Pinterest Is Out to Destroy Christmas

I'm beginning to think that Pinterest is actually a plot by the Grinch to make us all sabotage our own Christmas celebrations.  Bravo for coming into the modern age and utilizing technology to its finest.  Why go through all that effort of stealing presents and roast beast when you can get them to hand make shitty gifts not worth giving and post recipes for a Christmas hash that no Who in Whoville would touch?!

Also a valid theory.

Sidenote: Did I mention I live in Germany now?  My husband Brice and I decided to do our world traveling before kids rather than after when we're retired and, more importantly, old.  So we quit our jobs and moved in with his sister who works for the military in Germany.  It's our very own romantic running away together for an adventure kind of tale.  It's also possibly insane.  But for our purposes here, it explains why our Christmas festivities only include cooking for friends & no crazy relative stories.  And partly why the meal revolves around pork and potatoes. 

The Plan:
Appetizers Only dinner.  Fun, light, great for a friends-dinner.  Oh, and a heavy soup...

For a while we thought it would just be the 3 of us and my friend Mary who now teaches on an army base a few hours away.  We decided to do an Appetizer only menu for our wedding as well, so naturally I thought it was a brilliant plan.  (Except we called it "heavy hors d'ouvres" because using French makes it fancy.)  But my sister-in-law Brooke decided she also wanted to make her potato soup.  This didn't really fit into the plan of no formal dinner since it's a little more difficult to stand and mingle whilst eating soup... but she was excited about it, so that's fine.

The Menu:

• Cheese plate & crackers
• Veggie cream cheese pizza squares
• Chicken nachos
• Pizza bites
• German salad (Brice's request - hey if we're doing soup, we can do a salad too)
• Potato Soup

Then more people planned to come.  Translation: they couldn't find any better plans.  4 more, 3 of which are men.  Meat.  We needed meat.  Previous menu items were chosen because a few minor adjustments could make them vegetarian-friendly to accommodate Mary.  Men in the military aren't vegetarians.  Stereotypically speaking, of course, but the odds says make more meat.  So Brice decides to grill Schwenkbraten. 

Schwenkbraten in its true German form involves a swinging grill, onions, and lots of paprika.  The Germans love their paprika.  Anything that comes in flavors, like potato chips, will have a paprika flavored option.  The internet is conflicted on what cut of meat it should be.  I've learned the word "roast" means a host of different things to different people.  My experience with it tells me the people who says it's a neck or shoulder cut are correct.  Tough and grisly.  Possibly because they are German pigs and have put in their work on the farm before they are sent to be turned into steaks.  It would be unGermanlike to waste such an animal by just letting it sit around and get fat all day.  Then serve it on a rock hard piece of bread.  Excuse me, brotchen.  I actually like almost all the bread I've had here.  Seriously, not a place for the low-carb dieters.  But the schwenk, already tough to eat, demands more effort from your jaw.

The Desserts:
When Pinterest rears its ugly head.

Don't get me wrong, I love Pinterest.  It is a time-wasters best friend.  You can look up how to do almost anything on it.  Except maybe how to grow a beard.  Though you can concern your family by making shit like this.  Or you can think that because 237 people repinned something, they must have all made it too and been just as successful as the original poster & maker of the selected recipe/scarf/treehouse. 

My responsibilities mostly revolved around desserts, possibly so people were too full to eat them or could claim being too full and politely decline to finish should they get a disaster.  I chose to make Chicken nachos, Pizza bites, Basement Brownies, Pecan-Raisin Mini-Tarts, Grandma's Gingersnap cookies. 

The Results:
Comparisons of what it's supposed to look like and what actually happened.

Basement Brownies - recipe called for a 9x9 pan.  I made it in a 9x13 pan because 1) that's what Brooke had, and 2) it better accommodates serving a group of people.  By that I mean you can cut them into more than 9 squares so it's not an awkward battle for the last one.  But extending them means they didn't set up well.  Still taste good; they are brownies afterall.

Pecan-Raisin Mini-Tarts - Read the boxes carefully when buying crap you've never bought before.  Like "frozen mini phyllo tart shells" are not the same as "fillo dough."  I unwrapped it and it's thin, easily rip-able, floury sheets of lord knows what.  Tried folding it up and shoving it in cupcake tins.  You should know that that golden raisins on top of the mixture will burn and look like normal raisins but taste like crap.  I picked off the burnt ones and decided the cool-whip garnish was an excellent idea to cover the man-handling.  Appeared to be quite popular; half were gone before the main course!

