The six mainstays of a good life...

• Good food
• Good drink
• Good friends to share it with
• Live
• Laugh
• Love

:up:

I'm not a sauerkraut fan, or at least never wanted to eat what my mom made because of the smell. I've since found out there are different varieties of the stuff and I was told I might like the Bavarian style, which is sweeter and milder. It uses (more) sugar and caraway seeds than the other varieties of German sauerkraut to which you might be accustomed. I still haven't tried it, though. Maybe someday I'll give it a shot.

Generally I'm not a fan of cooked cabbage at all in any form that I've ever seen put on the table in front of me. Raw cabbage, however, I would eat straight from the crisper as a kid and really good cole slaw is a favorite.

Okra... OMG OKRA! I love okra. I cut it up and put it in vegetable soup and my mom fried it and I still haven't tried that because I don't know how she did it. From what I remember it was just dredged in something and dropped in a skillet of hot oil. Don't know if she used flour or cornmeal, but I hope to figure it out someday. I have a recipe for "oven fried" okra so maybe the coating from that will work in a skillet as well.

The most common complaint I've heard about okra is that it feels "slimy" and I can certainly understand where that comes from, having eaten it all my life, but for me it's never been an issue. I won't eat oysters for the same reason. :haha:

Now Cabbage. There's a vegetable I can sink my teeth into. Boiled up in water with butter, potatoes and a can of Corned beef. Mash it all together on a plate, salted and peppered to taste and it's chow city.:D
Boiled and diced cabbage fried up in butter with diced onions and Farfelli pasta(bowties) Haluski is what it's called I think.:up: Halupki is good too.

Oh man! Suddenly I'm starving!

LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA!

First okra, then cabbage.

I needs to go frow up now.

http://greenlitebites.com/images/2008/09/okra.jpg

I AM OKRA... FEAR ME!!!!

:O:

Just ordered some motorized remote control blackout shades for the bedroom windows (not from Amazon, sadly they didn't have any). Won't have them til mid July but since they will be inside mounts I can go ahead and do what I need to do hardware-wise for the curtains I have now and not have to worry about changing whatever I put up now to accommodate some type of blackout function later.

Really hoping these shades work properly, if they do I'll be able to have light through the sheers when I want it but drop the shades to block out light when I don't, which would be pretty much every night when I go to bed. :haha: There is a "streetlight" on the sidewalk that runs along the front of this row of condos and of course it's just close enough to shine in my windows. Nice that it gives some light to the living room at night if all my lights in there are off, not so nice that my bedroom windows are directly above the living room ones and I get light in there too all night long.

Given where the furniture ended up, I wouldn't be able to have window treatments that I could open/close or rearrange manually without moving a bed and one nightstand to get access, so remote controlled units were pretty much my only option if I wanted any kind of blackout treatment at all that wasn't in place 24/7. And they don't come cheap, but what're you gonna do? :-?

Probably still cheaper than buying the motorized drapery rod AND blackout panels for that AND whatever new hardware I would need to put up the window treatments I actually want to SEE and make them fit over the motorized rod. The whole point is that I don't want to see the blackout stuff, I just want it to be there and function so I have darkness when I want it without sacrificing the rest of the decor. So, shades seem to be the way to go. They are doing a great job in the office so far so as long as the motorized/remote bit works okay I should be fine with them.

Okra <shudder>


Oh, yeah, shades. I've worked enough graveyard shifts and odd hours, all the way from the navy to driving skiers, that I can sleep in just about any lighting conditions. When I don't sleep well at night sometimes I take an afternoon nap, shades open as always - that is when I don't fall asleep in my chair with the sun streaming in through the sliding glass door.

Okra? ga ga gag.

Just the smell of sauer kraut used to gag me.

Corned beef and cabbage. Saaaawwweeeet! :yeah: I like okra also. Collard greens. :yep:

Sunday In The Condo With Frau Kaleun

(part one)

Time for new curtains in the bedroom! But first, the bed has to be pulled out and the old curtains taken down. Thankfully I've just left big ol' furniture sliders under the bed's feet until I get everything behind it sorted for keeps.

http://imageshack.us/a/img839/8492/749l.jpg

And the windows have to be cleaned...

http://imageshack.us/a/img835/8287/twzv.jpg

and the hardware has to be inspected... oy, that doesn't look good. But it's no surprise, I've already discovered that the previous owner apparently was unfamiliar with the concept of wall anchors of any kind. I discovered this when I went to pull a paper towel off the roll over the sink only to have the entire roll end up IN the sink because the previous occupant's towel holder came right out of the wall. I got it to stay back up using a couple anchors and some fatter screws pending a decision on what I'm going to do longterm for paper towel holding and dispensing. :O:

http://imageshack.us/a/img211/4291/6k4g.jpg

This window treatment hardware will have to be dealt with at some point but for now I'm just gonna push it back in the wall and hang the rod back up... it's been holding up the rod all this time, a few more weeks shouldn't be a problem and I'll have to take all this stuff down again when the shades get here. No time or patience to deal with it today. So, the new sheer curtains just went up and that was that.

