Shoes

At our old apartment, we had this big shoe rack for our (her) massive collection of shoes:

Cue appropriate Youtube video below.  (Suggest playing in background while reading the rest of this)

The entryway to our new place is a hallway with a closet on one side.  The hallway would be too cramped with the shoe rack in it, and the closet was too narrow for it to fit inside.  This was good news, as I was looking for my first carpentry project: a 3-drawer shoe cabinet.

After careful measuring of the space, I scribbled up some plans, bought a sheet of plywood, and made a stack of smaller pieces of plywood:

Also used some 2x6's to make the base:

Used this big fat blade, called a dado blade, to cut the grooves so the pieces would fit together:

Mocked everything up before painting:

Time for paint:

Apparently Cookie did some snooping:

Final assembly of drawers:

Putting everything together (by lantern light):

Astute readers may notice the gap between the side pieces and the walls.  That was done on purpose because most walls, these included, are not square, so simply fixing the panels straight to the wall would have made a crooked cabinet.  I cut shim pieces to go between the wall and the panels and put screws through.  

Drawer tracks were installed and the finished drawers slid right in.  Added some trim pieces around the sides and finished my first woodworking project:

Cookie does some quality control:

Bought a shelf and clothes rod and now we've got a fully functioning hall storage closet:

**EDIT**

And as requested by Lechers... SHOES!!!

And although the cabinet can fit three-rows-deep of shoes per drawer, we still ended up with an overflow area.

LET'S GET SOME SHOES!

Raspberry and Blackberry-Ginger Sorbet

After trying a few ice cream flavors, we decided to try our hand at sorbets (Note: this is another one of those month-long late blog posts because this happened in the middle of summer when people still ate cold things).

Since it was berry season, we strolled down to Eastern Market and bought ourselves a couple of pints of raspberries and blackberries. See below for the deliciousness that ensued:

Raspberry (or Blackberry-Ginger) Sorbet Recipe 

(makes 1.5 pints)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• Pinch table salt
• 2 cups raspberries (or 2 cups blackberries + a thumb sized piece of ginger finely grated)
• Optional: lime or lemon wedge

Directions:

1. Prepare a simple syrup with the water and sugar by combining both in a medium saucepan set over medium-low heat. Cook until sugar is fully dissolved.

2. Allow simple sugar to cool to room temperature. Add salt and raspberries (or blackberries and half of the grated ginger) to the mixture and blend until smooth.

• If adding ginger to the sorbet mix, add in small increments at a time. You don't want the ginger to overpower the blackberries.
• If desired, you can add a touch of lemon (for raspberry) or lime juice (for blackberry)

3. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds. You might have to use a spatula to coax the mixture through the strainer. 

4. Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours (preferably overnight)

5. After chilling, strain mixture again and churn the mixture in your ice cream maker for 15-20 minutes. Transfer sorbet into an airtight container and chill for about 2 hours. 

6. Eat all the sorbet in one day.

I think this has been one of my favorite recipes so far. The sorbet tasted so light and refreshing - and the color looked so deliciously artificial. Nom!

Blackberry-ginger Sorbet

Raspberry Sorbet

Chai Tea and Coffee ice cream

I've been a little behind on the ice cream posts. We've been experimenting with different ice-cream flavors over the past few weeks (I'm also trying to fatten Pat up for the Winter <-- capitalized, because... it's coming).

After the initial custard ice cream disaster with the pistachio ice-cream - I decided to man up and try my hand at two more custard-based recipes. When we make ice-cream, we tend to make two flavors at once because cleaning-up is the WORST afterwards. So many pots that can't go in the dishwasher. Bleh!

This time, we decided to go with drinkable flavors - Chai Tea and Coffee ice cream.

I pretty much followed Ev's chai tea recipe (for both the chai tea and the coffee) - but I ended up using the liquid chai concentrate instead of the chai latte mix since I couldn't find the mix in stores. If you can get your hands on the mix, I would recommend that over the liquid concentrate version - I ended up having to use half a cup of the chai liquid concentrate to get a strong enough chai tea flavor - but that increased the water content in the ice cream and made it a little icier than it should have been.

Chai Tea (or Coffee) Ice Cream Recipe 

(makes 1 quart)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup half and half
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup chai latte concentrate (or 2 tbs instant coffee granules if you want to make coffee ice cream) 
• Pinch of salt
• 6 large egg yolks

 Directions:
1. Combine the milk, cream, sugar, chai concentrate (or instant coffee), and salt. Heat and stir mixture. Bring to a simmer and remove from heat.

2. In a separate bowl, gently whisk the egg yolks (whisking too fast will produce too many bubbles, and cause you to produce major fail ice-cream with a crumbly texture)

3. SLOWLY pour milk mixture into the eggs while stirring gently (if you pour too fast, the eggs will curdle). I typically pour the milk mixture into my measuring cup (since it has a nicer pour spout than the pot), and I don't add more than 1/3 cup at a time, slightly increasing the volume each time as you increase the temperature of the custard mixture.

4. Pour mixture back into pot and heat on low setting while continuously stirring. The mixture should thicken up slightly and coat the back of your spoon - this shouldn't take more than 3-5 minutes.

5. Strain out any excess egg bits and let the mixture cool to room temperature

6. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours (preferably overnight)

7. After chilling, strain mixture again and churn in your ice-cream maker for about 15-20 minutes. You'll most likely have to leave the finished ice-cream in the freezer overnight to harden a bit more.

And there you have it! Chai Tea (or Coffee) ice cream! For some reason, the coffee ice cream also came out more icy than expected (as you can see in the picture) - will have to play around with the milk/half and half/whipped cream ratio in the future.

