Project Downsize: Day 2

Project Downsize Items
1. Plain Pint glass
2. Plain Pint glass
3. Plain Pint glass
4. Coffee mug
5.  Coffee mug
6. Yellow sweater that is too short. If I lift my arms, it doesn't cover my belly. Yikes!
7.

Project Downsize 2014

I live with my boyfriend in a two bedroom apartment. Every closet is full and every cabinet is stuffed and we still have too much junk laying around in piles and boxes. We also have a 10 x 10 storage space that costs me $109 a month to rent (for stuff I don't even use!). Last year, I spent a good amount of time weeding out stuff and had a yard sale. I made over $100 and our storage space is about two-thirds full now. Woot!

I saw a blog where someone who got rid of ten items a day for a year. That's a little too drastic for me but I do agree with Maria Menounos who said in her book, The EveryGirl's Guide to Life, that organization is the key to happiness and right now, I am a cluttered mess!

Project Downsize means I am committing to donate, throw away, sell, or give away 5 items a day for a total of  1,825 items. I was so excited for this project that I started today when we returned from vacation.

I am going to have another yard sale the first week of April so most of these items will be for sale then.

Project Downsize Items
1 - 3. Plain Pint glasses
4 - 5.  Two coffee mugs

(Can you tell I cleaned out the glass cabinet?! We packed half of the glasses away and got rid of five. Our glass supply was ridiculous.)

Day 4: Sourdough

When I was unemployed, I decided I would try to make bread for us instead of buying a loaf at the store every week. I read Make The Bread, Buy The Butter by Jennifer Reese so I knew that it was a wise financial decision. And let's be honest, I had the time.

Great book. I also make the hummus and the homemade cheese crackers a lot

I couldn't even get a job at the local burger place (and I applied twice in one day). Damn you recession!

Craig's favorite bread is sourdough and I read that sourdough was a better choice for people with diabetes concerns (paternal grandmother had it; uncle and father too) so sourdough was easily the choice for my first homemade bread attempt. I had a bread machine before but that's really dump some ingredients in a machine, let it do the work, come back three hours later for a funny shaped loaf of bread. I wanted to have the kneading, rising, true baking homemade bread experience.

I bought my sourdough started from King Arthur Flour (http://www.kingarthurflour.com; $8.95) and used it a lot. Gave portions away. Made bread loaves, bread bowls, sourdough pretzels, and pizza crust. One of my favorite recipes for a crusty bread with no kneading but that required a good amount of time can be found at http://www.instructables.com/id/Sourdough-Bread/. Delicious.

Then I got a job with crazy hours and my dedication to the sourdough fizzled away. With it went the quality of my sourdough. It's like an animal, apparently you really do need to give it some food, water, and a little TLC every once in awhile. I tossed the neglected starter and vowed someday to start anew.

That day was today.

This time, I made the sourdough myself. Two cups flour, two cups warm water, 1 packet of dry yeast. Mix and let it set in a non-metal container with room to rise for 4 to 8 days.

Stay tuned to day eight or day twelve when the item I make will be a loaf of bread ;)

Day 2: I Made Dinner

Okay punks, I know what you are thinking..."So you made dinner, big deal. I make dinner every night". Well, bully for you. I have a boyfriend that likes to cook and is maybe nine times a better chef than I am. Add the crazy work schedule I have and I rarely make dinner. Maybe once every couple of weeks. So today I made something and it happened to be dinner.

