disturbedme

FINALLY! A new batch of icons...

[58] Winter/Holidays
[02] Thanksgiving
[05] New Year 2010
[05] Other

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eta: Working to fix Hanukkah typos. I fail at spelling tonight, apparently. DUH.

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I just picked out a few presents for Christmas and I'm wondering what your opinion is on wrapping?

Would it be better for the environment to use:

wrapping paper
newspaper
bags
tissue paper

other alternatives..?

Hey guys, been a long time since i've posted, but i'll give you an update:

About 3 weeks ago, my big beautiful Green Spotted Puffer, named Dobby, committed suicide. Seriously. He jumped out of his tank. HOW is beyond me, seeing as his tank has a screen lid... He was a hefty bugger though (at a whopping 5 inches), so it wouldn't have suprised me if he just jumped really hard and was able to bump the lid up. :( I cried when my mom told me (i was out of town the night it happened), but she left the body for me and I was able to give him a little burial. Poor Dobby. :[ He was pretty much the most awesome fish ever.

However, the tank did not stay empty for long. After a week of moping, a water change and testing the parameters and making sure it was hospitible, I found two eensy wittle baby Green Spotted Puffers to call it home. Their names are Winky and Hokey. Winky is a FATTY and is afraid of everything. And Hokey is skinny (at least next to winky) and overbrave haha! They're not quite two inches long and such fun to watch ^_^ They eat like little piggies.

They have been thriving, and even figured out how to work together to dismantle the occasional superworm i throw in there.... I can't wait till my LFS gets ghost shrimp in so i can give the babies their first real hunting experience.

Thats bout it, pictures of the newcomers when i steal my moms camera ^_^

Last night, inspired by this blog post, I decided to try my hand at cup pies and use up some of apples that have been sitting on the counter. I've made pie once a week for the last year or so, but this was my first attempt at miniaturizing it to bake in a regular muffin tin. I used my usual pastry recipe, guesstimated on the filling, and followed the aforementioned blog's guidelines on baking temperatures and times.

The result? Success! I think they turned out really well; not quite as aesthetically pleasing as I'd hoped, but still extremely delicious. Mmmmm. Tiny pies.

Okay, this is kind of a weird one. Actually this is a two-part question, and the "Can I eat this?" part is of lesser importance.

Part one is "Can I dye using this?" (not "Will I die if I eat this?")

I drove past a rural home that had a sign saying "Free Walnuts," and I stopped in the rain to snurch a plastic bag full. I don't know how long they'd been out there, how long ago they've been picked (more likely fell), and it took me a couple of days to look in the bag and see what I had.

The outer hulls are black and mushy or slimy, maybe kind of rotten. Plus a great many have white mold on them -- some a lot, some just a wee spot or two.

I've been eager to find some black walnuts to use for dyeing silk. I'm presuming what's used is the outer hull. I just separated them from the inner hulls by running my car over them a few times, and so now I guess they are ready to use, if I should use them at all.

Question #1: Will they create any problem for the dyer or the wearer if there is white fur on the hulls? Is there some way I can kill off any nastiness thereon? (Boiling water maybe?) They will be resting with the fabric in a bath of vinegar and a mordant for two weeks, then the fabric will be hanging, unwashed, for another two weeks before being washed.

Are these okay to use for dye?

And, of course, I have a collection of hard inner hulls. So we get to question @2: Once I set these out to dry, will they be edible, or should I just forget them and maybe use the hard bits for dye too? They're hard enough to need a hammer to open, but some of them do have some white gunk on the hulls. Any thoughts? One of them was open when I sorted out the nuts from the hulls -- the nutmeat was black -- is it supposed to be? I mean, they are black walnuts, but does that go for the innards, too?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Yesterday I found a strange lump on my abdomen. It's on the right side, like right along my rib cage. It's fairly large and hurts when I press on it and I can kind of move it around.

You can't see anything from the outside, like if it were a zit or something (and the lump is much larger than that).

Does anyone know what this might be??



I have a Dr. appt. on Tuesday (for pains in my stomach area, between my rib cage) so I'll mention it then. With all this stuff happening in the same general area I'm feeling a little freaked out.

