Day 2 Of Project La Casita...And Sausage Rolls

Sausage rolls. I made these a few days ago.

Most of the kitchen and breakfast nook. Today I finished pulling most of the wallpaper off throughout the whole house. Except the bathroom, that's when I decided to switch gears and help out my husband with the carpet(s) Anyways, I managed all this and even got the wallpaper off the cupboards...who does that? I'm also thinking that the paneling needs to come off. I was going to paint it because painted panels can look pretty descent if done right, but this is starting to fall apart. I'm scared to see what's behind it. Dare I?

We started pulling up carpet today. I mentioned once before that there was another carpet under this one, guess what's under the second carpet? Hard wood floors! Score! Time will tell if they're damaged or not and if we will need to go ahead with the new flooring...that's sitting in my garage. It would be nice to have original floors, just sand and polish them up and just maybe the original charm can be put back in the house.

Second bedroom walls. After I tackled this pain in the ass wall a bit more today, I found a third wallpaper. I'm so tired of wallpaper. Thanks to all the wallpaper in this house and the number it's done to the walls, I have to re-texture the entire house. I also shopped a bit for the house and bought some new bathroom fixtures including a new light. Will be finishing the bathroom wallpaper removal job tomorrow. Without giving any details, this job will require a mask and seriously heavy duty gloves. And loud music. I spent about 2 hours pulling nails out of the walls, and taking down window "fixtures" of all sorts.

The breakfast nook has high ceilings, I need a bigger ladder to get all the way up there to remove the rest of that wallpaper, which will only take about 5 minutes once I'm up there. I also want to do this with someone else in the house, it's an awkward spot and falling is a possibility. Safety first I guess.

Project La Casita

This is my new project. I can't stop til it's done and if all goes well, it will be done and ready to be rented out in a few weeks. Until then, this will be my life. I won't be gardening, I won't be baking for fun, and I won't be sitting around reading cookbooks. I will be ripping down wallpaper, tearing out carpets, painting, fixing, perfecting. This house has a special place in my husbands heart I think because he grew up living in this house. There's also a mother-in-law house in the back, or a studio, whichever you want to call it. I have a ton of before pictures, but will slowly put them up depending on which room I will be working on. This is the dining room.

This wallpaper is seriously thick and for some reason, they put 2 layers on it for me. Thanks. Lucky me if came off pretty quickly and easily once I got an edge off. I don't have to use any chemicals or anything, just some elbow grease, blood, sweat and maybe a tear or two, because I will be sanding the hell out of these walls. There's also a few holes to say the least.

All window "treatments" will be coming off. Im sort of nervous about that. It's such an old house that the window sills are very different and I'm not sure they will support the blinds that I bought to replace everything I'm taking down. The blinds will be the last thing I do so until then, I can only wonder.

This room has nice hard floors, so they are just going to be cleaned and polished. The flooring throughout the rest of the house will be replaced with hard floors. I think the biggest and hardest job will be removing the carpet. I pulled up a few corners yesturday hoping and praying that there would be original hard floors under it, only to find ANOTHER carpet underneath the one that had been there at least 35 years. The padding under the second carpet, at least around the edges, crumbled when I touched it. Silent yayy...

Vodka And Vodka

The vodka I used for cooking tonight...and I poured myself some. Nice and crisp out of the freezer.

Vodka cream sauce simmering.

I made some chicken with tarragon for my husband. How dare I ever serve him a dish without some form of meat on it. Mia and I just had the pasta. My white russian went well with this.

My Rhubarb. It's at least tripled in size and I've been doing good at keeping slugs and snails away. Very soon, the area around this will be tilled and weed free and ready for the vegetable garden.

Bye-bye horseradish! This little garden has hydrangea, trillium, some sort of small lily, and really cool ferns that are almost dainty, I found a tag once and it was some sort of Japanese fern. I cleared this out a few weeks ago, but just a few days ago went at it again with a shovel. I pulled one horseradish root out that was almost 3 1/2 feet long! The smell of the root almost knocked me out. I've been trying to geted rid of it since we moved in. It's proven to be quit the fighter! I don't have plans to plant here, when the ferns and the hydrangea are in full bloom, it's all perfectly situated.

