I bought a couple of chickens (the already dead kind) earlier this week and didn't get around to doing anything with them, soooo I needed to cook both of them today.  As I was rummaging around the kitchen trying out different pans to see if I couldn't pop them in the oven at the same time Papa suggested that we try out the rotisserie-chicken-making gadget we have sitting out in the carport closet.  Well, that sounded like a mightly fine plan to me and so I went out and fetched it.  

Papa loves gadgets and kitchen gadgets are no exception.  I have to be very careful what I wish for gadget-wise because he has been known to go out and get it!  He's like my Kitchen Fairy Godfather (OOOHH!  Doesn't that sound sinister!).  Anywho, he played around with hooking up the gadget and I prepared the chickies.  I decided a simple brushing with olive oil and a sprinkling of white pepper and Spanish paprika would suffice for our first time out.

Drum roll, please!

Ta-da!

Of course being the logical blogger that I am, I did NOT take a picture of the finished rotisserie-style chicken, but I DID take a shot of my boring, oven baked chickie.  Go figure, sometimes my logic astounds me.

While the chickens were cooking away I went on an internet quest to find a recipe for dinner rolls just like O'Charley's makes.  There are very few restaurant foods that I really wish I could make at home, but this is one of them.

These turned out nice and soft and of the correct texture, but not quite sweet enough which somewhat concerns me as this four-cups-of-flour (or thereabouts) recipe called for a THIRD of a cup of sugar.  I just don't see myself adding MORE.  I might try a touch of honey and decrease the sugar next time and see what that does. It may be a while, however, because I'm not a big baker or white flour products.  Except for dessert. 

I've broken out the ole Bare Essentials wheat grinder and we've been grinding old school. 

To the right, two, three, four....

To the left, two, three, four...

Company, SWITCH!

Can I count this as PE?!

A really cool thing about computers is that they make dealing with the library easy...most of the time.  I love the fact that you can go online to search for things you want to read/watch/listen to and you can place a reserve with the click of a mouse.

I love the little emails that come telling me that I have books due soon and, hey, if you would like to renew them or review your account you can do so with the click of a mouse.

Hankering after something to listen to, but don't want to make a trip out...you can download an audiobook...for free...with a few clicks of the mouse. 

On the other hand, you can get an email informing you that something is due and when you go to the stupid website it tells you that that item is on HOLD for SOMEBODY ELSE and NO, you MAY NOT renew it even if your kids are sick and you don't want to leave the house. 

On the same day you can receive another email telling you that a book you've been waiting six weeks for in a queue that numbered 37 at the beginning of the wait, has come in.  Please pick it up or else we will give it to someone else.  AHHHHH!!!!

This afternoon I decided to slip out and pick up, hopefully, the above mentioned book and return the now five days late item.  Of course I decided to do this after my bread was mostly doubled and the library was closing in 30 minutes.  No fear, that's what daughters are for!

When I arrived back the oven was nicely preheated, but daughter dear forgot to put the bread in.  It had not only doubled, it had quadrupled!  I decided that huge or not, it was going in the oven.  Luckily it came out quite tasty, none the worse for the extra rising.

It's hard to tell, but one slice of this loaf is much larger than my whole hand!

Before-	After-

Today the Laundry Room, tomorrow, the top of the refrigerator!

When you live in a house that is more than 40 years old you begin to notice some sags here and there.  The front steps to our house were once made of brick, but over time they sank until the top step was a full two bricks taller than the other steps.  Needless to say, this was not safe, so we took them out--about five years ago!  Finally, they have been replaced. 

As you can imagine, it is impossible to match brick that old, so we had it done in stacked stone and while we were at it we had the teeny, tiny porch widened a smidge.  Pretty soon we'll put the banisters up and when we reroof the house sometime this year (or the next, or the next, or the next...) we will also extend it out over the new portion of the porch.  Right now, I'm just glad to have a usable front door again. 

Of course, now I have to clean out the foyer behind that door because it kind of sort of became a bit of a storage area over the last few years.  I also have some work to do on the lawn because of the heavy equipment needed to do this job kind of tore up the yard a bit.

What I'm most looking forward to, however, is finally putting back shrubbery in front of the house.  When you drive down the street, our house looks like it has two eyes (the windows) and a long green nose (the hose) and if one of the windows has its shades down, then it looks like our house is winking!

I blogged a while ago about the destruction of one of my favorite, most-used kitchen essentials.  Well, I'm thrilled to announce that after taking my poor board apart, regluing it and then sending it through a planer multiple times, my dear old cutting board is back in operation good as new, albeit a little thinner.  Thank you, Papa!

When we finished the first 100 lessons in the Henle Latin I book we had a "Latin party".  As we were finishing our Analytical Grammar program the girls really wanted to do something to celebrate that milestone and so we hatched a plan to have an English Tea.  Knowing nothing about tea (American or English style) we headed to the library to do some research. 

I found a couple of books about proper teas--there are MANY varieties apparently, but we decided to just concoct our own as some of the food was pretty weird sounding and I did want the children to actually ENJOY the experience and not get bogged down in the whole "do I HAVE to try this" complaint.  On the other hand, i wanted it to be something different and memorable, so I went through the book and picked out eight recipes which mostly contained indredients we eat/have heard of and then we went shopping.

Well, the chosen morning dawned and and we began cooking.  We made scones with Devonshire Cream, Mushroom cups, Cucumber and Watercress sandwiches, Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, and we also had store-bought Ladyfingers (some of which Rebecca dipped into the chocolate) to save some time. 

Actually, I realized as we were cooking that we should have store bought more things because just those few items took ALL morning to prepare!  We ended up dropping several dishes just because the preparation was turning out to be a lot of work.  Anyway, we sat down for our tea at lunchtime and it was a very enjoyable experience. 

What happens when a leaky sink goes undiscovered for a few hours/days:

Oh, well, it had already been set on fire once anyways.

Rebecca and I were making various desserts for Thansgiving and we decided to try a new recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge.  The recipe called for three cups of confectioners sugar and as we were mixing everything together, we realized that was way too much sugar in proportion to the other wet ingredients.  Rather than throw the whole mess away we opted to add a jar of that Marshmallow Goo stuff.  It helped.  Sort of....

It was still too dry to mix with a spoon, so we dug in with our hands.  I still have quite a plie of the stuff left.

Every once in a while my dear son gets a bug in his ear to cook something.  This usually makes me cringe.  Yes, I want him to be as independent as possible, but this child has a tendency to break things.  Or make a mess.

I came home a couple of weeks ago and Josh announced that he had made brownies, but they came out rather strangely, so he figured something was wrong with the mix, so he was trying again.  I approached the kitchen full of trepidation.

After taking in the dissarray, I examined the finished tray of brownies he shoved under my chin.  "What's wrong?" queries my culinarily challenged child. 

 Where to begin?  The cookie sheet seems a good place to start.

"Uhm, son, why didn't you use the pan we usually back brownies in?  I know you know what it looks like because you're very good at licking it clean."

"I couldn't find it." explains the dear boy.  "Why are there bubbles all over my brownies?  They look like the picture of that dude from Africa in the CDC who was the last known case of smallpox, you know?"

Glancing around the kitchen I notice that the stand mixer is out and dripping brownie batter.  "Uhm, brownies are only supposed to be mixed until they are combined.  Like with a spoon.  Cakes get mixed in the mixer because you WANT them to be light and airy."

"Oh.  Well, I guess the mix is all right then."