my extra frig!

I've been wanting an extra refrigerator forever.  There are just so many times when it would be handy to have some extra room for food here.  However, my hubby says NO!  and probably with good reason.  :(

See I have this tiny problem.  I buy things food when they're it's on sale.  I had to scratch out the things part cuz I'm really good at controlling my spending when it comes to just things.  However if it is food and it's on sale...well WE NEED FOOD!  But the reason this is a problem is there is usually some food on sale nearly every week...and I tend to fill up the freezer and keep buying more food...CUZ IT'S ON SALE!  sigh!  Hubby thinks that if he were to allow me to have an extra frig, I would fill it up to the brim and then forget about my stash...and continue buying.

and alas... he is probably right.  sigh

However, when the holiday season approaches...I NEED the extra space that having an extra frig would give me.  I mean you can't find anything in our frig when it is full of a turkey and all the trimmings.

BUT we live in Colorado.  And in Colorado, most years it gets darned right cold around the holidays.  Which means my garage is as cold as a walk in refrigerator!  ding!  ding!  ding!  ding!  ding!  

So in years past and this year too, I've used my garage to store all the extra food we have.  And it is awesome!  This year I used the garage to cool down my turkey brine quickly by setting the pot directly on the concrete.  I don't think that the frig could have done that.  I also am able to put our turkey in the garage while it sits in the brine.  I could never fit it in the frig.

And this year, instead of filling up the frig with still warm food (and possibly spoiling the milk) I put all the left-overs in the garage!  Hubby was so happy about this...as he doesn't like spoiled milk for his cereal.


I suggested that we put some shelves in the garage for me to put the food on...and hubby agreed!  (course, who knows how long it will be before I can actually get my shelves.) but one day I will have shelves in the garage for extra food storage!


and now I've just come up with an idea for what to get hubby for Christmas!  woot!  He is getting shelves for the garage!  he he

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

Today is prep day for Thanksgiving...usually where I pull out all my supplies and realize how much stuff I forgot to buy.

I've already started roasting the pumpkin and butternut squash.  I found a great new trick for getting those seed cavities cleaned out...don't know why it has taken me this long!  I grabbed my melon baller that I never use and it worked wonderfully!  woot!  Have to remember that for Halloween too. :D

Then I went to go make my turkey brine and realized that for all these years I've been making it with not nearly enough vegetable broth.  I usually just grab 4 14oz cans and go with that...and the bird has always come out just fine...but this year I decided that I should attempt to make it right.  Of course I didn't decide that until today so I only have 4 cans of veggie broth.  So I decide that it can't really be that hard to make veggie broth...I've made chicken broth, should be close.  But remember this is a house where 2/3 of the human inhabitants are picky eaters, so it doesn't pay to have many "normal" things on hand.  sigh

Your typical veggie broth calls for things like onions (I had some frozen onions!), carrots (check), potatoes (oops, I forgot to add one of those, brb!) (check), greens (ummm will these brussel sprouts do?) (toss em in!), zucchini (ummm I have a bag of mixed veggies that have zucchini in it) (toss it in too!), and celery... well I don't have any celery.  But I do have celery salt!  so I put some of that in and let 'er rip! note: although the recipe calls for salt, I didn't add any cuz of the celery salt...I figured I can add some later...and there is salt in the brine.

I'm sure it will be just fine as the broth is for the Turkey's brine and I have about half of the broth I need...this is just flavorful filler.  I suppose it is a very good thing that cooking is an art and not a science like baking is.  

after this simmers for an hour, I'll add the rest of the ingredients for the brine and then let it cool.  Hopefully I can get the bird swimming by this evening.  

Here's the rest of my list of chores for today:

make dessert

make dessert for pot luck at Church tonight

make brine for Turkey & get turkey ready to brine

clean cooler to brine turkey in

make sure all dishes I need for tomorrow are clean (not hiding in the frig)

laundry - but okay if I put it off

mail bday gift for mom - but okay if I put it off

feed kittehs

clean kitchen countertops so I have room for all this

I guess that means I should get off the computer and get busy.  I'm also going to ask Darly to see if she would like to help make dinner and learn how to do it.

We're having:

Turkey (of course!)

stuffing substitute -sauteed mushrooms (I'm the only one who will eat stuffing and I don't need it, so I'm subbing with something equally yummy but less fattening!)

Gravy (Darly won't touch this!)

Mashed Potatoes

Green Beans (steamed) (hubs will eat green beans but not gb casserole, Darly won't touch this!)

Corn

Yams (I won't eat the yams, so I'm having see below)

butternut squash (DH & Darly won't eat this!)

Rolls

Pumpkin Dessert - a family recipe that we like better than just pumpkin pie

I hope that you and yours all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with plenty to be thankful for.  I feel so blessed to know you all.

Shameless plug!

We signed up for and Darly prepared her audition. She was really excited and worked really hard... The song she chose to sing for the audition was Impossible!

and she got it! :D

Darly has an ensemble part in CYT’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella! Woo Hoo!

Of course this means that Darly & I are now busier than we ever imagined. The play will be at the end of Jan & early Feb. If you’re in the area, please come see it…these kids put on an awesome show!

Harry Potter #7!

I have to admit that I avoided the Harry Potter series when it first came out.  I just didn't see what all the fuss was about so I didn't pick up any books until the first book came out as a movie and was aired on TV.  So yeah, very late in the game.  But one day we were at my MIL's house and the first movie came on and I got hooked.
I didn't even get to see the entire movie that day because we went home before it was over.  So I quickly hopped onto my local library’s website and reserved a copy of the movie so I could finish watching it.  And then I also checked out the second movie.  It was during the second movie…checking out the deleted scenes that I realized that I was missing parts of the story and it was time to read the books.  And so I started reading the books.  And I loved the stories.
Soon I got to be a book snob and hated what they were doing to the stories when they turned them into movies.  I guess the worst was in Goblet of Fire when they deleted major portions of the story (Dobby the house elf!) and put in stuff that wasn’t in the book (Harry’s flight scene where he is hanging off the roof of the school with the dragon in hot pursuit.)  For the other movies I had to remind myself that the movie was not the same as the book.  I still get upset with the liberties that the movies take.
However, I’ve been watching the trailers for the HP#7 part one movie and I have to say that for at least one scene that I’m happy with a change that has been made.  I just grabbed my copy of the book and checked it to see how different they’ve made it…but yes, I’m still happy.  I won’t spoil the scene for you here…Let’s just say that I’m looking forward to seeing the movie and I sure hope that any other changes make me just as happy.
Oh and one more thing…they sure are showing a lot of sneek previews for this movie…wondering what we’ll see when it’s all together.

I need to be at the gym.

Here I sit, in my workout clothes...yet instead of going to the gym, I'm procrastinating by blogging.  You know it must be bad if I'm blogging because I hardly ever blog anymore.  sigh!

Going to the gym really isn't that bad.  I like it once I get there.  I can even do it solo.  It is just getting me out the door that seems to be the problem.

I think a huge part of the problem is that with a few tiny exceptions I like how I look now.  Sure it would be nicer if I fit into my old jeans better...but the newer jeans are all loose.  kinda weird being between sizes there.  I'm sure its that "value sizing" thing, where my larger sized jeans are really two or three sizes bigger than the old jeans.

Sigh, I don't want to go buy new smaller sized jeans which are really larger than the smaller sized jeans in my closet.  Are you confused?  lol

I've even considered taking in the larger sized jeans.  Crazy huh? 

Okay, okay...I'll go.  Check the widget on my sidebar to see if I really went or not.