Stuffing Casserole

Most of the problem with being at home all the time is that we have started to cook way way more. We very rarely go out, and have to come up with food ideas all the tine. Luckily that's where Pinterest comes in handy and I've been utilizing that a lot. Today we made a recipe I found on there, a stuffing recipe. Here it is, just in case you're interested: 

1 lb. ground sausage

4 Tablespoons butter

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 cups fresh green beans

¾ cups celery, diced

2 cloves garlic, mince

Salt/Pepper, to taste

2 cups chicken broth

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup

1/3 cup sour cream

¼ cup Craisins

14 oz. stuffing mix, equal to 8 cups

½ cup crispy fried onions

Fresh parsley, to garnish

Preheat the oven to 350. Brown the sausage, after it is browned remove it from the pan. Melt the butter, add the onion, fresh green beans, and celery. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper, cook for another minute or so. Add the chicken broth. Turn off the heat, mix in the soup, sour cream, and craisins. Add the sausage back to the pan along with the stuffing and stir until combined. Add to a lightly greased 9X13 pan. Bake, covered, for 1 hour. Remove cover and bake another 5 minutes. Add the crispy onions and bake for another 5 minutes. Top with parsley and enjoy! 

Y'all! This was delicious! It tastes like a freaking Thanksgiving dinner remixed and I'm obsessed, absolutely recommend. 

Quarantine Project: Cleaning the Garage

Well, as we know, I've been cleaning/organizing up a storm with all this free time on my hands. I think I'm down to the last place, the garage. I thought ahead and tried to take a 'before' pic, but hey, I had already done a few items of cleaning in there before I realized, so it's not a good indicator of what it looked like, alas. 

 So here it is. What I did was, I took every single thing that was in the garage out. I cleaned some of it, I did a 'toss' or 'keep' pile, and put some of the stuff in the shed, since that where it should have belonged. That took a while. From start of project to end, it was about 6 hours. By the time it was done, I was sweaty and filthy haha the garage is not a clean place! When I was finished, I had two visits to the city dumpsters to get rid of broken/left/garbage in general. And then when I was done:

Ta daaaa! Looks so good to me! And the stuff in the front left, the orange fan, the yellow box, the Amazon box, is not my stuff. That belongs to people (we borrowed them but it doesn't seem a good time to return them during this time haha) so I'm just waiting until it's better times and then I'll get rid of them as well and have even more space. 

I'm honestly so jazzed to have so many clean and organized spaces. What will I do now that those projects are all done? I'm not sure! Stay tuned! 

Homework in the Time of Social Distancing

If anyone has kids in this social distancing time, you know that now you're the teachers. My sister is doing this now for Darth, who, as we know, is the absolute weirdest kid ever. He had to send in his homework the other day and it was going pretty well ... until the very very end. I was dying at this and of course had to share.

Quarantine Project: Degrease the Kitchen Cabinets

This morning I was like, Self, we're gonna clean the tops of the cabinets today. At this point, I've pretty much cleaned and organized most of the house, so, just gotta keep on keeping on, I think. So I decided that since I was up there the other day getting something and I realized, it's gross up there. So, I searched on Pinterest to see the best way of cleaning it and I got some tips. One of them was just to go to the store, find a degreaser and use that. The other tip (on this same website) was to use vinegar and baking soda. I decided to take a gander at our cleaning supplies and see what we had. What luck! We had a degreaser! A Lysol one.

As I was using this, I was texting a friend about my project. She asked if I was using a chemical one or the vinegar/baking soda one. I said chemical, and she was like, okay good, because the vinegar one just doesn't work haha good to know.

So the first step was to spray this on the cabinet top, wait 2-3 minutes and then use a credit card-type apparatus (I used a frequent diner card for a sushi place I haven't been to in years!) to scrape the top of the gunk off, and using a paper towel to clean off the card. Then I sopped up the liquid with paper towels. I sprayed again with the Lysol, and then wiped it off. After it was dry from that, I used a Clorox wipe and just wiped it down for good measure.

Here's what that looked like as I did it:

Gross!!!! So I slaved on this for a good few hours. And then I ran out of the Lysol, ah, oh no. Husband went into the (NEWLY CLEANED) shed to find another degreaser, he was sure we had one.
Lo and behold, we did!

So I poured this into the Lysol bottle and went to town.
Phew! This was so much stronger! I mean, of course it was, it's industrial, but oh my lord it was so much easier! As I was doing this, I snapped another pic, to show the difference between the cleaned section and the not cleaned section.

Wowza!
Now, I know that I should have taken a pic of ALL of the cabinets after I had cleaned them, but alas I didn't. After they were all clean and dry (with all the windows opened on this chilly and window day to get the smell out) I put some parchment paper on the top of the cabinets. This way, when I want to clean them in the future, I just have to swap out the paper!

Quarantine Project: Shed

Now that we're nearly a month into quarantine, I'm going a bit stir crazy. Unable to see my loved ones or hang out, I've had to just think of stuff to do in the house (since Husband is still working on his PhD, his days are spent writing dissertations and papers so I have to occupy my own time. Which is fine, I'm just letting you know). I've done cleaning and organizing and then a couple of days ago, I decided to tackle the ultimate project: the shed outside.
The shed is a monster. It's a good sized shed, but the thing that I have working against me is that the people who lived here before us left a ton of stuff in there. I never realized how much they left in there until this cleaning endeavor. I now know they left:
Enough wood (fence wood? Wood slats? I'm honestly unsure of what they were there for or being used for) to fill the back of my SUV twice (in taking them to the dumpsters).
Oodles and oodles of paint cans, stain, spray paint, cleaning supplies from 1900, and garden supplies
Tubes, empty cardboard boxes, ropes, PVC pipes with giant rebar inside (??)
So yes, a lot. I've filled up 2 garbage cans with garbage, the aforementioned twice filling of my car, and then I spent a good chunk of time organizing, sweeping, mopping (YES I mopped my OUTDOOR shed and I honestly feel good about it).
It took me a few days and honestly, I have never been so proud of something I've done before in my life.

I understand that I forgot to get a 'before' picture, and that's okay. The view here is just so pretty ... it's probably better if you knew the hellhole it was before, but I think this is pretty dang impressive nevertheless.

Quarantine 2020

Well, today marks a week since we've all started social distancing and some light quarantine. There's not much to blog about because, there's not much happening. Having started the quarantine as unemployed, the difference in life is not much actually. Things are still pretty much as they were beforehand, it's just that Husband is home all the time, and my SIL (who started the quarantine with us on Sunday) is around as well, so there's another person here, so wild.
Things are mostly boring. I read, I clean, I watch stuff, I eat, we hang out, we spend time together. I've never cooked so much dinner in my life and I have never stayed indoors so much in my life haha.
But! We'll make it through this. We can do this, let's flatten the curve, let's kill out this virus.
Stay home, everyone.