Hello- not an April Fool’s joke

Hello everyone, if anyone is still out there to read this neglected blog. 

I’m fine, everyone in my family is OK.  I’ve just been busy straightening out our home, regular housework and a little relaxing too.  

So I’ll just jump right back in here.  

One of the projects I worked on while daughter and family were living here was to clean and season 4 cast iron skillets.  It was a big project!

blog post where I talked about redoing the cast iron

I coated them with oven cleaner and let them sit in the sun in black trash bag.  Then I scrubbed and scrubbed with steel wool and an iron bristle brush.  It took multiple soakings and scrubbing to get them back to bare metal.  

Then they needed to be greased and baked in a hot oven.  This took multiple tries and It was a big effort but now I have 4 seasoned cast iron skillets.  

Even after all that work, I haven’t been cooking with them.  

So I decided for April,  I will cook everything I can in cast iron.  

Today,  I started the morning cooking myself some hash browns and an egg.  

  

Cooking 

And after-  the egg didn’t stick! 

For lunch I made a beef dish and for supper I made a chicken dish.  (We didn’t eat all of both recipes.  We like leftovers and the leftovers are  dished up in the fridge and will be reheated as desired) 

Anyway,  both recipes cooked nicely and the clean up was easier than I expect.  

So day 1 into my plan and so far, so good.

But I’ve always preferred cooking in nonstick, so come May,  if I’m not loving this cast iron,  I’ll buy some new nonstick cookware.  

We did get all our windows and 2 doors replaced.  The installers were great and the new windows and doors couldn’t be nicer.  I’ll share some photos soon.

One of the inside changes we made was moving our freezer into the breakfast room.  It has been in the garage for years.  

It’s better for the freezer to be in the house because it is  hard for the freezer to keep up during really hot summers and really cold winters.  

It’s more convenient for me to have the freezer right by the kitchen. 

The draw back is purely looks-  the breakfast room is much prettier when it’s not so full of appliances.  

But right now,  I’m liking convenience.  

I was reading Terri’s blog one night when I couldn’t sleep.  She talked about making chicken broth and it reminded me I had more than enough chicken bones and celery stalks saved in the freezer.  

Blue House Journal

Since I couldn’t sleep and my husband was out of town,  I started a batch of broth cooking about midnight.  

By then I was tired and able to go to sleep.  

I slept all night and woke up to a big crockpot of chicken broth.

  

I chilled the broth until the chicken fat hardened and was easy to remove.

Then I froze it 2 cup containers. 

Inside the freezer that is now in the breakfast room.  

Much of the USA had some unpleasant weather yesterday.  In Oklahoma,  we had so much wind all day,  50 to 70 MPH gusts which is really hard wind. 

I was nervous all day but thankfully our home had no damage.  Many people in Oklahoma lost their homes to fire.  Lots of trees fell and lots of power lines and poles fell too.  

We had nice weather today and next week’s forecast looks very pleasant especially compared to yesterday.  



April looks to be a busy month- one grand has a birthday, Easter, a vacation for my husband and I,  a very short visit from our son and family, another grand has 2 musicals in April.  

How is your April looking?  

I plan to blog this month too

Thanks for reading 

❤️Rhonda 

Still frugal February but I’m taking a blogging break

Hello everyone

I didn’t make a to do list this week. This is not a normal week with several family things happening.

And there isn’t really an opportunity to make blog post when extra things are going on, so I will be back after this week

Yesterday, to get ready for company, I baked a double batch of pancake and a batch of chocolate chip muffins.

I glazed part of the pound cakes , with lemon glaze, and part with chocolate glaze.

The chocolate chip muffins were pretty much devoured by some grandchildren who were here for an overnight stay. They ate them for dessert at supper and then they ate them with their breakfast the next morning before school. 

I baked pound cakes because I’m not sure when the rest of our company will be here and for what meals. Pound cakes  keep so I thought that would be the best thing to plan for a dessert. 

However, as soon as I tasted one of them, I knew I had made a boo-boo. I doubled the recipe and I doubled  all of the ingredients correctly………, except for the sugar.

It was not the worst mistake I could make. The cakes are still quite edible, but they are not as light or as sweet, as if they had the correct amount of sugar.

Oh well! We had some of the poundcake today with a few sliced strawberries on top, and it was still delicious.

There are plenty of peaches in the freezer so I may thaw those out when company is here and we will just call it peach shortcake

Hope you all are having a good week with no kitchen boo-boos. 

I’ll be back as soon as I can

❤️ Rhonda