A Few of my Favorite Things: Kitchen Gadgets

There are oodles of products out there to purchase for use in your kitchen.  Certainly every one of them could be put to great use, but how do you decide which ones you really NEED?  Obviously, measuring cups and spoons, a spoon to stir with, a spatula--these are definitely necessities--but what other items should you have on hand to enhance your efficiency and productivity in the kitchen?

This list is not comprehensive by any means, but just a list of a few kitchen gadgets that I am so thankful that I have.  I don't use all of them everyday, or even once a week, but they are the kinds of things that when I do need them, they help to save me a TON of time!  If you are in the mood to purchase any of these, I've made it easy for you! Simply click on the picture and you'll be taken directly to a purchasing page.

1. Pastry Knife/ Dough Blender - This is used for cutting in butter to flour.  Sometimes recipes will say use a pastry knife or two forks.  Two forks is awkward, so I definitely recommend having one of these.  We eat biscuits frequently and this tool comes in really handy.

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2. Zester - The peel of citrus fruit has tons of flavor and adds a great taste to pies, pastries and other dishes.  A zester is used like a grater to peel off that flavor-packed layer.  I have both of these (I registered for them when we got married); the longer one also works well for cheese.

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3. Cheese Grater/Storage - I'm sure you've seen these used at restaurants when they grate cheese onto a salad or pasta.  My version of this is actually from Pampered Chef, but other brands I'm sure are great.  I use this for grating fresh Parmesan cheese, which is usually in small quantities and then it's great to have a little container to store the leftovers in.

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4. Egg Slicer - If hard boiled eggs are a favorite of yours, then this tool is great for you!  Making egg salad or just chopping eggs for a Cobb salad is much easier with this.  ps- click here for my egg salad recipe.

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5. Brownie Spatula - I'm not really sure of the technical term for this, but we use this every time we make brownies.  It's also great for removing biscuits and small cookies from a pan. 

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6. Pastry Brush - Coating crusts with milk or egg whites to get a nice browned finish is made easier with this little brush.  You'll have a smooth top and nothing really drips, like if you were to use a spoon or knife. 

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7. Pie Crust Shield - Tired of using aluminum foil to cover your pie crusts to keep them from burning?  This gadget works wonderfully to keep the edges of your crust cooking evenly and finishing with a perfect golden brown. 

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8. Chopper - Great for chopping nuts and other ingredients in small quantities.  

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What are your favorite kitchen gadgets?

Dresser Drawer to Towel Rack

Have you ever noticed that most homes (even brand new ones) only come outfitted with one towel rack per bathroom?  And that one towel rack is only big enough for one towel.  Inevitably, at some point a fix needs to be made in most bathrooms.  Our solution came in the form of an old dresser drawer:

Yes, that is the front of an old drawer.  Do you remember this dresser?

It definitely had to go because it was no longer functional, but I wanted to at least be able to use some of it for DIY projects around the house.  My husband graciously helped me to pull off the fronts of each of the drawers, even though I think he was skeptical of my plans.  I'm pretty sure he was rolling his eyes in his head at me.

After getting the front off, I sanded the drawer down (which actually didn't need to be done), and then measured off the distance for 4 hooks.

Then, I (yes, I used the drill on this project!) drilled the holes for the hooks.

Next, I painted the entire thing with a coat of semi-gloss black paint that I had on hand from another project.  *Just a little tip:  I've found that using a sponge brush on these smaller projects works really well.*

I was ready to apply a second coat of paint and hang the hardware when we realized that we needed to come up with a way to anchor this on the wall.  Since the plan was to make it into a towel rack, it needed to be hung securely in order to hold the weight of towels.

After browsing the hardware aisle at Home Depot for a long time, my husband decided on these; he highly recommends them and says they were quite easy to use (hence the name of the brand, I suppose).

Two holes were drilled which would be used for the anchors to hang it into the wall.

To cover up those holes, we used some wooden screw covers, painted black, to blend into the rest of the rack.

The little black circle is the painted wooden screw cover.

Then, I was able to put on another coat of paint.

Once the paint dried, we screwed in the hooks, and hung it on the wall.

