Today Is Cleaning Day

The last three days I was at D's great-granny's house because his Aunt Sharon went away with some friends and asked us to stay with her. It's always very interesting staying there. You have to cook all the meals & do the cleaning etc. It's not bad, I don't mind it but it's very different from our house. For example: Lunch is always at noon exactly, and they always watch the local news. At 1 pm she always has to watch Perry Mason, old black and white ones, and then Matlock afterwards. Supper is always at 5 pm on the dot during which she watches Little House on the Prairie and then the local news at 6 pm. They always go to bed at 10 pm exactly.


 

It's also interesting to cook for her, because while she does appreciate a well cooked meal, she is not adventurous at all. No curry, or stir-Fry's, not even really any pasta or lasagna. She's real meat an potatoes kind of person, which is funny because she doesn't even really like potatoes. Even though this is pretty much diametrically opposite of the way Damien and I live, I try not to cause to much of a wave when we are there. Though I once did cook steak for her that was nice and juicy, perfect medium rare and she wouldn't eat it because it was "still bloody". They like to pound their steaks ridiculously thin, coat them in flour and fry them till they are extremely well done.

But honestly, other than the cooking, and the daily vacuuming/sweeping, or helping granny at bedtime there is not a lot to do. We generally play some cards or something, usually I would bring over some craft stuff and do something of that sort or there is always a lot of studying that needs to be done. This time however I planned to get some cooking done to stock my freezer with so that I'd have some meals ready for next month - which is shaping out to be a very busy one. So Wednesday, I baked a bunch of bread and then I made some cabbage rolls. Thursday (yesterday) I spent the whole day making perogies.

Damien LOVES perogies. He would eat them for every meal if he could, I'm not sure what it is about them. I made 13 dozen cheddar cheese perogies, with real cheddar cheese of course - not that chemical laden, almost plastic cheese wiz junk other people use (you know who you are, hang your head in shame!). I love reading that I made 13 dozen perogies, it sounds like a lot doesn't it?! It's funny though, because when you put them in Ziploc bags, especially in large ones like I have that hold 3 dozen ... they don't look like very much. I fully expected Damien to say: "That took you all day?". Then of course I would have thrown a few at him.

Anyways, in addition to Damien loving perogies, my making them goes hand in hand nicely with my theory this year to make as much potato based stuff as I can and freeze them so that we won't waste so many of the bazillions of potatoes we get this year. And goodness will we be getting a lot. D dug up these potatoes for me and some of them were already large enough to feed a family all by themselves. *shudders* So I am going to make more perogies next week, potato, bacon & onion perogies, and then cottage cheese perogies. Also, french fries - though I have to look through my old recipes, because I think there was a trick about par boiling them first before you freeze them so that they do that crispy on the outside, soft on the inside thing when you cook them later. But that's all for next week.

In the mean time, today is cleaning day. Because I was at Granny's for three days, and because before that it was August, things have been very very lazy around here re:cleaning. Now I know that's not very Donna Reed of me - but oh well, it's the way the cookie crumbles. However, that being said the disaster zone that looks like a hurricane hit it is driving me nuts. I couldn't even drag my butt out of bed to work out this morning because that would have meant facing my messy house. Also starting Monday I am smack in the middle of a busy busy month and I need the house to be clean and well organized in order to survive it.

That being said ... it's time for me to sign off. TTFN