terrific solution. When I start thinking like this is when I start trawling the home canning and urban homesteading sites for inspiration. Right now my house is on its ear, but at some point it will be put back together again and then watch out because I will be a canning machine!! In the meantime, to tide me over, I made home canned chicken soup. Let me just also say that I did a whole bunch of canning in the fall, and with the exception of the jam, I have eaten up almost everything, which is why I continue to can...