Upgraded kitchen and key lime pie (with Valerie again)

We finished up the tile and trim in the kitchen last weekend – only thing left to do is put in the flooring and kickplates. We are doing a floating cork floor, found what we wanted at Lowe’s and order it, got a phone call yesterday that it’s in, so looks like in a few weeks we will be done. (can then move on to changing around the office). Here is what it looks like from the TV room – can’t see my big ovens, they are behind the tile wall to the left, you can just make out the edge of the refrigerator.


Lots of counter space for working – the counter under the window is eighteen feet long (5.5 meters), and the one up front is seven feet by three (2m x 1m). The tall cabinet to the left of the window has a roll up front, where we put the coffee machine and some appliances. All the cabinets have drawers, so we don’t have to go crawling into lower cabinets to find things. No upper cabinets except over the fridge, but we still have lots of storage space. B is trying to figure out what to put on that blank wall to the right – either some stainless steel shelves or a big painting. Quite a change from before, and what I originally envisioned. We were going to do more traditional cabinets, a light birch wood with simple frames, but when we got to Ikea B saw a sample kitchen with the shiny white cabinets and thought how easy they would be to clean and our whole design changed.

The lights are a mixture of fluorescents down the center and LED spotlights over the counters. It’s pretty bright in there when everything is turned on, at a lower power cost than those big fixtures that were in there before. We’ll probably change from that round table to a rectangular one right at the end of the island, then move the fan so it’s centered over the table. So still a few things to do. Behind the refrigerator is a nice big pantry, a place to put canned stuff and tools. I also got something else I’ve always wanted, a big stand mixer. The only thing I’m missing is a good food processor, have a little one but a lot of recipes expect you to have all of the tools.

What have I been doing in there? Well, enjoying that big gas cooktop for one thing – I like cooking with gas instead of the electric range we used to have. And also using those two big convection ovens we put in. Over there on the right is a link to Valerie , who posts lovely baking recipes. I’ve been trying several of her recipes and enjoying the summer fruit that has been available. I posted a few before, but one of the latest has been a key lime pie.

Key limes are these little limes that originated in Florida. Small and not very tart


Her Key lime pie recipe called for a lot of zest, which did make it rather tart. I think I used too much, ended up a little too tart for my taste, but that’s the fun of recipes, you can make it again and change things around. It might have been tart, but with that marvelous crust it still went rather quickly.


Go look at her site for the recipe. You can use regular limes if you can’t get the little ones, but will probably have to use more sugar to compensate. I’ll be posting more of the things I’ve been making, and a full kitchen tour when the flooring is in.