House and Home – Page 2 – Lauren Warnecke

The Beautiful Garden that I Only Sort of Grew…

I am fulfilled.

$75 and some prompt attention to the Vedgewater registration deadline landed me a little plot of earth to play with for the summer. I love apartment living, but really miss digging in the dirt. With less availability for farming this summer, this little 4′ x 8′ raised bed is all I need to get my gardening fix. Shortly before leaving for Wyoming we planted a bunch of stuff before it really should have been planted, and then there was a cold snap that killed some peas and onions and nearly zapped the overly-expensive tomato plants from Gethsemane Garden Center. So even though I left a note on the community board and gave friends free reign to play in our garden I fully anticipated returning home after three weeks to a wooden frame of dead plants.

Instead, there was this:

Beans, carrots (hidden under a mountain of squash), cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries. Along the perimeter of the bed are marigolds from recycled seeds and three heads of lettuce that were harvested for dinner that night. It’s still rather astounding to me that I can put a few little pellets in the ground and grow my dinner, but deserting a garden that sits on top of a concrete slab in Chicago for three weeks and returning to a fully grown dinner is pretty frickin’ mind-blowing.

Apparently a hands off approach + three weeks of rain = Bountiful Urban Garden.

Yeah. Mind-blowing.

I think the abundance of worm poo added to the bed had a lot to do with it, and I’m pretty sure I used up every morsel of good gardening karma I had left, but for the bowl of lettuce alone I’ll take it.

PressReader: Newpapers in really, really, tiny print

I used to subscribe to the Sunday paper, and loved those lazy Sunday mornings perusing the headlines, clipping coupons, drinking coffee.

And then I started working on Sundays and began to develop a huge stack of papers that I didn’t have time to get through. Before becoming eligible for an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive, I cut off the subscription and these days I typically try to catch the news on the radio.

I must not be the only one, because the papers are sinking big time. Publications have had to get creative in order to survive the newspaper apocalypse. Enter PressReader: a massive database of 2,300+ full-text publications all available for download on your mobile device. The occasional paper peruser can purchase individual issues for $0.99 each, or the full-on news junkie can have any of the database, any time, for a monthly subscription fee.

This seems really great for a person who, say, commutes by train and owns an ipad, or a person who travels frequently for work. The idea of reading The Irish Times on a layover in Tulsa in the middle of the night is amazing to me. I would assume that flight attendants sometimes just want to know what’s going on in their hometowns, and this way the local paper is always at your fingertips.

The problem is: I’m not any of those people… and I don’t have an ipad.

I have that bookshelf app and a few other reader-type apps and despite my optimism to read all of these things while on public transportation, I mostly end up staring out the window. The thing is: reading newspapers on your phone is sometimes awkward. In order to get the words big enough to actually read I have to scroll over every three words. Maybe I’m dense, but then I get lost in the article and give up. Plus, reading on the bus makes me a little woozy.

If I consider where I really like to read, PressReader doesn’t really do it for me. Call me a romantic, but there’s something about a tangible newspaper that is so wonderful; online versions don’t give you that leisurely feeling you get from flipping the oversized pages, black smudges of ink on your fingertips, sipping a cup of joe will the sun shines in on your dining room table. That’s a feeling I just can’t get from scrunching over my little rectangular box.

But, it’s not personal…

I can see how this app would be totally amazing for the right user. It’s also a great model for, say, an obscure publication that might not otherwise be able to recruit readers to a mobile format (like, for example, the Albanian Gazeta Panorama or Cambodian Business). And, you can bet when Dance Magazine jumps on board I will most definitely be downloading it on a monthly basis, no matter how tiny the text.

Knitted Pot Holders (i.e. Sometimes I live up to my name…)

I know what you might be thinking…

I don’t get it. How come this Lauren chick calls herself crafty, and yet I never see her doing any crafts! What gives?

Life gets busy, you know? I excuse myself by saying that Crafty is a state of mind rather than a state of being. We all aspire to be as crafty as we perceive ourselves to be on Pinterest, but sometimes life gets in the way.

