Size Does Matter!

Back in January, I wrote a post about the XL Tide pods and how I didn't feel I could use it for our washing machine because it didn't wash enough clothes to merit such a large pod. Last month, we said goodbye to our first set of machines.

Goodbye, washer and dryer. We had a good 12 years.

Sometime in the last seven months, our washing machine began thumping and banging the sides during every single load. I had anxiety doing laundry because I wasn't sure what was going to happen during the load or if our clothes were going to get damaged. Could we have looked into it and had it repaired/fixed? Absolutely. So why didn't we choose to repair it?

Because the logic wasn't working. If my memory is correct, we paid roughly $600 total for our washer and dryer in 2014. This included a rebate we got from Whirlpool for buying the laundry pair.  If you divide this up, it means each machine cost us roughly $300. From my research, the part needed to repair this washing machine was around $80. In order to do the repair however, you had to open up the machine and tilt it a certain way in order to get the piece out/in properly. For a skilled technician with experience, we're looking at 1-2 hours of labor. For the average homeowner with little or no repair experience with washing machines, we're looking at 2-4 hours of labor. From experience, anything that was meant to be "easy" can turn into something much longer. If you didn't read my last post, that's exactly an example of a quick-fix gone wrong. 

If we chose to call in a repair person to come fix our washing machine, we would have gotten charged $150-$200 for the repair including parts and labor. From this perspective, the math doesn't math. Why would I spend 66% of my initial cost just to fix a 12-year-old machine?

The second part of this logic was I actually wanted a larger machine.  When it comes to laundry, size actually does matter. With our old washing machine sized at 3.6 cu ft, I was washing three loads of laundry a week. Although I could do it and I had the time, it was a lot of individual loads of laundry. With our new machine sized at 5.5 cu ft, it feels like a bottomless pit compared to our old machine. Believe it or not, I have to force myself not to wash laundry too soon because it simply doesn't fill up enough to be efficient. 

Hello, washer and dryer. Hope you stay and work a long time. 

What's even more crazy is the Energy Star label for the new washing machine says it estimates a yearly operating cost of $10 with a gas water heater and 120 kWh. This is less electricity than our old machine for the same number of loads - 6 loads per week. Does this mean if I do one load of laundry per week for a year, my operating costs are only $1.66 and 20 kWh? According to the math....that would be the assumption. (believe it or not the cost of electricity estimate on the energy label is actually higher than what we pay....so theoretically, our cost should be even lower?)

I'm in slight disbelief at how such a large washer can use less energy than our old smaller washer, but this is the benefit of technology and innovation. The hope is these machines will last us another 12 years at the least. I would like to believe it will happen with little to no bumps along the way, but I'm a cynic. Despite technology and innovation having many benefits such as modern day efficiency and lower operating costs, longevity is not a benefit. 

Regardless, my laundry anxiety had to be relieved and a new washer was the way to go. The dryer was just an added bonus to reset the clock on its age so we wouldn't be replacing them at staggered intervals. Instead of dreading doing laundry, I'm looking forward to each next load (alas, infrequently...) I get to wash. That's a win in my book. 

InKind

I don't promote anything unless I actually believe in it. Depending on the product, sometimes it takes years, and sometimes, I never promote it because I'm never convinced. Today, I'm promoting something.

My SIL introduced me to InKind a while back. I got the app but I didn't actually use it. In short, it's a restaurant rebate program that rewards you for eating out. I browsed the restaurants on the app but didn't end up using it for a long time. I didn't really understand how to use it, and I didn't feel like eating out just to find out how.

Fast forward about 6-8 months, maybe more. We were going to New York. I was going to be taking two kids around the city by myself for 1.5 days. I was pretty terrified. I am not your tour guide/planner when it comes to vacations. I like to be the one who goes along for the trip and has someone else telling me what to do, where to go, and what we're going to eat. Needless to say, I was stressed and put off planning this trip for a long time. 

The week before we left, I finally started to think about what to do with my kids. I knew if I didn't have a plan, we'd end up sitting on the bed in the hotel room watching HGTV or Food Network for hours and hours. That was no way to spend valuable time in New York! We were even staying overnight in Manhattan - this may never happen again in my life. Planning food is one of my childhood traumas. Growing up, if we went on vacation, we ate a lot of McDonald's and Burger King. Why? It was cheap. While I understand the mentality, that is not my approach to vacations anymore with my family. Taking that into account, I had to find restaurants where I could bring my children by myself and find them safe food they would eat. This ended up being some version of chicken nuggets and sushi.  

Premade or Homemade? Make your guess!

The perk of being in NYC and using InKind was tons of restaurants were on the app. I was able to save my favorites and mark their locations in the areas where we would be. This gave me options to give my children to pick from and allowed our mealtime choices to be stress-free and enjoyable rather than stressful and angry. 

So let me tell you about this app from someone who is very particular about anything and everything. 

1. You have to pay your bill through the app. Whether you pay directly when you order in the app or pay your bill using the app, it has to go through the app. At a sit-down restaurant, this means when your check comes out, you have to get the check number and type it through the app. Then, the app pays for you with a payment method saved in the app - this could be a credit card or money you've preloaded into the app. If you are ordering at a restaurant, this means you scan your QR code at the register at the end of your order. We encountered some difficulty with this at one restaurant because I saw ordering tablets off to the side upon entering. I went to the tablet, made my order, but then didn't see any way to use InKind to pay for the order. I went to the cashier to ask and he told me I had to place the order with him at the cash register. (I didn't even realize this was an option because I saw the tablets first upon entering). While I probably felt like a dumb customer who didn't know what to do, asking meant I figured it out instead of paying for the order myself at the tablet without going through the app. 

