calamity jane

These days I mostly try not to write. My life is so full of work and family and weeding. But every now and then, my brain starts to itch and the only way to scratch that itch is writing. This is where you will find my most recent scratchings.

  • Kitchens Part 2: The Sink

    So. Let’s start where meals end. At the kitchen sink. This is a good spot to pick at, if yer gonna pick. As I said in my intro kitchen post, this area needs some good brainstorming. When you’re looking at a sink, you need to know whether it’s a dishwasher afterthought, or the actual location of all the washing of a kitchen’s dishes. The function is of course quite different. Mine being the latter it consists of three main task areas: a place for dirty dishes, a place to wash and rinse said dishes, and an area to stack for…

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    Calamity Jane

  • Leftover Queen

    I hate to toot my own horn, but it’s true. I’m good at cooking a planned special meal, great at looking at what’s in the pantry and designing a meal, but my true genius is re-purposing leftovers. A good skill to have for thrifty eco-wifeys like us. Consider this. The other night I looked in the fridge to see what I should make for dinner. Here’s what I found: one cooked sweet potato one cooked weird little decorative squash (left over from post thanksgiving scrounging) leftovers from the night before– baked potato with cauliflower and broc saute half a package…

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    Calamity Jane

  • Real Life Kitchens: Part One

    I’ve been wanting to do a series about real life kitchens ever since my last blog life, over a year ago. When Rhonda at Down to Earth started the kitchen sink photo series, it really put the fire back under my kettle– so to speak. To top it off, my MIL is getting her “dream kitchen” built this year, which means she has to figure out what her dream kitchen is. When we were visiting in December, she was picking my brain about kitchens. In addition to being an analytical personality who spends 2-4 hours per day in my own…

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    Calamity Jane

  • Sunday Dinner Any Day of the Week

    What I’m talking about here folks is good old fashioned Pot Roast. You know you love it. Unless you’re among my vegetarian readers, in which case you’re already clicking your back button. See ya later, in a veggie post. Pot roast has some unexplainable mystique surrounding it. As if it’s difficult, or expensive, or otherwise unattainable. Let me tell you, it is not. I think it’s funny (and sad) when old fashioned ‘make do’ arts become new fashioned high ticket items. Like quilting. Invented to use up scraps, therefore as thrifty as you can get. Now if you go into…

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    Calamity Jane

  • HOT Hot Chocolate

    Yup, let’s see how much fat and sugar we can pack in to keep the belly fires burning. This is dark, rich, thick, cold-weather fighting stuff. I can’t believe it took me so long to come up with a HOT hot chocolate recipe for my dear Hubby who adores spicy. Y’all better feel special, ‘cuz I’m gonna share my super-de-duper top secret weapon/ingredient with you, and it ain’t the cayenne. I’d better patent this quick. Here it is. This’ll put hair on your chest (or fat on your thighs, depending on gender). HOT Hot Chocolate for Two 2 cups milk…

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    Calamity Jane