Yeast and other craft stuff.

I used my yeast water to make pretzels, and it worked just fine. For those of you who are interested in the yeast, basically I took 2 big spoonfuls (Like the big silverware ones that you eat with, not measuring spoons) of flour and put that in a jar of water. The jar has oz markings on it, so I filled it to about 20 oz of lukewarm water. I mix the flour in, but it will settle and that's fine, you can leave it like that. Leave it in the kitchen windowsill. If you have cheesecloth, you should cover in with that and use a rubber band to secure it, but I didn't, so I just put the metal lid balanced off kilter so it's sorta covered, but still has air coming in. Remember, yeast is a living organism so it needs air. It will have small bubbles when it's ready to use, although they will go away. It will also smell kinda funny.

I think you're supposed to put it in the fridge, so I think I will try that now, since it's ready to use, but I'm not sure if it's going to kill it or anything. Also, you're supposed to be able to just add more lukewarm water to it when you use up some of the water, but I used so much of the water that I just dumped the rest out and started over again. So, I'll try just adding water to it next time.


My "craft block" is still going strong, although I have managed to make myself a purse and a skirt. Honestly I think I just need to make myself a few items at a time before getting back into the swing of making other people stuff. I'm talking about xmas stuff, but I've downgraded the blankets to probably socks, or hats, or pot holders, or rags... I REALLY do like knit rags but my BF used his as a pot holder and it worked really well, so I think I'll make a few friends some of those, since they will be needing them...

My stepmothers mom just ordered me a knit picks interchangable needle set! I'm really super happy about it because I've been wanting them forever and I will have so many needles now!!! She and I also just listened to a friend rave about their prices and quality, which was one reason I hadn't really thought about asking someone for a set yet, but now I can just hope that it'll be awesome! The only thing is knit picks doesn't offer a 16 inch cord, for hats. The smallest is the 24 inch, which I supposed I could make hats on but it'd be a bit tight. I've measured several heads and I've found that male heads are generally 23 inches in diameter where the edge of the hat will hit, and females are 21 inches. Yes, I've measured peoples heads. I'm not a freak, I was just making them fleece hats.

I made a "down syndrome cow" recently, and people absolutely love his retarded face, so I'm thinking I will do several more of those, to give away, not sell... Keep in mind when I call this cow all kinds of slanderous, mentally disabled names, I'm really giving myself a bad time for how he turned out. I DO have a developmentally disabled brother, so, please don't think I make fun of ACTUAL people with mental or physical issues. Here is a picture of the masterpiece:

Down Cow

Isn't he adorable? Can't really see his tail, but it's there. The sad truth of it is, I hate working with white clay because it got so dirty! So, I stopped working on him before I added a snout. I plan on making a down pig, down sheep, and maybe a few others. 

Anyways. Here's to a hopefully more productive week! I've got everything that I need to start making stuff! Although I still do need some other things. I have a bus pass now, so I can go ANYWHERE that the very limited bus system will take me! 

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"Making" Yeast.

The other day, I was hit by a strong wave of soft pretzel cravings. Well, I've made them before, so I head downstairs to check out the available ingredients. Well, yeast wasn't one of them. We have some, but definitely not enough to make any one thing. This saddens me. However, I've heard about people "making" yeast (It's a living organism, you can't actually MAKE it) with several different techniques.

The first of which was chopping up an apple and soaking that in lukewarm water for a few days in a warm area. I read the reviews on this particular tutorial and found that if you make yeast with fruit, whatever you make with it will taste like the fruit. Well, I don't want my pretzels to taste like apples, OR raisins or grapes or whatever else...

You can also make yeast with vegetables. Same thing as stated above, do not want vegetabley pretzels.

There is also the use of a sourdough start: When you make sourdough batter, take a small piece of the batter and store it in a warm, dark place. It will expand and expand... Then, when you make bread again, you can take a piece of it off and use that in place of yeast. You're also supposed to cut the start in half and give half to a friend, who will then wait until it expands and do the same thing...

So, I found another tutorial... It wasn't a good one since it didn't have good measurements, but, I just put some lukewarm water and a bit of flour in a glass bottle, with a tiny bit of yeast, and set that on the kitchen windowsill for a couple of days. During the day I will set it out in the sun, because it needs to be warm. I was hoping it would yeast itself faster that way, which is why I also added some yeast... It makes it go faster. You can do this with just water and flour. Once it starts bubbling, (I think), it's ready to use!