2. The way your rewards work has some caveats. You can only use one reward per transaction. This means you have to choose between getting a % cash back on your order or using your cashback rewards to pay for a part/all of your order. Now you really do get a % cash back on your order. If the restaurant offers you a 10% cash back and your pre-tax total is $50 worth of food, you will earn $5 cash back to use on a future order. The catch is if you are buying $50 worth of food and you want to use $7 in your account that you've earned previously, you will not be earning 10% ($5) cash back on top of the $7 discount you're using. I did not know this until I went to New York and started using the app and earning cash back. On the flip side, any cash back you earn on orders is available immediately. If you earned $5 from your lunch meal and you want to go get dessert somewhere nearby which is also on InKind, that $5 can be used toward your dessert order immediately. This is a really nice perk.

3. Cash back does expire. In short, they give you 2 months, but they're nice enough to give you the full month, so it ends up being between 60-90 days. For example, I have $8.65 sitting in my account as cash back. I earned my last reward on July 14, 2026. That $8.65 in cash back expires on September 30, 2026. It is the end of the second month from the date I earned the reward - 75 ish days. 

If you live in a more urban area, this app is very convenient and handy. I will definitely be using this app again if we travel to larger cities - Seattle, Chicago, LA, NYC for sure. It's a great "bonus" in additional to any normal credit card rewards you'd earn paying with your card when eating out. If this sounds like something which would benefit you, give it a try and sign up for $25 off a $50 meal! (Yes, the discount is instant.)

Scrappy

A month ago, we hosted a guest and I was stripping the bed to wash the sheets. I discovered our fitted sheet had completely lost its elastic and had turned into a giant flat sheet. It wasn't an expensive or special queen sheet set we'd used, but considering the fabric itself was in decent condition, it would be a shame to retire this sheet simply because the elastic went out.

Now replacing a queen fitted sheet runs anywhere from $10-$50+ depending on where you're buying it from and what deal you can find. We were definitely not looking to spend a lot of money to replace this fitted sheet. I got the grand idea to buy elastic and replace it myself. It couldn't be that hard, right?

Elastic was cheap. I could get yards and yards of the stuff for maybe $5-$7. The amount I actually needed for this project amounted to probably $1 of the actual yardage if not less. The rest of the project was the time and ingenuity I needed to have in order to replace the elastic.

Materials: fitted sheet, new elastic, safety pins, scissors, sewing materials

*I was gifted a sewing machine toy when I was about 6-8 years old. Sadly, I never used the machine and it has been long gone over the years. I did keep the sewing kit which came with the machine and it is still my sewing kit today, the one seen above.* 

I spent some time pondering this project before actually starting. I knew the elastic was sewn into the edge of the sheet in a little channel. Assuming they did it cheaply, the elastic should not have been sewed into the fabric but would be loose all the way around the perimeter. This meant all I had to do was cut a small slit, pull the old elastic out, and thread new elastic in. Easy, right?

The whole process ended up taking just over an hour, which relatively speaking, even for someone who knew what they were doing, is pretty efficient. The longest part of the project was actually removing the old elastic from the edge. I made the mistake of cutting the slit without pinning the elastic in place next to my slit. As a result, when the elastic was cut, what little tension was left pulled the elastic deeper into the channel away from the slit I had just cut. It probably took a solid 20 minutes just to retrieve the end of the elastic to start pulling it out. 

I can't tell you exactly how I did it. I ended up finagling it with a safety pin and a needle. Miraculously after numerous tries, the elastic peeped out with the safety pin and I could start pulling it out. 

After removing the old elastic, I began to thread the new elastic in. This part, I had premeditated for a long time. I knew threading anything through a narrow channel was not easy, so I'd make sure I had this figured out before I started this project.

I clipped a safety pin to the head of the elastic I would thread into the channel. The safety pin served as my "pusher" to get the elastic through the channel because the elastic itself is too flexible to put pressure. As I stuck the safety pin into the channel, I'd scrunch the fabric over the safety pin and then un-scrunch it on the other side, productively moving the safety pin attached to the elastic through the narrow channel about an inch at a time. It's effectively how any kind of caterpillar or worm propels itself through movement. Although still time consuming, having this technique greatly sped up this process. 

After successfully threading the elastic through, we had to properly space out the elastic around the perimeter and then sew up the slit I originally cut. This was a much faster process and it was so satisfying to be able to fix this fitted sheet with my own two hands. 

An hour of my time is worth more than a $10 sheet. An hour of my time is actually worth more than a $50 sheet. But considering it was during the night time, I wouldn't be teaching or earning money anyway, and I was able to do it while watching tv sitting on my bed in my bath robe, I'd consider the money savings worth it. 

Consumerism and convenience has turned us into people who look for the quick-fix answer. We trash the old/broken and buy something new to replace it. And while I understand the need for simplicity in our lives and less mental clutter for our own sanity, I also understand the need to value the things we have and not be wasteful if we can help it. What's one way you can be a little more scrappy? 

