Still in the Kitchen

Today I began revamping  the kitchen cabinets, starting with the island (and the nearby bathroom cabinet). Since the project requires a few hours of drying between each coat, there was plenty of time to accomplish other tasks.

First on the list - hanging art. I recently purchased some blue-based prints featuring birds and flowers. (I'm just crazy about the bird motifs these days. I love the play of fresh colors with organic designs.) I bought a small pair for the kitchen (which I intended to hang over the sink, but changed my mind.) and another, fancier set for the archway - which ended up flanking the piano instead. (What can I say, I got them home and decided they'd be prettier elsewhere.) The pictures don't really do the pieces justice since the color isn't as clear. Suffice it to say they were a steel at $25 each from Ross. (The small ones were a bargain, too, at $12 a piece.) The little ones were also a good deal easier to hang since they only required a couple of small nails leveled out for balance. The larger ones, however, required plenty of measuring for the correct height and distance from the piano. In addition, they had hangers a couple of inches in from the edges, which makes life fun.

These now adorn the kitchen entrance.

In addition to these babies, I hung a black metal tray above my teacup display. (Mind you, it was gold and red before, but thanks to the wonders of spray paint it is completely transformed.) Prior to the current wall color, the niche where the teacups hang was a painted in a garnet red to accent the gold walls. Now, however, I'm not sure what color to paint it. I think white might not contrast enough (and certainly wouldn't set off the teacups) but black seems harsh. Brown doesn't really fit in with the kitchen area, while a darker shade of blue might look too much like a child's room. Hmmm...decorating dilemmas abound at my house!

Here's the tray above the niche.

Here's the niche - now looking rather non-descript.

In addition to putting some stuff on the walls, I decided to actually use my lovely kitchen for cooking. Dinner consisted of my take on oven spaghetti (pasta with a yummy sauce, covered in cheese, and baked until it's gooey) which made the boy pretty happy. (Let's face it, this kind of thing pleases just about everyone one.) I also used the remaining figs from last year's harvest coupled with the large bowl I picked a couple of days ago to make fig jam (at my mother-in-law's request). Since my mom clued me in last year on how easy it is to make jam, my family asks for it frequently. In this version, I only quartered the figs which left them in beautiful chunks throughout the sticky sweetness. Finally, while the jam boiled, I whipped up some baked chips from flatbread. (The store was out of whole wheat pitas when I was there, so I purchased a sun-dried tomato flatbread on sale.) While it was not as easy to cut as the pitas because the moisture content was a good deal higher, it made lovely chips to go with the remainder of my homemade hummus. All-in-all, I'd say it has been a pretty productive day!

One pan full of gooey deliciousness for dinner

Freshly browned flatbread chips

Five jars of lovely fig jam