Chicken Nacho Bites - I didn't even attempt to follow a recipe on this.  You get the idea.  Just cooked some chicken with a seasoning packet, mixed with some salsa.  Put in a tortilla scoop and a glop of avocado ranch on top.  Would've been better with a glop of sour cream and real avocado, but my resources are limited here.  Still one of the more popular items; go simplicity!

Gingersnap Cookies - Actually got changed to Apple Gingerbread Muffins because we found out one of the guests was also bringing dessert - the one thing we have plenty of.  Little dry.  Maybe add some applesauce.  Not nearly as good as the spinach mushroom quiche Mary made - will have to try that sometime!  

Brice's schwenkbraten was also a big hit (and served on nice bread).  I didn't eat any because I was enjoying the potato soup, but there was definitely a guy around to eat my extra!  Sure the dogs would've loved it too.  They were only successful in sneaking a couple summer sausage slices while we were wrapped up in Trivial Pursuit.  Overall pretty good Christmas.
Take that, Grinch!

KEEN-wah & Kwi-Noah

I used to live with a health freak named Mary.  And by health freak, I mean she ran every day and ate mostly veggies.  As a result she was freaking gorgeous.  Bitch.  But living with her was awesome because she is also an amazing person for countless reasons, and she would occasionally try to influence me to be a little healthy without being pushy.  We tried P90X together until it tried to kill me (I lasted 3 glorious days of pain), and she introduced me to some new foods.  Like quinoa. 

For the record, I don't think my previous lack of knowledge about quinoa is rare.  Case in point, I just had to add it to the blogger dictionary.  (Don't tell me it's spelled wrong now.  I hate when I do that.)  I had heard of quinoa before from all the magazine articles that talk about it's magical properties.  I have currently forgotten what all those magical properties are, but it's always included in the "superfoods" category, so it must be something great.  The box wasn't totally helpful either as to telling me why it's magical.  It did come with a mini story though:

This important grain has ancient origins, dating back over five thousand years to the vast and mighty Inca civilization of South America.  Quinoa was so important to the Inca culture, the referred to it as the Mother Grain. . . we call it the Supergrain of the Future because of its unique qualities.  

My current favorite thing about the Incan territory.  Good luck, quinoa.

But WHAT are the unique properties??  One of them better be a long shelf life because the box I'm using is actually left over from Mary herself.  She and haven't lived together for about a year...

As far as the title confusion goes, I'm one of those people who does more reading than speaking, which occasionally leads to errors in pronunciation.  Like epitome.  I have to force my brain to pronounce it correctly as e-pit-o-me, because when my eyes come across it, it looks like epi-tome.  In my defense, I don't think mostly people can look at quinoa and get it right on the first try without prior frame of reference.  It totally looks like it should be pronounced kwi-No-ah.  So we had a few lessons on correct pronunciation whenever she made it.  However, to get it right I still often must drag it out like our practice sessions, heavily emphasizing the first syllable KEEN-wah.  I have to do the same thing for Albert POO-hols.

 Wasted effort for my now bitter St. Louis friends.

Wait, this blog is about cooking, right?  So I used my old but magical leftover quinoa to make this Broccoli Quinoa Casserole recipe.  Trying to make the classic broccoli-cheesy-rice side dish a little healthier.  PROTEIN!  That's why people (mostly vegetarians and Mary-esque freaks) love it! 

Couple substitutions like Cream of Mushroom and Soy milk instead of regular.  Also used a combination of cheeses because we had 3/4 cup of shredded "Mexican cheese blend" left.  I was planning to supplement the rest with some shredded sharp cheddar cheese we had, but when I pulled the unopened bag from the refrigerator, it looked like this:

 Kraft has a secret mission to defy physics.

It appears to be melting.  While in the refrigerator.  It's unopened.  And you can see the expiration date has not yet passed.  I'm not eating that.  Luckily, we also had a block of cheddar cheese, so I grated the remaining 2 cups.  So laborious.  But I had some time because one of quinoa's magical properties is that it can be cooked in a rice-cooker, my favorite appliance.

I'm not sure if my proportions were totally accurate because I guesstimated how much broccoli was 2 cups and we had one uncooked cup of quinoa left, so I made that and threw in all of it once cooked, which is (I'm guessing) 1.5-2 cups.

 Hunger beat the camera to the punch.

