Kitty.nu » domesticated

Dinner is served

Jenn — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:28:28 +0000

I am in love with my slow cooker (and Jason’s slow cooker, which has been sitting in my kitchen since July and is easier for me to access than my own. Heh.), and now that fall is here and the kids are back to school, I am all about taking advantage of slow cooker meals whenever possible! A few weeks ago I made a super yummy chicken bacon ranch recipe that Catie posted on her blog. Two nights ago I made pot roast. Tonight? Chicken noodle soup. Tomorrow? I’m thinking beef stroganoff.

Do you have any favorite, easy slow cooker recipes? Please share. I’m always looking for new ideas!

My new BFF

Jenn — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:10:24 +0000

I have a thing about clean carpets. I vacuum at least every other day — sometimes daily, if one of the Persian cats decides to leave bits of himself here and there. But I also like to clean my carpets. Last fall my husband treated me to a vacuum upgrade — we went from a run-of-the-mill Sharp upright to the oh-so-spiffy (and worth more than my car) Rainbow vacuum. It has a special cleaning attachment that I purchased a month after we got the vacuum, and wow, best cleaning purchase EVER. The sales guy demoed it when he brought us the main vacuum system, and I knew right then and there I had to have it. It does an EXCELLENT job of cleaning the carpets, and that’s with COLD water, people. And just two small capfuls of solution added to about half of a gallon of water.

Anyway, the perfect accompaniment to the Rainbow vacuum carpet cleaning attachment is the Bissell Spotbot. It’s like its predecessor, the Little Green ProHeat, except that it does the scrubbing itself. It has two settings: surface stain and set-in stain, and all you do is make sure it has water and solution, set it up over the spot you want to be cleaned, select the clean setting (surface or set-in), hit Start, and let it go to town. It took a bunch of stains, including a hardened red gummy mess in Alyssa’s carpet, right out. Needless to say, with five cats and two dogs, I will be keeping things thing nearby and filled with water and solution in order to tackle messes as soon as they happen!

It’s a good thing I like meatballs

Jenn — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:40:10 +0000

We’re doing spaghetti and meatballs for tonight’s dinner. Only dinner isn’t just going to be the four of us — we’re also having Dan’s brother K, Dan’s sister M, Dan’s aunt and uncle, and possibly our friend Jason over for dinner. So instead of preparing one or two pounds worth of ground beef and a third of a box of spaghetti, I’m preparing five pounds of ground beef, along with two full boxes of spaghetti. Hats off to me for being just that awesome.

When it comes to meatballs and spaghetti sauce, I tend to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. I won’t give complete details or exact measurements, because that would take quite a while, but here’s a brief list of the ingredients that I use in the meatballs and the spaghetti sauce:

Garlic powder
Minced garlic
Onion powder
Green onions, diced
Oregano
Basil
Specialty pizza and pasta seasonings
Specialty “in a pinch” Italian seasonings
Salt
Pepper
Panko bread crumbs
Parmesan cheese, grated
Italian cheeses, shredded
Milk and eggs for binding

Drool. My kitchen smells so good right now!

Rainbow vacuum: pros and cons

Jenn — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:08:56 +0000

Dan and I have had our Rainbow vacuum for nearly six months now, and while we pay a monthly payment on it like we would a mortgage or a car note, it’s well worth it. Of course, nothing is perfect, so I’ll be entirely honest and list the few cons of having a Rainbow.

Pros:

I can use it to vacuum my carpets
I can use it to vacuum my floors (if so desired)
I can use it to clean out the lint trap in my dryer
I can use it to dust ceiling corners, tops of bookcases, even ceiling fan blades!
I can use it to clean out my car (which reminds me, I need to do that sometime soon…)
My husband can use it as a wet/dry vac
It shows me just how clean my carpets can be
It shows me exactly what is being pulled out of my carpets
Bag-less design, whee!
Very flexible and easy to maneuver into a variety of positions and under all sorts of furniture

Cons:

Since it shows me how clean my carpets can be, I have the urge to vacuum daily…
Water reservoir is a pain to dump when it’s cold or rainy outside

And… that’s it! I ♥ my Rainbow, even if it is worth more than my car (literally).

It’s not that I can’t cook…

Jenn — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 02:41:42 +0000

It’s that I often don’t like to. When I put my mind to it, I can turn out a pretty delicious meal. Tonight I was originally going to do something simple. But Dan has been overstressed and overworked lately, so this morning I decided to go “all out” with dinner and hit up the grocery store for sea scallops, fixins’ for them, and then came home and mentally put together the rest of the meal — buttered egg noodles (protein for me!) and grilled and seasoned asparagus.

Dinner? It was absolutely delicious. The house smelled awesome, and while the kids weren’t thrilled with the scallops (fine by me, so long as they tried them; after they did and subsequently rejected them, I gave them each a fish plank), Dan loved them. I enjoyed them too. Seafood, besides tasting awesome, is also great for protein. Bonus!

How to keep the detergent bottles from moving around on top of your washer

Jenn — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:04:22 +0000

Minor pet peeve: when my front loader washer goes through its spin cycle, especially if I’m washing blankets or a lot of denim, it vibrates and rattles around enough that my detergents, bleach, fabric softener, stain remover, etc., would all rattle around and sometimes fall off. And yes, I have those nifty pedestal drawers beneath both the washer and the dryer, but they’re full of towels, linens, and pet supplies. But I solved the problem a few years back, and I thought I’d share the solution with you. It’s nothing fancy, but it works: simply place a non slip pad or strip of material beneath the bottles, and presto, problem solved!

I’m baking a chicken pot pie. And cheesecake!

Jenn — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 21:47:49 +0000

As I write this, my very first homemade cheesecake (scratch that — my first EVER cheesecake) is baking in the oven, and I have a nearly finished chicken pot pie sitting on the counter, waiting for its turn in the oven. But I need to finish thawing the chicken first, so that I can chop it up and add it to the pie. Then I’ll whip up a pie crust (using Jiffy, hehe), and then viola, an awesomely delicious dinner will have its turn in the oven! Heh, I better watch the homemade goodness, or else I’ll be tipping the scales at 190 again!

I get into odd domestic “fits” like this. I’ve been wanting chicken pot pie for a while, and I thought that a cheesecake sounded absolutely yummy as soon as I spotted a pre-made one in the grocery store. But they wanted $12.99 for a premade! Instead I spent $3 on graham cracker crumbs, $4 on cream cheese and $2 on sour cream — and I have enough crumbs and sour cream left for 1-2 more cheesecakes. Besides, homemade is the best. ♥

What have you made lately?