http://imageshack.us/a/img835/8283/4mn1.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img404/790/u2nc.jpg

They look much better in the picture than in person, lol. I didn't wash or iron them so they still have all the creases from being folded up in their original packages. But they will do for now, and I may wash them when I have to take them down again or at least use the hand steamer on them and see how that works. And yes I know they are hitting the floor and bunching up down there, I want them to do that. They are a little longer than I really wanted, but it was a choice between that or too short to hit the floor at all so... I may turn up the hems one time and whipstitch them or something. Another decision to be made later when I put them up for what I hope will be the last time for a long time.

Now to get the bed back in shape for this evening's sleepytime.

http://imageshack.us/a/img407/9990/qx97.jpg

I didn't like having to look at the unfinished wood and gray slats of my bed base, and given the type of bed I have there's really no way around that unless I cover it with something. It's a couple inches longer and wider than the mattress, so a queen size fitted sheet or cover won't cut it (believe me, I tried. And tried. AND TRIED :stare:).

So I went to Walmart and bought their cheapest store brand white king size fitted sheet in the hopes that the extra inches in one direction would let me stretch if over the whole base. It actually worked pretty well!

http://imageshack.us/a/img802/9115/3m4u.jpg

Then there's the really fun part - getting the mattress back in place. Those things are so unwieldy. And wobbly. And heavy. Not my favorite combination.

http://imageshack.us/a/img200/4199/11f.jpg

Only a few more steps and we'll be on track for bedtime later...

http://imageshack.us/a/img59/2180/q2mz.jpg

and the rest of the bedding can stay piled up against the wall, because this is all I'll need for now. Even the coverlet is overkill, but I'd really hate to wake up cold and have to go stumbling around looking for a blanket, so it's on there just in case.

My best friend keeps asking me "how do the lamps look?" because she really liked the pictures (at Amazon) of the lamps I bought for the nightstands. And every time she asks I have to say "I don't know yet!" :O: So I was really hoping to get them out and set them up today, but by the time I got this far it was after 6 PM and I was really hungry. So on to dinnertime!

Sunday In The Condo With Frau Kaleun

(part two)

This will be my very first full homecooked meal in my new kitchen. I know, I made pasta salad yesterday, but that was no great shakes. Tonight's menu is a little more labor intensive and time-consuming.

Starting with the half-runners, which I washed and left to drain in the sink while I fiddled with curtains and bedding and laundry and whatnot.

http://imageshack.us/a/img819/1183/o4s9.jpg

Oh, and did I mention that I can bring home the bacon?

http://imageshack.us/a/img194/5921/x9i2.jpg

And fry it up in a pan?

http://imageshack.us/a/img59/3782/vlw1.jpg

And put some fresh green beans in there to bring to a boil and then simmer for an hour or so?

http://imageshack.us/a/img542/9948/e0x.jpg

Words cannot describe how good this smelled when it really got cooking. :rock:

Also, there was cornbread. Going in the oven...

http://imageshack.us/a/img28/6584/bc9f.jpg

and coming out again.

http://imageshack.us/a/img713/79/nljv.jpg

And those were the cornerstones of my first "not one course" homecooked dinner. Rounded out with some fresh tomatoes, salted, and some fresh strawberries, sugared. :D

http://imageshack.us/a/img825/7382/c3du.jpg

Regarding that cornbread recipe, which I linked to yesterday: I used the amount of sugar stated in the recipe and it was sweeter than what I grew up with. Still good, but still a bit on the sweet side. Those of you who might be trying it out but don't want a sweet cornbread might want to try adding less. That's my plan if I make this recipe again.

My mother's cornbread was more salty than sweet, at least that's how I remember it. Maybe I have the recipe somewhere, or perhaps my sister's got it. If I ever find it (or come up with one for a truly not-at-all-sweet cornbread), I'll try to remember and post it here.

Sunday in the Condo with Frau Kaleun? This almost calls for a new thread.

Condo Life with Frau Kaleun.

Housekeeping, cooking, gaming, you name it! It'll be Subsim's own little DIY Channel. :)

All that's missing in your banquet Frau is a nice side dish of Lamb Vindaloo and Pilau rice :sunny:

She's gone all Martha Stewart on us.:03::O::up:

I like Heidi the tool girl better.:D

Even Heidi's gotta eat. :O:

Don't worry, there's still the leaky patio spigot to look forward to. And I still haven't moved the fridge and started ripping baseboard off the walls. :haha:

"Keeping up with Frau." This weeks episode, cornbread on a cast iron pan, green beans, bacon and what the fellas on the forum learned about cooking. :haha: