2000s Kitchen Decorating Trends That Overstayed Their Welcome

Have you ever flicked through old photos or magazines and wondered 'who in the world thought that trend was a good idea?' We know we have, which is why this week we're taking a look at the kitchen trends of now and then, focusing on the design choices of the early 2000s. (We know, it's weird to us to think it was 20 years ago too.) 

Mason Jar Decor

Lighting, candles, soaps, storage, mason jars have been everywhere and used for everything. 

They were affordable, easy to come by and you could buy them in bulk. Not to mention once you were done with the food inside them, you might have to wait a while before you could fill them again, so you needed to use them for something, right?  People got creative and found all sorts of ways to use these staple items. It was great! And then it became overwhelming. You couldn't pick up a magazine or open up Pinterest without seeing at least one 'innovative, new way to use mason jars!' 

Fortunately a shift towards handmade wares seems to be growing, meaning that mason jars might have to move out of the spotlight.

Granite everywhere! 

Backsplashes, counters, and anywhere else designers could put it. Granites are so busy when you have them all over your kitchen, and combined with the thick cuts, it led to kitchens feeling very dark and confining. 

Fortunately, today's trend is all about marbles or smooth expanses of a single color. Both of which can be obtained with some contact paper. 

Ferns 

Ferns were the plant in the 2000s and really, it’s not a terrible trend. They bring a lightness to a room if you take good care of them. Unfortunately, most people didn't. They're finicky plants and they do shed... a lot if you're not careful. So when succulents started to enter the spotlight in 2009 or so, ferns were ushered back into the offices and waiting rooms. 

Stainless Steel Everything

Sure, most appliances come in stainless, but there’s no need to have it floor to ceiling. Which is what the 2000s did, even going so far as to have all of the appliances in one long line so that you had a wall of stainless steel when you stepped into a kitchen. Mix things up and check out different options! You can use contact paper to get wild or purchase ones that come in different colors like these gorgeous ones from SMEG. 

Accent Walls

Can they be done right? Yes. Were they? Not really. 

Ok, that's not fair. There were tons of magazines and interior designers that pulled off this look flawlessly. For the majority of us though, we'd try and use a cool color in a  room full of warm furniture or vice versa and it just never worked the way it was supposed to! 

   This is still a trend surprisingly, but it's being done more cautiously. Instead of going with bold, eye catching colors people are choosing colors that already exist within their decor and using that for the accent. 

Stark Black and White 

This was a trend, and we’re not entirely sure why? It can be very disorienting to have everything in just two colors with no variation or places to rest the eyes. 

        It makes us think of high concept music videos or something, and really, we're glad this one has stayed in the past. Not to mention how difficult it is to keep stark blacks and whites clean!

‘Rustic’ Kitchens

Roosters and oil paintings, as far as the eye can see. It was a frightening time full of reds and yellows that didn’t really work well together.  Rustic is a great aesthetic, and it can be utterly beautiful, but really, you can only have so many roosters in one kitchen. This one has stuck around surprisingly, but it's expanded out to include reclaimed woods, shiplap, and a broader range of colors. 

Tuscan Kitchens

    Our last one .. is hard for us to admit. Who wouldn't love to wake up in a villa in Italy? (Especially now that they're welcoming tourists back.) The problem wasn't that the design was bad, it was that it was reduced down to components, individual pieces that people would try to smash together without caring how they worked or why. It was boiled down to faux paintings, travertine tiles, more granite, and terra cotta floors. This reduction process left our kitchens feeling dark, gaudy and entirely tasteless. 

Today's focus in the kitchen is on light, airy spaces. Windows dominate and everyone wants to have white EVERYTHING.Pendant lights and statement backsplashes add to the feeling, showing off your personality. Herringbone is taking over where subway tile previously reigned supreme, bringing in a twist to the world of tiling. How long will these trends last? We don't know, it's only the beginning of the decade after all. 

Let us know what you think about trends of now and then in the comments here or over on our Facebook page, we'd love to hear from you! 

If you're having trouble with some of your appliances you can reach out to us here or via phone ( (214) 599-0055) so we can help. 

Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Chorizo And Fancy Cheeses

Welcome back! This week’s recipe is sure to be a hit for when you have guests coming over. We’re doing Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Chorizo and Fancy Cheeses. This recipe sounds complicated when you’re throwing around ‘chorizo’ and ‘goat cheese’. Really though, it’s a recipe where most of the work is done either by the brine, or the oven. You just have to spend a few minutes prepping at different stages, and then you can sit back and relax! 

