Spend the Day with Me! Beautifying My Home and Making a COMFORTING Dinner!

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining me again. I have some home beautification projects I want to tackle today. But first, since so many of you have asked, I want to give you an update on my hip replacement. I had the surgery 12 days ago and yesterday I had my very first outpatient physical therapy appointment. And that appointment was both grueling and fun. I could hardly walk afterwards. But I did need to walk because after PT I had my first post-op appointment in Albany. The doctor there took x-rays that revealed My right hip is very well seated. The doctor also told me that my incision is almost completely healed. I asked her if I can now climb stairs normally, and she said, absolutely. Previously, I'd been going up and down the stairs, but just one step at a time. So today, We're going to try to climb stairs normally and see what happens. And then we're going to get to the beautification projects and we're going to make a cottage pie for dinner. That felt terrific! A cottage pie is the same thing as a shepherd's pie, except it's made with ground beef instead of ground lamb. And the first thing I need to do is brown and cook all of this beef. So I have two kinds of ground beef here. One type has more fat than the other. So now that the beef is browned and cooked through, I want to drain off some of the fat. And I have a little trick for that. A paper towel. Tilt the pan and the paper towel, actually it's several paper towels, will absorb all of that fat. Now to add flavor and to help me deglaze this beef, I'm going to add some of my homegrown and diced and frozen onions. I also want to add one or two of the garlic pucks that you and I made together from homegrown garlic. For even more flavor, I'm going to add some of the tomato paste pucks that you and I made together. Maybe we'll do three of these. Now to make a gravy for this, I'm going to add some flour. Stir that in. I will stir this for about one minute, and that's to cook the flour. Now we can add Worcester sauce, dried thyme leaves, some of the beautiful vegetable stock that you and I made and canned together. And as the vegetable stock comes to a boil, it will mix with the flour to create a very nice, flavorful gravy. Oh it's already thickening up. Look at this. Just beautiful. But we aren't finished yet my friends. I need to add vegetables. More vegetables. I have the corn that you and I purchased from HomeQuest Farm. When was that? Was that July? So this is sweet corn and I took it off the cobs and vacuum sealed it and froze it. I also want to add some frozen mixed vegetables. In you go. This is peas, carrots. Oh, there's more corn in here. Peas, carrots, corn, and green beans. My friends, I wish you were here in this kitchen because this beef and vegetable and Worcester sauce mixture smells just fantastic. Smells like home cooking. So the only thing I forgot to add to this meat mixture was salt and pepper. Give this a mix. And I do want to have a little taste Delicious! This is a symphony of color and flavor. Now I think I've made enough that I can do one good-sized cottage pie for the freezer and a smaller cottage pie for me to enjoy tonight. We'll do the big one first. I actually made a cottage pie before I had my surgery And I froze it, and then this past weekend we had guests staying over. And I thawed the cottage pie and baked it in the oven and served it to dinner for my guests. We started with the leek soup that you and I made together. And then we had the cottage pie. And then we had some of the leftover pumpkin flan that you and I made together. It was a fantastic three-course meal. So shepherd's pie, or cottage pie rather, is not only for casual occasions. You could serve it at a formal dinner. I think the remaining can go in the larger dish. And then I have some potatoes that I made from dehydrated potato flakes. Now all I have to do is doctor them up with a couple of egg yolks. The yolks will make the mashed potatoes, will give them a certain sturdy texture. Just stir those in. I didn't actually follow a recipe for this cottage pie. Kind of made it up as I went along, but I will try to find a similar recipe online that I can link in the description because I really want you to enjoy your own cottage pie. I'm also going to add some grated or shredded cheddar cheese to this mashed potato. I don't think the cheese is traditional for shepherd or cottage pies, but I like it. Now I want to put some big dollops of mashed potatoes on the baking dish that's going into the freezer. Spread that out And we need a mashed potato topping for my serving. Actually, this is more like two servings, but I'm a big eater. I'm going to add a little more cheese to the top. I'm not going to bake mine right away. I'm going to cover it with cling film. I'm also going to cover the freezer cottage pie with cling film because that's how I froze the pie when I made it before and it worked just fine. I didn't need any aluminum foil. Let me pop this into the freezer. And this cottage pie can go into the refrigerator and later I will bake it at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. Let me clean up my workstation and then we will get cracking on the home beautification projects. Now I know I need to polish some silver today but I also want to make one or maybe even two flower arrangements and I think What should we do first? The silver or the flowers? Let's do the flowers. The side of fears are done We are driving now to Chatham Flowers. I hope you enjoy the fall foliage. Things are finally right. And we are home again. My piano technician Marianka is here tuning both of the pianos in the music room. And my friend Steve just came by to bring Avery for a nice long walk. Lissette brought Avery for a walk earlier this morning, but that's just one of the things I'm not able to do right now, 12 days post hip replacement. I can do a lot of things, but I can't do everything. Let's see, what do we want to do first? Let's do this little French, I think a wine glass rinser. It's an old French design, and you and I bought this pretty wine glass rinser. When we were thrifting in Great Barrington. If we think of it, we can link that video in the description below. Now I don't want this to be too tall. Let's start This is a very small container, so I really did not need very many subjects for it. Make some room over here. This is what we have so far. And