Kitchen Duty

Another storm warning was announced for our area today. Heavy snowfall and winds. It was a good day to stay put at home again. I seem to have stayed home most of the time over the holidays, but I'm not complaining!

I started out the day making some laundry detergent as I had run out yesterday. Then on to making breakfast... egg mcmuffins (without the 'mc' as Daughter would say) for the family.

I dug out the Christmas turkey carcass from the freezer and made some stock for this evening's soup dinner. I found the secret for making a good stock is to first roast the bones/carcass along with some veggies (onion, carrots and celery) in the oven at 450º until nice and brown. This makes for a much more flavourful soup.

Just look at how nice and brown the stock turns out when roasted first

The latest issue of Mother Earth News magazine had a great article (one of many) on baking easy artisan bread. Husband urged me to give it a try as it makes a huge batch of dough which is kept in the fridge for up to two weeks. One just hacks off enough to make a loaf, let it rise for a bit and throw it in the oven. Simple! The recipe can be found on Mother's website here.

Simple to bake and tastes great! We went through two loaves with dinner.

We roasted the first of our lamb the other day and it was fantastic! I made the roast in the oven with a honey glaze that really added to the flavour. The roast was very small, but just enough for us (we really don't need to eat tons of meat anyway).

If you want to try the glaze, this is what you need to combine in saucepan:

1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
6 T lemon juice
1/2 tsp garlic powder

On low heat warm the ingredients until well blended. Brush on the roast and continue glazing during the roasting period until the lamb is done. (I had quite a bit of the glaze left over, so you may want to reduce the recipe)

Later in the day we took down the Christmas tree and decorations. I ran out of laminate floor cleaner (seems to be a reoccuring theme today) so I whipped up my own which I think is far superior to the store bought brand; plus cheaper and healthier.

Laminate Floor Cleaner
1 cup vinegar
3 cups water
A few drops of essential oil (which ever scent you prefer)
Shake together in a spray bottle. Spray floor and mop up using a dry/microfibre type mop.

The other day I took my weekly trip to the landfill to deposit our small bag of garbage and I stopped into the Swap Shed. This is a shed where you can drop off or pick up items that are still useable and too good to throw away. It was really cold so I didn't stay long, but did find this really cute Eddie Bauer dress made of a wool weave. It was a fabric I have been looking for to make a decorative pillow that I have been dreaming up in my brain.

Dress soon to be upcycled into a new pillow.

I also came across this really nice fabric; by this time I was really cold so I just took it and ran. When I got home I realized it was curtain panel about 2 metres long (6 ft). It think I will have just enough to make an apron out of it.

Very pretty green fabric with blue flowers and swirls machine embroidered upon it.

Someone had also put a bunch of photo/picture frames in the shed. They were all unopened in original packaging from Ikea. So of course I grabbed those too - I think I have 18 frames in total.