Handy Items: Circle Cutter

This right here is a circle cutter, and it’s a pretty ingenious device, which is deceptively simple to use. This one in particular is made by Martha Stewart, and we all know she has her sh*t together when it comes to handy tools.

So you have this ring, which holds a clear disc inside with a million holes in a spiral. The centre disc spins inside the ring.

And you have this tiny witchy yet super sharp wee blade on a small handle, which also spins.

And you have your thing that you want to cut. In my case this is Con-Tact paper made to look like stainless steel. I originally tried to do this with my 2″ circle punch, but things went badly.

On a reliable and steady cutting surface, place your material. Top with the ring, and figure out how big you want the diameter of your circle to be. Insert the tiny evil blade into the requisite hole in the disc that matches that measurement.

Then carefully draw your hand around in a circle. The blade will rotate as you go, and the disc will spin. And then all of a sudden you have a perfect circle.

I’m making quite a few of these. It’s not as fast a process as it would have been with a circle punch but I like the flexibility to make my circles any size I want. I’ll keep you posted as to what I plan to do with them.

For the Neon lovers out there.

I have a friend who loves neon. It’s like she grew up in the eighties and nineties or something (to clarify, she’s a year younger than I am. I also grew up in the eighties and nineties). So when I found this on MakeKind I knew who was getting one for Christmas.

So I began my search for a white umbrella, because she also loves all things white. But in the City that Fun Forgot (Ottawa’s nickname), you simply can’t find a plain white umbrella. And to order one online was to pay more in shipping than the umbrella cost to purchase. No sane person does that. So then I thought, why not a clear umbrella, with silver trim (because she also likes silver)? That I could find. And they’re much safer for trundling around in because you can see where you’re going.

Then I grabbed some neon paint. I used the Martha Stewart multi-surface paint in four neon colours, because it is weather resistant after it cures (it’s the same stuff that we used on the wooden spoons and it’s held up to multiple washings). And then I set up my work surface. I threw a drop cloth across my dining table and over the chairs, creating a little lip I hoped would keep flying paint contained.

Then I grabbed my brushes and got started. Use a nice stiff paint brush to get good flickage.

I’d originally planned to do the little splots that you can see in the MakeKind version of the umbrella, but on a clear surface with the background invading they weren’t as obvious, so I went a bit more bold and started throwing streaks at the umbrella for more visual impact.

You have to be very careful when you do this. I managed to get only one blob of paint on the wall. The dropcloth, however, was liberally speckled. You might also want to wear an apron, as there’s a bit of back-splash.

I made sure to rotate the umbrella so all the streaks weren’t going in the same direction. This was quite a lot of fun.

I let the umbrella dry, opened, for 24 hours to ensure the paint wouldn’t transfer somewhere I didn’t want it to go.

Now it’s in my secret hiding place, waiting for Christmas!

Rainbow-Dipped Wooden Spoons

This is a great and quick gift for people who are just starting out in a new home.  When I saw it over at A Pretty Cool Life I knew I had to do it.  And maybe even jazz up my own wooden spoons while I was at it, though at present I only own two. You can never have too many spoons (especially when you’re entertaining and all is chaos), and these bright and shiny ones are a great accent for any kitchen.

So you need some spoons, wooden ones. The Pie and I picked these up at Winners for a reasonable price. We did two sets, six spoons each. And you need some craft paint. We had six spoons, so we picked up six colours. We went with Martha Stewart Crafts™ Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Paint.  It had a nice finish, was easy to apply, and is guaranteed to be non-toxic and food safe.  And if you let it cure for 21 days, then you can pop these babies in the dishwasher with no worries.

I gave the spoons a quick sand with some fine-grade sandpaper to get some of the splinters and rough edges off.  Then I measured to see where I wanted the paint to go.  These self-healing cutting mats also make great ruler-like work surfaces.

Then I used masking tape along the line I measured and pressed it down securely to make sure the paint wouldn’t bleed under.

