barbed_whispers

chicken murphy!

3-4 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or whatever)
2 16oz jars of vinegar peppers (i used one sweet, one hot). vinegar peppers = whole cherry peppers in magical pepper juice. they are apparently hard to find outside of jersey, but my parents said you can use any pickled peppers.
mushrooms (any kind you want, basically)
vegetable oil
eggs
bread crumbs

coat chicken breasts in eggs, then in bread crumbs. fry in about an inch of vegetable oil until nicely brown. use a medium heat so that they cook all the way through. (or most of the way through. they get baked later.)

LET THE OIL COOL. my mom didn't warn me about this part.

while everything is cooling, cut up the mushrooms into bite size-y slices. remove the peppers from the pepper juice, but keep the juice. remove the pepper seeds and cut up the peppers into bite size-y pieces.

once the chicken is cool, cut it into bite size-y chunks and put it in a deep baking dish. (make note of whether the chicken is cooked all the way.)

start pre-heating the over for 350*.

add the pepper juice to the cooled oil and put it back on medium heat. when it starts to get warm, add the mushrooms and peppers. before it starts frying, turn it off. spoon everything over the chicken pieces.

put foil or a lid or whatever over the baking dish, and pop it in the oven for about 25 minutes (a little longer if your chicken is under-cooked).

nom nom nom. (you can eat it by itself, or with some good italian bread, or pasta or rice or whatever. it's super-tasty & filling by itself though.)

(this is even better cold, even though it will look gross. i promise!)

-this video of jenny owen youngs in her halloween costume (she went as ingrid michaelson, ahaha), performing songs from the little mermaid and "once more with feeling" YES THAT IS CORRECT I SAID OMWF. and here i thought i could not possibly love her more than i already do.

-this bag. i think. totally cute, right? sigh. i need a new purse SO BAD, but i am having such issues finding something i like. i really just want a better version of my old purse.

-these salt & pepper shakers. !!! i mean, y'all know i am totally crazy about stupid s&p shakers, right? god, all these need is a tutu and i will be set for life.

-denver. heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

-the ginormous spider in the kitchen who is keeping me from frosting the pink cupcakes. WAIT NO HE IS NOT. (you guuuuuuuuuuys he is SO BIG. he is easily the scariest spider i have ever seen. i tried to get the cat to kill him but she tried to bite my leg instead, effing traitor.)

-i have a new super secret project. i don't know if it'll pan out (i don't think my skills are up to the challenge) but it will be fun to plan. the goal is to do it by the end of the month, while you crackheads are all nano-ing. i should have four solid days to finish in at the end, so we shall see.

-i baked peanut butter cup brownies today. i have been craving brownies like you wouldn't believe, but we had no eggs or butter and so brownies had to wait. but now there are brownies! hooray!

-i'm reading a john grisham book because one of my electricians loaned it to me. um, really? is he really a bestselling author? the writing is pretty terrible, you guys. and the plot is pretty fucking stupid. and the book is sexist. i feel like this book is rotting my brain just as much as crappy tv does, but my electrician keeps asking me about the book so i need to finish it! i knocked a good chunk out at work yesterday, and i have a show tomorrow night, so hopefully it will be done this weekend so i can get back to children's books, haha.

-it turns out our library doesn't have as terrible of a ya section as i thought it did- it's just kind of hidden, along with the sci-fi section- behind the dvds. ::facepalms:: but they had a handful of pike books, which means it is an acceptable section. (to get a gold star you have to match my library from back home and contain every pike book ever. i really doubt this will ever happen.)

-i want to have a t-shirt making party before john green gets here! in his chat the other day, he was telling us that he did an event with stephanie meyer before she was famous, with about sixty people there. he said 52 of them were wearing fake fangs and shirts that said "I ♥ EDWARD" and that nobody had an "I ♥ ALASKA" shirt and it made him sad. so: t-shirt party! who's in?

