A while ago you may have heard I convinced Kevin to let me have a dishwasher in our new kitchen…..with a full on $25 craigslist score.
What I may have neglected to mention is that there was a cabinet where said dishwasher was supposed to go. A teensy weensy technicality I assured Kevin….we’ll just cut it out and put up an end panel. It’ll be a cinch.
Grin.
I am an eternal optimist what can I say?
Long story short my hubby loves me to pieces and so he lets me do crazy things like hatching duck eggs in a remodel, and decide to try to have a baby when we live in an Airstream trailer, and move into a crazy old house when we’re expecting a baby…..and install a dishwasher in said house.
So since the dishwasher was going to go between the sink and the stove it landed at the end of line of cabinets which means we needed a dishwasher end panel.
They are like $40+ at Home Depot and they weren’t exactly the right size and were already unfinished so we decided to make our own.
We jigsawed the countertop lip off and then carefully cut away the countertop.
Removed the current end of the cabinet and cut out the supporting box underneath.
And vacuumed and cleaned the ground as best we could.
We decided that rather than using L brackets we would create a support structure for the panel.
This enabled us to square everything up perfectly without the added bulk and weight of the end panel itself.
To do this we measured and squared everything 3 times, then drilled through the wooden brace into the concrete in three places to mark our place and then pre-drilled the holes with a hammer drill and concrete drill bit. FYI 2 people and ear protection makes this a more enjoyable experience.
We applied wood glue to the floor and wood and drilled into place with Tap Con Screws
We then attached a strip of wood up the wall in the same fashion to make a giant L. We used anchor screws to secure it to the paneling and woodglue on both sides again.
The end panel itself was easy to put together. We measured before we went to Home Depot and had them cut us the plywood with their giant saws (totally free service!) We then just cut the face piece to size and used a finish nail gun and wood glue to attach the face piece to the panel. Finally we used the finish gun to easily attach the panel to the support brace.
A little wood putty and a nice even sanding and she was ready to be primed and painted!
You can see the progress of the painting of the cabinets here.
I am here to share my recipe, as promised by Kevin….who by the way just did his FIRST blog post yesterday!!! I’m so excited and super proud to finally have him here with me officially
Side note: My glee at setting up his admin login yesterday was contained so he couldn’t see it but I was so happy I could have grabbed him and jumped up and down like a crazed person. He stares at me strange when I do that though…..so you’ll just have to imagine.
And a finalist in a recipe competition??
That’s almost too much for one day.
Anyhow a paragraph of side-trackedness later, the recipe!
This recipe was good. Not nearly as gourmet as Kevin’s but tasty. What started as a pizza on a stick idea turned into pizza bites on a stick which turned into mini calzones because I didn’t have any sticks haha.
p.s. don’t try to stick these on a stick….it would fail miserably.
With this digression they really didn’t fit the “Supreme Pizza with Eggs” requirement of the competition but we decided to send it in anyways. So pleased that Kevin’s was chosen…it has a much better likelihood of winning this competition (its REALLY good) and I get to go be the cheerleader instead of cooking in front of people
That being said. Make these soon. Make them for your kids….or your grandkids. Or when you are awake at 2 a.m. And unless you are a kid or really love ketchup…I wouldn’t dip them in ketchup.
Makes 16 Bites (4 adult servings)
2 packages crescent roll dough
6 eggs
4-6 slices bacon (or equivalent in sausage)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Pepper Gravy:
Grease from bacon or sausage
2 tablespoons flour
1-2 cups milk
Salt and Pepper to taste
Additional Dipping Sauce Suggestions:
Syrup ~ Ketchup ~ Hot Sauce
Variations:
Try different cheeses, meats, or veggies! Mushrooms, onions, pepperoni, spinach, etc are all delicious.
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cook bacon or sausage. Drain grease into small pot. Remove meat to plate.
Scramble eggs. While still runny cover with cheese and crumble the meat over top. Mix thoroughly. Cook until still somewhat wet….eggs will finish setting in oven.
Unroll crescent roll dough gently. Separate into rectangles….two triangles make a rectangle. Press the seam to combine the two sections together on each rectangle. Cut in half to make two square pieces of dough.
Make Pepper Gravy:
Heat grease over medium heat. When hot add flour and whisk. Allow to bubble for two minutes. Quickly add 1 cup milk while whisking briskly. Simmer to thicken, whisking occasionally. Add milk to thin to desired thickness. Season with salt and liberal amounts of pepper.
