Molding, Prep Work and Pasties

I woke up at 6:40 AM and put a pot of coffee on. I went and posted the Blog while it was brewing.

I have to have an eye exam at 11:00 AM, so I can't really get into working on the bathroom this morning. So, I cleaned the house, instead. Jeremy and Jyl are supposed to drop by around 4:00 PM to give me my birthday and Christmas gifts.

At one point, I had all the kitchen chairs moved into the living room and was ready to wash the kitchen floor. I noticed Scruffy was just sitting and staring at the corner of the room. Weird! He reminded me of when they used to make kids sit in the corner at school, so I took a picture.

I had most of the house cleaned by 10:00 AM, when I took my shower. It was snowing hard when I left home and the streets were bad.

I was in and out of the eye doctors by 11:30. My prescription has changed a little, but my insurance won't pay for new glasses for another year. Since the lenses I have are all scratched up, I just ordered some ones ground to the new prescription to be put in my existing frames. It cost me $134.00 US, but it's worth it.

He did make me feel good when he said he can't see any sign of diabetes damage, but bummed me out by reminding me that my right eye can no longer be corrected with glasses to 20-20 (20-25 is the best he can do).

I stopped at Office Depot on the way home and bought one of those "Pay-as-you-go" T-Mobile cell phones. If you remember, I had to give up my company cell phone. It dawned on me that, while I do have AAA road assistance, if I broke down on the road, I now have no way to get through to them that doesn't involve hitchhiking to a pay phone (if I could even find one).

I don't need a cell phone plan, because my home phone (VOIP) is free to anywhere in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. So, this is just an emergency phone. I do need to read up on how I get it activated, etc. along with the 130 minutes I bought for another $25.00. But that can wait a bit.

Back home, I started working on the bathroom. I got the trim up on the inside of the door and around the shower. I stopped at 2:30 PM to make some soup for Jeremy's family. But, when I checked my email, he had canceled due to the snow (smart move) and rescheduled for Sunday at 1:00 PM. So, I stopped the soup at a good point and will finish (or refire, as Carla likes to say, lol) it tomorrow morning.

So, at 4:00 PM, I resumed work on the bathroom. This time I am filling in all the holes in the molding from the nail gun with spackling compound. I finished up at exactly 5:00 PM.

I started to make tonight's supper. I am making my Papa John's pasties (see recipe section). But, I was disappointed with my pie crust the last time. Jake turned me on to an America's Test Kitchen (a PBS show staring Chris Kimball) recipe that, oddly enough, uses 1/2 the water, but substituted with vodka!

Why? "Vodka does two things," Kimball said. First, "it does not react with proteins in flour to form gluten - because gluten means tough."
And since alcohol makes up nearly half of the vodka, it will evaporate as it cooks. "You can add more total liquid," Kimball said, but since the vodka will evaporate in the oven, "you end up with a dough that's light and flaky."

I got the flour, salt and sugar mixed with the ice-cold butter and shortening. Then I added in the vodka and water (I had that in the freezer, BTW) and made a disc. The disc was wrapped in Cling Wrap and put in the fridge.

So, the dough was in the fridge around 7:00 PM for the required 45 minutes (or up to two days). And, I was taking a break before cutting up the meat, potatoes, onions and rutabaga. That was my undoing. As soon as I sat down, I realized just how long it had been since I sat down! And, how nice it was to be off my feet.

I decided it was too late and I was too bushed to complete the pasties tonight. So, I made a grilled cheese sandwich and some Campbell's Cream of Tomato soup for my dinner. Okay, so my inner chef might wince when I do these kinds of meals (Tuna and peas or grilled cheese and tomato soup) but they are childhood memories and GOOD!!!

I did watch some of the taped Saturday morning cooking shows, but I really was tired and gave it up at 9:30 and went to bed.