Unfortunately, I didn't have any readers' transformations in my inbox for today. So, I figured I would walk around the house and find a few quick things I could transform (organizing or cleaning or something). I thought this was going to be the shortest Transformation Tuesday I've ever done, considering it was just mine and only something quick and easy.
However, it ended up being the longest one ever (not the post itself, but the content for this post). I picked something to transform, and now, six hours later, I'm just starting to write the post for it. Haha!
Since I worked so hard cleaning the pantry to get rid of the pantry moths, I figured I'd tackle my spices today. My spices were all in sealed jars and nothing was contaminated, thankfully. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out this post first.) However, I had a bunch of spice jars on the shelves above my stove and I knew I need to clean the jars and get rid of those old spices. Jerry and I have said to each other at least a dozen times that we "need to do that"; and it became one of those things that we put off.
Being above the stove, the jars accumulated a layer of grime (oil from cooking) and I really didn't like to use them. I have to stand on a stool to be able to reach up there, so I just started using spices from the pantry. The ones above the stove sat there getting bleached by the sun for a long time. (They lost color because they were in clear jars in the daylight.)
I decided to take all the jars down and dump the spices, then wash the jars, refill them with spices from the cupboard and organize the spice shelf in the pantry. Cleaning the jars and shelves actually didn't take very long--maybe an hour. But then I started refilling them and it turned into a big project.
Here is the before and after of the spice shelf in my pantry:
Since mine is the only transformation on this post, I'll share some progress photos, too. Here are the shelves above the stove... yes, they look gross! Even grosser when I stood on a stool to take the picture. Yikes.
I pulled all of the spices out and then cleaned the shelves to get the grease and grime off. That part was easy.
Next came the spice jars. I dumped out all the spices (I had extras in the pantry, which is what I've been using for a while now anyway). Then I put each jar and lid into a container with hot water and dish soap. I washed each one and the grime came off so easily! I am always taken aback with how well dish soap cuts through grease.
I wanted to make sure they were super dry, so I got out the hair dryer and that worked perfectly to dry the insides really well. Then I moved all of my spices from the pantry to the island in the kitchen in order to refill the jars. I cut out ovals from sticker paper, wrote the names of the spices on them, and put the labels on the jars as I filled them.
Naturally, I had a helper ;)
The leftover spices (some of the containers were very big, so I could only put a small amount in the jar) went in an airtight container and I'll just refill the jars as needed.
I wasn't sure how to put them back on the shelf; I don't have a spice rack, but I wanted to be able to see the labels to keep it organized. I could make a spice rack (and I will) but I didn't have time to do that for this post, obviously. I walked around the house looking for anything I could use. Then it hit me to just use some scrap wood for now.
I grabbed some small oak boards and laid them across the shelf like this:
Then I was able to put spices on top of that and also put spices in front; that way, I could see all the labels.
This ended up being MUCH more work than I anticipated. I hadn't planned to clean out all of the spices--I just wanted to clean the jars above the stove--but I'm glad I did this. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time!
Okay, please send me some transformations. Or don't, and maybe I'll tackle another big project next Tuesday, haha. To submit a transformation, just send a before picture and an after picture to me at: katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com. Please include your name and a description of your transformation!
I really wanted a break from writing today, so I figured I'd do a "quick post" of some funny memes. Well, two and a half hours later, here they are! Hahaha, memes are so addicting and never fail to make me laugh until I wheeze. (I use the term "memes" loosely, because a lot of what I save are tweets with or without pictures.)
Sadly, my kids informed me that memes are for "old people" because TikTok is where you go for laughs and entertainment. I've not jumped on the TikTok train and memes will never get old for me!
I saved that one for last because I could not. stop. laughing. I had no idea this is how they x-ray young kids! The last couple of times I've taken the cats to the vet and they needed x-rays, I was wondering how they get animals to stay still for an x-ray. I never looked it up. But now I'm going to.
I hadn't been planning to do a dessert recipe this weekend, but my mom invited us over for dinner yesterday, so I decided to make something to bring to her house. I figured it would be a good opportunity for other people to taste a recipe and give their opinions, too!