I LOVE it!  Now, the girls each have a place to hang their towels, and when we have guests, no one has to worry about leaving a towel laying on the floor or draped over the doorknob.  There is plenty of room for everyone!

Now, to choose a paint color for this bathroom...

There is absolutely NO natural light in this bathroom, so I apologize that the pictures may not do it justice.  


I'll be linking to these parties:
Home Stories A to Z Tips and Tutorials







Strictly Homemade Tuesday
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia Tuesday's Treasures

A Day at the Lake

Saturday was a fun family day spent at the lake.  And it was planned and organized by my sweet husband.  The only thing I had to do was dress the kids, shop for the grocery list he made, take some pictures and enjoy myself!  There's so much joy in being together as a family, and I'm grateful for the peaceful 3 hours we spent together.

In the car with the dog

Enjoying the muddy beach

This little girl was a MESS by the end of the morning!

Georgia LOVED it and even swam for a bit.

Quality time with Daddy

Lunch over the campfire

These two are best friends, and TROUBLE!

I braved the slimy lake floor to swim with my girl.

The View

What did you do this weekend?  

Turning Over a New Decorating Leaf

One of the biggest things that I struggle with in decorating is that I love when a project is complete enough that it's functional, but not necessarily finished.  For example, when we lived in Monterey, I made a valance for the window in the girls' room/guest room out of some leftover fabric from the bedskirt.  It hung on the window for 16 months, and I never hemmed it.  Yep, pretty bad.  The only consolation was that you really couldn't tell, because the fabric was black and who really inspects window treatments anyway?  Ha!  I could give you a long list of projects that weren't ever finished, but instead of that I'll just share with you that I'm trying to change!  My husband is ecstatic about this!

With an entire house to design, furnish and decorate, having the problem that I do is just not going to fly.  So, I've tried to make an effort to finish a project before moving onto something else.  (Common sense for most people, right?)  The dining room chairs were the biggest challenge for me, and all the while working on those, I had a major problem in the family room:

Somehow, my children had managed to rip the side of this wing chair and then proceeded to pull out some of the stuffing and the staple tack that was underneath.  It sat like this for over a month.  It still worked.  We could sit in the chair, it didn't affect our day-to-day life, but it definitely needed a repair.  So, one day I decided that functional wasn't enough, I wanted finished products in my home.

All it took was having the right tool:

If you do upholstery, you need one of these needles--they are like magic!

About 15 minutes of my time, and voila!

No need for a new chair, no worries about the dog or children making it into a bigger problem, and I think I've made my husband just a little bit happier.

 What decorating 'leaves' do you want to turn over?  

Easy Fried Okra with a 'Kick'

Can you get more southern than some good ol' fried okra?  We've been enjoying the okra production from our garden this past month and so I'm trying to perfect my fried okra recipe.  It's been a big hit with everyone who's eaten it, so I thought I'd share my recipe with ya'll.  Traditionally you use corn meal but the first time Bradley brought okra in from the garden for me to cook, we didn't have any.  So, I decided to cook it like fried chicken, with flour.  And, that's how we've been doing it ever since!

Slice some okra--watch out it's slimy!

Dip the okra in beaten eggs.

Coat with a flour mixture.

Fry in some vegetable oil.

Eat up!

Recipe:
1 cup okra slices, approximately
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt (or more or less to taste)
1 teaspoon chili powder
Vegetable oil

Heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat, in a large skillet.  It needs to be about 1/2-inch deep.  Dip okra slices in eggs, and drain any excess egg.  Coat okra with flour mixture.  Put in hot oil, turning once until golden brown, about 7 minutes.   Place okra on paper towel lined plate to remove any remaining oil and serve.

Just change your proportions according to the amount of okra you have.  And, if you run out mid-cooking, it's easy to just whip up some more of the flour mixture.  

