Another snow day, another space organized

This time there's no school because of the ice storm, it's starting to seem like every Wednesday there's no school.  While, I don't mind sleeping in, I've always considered snow days to be like free days, stay in your jammies and snuggle under a blanket watching movies all day.  But no more!  (OK, not completely, we're still in our jammies, I've got a blanket on and there's a movie on two of the three TVs in our house...)

But, I'm proud to say, I have accomplished organizing another space today!  Here is what I started with:

This is the corner of the kitchen where everything ends up.  Now, many of the items have a home, but not everyone puts them where they belong.  There are also several of things that end up here because they don't belong anywhere.  This is where other family members put things when they are "cleaning up" and it drives me crazy!

I took everything off the counter and cleaned it.  I got rid of whatever I could (trash, give-a-way and put-a-way) and thought about how I'd rather the space be used.  I know no matter what I do, this will continue to be a catch all space, so I need to be able to better contain the (for lack of a better term) crap!

I must admit, I've been thinking about and planning cleaning this space for a few days, since Friday actually, as that is my clean the kitchen day on my "chore chart."  After spending some time in local stores and online, I still wasn't finding the "perfect containers."  Turns out, I had a few things in my basement that will serve as a good start before I spend any money on the wrong kind of container/storage/basket or whatever.  This will give me a chance to see what works and what doesn't.  Here is what I found:

An older style plate/serving stand from Pampered Chef and some wire baskets from Avon.  I stuck plastic sandwich containers in the bottom of two to keep little things from falling out.  If this works, I'll make up some cloth basket liners, which will make it look so much nicer.

After a much longer time period than I wanted to spend on this area (that whole, kids home thing... why do they keep wanting me to feed them!?!?!), here is the result:

I ended up using a Longaberger basket I had to hold the pencils, pens, scrap paper that was previously in one of those silver bins on the fridge (that is what is black on the right side).  Since there were always too many, it made the bin too heavy, therefor within O-man's reach.  My old canisters that I had in a give-a-way bin but never managed to actually give-a-way now hold the bread flour (bread machine has recently re-surfaced and being used almost daily), Olvaltine and miscellaneous stuff.  One of the baskets has chargers that are always homeless, another one has the extra tissue packets, inhaler and a few other things that always end up stashed in this corner and the front most basket is full of "crap" that I don't know what to do with but can't get rid of.

Here is a little tip ya'll might find helpful when organizing while the bread machine is baking away... don't forget you're baking bread and unplug it... the doughy mess is now a funky looking blobby loaf that hopefully cooked all the way through in the regular oven...

Peace be with you,

PS - a month of eating "Lessmeatarian" style and reduced processed foods and I'm down a whole 5 pounds, two inches in the waist and an inch off the the arms and legs!

Pancakes, Nutella and 2.7 Pounds

When I was in college, my mom would mix up the dry ingredients to her healthy pancakes, send it to me in a big zip lock bag with the rest of the recipe written on the bag.  All I had to do was add a cup of the mix to the wet ingredients, cook them up and I'd have a taste of home.

As a kid, my mom always sent us off to school after a hot breakfast.  While I always wanted to do the same, I am not a morning person, so I've never done very well at hot breakfasts during the week.  My middle one loves pancakes and would gladly live on them, especially Grammy's pancakes.  So, last weekend I got out a large Tupperware container and mixed up several batches of the dry ingredients, so all I have to do is add the wet ingredients and I can actually get pancakes on the table before school.  No school today, but we still had our pancakes!

I "try" to always make one completely random shaped pancake!

Here's the basic recipe (Mom, comment if I goofed with something):
1/2 C Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 C Ground Corn Meal
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1 C Skim Milk
2 Eggs
1/4 C Applesauce (Mom uses oil, I'm trying to slip fruits and veggies in where I can)

If you mix up multiple batches of the dry ingredients, you would add 1 Cup of the mix to the eggs, milk and applesauce.  Mix it all together, adding a bit more dry mix or whole wheat flour if you like the batter to be really thick.  I use an ice cream scoop to drop the batter onto the griddle, flip when bubbles are forming around the edge of the pancakes.  Makes about 16 pancakes (42 calories, 2.2g protein, .8g fat each per sparkpeople.com)

Now in my house, Nutella is a staple, so instead of syrup, they make Nutella Pancake Sandwiches, sometimes they use peanut butter (with or instead of) but either way, they usually have chocolaty grins when they are done.  I usually offer to put fruit in the pancakes, but they typically go for the plain ones and have their fruit on the side.

On a slightly food related note, over at Sew Chatty, Elizabeth, is hosting Weigh in Wednesday.  While I'm not using Weight Watchers, I am using sparkpeople.com to track my exercising, nutrition, recipes, etc.  I'm happy to say my family has eaten very healthy this past week and I have lost 2.7 pounds!