And then other times, on the rare occasion that you have a four day weekend and an emotional commitment to watch several hours of football, your fingers start twitching for something to do. I used to knit (like, a lot), but somehow let it fall by the wayside. Last weekend, however, I dug out my needles and scraps of yarn and it was just like coffee with an old friend.

I’ve started up again, but simply, by replacing a few grubby old potholders with this little beauty:

I once made the mistake of committing to an entire afghan in this pattern, seed, not realizing that it takes twice as long as most other patterns because you have to switch your yarn after each stitch. That blanket took my entire undergraduate college degree to finish. But, I’m at it again because, being the perfectionist that I am, it comes out so beautifully and those little tiny bubbles of yarn are going to keep my hand from burning on a fresh loaf of zucchini bread. Plus, you don’t have to count anything.

Seed Pattern (Knitting)

Cast on an odd number of stitches (I used 35 for this fairly generous-sized hot pad)
K1, P1 until the end of the row
Repeat
That’s it.

Disclaimer: The blanket underneath this work in progress was not made by me, but by my Great-Grandmother Cora. It was crocheted haphazardly (so she said) using scraps from her yarn basket and was gifted to me when I was about 10. It’s either been at the end of my bed or on the back of my sofa ever since.

Don’t buy “cinnamon coffee”, put cinnamon in your coffee.

Flavored coffees have always bothered me. I don’t mean coffee with flavored syrup – I mean coffee that has some mysterious chemical layer of something-ness that infuses coffee beans to somehow taste like cinnamon, or french vanilla, or pumpkins.

You know me…. I’m a girl who likes to keep things au naturale.

But I get it. Sometimes I don’t just want a plain black cup of coffee either. Instead of buying cinnamon flavored coffee, just add some cinnamon to your coffee. Grounds, sprinkle of cinnamon, brew, enjoy. It works for a french press; it works for a drip brewer. And yes, it’s really that simple.

Ok, cinnamon seems simple enough, but what about those other flavors? Here are some popular flavors, and my solutions for infusing your coffee instead of coating it with chemicals:

Cinnamon: Duh, we already covered this… add powdered cinnamon, or a fresh grated cinnamon stick

French Vanilla: Pinch of raw sugar and a whole vanilla bean

Hazelnut: Grate a few hazelnut shavings into the grounds

Pumpkin: Sprinkle of pumpkin spice

“Christmas”: Mulling spices (go easy on them… a little goes a long way)

I’m all ears for other ideas…

What do you do to add pizzazz to your daily cup?

Late Night Catechism… and by catechism, I mean pork roast

Old Faithful strikes again….

Working in the arts often means keeping strange hours. Lately I’ve been getting home from work between 10:30 and 11:30pm. The typical nightly ritual of nine-to-fivers who come home, eat dinner, watch some TV, and go to bed is pretty much out the window in my house since by the time I get home I’ve already eaten dinner. If I’m lucky, I have enough energy to drink a beer and fall asleep on the couch to the first 15 minutes of Project Runway on the DVR… Anyway, my co-worker Tony was gloating on Friday about his ingenuity in reshaping the theater schedule to include more home-cooked meals.

Enter, once again, the magical slow cooker.

I’m all about multi-tasking, and what better way to multi-task than to cook dinner for tomorrow while you’re sleeping! So, instead of the aforementioned 15 minutes of Project Runway I threw the typical meat-veg-liquid combination in the slow cooker and this morning I’m greeted by this:

Friday nights just got a little crazier in my house. I might be doing this often…

Overnight Pork Roast

Ingredients:

Pork Shoulder (with or without bone)
Vegetable of choice (something sturdy like carrots, potatoes, onions, and celery), cut into big chunks
Liquid (water or broth)
S & P, or, a seasoning mix like Adobo

Loosely place the veggies on the bottom of your slow cooker and rest the meat on top. Rub salt and pepper or spice mix onto the pork shoulder and cover with liquid. Set cooker on low to cook overnight and grab a beer.

The Crock Pot (a.k.a. “Old Faithful”) makes tomato sauce

tumblr_mb490p2Heq1qmywbko1_500 — “Old Faithful”

I pseudo inherited my crock pot from my mother while foraging her basement on a Sunday trip to the suburbs. This 1975 Sears “Crock Watcher” is older than me, but undoubtedly in better condition.

