DIY Marble Pastry Board

I would love to be a baker. My cookies are good. My breads are passable. Next, I want to learn to make PASTRY. It's like the holy grail of cooking abilities. I think if I can finally do that, make decent pastry, maybe I'll start to feel like I can cook. Maybe.

As I watch the Food Network, cruise the internet for tips and videos, and generally dream about flaky pie crust, I keep seeing marble pastry boards.

Pastry dough, in general, has more butter or shortening in it. This gives it the light, flaky texture that makes a good pastry. The problem is that you have to chill the dough before working with it, or it can get very sticky and fall apart. The idea behind something like a marble pastry board is that you can chill it first, then roll your dough out on it. The dough stays nice and cool and easy to work with.

These pastry boards are pretty much a big slab of marble, usually cost from around $25 to $150.

I wanted to see if I could get one for under ten bucks.

My inspiration was my sister-in-law. She uses a big section of countertop as her bread-kneading board. With this in mind, I went to a local place that makes custom marble and granite countertops. The very nice man in their front room was very approachable, and I asked what usually happens to the sink cut-outs. He told me that they often break and are just thrown out. I mentioned that if he had a reasonably whole one, I would be interested in buying it.

He told me I could have it for free.

Next thing I know, I am leaving with TWO cut-outs: a smaller marble one, and a bigger granite one.

Here's the marble one:

As you can see, it is toddler approved - so much so that I couldn't convince him to stop petting it long enough for me to take a picture.

It has a couple of scratches, but it is still perfectly suited to my use. All I did was wash it, and go to Joann Fabric looking for some feet to put on it.

The rubber feet are to keep it from scratching my table. I love my table very much and will protect it at all costs.

This pack of grippy circle things cost me five bucks, and has enough feet for both the marble board and the granite one. That's $2.50 for each board.

The only effort involved was turning the heavy thing over, and sticking on the feet.

Here's my brand new marble pastry board, complete with table-protecting rubber feet, for only $2.50 and almost no effort.

I'm feeling awfully proud of myself right now. I might celebrate with pastry.

More cool stuff here!

Let There Be Lighting Fixture

Our old kitchen table was small and sat in the middle of the kitchen. Now that I got us the bigger kitchen table, it sits over to the side along the window. The problem is that we are left with a hanging light fixture in the middle of the room that doesn't look like it belongs there.

(I am so sorry. The pic I took of the hanging lamp managed to get deleted. You're not missing much).

Husband has a superstition-like fear of working with anything electrical, so he asked an electrician to come and give an estimate on switching out the light fixture (among several other things). The electrician patiently explained that it is a simple job that he could quickly take care of, but that his company would charge us $113. Or I could do it myself.

Note, this is just the installation. I bought the light already at Lowes for $60.

Guess which one I chose. Just guess.

So I studied up. I read the instructions, watched YouTube videos, consulted knowledgeable friends, etc. It should be an easy matter of black wires to black, white to white, and ground to green.

This morning a friend watched our cubs for us, we turned off the power to the kitchen and got started. After I took down the old light I realized that the wires I had were not quite as described (I had white and red instead of the white and black I was told to expect). A quick call to my step-dad reassured me that all was okay. (By the way, my step-dad, Jeff, is awesome. In every way.)

The new light is in, the house isn't on fire, and neither husband nor I received any sort of electricity-related injuries.

Isn't it pretty? Here's another, even prettier shot of the light hovering warmly over my husband and youngest son.

My husband has declared that the hassle of working with me for the better part of an hour that it took me to figure out how to hang the darn thing is in no way worth the $113 we saved.

I think that the money we saved can be used to buy a matching ceiling fan for the living room.

No way am I paying for installation on that one, either.

Saving the Vacuum

Back in my Bride Days, I was thrilled and a little lost when it came to registering for gifts. Hubby and I had been living together for two years, so we had accumulated some of the things we would need for survival in the domestic wild. (Curiously enough, we only had one pot. I think that's because neither of us could really cook.)

I knew one thing I wanted for a certainty - a vacuum. We lived in a little, one-bedroom, Bronx apartment, with hardwood floors and a consistent layer of dust that perpetually settled over everything. I was tired of sweeping.

As a bridal shower present, my hubby's mom got me a Bissel Lift-Off. It's red. I love red. Even my sofa is red.

Vacuums are supposed to last 8-10 years. Everyone I have spoken to about this has wound up replacing theirs after around five years. Mine is seven years old, and has taken Very. Hard. Use. The poor thing has had to be fixed a couple of times.

The cheap part comes in here.
1) Fixing it is cheaper than replacing it.
2) Fixing it myself is cheaper than having someone else fix it.

Through the power of YouTube, I was able to replace a broken belt.
Through the power of an online forum on small appliance repair, I was able to find and tighten a loose wire.
Through the power of my father-in-law and his neighbor, a broken switch was replaced.

Total investment: about 5 bucks.

I'm also saving on filters by cleaning them out myself.
Before:

And the EXACT SAME FILTER after a wash in the tub and some time drying in the sun:

Investment: $0

Oh, and with the removal of a few screws, I can keep the brush clean, too.
Before:

And after:

The BEST part (other than saving a couple hundred bucks on a new vacuum) was this guy helping me. He even brought his own plastic screwdriver. The DIY force is strong with this one.