Converted

I am known for my practicality and frugality. Over the years, my habits have morphed a bit to adapt to changing life stages and needs, but for the most part, these two words still describe me very well. Whenever I text my husband after a shopping trip whether for groceries or fun, he never seems too shocked. Apparently I'm not capable of spending an absurd amount of money that would actually scare him. 😂 I'll take it as a compliment. 

My husband bought me flowers this year for my birthday. Flowers have never been my "thing" because I always viewed them as spending money on something I'd throw away. So why bother? While there is truth to that, I failed to factor in a lot of other points. Fresh flowers add to the overall ambiance. They bring joy when you look at them. And they actually last a long time when you take care of them properly.

This photo was taken on day 17 of displaying this bouquet. Not bad, right? You can definitely tell they're not fresh flowers by any means, but they still bring a bright cheeriness. On the flip side, keeping fresh flowers for 17 days is no easy task. You need to cut the stems regularly, change the water regularly, and remove dying foliage to prolong the life of the blooms. It's like owning a temporary pet. 

But they do still contrast nicely to the mess spread out around the table. I've just come to accept that our kitchen table and counters have stuff on them. I've tried cleaning, really. But when there's two other people living in the same house as me who aren't nearly as responsible or careful and like to bring things from one room to the next and have no sense of putting things in their place, it makes keeping spaces neat and tidy impossible. Yes, that was a run-on sentence and I'm well aware of that. The awkwardness of that sentence further accentuates the futileness and energy-sucking-tendencies of trying to keep a neat house with little people running around. 

I still wouldn't purchase fresh flowers on a normal basis, but every now and then, I could see myself buying a bouquet, bringing out our vases from hibernation, and setting out a display for a short while. 💐

Bulbs

In the spring of 2016, we went to a nursery and walked through, perusing various plants. This was before babies and toddlers, when Saturday mornings didn't involve automatic alarm clocks blasting through a monitor.

In particular, I was looking for something that could grow in shade. I happened to come across a flowering plant that grew in partial to full shade: Astilbe. Then, I saw the price tag and decided it was too much to pay for one plant. I took a picture of the plant specs and that was that.

Image from American Meadows product page.

For those of you not familiar with this plant, this is what blooming Astilbe looks like.

I saved the picture on my phone to remember the name of this plant. The year after, we even went back to the nursery in search of it again since I had decided to fork out the money. It wasn't there. Thus ended my search for Astilbe, for a while.

Fast forward three years. We were stuck at home with a toddler and a newborn. I wasn't working for the interim, and I was itching to do something. I did a search online and found Astilbe bulbs at a much nicer price, and it happened to be the planting season for our growing region. Now, despite being an amateur gardener, I understood that growing a plant from a bulb was more difficult than planting a grown, potted version. I decided to take the chance and buy a pack of five bulbs. That would have been about the number of plants I'd wanted anyway to fill the space.

The bulbs arrived and my husband planted them on April 16th. We watered and waited. After about two and a half weeks, we saw our first sprouts. One bulb sprouted first and then another shot up a few days after that. Unfortunately the other three didn't fare as well, so I only have two plant babies.

Being in the middle of a strange time in the world, watching these plants has made me remember that nature doesn't need us. When I was a senior in high school, we watched a video during class one day about earth without human existence. While most everyone else was probably zoning out, I have since remembered the general concept of that video: earth thrives without us. Grass and plants would grow wild and spread as they wished. The air would be cleaner because factories, machines, industry would not be running. The water cycle would balance itself out once again without human interference and consumption. 

As I already stated, I'm not the best at taking care of plants or gardening. My interest in this area is severely handicapped by my abilities. I've had many "plant projects" halted or ended because I didn't know what next steps to take. I'm hoping this one can continue at least a year, depending on how well I winterize them once the cooler weather returns. I actually don't know what colors my blooms will be as it was a mixed bag. I'll have to wait for their blooms to find out. Let's hope they bloom.

This will need to be added to my list of goals in 2020 I'd written about earlier this year and revisit the ones I'd originally stated.

All Diapers Are Not Created Equal

In the middle of this quarantine, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, hand soap, paper towels, disinfecting wipes, and disinfecting spray are just some of the items which fly off shelves and are nowhere to be found. Not so high on the list because the population who needs them is smaller would be diapers, baby wipes, and formula.

We got lucky and stocked up on diapers with no intention of being in quarantine for 1+ months after our son was born. How did this happen? Last September, I bought a Groupon for a Costco membership which included extra perks of coupons. One of the coupons was a $25 off $250 purchase online only. I didn't intend to use the coupon because when was I going to spend $250 in a single transaction online at Costco? The coupons didn't expire until the end of February 2020, so I held onto all of them including that one, but didn't think much of making an online purchase.

Fast forward to early February. That flyer included a sale on Huggies diapers. I finally had an epiphany that I could use my coupon towards buying diapers since that was an impending need for the next year or more of our lives, and we were going to be buying diapers for two for an unspecified amount of time as well. So we front-loaded our diaper purchase and were able to use my coupon.

A week after he was born, I came across a Facebook Marketplace post for free diapers of assorted sizes, and the seller was located a mere 10 minutes from us. My husband went out to pick up these diapers and they sat in our garage untouched for about 3-4 days to let any virus/bacteria presence die off, hopefully, if there was any.