These are my own wooden spoons here.  I originally wanted to do a set of stripes forming a rainbow on each handle, with them being the reverse of each other, so I blocked off 1″ increments for my stripes, figuring I could do a few colours at a time.  Conveniently, my masking tape is also 1″ thick.

I wedged the spoons in plastic cups with some rocks in the bottom for stability.  This way they can dry properly without touching anything else.

Then I set up my palette in an old pie pan.  Re-use, re-use, re-use!

Then I painted.  It was easy.  Leave an hour between coats to make sure it dries properly.  I ended up doing three coats on the spoons I was giving away, though I only did one coat on my own spoons.

When I took the tape off my own spoons in order to mask off the already painted sections, I decided I liked the stripes just as they were.

And if you put the spoons together it forms a rainbow!

And of course the other spoons are raring to go, just waiting for their requisite 21 days of curing.

If you have a glass utensil holder, you can put them handle-side-down.

Or if not, have them handle-side-up.

Either way, they’re a cheery addition to my kitchen.  Can I keep them?

Roasted Tomato and Eggplant Soup

Here is yet another Martha Stewart soup and I think I like this the best of the three I’ve made recently.  I made all three over one weekend, so I got a chance to taste them all at the same time.  In this soup, the vegetables are roasted beforehand to bring out the flavour, and man oh man is it some flavour!

Preheat your oven to 425°F and position your oven racks so one is at the very top and one is at the very bottom.

On the bottom tray you’re going to have your eggplant and your chickpeas.

On the top tray will be your tomatoes, carrots, and garlic.

Peel about 12 cloves garlic and peel and chop up about 1/2lb carrots.  This equaled 2 large carrots, for me.

Then you need to halve and core about 3lbs plum (Roma) tomatoes.  The recipe says that this is about 12 tomatoes, but I ended up with 18 to make that weight.  I found the tomato huller tool worked great for this.  It took out the top stem bit, and then after I halved them it was great at scooping out the innards.

Toss the tomatoes with the garlic and tomatoes and 2 tablespoons olive oil.  Garnish liberally with fresh ground pepper and pinches of sea salt.  Spread them in a single layer (if you can) on a rimmed baking sheet with the cut sides of the tomatoes facing downwards.

Chop up 1 large eggplant (about 1 1/2lb) into 3/4″ pieces.  Of course our grocery store never has the same kind of eggplant two days in a row, so I got 4 baby eggplants instead.

Rinse and drain 1 can of chickpeas.  Toss those in with the eggplant, together with 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 teaspoons curry powder.

Spread that out on a rimmed baking sheet as well.

Roast your vegetables, tomatoes on the top rack, eggplant on the bottom, for 45 minutes.  Toss your vegetables halfway through.

Now your tomato skins will be all lovely and wrinkly.

You can just pick them off with a set of tongs.  Be careful not to burn yourself.

Once your tomatoes are peeled, dump the contents of the tomato tray (carrots, garlic, skinless tomatoes and juices) into a large saucepan.

Purée the tomato mixture and then add 3-4 cups water.

Stir in the eggplant mixture and bring the whole thing to a simmer.

Serve garnished with fresh cilantro and crusty bread.  You can also freeze this soup for later on down the road.

Butternut Bisque

I’m not the biggest soup fan (I prefer to drink my hot liquids), but I’m starting to acquire a taste for them.  I’m especially fond of blended soups (because then it’s like a savoury pudding and I’m less likely to burn my tongue on the hot broth).  This one comes from Martha Stewart and is a good match for a nice late-summer lunch or a good accompaniment to a fall comfort meal.  It’s quick and easy, which I like in a soup.  You can also freeze it and enjoy it at any time.

First, do your chopping.  In this case, chop up 1 medium onion, 2 cloves garlic, and 1 large butternut squash.  Peel the squash, cut it open and remove the seeds, and then hack it into smallish cubes.