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
rind of one large orange

-Cream together butter and sugars with electric mixer.
-Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well.
-In separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
-Slowly add dry mixture to wet mixture, beating on low speed.
-Stir in chocolate chips and orange rind by hand.
-Spoon 1 Tbls. at a time onto greased cookie sheet.
-Bake in 375 degree oven for 11 minutes.
-nomnomnomnomnom :D

8 cups water¹
1 cup long grain rice²
1/2 stick butter, room tempurature³
2 eggs, room tempurature⁴
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cans evaporated milk⁵
1 pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 T vanilla extract
cinnamon
nutmeg
raisins⁶

1. Boil water. Add rice and turn flame down to low. Stir and cover. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring every once in a while.

2. After 20 minutes, taste rice to make sure it's fully cooked. Drain, put in large bowl or pot.

3. Slice butter and mix into the rice until it is fully melted.

4. Add one can of milk. Stir.

5. Add sugar in thirds, stirring as you go.

6. Beat eggs to break them up and add to rice.

7. Add pudding, 1/2 can of milk, vanilla, a dash of cinnamon, a sprinkle of nutmeg, and raisins⁷. Stir. Taste to see if you like it. Add more of whatever you want.

8. Pour into baking dish. Personally, the crust is my favorite part, so I used a long shallow pan. You can use whatever you want though, as long as it doesn't overflow. Sprinkle with more cinnamon and a smidge more nutmeg.

9. Bake at 350* for 30 minutes, or thereabouts. The center should still be a little wiggle-y when it's done.

10. NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.


¹Yes, this is a lot of water. You want the rice pretty moist, and you drain it later anyway.
²I've been told that it only counts if it's Carolina brand, but they didn't have that at Publix and Nana forgave me, so use what you want. She also said you can use short grain rice if that's all you've got.
³Nana says it doesn't taste the same if you microwave it to achieve this tempurature. Nana can be crazy sometimes, FYI.
⁴You can leave these out if you don't have them. She says they make it drier.
⁵I don't know if she meant the 12oz cans or the smaller ones. I used one 12oz can, and it looked good to me so I didn't open the second one. You can also use more or less if you like it wetter or drier.
⁶If you're a heathen.
⁷HEATHEN.

01. finished s1 of the west wing and started s2. could josh and sam possibly be more gay for each other?
02. watched nancy drew. shut up, it looked cute! kind of sucked though.
03. baked really really really yummy orange chocolate chip cookies. a LOT of orange chocolate chip cookies. mmmm.
04. slept in TWICE. and not only did i sleep in, on friday night i slept for 12 uninterrupted hours. TWELVE! it was amaaaaaaazing. (do y'all remember the good old days when i could sleep for sixteen hours straight just because it was tuesday or whatever? now i have trouble getting five straight hours, ugh.)
05. made pasta sauce from scratch, AND meatballs. i thought it came pretty good.
06. washed stuff and bought food, blah blah.
07. attended a six year old's birthday party. ate darth vader cake.
08. painted my nails a sparkly pastel pink.
09. cleaned my bathroom and my closet and my desk. i think next weekend will be the rest of my room, and MAYBE a new bookcase. it depends on finances and my desire to carry a heavy-ass bookcase up three flights of stairs.
10. found my birth certificate & passport! they were on my desk.
11. didn't pick a march concert, dammit. i will do it this week, i'm sure.
12. didn't find out about a donora cd. this week, probs.
13. didn't go to the post office. tomorrow, def.
14. didn't rip any cds. i am enjoying this current batch of music though.
15. mostly caught up on the internets. on everything that matters, anyway.
16. didn't finish over sea, under stone. i did read while baking though! maybe i'll read before bed instead of watching more ww?
17. didn't work on a top secret project. whatevs.
18. mostly stopped eating easter candy by the pound. only cos i ran out though.
19. def finished that bottle of wine!

i also contacted dell about fixing my laptop (the left mouse button has come loose, probably due to overuse), which will hopefully get taken care of this week. in the meantime, i am using my awesome pink mouse so that i can stop accidentally clicking on things!

(also watched the first ep of sg1. now i want to watch due south, and kowalski isn't even my favorite ray! bastards.)

now i need to go make my bed and finish doing laundry and whatnot. at least i have next weekend off again!

