Saturday with a little seasoning

I woke up at 7:00 AM and made coffee. Sitting in the office, I noticed I could hear the birds chirping outside. I posted the Blog entry and then called in the prescriptions I need to pick up today at CVS. I stripped the bed and threw the bedding in the washer.

This weekend is all about getting small projects or chores done. They seem to have been accumulating and I want to get them out of the way before the outdoor season starts.

I started by planning my weekend ToDo list. I threw the bedding in the dryer, and put the next load in washer. I put on my old therapy sweatshirt and sweatpants (to ward off the cold) and went out to the garage. I lay on the cement floor and removed the lawn mower blades. This took some doing (mainly to break the nuts free) and would lead me to suspect that they used air tools when they assembled the mower.

I put the best looking blade in the car and went in to shower and dress. I headed out on a rather short errand run. The first place I went to was the new super-size Walmart's. Back when I first moved here, I went to the old Walmart's once and vowed, "Never again!" The old store's aisles were very narrow, people were jammed everywhere, there were only two checkout lanes and, while the prices were good, I just didn't like the whole experience.

But this one is much, much better! Bigger aisles, a whole food section (which saved me a trip to Meijer's or Kroger's for a dozen eggs). There are still a lot of people, but this store has enough checkout lanes to accommodate them. "I'll be back!"

I have been looking for a deal on a 4-quart round slow cooker for some time now ("crocodiling" as B___ calls it) and found a Hamilton Beach one here, with the removable inside, for under $16! So, while it wasn't on the list, in the cart it went.

Now, why, with having the beautiful oval 6-quart slow cooker Lu gave me a while back, do I want this? The big one is, well, too big for just me. I have to put in way more ingredients to fill it than I usually can eat, even with leftovers. I had a small one (the old family one from years ago) that I foolishly threw it away when I got the new one. But, now I can use the big one for big dinners and the small one for weekend meals for just me.

Next was a visit to Home Depot. I spent a long time looking, but could not find any matching mower blades, not even their "universal" ones. I am a little nervous about that, but will try Sears sometime next week. They usually have a lot of this sort of stuff. If not, I'll have to find a Troy-Built parts distributor, I guess. Thankfully, they did have the sink parts I needed.

I got home and changed clothes, ate a quick sandwich and started on the rest of the list. First, I cleaned off the work bench in the garage, put all the hand tools back in their place and blew off all the sawdust. Then, I swept out the garage. I got out the sawhorses and a board and made a small table outside to clean off the grille grates and my indoor grill pan.

So, I took them out of the oven and, with some damp paper towels, cleaned the powder out of the oven itself. If you have a self-cleaning oven, you know what I mean. If you don't, it's the ash left from the high heat burning the crud off the oven walls and racks, etc.

I used a drill and two wire brushes (one straight and one cone-shaped) to get the ash and rust off the first two grates. Then I lined two cookie sheets with tin foil and put them on the bottom oven rack. I preheated the oven to 350 degrees F.

I took two of the grates and washed them in the sink with a Brillo pad. After rinsing carefully, I put them on the top rack for 3 minutes to dry them off and warm them up. Then I smeared Crisco all over them with a kitchen towel and put them back in the oven upside down on the top rack for one hour to season them. I did research this online and found if you turn the frying pan or whatever upside down (with the cookie sheets to catch drips) it avoids flat spots you can get if there is too much grease in the pan.

I went back outside and did the remaining grate and my grill pan. I set those on the kitchen counter for later and went out to put away the tools and sawhorses, etc. Then I went out back and refilled the suet cage and the bird feeder.

Now it's was almost 5:00 PM and I had wanted to take a nap. So, I got my book and climbed into bed. There is something so wonderful about clean, cool, fresh-smelling sheets! Unfortunately, I never did fall asleep, but I did manage to clean the next set of cast iron and get them in the oven to season, while the first grates cooled on my rack. I also finished my book (the second of five).

After that, I got out of bed at 6:15 PM and went to work on the sink. Yes, the kitchen sink! I never did get the small drips to stop, so at Home Depot, I bought a new tail pipe and special washer, along with a new trap. I replaced everything and, miracle of miracles, NO LEAKS!!! I gave a silent thanks to the plumbing gods, but being a bit skeptical, didn't put everything back under the sink, just another two sheets of paper towels. I'll put everything back Sunday morning, if no further drips occur.

I let the second batch of cast iron cool off in the oven with the door open while I made a quick dinner. Brats again, Boiled in beer, then pan-charred. I ate three of them on (gulp) "organic, multi-grain buns" with yellow mustard.

I decided enough was enough and quit for the night. I watched a movie recommended by both B__ and Jake: "Departed." It was excellent, and riveting enough that I stayed awake until it ended. Then I watched a TV movie, "Stone Cold" with Tom Selleck. It was good, but I did doze off somewhere in there and don't know how it ended. So Saturday came to a close...