Idle Wife's Profile

I was thinking about some kind of appetizer. I don't know what cheese would pair well with walnuts, but I'm pretty sure one does! So that on a cracker with a nut, drizzled with honey or a fig jam or something? Then you can savor the nut in one delicious bite and it makes them a little more special and fancy.

I always do this as one phone call with my mom can usually last for about 2-3 hours. I value the call, but 2-3 hours is a long time to just sit and do nothing. I also do my dishes and prep supper along with the other things listed, but I can do anything that's mindless without feeling like I haven't been paying attention to the phone call (and I usually tell her what I'm doing anyway). Aren't women the ultimate multi-taskers? ;)

I leash trained my cat when she was a kitten. She didn't like it, but we lived in the city and the very thought of her running around freely scared me to death. I thought about all the things that could hurt her and the very idea that she might never come home one day made me too sad to really care that she didn't like being on a leash. So I took her for walks and we also leashed her on our open balcony (she was always supervised). She lived that way until she was 18 (but by then, we had moved to the country and she was such a well-behaved elderly cat, she mostly just sat on the deck and didn't need her leash anymore).

Now that I'm cat-free, I've started to really hate the cats in my neighbourhood because of their free-roaming. They're digging in my planters and flower beds and creating a terrible mess. And if you've ever been weeding and accidentally touched cat poop, then you know how disgusting and unsanitary it is. So now I really don't understand the difference between having your dogs leashed and having your cat leashed. Leashing your cats shows your neighbours the same courtesy as you would do if you owned a dog instead. There are also city bylaws regarding unwanted cats on properties (in my city at least) and judging by what I heard from the animal shelter, unwanted, wandering cats is a serious problem despite the bylaw (they were running out of cat traps).

I think that being a responsible pet owner means taking care and protecting your pet from any possible dangers it might encounter (including fed up, cat-trap possessing neighbours), so leashing a cat seems to me to be the most logical thing to do. You wouldn't let your dog freely run about your neighbourhood even if he was a "free spirit with an inquisitive mind." So I think that if your cat is really a part of your family, you should treat it as such.

I remember searching it at one time and found something like using a couple tablespoons of worcestershire sauce and water, but now I see there's an actual recipe at the top of a google search for "soy sauce substitute." You should try it out!

I save almost everything! Including fruit cores, peels, and pits (I haven't tried citrus in stock yet, but I do have a bunch of orange halves that I juiced a while back hanging out in the freezer waiting for their turn. They might be a one orange per batch of stock thing). At any rate, I don't really think there's a limit to what can go into a stock.

Thank you! I hate those stickers! And if it removes the wax on apples, hallelujah.

I got one at a thrift store for $2 or something. Unfortunately, I still haven't used it. I love ravioli, but like melle said, I don't really need to be eating pasta all the time. Dumb calories.

I used rice once and didn't want to waste it so poured it all back into my rice jar. Worst thing ever. Anytime I made rice, it was WELL overdone. Like, super mushy as if I'd cooked it twice. Which I guess is exactly what I had done. I don't know if the same applies to beans, though.

I usually eat pie as a way to get crust into my mouth. (Which would figure since I'm always drawn to the most unhealthy things!) I should really take his advice and just eat the fruit. ;)

I always try to mark whether it was good or not or any changes I made or felt should be made, but I feel like it makes a really nice keepsake for future generations, too. I have a lot of my mom's, grandma's, and great aunt's cookbooks and seeing their marks on recipes makes me feel like they're in the kitchen with me. They're more than cookbooks because of it.