As a result, it was possibly less cheesy that I desired, so maybe throw in an extra 1/4 cup of cheese.  Or just, you know, use correct measurements.

Healthier than the traditional version I'm sure, but as always with the health foods, the biggest component to that is the portion size.   The blogger suggests making it in 5-6 cups for individual portions but claims it makes 8 servings.  Even the EatingWell chick knows nobody eats the suggested portion size. 

Quality side if you are ok with the texture of quinoa.  It's not hard, it's not spongey, it's just kwi-noah-y.  (And yes, that's how I still say it in my head to spell it correctly.)  I don't blame the Incas for my spelling issues, but I think I still like their llamas better.  (Because, for some reason, two L's in llama doesn't phase me at all.)  However, should magical properties present themselves and I suddenly learn to fly or enjoy exercise, I'll retract any hesitations I have toward the linguistically difficult but apparently super food.

Boston Cream Cupcakes

Is there anything that isn't inspired by Pinterest anymore? 

I don't even have a great love of Boston Cream Pie, but when I saw a pin for making the adorable cupcake version, I couldn't help myself. 

 Creamy, adorable fatness.

However, when I decided to make them, I followed the link from the website and got this list of ingredients:

   PASTRY CREAM
       1⅓ cups heavy cream
       3 large egg yolks       ⅓ cup (2⅓ ounces) sugar
       Pinch salt
       4 teaspoons cornstarch
       2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 2 pieces
       1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

   CUPCAKES
       1¾ cups (8¾ ounces) all-purpose flour
       1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
       1½ teaspoons baking powder       ¾ teaspoon salt
       12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened
       3 large eggs, room temperature
       ¾ cup whole milk, room temperature
       1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

   GLAZE
       8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
       ⅔ cup heavy cream       ¼ cup light corn syrup       ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Um, hell no. I have a better idea:

I'm going for cute, not complicated.  And don't snub your nose too much at it.  Even Bill Gates is on my side:

"Hello, Microsoft?  I need a job."

If you want to go for the full version, go for it.  But I'm thinking I avoided a disaster or two by going with a sure thing, even if it is a little below homemade quality.  And my substitution of pudding over making a cream was probably slightly healthier, or at least that's what I told myself to feel good about not buying the no-sugar added pudding.

But I think I did a decent job following directions.
Them:                                                                     

                          Me:

Only issue is that it doesn't seem like much pudding goes into the cupcake without overflowing and making the top perch above where it belongs.  It's a delicate balance between trying to make room for lots of pudding and not making it too thin so it will be too heavy or come out the side/bottom.

For the chocolate, I did actually make it.  Few too many ingredients for my liking in the original, but I found this other Boston Cream Cupcake recipe, that had a simpler version, so I did that.

And, of course, the chocolate is the messiest part.  Once again, in super lazy fashion, I used paper towels under my drying rack instead of a cookie sheet because that's just one less dish to wash.  (Seriously, Bill, I need a job.)

End result:

Used the chocolate to seal shut the lids that want to pop off for being too full.  Worked well enough, especially the longer they sat & settled.  Originally made them for dinner with a neighbor.  Felt like a 1950s couple walking to the neighbors with dessert like it was a mini dinner party. 

I love annetaintor.com.

 

Saved a few to take to my dad on Father's day, but then forgot them.  And by then they were five days old, so... they might have been eaten.  Sorry, Dad.  You'll have to get a different disaster experiment.  I promise it will be better than that Easy Bake Oven crap I used to make you eat.  Not much better, but at least not cooked by a 30 watt lightbulb.

Catching Up

It's not that I haven't been cooking.  It's that I haven't been so bold.  Been sticking to pretty standard recipes lately.  Lessons learned have not been nearly so disastrous, and thus, not nearly so so entertaining.  I do have a little more time on my hands nowadays, so I can get back to experimenting!  In the meantime, here are a few quickies:


Classic = Easy.

Unless it's French classic.  Those people are all about butter and making things as snotty (read: unnecessarily difficult) as possible.

Wanted to try making stuffed peppers, so went a Classic recipe.  Very big fan of the idea that I didn't have to cook the meat separately - all the magic happens in the pepper on its own.  Yay less work!  We definitely had more chopped onion than a tablespoon.  Not sure which way you were supposed to cut the peppers.  Some pictures showed just the tops cut off, but I thought it would hold more filling like this.

