Kids and Plumbing by Guest Blogger, Samantha Baldwin

This post is part of our series: 10 Things Women Should Know About Plumbing.

If you have little ones, you have little toys. Kids love playing with their toys anywhere and everywhere but when G. I. Joe wants to go for a swim in the toilet, there’s more to worry about than just germs.

Toys: A Leading Cause Of Clogged Sewer Lines

Sewer pipes clog when their insides become coated with oily deposits that in turn trap solid objects that try to make their way down the drain. The bigger the object that gets stuck, the more surface area the oily deposits have to stick to, the faster the sewer lines end up clogging.

Toys that go down the toilet are a big help to the clogs. They’ve got lots of surface area for the grease to stick to. Once they’re embedded in the grease, they’ll start snagging all the other things that go down the drain, like toilet paper and tampons, and before you know it, your pipe is clogged and raw sewage is backing up into your basement. Once that happens, the 99 cent toy you bought with their happy meal is now costing you thousands of dollars to clean up after.

So even if your toilet isn’t immediately clogged, a child flushing a toy down the drain is still a big problem. So what now? Well, the good news is, your toilets, sinks, showers and tubs are all going to keep working for the time being. The bad news is, if a toy is stuck in your sewer line, nothing short of hydro-jetting is going to move it out.

A Plumbing Snake Just Isn’t Gonna Cut It

A plumbing snake, which is essentially a long wire with a spatula on the end of it, will scrape the toy off the inside of the pipe once it becomes stuck, but it won’t push it down the line. You’ll likely have to have the line snaked several times before the toy makes it to the county sewer where the pipes are larger and a clog is the county’s problem, not yours.

Hydro-jetting, which uses high-pressure water to scour the inside of the pipe will push everything down the pipe, will clear the toy all the way down on the first try. It costs more than snaking the line, but it gives you the benefits of knowing the line is completely clear and, because it cleans all the greasy deposits off the inside of the pipe, it will actually have the long term benefit of preventing future clogs. The one downside to hydro-jetting is there is the potential for it to backfire, almost literally. If a clog is big enough, it may take the jetter time to break through it. With 18 gallons a minute flowing into the clogged sewer pipe, the time it takes the jetter to break through may be too long, and all the water it shoots down the pipe can very rapidly back up into your house. A good plumber will actually have you sign a waiver acknowledging the potential for this to happen.

In the end, the #1 rule when it comes to children’s toys and toilets is prevention. Once the toy is down the drain, you’re stuck. Keep the toys, and any other foreign objects for that matter (including feminine sanitary objects), out of toilets at all cost.

Adding on to the Carrot Soup

I've been rather obsessed with the Roasted Carrot and Tomato soup from last week.  In fact, I've had to double the recipe and make it a few times a week because my husband, son, and I have been devouring it!! 

I tried the oven roasting method and didn't notice that much difference in the taste of it.  It's a nice way to save time, and if you've got little kids who hang on you while you're in the kitchen, it's an easier alternative to standing at the stove and stirring a saute pan.  Just throw the carrots and onions in a 400 degree oven on a cookie sheet with olive oil and salt, and in 30 minutes, you've got the guts to your soup.  You can roast this at night while watching TV, then throw the roasted veggies in the fridge or freezer to make the soup later when you've got time/energy/will.

I had my husband come "play" with the hand blender / immersion circulator for one batch so I could report on that texture.  I didn't like it as much as I like the blended soup.  The creamy smoothness I get from putting everything into the blender wasn't duplicated with my stick blender.  It was still wonderful, but just not the same creamy smoothness that I have been craving since I first tried this recipe.

Stay hungry.

Roasted Carrot Tomato Soup

Today's creation is a roasted carrot and tomato soup.  And it's so good, my tummy hurts from eating two HUGE bowls way too fast.

One medium red onion
6 large carrots
olive oil
salt
white wine
6 cups chicken broth (or 6 cups water and 6 boullion cubes)
6oz can tomato paste

Dice onion and carrots, but they don't have to be pretty because you're going to puree the whole thing once it's all cooked.  You will want the carrots about the same size just so they cook evenly.  You don't want some to burn while others aren't even tender yet, and you'll get that if they are very uneven.  No need to get out the ruler here ... just a reasonable eyeball is plenty good.