Ingredients

¾ cup kosher salt

6 Tbsp Sugar

7 Cups cold water

6 chicken breasts with skin and bone

2 pounds simple chorizo

1 cup goat cheese, crumbled

1 cup grated monterey jack cheese

Kosher salt and pepper

3 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

1 Tbsp chopped Fresh Thyme

4 Tbsp butter

Instructions

To brine the chicken, combine the salt, sugar and water in a large bowl and whisk together until the salt and sugar dissolve. 

Place the chicken in a large glass casserole dish and cover with the water mixture. Cover with plastic wrap, place in the refrigerator and allow to brine for 3 to 4 hours. ( We didn’t have a casserole dish when we did this, so we used a dutch oven, it worked just as well.) 

When the brining is almost complete, prepare the stuffing by cooking sausage in a saute pan over medium-high heat until evenly browned. Drain the fat from the chorizo immediately and transfer the chorizo to a bowl and allow to cool. When cooled, mix the chorizo with the cheeses, salt, pepper and herbs. Set aside. 

Place a chicken breast flat on a cutting board or counter surface. Using a paring knife, cut a horizontal slit down the center of the fleshiest part of the breast, creating a pocket. Repeat with all of the chicken breasts, making sure you don’t cut all the way through.  Divide the chorizo mixture six ways and fill each of the chicken breasts. 

Preheat the oven to 400*F . In a large saute pan, melt 2 tbsp of the butter. Cook the stuffed breasts, skin side down over medium high heat until browned. Transfer the breasts to a foil lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked. While the chicken is baking, melt the remaining 2 tbsp of butter in a small saute pan and use to baste the chicken breasts as they cook. 

Notes: 

What is brining and why do we do it? 

Brining is a solution of water and salt, sometimes with additional spices thrown in for flavoring. 

Lean meats like turkey, chicken and pork tend to lose moisture as they cook. We’ve all had chicken and pork that turned out like shoeleather after being cooked, no matter how delicious the spices were. Brining is a way to prevent this. You can actually cut down moisture loss from the usual 30% to as little as 15%, meaning that your lean meats will come out juice and delicious. 

This doesn’t mean that you should soak your meats for too long though. In fact, if you brine your meats for longer than they need they can become tough and overly salty. You can check out a timetable for brining over at Fine Cooking, or print out this nifty chart from The Spruce to put into your cookbook.

Chorizo 

If you don’t keep chorizo in your house regularly, not to worry. This quick and easy recipe from The Spruce Eats is fast to cook up and freezes well. They even give you ideas on what else you can use it in if you decide you need more of this flavorful sausage stat. 

Thank you for joining us this week! We hope you enjoyed our recipe this time around. If you did, please let us know on our Facebook and share a picture of the final dish! We’d love to see how yours turns out. If you have any recipe suggestions or questions that you’d like us to answer, please drop those in the comments below or over on our Facebook, we love to hear from you! 

If on the other hand, something in your home isn’t behaving right, your fridge is icing over or your dryer isn’t drying, give us a call. You can also make an appointment with one of our technicians on our page.  We want to keep your home running smoothly, for all of our clients in Garland and the surrounding areas. 

Our recipe this week is based on the one within The Texas Cowboy Kitchen by Grady Spears and June Naylor. Check out their book over on B&N or your favorite bookstore. Not only is it fantastic as a cookbook, it also makes a great coffee table book due to its large size, beautiful pictures and bite-sized history lessons. 

Remodeling Your Kitchen Guide: Part Two - Inspiration, Features, & Layout

We’re back again ladies and gents to discuss the process of renovating your kitchen. This time we’re talking about inspiration, features and layout. Or, you can think of it as “Ooh shiny”, “what matters” and “how do I fit this in here?” 

Last time when we were discussing budgeting for your dream kitchen, we had you make a list of everything you wanted to do, and pare it down to what you could afford. Grab that list and take a look at it now.

Inspiration 

Depending on how specific you were, you might not need to consider your inspiration. You might already know exactly what you want the final product to look like, if that’s the case, great! Skip down to the next section. 