Results were good.  Fiance's reaction was more of - How could it go wrong?  Meat + onion + tomato + peppers = good.  Doesn't matter if it's Italian, Mexican, American, whatever - those are solid ingredients.  Reminded me a little bit of Joey on Friends when Rachel makes trifle. (If five minutes is too long for your attention span, watch through 1:40 and skip to 4:40.)


Condensed Cream of Anything = Terrifying.

One of the most disgusting things I've seen.  You should know that I can't eat mayonnaise because it's too nasty looking.  So my ability to make things that require some condensed cream of soup like this Chicken Scampi may wane.

I did try to thin it a little bit with water and lemon juice more because it stayed so thick.  The trouble with making this half cream gravy-like sauce is that it then wants to separate, which is equally disgusting.  You know how you can't have fettuccine alfredo leftovers because it separates and gets all nasty looking?  That started to happen the second this dish left the heat.  Sauce went semi-solid and stirring made it worse.     

Even still, it didn't taste too bad.  You just didn't want to look at it.  This works well for us because we live in a small house that has no dining room so we eat in front of the TV.  


Not All Flours are Created Equal.

My fiance's sister got a job overseas and had to leave behind many things - especially the perishable.  One thing she left that we took off her hands was wheat flour.  I'd never used wheat flour before, and it's supposed to be healthy, so seemed like a good opportunity. 

Before you start thinking it, I know white and wheat flour are not the same and you can't substitute them equally.  That's not what happened.  I specifically looked up Whole Wheat Brownies, figuring that was a place to start because brownies are always good.

Maybe good isn't the right word.  They weren't bad, but if I didn't tell you they were brownies, you might inquire about what I was feeding you.  They were crispy.  The wheat flour had a strange effect in that it made the toothpick check system useless.  It's definitely my fault for baking them way over the time suggested - but the toothpick never (honestly, never) came out clean while baking.  So we got crispy chocolately crunchy things, which weren't awful.  Or maybe I just seriously needed some chocolate.

Happy Pi(e) Day!

Bit of a lapse since last post.  Understandable given the huge success of it... Best to lay off the intense stuff for a while and make simple things.  Like the kind from a box or with mild improvisions.  No chance for that to go wrong, right?  Hah. Read the name of the name of the blog.


Simple Idea One: Stir-fry and Peanut Sauce

Chinese stir-fry is one of those fantastic go-to dinner things that we do almost weekly.  Chicken, some veggies, rice, and done.  Perfect.  Yahoo! had a their weekly dinner story and one of the meals was an Asian dish with peanut sauce - make your own.  Make your own??  I love peanut sauce!  I had no idea it was so easy! 

So fancy.

But I don't think Fiance' would go for tofu, and we really only have broccoli for our vegetables... so normal stir-fry with chicken it is.  Prepare as usual, and get to work on the sauce.  Here is how easy it is described:

"Mix together a half cup of peanut butter, a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, and fresh lime juice to taste; add a bit of water if necessary to get a nice consistency."

So I do this... and get something that starts out looking okay... thinner peanut butter texture.  Doesn't remind me of peanut sauce I get in restaurants, so I keep working.  Maybe more soy.  Maybe more water.  Maybe more lime juice.  Maybe I need to nuke it in the microwave to get it thinner and more pliable.  Eventually my oil-based peanut butter and water quit mixing and the overworking takes its toll:

P.F. Changs would be ashamed.

Oh well, throw it in the rice and sitry-fry mix.  And this is the final product.

Looks deceptively normal. Tastes like peanut butter.  Eons of soy and lime did nothing to quell the peanut butter taste.  Fiance' is a huge fan of peanut butter though, so he didn't mind at all.  New way to hide any problem: throw some peanut butter on it.  He'll eat it right up.

Simple Idea Two:  Pie out of a box. 

It is Pi Day after all. If you get it, you are a nerd.  If you don't, go back to math class.

Somehow wound up with this box of pie mix from Carnation in our pantry even though neither of us are big pie people.  Simple directions and requires few additional ingredients, perfect.  There was a flaw in the process though, that I feel I was not properly warned about (but in all honestly totally should've seen coming).  See if you can figure it out before I get there:

Carnation is a sneaky bitch.

Ok, you actually can quite see the trick, unless you know a lot about how things come packaged.  I make the crust, and it's not quite filling the edges of the pan all the way out.  Don't want it to be too thin to hold the pie, so let it be think on the bottom and uneven on the sides.

