Happy Hobbit Does The Pantry
My hobbit heart is full of satisfaction at the moment. The much advertised spaghetti sauce is merrily burbling away in the crockpot downstairs. The nice part about a do-ahead meal item like this is that the kitchen is all clean, everything put away afterward. When Ian gets home tonight, I can just enjoy his company instead of scurrying around to get dinner ready... well, unless I decide to go through with plans for a fried zucchini appetizer. Don't judge me. It's one of only two ways we'll eat zucchini, and the other is planned for Thursday night's dinner.
In the process of cleaning the kitchen, I noticed my growing collection of empty glass jars (formerly containers of Classico spaghetti sauce and Tostito's salsa) awaiting repurposing. Various jars are now filled with sunflower seeds, egg noodles, and breadcrumbs. Challenging my old way of thinking, I decided to switch around some ingredients kept in the larger utility cannisters on the counter. For the first time in my life, I use sugar and brown sugar enough for these items to actually merit space on the counter. We don't drink coffee at all, so we use sugar exclusively for baking here. Those baking items will go in the bigger containers, allowing me to ditch the bags of overflow on the pantry shelf. The pitchers currently assigned containment of those items will now hold chocolate chips, purchased from Sam's Club in their native environment of the 3 pound bag, which I will also be only too happy to see removed from my pantry shelf. Now my hobbit heart is glad and merry, seeing these happy little glass jars fill up with goodies in the pantry.
In the process, I also tried something new today: For the very first time in my whole life, I ate a sunflower seed! They're delicious! They're just like really good salty peanuts, but tiny. (And yes, the tininess is reflected in the taste.) Yum! I keep them around ostensibly to put in salads for Ian, although that has yet to ever happen. Since I also purchased romaine lettuce from Sam's Club in a bag the size of a pillow case, we're pushing salads this week, so perhaps it's time to try that. In addition to the aforementioned discovery, I have also never had a nut of any kind in my salad before.
Not much else has happened round these parts today. It's quite cold for Austin, and the kittens spent most of the day camped out directly in the stream from the heating vents. I followed their lead, and didn't go nuts with activities. Got a little more laundry done; I'm finally at the end of that train. Got my desk cleaned, very slightly reorganized my bookshelf, and "picked up" the office, as my mother would say. Took photographs of a recent knitting project and posted them on Ravelry. Found a box the right size for shipping that item, hopefully tomorrow. I'm waiting on a second project so I can combine Post Office errands. That second project is still air drying after I hand-washed it several days ago. It's taking forever!
Parting note: My mother bought us these bedsheets for Christmas. I finally got them on the bed for the first time last night, and WOW WHERE HAVE THESE BEEN ALL MY LIFE? It was like sleeping inside a marshmallow, a great big polar fleecy polka-dotted marshmallow! These are amazing. If you're in the market for bedsheets, I highly recommend this experience.
T$
In the process of cleaning the kitchen, I noticed my growing collection of empty glass jars (formerly containers of Classico spaghetti sauce and Tostito's salsa) awaiting repurposing. Various jars are now filled with sunflower seeds, egg noodles, and breadcrumbs. Challenging my old way of thinking, I decided to switch around some ingredients kept in the larger utility cannisters on the counter. For the first time in my life, I use sugar and brown sugar enough for these items to actually merit space on the counter. We don't drink coffee at all, so we use sugar exclusively for baking here. Those baking items will go in the bigger containers, allowing me to ditch the bags of overflow on the pantry shelf. The pitchers currently assigned containment of those items will now hold chocolate chips, purchased from Sam's Club in their native environment of the 3 pound bag, which I will also be only too happy to see removed from my pantry shelf. Now my hobbit heart is glad and merry, seeing these happy little glass jars fill up with goodies in the pantry.
In the process, I also tried something new today: For the very first time in my whole life, I ate a sunflower seed! They're delicious! They're just like really good salty peanuts, but tiny. (And yes, the tininess is reflected in the taste.) Yum! I keep them around ostensibly to put in salads for Ian, although that has yet to ever happen. Since I also purchased romaine lettuce from Sam's Club in a bag the size of a pillow case, we're pushing salads this week, so perhaps it's time to try that. In addition to the aforementioned discovery, I have also never had a nut of any kind in my salad before.
Not much else has happened round these parts today. It's quite cold for Austin, and the kittens spent most of the day camped out directly in the stream from the heating vents. I followed their lead, and didn't go nuts with activities. Got a little more laundry done; I'm finally at the end of that train. Got my desk cleaned, very slightly reorganized my bookshelf, and "picked up" the office, as my mother would say. Took photographs of a recent knitting project and posted them on Ravelry. Found a box the right size for shipping that item, hopefully tomorrow. I'm waiting on a second project so I can combine Post Office errands. That second project is still air drying after I hand-washed it several days ago. It's taking forever!
Parting note: My mother bought us these bedsheets for Christmas. I finally got them on the bed for the first time last night, and WOW WHERE HAVE THESE BEEN ALL MY LIFE? It was like sleeping inside a marshmallow, a great big polar fleecy polka-dotted marshmallow! These are amazing. If you're in the market for bedsheets, I highly recommend this experience.
T$