Fresh Cherry Pie

Our neighbor has a beautiful sour cherry tree in her backyard. Last year she didn't pick any of the cherries so the birds at them. This spring, she told us we could pick them if we wanted. Of course Adam and I take that kind of offer seriously! A few days ago we noticed the cherries were getting red so we opened the gate between our yards (that probably hasn't been opened in 10 years) and picked all the cherries we could reach. I later made a cherry pie with my first lattice crust. It turned out a little soupy, but very tasty.

Kitchen Remodel is In Progress!

I knew that remodeling a kitchen was a big project. Probably the biggest project we'll have with this house. But I don't think I fully understood how the kitchen remodel basically flows into the whole house and takes over your life! Not that I'm complaining, of course, I'm just commenting. We began the demolition a few weeks ago when the contractor from Frey came over to take out the wall (turns out taking out the whole wall costs the same as putting in a pass thru). Then Adam worked on finishing the drywall from that project. Then all of a sudden it was time for major demolition. That began on Friday night. Our neighbors across the street wanted to recycle our kitchen hardware, so they came over and helped us take stuff down. Dave actually helped a lot more than we expected him to, and he and Adam were able to get all the cabinets out that night.

Saturday morning Adam's parents came and we set to work pulling out the flooring. This turned out to be a fairly big pain, since we were taking out two layers of vinyl plus a plywood subfloor. We had to take it out so that our new bamboo floor wouldn't be significantly taller than our existing oak floors in the rest of the house. That took us the entire day.

Sunday Adam installed the new, thinner plywood subfloor and I painted the ceiling (I'm not sure, but my hair might still be partly white from this!) and a first coat on the walls. We also realized at this time that the fact that we had a heating vent and a cold air return directly next to each other in the floor (a product of removing the wall) was not a good thing. Something about an infinite furnace loop...? We frantically called our furnace vendor Monday morning to see if they could come out and tell us what needed to be done. Fortunately, the guy came right away and he and Adam worked out a solution (to be installed tomorrow).

Monday morning Adam's dad came back and they began installing the bamboo floor. His dad left around dinnertime when my dad arrived. Together, my dad and Adam finished the floor that night at 11:30pm. They had to get it done because the staple gun was rented from Home Depot and it had to be back by 8am the next morning.

Today my dad and Adam installed the cabinets. They finished all the wall cabinets and most of the base ones. They're installing the sink cabinet as I write this. That one was tricky because of all the existing pipes. I'm hoping they are able to start on the dishwasher installation, but given the fact that my dad said he'd be gone by the time i got home from work (30 minutes ago), i'm not hopeful.

Adam has the rest of the week off to finish as much as he can. The countertop guy is coming on Thursday to do the measurements for our Silestone. Adam's dad is coming back on Friday to take a load of construction debris to the landfill and help finish up projects. I'd say by this weekend we will have a significant portion of the work done, and from there on out it will be finishing up smaller details.
Once the project is closer to being finished, i'll post some before and after pictures.

Cooking & Kitchens

We're almost to the end of our storage share vegetables. Today i made a cabbage, carrot, potato, onion, daikon soup. I thought it was quite good. I've found i like cabbage much better cooked than raw. A few weeks ago Adam tried making radish chips. They didn't turn out well, but it was an interesting experience.

Our kitchen is coming along. The new Kenmore range was delivered yesterday and so far has baked a key lime pie, honey oatmeal bread, valentine cookies, and a pasta bake. The cooktop has cooked balsamic blueberry chicken and apple cinnamon oatmeal. I accidentally used salted cracker crumbs for the key lime pie so the crust was extra salty, but the filling was tasty. Adam mudded the edges of the wall we took out. He has a little more work to do. Here's a preview of the missing wall.

 

Amazing Soup

We went over to Hannah & Will's house for dinner a while ago and they made us the most delicious soup. Hannah graciously sent me the recipe and I made it again at home. It is so tasty, you'd never know how good for you it is. Here's the recipe the way I made it:

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed*

1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes
1 16-oz can pumpkin puree (i used approx. half a fresh pumpkin that i cubed, steamed, and pureed)
1/2 cup red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 tbsp olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground pepper
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Place oil, red onion, garlic and seasonings into a large pot. Cook on low-medium heat until red onion and garlic brown. Puree the beans and tomatoes. Add pureed ingredients, pumpkin and broth to your pot. Puree with an immersion (stick) blender. Simmer uncovered until thick, about 40-45 minutes. Before serving, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and serve with fresh bread.

*In general when I need black beans I cook dried beans in the crockpot on high for about 3 hours. I normally add a half pound of beans and 6 cups of water. It's much cheaper than canned and you don't have to worry about rinsing off added sodium.

Homemade bread is delicious

We've come to love homemade bread, to the point where we very rarely buy store-bought bread (except for the occasional baguette which we haven't yet learned to make). I have a Better Homes & Gardens Breadmaker cookbook which has served us pretty well. We use part whole wheat flour and part white bread flour usually. I make the dough on the dough cycle in my breadmaker, then i take it out, put it in a bread pan that's been greased on the bottom, let it rise again (i use the "warm" cycle on our toaster oven with the door open), then bake at 375 for about 35 minutes. Here's a picture of some sage wheat bread i made last week. Yum! The process isn't hard, you just have to know you'll be home at various points over the course of a few hours.