Keeping House : Cleaning, Cooking, Shopping
This site is a collection of tips, tricks, and recipes I've discovered while learning how to "Keep House." My parents never bothered to teach me how to cook when I was living at home, so by the time I graduated High School and moved away from home I could barely boil water. As for cleaning, I suppose I do pretty good. But there is so much that I've learned since owning our own house. How to clean mold/mildew off of walls, how to bleach things... Since we're home owners now, we also decided to cut back on our somewhat careless spending at the grocery stores. So we'll be trying out generic foods and I'll post information about that as well. So I've created this page to track my journey learning how to cook and keep house. Hopefully some of this information can be useful to other people in my position! I am not paid by any companies for any information or links on this site, it all comes from first hand experience of these products and methods unless otherwise indicated. If you have comments, questions, recipe submissions, tips, etc email me: lyz@princessleia.com |
JournalNovember 1, 2005 - I'm still here! It's been months since an update to this site, I regret that life has gotten in the way of updating this site and keeping my house spotless. I now know what it's really like to try and keep a house beautiful while working full time and keeping up on a house. Because of this new-found insight, I am hoping to pull together more tips and tricks of things I do to keep house and still have time for myself. I also intend to further expand the existing sections to reflect changes in my own diet and inprovements in my cooking skills. Stay tuned! May 15, 2005 - Mr Clean Magic Erasers. Mr. Clean Magic Erasers actually work! It's rare that I buy something after seeing a television commercial. In fact, I think this is the first time I've done it in years, but after seeing all the commercials for "Magic Erasers" I decided to spend the $2 and get a couple. There were some marks on our TV room wall from the chairs rubbing against it that I wanted to try it on. And what's $2 if they turn out to be another loser, right? They sat under my sink, forgotton, for a couple weeks. On a day late last month I pulled them out and brought one over to the scuff mark on my wall. Per the directions I got the thing wet, squeezed it out, and brought it over to the mark on the wall and started rubbing. Within just a few seconds I could see a difference. Holy crap! It actually works! I worked my way around the room getting rid of scuff marks.. I then made my way to the trim around the doors that had fingerprints on it since we moved in. Cleaned it up with no problem. No way! I went into the kitchen and tackled a nasty black scuff mark on the front door that I've tried EVERYTHING to clean. Within a minute it was gone. Fingerprints on the textured doors. Gone in a few minutes. Dirt on baseboards. Scuff marks on walls. Marks on the stairs. Throughout this process the sponge like thing was slowly disintegrating. It was entirely gone when I decided that I should probably stop and get back to my normal cleaning. But man, this was cool. So like any geek, I couldn't leave this "Magic" mystery unsolved. I had to figure out how this works. householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov factsheet The things are made out of: 85% Plaster of Paris, 5% Ethylene Vinyl Acetate Polymer, 5% Formaldehyde-Melamine-Sodium Bisulfite Copolymer, and 5% Crystalline Silica. The Formaldehyde-Melamine-Sodium Bisulfite Copolymer is the active chemical. As far as I can tell the rest is just a light abrasive (so light that I didn't realize it was an abrasive until I looked it up, it really just feels like a sponge, but using the Magic Eraser on some surfaces is not recommended and can do damage because of the abrasiveness). I'm not sure how the active ingredient works, and Google hasn't been much help, it just ends up bringing me to more Magic Eraser sites, I guess that's the "Magic." And side effects? The same as any other fine dust really. This is surprising, I thought something so magical would somehow kill me. These will be a permanent addition to my cleaning closet. April 10, 2005 - Vegan Blueberry Pancakes. I was just looking for a normal blueberry pancakes recipe when I found this one at fatfree.com. I didn't intend to go fat free, or vegan, but the recipe was easy and worth a shot.  1 c Whole wheat flour (I didn't have whole wheat flour, I used white) Mix the dry ingredients togther; then mix in the soymilk and the blueberries. If the batter is too thick, mix in more blueberry juice until it is the right consistency. Cook in a nonstick