If you’re not that lucky, that’s ok. Head over to Pinterest or your local big box home improvement store and take a look at their magazines. You want to look around at the current trends and see what catches your attention. Put together either a board in your home or online of different things that appeal to you. 

Some great examples are here, here and here. 

You want to see if there is a unifying theme to what you want, and how it can all fit together in the space that you have.  This is the point when you might consider talking to any friends that do interior decorating, or just have a ‘flair’ for it, if you really can’t figure out what you want. 

Have you built a huge list of ideas? Are you contemplating paint colors? 

Yes? Alright, now we go back to that list. Take what you have put together and sort it into two different piles - “Now”  and “Later.” The now pile is everything that you can afford to do right now, or on the timetable that you’ve set. Later is everything that will come down the road.  If your budget only extends toward a new floor and ceiling lights, that’s fine. If it stretches the other way and you’re looking at redoing everything, that works too.  This step is meant to help you narrow your focus to what is doable, rather than fretting over say, what new cabinets you should install if those aren’t in the budget. 

Features 

Now we’re going to look at things in a different light. We’re looking at you and your family, and how you /use/ your kitchen. This section is for the people who intend to redo the whole space or rip out walls. 

Grab a new sheet of paper and a pen, because you’re doing some brainstorming. For all of our questions, substitute whoever in your family spends the most time there. 

Do you  do a lot of cooking from scratch? 

Do you entertain often in your kitchen? 

Do you dine out most of the time and want a kitchen that’s more for show than for serious cooking? 

Are you the busy family provider, with limited amounts of time to cook? 

Each of these is going to affect what you need for your kitchen.

If you’re the Serious Chef 

You’ll probably be focusing on the quality of your appliances, bright light, and easy to clean but super durable surfaces to work on. You want a kitchen where you can easily lay your hands on what you need, have the space to work and not have to worry about something breaking in the middle of a new dish. 

If you’re the Social Butterfly 

You’re going to want premium cabinets, lights, a large island to gather ‘round and a wine fridge. You want your kitchen to shine as much as you do while you’re hosting dinners and having people over. 

If you’re Family Provider

Your focus is going to be on durable, easy to clean cabinets and counters, as well as lots of counter space. You want to make cooking and clean up as easy as possible, since your life is already busy enough. 

If you’re the Occasional Cook

You’re going to want to go for stylish appliances that are within your budget, a versatile island and stylish cabinetry that won’t break the bank. You want it to look nice, even if you aren’t in there much. 

And if we’re wrong about these? If you want the big oven, even though you only cook occasionally, or you’re the family provider and you still want that wine fridge, no worries! These are just some ideas of where your focus might lie, not a concrete game plan. 

Layout

Last, but not least, take a look at your kitchen. Go in and look at just the walls and the floor. Where is everything? Can you see the shape of the room? Now consider what you have to add back in for it to work as a kitchen, and what you don’t want to change, or can’t change just yet. 

Are you keeping the walls where they are? Or do you plan to move them? Are you thinking about ripping out part of a wall to make room for a half-wall table?  What about the cabinets? Do you want to replace those? If so, do you want the layout the same as it is now, or do you plan to change things to make more room either for cabinets and counter space or for new, larger appliances? If you’re moving cabinets around, you might want to get a tape measure and some more paper to sketch out how much space you have to work with. 

Sinks and your dishwasher are up next. These are harder to move, but not impossible. You need to make sure that when you’re charting out a new kitchen plan that you take these into account because of that fact. 

Appliances are our last thing to consider. If you’re replacing the ones that you already have, you’ll need to make sure you have the measurements and that the ones you want are the same size. If you’re moving walls or cabinets, you still need to know how large they are so that you leave enough space in your design for them. Equally important is making sure that you note where your electrical outlets are on your chart so that they can be reached either for additional tools or for your appliances. 

Thanks for coming! We’ll see you next time when we talk about the DIY Timeline. 

If you have questions, comments or concerns, reach out to us on Facebook! We love to hear from you and what you have to say about the blog. 

Don’t forget, if one of your appliances isn’t working right, we want to help you keep your home up and running! You can click here to schedule an appointment or call us at (214 599-0055) to set one up.  We want to take care of all of our clients in Frisco and the surrounding areas.