One morning, I went out and sifted through the diapers, sorting by size and brand so we could organize them to use in an orderly fashion. I used empty diaper plastic sleeves which I had saved (that's another story...) and lined up the diapers to form essentially an entire box of diapers = probably over 100. The majority were size 1 with a little bit of newborn and size 3. We were able to use the size 3 for my daughter, and my son used up all the newborn and we're currently using up the size 1.

Now, if you don't already know, diapers come in a wide variety of brands and price points. The inexpensive diapers are inexpensive for a reason and typically aren't the ones you want to buy. My favorite brands for the budget would be Huggies and Kirkland diapers. Both can be found at Costco, but I'm not trying to advertise.

The diapers we got for free did not include either of these brands, but included a wide variety of other brands. Here is a photo I took of all the different brands placed side by side.

These are seven different brands of diapers (I think) with seven different styles/cuts. I took a second photo with three very distinct diapers and various differences in shape/style.

As you can see, the diaper on the left is shorter compared to the two on the right. I actually compared it to a different brand of newborn diapers and they were almost identical in size. The two diapers on the right are approximately the same in height, but the width is visibly different and one is skinnier than the other. 

I could go into much more detail about the elastics on each one, and which ones have pockets, but that's a conversation we should have privately if you ever want to discuss different diaper brands and which ones I think are better.

Remember:

- a cheap diaper is not worth it if it causes leaks 

- an expensive diaper is not the best just because it costs the most
- fancy brand names with big reputations don't mean anything

Main Takeaway: If you're having a baby for the first time and don't know what brand of diaper to get, or are curious what brand of diaper to get, consult someone who has used diapers before, or read blogs online to see what other moms have preferred. Don't simply find what's on sale and stock up or trust a big brand. DO experiment yourself with various brands if you have the luxury to be able to do so.

Happy changing!

DIY Play Dough

Often times, the only two classifications given are “working mother” and “stay-at-home mom” but what about those of us who watch our own kids for part of the time (or a whole 8-hour day) and then proceed to work in the afternoons or evenings or whenever we get a chance to for a few hours to another 4-8 hours? What if you do both?

As a working mother I feel pressure to do my job well and prepare. This involves knowing my lesson schedule, having books on hand for when students need new ones, and knowing what piece they’re working on so I know what to teach or have an idea of what to teach for the day. As a stay-at-home mom, I feel pressure to take my daughter out on play dates to socialize her as well as let her see the world and explore.

Because of this conundrum, I often find myself at a catch-22. If I choose to practice piano for 1-2 hours during her nap, I don’t get much else done during the day before I switch gears and teach for a few hours.  If I don’t practice during her nap, I can prep dinner, clean the house, do laundry, or even take a nap myself, but sometimes I’m left winging it and thinking fast during my lessons. If I take her out on a play date, which I both should and want to, she won’t get a good nap in unless our play date, including the drive, is not more than 2.5 hours and she can return home to nap at the proper time. 

So instead, much of my life looks like fast thinking, crying toddler fighting naps, being overtired and stressed out, and eating frozen corn dogs (or frozen something) for dinner more than occasionally. 

But sometimes, I feel like I actually have my life together and can do a multitude of things. Hence why we made play dough today. 

While cleaning out her toy bin, I found an unopened package of model magic from our trip to Crayola a few months ago. I hadn’t opened it yet because I wasn’t sure if she was ready to play with something moldable and not put it in her mouth. The model magic reminded me of play dough, so during her breakfast, I looked up a quick recipe for homemade play dough. It involved some ingredients I didn’t have on hand at home, but nothing a quick trip to the neighborhood store wouldn’t solve. 

So after breakfast, I loaded her up, and we went to the store to pick up the remaining ingredients I didn’t have. Being that I was only going to pick up two things, I decided to simply use my stroller instead of putting her in a shopping cart and just hold what I needed. Well, I ended up with seven items in my arms totaling just over 13 pounds. Actually, I take that back. I ended up with five of the items in my arms, and I gave my daughter two to be entertained. Don’t worry, I still held over 13 pounds with five items. Ask me if you’re curious. 

We left the store and returned home where I commenced to make play dough while she played in the living room. She was doing fine and I was at the final steps when she started crawling away. I wasn’t in the mood to shut the door and have her start a tantrum on me so I picked her up and put her in her high chair to watch me finish making play dough. (yes, she does that now. If you hinder her idea even before she gets to proceed with the idea, ie: shutting a door she wants to go through even though, she’s three feet away, she will start to cry and it does get annoying). 

I finished making the play dough and it actually turned out pretty well. I gave her a little ball to play with and practiced my dough kneading skills on the remaining ball. She wasn’t very interested to be honest. She touched it a few times and tried eating a small piece stuck to her finger, but that was about it. After a short lived time with the play dough that clearly wasn’t entertaining her like it was entertaining me, I put it away.

Compared to store bought play dough, I like the homemade version because:

• It’s soft and has the texture of real play dough
• I know what’s in it so if my daughter does try eating it or gets it in her mouth, I know she’s not eating chemicals. 

But, at the same time, I also don’t like the homemade version because:

• It’s greasier than the store bought ones. Not in a gross, runny way, but we played on a glass table and I had to wipe it after. To be fair I haven’t played with real play dough in many many years so maybe it has the same issue. 
• It’s got a starch/dough smell. I realize that the kind you buy also has a strong smell and I remember disliking it as a child, but I think having played with it for many years, I got used to it. 