Poll #1109340 nom nom nom
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

which is grosser?

So, my favorite thing about Thanksgiving is apple cake. Actually, it's my favorite thing about any occasion I can convince my mom to bake one for. The texture is more muffin-y than cake-y, but it makes a great dessert (with a little whipped cream, mm) or breakfast (with a cup of tea) or snack (with some milk) or dinner (whatever, it has fruit in it so it's healthy). Basically, this is my favorite cake ever and it is so so so easy to make, so I am sharing the recipe with you! (Don't tell my mom.)

Awesome Apple Cake

3 cups flour (sifted)
5 tsp. baking powder
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup orange juice
2-1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix all of the ingredients together, beating 2 - 3 minutes. (The batter is a little thick, but resist the urge to make it more liquid-y. It's supposed be like that.)

5 medium apples - peeled and sliced thin
5 T. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon

In a seperate bowl, combine apples, sugar, and cinnamon until the apples are well-coated.

Stir the apples into the cake batter.

Pour into a buttered and floured tube pan. Bake at 375 for 60 - 70 minutes. It's finished when the top is crusty and a toothpick comes out reasonably clean. (It's hard to use the toothpick test cos of the apples, though.)

I think next time I am going to try it as muffins, but srsly, the cake is fantastic as is.

As an added bonus, this cake will make your house smell awesome!

can any of you recommend a recipe for coconut macaroons? i wanted to bake some for my mom's birthday, but every recipe i look at is completely different and i'm not sure which to use.

( walnut chocolate chip cookies, + photo. )

I have had an outrageous headache for almost two days straight, so we are getting another lazy baking poll. I will probably stop talking about baked goods in about two weeks- just gotta get through the unicorn party, my mom's birthday, and possibly Thanksgiving.

Poll #1083619 i am using a (boxed) cherry cake batter, if that sort of thing matters.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

you are attending a (fabulous, obvs) party which is not celebrating someone's birthday. would you rather have

what kind of frosting?

You guys, baking should not be this exhausting. Especially because I am not even DONE! Madness. The walnut chocolate chip cookies are done (and came out amaaaaaaaaaaaaazing, I will post the recipe this week) and packed up and everything (they are a birthday gift for my dad), and the shortbread unicorn cookies are done baking and about half decorated. They did not come out as good (I think the recipe I used had too much flour, but they're not terrible or anything. Just a little drier than I like my shortbread) but they are still yummy. And also unicorn-shaped! I need the frosting on them to set though before I can pack them up for mailing though, so hopefully they will be ready tomorrow. Otherwise people will get some ugly messy unicorns!

And yesterday I (finally!) built my OOTP Lego Hogwarts thing. It took me kind of forever, but it looks really cool and I had fun. It's a shame that Lego!Ron has the stupidest faces though. I traded Lego!Hagrid and Lego!Draco's faces though, so now it looks like Draco is wearing eyeliner. Heeee.

I've been reading in between all of this crazy productivity, so I'm almost done with Magic's Whatever, the last of the Last Herald Mage books. I'm enjoying it well enough, but I feel like I could be enjoying it so much more if it was told from a slightly different angle. Which, whatever, books aren't written solely to please me, but now I kind of really want fic to fill in all of the stuff that I wish was actually written in the books. And I also really want to reread the Alanna books, because there are a lot of similarities and those ARE told from my ideal angle. Also, I keep catching myself says "gods" instead of "God" now, dammit! Stupid books.

Poll #1081889 in preparation for national unicorn appreciation day.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

what is your favorite type of cookie cutter-able cookie?

which sounds yummier?

favorite kind of cookie? (any type, links to recipes are worth bonus points.)

(pls to be elaborating in comments, kthx.)

I was so productive today that I feel like I need to write this down and remember it forever. So here is the thrilling list of things I did today!

1. Cleaned my room. There is no longer a large pile of stuff in front of my bookcases! And bathroom door! No more leaping before being able to pee! My desk box has been thrown away! I still have, um, two? boxes from when I moved here, but they are filled with things that I don't have someplace to file away. Or whatever. But still, my room is clean and you can see my desk again and all of my books are back on their shelves where they belong!