What to Know BEFORE You get a Pressure Cooker

Guaranteed you’ve seen people talking about pressure cookers. We know, we posted about them just last week. Most people love them. They rave about how amazing they are and how they’ve changed their cooking habits because of it. But, what about the things they don’t talk about? Or if you’re looking at getting one and want to know more about them before you go all in and spend $200 on a tool that might just end up taking up space. We’re diving into what you need to know before you hit that shiny ‘buy now’ button.  

Before we dig in, just what is a pressure cooker? Sure there are tons of different name brands, and these days many of them have 3 billion different functions. A basic pressure cooker though, that is a pot with a lid that you can seal and lock into place. The pressure within the pot is controlled by one, or multiple, valves that trap steam inside the pot.  

If you want  to learn more about pressure canners and cookers and their history, check out this article over at Foodal. They go into how the pressure canner and cooker got started and why so many of us have stories of  them exploding. 

It takes time and a lot of research 

As with any new piece of equipment, it takes time to learn about it. Read the manual end to end, and then once more for safety’s sake.  The booklet that came with your pressure cooker is not only going to be your best friend, it’s also going to keep you safe. On top of that, finding what ways you  can use a pressure cooker for your family is going to be different than anyone else. Some people use them just to cook components for a meal, some people use them to cook the entire meal. Figuring that out is going to be a labor of love. (As many people have pointed out, make sure to have a backup meal and keep notes as you go. ) 

Things to try and figure out ahead of time:

What would you use it for most? 

Size- They come in everything from a 3 qt size to a 12 qt size. Consider the space in your kitchen as well as the space in your sink. (Nothing is worse than trying to clean a pot you can’t fit in your sink in the first place. 

Functions - What functions do you want on your pressure cooker? 

Brand- While we don’t normally suggest specific brands for small appliances, we know that people do have brand loyalty, and that some brands are more trustworthy than others. Consider this when you’re doing your research. 

There are many different brands out there, and you don’t want to waste money getting one that doesn’t fit your needs. 

It’s less a question of ‘can I cook it’ than ‘should I cook it’? 

The internet is full of curious, wonderful, inventive people. They’ve found all sorts of things that you can cook in a pressure cooker. The question comes down to should you. Will you like it, will it taste good? We don’t have all the answers. What we do know is that all sorts of things have been discovered to be possible and that it’s up to you to find out if they work for you and your family.

The ‘exploding pressure cooker’ has become  a thing of the past, mostly. 

We say it this way because there are two things that no amount of engineering can get rid of. 

1. Accidents happen. Distraction, clogged seals, overfull pot, all of these things can contribute to having a lid go flying. 

2. People have heirloom pots. You know the one that your great grandmother passed down? Yeah. They work great, but if you’re not paying attention, they are far more likely to go off than the more safety conscious ones of today. 

It will continue cooking even after you turn the heat off. 

As with all foods, unless you stick them into an ice bath immediately after removing them from the heat, they are going to keep cooking. This is especially true for pressure cookers, both of the stove variety and the electric variety due to the pressure. As Clotilde of CnZ points out, consider removing yours from the heat a few minutes before the recipe is officially done cooking. 

The cooking time doesn’t begin the minute you turn on the pot. 

Like cooking in the oven you have to let the pot reach the ideal temperature and pressure before the actual cooking time begins. It’s a small thing but one we wish we had known for our first cooking attempt. 

You don’t only clean the pot, you also need to keep the sealing components clean. 

It’s not enough to just wipe down the surface of the sealing components and be done. Today’s kettles are built so that if all of the pieces don’t align properly, the unit won’t pressurize at all. It’s a safety feature, but one that means you have to be very thorough in what you’re doing. 

You might not like it. 

Even after everything. All the researching, all the testing. You still might not like it as was the case for Rachel, the blogger of Feast and Farm. That’s ok! As she points out, there are other ways to cook fast meals and not lose out on the flavor. 

So, do you think that you’ll still get a pressure cooker? Let us know in the poll over on Facebook, we’d love to hear from you. Remember that if your larger appliances are giving you trouble, reach out and we’ll be happy to help. We want to help all of our clients in Dallas and surrounding areas to keep your homes running in tip top shape even during this chaotic time.

Green Bean And Chayote Squash Casserole With Fried Onion Strings

Recipe: Green Bean Chayote Squash Casserole with Fried Onion Strings

Welcome back ladies and gents!  This week's meal is one your blogger recent tried and wanted to share. It's a surprisingly rich dish,  while also being full of vegetables. This recipe is based on the one from The Texas Cowboy Kitchen by Grady Spears and June Naylor. This book is absolutely amazing. It's full of stunning photos and history on top of delicious recipes. 

