A problem

Part 1

So I lost my id card last night. My id card gives me access to dining halls, and only five times during the year without penalty may I access the dh without it. As of breakfast, I would have only two left.

Part 2

I have had 3 sugar pumpkins and another small uncertain variety in my room for a couple weeks. The rector sent out an e-mail declaring pumpkin season over - all pumpkins must be gone from the dorm rooms by midnight... What to do?

Solution

Pumpkin chili!

I took all the pumpkins and made pumpkin puree, cooked the seeds, and then made the following pumpkin chili (certain ingredients are odd due to having to filch them from a dining hall during breakfast.)

PUMPKIN CHILI

Ingredients

a couple slices of thick-cut deli turkey

1 cup kidney beans

a couple tbs chopped bell pepper

1 tbs chickpeas

1/2 medium-large tomato

2/3 cup (fresh) pumpkin puree

1/4 cup sweet onion

chili powder

salt

pepper

red/cayenne pepper

crushed red pepper flakes

garlic

paprika

cinnamon

cumin

curry powder

sugar

heavy splash of cabernet savignon

water as needed (and it will be needed, at least a couple cups)

Sautee pumpkin, turkey and onion in pan. Add all the other ingredients and cook for 1+ hour(s) on medium (turn down to low 2nd half hour), stirring and adding water as necessary.

Top with crumbled bacon and your choice of cheese. (I used a cheddar/mozz/feta/parm mix...weird, I know, but I wasn't sure which flavor I'd want before I'd decided on seasonings.)

Birthday Cake Week, Episode 2

Deep Dark Chocolate Secrets Cake

This cake has 3 parts: the cake, the filling, and the topping...all made of magic.

Cake Ingredients

1 1/2 sticks butter

1 3/4 cups sugar (I used 1 white, 3/4 light brown)

2 eggs

2 1/3 cups all purpose flour

1 4-serving box of sugar-free cheesecake-flavored pudding mix

heaped 3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp Kahlua

1 cup sour cream

1 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease and flour sides and bottoms (or grease and parchment line) 3 8-inch pans.

Beat together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beat until thick and lemony.

(Your stand mixer is your friend - let it do the work for you here^!)

In a separate bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients.

In yet another bowl (or your two cup liquid measure), mix the vanilla, Kahlua, sour cream and coffee. (Watch out, if the coffee is not cooled, it will curdle/melt the sour cream.)

Alternately add the flour and sour cream mixtures into the sugar mixture, beating on medium all the while.

Mix together well, not forgetting to scrape down the sides.

Pour into pans - mixture is thick, so you'll have to spread it out.

Bake for ~30 minutes. (May be less/more depending on your oven.)

Remove from pans and cool.

Filling Ingredients

1 lb confectioner's sugar

1/2 cup cream cheese

2-4 tbs fruit preserves (I used sugar-free strawberry...I also recommend raspberry)

a couple tbs of butter/margarine

Blend together all ingredients, adjusting levels as necessary. Do this right after you put the cake in the oven and then pop the mixture in the fridge.

Ganache Topping

1 cup semi-/bitter-sweet chocolate chips/squares

2 tbs whole milk or cream

1 tbs butter

1 tbs cocoa powder

(these measurements are approximates, because I don't measure for this anymore...but it should be pourable/spreadable rather than a rollable-truffle-style...)

Melt all ingredients together in a double-boiler.

Assembly:

Trim two layers flat if necessary.

Spread the two flat layers each with half the filling and stack.

Top with the third, untrimmed layer. Pour the ganache over the top...

Enjoy!

(Warning, if you refrigerate the whole cake before serving, the ganache topping may get hard and make the cake too hard to cut...)

This was the cake I made for my birthday...and it was enjoyed by many. And now you can enjoy it too. :D

Birthday Cake Week

So this week is my birthday, and I will be spending it making up different delectable recipes. And then giving away the results so that I don't eat them all.

First up:

Fluffy Mocha Cupcakes

1 box chocolate cake mix (or how I did it: 1 yellow cake mix and 1/3 to 1/2 cup of cocoa powder)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 ripe bananas, mashed

3/4 cup strong coffee

3 large eggs (or 6 egg whites)

2 Tbs Kahlua

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray/line muffin tins.

2) Mash bananas and mix with coffee, set aside.

