The Mystery of the Mushy Potatoes

So, I have this problem.  I can't seem to keep potatoes for more than a week.  Aren't these supposed to last and last in cool, dark conditions?  I buy small bags of potatoes, 3-5 lbs, so that they will get used up fairly quickly, but just the other day, I reached into the potato/onion bin for a few spuds and found a smelly, squishy, nasty rotten mess where my week-old red potatoes should have been.  This is not the first time this has happened to me. 

At first I thought it was because I was keeping them in the plastic bag they came in. So, I started putting them in a wicker basket on the bottom shelf of my pantry cupboard, next to the onions.  Its a dark cool place and the wicker basket should allow enough ventilation.  Nope, still had mushy potatoes. 

The last time I cleaned/organized the cupboard, I put the onions in this basket too.  Seems logical right?  Not only did this not help the mushy potato problem, it made it worse.  (Here's where it becomes apparent that I am a natural blonde.)  I thought I was buying defective potatoes. 

Then I was talking to my friend the other day, complaining about having to throw out half a bag of potatoes because they were  rotten.  I was ranting about the quality of the potatoes at the grocery store and how there's no reason in the world they should rot so quickly, you know since I keep them in a cool dark cupboard and my onions are right in the same basket and they keep just fine.  That's when she told me that you shouldn't store potatoes and onions together because onions give off gasses that make your potatoes spoil.  

Am I the only person who didn't know that you shouldn't store potatoes and onions in the same bin? I thought that was the whole point of that cute little wooden bin with "spuds & onions" burned into it that my Grandma had.  The aforementioned friend also has one of those nifty little bins, and she pointed out that the onions go in a separate drawer.  I felt like a complete idiot.  Good thing I have her around. :)  She told me that I can keep them in the same cabinet, but not the same bin, and maybe just to be safe put them on a different shelf.

This gave me an excuse to go buy some new bins for the pantry.  Fortunately, a new Dollar Tree store just opened up in town and I was able to swing in and pick up a few cheap plastic bins for the time being.  Eventually, I'll replace them with some cool vintage wire ones, but for now bright colored plastic ones will do.

Here's a look at my freshly organized pantry.  See, potatoes on the bottom left in the pretty little blue basket and onions on the middle right in the snazzy green basket.  

No, this is not a paid advertisement for Wal-Mart or Cub Foods.  Nor do I live with a maniacal husband with a canned goods fetish (name that movie).

Pumpkin Brownies

Some of our winter scenery.

The kids and I paid a long overdue visit to and old friend today and were planning on lunch and some sledding.  Being a cold and blustery winter day, I thought some nice spicy pumpkin bars would be a perfect treat.  The kids love these things and they're pretty simple to make.  I got the recipe from a blog that unfortunately no longer exists and its original name is "Chocolate Chip Spice Bars".  Joey gave them the name of "Pumpkin Brownies" and that is a pretty accurate description.  They are cinnamon-ey like pumpkin bars but have a more dense brownie-like texture.  Whatever you want to call them, they're just plain wonderful.

Pumpkin Brownies fresh out of the oven.
 And my spiffy new mixer in the background.
Thanks, Dad :)

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice 

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 package (12 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 9 x 13 pan with foil.   You want it to overlap on all sides. (or just spray with vegetable oil spray)

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pie spice, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg and vanilla until combined.  Add the pumpkin puree.  Its going to look curdled.  Don't panic.  Its supposed to be this way.

Slowly add in the dry ingredients.  Mix until just combined.  Now for the best part, fold in the chocolate chips.  Spread the batter evenly into your prepared dish.  Bake until edges begin to pull away from the sides or a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  This should take about 35-40 minutes. 

Make sure to cool completely.  Next just lift out of the pan, remove foil and cut into bars.

I just love these things.  I've made them several times now and they are a hit every time.  Seriously, you have to try these, just make sure you have plenty of milk on hand. :)

The remains of a few hardy wildflowers.
More of our local nature.

Odds & Ends

Today marks the end of my little winter staycation.  Ok, technically it ended yesterday, but the kids were sick since Monday night, so I ended up staying home today too.

The plan was for me to take a long weekend and get caught up on some things at home, test out some cool stuff I found on Pinterest, then have Tuesday afternoon to be home all alone to take a long bath and a nap or maybe have a friend over for tea.

All was on track until Monday night.  I made my cool Pinterest stuff: wood butter, lavender bath scrub and cake from a mix that supposedly tastes like a bakery cake.  All yielded favorable results, by the way.  I got a respectable amount of housework done and made a few nice dinners. 