To use this yeast water, you replace the water in a recipe with the yeast water. I.e. in a recipe for bread, it will tell you to use perhaps a cup of lukewarm water and to stir the yeast into this. Well, that's what you already have... Yeast water!

What my problem is, is the fact that every how to on making yeast is not very clear on when it's ready. When it has bubbles? Well, mine has bubbles alright. But, big bubbles? Small bubbles? Mine has both now, but I don't know if they'll get bigger. Also, I think I'm also supposed to eventually refrigerate the yeast water... but when? So, I'm going to experiment with this, because yeast is expensive; water, flour and an empty pickle jar are not.

Hopefully I will get some answers to share. I recently learned a term that I can apply to myself: I'm somewhat of a "prepper". Preparing for things. More specifically, preparing for the apocalypse. Which is strange, since I don't really allow myself to seriously believe that zombies are going to pop up out of manholes and come running out of the wilderness. At the same time, I feel that it's inevitable that some angry scientist will decide to fuck humanity over, though. If there are highschool shootings...

So, it'd make sense that I'd want to learn how to make yeast. I'm a prepper. This also explains my dream of owning a small farm, with cows, goats, and chickens, and enough of a garden to feed my family and guests.

Anyways...

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It was a good 4th

Sorry no posts... I'm just waiting for my camera to come back from the repair center. I'm pretty sure it should have been back by now, but they have my contact information... I don't know whether to expect it to suddenly appear again, or if I'll get a call... I've been checking my email religiously but there's nothing there. It was an expensive camera, so I'm just worried it's going to just disappear.

Anyways! I only have crappy cell phone pictures, but I wanted to share my twice baked potatoes recipe with you. But first, I made a pie for the fourth:

Fireworks!!! 

Now, I only took one picture of the potatoes and that was after I covered them with sour cream, plus it was with my BF's new phone that apparently has THE crappiest camera ever. So, it is with great shame I show you this picture. But here it is. 

Delicious Dinner

Okay. So. That brown stuff is terriyaki steak, if you want to know. That was my boyfriend contribution to this, his mother's birthday dinner. He did all the work on that, so sorry, but I can't give you the recipe. (He just puts stuff on the steak, grills it, takes it off and cuts it into strips, wraps it up in tinfoil along with a homemade terriyaki sauce and grills it again.) He never uses a set recipe when he makes meat. But he never. Messes. It up. Ever.  

On to the potatoes. We have been craving them for sooooo long. A friend made some twice baked potatoes for a xmas party we went to and ever since then... Omg. 

What you'll need: 

4 Big Baking Potatoes. 

Package of Shredded Cheese. (I used pepper jack)

Green Onion.

Bacon! 

Mushrooms. 

1/4 Stick of butter. 

Basically, bake the potatoes, (I did them at 400 for 40 minutes) while you're baking them chop everything up (Cook the bacon first) and mix it all together. Use only half of the cheese in the mixture, you'll put the rest on top. When the potatoes are baked, cut them in half lengthwise and carefully scoop out the innards and mix that in with everything else. Then stuff the skins! Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. The cheese itself lent a very delicious spicy to the potatoes... I buried mine in sour cream because I don't like spicy that much. It was still really good though. Then put them back in the oven for another 15 minutes, or until the cheese melts. 

Also. I like to rub the potatoes in butter and salt before baking. Not too much salt, but then the skins aren't just dry and icky. 

If you ever want to make twice baked potatoes, you can honestly stuff them with anything. Vegetables, sausage, cream cheese. Whatever. You. Want. Which makes these even better! 

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No jobs? How can that be?

I didn't get any jobs at Labor Ready this week, so I haven't made the money for the camera, of course. I also just managed to break my boyfriends rear view mirror so I was thinking I will buy him a new one, unless he manages to somehow duct tape/super glue it back on and not mind the giant crack... Honestly, most of the rear view mirrors I've found were $10-20, unless I got him one with a compass or digital crap or stuff like that. Some of them "auto dim" and the one he has right now doesn't do any of that, so I think he'd be okay with me getting him one of the cheaper ones...