Add a little olive oil to a heavy duty pan, large enough to hold 8 cups or more in volume.  Add the diced onion and carrots and a little salt to help bring out their moisture.  Be careful not to over salt at this point.  You'll want to check for seasoning after you've purred your soup, because you never really know how salty your stock, broth, or boullion will be once it's reduced.  I cooked the carrots and onions low and slow.  Didn't really bring the heat up past a 7 while they were roasting.  You can also place your pan in the oven and let it roast, rather than having it on the stove top at this point.  You want the slow caramelizing of the natural sugars in both the carrots and onions to come out slowly so they don't scorch and burn. 

Once the carrots are tender, crank the heat up and watch it carefully for the caramalization to get a little darker, but still be careful not to burn it.  Now deglaze with a cup of white wine.  Scrape up the toasty bits of carrot and onions that got stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Add the 6 cups of broth / bouillon and water.  Bring this to a boil just to get it's attention, then turn it off.  Using a slotted spoon, scoop out half of your cooked carrot chunks and place them in your blender or food processor.  Yes, more will fit, but do not put more than 1/3 max capacity into your blender or processor.  Ladle a cup or more of the liquid into the blender too.  Put the lid on the blender.  Place a kitchen towel over the lid and hold it down tight.  HOT LIQUIDS IN THE BLENDER WILL EXPAND, SPLURT OUT, AND BURN YOU.  Putting the kitchen towel on top of the lid will help protect you from getting hurt.  Your mixture will be very thick, so use a spatula and scoop it back into the soup pot.  Scoop out the rest of the cooked carrot chunks and repeat the pureeing process.  Do it in 2 batches so you don't get hurt and don't send carrot soup splattering and shooting all over your kitchen.

Return the last of the puree to the soup pot and stir.  Add your tomato paste and whisk everything until it's all blended, thick, creamy, and smooth.  Taste for seasoning, and add a little more salt if you'd like it.

Would be fabulous with a big hunk of crusty bread with Parmesan cheese toasted on top.  But I had mine straight up with a side of diet coke.  Twice.  Yeah ... two bowls of this and there's more to have for supper.  I'll freeze what's left so I can have more later.  This would also make a DREAMY pasta sauce.  Add some roasted butternut squash chunks to some whole wheat pasta or some spaghetti squash, and you'll have a dreamy meal that you'll swear should be illegal!

Stay hungry.

Sketty Mac-N-Cheese

Lazy Mommy Post:

Last night, my kids had a semi-home-made concoction of awesomeness.  Box of Mac-N-Cheese noodles boiled until cooked.  Drained, then put back in the pot.  I poured a cup of jarred marinara on the noodles, then added the powder cheese from the mac-n-cheese package.  Didn't add the milk or butter, just used the moisture from the marinara sauce.  Stirred it all up, and it was AWESOME!  The kids thought it was fabulous, and I made the mistake of "quality checking" a little more than was needed.  But it was just too good to have only one bite/spoonful/bowl.  What?!?  Like you've never "accidentally" eaten a snack or guilty pleasure kid food.  Don't judge.  You know you're going to try this.

The Great Compost Start-up

Who gets excited about trash?  THIS GIRL!  No lie. 

I just bought a composting sack (instead of a tumbler) to begin my adventure in composting.  Figured I'd start with a cheap option and be sure this is something I'm really into, and will continue to "do" rather than spending a few hundred to only have to put it on craigslist in a few years when the husband gets tired of mowing the lawn around it. 

A few weeks ago I started collecting compostable trash from kitchen scraps.  While doing some replanting in the yard I saved grass/dirt tufts.  Yesterday I shredded some old newspapers, and saved all the vacuum crud from the Dyson.  I was READY!  I've read that compost needs a mix of "green" and "brown".  Green being organic/wet, brown being paper/dry.  So after a few weeks of collecting treasures of the trash world, I was ready to make gardening gold.  So I opened up my sack and dumped everything in.  Layering as the experts say to do, of course.  And I placed it out in the back yard so it can begin to brew it's lovely self into magic soil.