So, what would cause my salinity level to go from a normal reading to an unusually high reading in a matter of four days??? It's reading 1.032 right now and I'm adding RO to bring it down slowly. All my other levels in my tank are within their parameters. I'm just confused and I think it's what killed my sailfin and yellow eyed tang. Thanks for any help. :)

I've never done a Tofurky before and my gramma took the liberty of picking one up for me. But all that's done is give me a whole new challenge to tackle in the middle of everything else. (Honestly, whoever thought it would be cool to put Thanksgiving in the middle of NaNoWriMo is bringing me down.)

I've heard they dry out in the oven. Is this true? Something about a magic basting sauce? Is there something I should know about covering it or what? Does the $9.99 one from Trader Joe's come with gravy?

What are your Tofurky tips and tricks?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120463597&sc=fb&cc=fp

hehe

i love cheese. and brie has to be one of my favourites. it instantly transforms any dish, be it a sandwich or stuffed chicken breast, into a gooey creamy palate of delight.

as we woke up quite late this morning, i delved into my fridge for the makings of a yummy brunch item.

i came out with prosciutto and brie on toast popped into the toaster oven to get the cheese good and gooey, topped with a lightly poached egg and some shredded cheddar. back into the toaster oven to get the cheddar melted, then finished with a dollop of dijon mustard for some zip. (hubby isn't overly fond of hollandaise sauce so kept that out.)




x-posted

A little Japanese technique mixed with Floridian cuisine. For more pics and technique visit FotoCuisine.com

i just started my legacy family and my sim just had her baby and she came home with something that looked like a pile of wood, like lumber. i know, weird. so i thought it was just a glitch so i chose to grow the baby up and this is what i got

curry couscous with butternut squash, slivered almonds, onion and raisins

(cross-posted to my journal)

So, we've been keeping bread dough perpetually in the refrigerator for the past six weeks or so, using the master recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day (available with lots of variations at Mother Earth News). I've tried lots of variants on the original recipe: all bread flour instead of AP flour, half AP and half bread flour, 1/3 whole wheat and 2/3s bread flour, etc. (For the record, my favorite is half-and-half. The texture is exactly what I like, chewy and not too dense.)

We have company this weekend, and last night I was craving cinnamon rolls. I remembered that the recipes on MEN included a variation for using the dough to make sweet rolls. Specifically, Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns. Well, some of us don't like pecans (heathens), so I decided to leave them out. Also, I absolutely adore cream cheese icing on cinnamon rolls, so I mixed some of it up as well (4oz. softened cream cheese, 2 or so cups of powdered sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla, and milk enough for the right consistency).

Really, it couldn't have been simpler. I mixed up the butter and brown sugar and spread it on the bottom of my round cake pan. Then I rolled out the dough, which was conveniently ready and waiting for me in the fridge, into a rectangle and spread it with the cinnamon/sugar/butter/etc. mixture. This was actually the trickiest part, as the softened butter kept pulling at and further squishing the dough. I'm wondering if melted butter (which I've seen in other cinnamon roll recipes) might be easier, then sprinkled with the dry stuff.

Rolled it all up, sliced it, and put it in the pan where it rested and rose for an hour. Baked in a 350° oven for 40 minutes, then took lots of pictures.

SO VERY GOOD. The brown sugar and butter made a chewy, sticky caramel that coated the outside of the rolls, while the cream cheese icing added an extra tang that went wonderfully with the sourdough-ish bread dough. One of my fellow breakfasters commented that commercial cinnamon roll makers would put out a hit on me if they ever found out about my cinnamon rolls. :)

( Here lies the real food porn. )
For the record--I've used this same dough to make bread, pizza crust, and now cinnamon rolls--all with astounding success. It is truly a miraculous substance. :)

We arrived in China with little to no trouble. It was amazing, more so than Gullivar had ever said it would be.


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We arrived in China with little to no trouble. It was amazing, more so than Gullivar had ever said it would be.


( Read more... )

This year's round of turkey geeking uncovered several online suggestions of stuffing under the skin, in addtion to the cavities. I don't know if this is a new technique, but I've never heard of it. It is said to keep the bird very moist, and provides more "in-bird" stuffing, which my guests definitely prefer to the "virgin" stuffing that was never in the bird. I know it will alter the appearance of the finished turkey. Still, I'm tempted.

Has anyone done this? How did it come out? I promise lots of XXX porn from the big day.