Then, get your spices ready to go.  You’ll need 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper.  Also, not shown, is a pinch or two of coarse sea salt.  Feel free to add more or less, according to your own taste.  It’s only soup, after all.

Melt about 3 tablespoons butter into the bottom of a large saucepan.  Add in the onion, garlic, and the spices and cook until the onion is tender and translucent, about 7 minutes.

Dump in the squash cubes, as well as about 15oz chicken broth and 1 cup half-and-half (you could use plain milk if you wanted to be healthier, but do you really want to do that?), and then about 3 cups water.  Bring that whole thing to a boil and reduce it to a simmer for about 20 minutes.  Your squash should be squishy at this point.  You should be able to squish your squash with the back of a spoon.

Remove the pot from the heat and use your immersion blender to squish — er, purée — your squash and onions and all that stuff.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of cayenne, if desired.

Gluten-Free Yellow Cake Batter

Everybody needs a basic cake batter recipe to work from, even those who have a low tolerance for gluten.  Fussellette was coming for Easter and I wanted to serve a cake for dessert.  So I needed to come up with a cake that she could enjoy along with the rest of our guests.

This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart’s Easy Cake Batter.  I replaced the flour in the recipe with a gluten-free mix I came up with myself, with a little bit of help from Ellen’s Kitchen.  If you are curious as to the right proportions when combining gluten-free flours, check out her suggestions — they are very useful.

First we want to bring all our liquid ingredients to room temperature: 1 cup butter, 4 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks, and 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or soured milk). If you want to warm up your ingredients a little faster, try placing them in a warm water bath.

In a bowl, whisk together 2 cups white rice flour, 2/3 cup almond meal (I find that the coarseness of the almond meal gives the cake crumb a springy, solid texture, with no fear of it falling if handled too roughly), 1/3 cup tapioca starch/flour, and1 tablespoon baking powder.  So the final result of this particular combination tastes like a sweet, more tender version of cornbread — it has a finer texture but that’s the best analogy I can come up with.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together your butter with 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar, until it’s light and fluffy and creamy.  Don’t rush this process.  Let your mixer go on high for about 6 minutes, and you will see the difference between butter and sugar that are just well-combined versus butter and sugar that are well and truly creamed together. This is the just-combined stuff.

This is the truly creamed stuff.  It makes all the difference in a cake, especially one where you need all the help you can get to keep the structure light and fluffy.

Mix in your eggs, one at a time, until they are well-combined.  Again, you add the eggs a bit at a time so that the mixer paddle will have a chance to properly emulsify all of it.

Add in at this point 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.

Flip the mixer to its lowest setting and mix in about a third of your flour mixture.  Pour in half the buttermilk and let that get mixed in as well.  Then another third of your flour, mix that in, and the rest of the buttermilk.  When that’s mixed in, add the last of the flour and mix until just combined.  You may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl. This picture is blurry because I like to cook in motion.

Now you have a basic batter with which you can do pretty much anything.  You can turn it into a layer cake, or mix it with other flavours like chocolate or fruit.  Or you can make it into cupcakes, like I did here (the frosting is a package of cream cheese mixed with a cup of icing sugar and some coconut).

This cake here I wrapped up and froze for a future event.

For Easter I poured the batter into two pans and then layered the cake with whipped cream mixed with raspberries.  DIVINE.

Lining Up Yer Linens

Martha Stewart.  Love her or hate her (or, like me, oscillate frequently between the two emotions), but you have to admit that the woman (or one of her various minions) knows how to organize a closet.

We don’t have a lot of linens in our linen closet, but if I leave the Pie to his own devices for even an hour I will find the whole thing in complete disarray.  Folding stuff and stacking it in neat piles is not something in his skill set (which is fine, because he’s really good at other things, like frying eggs over-easy, which is not in MY skill set).

Martha suggests keeping your various sheet sets folded and tucked into one of their own pillowcases.  This way they stay folded if the pile falls over, and you don’t end up looking for lost pillow cases at inopportune times.  So simple.

