When life throws you lemons...

Ok, life hasn't thrown me any lemons as of late. I've had an amazing summer with my family, and peaches and corn are in season....things couldn't get much better!

Nonetheless, I fell for this vintage pitcher at Goodwill. "Clear tags" were on sale, so this was marked down to $.75. As part of Fatty Get Skinny (blogged about here) we are drinking a lot more water. I keep this adorable pitcher on the counter with a glass and sip away all day. I like that it is shaped a bit like a beaker. It reminds me of grade 8 Junior Chemistry class.

Vangroovy pride

I am in Vancouver for a few weeks with the kidlets, visiting with my parents and brother. I snapped a picture of this display in a kitchen store in Kerrisdale village, near my parent's pad. It makes me want to decorate with more colour!! How fun would it be to have a set of rainbow dishes?

Another day, another salad

Today I was having a friend for lunch, but the thought of cooking in this heat was too much to handle. So I made an at home salad bar, which is my new go-to for summer guests.

My favourite toppings include:
- Greens (romaine, spinich, arugula....anything goes)
- Steamed veggies (green beans, asparagus)
- Grilled veggies (mushrooms, peppers)
- Cheese (feta and chevre are my faves)
- Nuts (how can you say no to roasted almonds?)
- Roasted beets
- Some kind of grain (Quinoa and wheat berries are my current obsessions)
- Some kind of protien (chicken, fish, and steak are all delish)
- Fruit (Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, pear, apple.....yum!)

....top it with your favourite homemade vinigarette!

What are your favourite salad bar toppings? I am always looking for new ideas to keep it interesting!

Notes: My table cloth is embarassingly wrinkled...but it is a vintage cloth from my Grandma that I love. I was at my friend Erin's tonight and she had an equally vintagey looking one from Anthropologie. Fun....and yes, those damn carnations are still alive! They won't die!

New kitchen toy

My newest kitchen toy is an oil sprayer....it sprays your favourite cooking oil like Pam, but is free of all the butane and other chemicals used to create the spray. As well, you end up using much less oil than if you were to pour it out of the bottle.

This was my Mother's Day gift...but don't blame my husband for the unexciting gift; it was exactly what I asked for!

This one is made by Cuisinpro and is available at IQ Living on the Danforth.

Goodwill go-tos, part II

Lentils? check
Coffee? check
Prunes? check

I can see you all so clearly now!

In addition to the necklace that I bought at the Goodwill on Monday, I also purchased a few more glass canisters. As you can see, I have quite the collection in various styles and sizes. Goodwill is an excellent source for these and the rubber ring can always be replaced at the hardware store to keep things extra fresh.

My new purchases inspired me to purge my pantry cupboard. It feels sooooooo good!

PS: These are typically $0.99 at Goodwill....this makes Ikea seem pricey!

Found storage

We are short on storage in our kitchen. We have little room for all the stuff that isn't required for cooking but still needs to be close at hand, like....

...Zip lock bags
...rubber gloves
...garbage bags
...Swiffer sheets
...WD40
...vaccum bags
...silver polish

So, upon my Mom's recommendation, my husband installed these cubbies on the inside of the doors of the closet adjacent to the kitchen. This works as long as you have enough clearance once the doors close and is a great way to create more storage space.

Of course I was immediately able to fill them with 'stuff'! Next I need to purge!

(PS, you may be wondering why there are so many dress shirts in our kitchen closet...well the last thing my husband does in the morning is put his work shirt on so it doesn't get marked with baby goo....and it is the first thing he takes off when he gets home!)

My new best friend in the kitchen

I am back from Vancouver and settled back in Toronto. It took us a few days to get back in the swing of things here after getting back at 1am from the airport and dealing with a teething little baby boy...poor thing!

I have missed being away from the Blog, and am excited to get knee deep all over again.

Tonight I was cleaning the kitchen and noticed how gross our sink was. Normally I use vinigar and some elbow grease to clean it, but tonight I tried baking soda. PRESTO! The sink is now sparkling. I have used baking soda in the past on my favourite bone china coffee mugs to get rid of stubborn coffee and tea stains - it works like a charm.

So, along with vinigar (which is use religiously on my floors and counters) baking soda is my new favourite eco friendly cleaner.

Do you have any good cleaning secrets?

***UPDATE: My other cleaning secret is for getting tough spots off my white porcelin topped oven (which came with the house but I would never buy!!). I've tried Vim and other products, but they tend to be quite corrosive. Spray on oven cleaner (like Easy Off) does an AMAZING job...while it's not exactly eco-friendly, it will leave your cooktop spick and span!

Double duty!

Eureka!