This weekend I'm planning on making more clay figures, and possibly some sewing... We'll see. It looks to me that I do most of my crafting on weekends, so I think (if I ever get the time to write a blog while at my BFs house, he seems to steal the laptop whenever possible) I will just start posting inspiration posts, posts about maybe charity stuff I'm interested in, and recipes. I made some delicious stuffed mushrooms yesterday, I forgot to add seasonings but they were still pretty good. The mushrooms were super juicy, and I got bigger ones so you couldn't just pop the whole thing into your mouth, and we had to eat them while leaning over the sink. The only other stuffed mushrooms I've had were tiny. I think that might be a better way to go.

You can see the mushrooms juices on the middle of the plate

Stuffed with cream cheese, asparagus, olives, the stems of the mushrooms, and sausage. We ate the all in like 10 minutes flat, even though we had most of the sausage and asparagus in tortilla wraps for breakfast 20 minutes before these were done. It wasn't really a filling breakfast, but whatever. 

The recipe I sort of followed (not really) said to use 8 oz of cream cheese, but everyone said that was too much and I used only half the package. I only used one stalk of asparagus, and you couldn't even find it in there. I just chopped everything up real fine, then microwaved the cream cheese for a few seconds so it'd be easier to mix it all in. Delicious! 

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I made enchiladas!

That's right! I was inspired by my friend who posted pictures of her enchiladas a couple of days ago. So I decided, I want something that freaking cheesy too.

I looked it up and after looking at different recipes, decided I could make whatever I wanted for the filling and then just bake them. I did it real easy, and I'll show you how!

I used a rotisserie chicken and a half (I was lucky that the BFs mother had some left on hers, because I ran out of filling before I filled the lasagna pan so I had to use up all of the chicken). I just didn't want to have to cook the chicken and because of this, this took nearly no time at all. Also because of this, I can't really tell you how much chicken I used besides it was about 1.5 medium chickens..

Ingredients:
Chicken
1 can Refried Beans
1 big can Sliced Olives
2 packages of shredded cheese
Large can of Enchilada Sauce of your choice
Large Tortillas
Seasonings of your choice

Shred chicken and place into large bowl. Mix in refried beans, one package cheese, and half the olives. Add seasonings of your choice and mix.

Pour some sauce into the bottom of a 9x13 lasagna pan. Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

Take 6 large tortillas and fill them up as much as you can equally. Roll them up and place them seam side down into the pan.

Cover them equally with the rest of the sauce, the second package of cheese, and the other half of the olives.

Bake for 20 minutes or until heated all the way through. Eat. Enjoy.

Delicious.

My hands are thanking me for a day off from crafting, but the day isn't over yet and I might just start working on another dice bag. Perhaps this one will look a bit better... I want the bottom to lay flat when it's full of dice and sit on the bottom, instead of sort of falling over on its side.

I've noticed I have a callus on the tip of my finger where I push the right needle back down the pull the next stitch up. I don't have too, but it's a reflex. I can't stop fingering it now!

I shared this post here:

And here:
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Happy St Patrick's Day

I originally planned on making some kind of themed sweet for Patrick's Day, but Dairy Queen is doing some buy one blizzard get one for 99 cents. I think that's more than good enough.

Corned beef and cabbage for dinner tonight and tomorrow, both times fresh! Delicious. Although I starved all day because we didn't know when we would be having dinner. It was worth the wait.

It was good to have another nice homemade dinner. Those aren't too common for me these days, seeing as I still hate cooking and I avoid it like the plague, but we just got a bunch of red potatoes. I made some pretty good mashed potatoes for New Years, and I was thinking about trying that again. But I definitely want to try making potato chips again, and also stuffed potato skins. I'm aware that red potatoes aren't the best for some of these, but they're good anyways. Right?

Another recipe I want to try soon is stuffed mushrooms. I love mushrooms. I usually saute them up in bacon grease and drown them in garlic powder. As long as they are cooked I can't get enough of them. I have plenty of friends who aren't interested in even seeing mushrooms. I hope to change that, honestly. They can be pretty disgusting if they aren't cooked right, or if they're raw...

Anyways. I'd like some (cheaper) ideas for a beginner cook. I like having a real dinner but I prefer using the microwave. I have no problem using a stove and an oven, but I end up burning things easily.

I am picky, though.

