septicidal's Profile

Tofu and veggie scramble - my favorite is made with a nutritional yeast sauce (it's best made the night before, and reheats beautifully). Here is the link to the recipe I use (any veggies work - my particular favorites are green and red pepper and onion): http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=14074.0

My fiance (back when he was just my boyfriend) bought me a Dyson Animal for our first anniversary. He was worried it would be horribly unromantic, so he asked me before he bought it, but it has been the BEST THING. Now that we live together, we have three cats and the vacuum is indispensable. It also performs great on our hardwood floors as well as the carpets.

Other than that, I've gotten SO much use out of the nice chef's knife my father bought me five years ago for Christmas. It's not one of the super-duper nice ones, but it's well made and handles pretty much any chopping task well.

Black paint on front doors generally is a bad idea, because the paint absorbs the heat from the sun and it does weird things to the paint. My parents had a black door for 20+ years, and every time after they painted it (using expensive, exterior-quality paint), it would start to look weird and gray after 2 summers. My dad finally got sick of it and painted the door red. Depending on how much direct sunlight your door gets, this may not be as much of an issue for you... But it is something to think about.

As far as the shutters go, the shutters you have aren't really proportional to the windows. I think it makes the facade look more dated; if the brick is in good position behind the shutters, I would recommend removing the shutters (and maybe powerwashing the brick) to freshen up the look. The white window trim looks good and should stay, since it is consistent with the upstairs windows.

If you do spaghetti squash (which I *LOVE* and I find is great with all sorts of sauces), it is especially good to let it sit in a colander after you scrape out the strands for several minutes, and then press it to get out as much liquid as possible. Sauteeing the strands can also help give them a little more flavor and dry them out a bit more - my boyfriend is very impatient when it comes to preparing dinner and doesn't drain/sautee the squash strands long enough, so we usually have extra watery sauce. It really is a great vehicle for sauce, and sometimes I almost prefer it to regular pasta.

For a replacement noodle, there's a type of soybean pasta carried at Whole Foods (and other places with more gluten-free options) that is pretty good. The yellow one (made from toasted soybeans) has a better flavor than the green one (made from untoasted soybeans). It's also packed full of protein.

I know that in some areas, modern building codes have made doing this an issue - something about required ceiling height over the toilet, if I recall. I remember seeing an episode of some show on HGTV where the people trying to remodel their older home couldn't put a bathroom under the stairs like they planned because of building code issues.

I got one from Ikea several years ago - enamel on the outside, just cast iron on the inside. I had to season it myself, but it has worked fabulously all this time. The dutch ovens Ikea is selling now seem to be enameled on the inside as well as the outside, so I'm not sure if they will hold up the same. Every now and again I lust after the super-nice Staub and Le Creuset dutch ovens, but I try to remember my cheap Ikea one has never failed me (and cost under $50, so woo-hoo)!

My grandmother used to make large batches of homemade bread and butter pickles from cucumbers grown in her garden, can them, and give them out to the family. No storebought ones could ever compare!

Though the rigors of canning are beyond me (or rather, my kitchen's available storage space for extra equipment), I think I should find her recipe and make a smaller batch, refrigerator version!

You might want to try going back to the store - our local Home Depot had a very helpful person in the carpet department who was able to help us find an allergy and environmentally friendly carpet option. The price wound up being about $4.70 a square foot, which is a little higher than what you named, but for our needs it seemed like the best option. I have severe allergies with a sensitivity to chemicals, and we have cats and want to limit their exposure to VOCs. If money were no object, we wouldn't have wall-to-wall carpet at all, but other flooring alternatives were not cost-effective when it came to replacing 25-year-old carpeting on the stairs.

Main dish option: "Happy Tofu"!

Dice silken tofu up into thin 1/2 inch pieces (about 1/4 inch thick, 1/2 inch squares). Combine 2 TB soy sauce, 2 TB Mirin (Japanese cooking rice wine - carried in most grocery stores next to soy sauce, etc.), and 2 TB brown sugar in a small bowl. Mince up 2 cloves garlic. In a saute pan, heat 2 TB oil (any mild-flavored works fine; sesame oil is also good!) over medium-high heat and saute garlic until fragrant (don't let it burn!). Add the soy/mirin/sugar mixture (give it a stir before putting it in the pan) and the sliced and diced silken tofu. Cook until sauce reduces to thick syrup, stirring frequently.

I love to serve this with brown rice and some steamed seaweed (other dark, leafy veggies are great too). It's a great pantry recipe, since the silken tofu (if it's the Mori-Nu vacuum-sealed type) can be kept on the shelf and the other ingredients are easily kept on-hand. I've found that meat eaters and vegetarians alike really love this dish, and it only works with silken tofu - firm tofu doesn't absorb the flavor in the same way, while the silken tofu is just delicious and flavor-soaked all the way through.

@falnfenix @clareawasw Same problem here. It was a big triumph when I got my cat to shift to a perfume-free clay litter. He has outright refused to use any of the non-clay litters I've tried him on - and I feel like the amount of water and other resources I've had to use to clean cat urine out of things (not to mention the things I've had to dispose because they couldn't be cleaned) has negated any environmental benefit to switching away from clay litter.

My boyfriend and I are moving our cats in together and will have several boxes in our new place - since his cats are less picky, I'm going to try to switch 2/3 boxes to clay litter and see if my cat will use any of the other litters. Maybe the peer pressure will get to him!