Expectations for 2010

I had all the best intentions of maintaining this blog, but as with everything, I just couldn't find the motivation to write an entry. I will try to work out a regular schedule of keeping this up, but no promises!

hahah as some of you know I've been working out how to write this entry for some time, just didn't know what direction I wanted to take, so now I'm just going to prattle on about whatever I feel like. Even though its January 18th I still think its appropriate to put out a list of things that I want from myself this year. For whatever reason I want to go out and make mistakes, I suppose its because I've lived my life trying to find the best route to do things, I want to laugh at myself after I do something dumb because I still can. Go out and just do things that I've been to afraid to do because I'm tired of never having any interesting stories! I mean when my family talks about the things they did when they were my age I really feel like I am missing out; fights, late night adventures, road trips and so much more. So as cliche as it may seem I just want to go out and enjoy being young before settling into a caretaker role makes me older than I want to be. What else do I expect out of 2010? I expect fun, family, friends, good food and a tattoo! I definitely want to try my hand at more extravagant meals or more serious pastry decorating and what not, just an improvement on the culinary level with trying to learn more traditional Japanese dishes. Maybe more baking will turn into packages? hahah we shall see, because I have absolutely no motivation at the moment. Hopefully all my expectations will be met and I will be able to achieve them, because I don't expect for a white knight to come in and clean up my life for me. But who knows, maybe I've met that white knight! hahah even so I don't need them to come and fix me, that's totally a do it myself project.

I've gotten back into the habit of reading again, just because I couldn't focus on anything for the longest time. I have quite a few new books to read from Christmas and the books that I bought from Barnes and Noble to be able to get free shipping for my Battle of the Sexes game. So I'm starting the Dexter books, and so far (150 pages in) I like it. I know the basic plot of the book because I've watched a lot of the show but I definitely like reading all the subtext that can't be translated into a tv show. I think that's why I love books so much because of all the little nuances that you can perfectly picture in your mind as you wait for the plot to develop, it just makes me happy because I can become so completely engulfed in an interesting story.

Currently watching Pawn Stars on the History channel because I love it. I'm obsessed with watching shows about how much something can be worth, ie Antiques Road Show. I think it has to do with the stories behind all these objects and the fact that this rare item exists today. I can only imagine with those things have been used for and all the memories that have clung to something. Yeah I'm cheesy, like that I suppose. Pawn Stars is less sappy and more of trying to make a buck, I definitely like seeing the experts coming in and telling the owner all about the stuff to make sure the item is legit and then the bartering part of trying to make a deal. Useful life skills right? I've totally learned how to spot a fake Rolex. Just something fun to watch on a rainy day.

And back to posting a recipe! I think that's what I missed most is seeing the stuff I made up here, because I am proud of the meals I make (while most of them). I made ratatouille the other day and it was a perfect winter vegetable clean up day.

Ratatouille

Ingredients

2 zucchinis

2 yellow squashes

1 small eggplant

mozzarella cheese

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 tsp each of basil, oregano, rosemary

salt and pepper to taste

prep

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Chop all vegetables into small discs

3. Lay out half the vegetables into a greased 9x13 pan and half the can of tomatoes with a handful of cheese

4. Repeat to make the top layer

5. Cover the pan in foil and cook for 35 minutes

6. Take off foil for 15 minutes until the cheese is browned

7. Serve over rice or pasta!

December 8th

To be honest I've been mulling back and forth on how to write this entry, I have several versions in the draft section ranging from long weepy first person account to a bullet point list of straight facts. No matter the wording the story just wasn't coming out right, because in textual form there's none of the emotion that comes from a verbal retelling. I still can't get through a whole rehashing of the events before I reach the crying point. Maybe after time I'll be able to say it without crying, but I can't at the moment.

So I've decided to just not share any story, today is just another day. I'm not going to let one person's birth affect me anymore, or at least start to try to sort out all the emotions that are entangled with that part of my life. Because its going to be a new decade soon and I've already wasted one away on being upset, so I need to move on.

I apologize for being weird over the last few days, I just needed to start the whole "getting better" process instead of just ignoring and repressing the hell out of things.

Also, finals suck balls. The end

Roommate Bonding

I barely talked to my roommates last year, just the simple act of walking into the apartment was hard knowing that I'd be walking into oppressive silence. That would not be the case this year, Heather is all about talking and filling silence with chatter about anything, we've covered; prostitution, psychics, dreams, the prison system, the death penalty, crazy people, family, the military, drinking, horses and just a whole bunch of other stuff. It feels very grown up to be discussing politics with someone at breakfast, haha like I should be balancing sipping a nice french roast and flipping the pages of the paper. Both of which are completely ridiculous because coffee gives me massive headaches and the newspaper is dying out.