Onto the chocolate filling.  I'm using a handheld mixer, which is an enormous step up for me, not sure anything I made before was ever properly mixed.  But again, I'm using a mixer on a "medium-high" speed so I can't really tell if it's thicker or not.  It's a good mixer, the chocolate will go wherever the mixer tells it to at the speed the mixer tells it to. "Thickened" my foot.  Pour into pie crust and, man, it is full...

 Hmm....

Touching every edge and still domed in the center.  That's a lot of pie.  They must have more faith in the crust that I did a poor job of distributing.  Or... it's because of step three.  Pour remaining evaporated milk in with whipped mixture.  Remaining?  What remaining milk?  You mean I was supposed to measure a cup out of the small can you gave me?  I assumed it was in the proper amount.  Why would I not?  Every other product in the box is in the proper amount.  I didn't measure the damn filling bags.  Stupid easy to follow box mixes.

Now we have a new problem.  I don't have any evaporated milk for the whipped topping.  Google search for replacements suggests cream or half and half.  Closest things in my refrigerator to that are soymilk and coffee creamer.  Eenie, meenie, minie, Soy.  Try to figure how much to put in, what would have been left as "remainder" in the can?  Can says it's 12 oz, and a cup is 8 oz I think, so I need 4 oz or a half cup.  And then I realize: I'm doing math. You win, Pi day.  I now see your plan.

Soy works ok I guess, the texture appears to change, but it's not forming "peaks" whatever that means after 3 minutes as directed.  I keep hearing that overdoing it is a problem with baking, so do I continue with the mixing or stop?  I stop figuring the problem is probably because I'm using milk and the whole thing is too wet.

As I try to swipe it on the pie, the too large pie, thanks to an extra 1/2 cup milk, starts trying to leech out the side of the pan and ruins the pretty white top around the edges.  I did remember to save a few crumbs from the crust to add to the top.

Not too shabby looking.

But I doubt the ability of my milk pie to actually harden in the fridge, so I stick it in the freezer.   Return hours later after dinner, and it's frozen.  Really frozen.  Milk will do that.  Basically an ice cream pie.  BUT, guess what fiance's other favorite food is?  

Gummy bears.  And THEN, it's ice cream!  So it's still a winner.

Hope your Pi Day was just as coincidentally delicious!

Beef Stroganoff

Having a bit of writer's block right now because my fiance' has just informed that I'm not hilarious.  Read a couple of comments from previous posts that referred to me as such, and he apparently disagrees.  Starting to rethink his promotion to fiance'.  (Also irritated I don't know how to add an accent mark.)

This cooking attempt was for a classic recipe.  So classic, in fact, that there are multiple versions of it.  I went with Beef Stroganoff III on AllRecipes because over 1100 people saved it.  Inspiration for this came from an episode of Top Chef Texas when they had to make "Tribute Dinners" in honor of someone who taught them to cook.  Heather made Beef Stroganoff, and it sounded familiar, like something I'd had before and liked.  Decided to go for it.  Heather, by the by, was ranked in the bottom 3 on this episode and almost went home her stroganoff was so bad.  Should have been a sign...

Heather's tribute.  Hope Top Chef/SOPA don't come after me for stealing photo.

Knew I'd be making some adjustments to the recipe. For several reasons... We'll start with the ingredient list:

• 2 pounds beef chuck roast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 ounces butter
• 4 green onions, sliced (white parts only)
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed beef broth
• 1 teaspoon prepared mustard
• 1 (6 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/3 cup white wine
• salt to taste
• ground black pepper to taste

Problem 1:  I Need a Thesaurus at the Grocery Store.

Cuts of meat have never been my strong suit.  And nothing at my grocery store's meat counter said "chuck roast."  There were other types of roast... There was ground chuck, but I knew that was wrong.  Luckily (I guess) I was on the phone with my mom, who told me that chuck roast (still a little foggy on what it is), isn't a great cut of meat.  She recommended sirloin, and part of my brain remembered reading a couple comments suggesting other cuts of meat, so go mom!  Buy the sirloin, even though it's a little pricey, because I think this will be one less thing to make-or-break my recipe.  So wrong.

Problem 2:  Poor Timing.

After I get home, around 5pm, I read several of the reviews that said it was best to marinate in red wine for a couple hours to tenderize.  We used to tenderize pork, and it involved a mallet with little spikes on it.  But I don't have one of those, and not sure that a chemical version of tenderizing is same/different, so I forgo beating it senseless despite that sounding way more fun, and waste 1/3 of a bottle of perfectly good wine on my sirloin.

Which reminds me, I forgot to invite Hannibal Lecter for dinner.

