Using this I can make chicken parmesan without having the bottom get soggy, let the fat drain off of a meatloaf, or make some pretty awesome bacon.

Meatloaf can be a little tricky to make on an open rack through, right? Its just a loaf of ground meat balanced on a wired rack. I wanted to find a way to drain off the fat, but I really didn’t want to buy one of those loaf pans with holes in the bottom. To me, meatloaf should not resemble a loaf of bread.

So I took some heavy foil (another kitchen favorite) and put it over the rack. Now that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to just have it on foil. So I poked it.

I poked it a lot. This is why I wanted to have heavy foil, so it’ll stand up to the meatloaf weight and also the poking. I used a large pen to make the holes, so there would be lots of places

The foil worked really well. The fat drained off and out of the meatloaf and it didn’t have a whole lot of congealing fat attached to the sides of it. Sounds yummy huh? Plus I could cook my potatoes on the same rack and have dinner ready at the same time.

Awesome!

The Husband was trying to be a good man and cook me dinner one night. Dinner was bacon sandwiches. His version of a BLT is just bacon, bread and mayo. I appreciated it, gave him a hug and told him never to do that again.

I can’t eat that much bacon. I need balance. I need veggies!

So I’ve found a great way to store bacon when I know we won’t get to that much bacon in one sitting.

Well… Ok we COULD get through that much bacon in one night but we really don’t need to be doing that to our poor arteries.

I saw this method somewhere, I don’t remember and its been a while, but I LOVE it. The idea of individually frozen pieces of bacon just make my life better. And easier!

Take some parchment paper, and place a piece of bacon down. Fold over. Place another piece on top. Fold over. Place, fold, repeat, then freeze! Forgive the lack of picture, lighting has been weird lately with the weather/time changes.

This way you can pull out as many pieces as you need. Only have to unroll and stick them in the oven or pan. You don’t really need to defrost bacon, it just goes with the flow. Just store it in a freezer safe zip-top bag and squeeze out as you can. It’ll stay good for probably a few months, but then again I wouldn’t know since it doesn’t last that long in my house!

It’s an addictive substance that I am so glad is socially acceptable.

The one thing I really hate about cooking bacon is the splattering, popping and eventual burning flesh and running away from the angry grease. So I’ve been looking for a way to make bacon without the fear I have of the burny fleshyness.

And the time. It takes too long for the bacon to cook in my opinion.

So after watching so many foodie shows on TV I’ve decided to start baking my bacon. Awesomeness. I don’t have to worry about splattering grease on myself and it’ll have it all be cooked and done at the same time!

Mmmmm… Bacon…

I bought this nice and wonderful contraption at Kohl’s before Christmas, an oven safe cooling/baking rack, and it has truly been my favorite thing ever to lower the fat in cooking. It can handle up to 475F I believe, but you don’t really have to use this, you can just lay the bacon on the tray and it’ll work great also.

Always line your baking sheet with a large piece of heavy duty foil, this way you don’t have to do much clean up at all and you wont mess up your pans with all that bacon grease. To bake your bacon, always start with a cold oven. That’s my opinion at least. It seems to cut down on the splattering and grease craziness in the oven. It also helps your meat strips to lay flat.

Lay as much as you can in your pan without overlapping the bacon, the more bacon the better my life.

Cook the bacon at 375F for about 15-20 minutes or until the crispness that you want. Thin bacon cooks MUCH faster than thicker cut, so you really have to watch your bacon the first few times until you get the hang of it. It also seems to take a little longer to cook on the rack, probably because its not cooking in the grease.

There is a definite texture difference if you cook it on the rack rather than just on the pan, it still tastes great but it does feel different in your mouth. Cooking it without the rack will produce bacon very similar to cooking on the stove. Either way its great. I think I just like the fact that the grease is draining off as it goes. It probably doesn’t make much of a difference calorie wise but it makes me feel better.

But here’s the thing. I hate cleaning up after making bread. I always end up with little bits of dough that completely clog up my cleaning sponges. It makes a great glue but that really isn’t what I want in my sponge.

This is probably a very familiar sight to anyone who bakes their own bread on a regular basis. The spoon or other mixing utensil is completely covered in raw dough, not to mention your hands and the bowl.

It’s also a bitch to get out from under your nails.

Recently I’ve been able to make the dough removal task quite a bit easier and not quite as gross on my scrubbing sponge. And you probably already have one in your shower, though you’ll probably want to buy a new one for this use.

