Yesterday I managed to get the oven turned on! This is big news and a big relief. There is actually an active oven pilot light, I found out when I took apart the bottom of the oven. It just doesn’t do anything unless you turn the oven dial to 400 or so, get it lit, THEN turn it down. Of course!
Last night we spent the evening wandering the aisles of the Container Store rather despairingly, and brought home a large number of items aimed at imposing order on the pantry. The kitchen doesn’t have a single cupboard or counter–not one–but there is a lovely butler’s pantry and a regular pantry right off the kitchen. I had heaved everything out of boxes and onto the shelves, and it looked pretty awful. I also had no way to organize all the sort of gadgets you’d normally keep in a drawer, like peelers and graters and measuring cups, since I don’t have any drawers.
Here are the results:
Before:
After:
I promise the difference is more striking in person.
Another view, since I’m pleased with my creativity in….shelf organizer selection:
Before:
After:
Note the in/out box trays used for gadgets in the lower left. It’s hard to see the desk-top cd box holding various boxes (brown sugar, corn starch). I’m very pleased with the different extra shelf thingies we got–smaller ones for the top shelf (there is a lot of space above the top built-in shelf; I may eventually put in another shelf or two for long-term storage) and a big one to use on the floor under the bottom shelf. I also used a big one on the lowest shelf, which is quite large. And the cleverest gadget I found was the thing that clips onto a shelf above it and gives you a place for sheet pans or other flat wide things. At last, I won’t have to unload every single other pan I own to get to the quarter sheet.
In case you think I’ve stopped cooking….you’re almost right. Hmm. I did make a nice pasta dish the other night, and Ben’s family was in town this weekend so we had a barbecue. I made caprese for that, look!
Mediocre tomatoes, sadly–I was hoping they’d be good but they let me down. That’s a BIG letdown, since caprese is only worth it with great tomatoes and great cheese. Luckily the mozzarella, a Vermont-made one, was extremely tasty.
I drizzled it with a dressing I made very quickly by pureeing a bunch of basil with olive oil, salt, and a dab of balsamic vinegar.
I want to try again with awesome heirloom tomatoes!
Coming soon: A whole slide show of house before and afters! Also a very tasty lunch.
When you can’t find good big tomatoes, you can make the same thing with baby balls of fresh mozz + the yummiest looking grape or cherry tomatoes you can find, skewered on pics with folded fresh basil leaves. The lack of fabulous isn’t nearly as noticeable in bite size, I have found.
Oh totally–I was let down because these were masquerading as good tomatoes. Bummer.
I use grape tomatoes and cherry tomatoes all winter in various pastas and salads–I don’t know why but they do tend to be sweet and flavorful even out of greenhouses or trucked from warmer climes.