River Rock

Our covered front porch/carport is 64 feet long. Love it. It's got about a 12 inch overhang with gutters that gives lots of shade and added drip protection. We wanted the grass to grow up to the edge of that porch - easy maintenance because you just mow or weed-whack right up to the concrete. 

Well, you know what they say about best laid plans, right? Yeah - they often fail. In this case the ground simply didn't get enough rain to support the grass well. If we watered directly onto that strip the grass was lush and green. Let Mother Nature take over and it died out in patches. I guess the drainage under the concrete porch just sucks down all the moisture. Good for the porch, bad for greenery.

So we decided to do a stone border. I didn't want #2 stone (gravel to most folks but not to the rock guys) as that's jagged and it hurts to step on it. So, river rock! But we didn't want to pay for rock (yes, we're cheap). Craig's List to the rescue! A very pleasant woman had a river rock walkway all the way around her house and she hated it. We could have as much as we wanted as long as we did the work. Cool.

So we took our yard cart, several 5-gallon bucks, a hoe/rake, and a transfer shovel and got to work. I moved stone to bucket with the flat transfer shovel (we didn't want to create holes in her pathway since she was going to have to fill that area back in with something) and Chris moved and emptied the buckets. We filled the bed of the truck and there was so much pathway left! We felt a bit bad that we weren't taking more, but that was going to be plenty for our needs.

As is typically the case when you get something free there was work to be done with it. The rocks were full of dirt and debris. So we raked, washed, raked, and finally hand picked to fill a shallow trench in front of the porch. 

Pretty mix of shapes and colors

I think it looks great and will be much better than the scraggly dirt and grass we had previously.

Rock in place. Grass slowly recovering from winter.

This week's recipe (actually the last three weeks): Spiced Almonds; Stuffed French Toast; Corn Muffins

All of these recipes come from the Cook's Country Cookbook. As much as I like Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen, I find the recipes there can be overly complex sometimes. Actually, no, I find the food overly complex. There's a lot to be said for good old-fashioned food and that's what you get in Cook's Country. 

The first recipe was for Spiced Almonds (page 3) and wow! were they excellent. A much easier technique than the sugared almonds I've made in the past (the ones where you boil sugar, water, and spices then add the nuts and cook until the liquid evaporates) and the nuts have stayed fresh much longer.

They "sing" as they cool

It made 2 pounds of spiced nuts and we're almost through them already (please note that we have given some of them away for taste-testing). They've lasted over a week so far and they're still crunchy and wonderful.

Huge Ball jar full of yumminess

The next recipe was for Stuffed French Toast. You season cream cheese with sugar and cinnamon, spread it on some bread, make a sandwich, dip it in light batter, and pan fry as usual. Good flavor and I loved how crisp the batter made the toast (as opposed to the normal sogginess that is French Toast). In fact, I'll use that batter from now on (one egg, half cup of flour, one cup of cold water, 1 tsp vanilla), but I won't bother with the stuffing.  Simply too rich.

Finally, I made their Corn Muffins (page 184). I haven't had a lot of luck with corn muffins; they always seem to come out so heavy. But these! oh my stars. Perfect. Not light exactly - after all, they are corn muffins - but definitely not dense. And a nice bit of sweetness to them.

Perfect texture, flavor, and craggy appearance

So far this whole New Year's Resolution thing is going well. I'm enjoying my cookbooks and I'm loving the cooking.

The Chicken Coop

Yes, I have finally succumbed to the lure of chickens. The gateway animal is coming to the homestead. Am I nervous? Yes. Why? Because everyone says once you have chickens, it's nearly inevitable that you get other critters. And Chris already wants goats. Goats! We waited a long time to add a livestock type animal to our property. First we traveled too much - being gone every weekend pretty much excludes having animals that require daily care yet can't travel with you; then we were just too busy concentrating on getting the house built; then we made lots of other excuses; and now we're ready.

I looked at Backyard Chickens, Cobble Hill Farm, and The Hen Cam for inspiration and requirements for the coop. Got some ideas and guidelines for making a coop that would help keep the chickens healthy and comfortable. Then I started having fun with the design work.

Oddly, it was pretty easy to take care of the birds requirements. After that, I could concentrate on making something that I'd like to look at everyday. I wanted a cute building shaped like a traditional bird house (or corn crib). And I wanted fun paint. And of course I wanted it to be large enough that I could stand inside it for easy cleaning.

Just the first version of the paint job 

I figured out the dimensions, shape, and materials. I colored several mockups to pick a paint scheme. Then I broke out the Lego's to make sure the platform made sense. I love lego's - we used them to design the Nest and the house. Amazing what a 3-D rendering can help you decide.

Almost fully designed

Then we priced out the materials and I went "what???". $1,000 to build a coop? Okay, actually that makes sense. That's about how much we spent to build our storage shed which was about the same size. Except, what if I hated having chickens? Did I really want to invest a grand up front? No.