then I bought a single pale pink rose, which has no fragrance whatsoever. I think we can put you right in the center up front. Here it is. I tried to match the colors of this wine cooler, now vase, Now, Vaas. because we have pink, we have purple, we have green, and we have yellow. And put you over here for a moment. Nice thing about little containers, you only need a small amount of flowers. And for this jug over here, To which I need to add water. And I have Globethistle, what else do I have? Alstroemeria in a stunning shade of pink. Alstroemeria in a beautiful deep purple. I have a single stem of Delphinium and Globethistle and Ruscus, my clippers go. Yeah, so I'm trying not to overdo my activities because I'm supposed to, in addition to getting Exercise. I just dropped some greenery. In addition to getting exercise, I'm also supposed to be getting Plenty of rest and I find flower arranging very restful. What do you all think? Am I done? I need to be done because I'm now out of flowers and greens. We can enjoy you for now and later we will. This little little arrangement on the fireplace mantle and this jug can go On one of the side tables in the parlor. Going to get cleaned up and then I need to start on my silverware. I mentioned earlier that I had weekend guests and I had served that frozen shepherd's pie and I used my sterling cutlery at the table as I always do and I noticed the forks looked particularly tarnished. So we are going to take care of that problem today. Reed and Barton. Sterling silver. Let's see. So my teaspoons look good. My cream soup spoons are also in good shape. Dessert forks look nice. But my dinner forks all have tarnish right at the tip. And my knives are all fine. So we're just going to deal with the forks today. And this is a nice job for post hip replacement because you can do it while sitting. This is Wright's Silver Cream. Away we go. I love how the tarnish comes right off. I know some people use the, what is it called, the electromagnetic system for polishing silver, where you line a large bowl or a wash basin with aluminum foil, and you add baking soda and boiling water, and you plunge the silver in, and the tarnish is supposed to come right off. But I found that method doesn't work very well for me. Not with sterling silver anyway. Maybe it works better with silver plate. And this method is perfectly easy to do. I find it very relaxing. Oh yeah, that tarnish is coming right off. Christmas is around the corner, meaning two months from now. A little more than two... No, today is October 27th, I think. So Christmas... It's less than two months from now, and I do want my silver to be in good shape. Here is another silver object we can tackle, the ice bucket. I keep this on my cocktail table, and we do use this ice bucket a lot because we host friends for cocktails fairly frequently. In fact, in the next video, we might do cocktail appetizers. Or maybe we will make a trip to Costco. I'm running low on certain things, and I have not been to Costco since, I think, early August. So it is time for another trip, and I hope you will come along with me. This ice bucket was another thrift shop find from my friend Sue, who loves thrifting as much as I do. It's also time for us to go thrifting again. Now all I have to do is rinse all of this polish off. And let's see how shiny everything became. I'm going to leave the camera here, but I'm going to run to the kitchen and rinse everything, and then I will come back and show you the finished results. So I just put some cloths down on the table, and we can dry and buff everything. Well, I know this ice bucket came out beautifully because I can see my reflection in it. And I did wash the inside as well. The inside is insulated for ice. This ice bucket comes with A nifty set of tongs that hang right on the handle. Here are the forks, the dinner forks. Forks came out perfectly well, very shiny. I'm going to put my silverware box away. I'm going to put my ice bucket over here on the cocktail table. And then I want to bring the flowers into this room. And after that, I need to practice piano, at which point it will be time for dinner. So, Marianka tuned both of these Steinway pianos. Let's hear what each one sounds like. This is a Steinway Model A that was built in 1893. Let's check out the Steinway B, which was built in 1959. And let's put this down. I'm going to play the same thing, just for comparison. And then you can tell me which instrument you like best. You can let me know in the comment section below which piano sound you prefer. That was a great practice session and it is always fun to play on freshly tuned pianos. Now I need to preheat my oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. And while the oven is preheating, I'm going to set this over here. And then I need to grab some firewood because besides dinner time, it's also fire lighting time. I turned the oven to broil for maybe 45 seconds, just to brown the top a little. But this looks like a very nice cottage pie. And we can enjoy this in front of the fire. Time for the taste test. And Lisette is joining me. Do you want more than this, or would you like a little more? Love the melty cheese in this. Bon appetit. Yeah. You like? I love this. Oh my goodness. I love the Worcester sauce in here. Do you like the corn? I love the corn and the cheese. Do you remember when we preserved that corn? Yes. In a video? Yeah. And the cheddar cheese, the peas, the carrots, the beef, the thyme. What else went in here? Oh, the homemade vegetable stock. My, oh my. Who could resist this cottage pie on a cold autumn day? Oh, Lisette just said this is a very comforting meal. I agree. Thank you so much for being here with me today as we had a hip chat and we went shopping for flowers and we arranged flowers for here and also well you can't see them but the other arrangement is on a tilt-top tea table at a window over here and we practiced piano and we polished some silver. I think it was a productive day and I don't feel like I overdid things. I almost forgot We made this incredible cottage pie. Now in the next video, as I mentioned earlier, we will either go thrifting or we will make a dinner or we will go shopping at Costco because again, I'm out of things. I need to restock. But in any event, I will see you with a new video in just a few days. So until then, please treat yourself very, very well. Please try the cottage pie. I can't wait to see you again. Bye for now, friends.