My mom has shared with me a secret for cooking oatmeal, rice and quinoa, without being left with a mucky pot that needs to be soaked and scrubbed....a double boiler. It works like a charm and means that you don't have to be constantly stirring....just set it and forget it!!!

Early morning activities....muffins

This morning both my children were up for the day at 4am, thanks to the time change from Toronto (this is despite the fact that I kept them up and put them to bed at the right time, 7pm, local Vancouver time). I almost lost my mind. After about 30 minutes of trying to get everyone back to sleep, I realized that it was hopeless, and so we came downstairs and made muffins.

I am obsessed with heat proof silicone, like these muffin cups. I (as does my mom) also have an assortment of heat proof spatulas, flippers (OXO makes the best one) and egg poachers, all made from heat proof silicone. When I was buying the egg poachers at Kitchen Roots on the Danforth, I had my choice between expensive and inexpensive ones. Apparently there is a variety of 'grades' of silicone, and the most expensive ones are chemical free and won't leach anything into your food. That sounds like a good thing to me!

Order in the house

The kids and I are currently out in Vancouver, staying with my parents.

My parents live in the house I grew up in, and recently completed a major renovation. With a big new kitchen to revel in, my Mom has taken her obsession with organization to a whole new level. Here are a few ideas that I love (the photos are just taken with a point-and-shoot camera, so they aren't the best quality...sorry!). I only wish I had room for all these ideas in my mini-kitchen!

What keeps your kitchen humming?

Seagrass basket for recyling

IKEA placesetting organizers

IKEA accordian organizer for tops of pots and pyrex

Fuss-free PC

In our dining room we have an elegant antique dining room suite which we inherited from my Grandmother. The problem is that it is in the middle of our house, and so is also the place where we drop our keys, use our laptops (despite a lovely home office upstairs), eat, colour, write cheques...etcetera.

So it needs to be covered if it's going to survive another decade. I bought this simple cream table cloth with a tone on tone plaid from PC Home just before the holidays. It is very inexpensive, and so I assumed I would use it once and have to toss it. Not true. There are two wonderful things about this table cloth.

1) It is made of some sort of miracle fabric that doesn't wrinkle. You can pull it right out of the dryer and put it on your table. Voila.

2) It is made of some sort of miracle fabric that doesn't stain. We put it to the ultimate test a few weeks ago with a curry dinner for 10 adults and 8 kids. The table was absolutely drenched in deep red and yellow curry sauces. I put a bit of stain spray on the really bad spots and threw it in the wash. Everything came out!

I have a friend who always offers to help out when he comes for dinner. I jokingly always tell him he can iron the table cloth because I know how ridiculous he thinks it is that anyone would iron a table cloth. ...well now I can find a new chore for him!! Bring on the dishes!

A cornucopia of coloured cups

With kids in the house, I have a million and one of these plastic Ikea tumblers. In our house they serve a multitude of roles from toothbrush and crayon holders, to bathtime soakers and kiddie drinkers....at $1.99 for 6, they are a steal of a deal....

....Start the car!

Elegantly eco-friendly

Have you ever noticed that design magazines never feature composting bins in their kitchens? It's probably because the city-issued countertop composting bins are not exactly eye-candy. 

Luckily, there are a number of attractive alternatives on the market. My mom introduced me to this one, available at Lee Valley down on King West. I've had it on my counter for a few years now, and it's great...but as of this afternoon I have compost bin envy!

Check out this fine piece of countertop hardware. I spied it this afternoon in the window of IQ Living on the Danforth. It is made of a shiny stainless steel (my Lee Valley version is a polished stainless) and has a very elegant fluted shape. Doesn't it make you want to start peeling potatoes?

Brew masters

How do you make your perfect cup of coffee?

Both my Mom and Grandmother drank Nescafe instant coffee when I was younger. This is a family legacy that I chose not to carry on. Reeeevolting sludge.

Since I'm the only coffee drinker in our house nowadays, I make most of my coffee in my Bodum* or my beloved espresso machine.

But my favourite coffee maker is my vintage GE percolator, which I inherited from my Grandmother, and which she received as a wedding gift (talk about standing the test of time!!). It has an elegant shape that goes from counter to table, makes perfect coffee, and even has a 'warming' function. Best of all, it makes enough coffee for a crowd, or for a lazy day of coffee drinking and newspaper reading for one.

I have since bought two more of these beauties - one off of Craigs List and another at Eclectisaurus, a fabulous vintage store on Gerrard East in Cabbagetown. I am keeping one as a backup in case mine breaks, and the second was given to my friend who developed a life long passion for percolated coffee at his cottage on Lake of the Woods.

