FauxPas

Kitchen will have white cabinets and quartz countertop. Obviously, our kitchen won't look like this, but this is the quartz. The showroom samples had a few silvery sparkles in them, I am hoping that our slabs will also. It's a pretty basic/simple look, but I liked it. Some of the other samples with whites/creams in them just didn't look right with our white cabinets. I am not a fan of the existing backsplash so happy to be replacing it also. I decided to go with the same quartz for a backsplash, because I like fairly clean, simple lines. It will be 6" high and then curve up behind the range. I hate using this photo because the overall kitchen is so fugly, but this is the general idea. They can cut the quartz anyway we want and there is enough left over on the already-required slabs so that I have some leeway on the size. I'm looking for suggestions. I can start the curve on the outside of the range like this or maybe have the curve only above the range itself, maybe going straight up and then curving over the 30" width of the range. I'm thinking it needs to be at least 12" high to allow for splatter protection. Above the quartz will be painted drywall up to the cabinets. Anyway, this will give a rough idea despite the odd colours of the cabinets, walls, countertops, etc.

Fridge pics. The shelves are too close together, but to lose one would mean a lot less storage overall. It's tricky to fit in tall items, the door bins aren't separated enough either and although adjustable, I can't find positioning where it works for our storage needs. The lower left door has that odd extra bin for leafy greens. Why? The crispers are fairly decent in size. The deli drawer is useful but might be better to have left it out and allowed for more spacing between the higher shelves. Here's a closer shot of the top shelf folded back. Now there is even less height at the back of the second shelf. And you can see the seam on the second shelf, where it can also fold back. It's just awkward. That awkward bin again. I would much rather have another standard door bin there, but they won't fit into this spot at all. So no choice in that. I have tried to order an optional bin which I hope will replace this one and allow for a bit more condiment storage. We'll see if it works.

Is this too much detail, too much info? I was going to talk about our fridge, because it drives me crazy. It's this model. I could write out my complaints but someone already has said most of it on the Kitchenaid site: Another problem with this kitchen is that the cabinets were installed so that the maximum fridge height is about 68" and most decent-sized fridges are a bit taller than that. The previous owners of the home replaced the original fridge (probably quite recently as this fridge was only manufactured in 2020) and would have been limited in their choices. I don't care that much about the way the doors close, we got used to that fairly quickly. But the shelf/bin design really is awful. There's so little space in the door bin compartments, it's crazy to have French doors on a fridge that's only 30" wide. To put in any tall items (like milk, wine or juice) you have such limited space and you pretty much have to have one of the fold-back shelves folded back all the time to put things in the main fridge section. Once you have it folded back, you are blocking access to all the shorter items in behind and you have to pull things out to get to the smaller ones. We cooked a turkey for Xmas and it was quite the procedure to find room for even our moderately-sized turkey. So, another reason to be thankful for new cabinets, which will be installed up to the ceiling and will have a larger and taller fridge opening. In the meantime, I am wondering how long I can handle using the existing fridge. I hate to replace it when it's still so new, but it's been hard going from a 26 cu ft fridge down to a 20 cu ft model. Not sure what to do. On the plus side, the icemaker has been great!

It's a laminate flooring (with a manufactured wood base) installed as a floating floor over an underlay. This one has high water resistance and abrasion resistance so it should hold up pretty well. It's made in Europe. And it shouldn't require much for transitions at all so we can have a very smooth floor throughout the main part of the house. I think laminates have come a long way. They have really improved over the years, though of course some people would like real hardwood. The last time we did hardwood was in our townhouse in Victoria and I hated worrying about damaging it, to be honest. The laminate we have had held up really well.

The other thing I've already done is to replace the dishwasher and range. I really like this Whirlpool dishwasher, it's very quiet and has all the cycles I wanted and it was a surprisingly good price. I also really like that it doesn't have any big logo/label advvertising the brand (what are those things called on appliance fronts?), I like the clean front lines. The range is a Frigidaire induction with air-fry. To be honest, the temp controls were probably better on the Kenmore that I left behind in the old house. I was tempted to bring the Kenmore along, but it was about 8 years old. I still like this one, not sure about the Air Fry feature, as I've only used it once for cooking frozen fries and it didn't seem to add a lot. I should really try something else.

Mijo also chose our new flooring. 😺 He always wanted to sit on this floor sample. Fortunately for him, it's also the one we like best. It's hard to know how true the colours of things come through. This is a nice light grey with bits of darker grey.

Here is what I mean about flooring heights and variations. The kitchen transition piece is too high but even if we smoothed it out, there is a slight height difference between kitchen and the other flooring. We are hoping we can rip out everything and start over fresh with the same height and same flooring and no transition strips. It's not that noticeable to some people (here is another of the original lisitng pics), but I can see the difference in the two floorings here. And as Mijo quite rightly points out, this transition piece is very dangerous for his humans. And a different flooring again in the hallways, den and bedrooms. They are all fairly well matched in colour but once you see the difference, you know it's there. And this is not a high quality flooring. So, all of this flooring will go and be replaced with one single product. We'll keep the bathrooms and laundry room flooring for now, it's not bad.