My garden, herbs, flowers, and lawn are going to be ROCKIN' next year!  I'm really more excited about this than I perhaps "should" be, but it's one of those things that makes me simply ... HAPPY!  And I'm sorry, but how cool is it to be using my trash to make things better?  Dryer lint, vacuumed hair and dust, junk mail ... it all gets turned into making my yard, garden, flowers, and herbs awesome. 

I think everyone knows that I switched to cloth diapers for both kids in early summer.  My son is totally out of diapers (at 2 years old, thank you very much) and my daughter is still using the cloth diapers only.  I LOVE them, while most of my friends and family thought I had absolutely lost my mind.  But, I gotta tell ya, it makes me feel like a better person.  I'm a work at home mom, I do laundry all the time, so it's no bother, no extra work, it's saving us TONS of money, and it's keeping diapers out of landfills. 

Once I had two sets of amazing blue eyes looking at me from the angel faces of my newborn babies, I knew that I needed to do everything I could to be sure they had the best life and best future I could give them.  I'm not saying that diapers and compost will change the world, but it will (and has) changed the world of my two babies, and that makes me happy and proud. 

There's a saying that will always be true.  "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."  And this Mama is happy with making her world a better place with trash, dirt, and baby-poop. 

Fat Free Three Bean Turkey Chili

You'll need at least a 5 qt GOOD pot for this chili

Ingredients:
1 lb extra lean ground turkey
1 1/2 cups chopped onions, or frozen pearl onions
1 cup dry pinto beans
1 cup dry black beans
1 cup dry red beans
14.5 oz can of petite diced tomatoes
6 oz can tomato paste
10 cups water
10 beef bouillon cubes
(OR 10 cups beef stock in place of the water and bouillon)
1 TB spoon Salt (Taste throughout to check for salt content.  Bouillon or stock can be on the salty side, so salt to taste.)
1/2 TB spoon ground pepper
2 TB spoons chili-lime-rub (I used The Pampered Chef blend.
2 teaspoons Southwest Seasoning Mix (I used The Pampered Chef blend.)
1 TB spoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 Large dry bay leaf
10 shakes Liquid Smoke

In your large (at least 5 Qt) heavy pot, brown the ground turkey over medium heat.  Now ... ground turkey doesn't really brown like beef does.  It really just turns a murky gray, so don't try to cook this until it looks like beef.  It just won't happen.  Once the meat is cooked, turn up the pan a little and add the onions to the meat in the pan.  Use the moisture given off from the onions to "deglaze" the base of the pan to scrape up any toasted bits of turkey left on the pan.  They are the good parts, so you want to be sure you include them.  Add all the dried beans.  Be sure you pick through them to sort out any foreign matter!  Dried beans are notorious for having rocks, dirt, and bad beans.  Be sure you're putting only clean, good quality dried beans into your foods.  Add the can of tomatoes and the can of tomato paste.  Add your 10 cups of water and 10 bullion cubes ... OR ... the 10 cups of beef stock.  Add the salt, pepper, chili-lime-rub, southwest seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, bay leaf, and liquid smoke.  Stir everything to mix in the spices and to blend the tomato paste into the liquids.  Turn it up to about a medium high and let it come to a simmer.  Then turn it WAY down to medium low, put the lid on it, and let it cook for about 4 to 6 hours.  It's done when the beans are tender.  It will only get better as it sits, so you can make this on a weekend when you have the time to let it bubble on the stove, then freeze it in portions for either lunches at work, or suppers when you get home.  Or pour it on your omelet in the morning for a pretend visit to Mexico to start your day.

You may also put all of this into a crock pot and let it cook all day on low while you're at work.  Be sure to cook the meat before hand, and make sure your crock pot will hold at least 5 quarts.

Notice there's no oil in the recipe.  Depending on the fat content in the ground turkey you buy, that's the ONLY fat in this dish. 

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I had this first when a friend brought it over for a party we were having.  It was FANTASTIC, and I still think about it every single day.  I would eat this morning noon and night if I could get away with it.