I hate chewing lettuce. I hate oats. I don't do spicy. I don't like fish except tuna and salmon. I hate coconut. There's tons more but those are the basics. I don't eat enough vegetables, I think. Although I believe that will change when there will be an abundance of tomatoes in the summer.

So if anyone has any ideas on easier recipes for me to try, I'm all ears. If there's something in it that I listed that I don't like, I can leave it out unless it's integral to the recipe. I'm trying to find recipes myself. I just... Usually end up finding things that taste good but AREN'T good, you know? It's like trying to eat healthy at McDonalds.

Any and all help will be appreciated!

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AWESOME APPLE IN AN APPLE

Random post, but I found this on somebodies facebook and I can't exactly bookmark it. So, here's to immortalizing it here on my blog. I do this often because it's a way to keep track of things I want to do! In fact, I did that a lot when I wasn't really blogging for anyone other than me. Anyways, here's the copy pasta:

"~APPLE PIE BAKED IN APPLE~

5-6 Granny Smith apples (make sure they can stand on their own) 
1 tbsp. cinnamon 
1/4 cup sugar 
1 tbsp. brown sugar 
pie crust (homemade or pre-made)

1) Preheat oven to 375F.

2) Cut off the top of 4 apples off and discard. Remove the inside of each apple with a spoon or melon baller very carefully, as to not puncture the peel.

If you’re a skilled interior apple excavator, salvage as much as you can so you can use it for Step 2. I, on the other hand, am not skilled so I just had to throw my interior apples away and chop up additional apples for filling.

3) Remove skin from remaining apple(s) and slice very thinly. These apple pieces will give you the additional filling needed to fill the four apples you are baking.

Mix sliced apples with sugars and cinnamon in a bowl. If you prefer more or less cinnamon make adjustments as desired. Same goes for the sugar.

Scoop sliced apples into hollow apples.

4) Roll out pie crust and slice into 1/4 inch strips. You can also add a strip of pastry inside the top of the apple almost like a liner to add a little more texture/sweetness to the pie.

Cover the top of the apple in a lattice pattern with pie crust strips.

5) Place apples in an 8×8 pan. Add just enough water to the cover the bottom of the pan.

Cover with foil and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Remove foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and sliced apples are soft.

Makes 4 baked apple pies (in the apple)."

And here is the picture that went with it: 

More pretzels, Valentine's Hearts, Recipes.

So I made more pretzels today, with all white flour instead of half whole wheat. I am much more happier with these!

The small bowl has my improvised Honey Mustard Sauce, which is made by putting a dollop of mayo, some mustard, and some honey in a bowl and stirring. I didn't measure at ALL so there's how to make that. It's freaking delicious. 

I made more of these peanut butter filled beauties, and I LOVE them. The mold is made for making chocolate candy in, so they just pop straight out after you put them in the freezer for a bit. 

Half done-ish. 

Now. I am not one for measuring things like peanut butter. It's too sticky to deal with. So, to make the peanut butter filling in these, I just take half a stick of butter, and about the top 1/3 of a small container of creamy Jif, and put those in a bowl. Microwave 30 seconds. Mix. Add a BIT of vanilla, then add a pile of powdered sugar. Mix. Just taste it to see if you want more sugar. Jif already has sugar, so you don't really need that much. If it tastes sweet, you're good. And THAT is how you make "Reeses" peanut butter! That's actually more or less my recipe to make peanut butter fudge, actually. But. It works! 

Then you just melt the meltable chocolate in the microwave, use a spoon to more or less cover the inside of the mold, freeze for a few minutes until solid, pour some peanut butter off of a spoon into there, freeze, then cover with chocolate, freeze, presto, homemade reeses! 

For the pretzels, I have an actual recipe. Here: 

One packet of yeast (2 and 1/4 teaspoons)

1.5 cups of warm water

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

4 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons baking soda

1 cup hot water

Put yeast in WARM water, mix until mostly dissolved. Add suagr and salt, mix. Add flour. Mix. Add more flour until the dough isn't sticky... 

Flour surface and knead the dough for a bit until when you poke it it will poof back up magically. Shape into ball. Cut into 1/3 cup sizes, I just hack a piece off and stick it in a 1/3 cup to see if it fits. 

Take the baking soda and dump it in hot water, mix until... You get sick of mixing, unless you actually manage to dissolve it all. 

