New Kitchen Gadget - Egg Sandwich Maker

I have a nice assortment of kitchen gadgets. Here is a new one that I bought at BJ's for $25. It is an egg sandwich maker because I thought it would be nice to have a kitchen gadget for that since I often eat egg sandwiches for breakfast on the weekends.

Putting a big bagel in there takes longer to cook. After a few attempts we got the procedure down.

This is cooking two egg sandwiches with using English muffins instead of bagels. I can put an extra egg white into the machine by using a smaller muffin.

This is how the muffins came out. I put cheese and sausage at the bottom and an egg plus an egg white on the top. One is lopsided because the (turkey) sausage patty was not centered.

This is how the bagel came out. Toasted and the egg was cooked. No sausage though.

I think that I'll be using this often. The eggs come out thoroughly cooked without frying while they cook on the non-stick surface. I can add sausage, cheese, and vegetables to the sandwich and it all cooks together in under seven minutes. 

Driveway Expansion

As I stated in previous posts, we decided to extend the driveway and fill in the space in front of the house that is normally used for a garden or bushes. Here are some older photos from past posts:

This was the original set up for several years and just grew wild while the sprinklers stained the house so much we got a warning from Code Enforcement. 

This is what it looked like after I dug it up and removed the sprinklers when I renovated the driveway.

I never took a photo of the prep work but if you zoom in, you can see that we installed rebar by drilling holes into the house slab and the concrete driveway. We then cut the rebar to size and connected the house to the driveway with rebar. More rebar was then run the length of the garden and tied to the other rebar.

The prep work was done on a Friday in June 2016. We could have poured the concrete the next day, but the prep work (foundation) had to pass inspection first. It passed inspection the following Monday. Then my schedule never matched up with my friend from work who helped me. Then I went on vacation and sprained my ankle. Then he went on vacation. Then it rained every day for the next three months.



We tried to get it done on one of those days that rained. We bought a pallet of concrete at Home Depot (that's 6,720 pounds of concrete) and loaded each 60 pound bag by hand. It took three trips in my pick up truck. I guess I could have done it in two but didn't want to break my truck.

I also rented a mixer and we started working on the slab that morning. Then the rain came down hard. We spent another hour saving the concrete to keep it dry. It was a mess. We poured 4 square feet that day and had to stop.

So finally in October 2016 after the hurricane, we were finally able to pour the new slab.

Had to load each 60 pound bag into the mixer. We did four at a time.



Pouring concrete.

Load with water and mix again.

Keep adding concrete.



I just did the labor while my friend levels and smooths the concrete.

Pour again.

I ran out of concrete and bought another 20 bags that day. I was a mess at Home Depot. Thankfully there are a lot of dirty, dirty people that shop there so no one looked at me funny.

Keep mixing...

...and mixing..

Pour again.



It passed inspection

Still drying days later

View from the street.

This is a pile of tree branches we cut up the same day. I took this picture a few days later, but this is to show that me and my friend's teenage son did some tree trimming before I began laying concrete. I also rented the mixer and dug up a bush before they got to the house. 

 What does pot roast have to do with anything?

I talked to my friend the next day at work. Everyone was sore and tired after that day. Tired to the point of exhaustion. I was fine. I did not work out for two days after we worked but I was not sick. I have to credit the pot roast. The picture is how I prepared the pot roast the night before. The morning that we started, I turned on the crock pot and let it cook. It cooked while we worked. I didn't need to cook dinner that night and ate as much fresh meat, vegetables, and rice as I wanted. I went to bed full after eating real food. If I had to eat take out, I think I would have been sick.





Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Matthew visited Florida on October 6th and 7th, 2016.


When we all knew that Hurricane Matthew was going to hit Florida, we began to get ready. On Tuesday October 4th, 2016, knowing that I was short hurricane panels, we went to Home Depot and Lowes to see if any were left. Earlier this summer, I had installed rails for hurricane panels on two windows but never bought the panels. Of course none were left in stock and people bought up all of the plywood. I even saw people buying sheets of 3/4 inch premium hardwood plywood to put over their windows. What a shame that such nice wood was going to be ruined by the rain.


Since there was nothing we could buy at the home improvement store, we went hunting for gasoline. Many gas stations were out of gas. The ones that did have gas had lines of cars into the street. I decided that the best place to go was a truck stop. The closest truck stop was on the Florida Turnpike so I hopped on the turnpike, paid the tolls, and went to the closest rest stop for gas. The gas station was busier than usual but I filled up my truck and two gas cans. As I thought, most people didn't want to pay tolls to get gas. The next stop was the grocery store to get emergency supplies. The store was all out of water except for cases of water bottles. Even though I wanted gallon jugs of water, I had to settle for the bottles and got two cases of 24 bottles. We also picked up canned goods and a few other non-perishable items. That was it for Tuesday preparations.

No bread

No canned goods

No crackers?