Do you recognize that? Its one of those shower poof/loofah things. No really, it is. I’ve seen things that have that same type of material wrapped around it for scrubbing, but that’s not really the point is it? If you buy one of those then you have to keep reusing it unless you want to spend another few bucks for a clean one.

And really, that’s not very cost effective for me.

What I did was bought a small one that cost around $1, got some scissors and cut the string holding it together in the middle. There might be a few strings depending on how big of a sponge you get.

You never really realize how much “loofah material” there is until you unravel it. I then roll it all up and keep it in a cupboard next to the sink for easy access.

Now for the easy part. To use: cut, scrub, toss. You don’t need that much of the stuff to un-goo your cooking utensils and make them all shiny again. It really effectively scrubs off all that leftover dough and lets it go mostly down the drain instead of into a sponge you’re keeping.

It might seem like more work to scrub first and then almost re-wash it. However, unless you’ve baked bread or anything gooey on a regular basis it feels like a life saver.

Plus the best part.

Once you’ve gotten all the dough off and your loofah is all gooey you can just throw it away.

Bliss.

My skills with a bread knife and cutting in a straight line leave much to be desired. Its also probably why I can’t cut fabric in a straight line either. I think I have a genetic disposition to having a crooked hand.

I really hate the fact that my bread all turns lopsided when I try to cut into it. If you notice the cinnamon swirl bread on the right, the slice was rather lop sided. Either one end ends up twice as thick as the other or just all around retarded looking when I would come after it with a knife to enjoy its yeasty goodness.

I also hated the fact that I could never slice a good slice for a sandwich. Not only was it horribly lop sided but also super thick. More conducive to french toast than a turkey sandwich.

I had been thinking of buying a bread slicing guide online, but they always had such bad reviews for being cheap, thin plastic that would break or crack easily if used often.

But then I found this “beauty” while at a local thrift store. I love thrift stores, I think a good portion of my cooking and baking supplies have come from there. It only cost about $3 and was a nice sturdy plastic. I almost didn’t get it since I thought I would never use it.

I use it multiple times a day.

Its great because each slice is the same width and perfect for a sandwich. PLUS you don’t have that weird bread tilting thing going on after I’ve cut the bread.

Who knew that such joy could be found for only $3…

A while back I decided I wanted to make fresh pasta. Why? Well, because I could. Plus I had never had fresh pasta and really wanted to try it. So I went out and bought a manual one.

It served its purpose, it helped me make pasta. But there really is one bad thing about it. Its MANUAL. As in you crank it to pull the pasta through.

I can’t tell you how tired my arm was after doing this. It was really quite annoying. Unfortunately now I’ve lost that damn handle crank so I can’t even use the stinking machine.

But then the times change…

I was given a KitchenAid mixer for my wedding, which I think was one of the best things ever to happen to me in the kitchen. It made everything easier.

Later I was given these for my birthday or Christmas (can’t remember which):

The pasta roller and cutter attachments for my lovely mixer. The heavens opened and the angels started to sing!

Well not really, but that would have been pretty awesome.

Unfortunately they got put in the back of a cabinet and I didn’t find them until months later, still sealed in the box, behind my crock pot. I knew I had to break them open and put them to use. But first it really did take me forever to figure out how to get them attached to my mixer.

I’m not one for reading directions.

Isn’t it AWESOME!? I love it. And now I’m off to make pasta…

Don’t give me that look. I know its slightly crazy…

After buying my bulk spices and putting them in their pretty bottles, I became inspired. I started looking around online for the best way to store your spices to get the longest shelf life out of them. Especially with the amount of spices I have its important to get the most out of them.

While plastic is good, it’s not usually the best way to store things. Plastic can absorb the smells and not keep whatever is in them as fresh as possible.

So off I went to find my spice bottles. I got a great deal at IKEA on small glass jars and bought a whole bunch of them. Since they are only a few bucks for a set of 4, it cost me less than $15 for the lot of them.

There was only one problem, with all the spice jars the same size and height, it’s hard to find them in the cupboard.

So I built my own spice rack/shelf/thing out of some materials I had laying around. A small piece of wood, foam core and glue. I love glue. I also accidentally glued the foam core to the side of the cupboard, but it came off easily without causing any damage (thank you hot glue being pliable while still even slightly warm).

The shelf turned out pretty good, so while I waited for the glue to get nice and hard I moved on to the jars. I washed, dried, labeled… I made my own perfect system.