Yes, it does. It vents through the wall. It would be better in some ways if it had been vented up through the ceiling, since I want to install a low-profile over-the-range microwave and vent combo, like this: https://www.kitchenaid.ca/en_ca/major-appliances/hoods-and-vents/microwave-hood-combination/p.900-watt-low-profile-microwave-hood-combination.ykmls311hss.html Because we already have a hole in the wall and exterior siding and we didn't really want to try and patch those and make another hole, we will have a bit of a gap between the bottom of the upper cabinets and the top of the microwave, but it will have a filler made from the cabinet material. We had to do the same thing in the last house and I didn't mind it. We end up with a slightly indented space there which could be filled with some decorative tiles or something, but it's not all that noticeable even if left as-is. They promise decent air exchange and quiet operation with this M/W. Hard to tell in the showroom, but the specs are better than the last one I had, which wasn't too terrible.

Hahahaha, no I don't. 🙂 I was going to mention that little item. There are 3 different kinds of wood laminate (similar look, but I can see the differences) in the house and it is all being replaced. We just paid the deposit for the new flooring and there is some in stock in two different Canadian warehouses, but we don't know about shipping and delivery times yet. Also, the flooring in the kitchen is at a different height from the dining/living room areas and since it's such a basic open-plan house, it should have a smoother transition. It's currently a tripping hazard!

As suggested in my last posts in this thread, we did indeed go ahead and sell that house. There were some reasons why it just wasn't right for us anymore and there was a large home being built that was going to block some of the best ocean views we had, so we decided to move on. Our improvements went a long way toward getting us a strong selling price and it sold immediately. But, houses were in short supply (they still are) as demand is outstripping supply and lots of people are looking to move to this region, so finding a new house was not easy. I know it's happening in many regions and countries and it makes it tough to take the leap and list, you don't know what you will be able to find. Our last house was on a fairly busy street and we wanted something quieter. We didn't want to get into a bidding war on a property (we saw an older 1700 sq ft rancher sell for $250k over asking recently, final price over $1 million - in a meh neighbourhood and without many updates), so we knew we might do better looking for a property that needed a few updates. This is a lovely neighbourhood and met our needs perfectly. But the house seemed a tiny bit sad, it needed some love. Some people asked me why I was so determined to redo the kitchen as it looked decent. The house was built in 2006, so it's not that old. It had white cabinets and not a terrible layout. But while the basic layout is ok, the cabinets have that thermofoil surface, which is susceptible to peeling. This has begun in one small area and while it's not particularly visible now, it may well be more noticeable in a few years. One other thing is that there are too many cabinets without pull-outs. The kitchen needs more drawers to make me (and my husband) happy. We are past the point of wanting to dig things out of lower shelves in cabinets or the back of upper cabinets. More later.

Even your kitties may be interested in a bite or two. 🙂

Yes, also thinking of crustless quiche/egg muffins. Your earlier post in this thread was quite helpful, also! (And some other good ideas there, too.) Thx! 🙂

Do you like to freeze your lasagne before or after baking? I usually use smaller pans which make 4 or 6 servings, so never freeze it, just keep it in the fridge and M/W, so I am unexperienced, ha. I think it's tricky to separate unbaked portions (messy), so it makes sense to me to mostly bake it, then freeze and try to thaw before reheating.

I'll let you know how it turns out! 🙂

Host's note: this post and the first several responses were split from the Freezer Friendly Meals for My Grandpa topic. Some refer back to that topic. We are redoing our kitchen plus repainting the whole house, new flooring. We just had a sheetmetal team creating ductwork throughout the house to support a whole-house heat pump. We also have just started installing irrigation on the yard and have a landscaper cleaning up and redoing beds and plantings. This house was a decent buy, but we knew it would need work. Things are a bit crazy and the next thing is having the existing kitchen ripped out. We will be without a kitchen for up to 3 weeks. We had a laundry room with a sink in our last house when we redid the kitchen, but nothing like that here, so we will be washing dishes in the bathtub, which I absolutely despise. We may have access to our induction range but the microwave and toaster oven are going to be our mainstay. I was not well prepared during the last reno and I don't want to repeat that. So I've started making freezer meals that i know can be reheated easily. We have an upright freezer in our garage. Today I made a Mexican chicken with Spanish rice and beans dish. This will freeze and can be reheated in M/W. The containers can be reused or recycled. If necessary, we'll wash them out on the deck. Here's an example, it's a Mexican chicken dish (chicken thighs with peppers and onions in a tomato sauce), Spanish rice and some mixed pinto and kidney beans. I want easy because it turns out my husband is scheduled for minor surgery in the middle of this mess and am looking for any suggestions. I can do meatloaf, chili, meatballs, etc but am interested in other things. I should definitely do some soups.