When I get some more time or feel like it again, I’ll probably make another batch and maybe add some tweaks to experiment myself. If you’re interested, this is the recipe I used. It makes about 2 cups worth of play dough.

Airtight storage for my play dough. Next challenge: see how long it stays soft.

In short, it’s simply flour, water, salt, oil, cream of tartar, and food coloring.

Maybe my husband will be just as entertained with this as I was, even for a little bit. And now my daughter is awake, and I practiced piano for an hour before writing this blog, so I will now get ready to feed her, feed myself some leftovers or something frozen, and then teach for 2.5 hours nonstop this evening.

That's a normal day for us. :) 

We Tried Plated! - Not Sponsored

This weekend we tried Plated for the first time. We got a free box, so I thought, why not, let's test the recipes and give it a try.

The three dishes I selected for our box were: garlic basil shrimp and grits with cherry tomato sauce, garlic-soy pork chop with bok choy and water chestnuts, and Indian butter chicken with sautéed spinach and toasted naan.

Now as a preface to my opinions and summary of this food delivery kit, there's a few things to note.

1. I consider myself an experienced amateur chef. I have no formal training in cooking or preparing food, but I've had a good amount of experience in the last 6-8 years to know how to eyeball things and cook by feel.

2. I know how to buy groceries and plan a "menu" for the week. Most weeks we eat homemade food 13/14 meals. (Breakfast doesn't count because it either doesn't happen or we make a PBJ.)

So here are some thoughts on our experience with Plated, how we liked the recipes/food, and general thoughts and opinions of the service from an unbiased perspective.

I was super excited to get my box delivered on Thursday around 11:30 am.

The baby was sleeping at the time so I actually was able to unbox everything and put them away in peace.

Here's the spread of contents: they package and label everything for you in bundles according to recipe.
Their recipe cards are also printed with beautiful images of the completed recipe. My daughter loved
staring at it and wanted to get it from me when I was reading the recipes. 

We made our first recipe Friday night for dinner since I had to work Thursday night and was going to be out all day Friday. I had my box delivered on Thursday because they said delivery could be as late as 8 pm and I did want to make one Friday night. We decided to make the recipe for butter chicken because that was the recipe we were both very excited for.

The recipe is pretty easy to follow and the results were quite good.

Butter chicken, spinach, and half of the gigantic piece of naan.

For this recipe, we thought the serving size was excellent. Our box included 2 servings in each recipe and it portioned out very nicely to two bowls. The total prep and cooking time was about 30 minutes unless you marinated the chicken for longer (optional) so it makes for a fast dinner if you know what you're doing. My one qualm with this recipe was in the packaging - the tomato puree was really hard to squeeze out of a zip-top bag. I used my fingers to squeeze the sauce out from both sides, but then my fingers got dirty as I reached the bottom of the bag. Not the best way of packaging in my opinion, but I guess it works. Really delicious though. I'll probably make it again myself and swap out spinach for another leafy vegetable.

Shrimp and Grits

Our next recipe was shrimp and grits. We cooked this one Saturday for lunch while the baby took her morning nap. When I first opened the bag of ingredients for this recipe, I noticed my basil was already half wilted. Somehow there was moisture in the container. Not sure if this was my fault or faulty packaging. Plated recommends cooking seafood dishes within 1-2 days of receiving the box. I got the box on Thursday and cooked it Saturday for lunch - within the 2 day requirement. I had the ingredients in the refrigerator during this time because this bundle included mascarpone and butter. If I was supposed to unbundle it and not refrigerate everything in the bag....I was not aware of that. 

Shrimp and grits

We both thought the portions for this recipe were a little out of proportion. There were definitely more than 2 servings of grits, but since in my head the recipe was portioned for 2, I just split the grits into the bowl half and half until the pot was empty. It was probably a little more than we both wanted to eat. For this recipe, I also thought it needed some tweaking of the cooking times. The recipes are written very detailed with exact minutes of cooking each step. However, I thought the shrimp cooking times were a little long, especially since you had to return them to the sauce to finish cooking a second time in a later step. Also, different pots/pans and heating elements cook at different paces so even if you time it perfectly according to the recipe, it may still over/undercook slightly. Shrimp is one of those foods for me - overcooked shrimp gets tough and rubbery. I did not want to overcook my shrimp at all so I used my own judgement on cooking times for this one. 

Pork Chop with Bok Choy and Water Chestnuts

We made this last recipe today for lunch. Total cooking time was about 30 minutes again - their recipes are pretty good at staying consistent in the amount of cooking time required.

This was our least favorite recipe of the box. Nothing was "bad" but overall, it just didn't match up. I thought it was way too salty. The recipe used two boneless pork chops with a quarter cup of soy sauce plus other seasonings. I think that was way overkill with no sweet or sour to counterbalance the salt. Even my husband who has a higher salt tolerance than me needed some more rice to balance it out. The proportion of rice to meat in this recipe was also not nearly what it should have been (especially given how salty the sauce was.) We had extra rice to mix in, but if someone is just making this recipe straight from the box, they'd be gulping down cups of water or wishing they had more rice.

There was also no marinating of the meat so the flavor was limited to the exterior of the meat and sauce. I would have liked to marinate the meat in the sauce and then maybe cut out using some in the recipe later to drizzle. The flavor of this recipe really wasn't bad, but it was too overpowering. That says a lot, especially because I use soy sauce very frequently in my own cooking.