This is one of the front gardens. Mia and I spent 3 hours clearing, pulling, raking, and trimming this area. This is where my peonies are. At this moment I have a tomato cage helping them train, but think I may go get some real peonie cages today so I can sit back and watch them grow. I also have a ton of blue bells, a pink dogwood tree that is gorgous during summer and a few lilies that do still bloom (at least I think I kept the right ones) This is where I pulled countless "dead" lily bulbs. I have some tulips in another garden that need to be moved and I think this is where I want them. There are a few open spots that would do good with a nice hearty flower.

We also just got the tiller fixed so we are about to seriously rock' n' roll with gardening and I can't wait, we have veggies to plant!

I haven't done much cooking lately. I've been battling a migraine, no sleep, and a busy schedule. We've spent time outside in the yard, time away from home, a dinner out with friends and last night we BBQ'd. It's been a nice break for sure. Soon I will be doing a lot of experimenting with white cakes. I've had trouble with this in the past and I'm not stopping until I find a good white cake recipe that comes out perfect because I want white cake for Isabels birthday. Stay tuned!

Dare I?

I've been researching cakes for Isabels 1st birthday. I want butterflies all over the big one and found this. Minus the fondant. This could be challenging and I'm honestly a bit scared.

The Good, The Bland, And The Ugly!

Fish taco's. I debated whether or not I would even mention these sad, little pathetic taco's but decided it would be a good outlet for me to get over the distress I went through with these. I has this recipe I had been wanting to try forever. So finally, I had all the right ingredients. I also bought masa mix to make my own corn tortillas. I recently watched the girls at the last dinner party do it, and it looked so easy so I thought there would be no problem at all. Wrong. I don't know what I did or didn't do, but for the life of me, they just wouldn't come out right. After the first batch was a bust, I went online for reinforcements and tried a new recipe. Bad, just bad. After trying a third time with a third recipe, it too, came out bad. Now my feelings are hurt and honestly a bit embarrassed and by this time, I had used the whole bag of masa. Shit, lucky me, I had corn tortillas on hand and just heated them up. My husband once told me a long time ago "you fail at the most basic of tasks (cooking) and master the most difficult." He gently reminded me of this again. Now my kitchen is in complete disarray, my brain is annoyed, and I'm thinking Taco's Guaymas for dinner. But I sucked it up and started my fish taco's. I followed the recipe and did everything as it said with the exception of the mango salsa. I added cilantro and a bit of sugar. That wasn't bad at all, even the cabbage mix wasn't bad. It was all the fish. I was suppose to slice the fillets, drizzle them with a butter and spice mixture and then bake them for 6 minutes or until they flaked. Well, it came out very bland. You could definitly taste the fish, but not the flavoring. Who wants to eat unflavored Cod? Not I said this momma. If I did it again, I would have tripled the spice called for. Anyways, now my kitchen is a real mess. Like the mess that takes an hour to clean type of mess and I'm frazzled and running in circles. So I put that damb things together and maybe they look good in the picture, but I was disappointed. My husband didn't mind them and Mia did the usual mess of her dinner plate, but with all the time I spent on these and the gigantic mess I looked forward to not cleaning, maybe I was being biased and refusing to allow myself to enjoy them. It was a good call on adding cilantro and sugar to the mango salsa, that really helped close up my wounded pride of failed tortillas and bland fish. Last summer at one of our dinner parties, we had fish taco's. Baja fish taco's to be exact, and they took a ton of work and even more ingredients, but they were hands down the best I've ever had. Next time, I will go that extra mile to relish in success and end up with a full belly. I crossed this recipe out of my cookbook that I used and wrote - NOT GOOD! I made dinner rolls yesturday afternoon, not sure what was for dinner but knew it would need to be something to go good with these. Mia helped me roll some, she had fun.

So I made spaghetti. I didn't do the usual slow cook like I like to, I just got it done so I could eat. I was hungry.

Tagliatelle Carbonara

Carbonara. A traditional Italian pasta dish. For this to be authentic, it must always contain bacon pieces and eggs. This was so simple! You heat oil, add chopped bacon, cook for a few minutes, add finely chopped garlic. Cook until bacon is crisp. Remove from heat. While doing the bacon, your pasta should be cooking. Place cooked pasta in colander. Scrape every bit of bacon, garlic, and fat into pot you just cooked the pasta in. Return pasta to pot. Put back on heat but do not cook. Take your 3 very well scrambled eggs and pour over pasta. Mix well immediatly and do not stop until it's well mixed and eggs have begun to set. Serve immediatly and garnish with fresh grated parmesan cheese and fresh chopped parsley. This dish is not for anyone being cautious of what they eat. It's almost sinful.