There is one ingredient we don't expect everyone to be experienced with, and that's the chayote squash.  Check down in the notes for an explanation of what that is and how to prepare it. 

Ingredients

1 pound fresh green beans, ends trimmed

½ pound chayote squash, peeled, seeded and julienned strips need to be roughly the size of your green beans in both length and diameter. 

3 Tbsp Butter

2 Tbsp vegetable oil 

1 pound bacon, diced

1 cup diced red onion

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1 3/4 cups heavy cream

1 2/3 cups grated asiago cheese

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

-Prepare the vegetables by blanching the green beans and chayote in a large pot of water for 5 minutes. Set them to the side in a colander after you've let them fully cool in the ice bath. 

-Meanwhile , butter a shallow 4 quart casserole or a 13 by 9 by 2 inch glass baking pan with butter and set aside. 

-Preheat your oven to 350*F . 

-Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon, stirring as necessary to separate the pieces so they cook evenly. Drain the grease as it accumulates so the bacon won’t be swimming in grease.  -You won't need the grease later, so feel free to dispose of it.  

-When the bacon is half cooked, add the onion and continue to cook, stirring occasionally , until the bacon is done and the onion is soft. 

-Allow to cool  before you transfer to the buttered casserole dish. Set the mixture aside. 

-In a separate pan, heat the unsalted butter over medium heat until melted, but not bubbling. 

-Whisk the flour into the butter to create a roux, stirring constantly. Cook for several minutes until the roux becomes fragrant but does not brown. 

-Add the cream slowly but whisk steadily to prevent lumps. 

-Turn down the heat so that the sauce is simmering, not boiling, add salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes or until thickened. Put the green beans and chayote squash into the casserole dish and cover with white sauce. 

-Top with the grated cheese and place it in oven to bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the mixture is bubbling. 

-Remove the casserole from the oven and top with the warm, crispy, fried onion strings. 

-Serve immediately. 

Notes: 

Chayote squash - The chayote squash can also be found under the name  the mirliton squash. Originally a Mesoamerican plant, the chayote squash is handled like a summer squash. While the fruit is what we use in this recipe, the  root, stem, seeds and leaves are all edible as well. The fruit is roughly pear shaped, growing between 10 to 20 cm long. It looks like a green pear, has flattened sections, coarse wrinkles, and green to white flesh. The flesh of the fruit is fairly bland and tastes like a cross between a potato and a cucumber. It's.. curious but still tasty.   

Blanching - Blanching is a pretty basic technique, but it's still really important to know. It can be done to preserve the color and texture of vegetables, to prep them well ahead of when you need to cook a meal or to prepare vegetables for freezing.  

What you'll need:  

A large bowl of  water 1/3 full of ice

A large slotted spoon

A large pot of water

-Bring your water to a boil over high heat . 

-Chop your vegetables so that they're uniform in size. This ensures even cooking and cooling. 

-In small batches add the vegetables to the water. Doing it this way keeps the water at a boil. Make sure that you don't  cover the pot with a lid.  

-After 30 seconds remove one piece and dip it into the ice bath, then taste for doneness. Repeat this stop every 30-60 seconds until the vegetable is cooked to your preference. Most vegetables will take between 2-5 minutes. 

-When the vegetables are done, quickly turn off the heat and using the slotted spoon transfer them to the ice bath to stop the cooking process. 

-When the vegetables are completely cool, remove them from the ice bath and  let them drain on paper towels. 

Crispy Fried Onions-  A quick and easy recipe for these is here. They turned out amazing and tasted so good on top of the casserole.  Just look at how amazing they look in the photo that Miss In The Kitchen did! They are absolutely drool-worthy.

Thank you very much for joining us this week! We hope you enjoy this post as much as we did, and please share your photos over on Facebook!  We'd love to see how your dishes turn out. 

If your stove isn't working right, or any of your appliances, please reach out to us.   We want to help keep your home running in tip top shape. You can click here to schedule an appointment or you can call us at  214-599-0055. We care about our clients in Carrolton and all of the surrounding areas.

Recipe modified from the one in The Texas Cowboy Kitchen. All rights belong to Grady Spears and June Naylor 

Go buy the book at Barnes & Noble, it’s most certainly worth it.