On Wednesday, I asked to take off on Thursday to prepare for the hurricane. Since I was the first to ask off, they gave it to me. I got off work on time which was good. After work, I immediately went looking for an air conditioner window unit. Everyone expected to be without power for several days so I wanted to hook up an air conditioner to my generator to be comfortable during the recovery. I figured I could enclose the Florida room of the house and wait for the power to come back from there. I just could not find a store that sold air conditioners. Even though air conditioning is used year-round in south Florida, most stores consider them seasonal. People at Lowes and Home Depot told me the are constantly telling corporate that south Florida needs to keep "seasonal" items in stock such as lawn mowers, grills, etc. Since I couldn't find an air conditioner, I called around until Home Depot said they had them in stock. I bit the bullet and bought a $500 air conditioner. I guess I could have returned it used. Home Depot was a mad house. They were rationing plywood to 10 pieces per customer and the lines for plywood were like the lines at Disney World!


When I got home, it was time to put up the hurricane panels. It wasn't long before I had to ration the panels. I measured the panels and estimated that I had enough for the windows. Apparently all of the panels have to overlap. I did not account for that so I had a lot less than I anticipated. I had to leave gaps between the panels on some windows leaving exposed areas. I didn't put any up on the garage windows because the shed is in front of those and I then parked my truck between the shed and garage windows to protect my truck and the windows.

Note the gaps between the shutters I had to leave since I was short on panels.

Side note: The area I'm walking in will be featured in another blog post about laying a concrete slab

I was off work on Thursday and everything was prepped for the hurricane. Since I had off, we went to the grocery store again and got lunch meat for sandwiches to eat during the hurricane. Its a good thing we went early because the store was closing at 2:00pm. We got home around 1:00pm but before we drove around the neighborhood to see how others prepared for the storm. There were people still putting on panels as it began to rain. Some parked cars on their lawn to protect their large windows. Most people put up manufactured hurricane panels. Many also put up plywood to protect their windows. One person put up a picket fence in front of their living room window because the store was out of plywood!

See the fence used as protection. Also notice they trimmed the tree so branches wouldn't hit the house.

Last picture taken before the storm came. More wind than rain.

Roads were empty and all businesses were closed two hours before police shut the roads down

Once it started raining, we returned home to watch the news and wait out the storm. A little later at 3:00pm, all roads were closed. We began watching the local news which went live and commercial free with non-stop coverage of the hurricane. The bad part of the storm finally hit at 8:00pm and that is when we began losing power as the power company began shifting power around the grid.


Fortunately for us, we never completely lost power. It was only down for a few seconds at a time. By 10:00 pm, it looked like we weren't going to suffer a hit from Hurricane Matthew and I fell asleep on the couch. At 2:00 am, the Hurricane had passed without hitting us and I went to bed.


My family in Jacksonville lost power for about a day and had minor damage to landscaping but they made it out fine in the end. I surveyed the my property to assess the damage which consisted of minor fence issues. I spent Friday fixing the fence and bringing all of the plants, grills, patio furniture, etc. out of the shed and putting it back in the yard.


Hurricane Matthew was a good trial run for another hurricane and now I have nine months to prepare for the next season.

Old Oven, New Oven

I didn't think I had much to talk about in September, hence only one blog post.


Well I guess I forgot a mini-crisis: the oven caught on fire and I couldn't put it out.


Here is the story:
So I come home from work and decide to make fish dinner. I bought everything the day before so I just had to cook. I used the oven to bake some tilapia for about half an hour while I made rice and salad.


After half an hour, I checked on the fish and decided to put it back in to cook for another five minutes. Well that is when I notice a bright light coming from the oven. It was much brighter than the oven light. It turns out that the heating element caught on fire and was slowly burning in the oven. The heating element was slowly burning like a fuse to dynamite in a cartoon and was burning bright white.


I took the fish out of the oven and used the fire extinguisher. It was the chemical powder extinguisher that will put out wood/paper, gasoline, and electrical fires. The extinguisher didn't work. Since the extinguisher didn't work and the fire was bright white, this was clearly a metal fire which can't be put out without special equipment. If this was the Navy, we would throw whatever it was overboard and let it burn in the ocean but I didn't have that choice here.


The fire department was called but I was able to shut off the circuit breaker and cut the electricity while on the phone with the fire department. That stopped the fire. The fire department came anyway within five minutes to make sure it was out. They advised unplugging it and not using the oven or stove at all. I agreed.

Now I was without a stove and oven and had to shop for a slide in stove which is about $500-1000 more than a regular stove.


We ended up finding a stove for $1400 at Brandsmart which was a little better than the ones at Lowes and Home Depot. It is on the high end but it is hard to find a slide in stove. Also, the old stove was probably 20 years old. The standard dimensions have changed since then (29 inches wide) and I had to cut the countertop, cabinetry, and moulding to open the space up another inch to meet the new dimensions of standard slide in stoves (30 inches wide). Between the fire extinguisher and me cutting the countertop, there was dust all over the kitchen for days.


Now without being able to cook, all we could use was the microwave and eat out more often. It was getting aggravating so I went to Brandsmart to pick up the stove and not wait another three days for delivery. Well it wasn't in stock like they had told me. Now I had to wait several more days to eat real food.


The oven finally came in and fit close but not perfectly. It is a little tall for the counter but hard to tell. We plan on getting new cabinets anyway so we can live with it for now. Also it is stainless steel so it matches the microwave. I ended up taking the old oven to the scrap yard because it was a fire hazard.

Removal of old stove

New Oven