Now the spices are easily seen, and well preserved. No flip tops that could potentially not close, no plastic that can seep its flavor into my spices.

They hold quite a bit of spice, so that works out great when I accidently get too much from the bulk bins. Plus there is just something beautiful the way the light is filtering through the spices jars.

Its like my own little spice army!

There is one thing that you didn’t get to see. I had to redo the sides of the rack to make them just slightly taller. Not to mention the melt down I had when I realized it might not fit in there. Or when it stuck to the wall because the glue wasn’t dry…

But… The effect is something wonderful. Now my spices are all in order. Mostly. I’m still working on how I want them arranged. Alphabetical? By usage? Sweet? Spicy?

Too many options.

I somehow have the feeling that I’ll eventually move the spices to a drawer or something. I’ll obsess over this until its perfect. Then I bet I’ll change it again. But for only $15, its not really a bad deal.

Ah, neurotic tendencies, I love you.

Not only could I find the plain couscous that I had a hard time finding, but it was a hell of a lot cheaper! I also found some flour that I had never used before that I’ve wanted to try, some pasta… I love it. This time I bought some quinoa, orzo, spelt flour, couscous, semolina flour, and basmati rice.

And then the spices. The main reason I was excited about bulk spices was because of my pitiful failed curry project. I didn’t want to spend all this money on spices that I wouldn’t even know if I liked, so instead of spending $2-$3 on a small bottle of spice, I ended up spending around $0.20 instead and still had plenty of spices left over.

The only problem with buying in bulk is trying to find containers for what you’re buying, especially if it’s something new.

There really is just something so beautiful with the spices in a glass bottle. It makes it easier to see how much is left of the spice, plus its just more appealing than those darn plastic ones…

Uh oh… I feel something strange is about to happen…

Really lazy. So in order to feed my need of being lazy, especially with the really yucky schedule I’m on, I do things like cook for an army.

No really, I’m lazy. Cooking for an army during the weekend helps me during the week.

I make mass meals that I can freeze for lunches during the week. This way I don’t have to get up so early during the week to make lunches. Plus there are only so many times that a cold sandwich can feed that gnawing pit of a stomach without getting boring.

So a few years ago I decided that I can put my inability to cook for just two people to my advantage and to start making things I knew would freeze well. One of the favorites in our household is enchiladas (in this case they are sour cream and chicken enchiladas). Cheese or chicken doesn’t matter, but it makes quite a nice complete meal with rice or beans (in this case a Spanish rice I’m trying).

I mean who wouldn’t want to have a nice filling lunch in their busy day in the middle of a cubical jungle?

I generally try to make sure I always have a lunch labeled, ready and available for every day of the week for my husband and I. Sometimes I don’t get to it, but I do try hard to.

I am the queen of frozen lunches.

I think I need a scepter.

One of those days I found a cake mix and frosting in my pantry. Awesome. However, weird things happen when I decide to get creative in the kitchen.

I get a little obsessive. And slightly crazy.

First you take your perfectly cooked, unsuspecting cakes and let them cool. It’s better to frost cakes when they are completely cooled, or else the frosting will just tear up the cake.

Then… Off with their heads! That statement generally comes out just after I finished topping off the last cake and I start waving the knife around and laughing while “off with their heads” plays in my mind. I wonder if the cakes are sad to see their heads sitting on a plate…

See, told you I’m crazy.

But no worries, their poor removed bits were quite tasty.
Why do I suddenly feel like Hannibal Lecter?

I always put the cake cut side down on whatever platter I’m frosting on. This way the top is perfectly leveled. A bit obsessive and I’m not sure if my reasoning is correct, but I like it. It is always advised to put wax or parchment paper under the cake in overlapping pieces, keeps the platter clean from the frosting.

I just realized I should have cleaned the kitchen before taking pictures.

After putting a layer of frosting on the bottom layer, I put the other layer (cut side down again) on the frosted layer. Look, it’s level!

And now its obsessively finished, I tried getting completely perfect and smooth sides, but it didn’t work too well. But the sides were pretty awesome. I should have gotten a shot of my offset spatula, its “blade” is about 8 inches long which makes it GREAT for frosting cakes and making almost smooth sides.

This is why I put pieces of wax paper under my cake, so I can pull them out and not have frosting making a mess of my pretty platter. I think I learned that on the food channel or something.

Now unfortunately my pretty display of cake didn’t last too long. The husband decided he wanted a big slice, but that’s ok. I’ll find something else to be obsessive about.