After looking through vegan dessert recipes on Pinterest, I ended up settling on Chickpea Blondies from Nora Cooks. I know I've made one of her recipes before (for the life of me, I cannot remember what it was) and I liked it, so I hoped the blondies would be just as good. The ingredients are very similar to Vegan Cookie Dough Dip, which is SO delicious, so I figured it would be something like that, just in bar-form.
I had the ingredients for these with the exception of almond flour. I've never had a need for almond flour, and even though Nora wrote that you can substitute regular flour, I wanted to make it as-written with the almond flour. Apparently, it makes the blondies more moist.
The recipe couldn't be any easier--just put a bunch of ingredients in the food processor and let 'er rip until it's as smooth as it's going to get, stir in chocolate chips, then pour into a pan and bake.
The ingredients: chickpeas, brown sugar, peanut butter, vanilla extract, almond flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and vegan chocolate chips. (You can get the full recipe here on Nora Cooks. I'll link to it again at the end of the this post.)
The recipe didn't say to peel the chickpeas so I'm under the impression that you don't peel them; however, since several vegan-skeptical people would be tasting these, I went ahead and peeled them (not because of taste, but because I wasn't sure what it would do to the texture).
Not pictured: baking soda
You just measure everything out and put it in the food processor.
Note: I really like this texture (it reminds me of Smuckers Natural peanut butter). However, I've read from other chickpea dessert recipes that you can use Great Northern beans (a soft white bean) instead, which will give a smoother texture. I may try that next time, just to compare.
Also, the batter tasted delicious!
I prepped the baking dish, laying the paper crosswise instead of trying to line the whole thing with one piece like I usually do. Spoiler: this worked really well. Thank you for suggesting it!
At this point, I poured it into the pan and smoothed it all out. Then I realized I forgot to add the chocolate chips! So I put it all back in the bowl and stirred in the chocolate chips. Then I had to prep the pan again. And finally, I sprinkled the rest of the chocolate chips on top and it was ready for the oven.
The recipe said to bake for 25-30 minutes, so I figured I would do 25 and see what they looked like, then maybe bake for longer. I started cleaning up the dishes and then I realized that I forgot to set the timer. I'm notorious for doing that! I was trying to think how long they'd been in there when I realized I could check the timestamp of my last photo--six minutes ago. So I set the timer for 19 minutes.
This is completely random and not fitting for this post, but it reminded me of this Siri commercial that is 100% ME. This is probably my most favorite commercial ever, and not just because I love Cookie Monster!
I wasn't sure what to look for when I peeked at them, but when the timer went off, I decided to let them stay in a few more minutes just to be safe. When I took them out, they looked very similar to when they went in, so I hoped it was long enough.
I didn't want to risk having them totally fall apart by cutting into them too soon (even though the recipe says you can cut them after just 10 minutes) so I let them cool on the counter for about an hour, then in the fridge for a couple of hours before cutting. I even sharped my knife so I could cut them cleanly; I wanted them to look good when I brought them to my parents' house!
The texture looked exactly how I like brownies/cookies/blondies: dense and moist, looking slightly underbaked.
Eli wasn't here, but I cut one into three pieces so Noah, Jerry and I could taste them.
Noah: "They're good." I asked him to please tell me what he liked or disliked--he just said, "They're good! I would make these."
Jerry: "These are SO good. I would totally eat these again."
Me: Delicious! They do taste a lot like the Cookie Dough Dip--a chocolate-peanut butter flavor. I would compare it to an underbaked oatmeal cookie with peanut butter and chocolate chips. So good! I hoped that my parents would like them, too. My dad thinks that anything that is made semi-healthier than the original is going to taste bad.
I brought them to my parents' house (Luke and Riley were there, too). I didn't specify that they were vegan or made with chickpeas or anything like that. I just said they were blondies and that I wanted HONEST opinions (it's not my recipe; it certainly wasn't going to hurt my feelings if they didn't like them). Even if it was my recipe, I would rather people say what they really think.
Riley: *Nods her head with a mouthful as I ask her if she likes them*
Luke: *Thinks for a moment* Then: "Yeah, I like them".
Mom: She said a couple of times that they were really good and she was very surprised when I eventually said they were made with chickpeas and almond flour.
Now, my dad. I saved his for last for a reason.