3) Blend cake mix and other dry ingredients

4) Add the banana mixture to the dry mix, then add the eggs 1 at a time, beating on medium until well mixed.

5) Add the Kahlua and beat for 30 seconds on high.

6) Bake for 18 (15-20) minutes. Remove from tins and let cool.

7) Glaze (see below).

Mocha glaze:

1 cup Confectioner's sugar

1/4 cup Cocoa powder

1/2 tsp Kahlua

1 tbs 2% milk

Mix all ingredients. I'm not sure about the ratios because I don't really measure, but if it's too runny add more sugar or cocoa or both, and if it's too thick, add more milk. Should give you a pretty thick, shiny glaze that spreads well.

I know, I know. Most recipe blogs are exciting and cute and have pictures and snarkiness/sweetness. I'll work up to it. For now, I'm just posting my recipes.

Do you eat?

Oh, wait, you're alive? Then you DO eat...or at least you in some method ingest substantial nutrients...

In any event, take this survey!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QPZ7TV6

Then share it with everyone you know. Because it's for a research project and I need a lot of responses. Plus, you'll have my eternal gratitude.

Seriously.

(I apologize for its awkward construction - I don't have a paid subscription.)

7 thoughts

1) I completely pointlessly dislike a particular British model...for being my age and snogging my celebrity crush.

2) I don't use this blog for beans. I did however get my hair trimmed again. This stylist also did it wrong, but not too badly, and as I didn't pay for it even though it only cost $8, I don't really mind.

3) I never write.
I do not text you, much less call you.
I do not even attempt to e-mail, message, or in any other manner, contact, you at all.
But,
I miss you all, all the same.
Everyone I've truly known, and every friend I've ever (even not-so-truly) had, I have abandoned for no good reason.

I am very sorry.
Please consider this an apology.

Not that it matters.
4) Nobody reads this blog. Hell, I don't read this blog. And I write it.

5) Summer is dull. I have finished 0 projects, and have no job, no shower, and no means of personal conveyance other than feet.

6) I am weirdly glad of number 4, since 5 is depressing and sounds bad.

7) It is very early and I haven't decided whether I am going to sleep or go running.

today

today I read Walt Whitman.
and for the first time
or so I think
I it not only read but
FELT
it was an odd experience
and not unpleasant

rats

Life is alright, getting work done and whatnot. Getting schedule back on track tonight (finally). And I appear to be allergic to pineapple. Which would definitely explain some scattered, odd symptoms as of late (burnt tongue/mouth, sleep disruption, headache...after reviewing daily actions, eating pineapple was the logical link and its allergic symptoms fit my reactions). :( I love pineapple! I will have to get this tested...when I can afford to anyway, and until then (in the unforseeable future), I shall just avoid the lovely spiky yellow fruit.
In other news, I bought myself toy cars today (got to finish some HW concepts this week, so I just wanted to get properly in the mood...by playing.). Some advice - purchasing baby food is a good way to get checkout baggers to stop hitting on you. (baby food jars are great for storing mixed inks/dyes/paints...I'm working on a self portrait in ink at the moment and having to remix/waste the ink every work session is a total bummer.)
Ciao!
-Ren

spaghetti for breakfast...

That pretty much sums up my life right now. Yep.

(Also, I ran my modeling program out of memory...)

back to woooooooork. sketching. by hand. (good thing was only doing some quick 3-D digital sketches, killing ram on a real project would SUCK)
-ren

This story's missing a wishing well

So, it's taken me about 3 hours to listen to Guns N' Roses' Rocket Queen. I, earlier today, got to watch my entire immediate family get murdered in cold blood by post-apocalyptic crazies and consequently skipped all my classes (2/3 by accident), and I have all this work I need to be doing that I just do NOT feel up to right now. Was going to run to the store to buy paper I was supposed to have last week. Didn't do it. It was sunny and pretty today. Too pretty. Hurt my eyes. Want to leave. Can't. And by leave I mean wake up. Or feel. Or do/be/etc. Felt like this last Thursday. Can't keep fracking with my schedule. It's murdersome. Got a good room pick - 5. Will take one of the converted doubles on third floor I think. Hopefully get a good RA too. I feel like my writing, indeed my current sentiment as a whole, is a bad cross of Faulkner/Hemingway/Rorschach (and yes, I mean the Watchmen character...). Apologies. Said I wouldn't use this as a whining post. I lied. Hoping to get an entry going for Athens Bench Mark soon. Need to get it entered by Friday so that it has time to garner some votes. Placing in that (not gonna pretend I would win) would be utterly sick.

