Green cleaning

My adventures in green cleaning continue. I found another website with many great ideas of nontoxic substitutions for cleaners. My oven floor was a mess because of these great pizzas that we bake right on the rack--crispy crust, messy oven. I was pondering what to do--it's a self-cleaning oven, and all you do is set it up and it does the work, right? But then I remembered the last time Mom and I did this--it got so hot and smelly in the house I just couldn't stand it.

So I thought I'd try this. And turns out, it's even easier than the self-cleaning. All you do is remove the racks, sprinkle 1/2 inch of baking soda all over the bottom, spritz it with water, and go to bed. In the morning, scrape off the baking soda and junk with something like those great Pampered Chef scrapers and a sponge. No sweat, no smell! I'll never be afraid to clean my oven again.

Why I don't blog much

I haven't posted anything for months, and when I am in doubt about what to write I can always get introspective. I don't normally have a shortage of things to say, so why hasn't blogging really caught on with me? A few reasons:

1) I am proud and like to impress people when I write or speak, and I do both of these things a lot anyway between my job and work at church. Writing or speaking in public is not the easiest way for me to unwind.
2) I like targeting what I say to the specific audience. I don't enjoy offending people and when I post a blog I am always imagining the easiest-to-offend person out there reading it. Selective communication is also a way of presenting yourself differently to different groups of people, and not necessarily desirable.
3) I am long winded. Long blogs take a long time to write and people don't read them, and working to make things shorter feels like work and isn't fun.

So really all of it can be explained in terms of various character flaws. Of course I could probably sit down with an avid blogger and find other character flaws that lead them to blog. Score another one for total depravity.

My dishwasher

So this (and this) is what our kitchen looked like until just recently. Crowded and often full of dirty dishes. I was getting fed up and so we started looking into possibilities. We didn't really want to redo our whole kitchen since the floor and the appliances are new and the cabinets look pretty good. We checked on portable dishwashers--none available locally for purchase that would fit. Finally we found the Danby 18" portable online, and eventually found that we could have it shipped to Walmart. We don't normally shop there, but saving that much money on shipping, plus having some place we could bring it back to if necessary, was very attractive.

And now, so is our kitchen. See below.


We fit the dishwasher between the stove and the wall, where, not surprisingly, an old non-functioning portable dishwasher lived when Alex first moved in. I am mystified as to why we didn't replace it right away--I think I thought the baker's rack was more important. It is now across the room, next to the kitchen table (which is smaller than it was when we got married--no leaves now.) The move opened things up so much.



Here's the dishwasher. One reviewer called it "the easy bake oven" of dishwashers, and it is small, but we don't generate that many dishes. On average we run it every 2 days, unless I cook enchiladas. Then we ran it twice in one day! It gets the dishes way more sparkling clean than I ever could. But it does take almost 2 hours!


Here is Cleo's reaction--he was really freaked out the first night we ran it. He's used to it now.

All in all, a great early birthday present that will keep on giving. Thanks, Alex!

A simple fall recipe

One of the great delights of fall is squash. Personally, one of my strongest memories of squash is from the year our family went to Disneyland. We grew, then cooked and froze, then ate enough squash to save money to go to Disneyland. Or at least cover one of our tickets.

Anyway, this is my favorite way to do acorn squash.

Exact recipe--makes enough for 2 good-sized servings:
1. Take a small to medium-sized acorn squash.
2. Punch a hole in it.
3. Microwave it for 2 minutes.
4. Take it out and cut it in half.
5. Scoop out seeds.
6. In each half, put 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon brown sugar.
7. Put it back in the microwave for about 5 minutes (until soft).
8. Enjoy.

You can also do it in the oven. With ones shaped like this, I'm tempted to slice them into rings because they're so pretty, but this is just easy!

Easy coffee for one

(This one's for you, Anna!)

First, the history. I never used to drink caffeine at all because it has the potential to mess up the absorption rate of some medications I take. However, a couple years ago I was having great difficulty getting going in the morning, and my doctor said, well, I could prescribe a stimulant, or you could just drink a cup of coffee in the morning. Overjoyed, I chose the coffee--I've long loved decaf, and the flavor options are so much greater with caffeine.

But I hated how the coffee maker took up a good portion of my one work counter in the kitchen. Then my coffee-loving friend Jen DeBoest showed me the handy little contraption above. (She also gave me the mug.) You set the plastic thing on your mug, put in a regular filter (or a special-sized one if you like to spend money), and a large tablespoon of coffee grounds (I grind mine each week at the grocery store--perfect combination of freshness and convenience). Then you pour enough boiling water in to fill your cup (but not overflow it--that's really the only trick). We love it! ("We" because Alex actually makes the coffee--and the breakfast--every morning although he only drinks tea and coffee "socially.")

It's available locally at Cooks' Emporium for about $5. It comes from Holland, and if anyone is interested, I'm sure I could get more details on the name of it.

Uses for cooked chicken

If you've started making cooked chicken and stock on your own, you may have cooked chicken lying around (hopefully in your freezer). Here are some favorite uses:

1. Slather some bread with mayonaise and top with chicken; salt if you didn't use much salt when making the chicken, and make a great sandwich.

2. Chicken pot pie--I don't yet have a favorite recipe, being torn between ease of preparation and healthiness, but my sister-in-law gave me a super easy one that I'd share and Cooking Light has a great-looking healthy one.

3. Quesadillas--top tortillas with chicken, green chilies, and cheddar cheese, add another tortilla, and bake or toast in skillet.

4. Chicken soup--saute some chopped up carrots, celery, and onion, add the stock, add some noodles or rice and simmer until soft, add chicken, season as desired, and serve.

5. Chicken Tetrazinni--there are all kinds of versions of this that require baking, but I don't see the point. I boil some spaghetti, and meanwhile I make a white sauce with the stock (you can also use can of creamed chicken soup). Stir in some grated cheddar, a bit of dried parslely, a can of drained mushrooms, and some chicken. Use as sauce over the spaghetti.

I hope you all don't mind the lack of precision. These recipes are all quite forgiving, so figure out what works for you, and if you have a specfic question let me know!

The leaves that are green turn to brown

(A disclaimer--I copped this picture from the Internet b/c I wasn't sure I could actually catch leaves mid-fall using my camera.)

Every year, about this time, I sit in my recliner and watch the leaves fall to the ground, sometimes one by one, sometimes as a large group. And I always have the following thought: Each leaf will only fall once. For some reason, this surprises me every year. There seem to be so many coming down, but each one only makes one trip. Then I think about rain and snow and compare them, because I never think about the finitude of rain and snow (except when I'm comparing them to leaves). And really, each drop of rain and flake of snow only drops once, too, which then reminds me of how I also can't believe that each snowflake is unique.

I have always been fascinated by finitude, even from a very young age. In third grade, they showed us a filmstrip about how fossil fuels will run out someday. The urge to protect and preserve, for me, extends from fossil fuels, to teeth (I did finally throw away my baby teeth but I take meticulous care of the teeth in my mouth)!, to my hearing (I'm the one with flourescent orange earplugs at church), to clothes (I still wear a few things I bought in eighth grade), to food (I love batch cooking for freezing), to books. Recently I have started reminding myself that there will always be new books, magazines, recipes, etc., so I don't need to make sure I store enough now for the rest of my life!

There's got to be a balance between on the one hand, the grasshopper who scorns storing up for the winter, and on the other hand the rich man who builds bigger barns to store up for himself, only to be struck by God. What a challenge this is when I look around the house and think, "I need more bookcases, or organizers, or shelves for all this stuff..."