Anyhow back to my topic of discussion my roommate conversations! The other day I was in the kitchen cleaning up the messy stove top (pet peeve of mine) and Calvin walked in, asked me about my day etc. Then we started talking about his intense dieting habits, this guy is like a food nazi. He doesn't use butter or oils when he cooks just a light mist of PAM which doesn't help sear the food well at all, he's limited to only using the crappy pan because he burns the nicer ones. So yeah no butter or oils, no tortilla when he eats burritos and he has non fat everything; low sugar jelly, non fat yogurt, non fat cream cheese, non fat coffee creamer, etc. It just bothers me how inconsistent he is, because its not as if he doesn't eat carbs so I don't see why he can't a tortilla once in awhile. When I called him out on that he said it was because someone told him that tortillas were worse for you because they use lard as a filler. Ah that's it, the "someone told me" he really believes anything you tell him because he's so clueless about the world. He didn't know that face lotion existed until Friday, when he asked me and Heather about what he should do about his dry face from the cold wind. Someone that clueless at 24 is just a sad sight, I see a lot of take out in his future once he moves away from home since his parents still send him off with precooked meals for the week. Oh well, that's silly sheltered Calvin for you. But Heather came out after awhile to get some water and joined our conversation, pointing out the flaws in his diet regime. And then we got onto the topic of prostitutes and crazy people. I just love how you can be talking about one thing and at the end of the conversation you can be talking about something completely different.

I really need to start sleeping at a regular hour soon. Being up till 4 in the morning sucks when you need to go catch the bus at 9:37.

SIMs and Crosswords

Me and my roommate are probably the coolest people ever. We sit around in our room and play our respective cool games, she plays the SIMs and I fiddle around with crossswords. It's a pretty cool way to pass a Saturday night. We strike up fun and interesting conversations over whatever is going on, like how she created a Sim family to look like the cast of Criminal Minds (which required a lot of time searching up their likeness on google) or how she wanted to make another family with the biggest manslut known to man. That character has about 50 children now and all the children in that generation are basically related, haha. And then I ask for help with certain words like how to say school in French, since she's canadian and grew up speaking the language. Crosswords are a nice way to pick up random phrases and words in different languages, or at least the ones that I do. But a lot of you already know about my obsession with them.

Tostadas!

An open faced taco, super easy and simple. If you don't have any hard taco shells but have some tortillas lying around you can still have your taco night!

Ingredients

corn tortillas

meat (chicken, carne asada, carnitas, etc whatever you have on hand)

beans

salsa/enchilada sauce

cheese

toppings (shredded lettuce, sour cream, tomatoes, etc)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 425

2. spray Pam or pour olive oil on a foil lined pan. Add tortillas then cover in Pam or oil, season with salt. cook for 10 mins or until crispy

3. Heat up beans then add some salsa for added flavor

4. Prepare toppings

5. Assemble!

food gawker

My current obsession would be looking at the food sites food gawker and tastespotting that just have thousands of pictures of tasty looking food with links to the blogs that will tell you how they made that awesome looking meal. It is part of my routine to look through the pages of new photos that come up after I come home from classes, I definitely recommend them if you just want to be inspired to cook something new. I have a whole slew of recipes that I bookmarked from those sites and the few that I have gotten to have been AMAZING, and I've also found some really good food blogs in the process, double plus! I just get so inspired looking at awesome pictures of food, wanting to go out and get the ingredients immediately or finding restaurant favorites in an easy to make home versions (ie mochiko chicken, HORCHATA, and maybe a recipe for spicy crispy chicken from cha! eeee). I look forward to growing older so I can acquire more food prepping supplies so I can attempt some of the more fancy looking recipes. Something positive about being older! haha

Bella, my roommate's cat, is an alien-badger-ninja-president. hahah she cracks me up. Bella has had a hard life, she was used as bait for a pitbull and because of that one of her paws is mangled. But now she lives a life of luxury, getting petted whenever she wants, trying everything from pasta bits to salami, it's a pretty nice life. I'm sure she enjoys it. But the thing is that she can fix you with this deathstare look that makes you think she is one of the V's and plotting your demise. haha another thing you can bet on is that she will cuddle with you and purr whenever you watch criminal minds, another reason why she is an alien kitty trying to get ideas for the eventual takeover and slaughter of earth.