Roll pieces into ropes about 20 inches long. Shape into pretzel shape. Dip into baking soda water then place on cookie sheet. Salt on top, or whatever you want... 

Bake at 425F degrees for 15 minutes, done! NOM NOM NOM TIME. 

Okay, so this is based off of a recipe called pretzels in 30 minutes or something like that and this takes me like an hour to do all by myself. The dough does not want to form ropes. The woman talked about her husband helping her, so if you can manage to do this in a half hour with some help, kudos. If you manage to do that by yourself, give me your life force. I mean, even more kudos! Yeah. 

It's more fun to listen to music while you're cursing at the dough. 

Anyways. The first time, I used 2 cups cake flour (didn't have regular) and 2 cups whole wheat, and dipped it in an egg. I broiled for the last 5 minutes of baking them in order to get them to brown, and they tasted more like bread than a pretzel. This time, I read several more recipes and read someone talking about how they used to make pretzels with some kind of disgusting thing (I can't remember) in order to make them taste like pretzels but now we do it in baking soda and I have to say, they taste a lot more like pretzels this time. They kind of have crunchy crusts, but the inside is still super soft. 

Now, my dad is on a diet and took my recipe and figured out the nutritional value to see if he could have one. Well, here's that info, based on the fact that I made 11 pretzels this time. 

Calories: 174

Fat: 0.5

Carbs: 34.5

Fiber: 1.4

Protein: 4.9

and that is per pretzel. Not the whole batch. I can only assume the measurements are in grams, since that is what is usually on packages. 

Food inspirations

As you all know, I'm not much of a cook, but I really do have fun making SOME food... It's just one of those crafts that don't seem as fulfilling. You spend hours making something, for your kids to say they don't like it, and everyone else eats it all in 20 minutes.

Baking, on the other hand... There always seems to be leftovers. When I make my 9x13 lasagna pan full of baked mac and cheese, it feeds 2 people for 4 days. My pretzels lasted until today. Cookies last for days. So do cupcakes. At least in my family. Even with the little brothers who will eat anything sugary before turning to REAL food.

But, I still plan to be a wife and a mother one day, and to be a successful one (in my eyes) I need to learn how to cook. So, why not try making the more fun things first? Maybe I will start to think it's more fun.

Here are some things that I've been wanting to try.

Buttery Soft Pretzels ... Yeah, I still want the buttery ones. 

Homemade Crunchwrap Supreme

Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

Homemade Potato Chips

Stuffed Potato Skins

This all may not be the healthiest of things, but it's not like I'm going to make these all in 1 day! What's hard is that this is all... Baked stuff. How am I ever going to get into actual cooking!??

Pretzels and Camera dying.

Well, I just tried taking a picture and my camera won't turn on. The camera is 5 years old, but I didn't use it very much. It was actually a horrible choice of camera, simply because of the way it ate batteries. Those batteries never had a chance with that thing. I'm going to try to resurrect it, but honestly, I was never much of a picture taker. The biggest problem is that I want to try selling things online soon, and I even made myself a nice little light box, but I don't have a job and I don't think a new camera is a good way to spend my little amount of money. In fact I don't think I can afford a new one anyways, and I am not the type of person to buy used electronics.

Anyways, I wanted to post about my Pretzels that I made, and take a picture of them because they turned out nice looking, and I did manage to get a pretty good one with my phone. Nice sunlight catching the pretzels.

I mostly followed this recipe, mainly because all we had was cake flour and whole wheat flour, and although they look pretty good, I can't say I'm a big fan of whole wheat pretzels. I added about 1/4 a cup of milk halfway through, then a little bit of butter, and then ended up adding about a whole 'nother cup of whole wheat flour to make it stop being sticky. Other than that I followed the recipe, even using coarse sea salt, because that was what we have out on the counter.

I wanted to make cheese sauce for them, but we don't have any chedder cheese, so instead I made some honey mustard dipping sauce. I took a heaping big spoonful of mayo, a level big spoonful of yellow mustard, and about the same amount of honey as the mustard, and mixed it together. It tastes pretty good, but after a while it seemed too sweet. Maybe a little more mustard?

I made 9 pretzels with the extra cup of whole wheat flour added in. Next time, I hope to make some that taste more like mall pretzels and use white flour. and make cheese sauce. Because I think that was what I really wanted when I started making these, just something to dip into cheese. I like cheese. Especially cheese sauce.