@Smithy, I decided to try your travel partner's one true roast pork shoulder recipe. 🙂 For some reason, I never did any cooking with onion soup mixes before, but did try rubbing some on to a pork loin roast recently and it was pretty good. So this time, I followed the suggestion to use the diced potatoes underneath a pork shoulder roast. It was good! Though my roast may not have had enough of a fat layer on it, as some of the potatoes were a tad dry. It was all still very good though and we enjoyed it. So thanks to you two! We had a fair amount of leftovers from this meal and since we are renovating our kitchen early next month, I froze some for a quick microwave dinner later on. I have some prep containers with 3 compartments, so did roast, potates and corn in each one. It's the kind of meal my husband loves and I hope it will reheat well, but I wish I had added a bit of gravy to the meat. I guess I can do that before reheating but the whole idea is to avoid cooking and cleaning while we have no countertops and no sink, D/W, etc. Anyway, it was a pretty easy meal to cook and I hope it reheats well from frozen, have you any experience with that?

They have added this correction: Correction: March, 10, 2022 Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this story misstated that the website egullet had closed. It is still in operation.

It seems to be pitched higher than Julia Child herself (but then Julia's voice seemed to go up and down) and was a bit jarring at first, but I think that's mostly because I'm so used to seeing Sarah L in things like Last Tango in Halifax. I don't think I'll have any problems with the voice once I get into the series! 🙂

Ooooh, I love Sarah Lancashire! I think this series will be luscious. 🙂

Yeah, pretty hard to pass up this kind of offer when there are several interesting books included, right? There are a few there that I am pleased to now have in my e-library. Thanks again to @cdhfor letting us know about Humble Bundles! 🙂

Actually, I just noticed that Big Flavors of New Orleans is also included in that Humble Bundle. Here is the complete list, ,copied after I downloaded to my laptop (no easy way to copy and paste the list from the Humble website). A Grandfather's Lessons Open Road Media EPUB 84.2 MB md5 Bake Until Bubbly Open Road Media EPUB 628.3 KB md5 HomeBaking Open Road Media EPUB 30.4 MB md5 Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen Open Road Media EPUB 62.1 MB md5 Healthy Dish of the Day Weldon Owen EPUB 124.1 MB md5 PDF 87.8 MB md5 Bowl Open Road Media EPUB 49.2 MB md5 Prep School Open Road Media EPUB 46 MB md5 Craft Coffee Open Road Media EPUB 13.5 MB md5 Kevin Belton's Big Flavors of New Orleans Open Road Media EPUB 16 MB md5 The James Beard Cookbook Open Road Media EPUB 2 MB md5 Japanese Farm Food Open Road Media EPUB 44.6 MB md5 Rustic Spanish Open Road Media EPUB 6.4 MB md5 More Fast Food My Way Open Road Media EPUB 55 MB md5 Pasta Night Open Road Media EPUB 4.8 MB md5 La Vie Rustic Open Road Media EPUB 11.5 MB md5 Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever with More Than 400 Easy-to-Make Recipes Chronicle Books MOBI 4.2 MB md5 EPUB 1.6 MB md5 PDF 42.1 MB md5 The Art of Eating Open Road Media EPUB 2.2 MB md5 Cooking at Home Open Road Media EPUB 6.1 MB md5 Grandbaby Cakes Open Road Media EPUB 70.1 MB md5 Vegan Reset Open Road Media EPUB 55.3 MB md5 Soup of the Day Weldon Owen EPUB 20.9 MB md5 PDF 245.3 MB md5 Elegant Pie Open Road Media EPUB 106.1 MB md5 Smoke & Pickles Open Road Media EPUB 19.2 MB md5 Sunday Casseroles Open Road Media EPUB 6.9 MB md5 Vegan Richa's Everyday Kitchen Open Road Media EPUB 280.9 MB md5 James Beard's Theory and Practice of Good Cooking Open Road Media EPUB 7.2 MB md5 Saveur: The New Classics Cookbook Open Road Media EPUB 4.3 MB md5 Sheet Pan Open Road Media EPUB 13.6 MB md5 Mamushka Open Road Media EPUB 11.5 MB md5 Recipes from Around Our Family Table Open Road Media EPUB 11.3 MB md5

There's also another Humble Bundle (the ones that @cdhintroduced us to) which includes Mamushka along with 29 other cookbooks for a price of $22.88 (or more, if you wish). You can also get Mamushka and 12 other books for $12.70. https://www.humblebundle.com/books/creative-cooking-open-road-media-books?hmb_source=&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_3_layout_type_threes_tile_index_1_c_creativecookingopenroadmedia_bookbundle# Edited to add: I'm still trying to figure the Humble site out. I think those prices are Canadian, so maybe even less for US purchasers?

Yes, like @ElsieD, I think of coffee cake as a basic cake with a cinnamon-sugar layer and a streusel topping with more cinnamon and sugar in it! Lots of cinnamon flavour, a little bit sweet. But enough butter in the batter to make it luscious. I like some nuts in the topping as well. I've made this Classic Coffee Cake from Simply Recipes a couple of times and I think it's pretty close to the average recipe.

One of the local farmers delights in telling this one at the weekly Market:

Oooh, I've been to that observatory a couple of times, we used to live not far from there! The road up Mt Hopkins made me quite nervous, it's not very wide at all in spots. The connection between that and beans is that tepary beans are grown in the region near the Observatory. The Tohono O'odham grow them and that's where I used to buy them from, though I see Rancho Gordo also sells them. I wonder where RG purchases from, does anyone know?