kitchen – Momginerd

Since I have been in “list mode” lately, I decided to add just one more (for today…shut it, I like lists).

Here is a list of my favorite gadgets that are not games/phones/etc, or battery operated and no this isn’t a post about B.O.B.s!…let’s step UP to the gutter folks!

1. Rice Cooker. We LOVE rice. Brown Rice, Basmati Rice, Jasmine Rice, Spanish Rice…they all are in regular rotation in our menus. In the past, I found making rice on the stove top to be hit or miss. Sometimes the rice would come out okay, but most of the time it was either too mushy or too dry. I purchased a Rice Cooker a few years back and now we have PERFECT rice every single time. You can do other things with the rice cooker, like steam veggies and the like, but I use mine for cooking rice…duh.

2. Pressure Cooker. I grew up with the sound of the pressure cooker hissing in my mom and mamaw’s kitchens. Older versions have this counter-weight you put on the pressure valve, and when the pot reaches pressure the valve swings back and forth making a sound similar to the sound of cicadas in the Summer…anyway, I have a newer version and it saves so much time cooking. You can cook a pot of green beans in literally 5 minutes! You can make a whole pot roast in less than 30! It is a working and/or just busy parent’s savior. One of the added benefits of the pressure cooker is you use very little water when cooking veggies/meats so that means many of the good flavors and vitamins are locked in via the steam pressure. Roasts come out fork tender…I kid you not! It does take some getting used to, because I am a pot-peeker. I like to open the lid, sample, and peek at what is cooking. You have to learn to TRUST the pressure cooker, there is no peeking or opening the lid to check it out.

3. Trampoline. YES I know how unsafe they are…yadda, yadda, yadda. I also know that my kids saved up their money for a whole YEAR and paid for 75% of the trampoline. It is used within sight of an adult and with rules. We also researched (you are shocked I know) and found the “safest” one we could buy. It is not the $150 special, trust me. Anyway, my kids LOVE the trampoline. They have had it for about a year now and have spent countless HOURS jumping away. They get lots of good cardio, and mommy gets to drink her wine and watch them…just kidding…sometimes I don’t watch them.

4. DVR. I adore my DVR. There are some shows (Have you checked out Duck Dynasty or An Idiot Abroad?…hilarious), that I really enjoy watching. I am also very busy running mom’s taxi service, so I don’t really have a lot of time to watch said TV. So, I rely on my DVR. It is also awesome for recording kid appropriate shows, although mine is usually so full of episodes of Game of Thrones, True Blood and other things there isn’t room for kid shows. Hottie Husband and I will usually pick a Sunday every few weeks and call Pajama Day. We all keep our jammies on all day, eat breakfast food and get caught up on our shows. I call Pajama Day a day in HEAVEN! The bestest feature of all on the DVR is you can fast forward through commercials, so you can watch an hour show in about 42 minutes!

5. Whirly Pop. This is a stove top popcorn popper with a paddle in it that you spin to keep the popcorn from burning. I can’t stand microwave popcorn, and this makes the most awesomist popcorn. This thing should be plated in gold and given an award. I kid you not! I got mine from an Amish store many years ago, but I now see they are readily available from Amazon.com and other places. We have a local popcorn distributor and if we are feeling really gourmet, we will go there and buy different types of popcorn (did you know they have BLUE popcorn, and popcorn with no hulls?).

6. Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. I cook a lot. I looked through the calendar and in the last 60 days we have gone out or had take out only 3 times. Cooking is almost like therapy for me. Unfortunately, with working full time and running Mom’s Taxi Service as a second job, I do not have as much time in the kitchen as I’d like. So, I love my stand mixer because it does a lot of the work for me. I have the meat grinding, pasta making, and slicing attachments. I can get an indentured servant (kid) to do the grinding/slicing/kneading while I am doing something else towards the meal preparation. When we remodeled our Kitchen (see remodel from Hell parts 1, 2, 3), I took the measurements of my mixer with me when working with the designer. I had to be SURE that my mixer would fit exactly where I wanted it on my counter top.

7. Keurig. OMG, the only thing that keeps me going is coffee. The Keurig makes the BEST coffee I have ever had. It even has a timer on it, so the water is ready to brew my first cup of awesomeness as soon as I come down the stairs in the mornings. I do not even miss what used to be my almost daily trip through the Starbucks or Big B coffee stands anymore. As a bonus, I have more money to spend on k-cups and get to work 15 minutes earlier every day!