Quick & Easy Potato Wedges

Just wanted to share a delicious recipe I figured out sort of recently.

For 1 person, I usually use 3 red potatoes, one big and two small, but you can also use 2 of a medium size if you don't eat as much.

Cut the potatoes in half. Then cut each half into quarters (wedge shaped), then cut the wedges in half short ways, so they are each half a wedge. Look at the picture below for some help with that description...

Put it all on a plate, then drizzle olive oil over them. Add seasonings, I add pepper, salt, cavenders all purpose spice, and garlic powder.

Mix them around with your hands. Then make sure they are all right side up with the skin down on the plate, then microwave for 8 minutes.

For fry sauce, mix together an equal amount of mayo and ketchup.

Quick and easy! Plus delicious!

Also, I guess it WAS Sunday 2 hours ago, so here goes my 4 happys:

1. I wore my new corset with a tutu I made a long time ago and they look AWESOME together! 
2. I had Terriyaki for breakfast. 
3. I have a great book to read. 
4. Potato Wedges are amazing. 

Buttery Soft Pretzels? Yes Please!!

So, while looking around the internets, as I do, I stumbled across some soft pretzel recipes. I am really new to the world of cooking things besides ramen and grilled cheese, so I have been trying to find some fun recipes to try out. I'm really proud of my Baked Macaroni and Cheese, even though it's uber simple to make, and my BFs mother taught me how to make the families famous Broccoli Casserole, so I'm starting to get there.

You might notice that most all the things I can do are baked, but I feel safer baking than cooking on a stove top. However, I made myself cook up some chicken the other day! It was a leftover breast we didn't use for dinner the other day and it was sitting in the fridge, so I decided why not? Let's just throw this in the frying pan and see what happens.

I had to immediately add olive oil as the chicken just instantly melded with the pan, then after 10 minutes decided to just cut it up in chunks to cook faster, but it didn't burn and I'm still happy.

Well, I've decided I'm going to try to make big soft pretzels. I'm thinking about using this recipe here, but it isn't the first one I found and I might make adjustments as I see fit. Buttery pretzels sound amazing though, don't they?

Here's how I hope they turn out looking:

In fact, maybe I should go with the recipe that made those pretzels! 

How I REALLY made the Mac and Cheese

So, here's the REAL recipe and not just me guessing, haha!

 1 lb Shell Pasta
5 Cups Milk
6 TBS Flour
16 Oz. Shredded Velveeta Cheese
1 Package "Lil smokies"
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Bread Crumbs

Anyways. If you look at the recipe I wrote down before, it's like half of this plus slightly wrong. I'll make a note on that post. Although I bet it tastes just fine.

 Cook the pasta. Drain. Put into lasagna dish. Cut Lil Smokies into 3rds, mix in with pasta.

 Heat milk. Add flour and make sure it's mixed in well. Slowly add the cheese and stir until it's all melted. You will need a pig sauce pan... The picture below is only 3 cups of milk. The sauce will turn orangey when the cheese is melted. Sorry about forgetting to take a picture.

 Pour the cheese sauce into the pasta... It should just about cover the pasta. If you're worried about this bubbling over the edges, go ahead and put a cookie sheet underneath the dish in the oven, which you probably should have preheated a while ago to 350 degrees F. Bake for a half hour.

Here's what the boyfriend contributed: (Raw)

Now cooked: (Forgot to take a picture before I started cutting the leftovers up to fit into a tiny tupperware)

and here is the Mac and Cheese baked:

The picture doesn't do it justice.

Anyways, there you goo.... I warn you, while you're making the cheese sauce, it doesn't really look or taste good... But it's freakin' delicious after it's all finished! You will have a hard time to stop eating! We are all full... Literally, our stomachs are maxed out... and we keep wanting one more bite!

My BF also made sausage, but it was still cooking when I was taking the pictures. I also wanted to post a picture of me in my apron I made yesterday, but he's asleep now! Full bellies do that to you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

How NOT to make potato chips.

So earlier today I decided to follow the instructions I found on multiple sites on how to make homemade potato chips.