Conclusion

Did I enjoy my Plated experience? I actually did. It was really convenient to just unbox everything and have exactly what I needed for these recipes, and I now know how to make Butter Chicken which is a dish my husband enjoys when prepared well. Will I order and pay for a box myself? Probably not. Why? The cost. This box normally costs about $71.00. Considering it made 6 servings of food, that's $11.83 per serving. I could eat out for that cost, perhaps for less gourmet food, but with much less effort as well.

Our grocery budget for the two of us is about $50.00 per week. That being said, it makes 14 meals (lunch and dinner) for 2 people for 7 days, it comes out to less than $2.00 per serving. Yes, we are eating the same thing a few times as leftovers, but I don't mind leftovers for a meal or two. It means I cook even less!

I also enjoy going to the grocery store when my daughter is in a good mood because she gets to look around and be entertained and I get my shopping done.

So should you get a food kit delivery service? I think if your lifestyle and personality is a little different, one of these is a fantastic idea for the following:

1. This makes cooking fun. Many people find cooking very stressful. This sends you everything you need pre-portioned and packaged and provides you step-by-step instructions to cook. 

2. You don't have to buy groceries. If going to the grocery store stresses you out or you end up buying way too much and waste half of it, this is fantastic. You only get what you need and you use most if not all of it.

**Sidenote: If you're super eco-friendly, their packaging might frustrate you because of how much trash there is. As I was making these recipes, I constantly felt like I was throwing things away. The butter was individually packaged pads. Every ingredient had its own zip bag or container. Super wasteful if you simply unwrap and throw it away. I actually saved some of the bags to reuse whether it's to dump my daughter's poopy diapers when we're out and about and not near a trash can or to store my vegetable scraps in for stock in the freezer. I realize it's meant to be convenient and makes the packaging process easier on their end just to grab something that's pre-wrapped and place it in the box, but wow, there is a lot of trash from cooking three meals.

Chef Mommy

Mostly for tradition's sake, I still like writing and blogging for New Year's Eve and/or New Year's. Back in high school and even some of college, I liked to fill out those survey questionnaires and post them. They seemed so trivial at the time, but they're nice snapshots of a moment in time of your closest friends, favorite foods, hobbies, and a tiny glimpse of personality during a time when your life and you are constantly changing. Well, things don't change that much anymore.

I thought about what I could write about this year, but everything seemed to be occupied by baby. For good reason. I mean I've had lots of time to sample the best diaper brands (we've used about 7 different ones), the most necessary and unnecessary baby items, and must-have baby gadgets worth the splurge even as frugal parents. Being that my every day is filled with baby, I wanted to write about something different for a change.

After Sasha was born, I really missed cooking. Not cooking with the perspective of a chore of cooking food to eat because we were hungry, but cooking as an activity of being creative and combining ingredients to make something delicious and wonderful. Trust me, cooking because we are hungry is still a laborious chore.

So throughout the last 8 months of the year, I've been lucky enough to have moments to enjoy my kitchen again as a creative outlet. Here are some of the items we've cooked. This isn't meant to share recipes because there would be so many in one post, but if you see something interesting, please don't hesitate to ask me questions or ask me for the recipe! Also, in the same thinking as Ugly Delicious, these are not perfectly plated Instagram worthy pictures of food, but just what I've managed to document through the year. And honestly, I like it that way.

 1. Biscotti

One of the first recipes we attempted to make was biscotti. It was the frontrunner of our Friday night baking experiments after the baby learned to sleep longer stretches without waking up every hour to eat. It was also a way for us to spend time together as a couple while keeping the budget low and staying in without having to hire a sitter. Not as crispy and hard as store-bought biscotti, but I think my teeth appreciate that. :)

2. Radish Cake

I've made this recipe before many times before the baby was born, but it was nice to be able to make a big batch again and freeze them for later. Makes a great midnight snack or quick meal with a few hours of thawing time.

3. Cookie Cake

I already had a great recipe for chocolate chip cookies, but out of curiosity one day, I decided to make it into a cookie cake. It was wonderful. 

3. Bao Zi （包子）

I blogged about our first try at steamed bread （饅頭/馒头） a while back here. Since then, we have been able to try twice at making baozi. This time, our second try, we also had a 3-tier steamer which made the steaming process go much smoother and faster.

Another great food to spend an afternoon making large batches and freezing them for later snacks and meals.






4. Double chocolate chip banana bread

I use Pati Jinich's recipe for this. I really enjoy watching her cooking show on television and there are some other great recipes she's made before. I'm not the biggest fan of authentic Mexican food, but she's introduced me to some dishes that are truly delicious. I also just love listening to her say the word "mushy" in her accent. 

5. Fried chicken

I can't remember when I started making these fried chicken tenders, but it was amazing when I figured it out. It's almost restaurant quality. And I only say almost because these are not deep fried but pan fried.


6. Blueberry Crumble Cheesecake

I found the recipe for this cake when I was pregnant and saved it as a bookmark. Months later I went back and found it and we decided to make one as one of our Friday night date nights and went out and spontaneously bought a springform pan because I've never had one. It was very good.

So good.

7. Dutch Oven Bread

A friend of mine once made a dutch oven bread and I got really curious a few months ago and decided to try it myself. I found an easy recipe and gave it a shot. I always have beginner's luck and my first try turned out wonderfully. My second one...had some errors. Yes, you absolutely need to flour the bottom of the dutch oven.