Cleaning Your Dishwasher

Before we get started, I will have you know that cleaning your dishwasher isn’t something that only germaphobes with a free hour get into.  It’s actually a really good idea.  Seriously.  I’m not crazy.

Regularly cleaning your dishwasher (say, every six months or so) can make for a more efficient dishwasher, cleaner dishes, a nicer-smelling kitchen, and money saved on repair costs.  You may think that cleaning something that constantly runs soapy water through itself seems strange, but all that food residue it takes off your cutlery and plates has to go somewhere, and it doesn’t all make it down the drain.  Which, when I took the time to clean my own dishwasher, I found out, to my continuing disgust.

Many websites offering how-to tips on cleaning your dishwasher advise against using gel detergents in your machine, as many contain bleach, which can break down your rubber seals over time and damage stainless steel interiors.  While using a powdered detergent works, keep in mind that the powders don’t always dissolve completely in the wash, which can block your drains and such.  We use a gel detergent that is made up of natural ingredients, and which contains no parabens, petroleum products, or bleach.  They’re easy to find.  Even Martha Stewart makes a decent version.

Another important thing to remember when using your dishwasher is to use the hottest water possible.  The manual on my dishwasher recommends a temperature of around 120°F (about 49°C).  Unlike clothes washing machines, most dishwashers are not designed for cold-water washing.  If you want to save energy, select the air dry setting at the end, if you have one, instead of the heated dry setting.

Now while I say it’s a good idea to clean your dishwasher every six months, I have had this dishwasher since August 2008 (it was the Pie and my “negative-first” anniversary present to each other, how romantic) and I have never cleaned it.  Until now.  We did buy the cheapest model available, so we never expected magic performance, but lately (probably the past year or two, if I’m honest), we’ve been pulling more and more “casualties” out of the dishwasher.  These casualties are the Pie’s name for any dishes with food stuck to them.  Which he then leaves on the counter for someone (usually me) to wash by hand.  Personally, I don’t really care.  I figure if the food has been in water that hot for that long, it’s probably sterilized and will only add flavour to whatever I am eating next.  But sometimes you have to take one for the team.  Plus it would be nice to have all the glasses sparkling again.

So.  Cleaning the dishwasher.  Let’s get down to it.  Using a gentle cleaner, such as dish soap, and a soft cloth (don’t use abrasives in your dishwasher), get to cleaning the outside and all the goo left on the sides of the dishwasher doors.

These are the parts that you don’t see when the dishwasher door is closed, but which don’t get exposed to the inside of the washer when it is in operation.  Make sure to thoroughly wipe down any gaskets and seals as well.  Crusty food on seals makes for crusty seals that don’t seal properly.

If you have a dishwasher with a stainless steel interior/exterior, you should use a mild steel cleaner.  Method makes a good one.  I used this one by Seventh Generation on my plastic interior.  It’s a good grease cutter.

Give the interior of the dishwasher a light scrub as well.  Make sure you get the spot under the dishwasher door.  It can get pretty gross down there too.

Pull out your dish racks and clean them too.

Pay close attention to the cutlery baskets, as they can trap food.

Your bottom rack will come out easily, but the top one may have some stoppers in place that you will have to remove first.

Now, that nifty propeller thing is the part that sprays hot water all over your dishes.  It also gets clogged with food.

Using a pair of needle-nosed pliers, a piece of bent wire, or a toothpick, carefully remove any debris from the holes on top without scratching the apparatus.

I actually removed a small stick from one of the holes.  And quite a lot of my own hair.  Ew.

Now for the drain.  Depending on your dishwasher, this could be under your washing arm or at the back of the machine.  First, remove any food that is stuck on top of the drain.

Now pop that sucker out.  There might be screws holding it in place.  I wasn’t sure with mine (and didn’t want to break it by manhandling it out), so I looked up the model number (I have a Kenmore 665.17702K600 Portable Dishwasher) on the internet and found that you can just pop up the long side of it.

