Showing posts with label meme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meme. Show all posts

Monday, December 17, 2007

8 Things from the Kitchen

All Things Hold Together tagged me a long, long, time ago... and I'm just now getting around to posting. Sorry, Charity! I'll try to be more prompt next time. If you want to go read her post about this... just follow the link on her blog's name.

8 Things From My Kitchen

1. Meat scissors. We eat a lot of chicken around here... well, when I'm cooking, that is. I absolutely love my meat scissors that I got at IKEA. I can easily cube, cut fat off of, or thinly slice chicken breasts for all sorts of yummy recipes in seconds without a slow, dull, dangerous knife. Speaking of knives... I really do need some new ones.

Bialetti Dama2. My pink Bialetti Dama. I've already talked about how we do coffee here at the Bee house. I threw out my coffee maker and we ONLY brew our Italian coffee on the stovetop. I love my little pink Dama (a gift from my husband... who uses it more than me, as a matter of fact). Mmmmm! I can just smell the lovely aroma of a fresh-brewed tiny pot of espresso! To make a great 888, you will also need a PRODUKT Milk Frother from IKEA - which you can pick up for less than 2$. Trust me. You need it. Say goodbye to Starbucks prices forever. Truth be known, my husband is the one who usually makes the coffee. He's such a sweetie.

3. Cookbooks galore. I love cookbooks. I have a bunch of them. Right now they are all on my kitchen counter taking up space... but I'm hoping my mother-in-law will give me an old buffet for the holidays that she has in her garage (she already said she would). Once I get it, I'm going to move my cookbooks to the drawers in the buffet. I always save recipes from the favorite things in all my cookbooks right here in this blog... so when I want to make something again, I don't have to search for hours in all the books (there are at least 50 of them). I can just look up the recipe online from where-ever I am. I also have a binder with a printed copy of my favorite recipes sectioned with tabs. That one will stay on the counter!

4. Home-Ec Classes. Each week the kids get to learn how to cook. I really had to learn everything I knew on my own - somehow I missed the in-home training that a lot of kids get before they get married! I don't want my kids to serve their spouses "hamburger helper" the first year they are married, so we try and always have one kid in the kitchen as we cook. They get to see what is happening, help gather up Sprittibee's Measuring Cupsingredients, and learn to cook for themselves. Sometimes they even cook without mom - fancy that!

5. Spices. I am known in my family as the spice lady. I have a ton of spices. I use them every time I cook. I love to use fresh herbs, but I probably have a bunch of things that are old and need to be thrown out. We like to cook international dishes a lot, so I require a lot of spices that aren't very usual to most kitchens: palm sugar, cardamom pods, sumac, Hungarian hot paprika, ginger and garlic paste, saffron... are just a few. I have a HUGE container of chili powder. We use a lot of that since I make home-made enchiladas at least twice a month.

6. Stacking Bee-Hive Measuring Cups. I found them in Fredericksburg at a womens' retreat one year while we were shopping. They are so cute... and so handy on the counter when you are in a hurry. I think I'll cry if they ever get broken.

7. Scripture Verses on the fridge. My kids do their Bible Memory verses every week or every other week on index cards and we keep them on the refrigerator so that they have them handy to memorize. When they come down, they put them in a little index card storage box. It is fun to browse back through them and see how many we can remember later in the school year. I like to let them draw a little on each card, too. I love to have their artwork on display.



8. Grossamole. This is the gross Dean's Guacamole Dip my mom just bought. She gets the nastiest processed, fakie groceries sometimes. She stays with us a few days each week and while she is here there are usually strange items (that we would not eat) taking up residence in my fridge. Aside from the "Grossamole", we have leftover nasty ribs, runny mayo-potato salad from a grocery store, a small bag of fried chicken from some greasy spoon chicken place, and a bottle each of Fanta Strawberry, Diet Dr. Pepper, and Caffeine Free Diet Coke. Yuck. Yuck and more Yuck!

So there's my kitcheny 8. How about you?

According to Charity, this meme has no rules. So let us know what's living inside your fridge and behind your cabinet doors. Got "slime in the ice machine"? Any magic kitchen tools you want to showcase? Elves in your cupboard? We want to know.

Now, to tag some people (feel free to play along if you aren't tagged here... and feel free to not play along if you are tagged here):

Sheri of Shades of Pink (because I know she loves to cook)
Mrs. Happy Housewife (because her site is cooler than mine)
Elise at Simply Recipes (because "I love her, man!")
Toni at Wifely Steps (cuz she's really sweet)
Farmgirl Fare (because it would give me an excuse to go see her awesome photos)


Shoot me an email if you DO play along. I'd like to rummage through your kitchen with you.


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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Red



Cherry Limeade. Not exactly your 'health'-drink... but when you are on vacation or on the go, they sure are a treat. I captured this one (after my daughter stole a few of the cherries) on our trip this past week. I thought I would share it for Thursday Challenge. Enjoy! I know I did.

In case you want one for yourself, you can get them at Sonic or Dairy Queen. This one was a DQ Cherry Limeade (and it had about 8 cherries in it!). Mmmmmm.

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Saturday, July 01, 2006

H is for Hungry



H is for homeschool. Homeschool Lunch.

H is for Heather. Heather's other blog, that is.