2. AND I cleaned my bathroom. And washed my sheets. I wonder if my mother's spidey sense tingles when I clean without being yelled at...

3. Rebuilt my Prisoner of Azkaban Lego set. Oh god, I love Lego sets. I love Lego sets so much that I have to actually make an effort to feel sad while building my PoA tower thing. (Not cos of Sirius, shockingly, but because of the person who gave me the set for my birthday all those years ago. Usually everything associated with that person makes me at least a little bit sad, but apparently Legos are the anti-emo!) It is now proudly displayed on top of my bookcases, which is where the castle will go whenever we get around to building it.

4. Did laundry. (Which is not exciting cos I do that every Sunday.)

5. Went grocery shopping. (Same as above.)

6. Cooked pork roll for dinner. !!!! This is not really some awesome accomplishment since a trained monkey could cook pork roll for dinner, but Publix has pork roll! It was even actually the brand I like! You guys, I was going to make my parents MAIL me this stuff! I am so so excited, even though getaway_machine was mocking me in the grocery store. Mmmmmm. (AND I found a Jersey Mike's yesterday. YOU GUYS. There's not like, a Surf Taco hiding down here anywhere, is there? Cos I would forgive you all for waiting so many months to tell me if it meant I could have a Cali Wrap.)

7. Bought stuff. Including, but probably not limited to, unicorn cookie cutters, a gnome cookie cutter, my father's birthday gift, a few unicorn things from Archie McPhee, Gypsy, Go, and Josie & the Pussycats. My movie collection has seriously tripled since I moved here. And I am still trying to decide if I want this painting. I think I do though. It will look so cute in my room!

8. Watched Avatar. Ahaha, volleyball.

9. Read. I am almost halfway through Magic's Pawn. I have a lot of trouble understanding why characters act a certain way (in almost every book I read, not just this one) and so I am never sure if I am justified in thinking people are crazy. I just. ( Spoilers, of the vaguest variety. )Otherwise, I'm enjoying the book, although I am trying to withhold all judgments on the series until I at least finish the first one.

10. ...I don't know. I'm going to bed now though, woo!

I baked Root Bear Float cupcakes today! They are amazinggggggggggg. You should make some.

If you do (and you should, if only so you can lick the bowls and make yourself sick) I recommend cutting down on the Schnapps. You're supposed to pour a tablespoon of it on while they're still warm, but (a) now they are overly alcohol-y, and (b) they are hard to eat. AND it was messy to do. Instead, make extra glaze and do extra layers of that. I used this for the frosting, and I recommend doubling the vanilla and adding some extra cream. It is sooooo smooth and light and yummy, you guys. We have been eating the leftovers right out of the bowl all night. (We are going to be SO SICK tomorrow, but who cares?)

Please come to my house and eat some of these cupcakes so I don't come home tomorrow night to find getaway_machine covered in glaze and frosting and crumbs and also her own vomit. Look at how yummy they are! ( PHOTOS. )

i was reading a halloween craft book at work the other night, and g. made fun of me because i wasn't actually going to *make* anything, so why waste my night reading the book? "i could bake these!" i told her. "but you won't." "just for that, i'm going to bake them on my day off and you're not getting any." ::wins::

i haven't tried them yet, but they look good and the icing was yummy. (i ran out of vanilla extract so i used almond instead, so it's a bit too sweet, but the orange flavor is very subtle and good.) that recipe actually made 18 cupcakes, and i still have a ton of frosting left. and mine are light light orange with dark purple webs, and super-cute.

( i have pictures! )

HELLO, LIVEJOURNAL. how are you?

katia has informed me that i need to talk about my life, so HERE WE GO. ( i am preemptively cutting this because i will probably be both long-winded and boring. awesome! )

this deserves to be outside the cut: i totally talked myself into liking ronnie/edward (abvh) tonight, and i used otp-fueled logic to do it.

i'm so awesome.

OKAY I THINK I AM DONE. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW KATIA?