Eight Acres

When the cabinet maker asked me where we wanted the microwave in the new kitchen I had a mental-blank.  I couldn't think where to put it and when I really thought about it, I didn't actually want a microwave.  We did still own one at that stage, but we hardly used it.  I find them kind of ugly and I don't completely trust them.  We haven't had a microwave in the new kitchen since we moved in Easter, and I really don't miss it. There may or may not be reasons to not eat microwaved food, but personally I don't like the taste of it and I don't like the look the microwave, so I'm happy not to have one in my kitchen.  When I considered whether to include a microwave in the new kitchen, I could only come up with three things: Defrosting meat Heating leftovers Heating wheat packs More suggestions here if you have other uses for your microwave. Defrosting meat without a microwave This one is pretty easy.  If you want a roast or a large chu...

This post is a bit late as we've had the kitchen finished for a while, but its given me a chance to try out some of the features of the design so I can tell you how they worked out.  The only thing left to do is paint a small section of ceiling, so please ignore the blue masking tape! We had an cabinet maker design our kitchen after the wood floors were done.  I had already done a very rough design using the Ikea online kitchen design tool.  This confirmed to me that we would NOT be using Ikea as it did not fit well in the odd space of our kitchen!  But at least I was able to show that to the cabinet maker to get us started.  He measured everything and asked me way too many questions, and then went and drew it out in his software.  So unlike the bathroom, where I had full control of the design , I was not able to check everything as I only had the limited time when we I met with the cabinet maker to look at the design in detail.  Fortunately the...

As I said the in previous post, I'm going to use December as an opportunity to reflect and summarise what we've done at Eight Acres (and more recently, Cheslyn Rise) over the previous couple of years.  I particularly want to review the things that are working well and have become habits in our daily lives. The big exciting achievement this year was baking my own bread since April.  We have bought no bread (apart from the occasional bread stick), and I have come to method that works, doesn’t take up too much time, tastes great and can be cooked in the woodstove or the BBQ. Posts about bread: Overcoming the breadmaking challenge The home-made bread compromise Homemade bread - so far so good after 4 months Still baking bread - using the BBQ over summer Homemade bread since April Earlier in the year I wrote a series of reviews on Nourishing Traditions.  If you haven’t heard of this book, its about preparing and eat...