In My Kitchen – November 2015

I had such high hopes of doing more in my kitchen this past month but alas, just after getting rid of my crutches and the sprained ankle, I was opening a package with scissors.  TIP:  When using scissors to open packages, always cut away from you, not toward the hand holding the box.  The package won and I stabbed the web of my hand with one of the scissor blades and sliced the knuckle of my thumb with the other.   So another run to the emergency room and a half dozen stitches kept me from doing anything overly exciting in the kitchen.  But if you look outside my kitchen window early in the morning, you will usually see…

Wild turkeys…lots of wild turkeys… so many wild turkeys that I couldn’t get all of them in the same picture but I counted at least 50 of them.  Not a pretty sight at all because they’re truly one of the ugliest creatures ever invented and they make a terrible mess which the dog loves to roll in (why do dogs do that?).

However, something else outside my kitchen window is much prettier – fall foliage in New England.  This is one of our maple trees bursting with color.  

Sitting temporarily outside my kitchen window and no longer a part of the house is this trim board that I just have to show you.  We’ve been having some work done on the house to replace rotted wood and the carpenter removed this board from the front of the house only to realize that he had huge, angry bees swarming him.   I’d been going nuts every morning with this crazy woodpecker pecking away outside the bedroom window.  He was after the invaders – Carpenter Bees!  The bees drill holes into wood then build tunnels for their nests.  The woodpeckers then go after the eggs which makes much bigger holes until you have something that looks like this: 

Here’s something you might not see everyday and also something I haven’t seen for about 20 years.  This has been up in my attic and I haven’t thought of it for ages (yes, really at least 20 years) until Mimi did a post about hers with a canape bread recipe.  Seems like she and I were both talked into going to a home party for Pampered Chefs – not sure if they’re even still around but I went because I was told that it was a ‘food demo’ and there’d be great treats to sample.  Of course it was a sales opportunity for the hostess and I ordered a few items.  By the time they were delivered, I’d completely forgotten what I ordered or what I was supposed to do with them … I’m pretty sure that I was impressed with it at the time because I seem to recall the woman shoving a roll of pastry dough inside and having a very cute loaf come out by the end of her demo.  So I bought it, never used it but Mimi just may have inspired me to go ahead and give it a try now that she’s given me  a recipe to use in it.

At the same Pampered Chef party I came home with this…it’s called a press and seal cutter.  I can’t even remember the demo on this one other than some sort of blackberry tart where you pressed the top and this gadget created cute little tarts, perfectly sealed.  Unfortunately when I dug this one out of the ‘what-have-you’ drawer, it seems that there’s supposed to be some sort of handle on top which of course is missing and defeats the purpose because this thing is now in 2 parts so that the ridged inner ring that supposed to seal the tart just falls out.  Who wants to take bets on the minute I throw this away (which I should), that I’ll find the little handle for the top?  How many of you have gadgets that you don’t use, never will use, or are broken just cluttering up a kitchen drawer (or two)?

As always, many thanks to Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial for hosting the IMK posts every month.  I don’t know how she manages to keep it going for so long but I know I love to see the posts and look forward to seeing what everyone’s doing each month.  Thanks to Celia – check out her November IMK post as well as the other contributors.