A new website

Hi folks, I just wanted to introduce you to my other great cottage blog. Cottage Life - news, stories, guides, recipes, and cottage improvement tips. Similar concept to this blog. Mostly cottage news and cottage tips/guides. Check it out!!

Small cottage, big ideas

Sometimes the homes featured in Cottage Living stretch the definition of "cottage." Not so the 800-square-foot California home in the April issue.

From the street, the house with the low-pitched roof and white picket fence could almost be mistaken for a garden shed. Shabby chic rules inside, from a galvanized bucket full of hydrangeas to a kitchen table and chairs wearing battered aqua paint.

The artist owner had some interesting ideas:

*She liked but couldn't afford stainless steel countertops. As an alternative, she wrapped plywood with large sheets of galvanized steel.

*On the patio, a very vintage rowboat stands propped against the wall of the house. Boxes of flowers rest on the seats.

*The owner painted the vinyl floor tiles in her kitchen in an effort to make them look like old linoleum. It's hard to tell from the photo how they look, but if you're interested, she used a turkey feather duster to get the effect.

Elsewhere in the magazine, the owners of a Florida beach house enjoy a fabulous ocean view from their glass-walled master bedroom on the second floor. To share the view with their friends while maintaining some semblance of privacy, they situated the bed in an alcove that can be closed off with translucent panels.

WIDE-OPEN SPACES

Our caveman ancestors would have hated the airy, open floor plans currently in vogue. It's hard to curl up and feel cozy and safe in a room with 20-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows all around.

The April issue of Inspired House has some suggestions for wall-free ways to separate spaces and add intimacy to today's caves. Most of these ideas would be easiest to incorporate during the building process, though some could be done as retrofits.

*Use posts and beams to hint at enclosures that aren't actually there.

*Change up the flooring. A strip of slate tiles, for example, can help separate the living area from the dining area in a wide-open space that's floored in hardwoods. A change in flooring also can imply a hallway or a foyer.

*Partial walls do their part to enclose a space while keeping the view open above. These "wing walls" are common in old bungalows, and they often have shelves or bookcases built in to boot.

*Lower the ceiling over an area, such as a dining room or an inglenook, to make it feel more intimate.

How to clarify butter so it will keep at the cottage

One of the problems with cottaging is keeping the fridge well stocked so that you can come home to it without having to do the grocery shopping right away. Clarifying your butter is a simple way to get it to keep for an extremely long time at the cottage. That way you won't have to purchase fresh butter every time you decide to stay at the cottage for a few days.

Clarified butter is the clear yellow butter that you might most easily recognize as the "drawn butter" served with lobster. When butter is clarified, the milk solids are removed, leaving a clear yellow liquid. This liquid has the added advantage that it will not burn easily (those milk solids are what make butter brown so fast after melting). This is a valuable technique especially when you wish to sauté several batches of something, without having to stop between batches to wipe out the pan (otherwise you'd risk burned butter particles in the next batch or a burned flavor in the next batch of food). Butter, when it is not clarified, burns at a lower temperature than other fats. Clarified butter also has the advantage that it will keep almost indefinitely in the refrigerator (tightly cover the container, though - like any butter, clarified butter will easily pick up odors from other foods stored nearby).

To make somewhat less than 1/2 cup of clarified butter (about 1/3 cup): melt 1 stick (1/4 pound) of butter in a small saucepan over low heat, or in a glass bowl in the microwave. Allow the melted butter to stand for 2 or 3 minutes to "settle." Skim off and discard the foam from the top (white foam will rise to the surface when butter has melted). Carefully pour off the clear yellow liquid that remains - leaving behind the milky residue in the bottom of the pan or bowl. This clear yellow liquid is clarified butter, and can be used for cooking without over-browning or scorching, since the milk solids have now been removed. Store leftover clarified butter, tightly covered, in the cottage refrigerator, or freeze it for up to 6 months.

ALTERNATIVE METHOD: After melting the butter, place it in the fridge until the top layer hardens. This layer can then be removed, and the middle (clear yellow, clarified) layer can be carefully poured off, leaving the milk solids in the bottom of the container behind.