If ever there was a job defined as necessary but thankless, this is it. I’ve always giggled over the joke about the husband who comes home from work one day to absolute mayhem. The wife’s reply to his question of what happened was just classic. She says, “You know how every day you come home from work and ask me what in the world I did that day? Well, today I didn’t do it.” It’s a stark reminder of how easy it is to take things for granted until they come up missing or not done.

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Resume:
Maid skills began as a teen and not just at home. I worked for a maid company in New York for a summer and cleaned many apartments for summer cash in the college town where I grew up. My mom taught me many skills early on including gardening, home canning, cooking and cleaning. I really do enjoy cooking and taking care of my home. I believe in beautifying and consequently you’ll find me working on many projects to add to my home. I’ve taken on such tasks as putting down my own wood laminate floor, to finishing a garage and everything in between. I find it’s one of the areas where I can always put my business and organizational skills to work.
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Highlight Articles:

Successful Gingerbread Creations
Happy Chore Time
Simple Balance Household & Laundry IV

Successful Gingerbread Creations
I get so many questions and comments this time of year about my gingerbread houses and cookies. It seemed appropriate to share what I do here for anyone interested!


I’ve used several gingerbread recipes over the years but this one is my favorite and I use it for everything gingerbread:

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup molasses
1/4 cup water
5 cups all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt

I found it in my Taste of Home magazine and it’s just plain awesome. It needs to sit in the fridge for a half hour to hour to make the dough more workable (less sticky) so leave some time for that. You can do it without that step, (I’ve done it before) but it requires the use of more flour and it was harder to get smooth without the chill time. However if you ask my 5 year old it didn’t alter the taste one bit! The link above will take you to the directions, but in short you just mix the first 4 ingredients together until creamy, mix the dry ingredients together first in a separate bowl and then slowly add it to the mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until edges are firm.

Troubleshooting:

• if your dough is too crumbly then add a little water in small amounts (like a teaspoon at a time)
• if your dough is too sticky/gooey then add a little flour in small amounts (like a tablespoon at a time)
• if you are short 1/4-1/2 C of molasses, pour that much water into the jar and swirl it around until the jar is mostly clean and water is slightly thickened and flavored, pour it into your dough.

The next step is rolling out the dough. You need a flat surface lightly coated with flour and a big rolling pin. Most recipes suggest a thickness of about 1/4 inch. For cookies I like to leave the dough a little thicker (remember it will rise as it cooks) because it keeps the cookies softer. But for houses I roll mine a little thinner so it’s not so heavy and will dry faster. Remember to coat your rolling pin with some flour too to keep the dough from sticking and wrapping around it.

Once the dough is rolled out to the desired thickness you cut your patterns. If you’re doing cookies any cookie cutter will work. For houses I make my own pattern. You only need three basic pieces for a simple house: a front and back that is a square with a triangle top, a side that is a rectangle or square that matches the height of the front/back square, and a roof that is just a little larger than the side. Cut two of each and you have the makings for your house.

If you’re a little uncertain, just construct your house with paper first to make sure your pieces fit/work together. The roof needs to be a good 1/2 inch larger on all sides than the sides to ensure coverage once the pieces are put together. Last year I made my own pattern for a church and this year I made a taller two story style home. All I did was played with basic paper patterns to try new things.

I cut my patterns out and then transfer them onto a cookie sheet. If you get easily frustrated moving the pieces then I suggest rolling the dough out on a piece of wax of foil paper so you can just lift the entire thing or even flip it over to drop the pieces onto a cooking sheet. When the pieces come out they will be puffy from cooking. If you’re a perfectionist you may want to use a sharp knife to cut around the edges making them straight. Between you and me, that’s the whole point of the frosting at all the seams and I rarely bother with it unless something really got distorted during cooking. You can cut out doors and windows both before and/or after baking. Just make sure if you do it after baking you do it while the dough is still warm. Additionally, you can make small marks/outlines with a butter knife for windows or doors if freehand isn’t your thing. Then you can just trace over the marks with the icing.

The gingerbread needs to be hard enough to stand without bending before you put the houses together. I’ve never had any fall apart but I’ve heard from plenty of people that experienced a cave in. Depending on thickness that can take a few hours to a full day. This year I cooked mine on Sunday and put them up Monday night. Last year I’m pretty sure I cooked them in the morning and put them together that same night. After they’ve cooled on a wire cooling rack I place them on foil face down allowing more drying through the backsides.