pan until they look edible. They will be very blue! I didn't have extra blueberry juice, so I just added a little more soy milk to get it to a thinner consistancy. The recipe says it will make 6 pancakes, but for me it only made 5 (using 1/4 cup scoops), but this is still a decent breakfast for two. I topped the vegan pancakes with vegan "Soy Garden" butter-like spread and syrup. As I side I prepared Morningstar Farms sausages (vegetarian, but they contain eggs, so not vegan). Yum! April 3, 2005 - Deviled Steaks and Chicken Manicottis. Two success stories for meals over the past couple months were these two dishes, both from the recipe listings at shoprite.com. Deviled Steaks 1/4 cup Dijon Mustard (Alternatively, I've tried Honey Mustard, which turned out quite well) Mix mustard, rosemary, black pepper and garlic. Spread mixture onto both sides of steak. Optional: cover and let stand for 30 minutes. Broil steaks 15-25 minutes depending on thickness of steak, flip halfway through. Top of the mixture will look burned, but that is normal, you can remove the burned part if you like. I often prepare this with potatoes or steamed vegetables, makes a delcious meal. Chicken Manicottis 8 Manicotti shells Preheat oven to 350F Cook Manicotti per instructions Combine egg, chicken, broccoli, bread crumbs, onion, salt, pepper, 1 cup cheese Spoon miture into cooked manicotti shells Put filled manicotties into 8x8 baking dish, combine milk and soup, pour over manicotties Cover with foil and bake for 20-35 minutes Remove foil, Top with remaining colby jack cheese, let sit 5 minutes before serving. I often make rolls or biscuits to go along with this, yum! February 13, 2005 - Mushroom-crust Quiche. This recpipe is from Vegetarian Cooking by Sunset Editors, a really great (and inexpensive) cookbook. Quiche can be a bit tricky to make. The first time I tried this recipe it came out perfect, the second time I tried it came out runny and we couldn't eat it. But when it's successful it's delicious!   Ingredients: 5 Tablespoons melted butter Preparation Melt 3 Tablespoons of butter in a frying pan and cook coursely chopped mushrooms until they are limp, then add breadcrumbs and wheat germ. Mix and press mixture into well-greased 9inch round metal pan. In the same pan melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and cook the chopped green onions, spread over mushroom crust. Spread Colby Jack cheese over onions. Mix together cottage cheese, eggs, thyme and marjoram leaves until smooth. Pour into crust. Sprinkle with paprika to taste. Cook at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Serve! February 11, 2005 - Tandoori Chicken. I got this recipe from The Art of Cooking for Two. It turned out alright, but the sauce was more liquidy than I expected. I prepared some parboiled rice to go with it, but since the sauce wasn't creamy it ended up being runny and a bit to spicy for that type of rice (which isn't dry enough to soak up the liquid). I don't think I'll be making this again, but I'll share the recipe anyway.  First prepare the Tandoori Marinade: 3/4 cup low fat plain yoghurt Mix all these together. Put the 1 pound of skinned chicken breasts in a dish (not the one you bake it in, I used a large bowl), cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for a few hours. After a few hours, remove from the refrigerator and put it all into an 8x8 baking dish with 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Put it in the oven, uncovered, at 400F for 15 minutes, then lowered it to 350 for another 25 minutes. October 24, 2004 - Spinach Lasagne. I used a modified version of the lasagne recipe on the back of the San Giorgio Oven-Ready Lasagne box to make this Spinach Lasagne. This makes one 8x8 dish full of lasagne, which is more than enough for 2 normal people.   The ingredients list is fairly small: 1 jar of your favorite tomato sauce Preparation is easy, and can be done ahead of time. Preheat oven to 375F Mix together Ricotta, egg, basil, oregano. Mix spinach in. Spread 1/4th of the tomato sauce on the bottom of an 8x8 square oven-safe dish Put 2 pices of the oven-ready lasagne on top of the tomato sauce, spread half of the ricotta and spinach mixture on top of lasagne, spread 1/4th of tomato sauce on top of this, spread 1/3 of the mozerella on top of sauce. Repeat previous step once. Top with final 2 pieces of lasagne, then the rest of the tomato sauce and the rest of the mozerella. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy! The first time I made this I was very excited, it was delicious and I couldn't wait to eat it to take pictures, but this time I was more patient.
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