Then I just gave it a bit of a counter-clockwise twist and it popped right off.

And then I had this to contend with.  Feel free to gag and shudder.  I definitely did.

There was probably a litre of stagnant water lying in there.  I have never wanted a shop-vac as much as I did at that moment.  I tried scooping out the water in a shot glass but the glass was too wide for the wee hole.

In the end I took the lid from a laundry-detergent bottle in the recycling.

With a hefty knife and some swearing, I cut off the sticky-outy bit so it was narrow enough to fit through the hole.

Tada.  Gross water drained.

I don’t want to know what this black stuff is, so please don’t tell me.  But I scrubbed at it with a dish brush.

And a tooth brush.  And wiped up the majority of its slimy substance.  Good thing I didn’t bother to shower before doing this.

Now you can take a deep breath because all the gross stuff is at an end.

Gren is notably relieved.  Or confused.  It’s hard to tell with him.

Now you have to put your racks back in and run the dishwasher on two empty cycles.

For the first, put two cups white vinegar upright in the top rack of your dishwasher.  Run the machine on the shortest setting at the hottest temperature.  When that cycle is complete, remove the cups of water and sprinkle the bottom of the dishwasher (just sprinkle, mind you, we don’t want to clog our newly cleaned drain) with baking soda, and run it again.  Now you are officially done.

Also I bet you are thinking more about what you put in your dishwasher than you were before, right?

To see where I got my know-how, check these places out:

WikiHow

Apartment Therapy

Wisebread

House Cleaning Central

Deep-Fried Dinner

For the Pie’s birthday dinner, we decided to try deep-frying for the first time.  We’d been putting it off because, well, it’s incredibly unhealthy, it’s a dangerous fire risk, and our kitchen has no fume hood so we’d be dealing with the aromas of cooking oil for several days.

But we needed to learn (in the same way that we need to learn everything else we do here).  So we decided to try two different methods and make Buffalo chicken strips (with blue cheese dip) and some beer-battered onion rings.  Both recipes come from Martha Stewart’s Every Day Food magazine.  Both recipes involve buttermilk.

Now, though I’m presenting two different recipes here, I’m going to give the instructions to you in the order I did them, because that makes the most sense to me.  In order for you to differentiate the two recipes, I’ll preface instructions for the chicken with BCS and use OR for the onions.

BCS/OR: Turn your oven to 250°F.  Put some cooling racks on top of rimmed baking sheets and put those in the oven.  Those will be your warming and draining trays for your chicken and onions.

OR: Slice 2lb onions into thick rounds and submerge them in 2 cups buttermilk for about an hour before cooking.  The buttermilk takes the acidic bite out of the onions, making them sweet and tender.  Just a warning: following this recipe results in a heckuva lotta onion rinks, so if you don’t want to fry up a million, I suggest halving it, or even quartering it.

BCS: Crumble up 1 cup blue cheese (I used 400g here and it crumbled to about a cup) and 1/2 cup buttermilk.

Stir that around and set it aside.

Cut up some vegetables while you’re at it, why don’t you?  You’re about to consume pure fat — you should probably add in some vitamins.

BCS/OR: Plop about 1 1/2 cups flour in a shallow dish and put that near your stove.  That’s for the batterin’.

OR: Crack two eggs into a bowl.  Whisk ’em.

Whisk in 1 bottle lager or pale ale.

Whisk in 1 1/2 cups flour and 2 teaspoons coarse salt.  Set that near the stove as well.

BCS: In yet another bowl, combine 1/3 cup hot sauce with 3 tablespoons butter.  Stir well and set that aside for now.

Slice up 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts into finger-sized pieces.

Dip them in 1 cup buttermilk.

Then into that flour you have ready.

Lay them out on a baking sheet.