Chai Tea Ice Cream

Coffee Ice Cream

Light em up

One of the first orders of business when we moved in was to change the light bulbs from energy-sucking heat-generating halogen bulbs to more efficient bulbs.  Halogen bulbs are slightly more efficient than traditional incadescents, but they can't a hold a candle (pun intended) to CFL or LED bulbs.



CFLs are a good choice because they are pretty cheap and almost as efficient as LEDs.  But they contain mercury, which means special care needs to be taken when disposing of (recycling) them.  LED bulbs are bit easier to recycle since they don't have any hazardous materials, and with their longer life, we won't be disposing as much of them.

LEDs can be costly, but the $45 price tag that the above chart refers to is from when they first hit the market some years ago; they're cost has come down significantly since then.  Our bigger bulbs cost $17 from Ikea (see below), and smaller 60 watt equivalent bulbs made by Phillips were only around $6 a piece.

We were a little afraid the color of the light would be too "white" and harsh, but we were very happy with the resulting color of the light output:

The color was warm and looked just like the halogen bulbs they replaced.  

Let there be light!

Wangz!

Today was my first day off in the past 7 days (2nd day off in the past 14... but who's counting?!) - Anyway, it was a much needed mental break.

To celebrate this monumental occasion, the best husband in the world (aka. Pat), took a half day vacation to spend time some extra quality time with the wife. And in return, I made him WANGZ!

Dry Rub Chicken Wangz

This was a recipe I stole and slightly modified from my sister who made it the last time she visited Detroit. I love it because it's a no-fry recipe, which automatically means it's healthy ;) PLUS you don't have to get your stove greasy from the oil splatter (although, I'm thinking of getting a deep fryer soon - muahaha!). 

Didn't end up taking step-by-step pictures because it was pretty messy, but here goes:

Sticky BBQ Chicken Wangz

(serves 6)

Ingredients 

• 12 chicken wings
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 1 handful fresh thyme
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp chili powder (optional)
• 1/2 cup dark-brown sugar
• 2/3 cup ketchup
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp Tabasco hot sauce (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees 
2. Using a sharp knife (or kitchen scissors), separate the flappers and drummets. Set aside in bowl to drain excess water. (You want them as dry as possible)
3. Mix the paprika, thyme, salt, pepper, chili powder, and 3 tbsp of the brown sugar in a large bowl
4. Add wings and rub well. Leave chicken in rub for at least 1 hour (ideally 12 hours in the fridge)
5. Place wings on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked through. (Most baked wing recipes will suggest placing the wings on an elevated surface,  like a wire rack, to get extra crispy wings, since it won't be soggy from sitting in its own oil while it cooks - but see step 7, special trick I learned that eliminates the need for the wire rack)
6. If you want saucy wings (see picture below) make the sauce now. SAUCE: Mix the remaining (5 tbsp) brown sugar, ketchup, and Worcestershire and hot sauces until smooth. Brush onto wings at the end of 30 minutes
7. Prepare for final cooking! Bump up temperature to 475 degrees and bake for 15 minutes.

Saucy Wangz

And because I also wanted to have a backup in case the wings didn't turn out right - I did a batch of good 'ol fashioned salt and pepper wings. The only difference is that you replace step 3 with salt and pepper, and you squirt on some lime prior to step 7.

Salt, Pepper, and Lime Wangz

And of course - you can't have dinner without your side of veggies! Pat made a delicious salad medley

And yes, we finished the course with a new batch of ice cream (post to follow in the next few days).

Best.Day.Off.EVER!

Ice Cream

I don't know what to do with myself now that the two year ordeal of residency is over. Still feel like a resident (although a little more relaxed) - probably because I only got two days of vacation before I transitioned to my new life as a real pharmer, and probably because I'm still wrapping up some projects. heh heh.

Pat bought me two new toys to play with now that I have more "free time" (and because I kind of begged him to after seeing how amazing Ev's ice cream and baked goods were).

For our first attempt at ice-cream making, we decided to try the hardest recipe we could find - custardy pistachio ice cream. Because we are awesome and no recipe is too hard for this duo.

At first, it seemed like we were off to a fabulous start. Bought some delicious pistachios, pureed them, tempered some eggs into the mixture, stuck the batter into the fridge, and poured it into the ice-cream machine. 

You know the ice cream is going to turn our most excellently when it forms the shape of a nice butt.

The ice cream looked, and smelled decent - but when we tasted it, realized it had the consistency of dry soap. The ice cream was rock hard, and we had to leave it out at room temperature for about 45 minutes before it was soft enough to scoop out. Thought it would taste better after it softened up a bit, but it still had the consistency of dry pudding. Made pat eat the rest of the batch because it was $20 worth of pistachios. That guy is a beast. I love him. 

For our next attempt - we decided to try something much simpler (and cheaper). Vanilla custard ice cream and chocolate gelato. This was a bit more successful and now I'm in love with this machine. Will be trying out many more flavors in the near future - and will perhaps post the worthwhile recipes.

Painting the Study

We've been non-stop painting over the past few weeks. The study took a billion hours because well... take a look below.

We don't have a true "before" picture, but as you can see - the previous owner was extremely patriotic, and although we love the US, it was a bit too intense. 

The red and white striped wall was the WORST because all the lines between colors had to be sanded down in order for the surface to look smooth. Ideally, we should have sanded the whole thing - but... that didn't happen. 

The other wall was pretty interesting, but parts of the wallpaper were falling down - so that had to go too. 

Getting rid of wallpaper SUCKS. Everything is gooey and sticky - and the floor becomes a wet mess.

 After hours of work - we finally got it cleaned up

 Now for the fun part... PAINTING!

 Cutting

 First coat of prime

Checking for imperfections 

 Two coats of prime later, and a coat of paint (with Cooks carefully inspecting our work)

Finally finished.