Still think this doesn't count? Well, it's my challenge anyways. I make the rules. Get your own blog and make whatever you want ;)

Today's dinner: Thai Red Curry with Chicken and Green Beans

Maybe you want to make dinner too? If so, here's the recipe:

• 4 oz dried bean thread noodles (the package was over 5oz. i am not going to save or throw away one ounce so I just used the entire package)
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup Thai red curry paste
• 2 cans (14 oz each) unsweetened coconut milk (stupid cans were only 13 ounces each)
• 1/4 cup packed, dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 3/4 lb green beans, halved crosswise on an angle
• 1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breast, thinly sliced crosswise
• 1 large sprig basil, preferably Thai (the store didn't have Thai basil so I used the regular basil growing in my back yard)

1. Place the noodles in a large bowl and cover with one inch of water. Let soak for fifteen minutes andd then drain.
2. In  medium pot, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering. Add the curry paste and cook, stirring frequently, until slighlty darkened, about 2 minutes.
3. Stir in three cups of water (I use chicken broth because why would you use plain water when you can use broth and pucnh up the flavor?!). Add the coconut milk, brown sugar, fish sauce, and the crushed red pepper. Bring to a simmer over medium high heat. Add the noodles and green beans and simmer, stirring occassionally, until the green beans are just tender, about five minutes.
4. Add the chicken and the basil sprig. Simmer until the chicken is just cooked through, about two minutes. 
5. Season with salt. Discard the basil sprig and eat.

Sorry, I didn't take a picture so you can see the deliciousness. Craig's feedback: "dinner was yummy but impossible to eat".

Day 1: Repurposed Food

Lots of people have thirty day challenges in the web-o-sphere. If you know me or read the description on my blog, you know that sticking with anything for thirty days doesn't happen often. Open the door in our second bedroom and see all of the unused supplies I purchased for my future craft projects, for my next hobby. Ha, I started this blog over a year ago and have one official post and three draft posts.

Anyways, enter the 30 Day Make Something Challenge. I am going to make something every day for thirty days and brag about it here. Seriously. I am going to stick with it. Food, craft, friend - doesn't matter as long as I make something. Here we go:

Day 1 

I don't like chocolate (Blah, keep your comments to yourself. I have heard them all before.) So even if I do bake, poor Craig doesn't get many chocolate desserts (and in not many, I mean zero). I feel bad occasionally about this so when my mom recently commented how much she loves Chocolate Cheerios, I knew I needed to buy them for the poor guy. And he ate one bowl. He says he likes Cheerios but the chocolate ones just weren't for him and the big box of two bags of Chocolate Cheerios (i went to Costco) sat on the counter taking up valuable kitchen real estate.

Project number 1: Repurpose those Cheerios. 

I made them into Rice Krispies treats. Well, without the Rice Krispies. It wasn't a life changing Make Something project but it had to be done and was a good, easy way to start. In case you have never made Rice Krispies treats, here's the basics:

Melt three tablespoons of butter; add a bag of marshmallows.

The official Rice Krispies recipe online says to use 40 marshmallows but are you really going to count out 40 and what are you going to do with the extra dozen?! Throw the entire bag in there and you won't have dry, hurt the roof of your mouth marshmallow treats.

Once the marshmallows are melted, remove from the heat and add 6 heaping cups of cereal. You added extra marshmallows so a little extra cereal is a good thing. Spread in a butter coated 13x9 pan with a buttered spatula.

Cut into a square, put in a lunch bag, and send your boyfriend to work with a
lunch time treat.

The Ultimate Mission: Being Organized.

I have a natural tendency to be messy. I own too much stuff and have too many crafty projects laying around waiting for me to complete them. Put all my stuff in a small, one bedroom apartment and add a boyfriend with lots of his own stuff and well, things get a little cluttered around here. Because of this, I am always looking for ways to organize things and keep them a little more ready for friends to stop by at anytime. We aren't there yet, so please call before you come visit :).

Thanks to Pinterest I found this idea for how to store bobby pins. (start small, right??)

http://thekrazycouponlady.com/at-home/tic-tacs-the-unexpected-bobby-pin-storage-solution/

Previously, I kept my bobby pins in a glass jar with hair bands and barrettes. This new method makes it easier to get to the bobby pins. I added a small red ribbon to the case but I didn't like it so it is back to a plain Tic Tac box which I think looks just fine.