Fiance' usually runs after work and showers before dinner, so figure I can let it marinate for a good hour before cooking and we'll be good.  Not sure just an hour will do much, but I'm hoping for another non-disaster, so we'll give it a shot.  However, it's a particularly cold night, and he decides not to run.  Eating late now for no reason.  Oh well, at least the hunger will make it taste good, right?  So very, very wrong.

Also need a thesaurus to tell me what "prepared mustard" is.  Different from regular yellow mustard?  Hopefully not, because it's that or Dijon because that's what is in the refrigerator and there's nothing on the grocery shelves called prepared mustard.

Problem 3:  Listening to Comments. 

In addition to the tenderizing delay, I also decide to swap out the white wine for cream cheese because commentators said it was too thin the original way.  They had other seemingly good tips like using fresh mushrooms instead of canned, so figured they were quality instructions.  I also don't like green onions, so crossed them off and liked the Worcester sauce addition idea.  Many of the viewer submission picks looked like crap too, so didn't feel intimidated during the whole process because it was going to look like crap in the end even from the people who liked it.  Viewer submission:

Green onions are only good for aesthetics.  Taste like grass.

Result:  

 Massive quantity of meat sitting in a too thick sauce that tasted like messed up cream cheese.  Meat looked like it was cooking well - just browned slightly and then left it off the grill while worked on sauce so it wouldn't overcook.  Still ended up chewy.  Can't blame it on the cut either now.  Also forgot the Worcester.  I need to write things down because until the computer goes A.I. and starts talking to me, I'm going to mess up anything non-sequential.  My result:

Mmm, it's... gray...

To quote fiance', "This may be the worst thing you ever made."  Yep.  Even the second time around with a little Worcester thrown in...  Nasty.  Part of my brain still thinks I've had this and liked it before.  Must have been the same part that thought my fiance' liked me for my sense of humor.  It's sure not the cooking!

Screw This Day, I'll Eat What I Want

Part of starting this blog was to encourage myself to cook more, experiment with new foods, and maybe even get a little healthier.  I can lie to myself if I want.  There seem to be a few "by default" advantages to cooking at home such as saving money and, they say, eating healthier.  I guess being fresh is likely to cut down on things like sodium.  But I still know a ton of recipes that call for a stick of butter...


Kudos to anyone who is still on their New Year's resolution.  You're halfway through the length of time you're going to keep it; go you!  

Any thoughts of being healthy or productive or whatever you resolved to be, however, fly straight out the window when you have a bad day.  Mine is my desk's fault.  And a general lack of coordination.  One of the drawers sticks out and I run into it on a regular basis.  No biggie.  Well the desk must be struggling to keep it's resolution against snacking too because today it bit me: 

Classy.

Got to walk around like this for half the day.  You can't see it, but there's a bandaid under there too because it scraped me hard enough to bleed a little.  Double win! 

Plan to go to the grocery store on the way home got scrapped.  I know the people grocery shopping busy or vested enough in their own lives to not worry or even notice my hobo pants... But they might.  And "not be lazy" was no where near the resolution ponderings, so the idea of going home, changing, going back out was quickly rejected as well. 

Time for comfort food.  I present one of my childhood favorites: 

 Glorious.

I'm sure there are those who argue that there are much more upscale mac & cheese recipes that taste better, but when you crave Kraft, that's about all that will do it.  Not sure what is in that powdered cheese, but it must be laced with crack.  Not much to discussing this recipe; it's on the box.  I cut 1-2 tablespoons of the butter from the original recipe depending on how fat I want to be that day.  Most flavors/shapes are good with the exception of Easy Mac which barely counts as food and is near crime-status toward the Kraft family.  Three Cheese is my favorite for flavor and shape, and it makes what appears to be a lesser quantity so I don't feel as bad about eating the whole box in one sitting.  Yes, I ate the whole box.  Screw you, I am mourning the loss of my brown pants.

Have I mentioned I'm lactose intolerant?  I have what I refer to as magic pills to assist my digestion, I'll still probably be in pain later tonight. 

Worth it.

Boyfriend may be picking up a propensity for accidents.  Snacking on a few green olives, he dropped on into his juice: 

Maybe it's the next big thing?  Friend of ours drinks her Bug Light with green olives in it, "South Dakota" style.  Sounds nasty to me.  He's also trying to explain to me that the chicken wings he made for himself are not "burnt," they're "cooked."  Believe me, that'll circle back.