short takes (food and climate control)
Jul. 27th, 2003 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThis afternoon I made two kinds of pies for a peerage vigil being held at Pennsic, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rani23 kindly came and collected them so I didn't have to make freezer space for them. I always seem to be surprised by the amount that a huge wad of raw spinach cooks down to. I thought I was going to get four spinach pies, but I only got three. Oh well.
The Edgewood Giant Eagle no longer carries lard-free pie crusts, either the frozen or refrigerated varieties. Bah. I had to go to Kosher Mart. I detest making pie crust, and Giant Eagle used to have an all-vegetable one (frozen). It was even pareve, which meant I could make meat pies. I wonder if this is a quirk of this particular store, or if the chain is no longer carrying those crusts.
I also made cold cherry soup for us to eat tonight (and for a couple more days). It takes a long time to pit cherries. I crave a gadget. (ralphmelton has one that works well.)
Last Sunday we bought a dehumidifier for the basement, on the advice of the guys who came in after the great seepage a few weeks ago. We've left it running continuously so far. I haven't measured the water bucket, but it looks like it holds about a gallon. (We failed to correctly implement the hose-to-floor-drain version. We need to go back for different parts.) I've been checking the bucket daily, and accumulation has been fairly slow. (I don't know what's normal.) This morning the total accumulation for the week was somewhere between half and two-thirds full, and I emptied it.
Today was really humid (as was yesterday), and now it's raining. This evening, out of curiosity, I checked the bucket again. It was at this morning's level! In one day it sucked as much humidity out of the air as in the previous week. Wow. (And a couple hours later, there was significant accumulation again, maybe a fifth full.)
It does seem to be helping. Aside from the measurable results, I note that the basement doesn't have that slightly-damp feel that it sometimes does.
Humidity bothers me much more than heat does, and lately I've been running the window air conditioners for humidity removal rather than for cooling. We can't have central AC in our house (we've tried); pity no one's offering central dehumidify, which would solve 90% of the problem and probably not require as much complicated duct work.
rani23 kindly came and collected them so I didn't have to make freezer space for them. I always seem to be surprised by the amount that a huge wad of raw spinach cooks down to. I thought I was going to get four spinach pies, but I only got three. Oh well.The Edgewood Giant Eagle no longer carries lard-free pie crusts, either the frozen or refrigerated varieties. Bah. I had to go to Kosher Mart. I detest making pie crust, and Giant Eagle used to have an all-vegetable one (frozen). It was even pareve, which meant I could make meat pies. I wonder if this is a quirk of this particular store, or if the chain is no longer carrying those crusts.
I also made cold cherry soup for us to eat tonight (and for a couple more days). It takes a long time to pit cherries. I crave a gadget. (
ralphmelton has one that works well.)Last Sunday we bought a dehumidifier for the basement, on the advice of the guys who came in after the great seepage a few weeks ago. We've left it running continuously so far. I haven't measured the water bucket, but it looks like it holds about a gallon. (We failed to correctly implement the hose-to-floor-drain version. We need to go back for different parts.) I've been checking the bucket daily, and accumulation has been fairly slow. (I don't know what's normal.) This morning the total accumulation for the week was somewhere between half and two-thirds full, and I emptied it.
Today was really humid (as was yesterday), and now it's raining. This evening, out of curiosity, I checked the bucket again. It was at this morning's level! In one day it sucked as much humidity out of the air as in the previous week. Wow. (And a couple hours later, there was significant accumulation again, maybe a fifth full.)
It does seem to be helping. Aside from the measurable results, I note that the basement doesn't have that slightly-damp feel that it sometimes does.
Humidity bothers me much more than heat does, and lately I've been running the window air conditioners for humidity removal rather than for cooling. We can't have central AC in our house (we've tried); pity no one's offering central dehumidify, which would solve 90% of the problem and probably not require as much complicated duct work.
Re: cherry pitter
Date: 2003-07-28 06:29 am (UTC)(It's a wonderful place, with all sorts of lovely kitchen things upstairs, and anything hardware store in the larger-than-ground-floor basement.)