Pressure Cooker Love

About a month ago I finally purchased the pressure cooker that was on my Amazon wishlist for years.

I've already made pulled pork, Chicken Masala, lentil bacon soup, pork fajitas, macaroni and cheese, and black beans with chorizo! Needless to say, I love it!

I especially think it's going to come in handy this summer when (if?) we get hot weather as it's electric and doesn't heat up the kitchen when it cooks.

Right after it arrived, I picked up an 8 lb pork shoulder roast and cooked it for an hour in the pressure cooker using this recipe. We had pulled pork sandwiches that night for dinner and ended up freezing enough leftover meat that we ate 3 more dinners with it!

I purchased it mainly because I loved the idea of having bean soup in less than an hour! Usually it takes hours to make as it simmers on the stove. I've found though, that I use it a lot to cook meat as well.

This Chicken Masala recipe I made a couple weeks ago. I love Indian food and this had all the obligatory spices in it. It was great as a leftover lunch the next day as well.

Naturally, I've made a few pots of beans with it. This black bean soup with chorizo was especially tasty.

I added a little cilantro and sour cream when serving.

With a nice crusty piece of rustic bread, this makes an easy, quick, and healthy dinner.

Most recipes can be converted to pressure cooker recipes by reducing the liquid and time needed to cook. This site offers some great tips on how to convert recipes to cook in a pressure cooker.

My pressure cooker will also work as a rice cooker and slow cooker although I have yet to use it that way.

If you're like me and like good homemade food but don't always have the time to make it, I highly recommend getting a pressure cooker!

A Few Furniture Repurposes

Welcome to Spring! I hope you're lucky enough to be enjoying some warm(ish) weather.  Because of the cold and wet winter we had in Portland, flowers have been slow to bloom. We do have the die-hard daffodils blooming, and of course the daphne is in full scent but other than that it's pretty bare.

Since I'm not in the yard working on the weekends I had some time last weekend to do a few, quick furniture re-purposes.

I shared this table last year. I always thought it was beautiful but for some reason (maybe too formal?) it never sold.

So, reluctantly, I painted the legs and lip white but it still didn't sell.

Last weekend, I finally painted the top and added this stencil to it.

I'll put it in my Home and Patio Sale this July and see if it will sell this time.

Meanwhile, a couple weeks ago I picked up these shelves for free (sorry about the bad phone photo).

These are nice pine shelves with a plate groove cut into them.  I painted them with Layla's Mint milk paint. I think they would look nice in a kitchen holding spices.

I also had an old frame that I had lost the glass to so I converted it to a jewelry (or note or coupon) holder with a little chicken wire that I stapled on.

I painted it and added some burlap to the back over the cut chicken wire so it would be more finished and less likely to cut someone.

All these items will be in the Home and Patio Sale the last weekend in July!

Kitchen Painting Finished

Yes the painters finished up this week and I'm very pleased with the result!

Before we get to the "reveal", I wanted to share the flowers I put together for spring.

Even though it's been raining and grey here forEVER, the calendar does show March and that means spring is around the corner!

This box was originally a bottle box that I repurposed and planted herbs in for Mother's Day last year.

Now it takes on another life as it provides a little color and a hope for spring-like weather.

Ok, on with the reveal!

Every good reveal starts with a before picture, so here it is.

We added crown molding  to the soffits.

Then painted the kitchen and hallway from the original *ALL* yellow...

...to the new greige-ish and white!

There was one snag in painting and I'm glad I hired it out. All the woodwork in the hallway (seven doors!) had latex paint over oil paint. Who would have done that!??? (probably me).

Anyway, it had to be scraped off so the new paint would stick.

I tried to pick a color that blended well with the cabinets, counter top, and floor. This picture shows the true color best.

I'm pleased with how it turned out.

I'm especially glad we opted to put the crown molding up.

To provide more light in the kitchen and because we didn't need it, I removed the blind from the window. Since the blind was original to the house and pretty nice, it got a new life in the bathroom.

I even splurged for a couple new rugs to go with the new paint color. The red rug under the cabinet I got at a Pop-Up-Shop before Christmas. Their rugs are all handmade and beautiful! Check out their website here.

That's it! Several years of searching Pinterest, a year of thinking about it, five months of talking about it and I'm finally finished with the kitchen.

What do you think? Do the colors match Ed and Olive?

Crown Molding Installed

Last weekend we got the crown molding in the kitchen installed. We purchased 4 8-foot pieces of this MDF (medium density fiber board) molding.

We purposely picked this style (flat) because we were placing it directly on the soffit and not on the ceiling.

We cut the boards down to the correct size and then used the nail gun to attach them to the soffit.

So much better!

The tricky part in installing crown molding is when you have an inside corner. Luckily, we had only one.

In this case, one piece is cut at 90 degrees and butts up flat against the wall at the end. The other piece gets the molding profile cut into it so it (hopefully) fits right up against the other piece.

On an outside corner the pieces are cut at a 45 degree angle and the top piece of the molding is cut longer.

This job took us (mostly Jeff) about 3 hours.

The painters are here now so next week I should be able to post the end result!

For now, I'll leave you with pictures of Ed and Olive who are modelling my color scheme for the kitchen!

Here's Olive showing off the lovely burnt orange on her cheek. In the kitchen the color will actually be more of a brick red.

And here's Ed giving us a nice full length photo of all the colors together!

Be sure to check back next week for the final reveal (hopefully)!