I remember as far back as my early childhood feeling a disconnect between mind and body and in recent years that feeling has grown, not between just aspects of self but between self and world. As if I were a spectator, and too often I am just that a person alone sitting watching waiting not a person but yet a being I DO NOT UNDERSTAND these people who go about doing all that is right and expected and interacting oh interactions especially... It is a cosmic chasm of blackest loneliness that when realized I cannot cross, like an illusory bridge painted into the wall of an opposing cliff face - you can only think you can cross until you look down, or try to cross and in all reality I am not sure I ever tried at all. No, I've tried, I've been there and back again so many many times such futile fruitless efforts and the pain is exquisite if you're a masochist and otherwise, excruciating. And if I call you friend, may I call you that, friend, then do not feel slighted or insulted when I do not treat you as all your others do, it's merely that I don't know how anymore without the garish sense that I am overacting very plainly. And if you never had a problem reading modern literature, especially stream of thought, and you didn't skip this paragraph, I apologize for the view you just received into insanity's lonely little mind. It's a dark and scary place, full of bunnies and creepy mice. (or was it mice and creepy bunnies?)

Latest musical favorite: The Birthday Massacre. Check them out. Sample song from their 2007 album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzhLj8UMOkE Also, have to love the artists' names.
Also, gotta dig an old friend's band - Exit Mouse. They have a soundcloud and a livejournal. Check them out here: http://exit-mouse.livejournal.com/
(I use the word also far too often. Further apologies.)

Sunday before last was at the International Home & Housewares Show in Chicago. That was totally amazing. Though, by the time I reached the third auditorium, was a bit overloaded on the sensory intake end of things. I'll do a whole 'nother post about that when I have time/drive. Saw a lot of really cool stuff and also sparked some new ideas, did some sketching and whatnot. I think one of those I may actually develop for another contest (don't remember which one at the moment).

To sum up lately though, basically just swinging between workaholicism and being a grand disappointment to everyone, including, though not especially, myself. On days like today, I don't know what I want or need anymore, but I've a suspicion it feels like tears and tastes like blood and ends up just being sweat.

Out of the Deep

Really, a truly productive blog is one that has a driving force and draws a substantial readership. It should be relevant and interesting and outside of a personal spectrum.
Whatever.
Though I will try to not use it as my whining post to the world.

Anyway, please help out a friend of mine's sister. She's a high school senior who dreams of being a pediatric oncologist and could really use scholarship monies. Go to http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Help-Katie-Krog-win-20000-on-Zinch/327657689068?ref=ts and become a fan, then invite all your friends. Also, stop by http://www.zinch.com/Voting/Regionals.aspx?GroupId=63#Katherine-Krog and vote for her.

In other news, working on an external hard drive reskin design/model, drawing on predators (sharks, panthers, etc) and sports concept cars for inspiration. Spring break starts today, that's fantastic. Will be in Chicago this evening for a few hours, and be seeing Alice, in 3D. Would actually prefer the normal, "flat" version, but only the 3D was showing at the time I needed. When I first heard of this film project, I was terrified, because I happen to disdain most film adaptations of Carroll's works. However, since they've stated outright that it's not a book adaptation, I'm actually quite excited to see it. I do enjoy Alice extensional reimaginings, for example, the Frank Beddor series The Looking Glass Wars, which was a very fun (though unchallenging) read.

Could comment more on various subjects, but I need my hands to sketch and model, and I unfortunately don't have enough to work and type at once. Oh well, back to work then.

laters.
-Ren

PS - I also seem to be...running out of television shows. Any good science fiction/fantasy that I should know about? Could be old, new, foreign, discontinued, what have you... For now, catching up on Primeval and occasionally Beauty and the Beast. I watch while I work. Overloading my sensory perception helps me stay on task. (Yes, I realize that concept will elude most people, but just trust me here. Although I'll admit that if a task requires an exorbitant of specific concentration, I'll switch to just music, or, rarely, silence.)