Call Me Susie Homemaker...

...or whatever you want, but I am ecstatic over what I have done these last two weekends. Or more specifically, what I have done today. But, I'll start with last weekend.

   Jason is gone for about 14+ hours every single day of the weekend, so I have lots of alone time for me, myself, and I. Typically I do the laundry, clean, and make food each weekend, as well as work on projects and try new things. And most of the time, I have whatever project/new thing finished, cleaned up and put away before Jason gets home. This past weekend, besides the normal stuff, and picking up my Bountiful Basket, I decided to try and make pasta. Aunt Verna gave us this nifty pasta roller and cutter for our wedding and we have both been wanting to try it out.

I had put off making pasta in the past because I knew it would be an all-day project. But last weekend, even though it was later in the day, I
decided to attempt it. I think it was because I wanted Jason to make spaghetti later that week, and we didn't have any pasta in the cupboard. So I followed the Egg-less Pasta recipe in the little book and began the process.

First, I rolled a couple strips and laid them out to "rest" for a few minutes.

After they rested, I ran them thru the spaghetti cutter and hung them to dry on the noodle drying rack. (Which ended up being a spare curtain rod that I propped between the counter and the microwave.)

It was quite the cycle: roll 2 strips, cut a strip, hang it to dry, un-hang the dried noodles, and repeat. Since my noodle drying rack was all of 2 1/2 feet wide, there was a lot of down time while waiting for the noodles to dry. After they had dried enough that they weren't gooey, yet they weren't brittle, I would gather them up and put them in a Ziploc bag. For some reason though, after they would go into the bag, they would "un-dry" and became gooey again. I don't know why, as I left the bag wide open the entire time. Anyways, I was about 4 strips from the end when Jason came home that night and he walked into the kitchen and said, "You're making pasta?! But I want to make pasta, too!!!"

   My other big accomplishment was drying all of the fresh herbs that I had gotten in our Bountiful Basket. We weren't going to be using them right away and I wasn't having any luck keeping them fresh. So I have now increased my supply of oregano, rosemary, and parsley!

 

   Now for this weekend. Yesterday, I made pizza and cheesy garlic bread for Jason to bake when he came home, as I was going to be gone. We used our pizza stone from Grandma F. for the first time. The pizza stuck really badly, so I need to figure out why. I also made a Pineapple Upside Down Cake with our second fresh pineapple. (Those pineapples were delicious!) And then I went to the Symphony for the evening. It was great! If you have never gone to hear a symphony orchestra, I would highly recommend trying it.

    Now for today. Today is the day I am ecstatic about what I did. If you remember, I got a coconut head in my Bountiful Basket last week. I was trying to figure out what to make for supper tonight and I looked online for Thai stir-fry recipes that take coconut milk and ginger. Then I looked up how to make coconut milk and proceeded to work on that project. I am very curious as to who wrote those instructions, though, as they say to "take a sharp knife and pierce the eyes of the coconut." I'm not sure what kind of knife they have, but none of my knives are going to put a dent in a coconut head! And I don't want to ruin my $100 knife trying! So I went with the old-school method of a hammer and nail and that worked great. Then came the part of digging the meat out of the coconut. Is there an easier way to do it then the way I did? I now have a curved knife blade in my kitchen from trying to pry the meat away from the shell. Anyways, after a long period of digging, I had all the meat off the shell and I was ready to make my coconut milk.

    While I was in the process of actually making the milk, I forgot that the recipe was for 2 coconuts, and that I was only using 1. Thus, I probably ended up with a weak version of coconut milk. But after I strained the milk with my home-made cheesecloth (which was a white handkerchief ) I wondered what are you supposed to do with the remains? That's when I decided to dump it out on a cookie sheet and see if it could be used as shredded coconut. And guess what? That is exactly what it is!!! So I now have 2 over-flowing pints of coconut milk in my fridge and about 2 cups of shredded coconut in the freezer!

The main reason I am so ecstatic over my coconut experience is that I have always bought coconut milk to make Thai dishes with. And just today, I had put shredded coconut on my grocery list so that I could make granola sometime soon. But now, I don't have to buy either one for a while!!! (And after the painful experience of digging out coconut meat, I am just happy that I have something good to show for it!)

   So what's my project for next weekend? Probably taxes.