Cereal and Buffalo Chicken

Cereal, every college kid's go to meal; and why not? It's soo easy dump some cereal in a bowl and pour a little milk on it, viola meal done. That reminds me of the F word, every time Gordon Ramsy narrates the recipe he's so serious about the whole thing and ends every recipe with the name and saying done while presenting the plate.

Here is a clip about beef wellington, what used to be the test for the aspiring chefs on Hell's Kitchen.

Perhaps I will attempt this? It doesn't look super hard, just making sure the temperatures are right and the meat won't dry out. But this is a grown up dinner so I'll just bookmark it and save it for the future.

Anyhow back to my cereal talk. My two top favorites would be the Post Banana Nut Crunch, which tastes like banana nut muffin with nice size bites of walnut, and Raisin Bran Crunch super delicious. Growing up my mom would buy my sisters and I those 30 little cereal packs so we would have a ton of variety and it worked it out well because each of us liked our own thing. I would dive straight for the Raisin Bran and my sisters would go for Apple Jacks or some other sugary cereal. I just never liked super suagary cereals, they never did it for me. Every once in awhile I like to have a bowl of fruit loops or some lucky charms but for my go to every day cereal it would definitely be raisin bran or frosted mini wheat.

I was very excited because I stumbled upon a recipe for slow cooker buffalo chicken drumsticks! Slow cooker recipes always require sooo little work and chicken wings are such a bitch to prep so this recipe definitely needed to be tried. And they were delicious! Tasted just like a chicken wing that was really tender and falling apart. Yum, definitely football party or casual party material. They are also relatively low in fat (diet freak Calvin approved of them even)

Ingredients

4 pound chicken drumsticks (I used 3 lbs of chicken quarters because its what I had, still worked out!)

1 bottle hot sauce (16 oz or two cups worth)

2 tbsp vinegar (white or apple will do)

2 tbsp worchester sauce

1/4 cup tomato paste

Method

1. Deskin chicken so you won't have gross pieces of fat floating around.

2. wash and pat dry the chicken

3. Mix all other ingredients in a bowl

4. Place chicken in the crock pot, pour sauce over it.

5. Cook for 6-7 hours at low or 3-4 on high

note on storage. Take the chicken out of the crockpot with a slotted spoon once they are done cooking so they still remain somewhat attached to the bone or else it will just turn into shredded chicken.

Books and Soup

I've established a sort of ritual for getting ready for bed; I turn off my computer, go wash my face and brush my teeth, then grab a book to read for half an hour or until I get sleepy. Its a good system and I like it but, there is a downside. I've read all the books that I have up here at least 2 times each, some of them I've read 5 times over. ( I find myself struggling to come up with the twice/thrice equivalent, fice? haha that's all I can come up with) For some of the books reading them again is like a comforting chat with an old friend but for others I struggle to just start them. I miss having my books so far away from me but it'd be in poor taste to bring up my boxes of books just to have something to read before bed or for a welcome distraction from studying, I find that nothing is more distracting than reading a good well-written book. So I need to remember to bring back books that I can't stand to read again and change them out for old favorite from home or new ones if my sisters have gone to the book store recently. I know that I could just go to the library and check some out but nothing beats owning a book and being able to fold over the pages to hold your place or not panicking when a little bit of hot chocolate runs over one of the pages.

My bedtime reading is currently Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah, just some chick lit to ease into sleep. The trick with bedtime reading is to get something that's a quick read, you don't want thought provoking literature when you can't sleep just keeps your mind all wired up. The book does bring up an interesting question, can modern women have it all, rewarding career AND happy content family life? The book chronicles the friendship of Tully and Kate two women who've been friends since they were 12 and how one chose a successful career while the other chose staying at home and having a family. Can someone have both? I think its a maybe but it boils down to time and managing priorities, because at most jobs you only get so many months of unpaid maternity leave before you have to go back to work and then who's going to raise your child then? This is one of those times where I wish I could move to Sweden where you get 9 months of 75% paid maternity leave, that's amazing! You could just make a career out of popping out babies. Well enough of that.

A recipe for chicken noodle soup for those cold wintery nights ahead

Ingredients

2 stalks of celery, diced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 small onion, diced

1 lb shredded chicken

one large carton of chicken broth ( 2 small cans)

1/2 a bag of egg noodles, uncooked

Method

1. Heat up a stock pot and add some butter. Throw in the vegetables and cook down until soft but not browned

2. Add remaining ingredients and simmer the soup until the noodles are cooked to your liking. Add salt and pepper to taste. (if there doesn't seem to be as much broth as you like just add some water)

3. I like to have a thicker soup so I add about 2-3 tablespoons of cornstarch