"They remind me of when your mom made this meatloaf one time."
BAHAHAHA! I needed more info, of course.
"She made it with Stove Top stuffing. It tastes like that."
I was cracking up, and totally confused. I swear on my life, they taste nothing like Stove Top stuffing OR meatloaf. He explained that they were kind of gritty and not smooth. Then I realized he meant the texture reminded him of the meatloaf! Not the taste.
So, the texture that I really like (which I would never compare to meatloaf, but more like oatmeal cookies) was what my dad didn't like. Made sense; just personal preference. Now I can't wait to hear his opinion when he tastes the vegan pecan pie I'm going to make instead of my traditional Father's Day pecan pie I make him every year ;)
Overall, I'd say they were a success. I would never try to "fool" anybody into thinking they were made with the typical ingredients--they don't have the same flavor or texture--but they are a very good dessert. I'll make them again for sure! (Next time, I'll try making them with Great Northern beans to see what the texture is like with those.)
I was going to look for a meme for that first picture of this post, but I thought this picture of Duck was perfect! (Well... if it was in focus.)
Since I haven't shared any of the random facts from the daily calendar this week (I literally didn't even pull the pages off of the calendar each day because it's been a crazy week), I figured I'd post a few here. Well, as I was writing this post, I fell down the google rabbit hole and now my mind is just blown. Even if these random facts don't make a lot of sense at first, I end up googling (just to see how accurate it is) and then I stumble upon some really interesting stuff! That is the case for this post...
This one made my brain hurt. I always thought of magenta being a dark pinkish or light purplish color, so I had a hard time figuring out where the green fit in. Jerry was sitting next to me, so I asked, "Magenta is a pinkish-purplish color, right?" He said he thought so, too. I googled magenta to see if maybe I was mistaken about the color, but it looked exactly how I thought:
I showed Jerry and he said, "Huh? I see green and blue." My head whipped around toward him, and I instantly thought of that stupid blue/black or gold/white dress. Remember that? Jerry and I disagreed on the color and we were (laughingly) shouting at each other, "It is NOT blue and black! How could you possibly think that?!" and "There is no possible way that you see white and gold. No way!" It was a pretty funny argument. But still.
Anyway, about the magenta, as soon as I saw his face I knew he was lying. Hahaha! After reading that random fact, I had to read it about 10 more times before I understood. I haven't gotten any sleep this week (and if I do manage to fall asleep, I have nightmares about pantry moths and larvae), so I blame my brain fog on that.
This one started out innocently enough, but when I googled it, I fell down this rabbit hole and now my mind is BLOWN about blindness. I had always assumed that blind people "see" darkness--basically what seeing people see when we close our eyes. But I stumbled upon this super interesting article about what blind people "see"--and the answer is: nothing. Well, I couldn't accept that, and the more I read the more my brain hurt. I just couldn't understand it.
The examples in this article really explained it well, but I still just couldn't imagine would it would be like to not see anything--not even black. Here is where it made the most sense to me:
"To try to understand what it might be like to be blind, think about how it “looks” behind your head. When you look at the scene in front of you, it has a boundary. Your visual field extends to each side only so far. If you spread your arms, and draw your hands back until they are no longer visible, what color is the space that your hands occupy? This space does not look black. It does not look white. It just isn’t."
Maybe I've just been completely ignorant all these years, but it never occurred me to question the fact that blind people don't "see" black or darkness. This is so fascinating to me and I want to read more about it when I have time.
And here's a fun fact just to rest your brain (if it was as confused as mine):
I either read this wrong at first or the sentence was just poorly worded, but at first I thought it meant that Joe Pesci wanted to avoid Macaulay Culkin in order to be afraid of Macaulay when he first saw him. After reading it a couple more times, I realized that Pesci avoided Culkin so that Culkin would be afraid of Pesci.
The finger bite sounded a bit dramatic because you'd have to bite someone HARD to break the skin. When I looked it up, I found a quote on this site from Macaulay Culkin about the incident:
"In one of the scenes, they hang me up on the closet door or something and he says, "I'm gonna bite each one of your fingers off, one at a time.' And during rehearsal he actually bit me. He broke the skin and everything!