I think we’re about ready to start cooking.  While I’m sure you could do these two dishes at the same time, I am far from experienced with hot-oil cooking, rather prone to accidents, and I only have one large-sized element on my stove.  So I am going to cook the chicken first, as it doesn’t need to be crispy and can therefore sit in the oven for longer.

As a safety note, we had a box of baking soda handy at all times during this, in case of flareups.  Never leave hot oil unattended, and never, NEVER add additional oil of any kind or any temperature to oil that is already hot.

BCS: Heat 1/2 cup to 1 cup vegetable oil in a heavy skillet.  You can tell if the oil is hot enough for frying when a pinch of flour dropped into it fizzes rapidly.

Slide a few chicken pieces in, working in batches.

Cook for about 6-8 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the chicken is golden brown.  Remove the cooked chicken to the rack in the oven.

This was a very spatter-y process, so I wore long sleeves and kept my face averted from the pan.  My hands kept getting burned from little splashes of oil.  In the end I pulled on a pair of work gloves to protect them and worked happily after that.

Make sure to let that oil cool before you move it anywhere.

OR: In a large, wide saucepan, heat up 5 cups vegetable oil.  I know, that’s a lot of oil.

Use a candy or deep-fry thermometer and continuously adjust the temperature of your element to keep the oil at 375°F.  If it gets too cold, it won’t cook the onions all the way through, and if it gets too hot, well … let’s not think about that.

What was interesting was the cool pattern the oil made while it heated.

Take a ring of onion out of the buttermilk and dip it in the flour, then into the beer batter.  Shake off the excess.

Slide the ring carefully into the hot oil.  Cook in small batches, rotating halfway through, for about 5 minutes.  Remove to the other rack in the oven to drain and keep warm.  This method of frying was wayyyyy less spatter-y, if you were interested to know.

We had a lot more onions left to cook after we had cooked as many as we thought we could eat.  We figured they would keep until tomorrow and we would try again.

BCS: When everything is cooked and you are ready to go, take the chicken strips out of the oven and toss them in the hot sauce.  These will be served with the blue cheese dip we made earlier.

OR: For the onions we had a nice tzatziki dip as well as a chipotle mayo.

All told, it was pretty epic.

I made a pizza. From scratch. In the middle of Gros Morne National Park.

And it worked!  Beat that, Martha!

Flushed with the success of our raspberry orange crumble in the woods, we figured we’d try out one of the recipes in the wee book that came with our Outback Oven and attempt the challenge of making a pizza from scratch while camping.

First we make up the dough.

In a bowl, mix 2 cups flour with 1 packet instant yeast, 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, and 2 teaspoons salt.  I shook in a few teaspoons of grill herb mix (basil, oregano, etc.) from a Coghlan’s spice pack I had on hand.

Pour in 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2/3 cup warm water and stir-stir-stir.

Knead that sucker until all the flour is mixed in, about 5 minutes.  If your dough is still sticky, you can add more flour.

Flatten the dough into the bottom of your oven pan, and cover with lid. 

Place somewhere warm to rise for about 15 minutes.  I put mine next to our fire, because it was a chilly afternoon in our shady campsite.

While it was rising, I sliced up 3 cloves garlic, one half tomato (vegetables were hard to find in Gros Morne), some hard salami, and the Pie kindly grated me some cheddar cheese (because that was what we had).

Spread a few drops of olive oil on your risen dough.

Spoon on about 3 tablespoons pizza sauce and spread that around.

Add your toppings.

Then your cheese.

Cover with lid and the parka-tent thing and bake for about 20 minutes.  Keep an eye on it.  You can check the crust by flipping it up, just to keep it from burning.Let it cool a few minutes in the pan or you will burn yourself.

Make sure to slide the pizza out of your nonstick pan before cutting.

The boys and I agreed that this was one of the better pizzas we had eaten recently (and we had recently eaten moose pizza, so that was saying something).

Gren didn’t get any.  Awww …