The kids played nicely.  They doctored up the cat after she sneezed "three times in a row" and appeared to be "real sick".  They made her a bed, gave her an ice pack and got her a tissue.  

Meow in her bed with a nice soft blanket and a lego tower to amuse herself.

Joey did some scuba diving in the bathtub.  Goggles are now required gear for bath time.  He likes to put them on by himself.

Then, just in time for my day of alone time, the kids got sick.  One at a time.  Just far enough apart to get my hopes up that I could go back to work as planned and all would be fine.  Nope.  Two nights in a row of getting up every few hours to respond to frantic calls from the bathroom.  Poof, there went my afternoon of solitude.  

Since I wound up with extra time at home, I also got our venison ground up finally.  My brother-in-law loaned us his electric grinder which made short work of our 15 pounds of meat.

Fifteen pounds of ground venison (with added pork).  This is a big pan. 11 x 16 I think.

All wrapped up and ready for the freezer.

Oh, and I read a book too.  A really good one called Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  Its about Alzheimer's disease and I highly encourage everyone to read it.  

Now I'm out of projects and looking forward to my return to civilization.  Hopefully, we'll all get a good night's sleep and be back into our normal routine tomorrow.

A Chicken in a People House

Last Monday afternoon I went out to check on the chickens and found one of our ladies in rough shape.  She was huddled up in the corner and her beak was open with a piece of ice in her mouth.  After a second look, I realized that her mouth was stuck open and that piece of ice was keeping her from closing her beak.

With no other warm place to put her, I brought her in the house.  She spent the rest of the day in a clear rubbermaid tote lined with straw guzzling water and having stare downs with the cat.  By the time bedtime came, she had drank nearly 6 cups of water.  

When she came in, she could not stand and was definitely in distress.  My first thought was that she had an egg broken inside of her, as we have lost hens that way in the past.  But first I had to address the ice in her beak which went away pretty quickly when I offered her a bowl of lukewarm water.  I was surprised at just how much water she drank.  

The next thing I did was examine her vent.  The feathers around her "area" were all clumped up so I cleaned them as best I could with a soft cloth and warm water with a few drops of dish soap in it.  At first she didn't seem to mind my hand being back there, but after a few minutes she had had enough and wanted me away from her nether region.  I did get her cleaned up enough to see that her vent was open and healthy looking.

She spent the night in her makeshift nest by the stove and never tried to escape.  By mid morning on Tuesday, she was standing up and looking pretty good, so I gave her some oats.  She pecked at them a bit, but when offered some of Joey's soggy raisin bran, she perked right up.

Hoping that she was recovered enough to re-join her flock, we put her back in the coop before leaving for work.  She seemed fine when I checked on her later that day and this morning again when I went out.

I am left wondering what caused the distress.  The obvious culprit is the weather.  The cold was brutal for several days.  I have put dishpans full of snow in the coop since it is impossible to keep water in its liquid form out there and have tried adding a bit of water to their mash to keep them hydrated.  Whatever the cause, at least the story has a happy ending.

Looking Ahead Update: Getting Started

What do a day planner,  a batch of mini muffins and a vintage bowl have in common?  They are all things related to my goal of being more on top of my family's budget in 2013. 

 In my last post, I wrote about hoping to get back on track with budgeting and clear up some debt.  My husband got a me a spiffy little day planner for Christmas that I absolutely love.  It is the perfect size and has plenty of room to write in work schedules and appointments, plus my dinner menu and my weekly bill pay plan.  So, starting the last week in December, I got my checkbook in order and organized all our bills into the day planner so that each week I can sit down and pay what needs paying.  I also write in a meal plan for each day's evening meal.  This helps with grocery shopping on a budget and is a huge time saver for me.  It saves time in that I don't sit and try to come up with a meal for supper on my way home from work and also then am not tempted to "swing by" the grocery store on my way home, for a "few" things which never fails to turn into a half hour and $30 because I always get sidetracked.

Love this planner!  Isn't it pretty?

Wednesday before work our mission was to fill up our stash of snacks for lunches.  I did not go to the store that day, but Joey and I were home in the morning and he helped me fill up little baggies with mini muffins (from an 89 cent just add water mix) graham crackers and a pan of granola bars.   I have never made granola bars before but thought it looked kind of cool on Pinterest, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. We also did celery sticks and baby carrots. Making lunches should be a breeze for the rest of the week.  I know that using little baggies seems wasteful and not as cost effective as small reusable containers.  Here's the thing.  I bought the little reusable bowls to put snacks in, but they don't fit very well in her Hello Kitty head-shaped lunch box.  So, I went back to snack baggies. I don't reuse them either. Sorry.

