So you'll all laugh

[conuly]

Despite having 36 34 pounds of butter in the deep freezer, when I saw butter was on sale at $1.50 per pound via PeaPod I decided to order another four pounds. We will eat it.

Also, two weeks ago after my grocery delivery I went to walk the dogs and saw that the house around the corner was having their delivery just after mine, and today it was the same thing, and even though I don't know those people and have never even seen them I feel so connected because we're apparently on the same schedule when it comes to grocery shopping.

I also managed to snag lox, so yay. Next time though I'm getting lox AND fresh salmon and trying to make my own, which has got to be more economical if I have room in my fridge.

Jenn's kombucha making has taken over the entire downstairs kitchen*, which I now refer to as "the stillroom" unless the dogs are dirty in which case it reverts to being "the dog washing station". Ana is trying to make rice milk. I just shoved a jar of soon-to-be half sours down there, and in frustration with this enormous head of cabbage taking up space in my fridge I'm either making kimchi or sauerkraut tonight. Also, the bread experiments continue, more or less. And Jenn grew mushrooms from a kit. They sprouted up like mushrooms, it was so cool even though I wouldn't eat them if I was starving. (She also has sprouts.)

What other mad gastronomy should we consider? I am open to any suggestions! Recipes appreciated.

Also also also if anybody has any idea how we can replace the oven element in our attic oven (yes, we have one of those too) that's great - we tried, but it didn't stay in place, which is an obvious hazard so the oven element is now on top of the stove and we really want that oven to work. It's definitely the right part.

* Remember, this is technically a two family house. Thank goodness, too, it means we have an extra sink and an overflow fridge. But not an extra bathroom. That's on the list.

Comments

[james]

Have you made your own yogurt?

Or if you want a weird craft that isn't really food related, you could make a hectograph.

[conuly]

Make a whatowhat?

[james]

It's a copier! Make a pan of gelatin (and other stuff), and then you can press an original onto it (done with certain kinds of ink) and then press blank pages on to make copies.

Its kind of pointless fun.

http://www.w0is.com/miscpages/hectograph.html

[kengr]

I had one when I was a kid. They worked well with carbon paper. That is, you placed a sheet of carbon paper on top of the sheet of paper that was going to be the "master" drew or wrote on a sheet above that.

You could get multiple colors by switching in different colors of carbon paper.

[kengr]

Silly question. Have you tried turning the element *over* and inserting it that way?

[conuly]

There are sillier ideas.

[gingicat]

I will cheerfully send you dried sourdough starter to add to the menagerie if you would like.

[conuly]

Ah, we have sourdough! But thanks :)

[spikethemuffin]

$1.50 a pound? I wouldn't laugh at you if you bought a deep freeze just for that bargain!

Sooooooooo... puff pastry? Croissants? Are you vegetarian?

[conuly]

No. Fuck you just reminded me I wanted to buy phyllo dough this week.

[spikethemuffin]

I highly recommend the Cooks' Illustrated spanokopita recipe when you do. Incredibly inauthentic and very, very good.

One good thing you can do when you have a surfeit of butter is large quantities of caramelized onions/ onion marmalade, which can happen on a stovetop, in oven, or ina microwave, as well as teaching children about how recipes can sometimes hail from mysterious dimensions where the properties of physics are such that onions may be caramelized in the space of 5 minutes.

I am very fond of this butter-intensive sandwich, if you are not vegetarian. Might very well work with the correct meat substitutes:

https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/marlboro_mans_f/

Content note: P-Dub's blog may very well be the origin of this meme:

https://pics.me.me/snakegay-cooking-site-10th-paragraph-of-page-titled-rustic-pulled-36017850.png

which deals with scrolling and paging through 7200 words of personal anecdotes and harshly panting the word: "resippy" under one's breath as one paws at the mousewheel...

The sandwiches are worth it, though.

[conuly]

Of course, they need to put all that flavor text there to ensure you stay on the page long enough that their ads count you as a full pageview.

[spikethemuffin]

That literally never occurred to me... wow.

[rhoda_rants]

I have no advice to offer, but this entire experience sounds magical. Food-making things on All The Floors! *is jealous*

[zesty_pinto]

Is the oven element's not staying in place in terms of the wiring, or that it flops to the bottom of the oven or...? I was curious if this was still giving you problems.

I had the OEM element for my rented stove and the thing... is cheap. We ironically switched to a knockoff with a more stable mount that was a PITA to mount but is guaranteed to stay stable judging how it compares to the OEM.

[conuly]

Wiring.

[conuly]

But given that we can't reach the outlet easily our solution to the oven is to turn off power to the floor, so we haven't tried fixing it since this post.

[zesty_pinto]

Ugh, yeah, in the end we had a similar problem and it involved us pulling out the entire stove. It's lighter than expected (TBF it's some cheap thing mostly sheet metal and insulated fabric), so dunno if the same situation applies to you...