More House Work

You may recall one of my recent blogs about Fixing the House. The epic continued as we stripped off the trim and molding—and I found out we would definitely have to repaint it. Again.—We must have vacuumed about five times to make sure there weren’t a ton of loose bits on the floor. Then we starting unrolling, sticking down and cutting tthe foam underlayment.
I said, “HT, hold the roll up so I can cut along the wall.” And the above picture was her response. I made her hold the pose as I ran for my phone and the hilarious picture of her above.

After much grumbling, measuring and consultation of the instructions, the first row of boards were laid down. I have to give a shout out to Kit on this one. He read the crummy instructions, got all the tools, measured, cut, hammered and more to get that floor in. He is great!

Don’t let the pictures fool you, after the first few boards were put in HT and I went to fix a massive pot of spaghetti, breaded and baked mushrooms (very loosely based on this recipe) and a green salad. Another friend came over because he wanted to learn how to install this type of flooring. Kit and I got tons of work done with such willing helpers!

Kit worked quickly and well. We finally took a break for supper and decided to pick it up the next day. That’s when I helped the most, because everyone was at work on in school.

The flooring was tedious, there was a lot of fudging and techniques you had to learn along the way to make it work. The last piece wanted to be a monster, but Kit finally make it happen.
Thankfully, after all the cursing, we finally have a completed laminate floor!!
Supper was slamming too, by the way.

Until next time,
Kat

Day 321: Onigiri {Recipe Revealed!!}

First time trying to make onigiri! I have honestly never eaten them so I doubt mine taste very authentic, but we thought they were tasty.

I did a lot of internet research and found out that most of the rice we use in the states is long grain. Sushi or rice balls (onigiri) takes short grain glutenous rice. Take a closer look at rice.

I had some friends tell me you can do it with other kinds of rice but I trusted the internet pros for my first time. I can jack with the recipe more when I am comfortable.

There is a lot to preparing the rice. Washing, resting, soaking, cooking, and more resting. These are the instructions I followed: At Just Hungry blog.

There is a weirdness (typo) where she talks about temps to cook rice. I am legit and make my rice on the stove top.
So here is the clarification:
I boiled high, once the rice started bubbling (boiling), I started a timer for 1 minute, lowered to medium heat for 5 minutes, then lowered to simmer for 10 minutes. I put on my tight light after I reduced to medium heat and had to stuff my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t lift the lid.

Also, let it be known that I added 4 tablespoons of a dried vegetables packet to my rice. It soaked with the rice for an hour. I don’t know the proper name of it because I got it at an international food store.

I did let the rice cool with a towel on top of it for 15 minutes. It still burnt my fingers when I began working with it. More fluffing sufficiently cooled it.

My fillings were drained can of tuna mixed with pepper and mayo, and crispy crumbled up turkey bacon.

I laid out my fillings, nori wrap (cut into smaller pieces), pot of rice, plate for the finished product, and a shallow bowl with salt and cool water in it.
I washed my hands and got to work. By the time I was nearly finished I had figured out (through trial and error) how to make the triangle shapes. This picture helped somewhat.

Thank you, resource.
Here was another helpful link on how to make the onigiri. Pay particular attention to coating your hands with salt water or frequently cleaning them to make sure the rice doesn’t stick to you.
Just Bento also has a fantastic FAQ page.

As you can imagine there was much squealing and dancing when I finished. I was literally holding my breath through most of the rice cooking.
The hubster was skeptical of a meal not consisting of plain old meat n’ taters, but he was a champ and ate three onigiri. He preferred the turkey filling and I loved the tuna.