Until next time,
Nic

P.S. Did you know there is a Momginerd FaceBook page? Also, some of my best sarcasm can be found on my Pinterest!

For those of you behind….come on already, keep up! Just kidding…Here is Part 1 of the saga, and for your continued amusement at our expense you can read Part 2.

Circle 7: Violence
Oh heck yeah, remodeling a Kitchen is nothing if not violent. You should have seen the glee in the eyes of the kids when I said: “Oh you want to hit your sister? Here’s a hammer, go hit the nasty cabinets instead!” Those kids were all about violently beating the crap out my old kitchen like stink is on you-know-what! I will say they did a fantastic job of tearing everything apart….why am I not surprised? I guess I should have looked in their rooms more frequently, as after a month of me being distracted by said kitchen their rooms pretty much resemble the demolished kitchen too.

Of course, when violence is involved, it doesn’t seem to limit itself to inanimate objects. Take this lovely picture of me, for example:

Vice grips -v- Thumb…Vice Grips WIN!

I was pulling nails out of the baseboards with a pair of torture implements from the early 1900’s vice grips when the hook and eye type closure decided to latch….right on my thumb. I had a VERY attractive blood blister for about a month.

HH and I would spend our 20 minutes we took before collapsing asleep in exhaustion at night taking inventory of the day’s battle scars. We combined had a total of 9 head bumps, 3 lacerations, 1 million bruises, 1 pulled bicep, 2 swollen wrists, 10 nail puncture wounds (yes we checked and we were both up to date on our tetanus shots), and various other injuries. In the war of the Kitchen -v- Us, I’d say the kitchen won most of the battles.

In the end we did end up winning the war by getting the old kitchen to relinquish its dominance over our home, and we celebrated greatly…for 5 minutes…before we passed out in exhaustion.

Take that you old ugly kitchen. We win, you are going
to the landfill…right where you belong!

Circle 8: Fraud
Oh yeah! This circle was probably the hardest for a couple of nerdy geeks to accept. I mean, we spend our lives deciphering the B.S. from the truth statistically (yes, 90% of it really is B.S. too). Our acquiescence to being frauded came mostly from the web, instruction manuals, and other people who claimed to be PROFESSIONALS!

We would wonder how to put in a 3 way switch for a light fixture….being nerds, we turned to the almighty Google for the answer. Those search engines are EVIL as well as fraudulent! We looked at this one page from an electrician and the title was “Putting in a 3 way switch is so easy a blind monkey can do it.” Being neither blind nor monkeys we figured “no problem!” Well….2 hours and 20 combinations of Black-White-White-Green wires later we felt like this :

Blind and NO thumbs…Doh!

Then there were the “experts.” These folks must have gotten some really great laughs at my expense. We’d go to the Orange Box From Hell (OBFH) store and ask a question…they’d give us an answer that basically made me feel like an for not figuring it out…you know the “Oh that’s so easy, you should be embarrassed for even asking that” type of response. We’d get home and try to replicate what they said only to find out 1. They told me wrong (probably on purpose, EVIL Frauds!), or 2. the tool they told me would work fine for the job actually did not so I’d have to go back to the OBFH store and spend more $$$ there. I swear, my paycheck for the next 6 months is just signed over to the OBFH.

Nicism….every project you do takes twice as long as you think and costs 3 times as much money.

Manuals…..what a joke. Those damn things should have a warning on them! Part A does not fit in Part B, and how about including all the damn parts next time???

Circle 9: Traitors

We like to call the traitors, vendors. These are the folks who promise something will be delivered on a certain date, but then don’t show up or call. Or the “nice people” who PROMISE that they are the best and have the most awesome customer service…until they get your money! We had a delivery company put a ding in our brand new refrigerator. When I called them (before the check cleared, I may add) they were all like: Oh momginerd, we are SO sorry, we will be sending out someone to look at that right away, we pride ourselves on our customer service!” Ironically the check cleared the next day and we are still waiting for our replacement door….3 weeks later!

All in all, I am proud of my accomplishment. The Kitchen isn’t perfect, but it is 10000% better than the 1970’s special we had before. We went from avocado appliances to stainless….boring white walls with 8 cabinets on soffits to 28 new cabinets and gorgeous Canyon Sunrise walls.

Will I ever do a project of this magnitude again….HELL no!

Till next time,

Nic

Tag: kitchen

Household items I would rather sell my children for than live without (not really, but maybe somedays)

9 Circles of Hell Kitchen Remodel, pt. 3