Big Egg-Poor Chicken

This egg is HUGE! That poor chicken. We didn't get to eat it since it was cracked when we found it. Look at the size difference! We haven't seen another one but if we do, we want to eat it. Chickens are amazing!

Grind Your Own Grain Noodles

So when we moved into our house, the previous owners left a few things behind including a noodle maker. It was still unused in the box and very old. We decided to try it out since we are going strictly whole, grind our own grains now. My blood sugar has given me too many problems so we are starting a new lifestyle... Back to the noodle maker-We decided it would be Kevin's job to make noodles since he loves pasta and I was making everything else!

This was truly an experience. We have no idea how noodle dough is supposed to look and so we followed the directions to near disaster. I don't think there was any way that I could have pushed those spaghetti noodles out with how we made the dough. The kids sure enjoyed it but Kevin definitely got his workout and we decided that we needed to try it again to see if we could make it easier.

In the end we made a small amount of spaghetti noodles and I ended up rolling out the dough to cut lasagna noodles. We do love lasagna so at least we know we can do that easily, however we will see how often we have spaghetti!

Heavenly Peels

So I am not the worlds best bottler but I sure try! I tried to do our peaches when they were only picked the day before. I boiled them to get the skins off like the instructions said and only 1 out of 7 would come off, even after boiling for over 5 minutes! So I had to peel them...and waste my time when I really don't love bottled peaches. I'd rather peel pears because I love those bottled. Besides the whole reason I chose to do peaches is because the skins came off easy! So I finally had enough peeling and got 8 quarts done and then I cut the rest of my boiled peaches and dehydrated them. After a few days I started smelling the rest of my peaches and decided I should try again. Confidently I told myself that I should be successful since they were sooo ripe, especially after asking some of the bottling queens in the neighborhood.
I have never been so ecstatic over food! The peels slipped so nice off the peaches that it was so gratifying and the peaches were beautiful! It was HEAVENLY and I got done so quickly that it redeemed my disastrous bottling.

What is That?!

Kevin said that I shouldn't take a picture and to destroy the evidence, but how often does this happen? I make refried beans so I had rinsed them in the sink... I didn't know that one bean fell into the other side of the sink that I only use to stack dirty dishes. As I filled the dishwasher and looked in my empty sink there was a plant growing! It had just enough water and was covered by the sink plug, and of course the sink is by the window so it got plenty of sunlight. The kids were sad that I threw it away but where was I going to put it?

No More Green

My kitchen is no longer 70's green! Kevin got a great deal on these hardly used appliances, $250 for a fridge, glass top stove, dishwasher and microwave. He took my little green stove out and cut the counter so the new one would fit into place. He raised the cabinet about an inch so the fridge would fit and we put the dishwasher in Justin and Rachel's apartment (since we have one already)! The microwave will have to wait until we have a cabinet to put it under. We bought new white blinds to match. All my green is gone in the kitchen and my stove is wonderful!!! No more buttons for my chidlren (or us) to push accidently!

Adventures in the Laub's Kitchen

I think I need to start writing a weekly article on this topic. This week we had adventure filled meals. We have our neighbor over for dinner every Monday because we have to give her two bean tacos a week in return for a really nice camp trailor, and we like her too. Kevin called to make sure she was coming 15 minutes before dinner should start and I realized I didn't have any tortillas. I have made them before and so I searched for the recipe book and never found it so I made it up. Now, most people know that I am not a gourmet cook but our food is always homemade. This being said, I don't know how to make-up recipes or spice things etc. I used a pita bread recipe and changed it A LOT so it would work as the tortilla recipe I remembered (or didn't remember) making 6 years ago. As I was making the tortillas Kevin remembered that fry bread is really great so we used the same dough to make fry bread. Now our neighbor is apparantly very adventurous and she was willing to try our creations of the night. She had never had fry bread and the tortillas definitely "didn't have enough salt" she mentioned. As I multitasked finding the deep fryer, preparing the fry bread and cooking my very interesting tortillas on the stove, Justin showed up with store bought tortillas and then I requested sour cream and immediately it was on my table.
Our neighbor tried the fry bread and decided the middle didn't taste good and so she rearranged her food to a store-bought tortilla and we successfully pulled off another night of 2 bean taco payments (with Justin and Rachel's help of course). And Justin and Rachel enjoyed our adventurous fry bread, interesting tortillas and store tortilla meal as well. I should mention that I did eat the interesting tortillas I cooked and they didn't taste too bad, but I am not a picky eater so what does that mean? Kevin really loved the fry bread.

My next adventure in the kitchen was pizza. I always make pizza-not gourmet but homemade. I am good at my recipe and we didn't have much time so I sent Kevin downstairs with the kids so I could make it quickly. Unfortunately I was going too fast and I turned to the wrong recipe. Thinking it wasn't quite the same but not having time to think, I started on it. Once I was more than half way down the recipe I knew something was wrong and I glanced to the last ingredient, which was flour. My regular recipe calls for 2 cups of flour and I normally double it to make 2 pizza's (one for Kevin, the other for us). This recipe called for 6 cups of flour and I doubled it so I needed 12 cups of flour. As I was laughing at the size of my bowl and how I was going to accomplish this quickly, I observed I had saved myself from making pizza dough for next time and the time after that, thanks to the freezer. Flour was puffing and my hands were covered in sticky globs of almost dough. I managed to see a lightbulb in my head to divide the mess and knead the dough separately. In the end my upper body hurts from kneading that much dough but dinner was served in good time.

Maybe these stories remind you of your kitchen.

(The picture is of Samantha when she was 2 years old in our kitchen in Pine Valley Townhomes)