Our week's worth of  snacks: Pan of granola (waiting to be cut into bars), celery & baby carrots, mini muffins, mini graham crackers, mozzarella cheese sticks

There you have it.  My big plans to budget and get all our bills paid on time every month and eat too.  It's not overly complicated or scientific, but it gets the job done.  Besides, I like to make lists. ;)

My cute vintage bowl

Still wondering how the vintage bowl figures into this?  Well, its like this.  Everybody needs a little fun money.  I figure a small amount of play money into the budget for the sake of my own sanity.  Not as much as I'd like, but a little bit anyway.  And with that money this week, I went to Goodwill and bought a cute bowl that I probably didn't need, but liked enough to spend 99 cents on it.  Oh and some more jelly jars.  I always need jelly jars for something or other.  Man I love Goodwill.

Looking Ahead

As we get nearer to Christmas, I start looking ahead to what comes next.  I love Christmas and all the cozy things that go with it.  Winter feels warmer in the month of December.  I have no meteorological evidence of this, it just seems that way because everybody is in a good mood and there are smells of yummy food and pine everywhere.

Then comes January.  All the warm coziness of the holidays and their decorations get packed up for another year.  As much as I love decorating for the holidays, I equally enjoy the putting away of all the extra stuff in the house.  Everything feels clean and tidy, especially after all the Christmas presents find homes and get put away.  

In January, my oven gets a break.  There is nothing left to can, no cookies to bake.  I can just enjoy the quiet of winter.  I fully intend to get some reading done and practice knitting some more.  I'd like to actually complete something, even if it is only a dish cloth.

I am not a big "New Year's Resolution" person.  I think one can make a change at any time with no need to wait for the new year to begin.  However, I do have some things to work on starting with January.  More because it is a new month than because it is a new year though.  I am looking forward to getting my household budget back on track.  I have really slacked off on this and it shows.  

I am going to get myself set up with a day planner and keep track of which bills are due when and pay them all on time every single month.  This may lead to some tight(er) weeks, but it will be worth it to have the peace of mind that everything is taken care of.

This year has not been a bad one overall.  Things have mostly gone smoothly in my everyday life.  However, I always get excited for a new year to come and wonder what lies ahead.

Wishing you peace, prosperity and good health in 2013.

Canning. Again.

I think I may need an intervention.  I can't seem to walk past a sale on produce without buying as much as I can afford and canning it.

It all started years ago when my friend told me that's how they fed their family while her husband was a graduate student.  They were on a limited budget and when she saw rock bottom prices on seasonal produce or meat, she would buy as much as she could afford, then can it.

I don't have a nifty closet or cupboard to keep all my canned goods in, so they are stored in the boxes the jars come in, under my bed.  Its starting to look like Doomsday Preppers in there.  I just can't seem to help myself.  I started making jams out of any free fruit I could get my hands on about ten years ago.  This year it has gone to a whole 'nother level.  I made gallons of applesauce, every kind of jam and jelly I could come up with and now I have made some pepper relish and, most recently, a dozen pints of cranberry sauce.  Oh, and I have two turkeys waiting to be cooked and canned too.

Canning is a way to stretch my grocery dollars, but it is also something I get a real sense of pride about.  Canning makes me feel useful, resourceful, self-sufficient.  I like knowing that I can spend $6 on fresh cranberries, add a little sugar and come out with a dozen jars of cranberry sauce made with minimal ingredients and nothing artificial.  Six dollars for twelve jars is also a rock bottom price for a sauce that we use regularly, even if you factor in the roughly $1.50 worth of sugar added.  The same can be said for wild berries that we pick along the roads in the summer and the apples that we have unlimited access to.

Strawberry jam from the summer.

I do hope to get the nerve up to can some vegetables next year and maybe even try pickles again.  I did some dill pickles a few years ago and I wasn't thrilled with the results.

One more thing, I really like anything in jars.  If you have read previous posts, you may have noticed that I keep lots of things in jars.   I kinda have a thing.

Jars, they aren't just for jelly anymore...

The above picture is a sliver of my cupboard that houses all my spices/seasonings, coffee and other beverage mixes.  There are many more jars in there, but I thought it made the point to show you one part and not show the whole thing.  Just in case it causes anyone alarm and you feel the need to have me committed for treatment.  Hi, my name is Lisa and I'm a jar/basket/organize-a-holic.  The first step is admitting it right?