My Kitchen is the Heart of my Home

My kitchen is really the heart of my home. We bake almost all of our cookies, bread and muffins from scratch (after we grind the wheat for the flour). We cook at least 6 meals a night from scratch at home. We homeschool at the kitchen table. And the kitchen counter is the perfect height for me to cut out fabric. When the school stuff is cleared off the table, it is used for crafts or games. So, we are in the kitchen almost all day.

This week, my kitchen has gotten a major overhall. Greg blogged about my small oven yesterday. The thermostat in the oven is quickly fading into oblivion. It has a mind of its own and you can't change it. You could only cook on 1 rack and only if its in the middle of the oven. If you were brave enough to put anything on the bottom rack, you quickly learned your lesson...it burned everything it came in contact with. Last week, it even burned some hot dog buns and they were on the top rack. Go figure! I guess it figured out its time was running out. Of course, it must have gotten all my hints "this is your last bread loaves and then you are being replaced".

Enter my new toy....it is beautiful. It is white, with a flat top cooking surface (5 burners) and a much larger oven. It is even convection!!!!!!!!!! It has 3 cooking racks and so far it doesn't have a "do things my own way" attitude. We have cooked cornbread and garlic bread in the oven. And we boiled water for spaghetti noodles for dinner. It is nice to have my kitchen relatively back in my possession...I have been cooking dinners in my crockpot on top of my washer in my laundry room this week. Next week, we will really get to break the oven in. It will be time to fill the cookie jar and bake more bread.

I know that most people are not that excited about their kitchen appliances, but I am thrilled with my new oven. Part of the renovation was also new countertops, which got completed today, and I am getting 2 pull out drawers for one of my cabinets, for all my pots and pans.

Many thanks to Greg and his parents, Bob and Dot for all their work in my kitchen. The kids and I continued with our lessons and schedules. I was apprehensive about the distractions but the kiddos got everything done and got to help some on the renovation project.

Someday, I will blog about our wheat grinding for fresh flour, our quest to eliminate high fructose corn syrup and msg from our diets, and all of our other strivings for healthier living.

Donna