My excuse for not posting lately -- Part 2

I got all the cabinets raised and the kick boards put in. The top valences put in place and most of the doors and hardware. As a side business I am repairing boats and working with a granite supplier and cutter to get my counter tops. Been fixing 2 of his boats for payment of that and will only have to pay for delivery.

In the below picture there will be more cabinets going over the window but need to figure out how I will be doing that still.

There are shelves that go here just have not put them in yet.

Floor ripped up ready for tile. I still have a ton of tiles left over and will be starting this today

My excuse for not posting lately -- Part 1

Well...  As some of you might have noticed I have not posted for a little while.  I at least have a valid excuse per say.  I am doing a full kitchen remodel which has been a blast yet a pain in the ARSE! I will give you a little back log of what is going on.  My aunt has a big interior design firm in California and has a lot of people owe her money due to the economy.  She sometimes will take product to pay down people bills and she took some a full kitchen remodel as a payment on a clients bill.  She found out that no one would buy them due to the fact that they are designed for a specific kitchen and no one would take the time to make them work. 3 years later they sat in her warehouse and needed to get rid of them. She knew I was fixing my house up and offered me if I can pic them up I can have them!  WHAT???  I said but the offer was valid. I could not get my shoes on fast enough to hit the road.  I knew it was going to be a huge challenge but I was up for it!!  So my cousin and I went to Cali and snagged it up.  I found out they were designed for a kitchen that was double my size but also meant I can mix and match and more to work with.  So here are some pictures of my original kitchen and the work in progress. With my cousin paying rent and a side business I started last month I had a little money to throw into the project.  I will have to make this in several posts so I don't have too many pics in just one post.

Above is what I had before the project started. They are cheap laminate wood and I was very happy to get rid of it.  

Here is all the new stuff sitting in my garage waiting to be put in.

Kitchen gutted and ready for the install. I had to extend one wall out 8 inches so I could fit the new stuff in.

This has been a huge jig saw puzzle and has been a big challenge but has been working for me "knocks on wood"  I found out one of the doors had a broken glass and have to replace.  $600 for the door and glass and I maybe I need to wait a little before I can replace.  I will post more pics tomorrow and show more progress.  Thanks for viewing!!!

Had my mom come visit me and made my ribs

My mom came to visit me so I had to make my ribs. I have not seen her in 3 years and I was stoked to see her.  From when I was 7 years old till now I was always on my own. My mom worked from 5am till 7pm and my dad worked from 7am till about 9pm at his normal job amd then his business he owned. My brother was the athlete so he had some sort of practice and this left me to do all the cooking for dinner.  I learned a lot through trial and error and came up with some great recipes over the years. My favorite are my ribs which I came up with when I was 12.  Since I can't work I am using my time in culinary school and having a blast. I will be posting up a lot of my cooking ventures here in the future. Here is my rib recipe.

Rib rub - Rub this on the ribs and put in fridge for about 24 Houra. Make sure to add the salt about 15 minutes before you cook so it does not dry it out. You can alter this to how big your slab it

• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons paprika
• 3/4 tablespoons salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Sauce

3 parts favorite bbq sauce - If I don't fully make it on my own I use sweet baby rays -  Don't get the brown sugar one cause you are already adding brown sugar

1 part ketchup

1 part catalina salad dressing  

1/4 cup brown sugar -- of course depends how much sauce you are making

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp of basil

Grill the racks on a normal grill for about 30 minutes. You want a good brown on both sides to lock in the juices while it is in the oven and give it a nice crunchy texture.

I use a large steaming pan for this. Here is my 3 slabs waiting for sauce.

I then liberally add my sauce and about a 1/4 cup of water.  I sprinkle some pre-cooked chopped garlic clovers and onions over the top.

I cover it with 3 layers of foil. I want to cook and steam it at the same time.  Cook at 300 degrees for 45 minutes and then take out and baste. Then cook at 250 degrees for 3 hours. Every hour take it out and baste making sure it does not dry out. If you have it covered properly you should not have any escaping air drying the meat out.

After it is all done you should have a very juicy fall off the bone delight. I am not the best at plating and presentation but the food speaks for itself.  As you can see from the picture I just lifted the bone and it fell right out...  PERFECT

Thanks for viewing

Rare Billinghurst reel??

 Trout Journeys has made a post about a rare Billinghurst reel that really caught my eye.  I love learning about the history of fly tying fishing.  I have always wanted to own a piece of  fly fishing history but for now I can only look at pictures.   Check out his blog as well, he has got some great posts

An original BILLINGHURST fly fishing reel pat. dated 1859. 

The rarest of the rare of all fly fishing reels ever made. It is the smallest version the 3 inch model with a fixed handle. 


William Billinghurst (1807-1880) produced reels of different sizes and materials, from small brass reels to giant sized nickel plated trolling reels¹ (though only one of these is currently known to exist). The most common, if any Billinghurst can be called that, is the nickel plated 2^nd version, or dual patent marked reels circa 1873 to 1880.


You can own one now......................

www.sidemountedreels.com

The only thing I have that I can see as history is I have a lot of old and rare style hooks.

Helping out Owl Jones on his trip to the west

I wanted to help Owl Jones out with his trip to Yellowstone and what better way is to send him some flies.  This is going to be a short post but here are 60 flies that will be leaving on Tuesday so hope he likes them and hope he can put them to good use!