Green Mittens: In the Kitchen

Well - yesterday was a bust. The first bright, shiny properly Spring day, and yet - I wasn't in the mood to face it with the same bright, shiny optimism. I was pretty crabby all day, and then finally I just gave up all together and crawled into bed at 8:30.

The end.

Goodbye Monday.

And now it's Tuesday, and I am feeling ever so much better about that. I have no idea why. What was my beef with Monday exactly? I can't say for sure, except to say that I just wasn't able to adjust my dark mood to fit the beautiful day, and that made me feel even worse. So I rode the trip to the bottom and now I'm beginning fresh with today. :)

And to help this day along, I've donned my best dress and I brushed and put up my hair in the prettiest way I know how (which believe me, isn't saying much) - I even started this morning with a pair of pretty heels but they didn't make it out the door... I've got my flats on instead. I'm a creature of comfort.

Now - on to the "kitchen" post I have planned for today -

This weekend marked the second in a new series in my home called "CLEANING OUT ALL OF THE EXTRA JUNK"

This is no ordinary Spring Cleaning, this is a full-on confrontation with EXTRA STUFF. I started in the kid's toy shelves and closets last week and took a couple of full loads to the Goodwill, and this week it was on to the kitchen. Be warned - LAUNDRY ROOM, and BASEMENT, because I'm coming for YOU next!!!

It suddenly dawned on me that my sink was ALWAYS full of dishes, the counter tops were NOT VISIBLE ever, and the cupboards had WAY TOO MANY THINGS in them.

For instance, WHY did we have a place setting for 12, plus another place setting for 8 in our dish cupboard for a family of 4? I have ALWAYS had this many dishes, for NO reason that I can identify, except that I bought a set when we were married, and it came with 8 settings, 8 bowls, 8 plates, 8 smaller plates... and then another set was given to us: 12 bowls, 12 plates, 12 smaller plates... and I just kept them there. And we USED them until there were no more clean ones to grab, and by then the dishwasher was full - so I would run a load, and put ALL of them back.

Also - we had an untold number of drinking glasses, tall and small, wide, and narrow, I could have served juice to a party of 40 - 50 people at a time. Also - probably 10 coffee mugs. Now - we've never had a gathering of 10 people for coffee in the morning. Maybe things are different in your house, but we don't even have that many friends. So the situation was beyond ridiculous. Plus I discovered a couple of sets of Christmas mugs in the back of the cupboard for those special Christmas coffee times, that I had NEVER opened.

silly.

So, everything but a place setting of 4, some extra ice cream bowls, my favorite mug, Mike's favorite mug, and 4 - 6 glasses went AWAY. And now -

the cupboard looks like this

and I feel so much better when I open it. (we could still get rid of more I think) -

and I'm doing dishes as we use them, and drying them and putting them away - so the counters are CLEAR, and the SINK is clear, and the DRYING RACK is clear, and my MIND is... well - better. Not clear. But clear-ER.

The rest of the cupboards got the same treatment, the same clearing away...

I think if you had seen the "before" you would be able to appreciate this the way I am appreciating it, but I have some small amount of self-respect so I didn't take any "before" pictures :)

No - I obviously didn't do the pantry - but that's next...

After a third trip to Goodwill in the same number of weeks, it was back into the kitchen for some cooking.

I tried to use what needed to be used in the fridge - so what I came up with was this:

A nice big pot of my FAVORITE soup: SouleMama's Carrot Tomato with Basil and Cream.

Oh so good.

And I made a Quiche, which is sort of standard fair around here. This time it had mushrooms, left-over broccoli, half a ham steak, cheddar, leeks and shallots. Very tasty. That's my lunch for the remainder of the week.

And finally some snails, as my great Grandmother called them, made from the leftover pie crust dough: which is just rolled thin, spread with melted butter, sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts, and baked for 10 - 15 minutes alongside the quiche.