What you'll need:
1 Pie plate
1 block plain cream cheese (any kind you like)
1 to 2 Cups cooked diced chicken (depending on how meaty you'd like it.  The picture above was 2 cups!)
1/4 to 1 Cup store-bought buffalo sauce
Hot sauce of your choice (optional)
Blue Cheese Crumbles (optional)
Chopped Chives or green onions (optional)
Crackers, chips, celery

Spread the cream cheese in the bottom of the pie plate.  You can use regular cream cheese, low fat, fat free, whipped ... what ever you want.  The whipped will make a lighter dip in texture, and the fat free cream cheese will make it less calories/fat, so choose your poison.

For the chicken, use either leftover cooked chicken, make extra the night before for supper, then use that extra for the dip, use canned chicken, or use the precooked stuff in the deli section of the super market.  It's simply a matter of choice and ease.  You'll want to dice it up into pieces about the size of corn kernels.  These will be big enough to get great flavor, yet still small enough to not load down your chip to the point of breaking.

Find a buffalo sauce that you love.  You can also make your own with butter and hot-sauce, but there's really no need to because there are awesome ones in the store.  Save yourself the pressure of making a sauce to go with this, and just use the yummy ones available to you.  If you don't think it's hot enough, add hot sauce of your choice.

Mix the sauce with the chicken.  Pour a little bit on, see what the texture looks like, see what the flavor is, and add more if you need / want to.  Keep adding until you have a consistency almost like a thick chili.  You want it to be "dip-like", but not soupy, and not dry. 

Pour the sauce covered chicken onto the cream cheese base in the pie pan.  If you think it looks a little dry once you've got the chicken on the cream cheese, drizzle some more sauce on it.  It's your dip, so make it the way you'd like to eat it.

After the chicken and sauce is on the cream cheese, you'll add the blue cheese to how ever much of the dip you'd like.  My husband is not a fan of blue cheese, I think it's one of the greatest things EVER, so I load my half up, and leave his half free of blue cheese.  You can also sprinkle with diced chives or green onions.  If someone in the group wants it more spicy, have the hot sauce of your choice available for them, or make them suck it up and eat it the way you make it. 

At this point, you're ready to go!  Grab the dipping implement of your choice ... cracker, chip, celery stick, spoon, and dig in.  It's really amazing! 

Enjoy!

Pepper Crusted Flank Steak

So, I gotta admit ... the pepper crusted flank wasn't my favorite.  It just didn't have enough flavor.  It needed a marinade to get into the meat fibers to bring out the juicy, savory aspect of that cut of meat.

I did a simple salt and pepper coating on the flank and cooked it on medium high like I do my regular flank steaks, but it was dry and tough.

Remember ... a KEY aspect of a flank steak is how you cook it, then how you cut it.  You M-U-S-T cut it thin as possible against the grain.  This means holding the knife at a 90 degree angel to the meat fibers.  When you look at the flank, you'll see that it looks like it's just a massive sheet of strings.  This is the grain.  You have to cur a flank steak across those fibers, or you'll be chewing until next Thursday.

Find a great marinade, one that's got a good acid to help break down that cut of meat, add a bit of sweetness to it, and some savory.  Add whatever dried herbs you fancy on your steaks, and let it sit for at least 4 hours.  The longer the better, so if you've got the time, put it in the marinade and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  Take meat out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before you're going to cook it so that the cooking time is even throughout.  And always let it rest for at least 5 minutes before cutting.  Unless you're starving, then cook it from frozen, and eat it over the pan.  I don't judge...

Baramundi

Last night we had a fantastic "new" fish to us.  Baramundi.  It's a lovely white fish, a lot like a talapia. 

In my large cast iron pan, I added a bag of still frozen chopped collard greens and two cups of cooked black beans.  I poured my Pampered Chef Southwest Seasoning on it and let it steam and simmer until just slightly warm.  I added a little water (the frozen greens have a lot, and they can almost cook in their own moisture when cooked like this) and them placed the fish fillets on top of the beans/greens mixture.  Once I had a soft bubble/simmer, I placed the whole pan into a 350 oven and let it cook until the fish was done.

It was AWESOME!!!  So yummy and moist, and simple, and earthy.  Really good!!