Assemble:
Place 1 tb gravy on each dough square. Add egg/meat filling.
Bring sides up and pinch closed.
Place pinched side down on cookie sheet.
Cook for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with choice of dipping sauces.
The last time I was a finalist in a competition I was about 9 years old, and it was Halloween. I colored my pirate, or maybe it was a pre-Harry Potter witch riding a broom… What ever it was my house painting skills apparently had already been developed enough at that tender young age to keep my creatively chosen colors inside the lines better than about 90% of the other nine-year-olds in Bend who bothered to take the time to submit a coloring to our local newspaper’s Halloween coloring contest. I became the proud owner of one of the top finalist, consolation prizes! My mom drove me down to the Bend Bulletin and I got to pick out my very own pumpkin from a pile out front. I never forgot what it felt like to win, and I’ve been chasing the thrill ever sense.
Ok, so maybe that early taste of winning and roasted pumpkin seeds hasn’t actually been driving me to compete quite as intensely as I may have made it sound, but I do still enjoy the thrill of competition, so when Dani came home from the local extension office after delivering a few soil samples from our backyard garden plot, with a flyer describing an annual cooking competition the Georgia Egg Commission puts on to celebrate National Egg Month, it only took a little convincing on her part for me to get excited about the opportunity to test out my culinary aptitude. The theme this year, beside egg, is “Your Supreme Pizza With Eggs”. It had to be an original recipe, incorporate at least 4 whole eggs, feed four people, be able to be prepared in under 60 minutes, and the person entering the competition had to be at least 13 years old. After I checked my birth certificate, I knew I had a chance!
Dani and I had two completely different ideas, so we decided to both enter a recipe. Being indoctrinated by such Food Network shows as Master Chef, I must admit there was some pretty sharp criticism that took place in our kitchen, but the end results were two fantastic breakfasts and two completely unique entries. We got our individual entries stuffed into envelopes and in the mail just in time for the deadline, and then I pretty much forgot about it. You can imagine my surprise when Dani called me at work this morning to let me know that my recipe had been chosen as a top ten finalist!
On May 16, we are headed to the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry, Georgia so that I can prepare my egg inspired pizza for judges in a competitive cook-off…what was I thinking?! I’ve realized I may want to practice my recipe a few more times before we go. I already started doing forearm curls to build up my egg whipping muscles. If you’re reading this, and happen to be one of the lucky 10,000 residents of Thomaston, Georgia, you may get a chance to sample my entry before everyone else. Whether I win or not, I’ll post the recipe along with a follow up story after the big event. If I win, the cash prize would probably pay for a nice family vacation! We haven’t seen a white sand beach yet, and we’ve been living here for over a year now. Maybe it’s time…
Dani will share her recipe tomorrow for her Supreme Breakfast Calzone Bites so come back and try them ….because they’re delicious….and addicting….I ate like 10 of them…..don’t judge me.
Procrastination is the worst. It can feel crippling and makes you feel terrible. It’s been one of those comfortable devils that I’ve allowed to linger around in my life. “Someday” turns into this big dark cloud that follows you around, forever making it onto your 500 to-do lists but never overpowering “Dishes” “Laundry” “Errands” or “watching Hulu/Facebook/Pinterest because I’m toasted and I deserve it”.
I started a set of curtains for some friends from church and told them I would have them to them in JUNE. It’s now the end of January. Umm come on Dani, really?!?
Serious procrastination here.
But the interesting thing about procrastination is that it is intimately tied to being overwhelmed and shutting down. I had run into problems with the curtains and I didn’t know how to solve it, so I shoved it in a box and dealt with the rest of life. Day after day after day.
Did you know that procrastinating slowly sucks the joy and passion out of you?
Every time you think of that thing you “should do” and you don’t do it….you loose a little bit of yourself.
So break it down and make it tackle-able. Maybe you can’t solve the problem in its entirety today but I bet you can do SOMETHING to move it forward. Declutter one box, rip out one seam, clean one part of the room, just DO SOMETHING!
It’ll make you feel AWESOME!
Trust Me.
Tell us what you have been procrastinating and how you are going to do SOMETHING today!
Welcome to the life of two crazy in love, good food cooking, old house remodeling, learning to homestead, loving our baby Noah kinda people. We are book reading, beer brewing, Subaru driving folks who live halfway around the world from their family in the middle of nowhere trying to learn how to do this thing called life.
