Random Chatter: 4/23/14

Last week there were major changes in the next phase of our interior renovation plans!

We took off the paneling on much of walls on the main floor in preparation for taking out/adjusting some walls and having some floor sagging issues diagnosed.  We decided to remove most of the knotty pine paneling in this part of the house, though we are going to repurpose some of it in another area.  Between needing to replumb, rewire, do new ductwork, and add insulation (there was none!), it became clear that it was going to have to come down.

I recently cooked a pork tenderloin for the first and now I am wondering why such a wonderful cut of meat has been a secret to me for so long!  It’s $2.98/lb at Sam’s Club, and as the price of ground beef has risen (I buy it at Ranch Foods and the price has gone up a bit recently), I’ve realized that other cuts of meat are not as comparatively expensive as they once were.  Anyway, we are loving the tenderloin!  My favorite recipe so far is the Maple-Glazed Pork Tenderloin from Cook’s Illustrated.

As an aside, am I the only one who always underestimates how much time it will take me to cook dinner?  I am a Chris Kimball-style cook with a Rachael Ray mindset, and those two styles shall never meet.  One of these days, I will realize that I almost never have dinner prepared in less than 1.5 hours and will start cooking at an appropriate time.  (This is one of the problems with not having a busy, have-to-leave-the-house schedule – it’s rarely a big deal that we eat later than planned so I have not suffered the consequences often!)

We have some Western Bluebirds nesting in a bird house on our barn and I am so happy!  They don’t come to my feeders and I’m not sure that I’m ready to invest in a bluebird-only feeder, so being able to see those beautiful birds flying to and from our barn is awesome.  I am startled by the male’s brightness every time I see it in flight – the blue is so vivid.

My six-year-old and I are almost finished with the Little House book series.  We still have The First Four Years and Farmer Boy to read, and I have to admit that for whatever reason, we’ve only read part of Little House in the Big Woods.  It has been so fun to watch Laura grow up.  I don’t think the latter books would be half as good if you hadn’t read the earlier books.  How happy I was for Laura when they finally had a social life in Little Town on the Prairie.  Ha!