Click over to Sprittibee's Blog and join the Homeschool Lunch Photo Meme.

H is for HINT: You are homeschooling already if you are a saHm with a wee one. Learning begins at birth!


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Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Fridge-Shots



I've been inspired to join the fun - a refrigerator photo "meme" brought about by the ever interesting Wifely Steps Blog. I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you would like to participate, please leave me a comment and let Toni know that you're joining up so she can link you on her blog.

My current sad little refrigerator (owned by my apartment complex) has very little on it at the moment. I have to use the top for extra storage because the kitchen is so tiny. Normally, we would have everything put away in cabinets or our pantry. Our refrigerator broke down on us at our last house, so we bought a brand new one that we could take with us when we moved. Trouble is, we never bought a house here... so it is sitting in my father-in-law's garage collecting dust. I long for those double-doors and ice-maker. How nice it will be once we finally move back to Texas and have all of our belongings in one place again!


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Saturday, June 03, 2006

Kitchen Meme

Long, long ago and far, far away.... I was tagged to do this meme by my friend the Headmistress Zookeeper at the Common Room. Of course, she tagged my "other blog", but I thought I would move it over here to my more domestic blog (which has been about as neglected as a blog can be without being deleted by Blogger for inactivity). So without further ado, please come in to my tiny apartment kitchen and see what's cookin'!

The Common Room's Kitchen Meme

1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?

We have a family of 4, and we eat at home most of the week. Sometimes we eat out two or three times at most (some of those for lunch and usually fast food if we go out). We don't much like leftovers, but tolerate them. Tonight we're eating lasagna leftover from last night.

2. How many cookbooks do you own?

Too many to name, and most of them with dust on their covers. I would guess that there are more than a hundred, but some of them are the grocery store cookbooks that you can pick up at the check-out isle. I also have a HUGE 4-inch binder that I have put together of my own favorite recipes (some hand-written, some given to me, some emails, some magazine articles, and some print-outs from the internet). I have a few spiral bound church cook-books and family cook-books also.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?

About once a week to an actual cookbook. I use a recipe from online or my own Binder about every other day at least.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relatives, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc)

Internet is the most common (see above question). I like to get favorites from friends at church, online, and in person. I love going to pot-lucks and asking for them from the people who brought my favorite dishes.

5. How do you store those recipes?

4-inch Binder (see #2).

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?

It depends on the recipe and if I have tried it before. If I like all the ingredients, I'll stick close to the recipe the first time and then play with it if I don't like the way it turns out. I usually end up altering everything at least somewhat to fit my own tastes. After I have made it a few times, I will make it on my own without the recipe.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?

We love international foods. I like American Comfort Cooking (Southern), Tex-Mex, Mexican, Indian, Lebanese, Hungarian, Middle-Eastern, Jewish, Asian (Thai mainly), Greek, Italian, etc.!!!

8. What's your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count)

I enjoy reading through recipes and making meal plans, but I admit, with all my other housework and homeschooling, I tend to get behind at this and turn it into a chore.

9. What's your least favorite part?

Washing dishes. My kids help out a lot, though.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop?

I plan, but usually will change the plan around as needed. Some weeks when I have no plan, I try and just plan a day at a time and we only shop for needed items (since we live closer to the store now).

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?

MEAT SCISSORS! LARGE NON-STICK FRYING PAN. Food processor (hummus and chopped onions).

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have?

An AGA Cast Iron stove and a metal cooking rack to hang my pots from with an island under it that contained a sink and an ice maker with a plastic scoop. My friend Ammie has the perfect kitchen!

13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next?

A new set of dishes. Silverware (mine is in storage in Texas and we've been using cheap plastic stuff from Wal-Mart for six months or more).

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?

I have a brand new refrigerator in storage, but here at the apartment, there's no room for that luxury. My goal is to have an extra fridge/freezer combo in the garage once we have one again.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others?

I like doing it with my kids, which makes me an anomaly.

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week?

Maybe three at most.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?

I like gold and red. My last kitchen was so pretty. I loved it. It was my favorite of all that I've had (which is many). I have bee stuff and roosters in my kitchen... and for a while I did the Paris bakery theme. I always end up with the bee things. I like the Italian bistro look. I HATE bright yellow and black bee things, though... so I tend to not tell people about my bee fetish because that's the first thing they will get me.

18. What's the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?

Are you kidding? I hardly knew how to boil an egg when I got married. My poor husband. I've learned it all since marriage (which was at age 20). The meal I was most proud of was this past Thanksgiving that I made for my family all by myself since I was out of town and not with family for the first time. When we first got married we used to make Hamburger Helper (shhhh! Don't tell anyone), but those days are long gone.

19. How did you learn to cook?

Self taught. My husband and I both enjoy cooking.

20. Tag a few other people to play.

I'll tag a few people below that I would love to see answer, but if you are interested, please feel free to do the meme and pass it on to your blog buddies. Please email or comment to tell me when you complete it, however! I would love to read your answers. This meme has made me think about re-designing this site and adding a few more interesting topics. Now that my other re-design for my other blog will be complete next week, I'm looking forward to tackling this one. Maybe then I won't neglect it for so long!

LJC (not sure if she does blog memes, but I love her kitchen ideas)
Sheri at Shades of Pink
Rhonda at Imagine
and...
Jen at Jeneric Jeneralities


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