I am very glad I only used 1 small potato. Being just out of my teens and never have had the chance to learn how to cook, I used the microwave. This was how all of these tutorials made them anyways, but I always feel like the microwave is just going to give bad results with anything that can be made in another fashion. I read that in order for the chips to be crispy, you have to microwave them until they are browned. I did not read anything about soaking the chips in cold water before microwaving to soak up all the starch.

So, I tried my browned chips and they were burnt. They were disgusting. They had too much salt.

Next time, I'll try the soak in the cold water. If it doesn't work, OMG. Thanks internet for the crap tutorials, but I'll be moving on to using the oven.

Since I'm 20 now and most of my diet consists of ramen noodles, deli meat wrapped in tortillas, and sauteed mushrooms, I've decided that I should start trying to learn how to cook more. I still burn things like grilled cheese, and bacon, but you know, my dad decided at the last moment that I was going to move to another state with him instead of staying with my alcoholic mom, and his new wife didn't really try to be a mother to me. She had her first children with him, so I don't blame her for not doing much more than feeding me and buying me clothes and getting me to brush my teeth. She didn't know how to deal with a 9 year old. I got really depressed after moving and they decided to not get me to do chores around the house, so basically, I'm a woman who doesn't know how to take care of a family or a house.

I'm not trying to rant, or to throw myself a pity party, but what I am trying to do is say that I'm not happy with how I was raised. Plenty of kids would have thought they had the coolest parents ever, but I feel more like I was neglected in the worst way possible. I didn't know how to clean a toilet, or the necessity of cleaning the microwave until I moved in with my big sister for a while. SHE grew up with our mom, who actually cared about teaching us such things. My stepmother, however, doesn't seem to know how to clean things herself. I don't really live with my dad and stepmom anymore but she still refuses to clean "my" bathroom, even though my brothers use it much more often than I do. The toilet is disgusting! The shower walls are permanently stained yellow and gray. I personally feel like she has nothing to be on my back about, because I am trying really hard to find a job, and to at least start learning to cook by myself, and I clean the house here... When I'm told to at least. She has a part time job and lazes about the house EVERY day... My dad has recently taken to asking her if she plans on doing anything after dinner, then gives examples such as mopping, or doing the dishes, or doing laundry...

I really want to be a better stereotypical "woman". I want to cook good meals for my boyfriend, I want a nice house, I want a good job... and I hope that I can do that on my own. I know for a fact that if I had continued living with my mom, even if she IS an alcoholic, I would know a lot more. In fact, I probably would have had a job for the past 4 years and I might be married, because I would be living in North Dakota and my other friend and my family who live there seem to all be married at this age already!

Baked Mac & Cheese

Edit: Please read the updated version of this post here.



I don't have any pictures right now, but I've just decided that I'm going to make my homemade mac and cheese for valentine's dinner. I kind of mashed together several recipes in order to make it, so, I figured I should write the recipe down, and perhaps share it... You know, because... The last time I made it everyone LOVED it. It's delicious!

Anyways, I'll be sure to add pictures of it when I make it for valentines. We don't want to go out ON Valentin's for dinner because... It's going to be packed everywhere! So, we'll go out a week before or a week early at one of our favorite Teriyaki/Sushi places (one of those awesome high quality, low price places!).

Ingredients:

1/2 lb of shell pasta
3 tbs butter
3 tbs flour
3 cups milk
12 oz shredded Velveeta cheese
Hot Dogs of choice
Bread crumbs
Paprika
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (F).

Cook the noodles to al dente, drain then pour into a large casserole dish. Chop up hot dogs into small pieces and mix in with the noodles.

Heat the milk in a large sauce pan. Melt butter in the milk, then stir in flour a little at a time. Now add the cheese a little at a time. Constantly stir so the milk doesn't boil until the cheese is melted. Pour this mixture over the noodles. It should almost cover them completely. Season with paprika, salt, and pepper on top to taste, then sprinkle bread crumbs on top.

Slide this into the oven, if you're worried about it bubbling oven, slide a cookie pan on the rack below the one the casserole dish is on.

Bake for a half hour. Let cool slightly. Nom. Enjoy.

The recipe above is approximate... I didn't write down the recipe I actually used, so this is what I THINK it was, haha... I will correct it if necessary after I bake it again. The last time I made it, I didn't use hot dogs, I used these little bite sized pieces of meat... Can't remember what they were called but it was delicious.