Monday, January 26, 2009

Need your opinion!

I'll start by saying "Happy Monday"! If I say it maybe I will feel it. I'm thankful the Lord gave me another day but the beginning of another work week is always rough.

I love my FoodSaver. It was a gift from my grandparents a couple of years ago and D and I use it quite often. We buy most of our meat and cheese in bulk at Costco then we use the FoodSaver to separate the meats and cheeses into portion sizes and freeze them.

I do the measuring while D cuts the FoodSaver bags and seals them. I have to admit that I've never frozen mozzarella cheese this way, but last time we bought mozzarella in bulk a large portion of it went bad because we didn't use it often enough. So, we decided to FoodSave it and freeze it this time. I have this strange feeling that we might have compromised the integrity of the cheese. I don't know - you tell me...
If it looks like just a clump of white goo then it's not the quality of the picture - it really does look like a white clump of goo. I should mention that the mozzarella came grated in a large bag which is why the fact that it looks like goo is really puzzling. We only FoodSaved about 6 cups of the mozzarella which means there is a lot left in the bulk bag that will go in the refrigerator. Luckily, D is a huge fan of this cheese and has been dreaming mozzarella quesadilla dreams since we bought it. I'm not much of a mozzarella girl...the texture bugs me. But I will eat it on the homemade personal pan pizzas I made this weekend and now have for leftovers today. I mix in some cheddar on the pizzas, too, to break up the texture.

So, when we were finished with our FoodSaving, we had a block of Tillamook cheddar cheese (the only type of cheddar our household eats), parmesan cheese, pepperoni, and mozzarella cheese. All the meat we buy at Costco goes directly into the freezer - I've learned that boiling chicken or letting ground beef sit in a warm bath before sauteeing is the quickest way to defrost. A lot of times I'll just throw the ground beef into my big pot, turn the heat to medium low and let it sit there for a while to warm up. Costco has ground beef already frozen and individually sealed into 1lb blocks - I think there are 8-10 blocks in each bag? Anyway, very easy.
All of that to say THANK YOU to my wonderful grandparents for this gift that keeps on giving. We ran out of the bags but I'm going online today to purchase some more...hopefully in bulk!

Here's what I need your help with...


Again the bathroom. You can see to the left a picture of it before D did all the work to self-level it this weekend. Nothing in it. The ShopVac is in the shower along with some other miscellaneous tools that D has been using. D is going to the home improvement store today to order tile. For the last, oh, 6 months I've had this tile picked out that I thought was "the one". This was before we picked out the cabinet/sink and the paint for the bathroom so now I'm unsure of my choice.

Picture 1: The tiles by themselves against the shower.
Picture 2: The tiles up against the paint color that I'm considering (still am a little unsure of this, too. Do you think a khaki color/beige would look better? Or any other color for that matter?) Sorry the picture is so dark.
Picture 3: The tiles up against the bathroom cabinet/sink that we've chosen. Ignore the laundry room floor - that's next on the list.
So - what do you think? The darker one or the lighter one? The first picture is probably the best representation of the actual colors. The dark one is not super dark - it has more of a greenish color to it whereas the lighter one has more blue tones to it. I'm not stuck on a paint color so don't take that into as much consideration as just which one matches the cabinet better. The room is only about 5'x5' so it's not very large if that makes a difference.

Thanks for the help! If you want me to post a closeup of the tiles let me know. I almost did but I don't think my pictures are very good representations of the actual colors.

5 comments commented:

Jennifer Owens said...

I think the lighter tile looks great with the paint choice and the cabinets. And we have a Food saver too - my husband loves it - especially for all the meat he brings home from hunting!

Anonymous said...

I like the darker one a lot better! Allows the paint and cabinet to pop more. The lighter one would make the area look washed out.

Dahlia said...

I like the dark tile better with the paint and the light better with the cabinet. Some help I am, huh?

I've always wanted a food saver. I do a lot of freezing (we buy our beef straight from the farm for instance) and have a whole huge freezer in my garage. I just use freezer wrap or zip loc bags and use a straw to get the air out.

Mainly a midwife said...

I like the darker tile better. I can't tell on the paint. But the way I picked things for my house is this: vanity, tiles, then paint. I like the paint to pull a color out of the tile.

Anonymous said...

Jamie,
I like the darker tile. I have essentially white floors in my bathrooms and strongly advise against light colors. They show EVERYTHING (and let's face it, things on the bathroom floor are yucky to see ALL of the time). However, it is a great motivator to mop frequently. I'm not sold on the paint color, but you've seen my house and know I'm not "great" with color!
Best of luck!