Outdoor Kitchen

Have you seen the many posts of different families setting up their 'outdoor' kitchens? Seems like everyone has them, and for once, I succumbed to a fad. :)

It was only about 102 (inside and out) on Saturday, and that didn't get any better by cooking. Did I even cook? I don't remember. That kind of heat melts my brain cells.

Anyways, on Sunday I was looking around trying to decide how to make life a *little* bit simpler in that area, thinking about an outdoor option for cooking. The back of the house gets the shade, but it is also harder to access and I'd be setting up shop in the flower weed bed. That rear door got some rain under it's threshold or something, and it's HARD to open these days. The front has a long, covered porch, but it gets all-day sun, and I could probably cook without any appliances in that area. The "side porch" is fairly small, but it's just outside the dining room and would be handy. If it were level. And the chickens stayed away (yeah, right). And the old barbecuer moved. But there was no outlet.

Ah, but there was one just inside the sliding glass door. I could just run the cords in.

Hubby didn't like that idea, so he went to the hardware store (any excuse!) and bought an outdoor waterproof outlet and other electrical odds and ends so he could cut a hole in the house. He loves doing that kind of thing. Before long, he had it installed and 'heat' on it, jacked up the porch and leveled it, moved the barbecuer, and I set up a card table, plugged in a little electric burner, and my big roaster-thingy.

I browned some sausage, then some onions, on the burner, then made up a watery spaghetti sauce, into which I eventually broke some spinach lasagna noodles. I 'baked' a pan of cornbread muffins in the roaster, followed by 3 bread-pans full of lasagna, followed by the rest of the cornbread muffins.

And stashed a couple of each in the freezer. Yes!

The 'baking' did take longer (I might not be doing it right -- do you remove that liner for baking or not?), but it did the job, and I was so happy to at least have a slight breeze upon me while stirring up dinner.

And a baby gate does a fairly good job of keeping chickens off the porch.