Appliqued Days of the Week Rags

In an effort to be more organized and economical, I decided that our method of using paper towels to wipe off children's messy faces needed to end.  When we first moved into this home, I purchased a whole stack of white washcloths strictly for the purpose of using them for the kids.  It didn't take long, though, before we were grabbing them from under the sink to clean up other messes and so my system didn't last long.  Somewhere in blogland (sorry I don't remember where and I didn't even read about what they were) I noticed a stack of cloths with letters on them, and it inspired me.  I could have washcloths, labeled with a letter, for each day of the week!  Brilliant!  No more mixing yucky cooking germs with kiddo germs!

I found two sets of 6 washcloths at Ross, for $3.99 a piece.  (Yes, I realize there are 7 days in a week, but packs only came in sets of 4, 6, or 9).  They've been sitting in my sewing closet for awhile now, but yesterday I finally tackled this project!

Supplies:

-set of washcloths

-letter stencils for each day of the week

-Wonder Under (find it with the interfacing in the fabric section of a craft store)

-scrap fabric 

-coordinating thread

-iron

-scissors

First, I used my copy of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for my stencils (did you know that children's books are a great resource for stencils--both pictures and letters?).  These letters were the right size for me, but of course you could use another source.

I traced the letters onto printer paper and this became my stencil.

After I cut out my stencils, I placed the letter backwards on the wrong side of my scrap fabric piece, and traced it with a pen (my pen didn't leak through the fabric, but you would want to be careful of this).

Once the fabric letters were cut out, I attached the Wonder Under to each letter.
     1. Place wrong side of fabric onto rough side of Wonder Under.

     2.  Press with a dry iron, holding down for about 10 seconds.

After the fabric was fused to the wonder under, I removed the peel-back, smooth side of the Wonder Under

Smooth side should look like this

Peeling the smooth side off.  

I then placed the letter, right side up, where I wanted it on the washcloth.

To fuse the letter to the cloth:
     1. Place a damp rag over the letter.
     2.  Press the iron on the damp rag, holding down for 10-15 seconds until fabric is fused to washcloth.

I repeated this with all 6 rags.

I wanted my letters to have a real applique look, so I started off using a satin stitch on my sewing machine to outline the letters.  This was too frustrating for me because my thread kept bunching up (this always happens when I try to do a satin stitch!) so I opted to use a small zigzag blanket type stitch around each letter.  Much easier and less time consuming!

Set your machine to a zigzag stitch, then adjust the width of your stitch to a narrow width (top arrows on my machine) and the stitch length to a lower setting (bottom arrows on my machine).  You might want to test out your settings on a different piece of fabric until you get it right.

This is how they turned out and I'm so excited!

Since I only had 6 rags Saturday and Sunday share with a capital 'S'.

I used 'th' for Thursday to distinguish from 't' for Tuesday

The first set is for Isabella, who apparently likes purple now!  I gave her two choices of fabric, both blue/greens and she saw another scrap of purple in my stash and requested that.  She loves her new rags and I'm hoping this will also help her to learn the days of the week.  Now, I just need to make Mallory's set, using a different fabric, and my project will be complete!

I'll be linking this to:

Tutorials and Tips

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Every now and then I pull out the cookbook that was compiled by ladies from the church I grew up in.  I love that as I look through the recipes I see names of women I have known since I was a little girl!   This coffee cake recipe comes from that book and it is easy, sweet and yummy!  It's baked in a springform pan, so you can get some extra usage out of those pans that normally just sit in your cupboard (unless you love making cheesecakes!).   It is a coffee cake, so technically could be eaten for breakfast; we ate it for a dinner dessert, so take your pick!

Recipe:
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4-1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional-I left these out)
powdered sugar

Grease and flour a 9" springform pan.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix eggs, 1 cup sugar, flour, melted butter and oil.  Pour berries on the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup sugar and then the chopped pecans (if using).  Pour the cake batter over top of this.  The batter will be quite thick.  Spread to cover all of the fruit.  Bake for 35-45 minutes, until top is well browned.  Remove from oven and remove outer ring of pan.  Turn over on to a large plate.  Using a knife, loosen pan bottom from the top of the cake, spreading the topping back into place where needed.  Dust with powdered sugar.

source: A New Taste of Our Heritage, church cookbook


Linking this to Strictly Homemade, Homemade Tuesday