So we looked around the property at what we already owned and realized that we had a gateway coop for our gateway animals. When we built the Nest we had to set up a latrine (NOT an outhouse - there was no pit dug). Basically we used the bucket method of waste collection (see this if you really want to know). No ickiness ever touched the wood. Honest. Anyway, when we built the house and graduated to an honest-to-goodness septic system, the latrine became my garden shed (see, no ickiness!).  And now it will have a new life as a chicken coop. If it turns out I love having chickens, then I'll build a better coop. 

First we emptied it out and moved it up to the garage so we could work on coop adaptations.

Tipped  

Taking measurements

Ultimately we needed to remove the ill-fitting door, clean out the interior, add nest boxes, a pop door, another window, roosts, and lots of hardware cloth.

Making room for the new door

Putting it back together

Lots of progress has been made - the new door is on and the coop is actually in its final resting place. I've got to paint, add more hardware cloth, attach a covered area off the pop door, and figure out fencing, but it's coming along and we'll be ready for chickens in early summer. I'm planning to purchase pullets since I don't have a setup for baby chicks. More pictures to follow when it's all ready!

The band

Chris plays bass in the band "Restless Widow". They play what they call "high energy rock" - basically the music you like to rock to when you're at a club. Very danceable; very fun.

The band

Recently they had a gig down in NYC. They played at the American Judo tournament held at the Athletic Club near Central Park. Cool!

Chris on the balcony

Scott warming up

Nick checking sound

Chris being silly, I mean, warming up

Unfortunately the only picture of the lead singer, Jerzee, came out so blurry I couldn't put it on here  and apparently Matt (drummer) is camera shy. But the gig went well and they had a great time. 

The city at night

We're three hours north of the City so Chris didn't get home until 4AM.  Once I actually woke up and he could tell me all about it, I heard about unlimited saki (they opened two massive casks), great dancing, a whisky with his niece (Yamasaki Scotch is excellent), and lots of fun.

Steam bending

Chris put together his steam box this week. He got the basic components for Christmas and finally got time to build the box. He figured he'd put together some Shaker Boxes to try it out.

The box

The box in use

Bending the outside of the Shaker Box

Inserting the pins

It's so cute!

Bending it more 

Attached and ready to cool

So now he lets it cool and then cuts the top and bottom to finish.  They're sweet little boxes and useful too.

Finishing up the mudroom

Some projects seem to really hang around, don't they? You finish up the big stuff and the little details remain: decorating, organizing, utilizing. The mudroom has been that type of project. And though the decorating still remains, the important stuff - storage - has been addressed.

First up: sweater boxes. My niece saved me her diaper boxes (so strong!) and I cut them to fit the space. Then I cut up some old sweaters and glued them to the boxes. And voila! Neat and pretty storage.

The raw materials

Letting the glue dry

Next up were some wooden crates for the smaller shelves. Chris spent a good bit of time cutting scrap wood into strips for me (hooray for band saws!). Then I used the small nail gun to pop them together.

Assembling the boxes

Ta dah!

And here are both sweater boxes and wooden boxes in place. I think they look great and the storage is wonderful. I added a bit of ribbon to the bottom of the sweater boxes so that it'd be easier for me to grab them and get them down.  Easy and attractive.

So much storage!

Oh, and we finished the upper cabinets too. So now there is closed storage at the very top.

With the upper cabinets in place too

I'm working on creating knobs for the upper cabinets. I'm collecting nifty rocks on the property and glueing them to a flat head screw as a know. I'm still testing these for durability so they haven't been installed here yet.

The larger cabinet has purchased totes but the wooden crates were created by me. They're quite a bit deeper than the smaller cabinets and I've yet to fill them completely.

The other side

So that's where we are on the mudroom. Fully functional and well on its way to being decorated.

This week's recipe: Squid with scallions & garlic, Shrimp Scallop Gratinate, and a new CI test recipe (whew!)

I like squid. Calamari. Squiggle bodies. Bait. Whatever you want to call them. I've never attempted to cook them at home though. No more worries about that - easy! Yummy! And I can make just enough for me since Chris hates them. 

Had a great dinner party at my brothers and we cooked lots of seafood. On the menu: Squid with Scallions & Garlic from Jacques Pepin's cookbook "Essential Pepin". He gives great instructions on how to clean (didn't have to as the squid came cleaned), how to cook and hold, then how to finish. Wonderful recipe.

Par-boiled squid

We also had Shrimp & Scallop Gratinate from Lidia's Family Table cookbook. Again, wonderful recipe. Fantastic flavor, quick to prepare, and reheated well to boot.  We even made it gluten-free by substituting Cheerios for the bread crumbs in a couple of the ramekins (try this - they make a surprisingly flavorful topping).  

Prepped

The final dish was lobster risotto. We used my favorite risotto recipe (adapted from a variety of internet recipes and tweaked by me). We had the lobster steamed at the seafood market and then we used the lobster shells to infuse the chicken broth with lots of lobster flavor before cooking the risotto. I'd never tried this before but boy did it work. That aroma and flavor!

Final food news for the week was a new CI test recipe: apple strudel using Phyllo dough. A definite winner. In fact, I made it again last night.

Apple Strudel testing

Happy noshing!