Another fun thing was to make stained glass windows. Simply break a hard candy or sucker into small pieces and put it in the cutout window section. Heat it in the oven for a few minutes - just until the candy melts. The pieces melt into a beautiful stained glass form. I put it on some foil for easy removal once it cools. I’ve also made gingerbread evergreen trees. This year’s pictures show both styles. One used 2-3 sizes of star cookies rotated and placed on top of one another to form a tree. The other I used a tree cookie cutter making two. I cut the second one down the middle before cooking. Then I iced the two half pieces to either side of the full tree and it looked like a 3D tree.

Icing & Gluing:

Some people make special sugar syrup mixtures for gluing their gingerbread house pieces together. I’m too lazy. *snort* I just make simple royal icing. That’s just powdered sugar with a little water. I mix the two until it turns into a thick consistency. It holds and sets quickly and I’ve never had a problem with anything falling apart.

I use disposable icing bags that you can buy in bulk at a craft store. Just cut the ends a drop the tip you want in, push it into place and fill the bag. One helpful tip in filling the bag is to fold it over your hand while holding the base as it will make it easier and keep frosting from getting all over the edge of the bag. The only two tips you need for a gingerbread house are a star tip for ruffles and stars and a round tip for piping and gluing.

For decorating, the plain royal icing needs modification. Otherwise it will be too stiff and won’t hold a shape resulting in a great deal of frustration. Just add some shortening and flavoring (like vanilla or butter) and it will fix that. I use about 1 C of shortening, 1 tsp of flavor (optional), 4 C powdered sugar and a little water. Your elevation has so much to do with the consistency that I’d start with a couple tablespoons of water and add more slowly until you reach the desired consistency. On this last round I just added some shortening and flavor to my royal icing until I got the consistency I could work with.

I weave my star tip back and forth to make a ruffle pattern along all the seams. You can do stars too - whatever suits you. Adding candy is the final step and by far the most fun. *smile*

This year I doubled the batch of gingerbread and it made the three houses. 1 1/2 bags (2LB size) of powdered sugar did frosting for everything and I had plenty left over too.

Citrus Salmon
Yesterday was a happy kitchen success day for me. Today I decided to write it down so I can duplicate it another day! I’m just wishing I’d taken a picture of it. Maybe next time I’ll remember that. I made a tasty crusted citrus salmon with citrus salsa, asparagus and seasoned potato wedges.

We’ve been focusing on healthy but tasty meals at my house. I’m a picky cook. I grew up on food where the purpose was to fill your stomach. Since I’ve been married I’ve discovered the joy of really great tasting dishes at some fantastic restaurants. This has been great, but also a hindrance to me because I want to be able to duplicate these types of fantastic dishes at home and often end up disappointed. Yesterday, however was an exception so I thought I’d share.

A recent trip to Sprouts yielded some good salmon fillets. But I didn’t want to do the typical grilled, baked or broiled variations I’ve done in the past. I opened the cupboard to see what spices I had. The citrus grill spices caught my attention (I purchased this seasoning in bulk size at a recent Sam’s trip.) After reading the ingredients of lemon peel, dill and garlic I got to thinking about what I could do with it. I wondered what toppings could be made in the order of a sauce with similar ingredients. Fueled by success with my corn salsa creations, I thought about trying a variation of that with citrus. I browsed online to see what might come up for citrus salsas to get a frame of reference and came up with this:

2 1/2 C navel orange pieces (peeled and cut over the bowl to capture the juice)
1/4 C lime juice
3 T finely chopped red onion
1/4 C chopped red pepper
1 clove minced garlic
1 t hot pepper blend (black & red chili)
1-2 T parsley

I mixed this and put it in the fridge. Then I crusted the salmon on both sides (removing the skin) with the citrus grill spices by coating both sides with the mixture and browning for a few minutes in a skillet with butter. I put the fillet in a glass baking dish and poured the remaining butter and citrus spices over a separate baking dish with asparagus spears.

Although I’ve done seasoned potato wedges from scratch before, this time I used some frozen ones purchased at the same store. They were red potatoes with olive oil, parmesan and garlic. I spread them out on a cookie sheet lined with foil.

Because I had to leave for about 45 minutes I placed all the items (covered both baking dishes with foil) in the oven together at 325 degrees. When I got home everything was perfectly cooked.

My husband reminded me of something I’d said a few days ago about if I could cook like a gourmet chef I’d enjoy eating in more and out less. Then he said “I think you nailed it today.” Yay!

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