Moms' Cafe

When our children were very young we lived in a suburb of Washington DC in Northern Virginia. Often we would meet Daddy after work and stop at a fast food place for supper. Our children became VERY familiar with them. However, as our family grew to five children we decided that eating out was too expensive. The first time we chose to eat at home the children asked, "Where are we going to eat tonight?" And we answered, "At Mom's Cafe!" They were so excited to try a new place. Ha ha! We pulled into the driveway and they were totally puzzled. It only worked a few times before they caught on and didn't want to go to "Mom's Cafe". But we didn't care, we went anyway.

Hence, my kitchen became known as Mom's Cafe.

Fast forward many years and all the children are leaving home. They asked me to put together a cookbook with all the family favorites. I promised, worked on it a bit, procrastinated and promised some more. 

This summer I decided to get it done. 

Tah-Dah! (And yes, I'm inadvertently revealing my true identity, but hey, we're among friends here.)

Each child got a different colored book.

Each Section is labeled and on the other side (sorry no photo) is a list of recipes in the section.

On a few recipes I included photos.

The Housekeeping section is to remind them of what I taught them, plus a few things for grownups

such as defrosting a chest freezer and cleaning an oven.

That's a huge project completed and crossed off my list. Now on to some T-shirt quilts and photo albums. 

Oh my. I'm tired already!

Something Practical from PFCMom

I have some ground beef waiting to be repackaged from a ten pound tube into more manageable portions so I took a peek into the freezer to see what kind of room I had and was reminded that defrosting was long overdue. So I set about to get it done.

It is an easy, and quick job if you know the trick my mother taught me. I'll share so you can know too.

BEFORE

BEFORE - See how the frost is over an inch thick, YIKES!

I emptied the freezer after setting two pots of water on to boil.

When the water was at a good rolling boil . . .

I set the pan in the bottom of the freezer and closed the lid. After about 10 minutes I removed the first pan and put the larger pan in, and closed the lid.

After just twenty minutes of steam all the frost slides off with a plastic spatula.

Using gloves and a dishpan I gathered up all the frosty ice.

Then I wiped down the sides and sopped up the water, wringing it into the dishpan. Dry with a fresh towel.
After just 35 minutes work the freezer is ready to be restocked.

With some reusable shopping bags, and some brown paper bags (doubled and folded over twice) I sorted food and repacked the freezer so like items are together and easy to lift out to get to a bottom layer.
After 45 minutes of work it is done and I'm ready to move on.

Thanks mom for teaching me the fastest way to defrost and clean a freezer!

BONUS: How to clean pots (and other things) with hard water mineral residue.

When you have a pan (or a glass dish) that looks like this . . . don't scrub and scratch!

Use VINEGAR (either kind works) A couple of tablespoonfuls and a green (or white) scrubby rubbed gently and all the gunk is gone!

See? Gleaming and clean.