"I'm a little nine-year-old boy and he's going around biting (my finger). I still have the scar. I didn't even realise until recently.
"I got really mad at him. I was like, 'I don't care how many Oscars you have, or whatever - don't go biting a nine-year-old! What the heck's wrong with you?'"
I love his response about the Oscars--hahaha! So that's a fun fact.
Okay, I'm going to rest my brain with some Better Call Saul on Netflix. I've only ever watched the first season, way back when it started, but I've been watching it again recently. It's so good! I always really liked Saul on Breaking Bad.
I don't have many pictures this week that I haven't already posted, so this post will be relatively short--and mostly cat pictures, haha. But yesterday's post took me forever to write--all about my "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day"--so today's short post is a bit of a blog break.
I love when I come across one of the cats sleeping in a nearly-perfect circle! The symmetry is so satisfying for some reason.
Those photos kind of show the size difference between Phoebe and Duck. See how tiny she is?
Speaking of Phoebe, she's still hanging in there! She quit letting me give her fluids; I could have kept fighting with her every day, but it was a nightmare. It required two of us: one--me--to hold Phoebe and push the needle in, and the other--Jerry--to control the IV bag. I almost posted the picture I took of Jerry's blood all over the IV bag to show what happens when you try to stick a needle in an unwilling cat, but I decided it was too gruesome ;)
Anyway, I thought that would be the end of the road for her. I tried again to give her the special kidney diet food (it was the ninth out of ten cans; I'd opened the others over the past couple of weeks hoping she'd eat, but she refused to even try it). Well, apparently the ninth time is a charm! She ate about a tablespoon of it, which is a lot for her to eat at one time.
Ever since then, I can get her to eat a few times a day. It's still a big production because the kittens are SO dramatic and when they smell Phoebe's food, they sit outside my bedroom door (I feed her in there to keep the other cats out) and Duck tries to work the doorknob the whole time she's eating. Phoebe is jumpy, so if she hears a noise while she's eating, she usually stops eating to see what's going on.
She still doesn't look great--very skinny and clumpy/greasy fur--but I've been taking her outside a few times a day, which she loves. I'm taking it one day at a time; I know she's not going to be around forever, and I truly thought her time was up a couple of weeks ago, but she's a very resilient cat!
This was a bit of a tense/funny situation when Estelle was chilling in an Amazon box and Duck didn't see her. He jumped on the box, saw Estelle (who flattened her ears back and just glared at him). Duck "ducked" his head (I wasn't sure what other word to use there!) and tried to very subtly step off the box to show submission, but she is ruthless. If looks could kill, well, Duck probably would have lost five of his nine lives that day.
The cats love my electric blanket as much as I do and I was lying on the couch in my bedroom last night reading a book when Phoebe came and laid down on my thighs. Estelle came in a few minutes later and I could tell she wanted to swat Phoebe off so she could lie there. She knows I don't let her bully the other cats into taking their spots, so she very carefully climbed onto the couch by my feet, and then just laid on my shins. It was funny having both of them up there. (And a major test of how large the capacity of my bladder is.)
(Despite what it looks like, that's not crusty food or spiderwebs on my blanket! The cats "knead" their paws on it frequently and they've snagged the fabric, causing little threads to stick out here and there.)
The cats get so much attention on my blog--poor Joey--so here is a picture of him in his glory while we were out walking. He loves this stretch of our walk because I let him off leash and he can sniff around all he wants.
Finally, here is a picture of Noah and his girlfriend, Claire. I think they look so cute together--they've been together since September, but they were friends for a long time before that.
Noah is going to be EIGHTEEN years old in July--can you believe it?! When I started my blog, he was only six. I want to think of something fun to do for his birthday, so if you have any suggestions, let me know! I actually can't remember my 18th birthday...
Well, I just looked in my photos to see if I had any pictures from my 18th birthday, and this is the only one I found, haha. It was taken at my parents' house, so we must have had dinner and cake over there.
The most uncomfortable and awkward 20 seconds of my life happen when people sing Happy Birthday to me. Does any adult actually enjoy it? I don't remember that day, but I do remember that sweater and it was the most itchy item of clothing I've ever worn.
Okay, that's all I've got. Have a great weekend! xo