PS - see those browned bits at the bottom that get burned onto pots and pans from the oven? Baking soda removes them without damaging your pot! I could write a whole post on the wonders of baking soda.

8. Pork Sung/Meat Floss （肉鬆/肉松）

I've loved this as a child. I never actually knew it was made with real meat (it is!) until recently. Who knew meat could dry to become a fluffy texture? I'm too frugal to buy this from the Chinese supermarket myself, but it really is one of my favorite foods from my childhood. The store sells it for about $10 a pound, sometimes more. Keep in mind that is the dry weight, so you'd probably need 2 pounds of meat to make 1 pound of meat floss. But even at 2 pounds of meat, it would cost you about half to make it yourself if you knew how.

I tried, and then I realized why people pay $10 a pound for this stuff. Unless you are very experienced and know exactly what you're looking for by texture and feel, this is not a recipe for amateurs or something you want to try "just for fun." Mine was a little too dry and turned hard and crispy more than dry and fluffy. What went wrong? I think the heat was too high...that's ok. It still makes great sandwiches with peanut butter (My friend told me about this recently. So. Good.) and an add-in for rice porridge. Will I make it again? Probably not....unless I can get my hands on a bread maker which can automatically stir and heat for you. Otherwise it's a high-maintenance recipe that involves lots of babysitting.


9. Biscuits

I haven't bought frozen biscuit dough in so long because it is so easy to make and only requires 6 ingredients: flour, butter, milk, sugar, salt, baking powder. They're also way more delicious (and healthy) and cost a fraction of the price. It's also a great recipe to know so you don't have to make a trip out to the grocery store just to buy biscuits last minute if you ever realize you want them and don't have any. 

I make mine rustic (aka not round) so you don't waste any of the dough or have to roll it out twice. The recipe has said they can be frozen and baked later, but I haven't tried that yet. The fresh ones are amazing though!

10. Char Siu （叉烧/叉燒）

I've always loved this Asian pork. My dad used to buy it once a week or so and we'd add it to our dishes for a meal or two. The ones from the store have the iconic red color which actually doesn't give it any flavor (who knew?). A few years ago I bought a flavor seasoning marinade and tried making some. It wasn't bad, but it didn't have that Asian flavor I was looking for. I found a homemade recipe and tried it sometime later, and it was good, but it still wasn't anything like at the restaurant.

Then, I came across a second recipe and tried it, and we loved it. It had the most authentic flavor of the three versions I've tried, and was the closest I've ever had to the ones from restaurants. It's also not as sweet as some of the ones at restaurants which I appreciate. I have frozen some of the raw marinaded meat and baked it later in the oven and the results are still fantastic. This one's a keeper.

11. Baby Food!

My daughter eats her colors. I've included this on the list, not so much because this is for us (although I have tasted every single thing I've ever given her, pouches, homemade, and all!) I actually find making baby food very therapeutic. I don't make giant quantities at once, only about 4-6 jars at a time, and each jar lasts about 2-3 servings. It takes me roughly an hour start to finish and I usually make a batch once a week. But this is way more efficient to me than spending 2-3 hours at once to make 2-3 times the amount. Because chances are my daughter naps for an hour no problem. Anything over an hour is a bonus to me and hard to come by.

I choose to use vacuumed jars and not freeze in ice cubes because that eliminates the thawing step. And let's face it, the thawing is what takes forethought and we don't have time for forethought when it comes to babies. We also just conveniently have a Foodsaver and the jar attachment already, so why not? I bought two dozen jars for $1.00 each including the cost of shipping and they have been well worth their value to me.

It's been quite the year and we have been super blessed with our baby as well as the good food we still manage to eat. Cheers to 2019 and many more recipes to try.

Messy eating only looks cute when you're this small.

Goodbye Mum

I sold my senior Homecoming mum today, sold it for 50% of the cost of the mum to begin with...so if you don't factor in inflation, that would be a negative 50% return. However, if you consider it literally plastic, paper, and ribbon hot glued together to make something ridiculously noisy that high school girls wear around for one day of their lives, I made a great sale. No, I did not wear mine around school. It's been hanging on a wall in my old bedroom for the last 10 years in pristine condition.

Every fall, I contemplated selling it to make some money and to get rid of it, but every fall, I either forgot or couldn't bring myself to sell it. There was too much sentimentality behind it because it was completely my own handiwork.

My handmade senior mum.

During junior year, my homecoming date was from another school. He and I had agreed not to do the mum and garter stuff with each other. We were going together just to have a date for the dance and to hang out with our friends. Well, being the girly girl I was, (and still am at heart,) I bought my own mum that year from the drill team moms and paid for it with my own money. I also bought some craft things and put together a last minute garter for him anyway even though we said we weren't going to do that. It wasn't my finest handiwork, but you know, for someone who thought he wasn't getting a garter, I think he was pleasantly surprised to have gotten one after all. I'm sure it's long been in the trash for years since that night.

For senior year, my homecoming date was yet again from another school. He and I had again agreed not to do the mum and garter stuff with each other. We were, once again, going together just to have a date for the dance and to hang out with our friends. And once again, being the girly girl I was, I wanted my own mum - because let's face it, the silver and white ones are so much more "elegant" than the maroon and white ones, if you can even call glitter, ribbon, and plastic "elegant."