A twist on my Mama's Flank Steak

As a kid, the one dish I always chose for my birthday supper was my Mama's Flank Steak.  It was so special.  Marinated for EVER (it seemed at the time), grilled to perfection and then sliced into paper thin ribbons you could fold over on your tongue and just let them melt as you barely had to sink your teeth into them.  The most delectable savory dish I have still had to this very day.  It's a recipe I hold VERY dear, and no, you're not getting it here. 

Yes ... I'm THAT evil!

But tonight ... tonight I had a lovely thought.  What if I could take this ultimate perfection and add to it with the success I'd just had a few nights ago with the brisket?  So I sprinkled "table ground" black pepper all over the flank before dropping into my preheated cast iron pan.  It sizzled and smelled awesome ... but not the same.  Then I realized I'd left out the vinegar from the marinade!  What a stupid move!!  HELLO!!  A marinade is ONLY an acid and a base!  How can I forget one whole HALF of the equation?!?  So ... as a last minute effort, I drizzled balsamic on top of the seasoned flank as it was cooking. 

I was disrespecting the flank.  It's such a sacred dish to me, and here I was, creating a debauchery out of what should be scarf fed up and eaten so fast I might not really taste it anyway.  But ... here I was ... staring at the pan, the poor piece of meat in the pan who did not live it's life to it's fullest potential.

So I let it rest while I put my son to bed for the 10th time tonight, call my husband at work, get the DVR set for the shows I want to watch, and put the finishing touches on my brussel sprouts.  And then it was time to eat.

AND IT WAS GOOD!! 

Not awesome ... but GOOD.  It really needed the vinegar in the original marinade, that was a dumb rookie move, and it totally killed the whole dish, but the addition of the light pepper crust gave it a subtle heat that was really nice.  I ate half of the flank, and most of the sprouts, so it couldn't have been THAT bad.  

Dessert was what was left in the Jif Reduced Fat PB jar. 

So ... now the puppies have been out for pee's and poop's ... Homer is dreaming of chasing tennis balls and lame ducks ... Stella is ready for me to turn off the lights and go to bed ... GG and Boo are safe and snugly in their beds/cribs, and I'm 'bout ready to go hit the hay with a book or a sudoku puzzle.

Sweet dreams, y'all! 

Veggie Casserolasagna

This is a veggie casserole made in layers like a lasagna. The only thing that I precooked is the cauliflower because it's so flippin awesome with the toast brown bits! It's: 3 small/regular zucchini, cut lengthwise in 1/4" slices. 3 large tomatoes, cut into 1/4" slices. 1 pint sliced portobello mushrooms. 1 thick leek cut into 1/8" discs. 4 garlic gloves sliced. Lots of fresh whole leaf cilantro. 1 head of cauliflower roasted. 1 cup low fat mozzarella shredded 1 cup Italian 6 cheese shredded blend Kosher salt Balsalmic vinegar I layered zucchini, tomatoes, leek rings, mushrooms, drizzle of balsalmic, mozzarella, a sprinkle of salt, garlic, cilantro, zucchini, tomatoes, mushrooms, cilantro, roasted cauliflower, then topped it with the 6 cheese blend. I'm going to bake it at 325 until it's soft and the cheese is bubbly. This pic is a prebaked shot of just the assembly.

Welcome!

Well, hello there!

Thanks for checking out my new blog.  Really ... it's my only blog, so that makes it new to both of us.  Granted, I say "both" with the fairytale image that someone else will read this swill.

Speaking of swill, my first endeavor into the world of blogging will first involve me getting over the term "blog", which I have for years now detested and thought would surely go by the wayside, and yet I fear it's here to stay.  Yes, this blog will be about cooking, eating, mothering, wifing, cleaning, diapering, potty-training, teaching, loving, gardening, wine-drinking, and writing.  Sometimes, all of the above will be in the mix. 

So, please sit back, grab a glass of vino, and enjoy the read.  With all I've got going on, I wouldn't expect a whole lot of posts to start with, but as I find time and figure out how to juggle adding one more thing into my crazy world, you'll get to hear all about it.