While I adore my collection of coffee makers, I will not be turning down a cup of drip coffee made by someone else anytime soon.....after all, coffee tastes best when someone else makes it!

* I previously bought a very inexpensive french press coffee maker at Canadian Tire that worked great. It was just as good as my Bodum. But my mom cracked the beaker while washing it, and so at that point I upgraded to the Bodum. Somehow its shape is just a little more beautiful and its stainless steel frame just a little more sparkly than its no-name cousin.

This magnificant mess

Do you ever feel like you can never get ahead of the mess of children?

Every night I head to bed with the main floor cleaned and organized for the day ahead. ...and a mere 15 minutes into the start of the next day, it looks I've had 30 two year olds rampage my house. I guess my 2 year old is 'efficient' at creating mess. We're out the door most days early in the morning, so I barely have time to brush my teeth, let along do any clean up, until nap time in the afternoon. But it is so satisfying when at 3pm I get to enjoy a clean living room again....and then my daughter wakes up and we start the cycle all over again!...I think I hear her now.

Spices, spatulas and strollers?

We were childless when we bought our house, and as a result didn't intimately understand the overwhelming amount of 'stuff' one accumulates with babies. While we have a decent amount of interior space, we have no outdoor storage for our:

- Running stroller
- Single everyday stroller
- Double everyday stroller
- Red wagon
- Umbrella stroller
- Trike
- 2 adult bikes
- Sleds
- Patio furntiure (requires winter storage)
- etcetera etcetera....

That's right...no shed, no garage, no covered deck.

So as a result my strollers live in my kitchen, and I end up washing my floors each and every time I bring the dirty snowy strollers in and out.

I know that every house has its quirks and quarks, and that this is just something I have to live with. What beef do you have with your house?

Dirty dishes

My mom recently introduced  me to Raingoose Textiles, a Vancouver company which sells the most beautiful 100% linen tea towels in an assortment of whimsical patterns. These towels transform the mundane task of drying dishes. The linen makes them incredibly absorbant and beautiful to the touch, while the patterns are like kitchen eye candy hanging on your towel rack or oven handle.

It is very difficult to find tea towels that are 100% linen. Most stores sells cotton tea towels, and the tea towelling fabric you buy at fabric stores is only part linen, and not nearly as attractive. I bought myself a set of Raingoose towels at the One of a Kind show. Check the Raingoose website for other opportunities to buy your own, and start drying dishes in style!

Morning traditions

Every morning after I drag myself downstairs I take a few glorious minutes to myself and lovingly prepare a skim latte in a large bone china Wedgewood mug (Eternity pattern, which is now discontinued...but still available on Replacements.com). It feels so indulgent. CBC Radio One's Metro Morning with Matt Galloway plays from my IPad in the background. I press the espresso down with all my might and am forever trying to create the perfect topping of rich milk foam.

Recently my daughter has started asking for her own 'coffee'. So with any extra milk I steam, I prepare her a special 'coffee' --- steamed milk with a touch of PC hot chocoate powder in it, served in one of the bone china demi-tasse mugs that came with my dish set* (otherwise these mugs rarely get used, since they aren't a practical size).

This is a tradition with my daughter that I cherish. Hopefully when she is old enough to drink real coffee, she will still think I'm cool enough to hang out with.

* I registered for Duchess White china - it is a class pattern carried at William Ashley, and about half the price of most of the Wedgewood bone china white sets. ...the problem was that I lusted over the Wedgewood Eternity mugs...so I ordered a set of them in additon to my set. No regrets on the Duchess White though - it is simple, elegant, and an equally worthy vessel for mac and cheese as beef wellington.

In praise of turquoise

Does your house have a colour theme?

Mine started years ago when I inherited a series of vintage turquoise canisters from my Grandma. Ever since then, I have been adding pieces of turquoise to my colleciton.

(I had been collecting vintage turquoise Pyrex for years and had it hidden away in my cupboards...unitl I saw Shanon's display on 8foot6 and I was inspired to show it off....love it!)

Living large in a small kitchen

Our house is one of those typical 3 story brick "bowling alleys"....it's deep and narrow, with the kitchen at the back of the house. We also have a bathroom at the back of the house as well as a door to our backyard, so our kitchen is small and busy. With limited cupboard space and lots of dishes and collectables, I really needed to make my space work efficiently.

Although they are not the prettiest, these Rubbermaid cupboard stackers are strong and efficient, essentially doubling your storage space. I was suprised at the price - they are about $8 each (I was hoping they would be cheaper). When we moved into our house, I shopped around from Home Hardware to Canadian Tire, WalMart, and some big box stores, and the price didn't fluctuate meaningfully, so buy them at the location that's most convenient for you!

What are your tricks for making your kitchen work?