But, I was going to make my own. Being a year wiser than I was the previous year and more intuitive, I figured out how to assemble all these seemingly useless pieces of craft materials they sell at Hobby Lobby and Michael's into something rather beautiful. My favorite part was the mum base. I creatively designed my own pattern and put it together with some of the more expensive glitter ribbons.

My mum base.

The trickiest part to making beautiful mums which I discovered in my own experience is how to embellish and hide the staples and glue. Everyone can take hot glue and glue a cow bell onto a piece of ribbon, or tie a cow bell onto a string and hang it off the mum. But how many people can DIY hide the charm hole at the top of the cow bell with something beautiful? (Also considering that mums are most often made by boys for girls with high expectations, chances are slim to none that they have any idea how to do this; hence, The Mum Shop in Plano has such lucrative business for only operating 3 months of the year.)

Someone out there will be Class of 2019...how
convenient: I only had to change one sticker.

17-year-old me figured that out, and I had a lot of fun making my own bows and ribbon embellishments to hide the charm holes, staples, and hot glue.

Made my own deluxe loops, and my own
ribbon braid on the right.

Cleverly concealed the top of the bell
beneath a decorative ribbon.

It was still very bittersweet and a bit sad when I handed away my mum to the lady who was picking it up. Granted, I would much rather have the cash than my mum hanging in my room, but I'm still sentimental at heart and I will miss my fine handiwork from 10 years ago. Also I'm pretty sure she will take apart my mum and simply use it for pieces to make another one. But I'm thankful I was able to sell it for cash than simply throw it away in the trash. Perhaps my legacy will live on anonymously through someone else's mum, at least for one year.

Just for kicks and giggles, I went online to The Mum Shop and created a mum order for something comparable to mine (number of charms, number of ribbons, etc.) to see how much it would cost to buy. I paid quite a bit less than what they're charging. Here are the numbers:

In my opinion, mums these days have gotten so large and so flashy that they're gaudy. I think they're actually more beautiful and elegant when they don't weigh 20 pounds and cover the entire girl whom it adorns. But I digress.

I did, however, remember to remove one detail from my mum. Years ago when I was preparing to hang my mum in my room, I needed a large needle or safety pin to hang it up on the pushpin. The only thing I could think of to use was a pearl pin I had kept in my music box. Before selling it and giving it away, I switched out the pearl pin with one of my many safety pins I've amassed from shopping at baby consignments. (I probably could have handed it to her without anything and it would have been fine, but I was trying to make it more marketable.) 

Why such a big fuss over such a small pin? It's the pin from my corsage from my mother's funeral.

In about sixteen years, I'll hopefully be able to pull up this blog post and share with my daughter about my old Homecoming mum and how much fun I had making it and how special it was for me. 

Goodbye, mum. I'll miss you.

馒头

My grandmother was the cook in the family. It's sad to say I honestly don't remember anything specific about her cooking. She cooked everything! I remember holiday meals at their house when they lived 15 minutes away from us and many dishes on the table, but I have no recollection of eating it. I was still too young to appreciate or enjoy the cultural dishes with sophisticated flavors. They moved away when I was about 10 or 11 years old.

What I do remember, however, is what my grandfather made: steamed bread (馒头). I remember in the summers he would cover their entire kitchen counter with dough and flour and make tons of steamed bread and buns. I never helped in the process, but I remember watching him roll out and knead the dough by hand. I remember him pinching my nose with floured hands. I remember playing with small bits of dough he'd rip off and hand to me. (Side note: This is where I learned how hot Texas summers were. Once, I took the small ball of dough outside with me to play. We had this little Fisher Price tricycle and some other self-propelling plastic toy car. I was riding around on one of them in the driveway. I needed to use the bathroom, but I still wanted to play. I remember leaving my ball of dough on the toy outside in the driveway, running inside really quickly to go, and returning back outside only to find my ball of dough was now a hollow, wrinkly, rubbery ball. Seriously, I wasn't gone that long. )

Over 15 years later, the urge to want to replicate my grandfather's steamed bread has returned. I think partially it's because cooking while taking care of a baby and working part time is exhausting. I have to think far in advance what to thaw, what to buy from the grocery store, and how I'm going to plan my time to prep and cook - I hardly ever cook at "dinner time" anymore. We love going out and buying steamed buns (包子) - so easy and so tasty - but it adds up financially. So the goal was to try and make some ourselves. However, the first step was to get the outer bread right.

I finally had some time yesterday afternoon to sit down and make some steamed bread. I followed this recipe. And found the results decent. I'm not sure if my dough didn't rise as it should have or if I cut my portions too big...I only yielded 4 and the recipe said 8. Oh well. Steaming time was also a little different because after about 10 minutes I felt they were done (they were) and took them out.

I was so excited to try one. Upon ripping off a piece from the side and tasting it, I was immediately transported back to my childhood, standing in my grandparent's kitchen, being fed bits of this freshly steamed warm bread. I'm not sure I could replicate this again if I made it a second time or doubled/tripled the recipe, but it's a start.

I did forget to follow the instruction to cover with floured plastic wrap, hence the little peaks on the tops of my bread versus a smooth round top. Needless to say I had a hard time removing the plastic from the tops...

We're one step closer to making 包子! One of these days I'll find an afternoon for hubby to watch the baby for a solid 5-6 hours and I can cook in peace.