Fancy pants windows with fancy pants trim

Dad came over Saturday morning and we started working on trimming out the windows in the solarium. We've got a couple more adjustments to make, but otherwise, we're ready for paint!

It's beginning to look a lot like..

..Christmas!
Mom came over one afternoon and hung the greenery, I stuck the wreath up with one of those 3M Command hooks, and the neighbors brought me the Santa this afternoon while I was at work! (It belonged to the woman who lived here before I bought the house...and they feel like it should stay!)

We joked about Santa becoming a traveling fixture in the neighborhood, so - after dark - I snuck it over to the neighbor's house, snapped a picture on my phone, and sent it to them with the caption "Your move."
I'm basically James Bond.

Butcher shop

My grandma's Italian sausage recipe all mixed up and ready to be broken down into one-pound packages and frozen for later use. I would share the ingredients, but then I'd have to kill you.
I've used this in pizzas most often, but it's also great in lasanga and stuffed pastas. Last night's dinner (and today's lunch) was this sausage, onion and garlic, pesto, a little leftover garden tomato sauce from the freezer, and cream all cooked together until the flavors blend. Add a little spaghetti and you're in business!

Diggin' in the dirt

After cutting the old drain pipe out, Dad scooped some crud out of the pipe and we thoroughly cleaned it out with the hose. This way, we're sure there aren't obstructions in the line (for at least 20 or 30 feet) and that water will still drain properly - we didn't ruin anything! ;)

The old clay pipe was - you guessed it - a non-standard size. We used a pair of Fernco rubber couplings to decrease the size of the pipe from the 5" clay down to the 2" PVC. This also insures a better seal as you can't glue or solder to clay. (The skinny white pipe is drainage from the furnace)

Ta-Da! New drain installed and draining like a champ! AND, the sewer gas smell is totally gone from the house!
That little loopy-loop (P-trap) just below the grate stores just enough water to seal out any gas from backing up through the line into the room - the other drain was just a straight pipe with a drain hole, so it makes sense that it would have failed.
This project wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. We're letting everything settle for a while before filling the hole in; once we're confident there are no leaks or malfunctions, we'll tamp the dirt, backfill with gravel, and pour new concrete sloping everything toward the new drain. 

What do you want to do today?

I've been having a little bit of a problem with sewer gas, lately. Not the most glamorous subject, but why start with glamorous now? Anyway, the most obvious culprit is the floor drain in the basement. It's a relatively easy fix and one that we can do cheaply enough. If nothing else, we'll be able to check it off the list of possible offenders before moving on to something more expensive.
Step one was scoring the concrete with a masonry blade..which would have been significantly less dusty with a wetsaw..

After scoring the floor with the saw, we broke the concrete out with a sledge hammer and carried it out in buckets. As you can see, we ended up making the hole bigger so that we could work around the drain a little easier. Once we removed some of the debris from the drain, it really started smelling..hence the towel plugging the hole.

This drain is what they call a "bell" style drain. We'll be replacing it with one that has an integrated trap - the trap creates a seal which prevents any sewer gas from backing up through the line and out into the room. Our challenge now is rounding up all the pieces and parts to fit this non-standard-size clay piping. More tonight..stay tuned!

First Light

I had this past Saturday morning/afternoon to myself to putt around and do pretty much whatever I wanted. Not being content to sit around (at that point), I thought I'd try my hand at making a challah. Come to find out, it was also the first night of Hanukkah..so I guess that worked out pretty well. :)

Challah is a traditional Jewish braided bread eaten on holidays and the Sabbath. According to my quick Wikipedia search: each loaf has six strands...traditionally, two loaves are served with a total of 12 strands symbolizing each of the tribes of Israel. You learn something new every day! 

It doesn't taste wildly different than any other homemade bread I've ever had, but I didn't include poppyseeds or any of the other traditional toppings. I'm liking it toasted, and it makes really good French toast..but it also looks like it's really complicated, so people assume you're a genius if you make one :)
The recipe I used was really straightforward AND taught me how to braid it - No problem!
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-challah-bread-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-181004
Shalom :)

Droooooool

I had finally exhausted my supply of leftover pasta, and decided I might carmelize an onion over my lunch break today. I'd use some for lunch, and save the rest for dinner or something else. I had my mind made up that I might like to make..

..a caramelized onion grilled cheese. It's based on one I had here in town at the bakery (which was WAY good dipped in tomato bisque)..pretty easy, too! Saute your sliced onion over medium heat until it's tender, brown, and sweet. Then I layered cheese, onions, cheese, onions, cheese between my bread and toasted warm. I used ColbyJack because I had some in the fridge..but it would be good with anything. You cannot screw up this much oniony goodness!
NOMNOMNOM

'Tis the Season

..what? You thought I was talking about something else? No! It's seed shopping season! Received my Seed Savers Exchange and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalogues within a day of one another :)
http://www.seedsavers.org/
http://rareseeds.com/