If the 70’s got anything right, it’s the slow cooker. The idea that I can stick something in there at 6am before I leave for work, cover it with liquid, and come home to a good smelling house AND dinner still boggles my mind, and I do it about every other week…. sometimes more, sometimes less.

Lately Old Faithful has been working overtime cranking out tomato sauce to stock up for the winter. I bought 30 pounds of tomatoes from Midnight Sun Farm over the course of three weeks and have made tomato processing an obsession.

After an epic fail on the stove of sauce that was way more juicy than saucy, I revamped my approach. Ok, it wasn’t entirely a fail, just a misunderstanding between me and the tomatoes, really. After consulting mom (my go-to for kitchen mishaps) and my friend and fellow canning-enthusiast Toni Camphouse, I opted to try the slow cooker approach, and I’m never turning back.

Homemade Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Tomatoes (duh)
Salt
Lemon Juice
Canning jars and lids

Core and quarter tomatoes and fill your slow cooker. Prop the lid open with a spoon and cook all day on low.

tumblr_mb4acn3HC51qmywbko1_500 — The great tomato stock-up begins…

Using a blender or immersion blender, puree the tomatoes until smooth. Pre-fill canning jars with salt and lemon juice. For quart jars, use 2TB lemon juice and 1 tsp. salt*. Half those if using pint jars. Add sauce to jars and fill to 1/2″ from the top. Cover with lid and band, twisting until hand tight.

Add jars to water bath (making sure the water covers the jars by at least 1 inch). Once water is boiling, reduce heat to a rolling boil and set time for 30-40 minutes (30 for pint jars, 40 for quart). Remove from water bath and set on a level surface to cool (don’t shake the jars). Store for as long as you like, or about a year, whichever comes first.

* You can add seasoning to your sauce before you jar it, but I prefer to do it once I open the jar so the herbs and spices are fresher.

Summer draws to a close

ConnectFour1-3632 — Fall 2011 at Portage Park Farmer’s Market | Photo by Kelly Rose

We’re on the heels of my favorite season. The mornings now have a bite in the air, fashion scarves and sweaters are becoming imperative, and everything around me is turning into orange-y and amber hues. Though I’m a California girl at heart, I’ve lived in the Midwest for almost 25 years. The one thing about living here that has kept me from continually accosting my parents for moving us across the country is the leaves. Well, they have leaves in California, but they don’t turn orange and gold and burgundy.

Some people live life with rose-colored glasses; my glasses are burgundy.

Plus, the idea of not sweating profusely every time I go somewhere is highly appealing to me.

The farmer’s market is becoming particularly bountiful, and though it’s sad to see summer squash and tomatoes go out of my life, the beginning of fall means it’s “squirrel time”. What I mean is, I’m trying to make time to take everything that still just barely at it’s peak of freshness and dry it, freeze it or can it for the winter.

I’ve always wanted to make an attempt to preserve enough produce to make it through the winter without buying a shriveled up zucchini that was grown in the middle of Mexico and shipped to my local store on a refrigerator truck.

Wishful thinking…

I know that this isn’t the year for me to make this happen full stop, but nonetheless I’ve managed to buy and can or freeze 25 pounds of tomatoes, pickle a bunch of beets, blanch and freeze broccoli, eggplant, and green beans, and there is a batch of crispy squash chips in the oven as I type. I got a really big squash in my CSA box last week, was told it would be the last one, and, having eaten one squash too many, this is what I chose to do with it:

Squash Chips

Ingredients:

Zucchini or summer squash, thinly sliced and dried on a paper towel
Olive oil
Salt

Line a baking sheet (or two) with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (spraying it with cooking spray works fine too). Arrange the squash slices in a single layer and coat with olive oil using a pastry brush. Sprinkle with a modest amount of salt and bake at 275-F for a LONG time (several hours). When they are firm and crispy, they’re done.

A great substitute for potato chips, use these chips up in about three days, stored in a plastic bag or wrapped in a tea towel