Aunt Toby believes that one of the problems with cooking in these United States is that we get stuck in a rut. We cook something because Mom and Dad cooked it or because we are familiar with it. Frankly, there are meat cuts out there that 99% of American’s have never eaten; never experienced in the kitchen, and frankly are scared to death of. Continue reading →
Pulled BBQ Beef
8 Eggs, 2 Desserts
For a lot of folks out there (not the least are the chicken farmers), right now, there’s a whole lotta egg action going on. And it’s the same at Chez Siberia as well. With three dozen eggs staring me in the face in the fridge and guests coming for dinner, Aunt Toby needed to come up with something that was going to use up a lot of eggs. Although I was aiming for a dozen, I managed to get through eight and created two desserts, one of which you can eat right away and one which you can eat over a period of time or you can put the two together or what have you: Continue reading →
On Your Mark, Get Set….
In our last episode, One Year Later, one of the items I noted was that the soil temperatures were pretty chilly. It was March 27th, 5 days ago. Between the freak storm and the very chilly temperatures, even the soil in the bed under the glass was only 40.3 degrees F. As you can see from the photo at the top, in the past five days, between the sun on the glass and the steadily warming trend (today’s high was in the high 70s!), the soil has warmed up mightily. So, when I got home from work, I decided to take advantage and sow some seeds to get plants started under the glass. Continue reading →
Kids Belong in the Kitchen
Like many folks out there, I’ve been watching the new reality show on ABC, “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution”. And no matter how I feel about how this has been constructed as a program (because it is 6 episodes long and they have to set up the dramatic conflicts and show Jamie suffering and not being successful at first so that they can have the victories later), there are a couple of things out of the two episodes that I have seen which I would like to discuss here that I think are very important (no matter who says them or where they are from): Continue reading →
One Year Later – A Report
Literally one year ago, I posted this report on the garden: End of March Report
Now, if you’d like to read that whole thing, go right ahead, but here are the three important bullet points:
By the end of March, 2009:
We’d had a very dry spring so far.
The Rhubarb was already up.
The soil temperatures all over the garden were in the 42-43 degrees F. range. Continue reading →
Shameless Product Plug
I don’t do product placement here because – well, I just don’t. (maybe it’s because no one’s asked me…)
But I saw something today that I just find so exciting that I have to blog about it:
Wooly Pockets. These are pockets and freestanding carriers which you can use to grow houseplants, fruits, veggies, everything.They are a great idea for people who want to grow stuff but don’t have yards or much ground. They are made in the United States, by a family-owned company, out of recycled plastic bottles. People are using them to make vertical wall gardens; they are being used for school gardens. Indoors. Outdoors.
Aunt Toby is speechless (and that is saying something).
Here’s the site. I love clever ideas that people bring to market.
Woolypocket
Landscape Plants On the Cheap – Rooting Roses
Aunt Toby is, I am ashamed to say, a rose rustler. I am an absolute pushover for rose bushes in abandoned lots. In our fair city (and yes, if someone were to ask about it, I’d have to say, “Yep, it’s fair..”), I walk past a lot that on the down slope side, had been long ago turned into a parking lot in all of its asphalt paved glory. On the uphill side, facing a totally different street (and one which you can tell used to have some very nice houses on it in the 19th century), there is the remains of a paved walk and entrance, a rather imposing chain-link fence, and several scraggly rose bushes. These are not pampered roses – they are of the rather old fashioned, flat double type, about 2-3” across. Nothing to get excited about for sure. Continue reading →
Early Spring Gardening
One of the things I find really attractive about gardening is that there is always something happening – even at a place like Chez Siberia (where parts of the property are Zone 2 in terms of what will survive). This week was no exception. You’d think that nothing is happening in the garden here but the sun proved that wrong. We had a week of 50-degree temperatures with lots of sun. I shoveled off one of the beds to start the process of warming things up and by the end of the week, the rest of the beds had been exposed on their own. And then I saw them – the garlic that we’d planted last fall. second chances Continue reading →
Double Clutch
Never let it be said that Aunt Toby is easily discouraged. I think it can be said that I made just about every error in the clutch trial run and ended up with something that was not what I’d hoped. Not that I won’t use it – I’ve never had a purse yet that I couldn’t find a use for. But the whole basis of this was to check off an item on my ‘Want to do in 2010′ list, which is to sew with leather. For all the sewing I’ve done over the years (and I’ve made everything from snow suits with double zippers, softsided luggage, hunting and photographer’s vests with a zillion pockets et al., I’ve always been pretty afraid of sewing with leather. Somehow I had this vision that I’d burn out the motor of my sewing machine. It’s just a Kenmore, after all. Continue reading →
Bringing Spring
Sometimes, Aunt Toby is wont (yes, wont) to taking things into her knobby but capable hands and not taking ‘no’ for an answer. This year’s winter has been, for practically the entire Continental United States, one long sitting through of “Ground Hog Day”.
Awful. Miserable. Interminable. Continue reading →
Kitchen Counter Economics is a community where we can share ideas on how to save money, live more sustainably, and gain control over the stuff of daily living for ourselves and our families in the current economic environment. This started as a series of diary postings at the 
