So for the first variation on classic Mac-N-Cheese: Asian Mac.
I did this mostly because I finally bought a bottle of Sriracha Rooster Hot Sauce and wanted a chance to use it. I had put it on the Mac-N-Cheese at Noodles & Company and liked it, so I came up with Asian Mac.
During the beginning of school, I started having serious Chinese food cravings. Now, of course there is a Panda Express on the corner of Bulldog and University, but I am trying to save money this semester, so that is only an option when my roomies and I feel TRULY lazy. I came up with a pretty good imitation of Utah Noodle Parlor's Pork Noodle Soup, which was my favorite thing EVER until they stopped making their own noodles. {Uncle Leo, they did it RIGHT when you were alive, sir!!}
Then I thought "What if I did an Asian Mac-N-Cheese?"
Asian Mac:
You will need the following ingredients:
{Minus the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, I really don't know why that was out, plus milk, margarine, and fresh cilantro}
Prepare Mac-N-Cheese as per package directions
{Frothy Bubbles!!}
{Whilst cooking}
{Drain it, and may I say I LOVE my IKEA colander?}
{In the end, it should look like this}
So, once you get to this point, add 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and enough Sriracha Hot Sauce (The one with the green lid and the rooster on the bottle) to look like this:
{That should about do it}
And, no, it cant't be Tabasco and I'll tell you why. Tabasco has no flavor for me, just pain.
The first time I tried Tabasco, I was at Village Inn for a Drama Club presidency meeting. I gave my hash browns to Jeremy Illum, watched him douse them in Tabasco, and then was stupid enough to say "Oh, I've never had that stuff before. He proceeded to take a forkful and then, with the support of everyone in the presidency, forced me to try Tabasco. It was like searing hot fire with absolutely no pleasure of hot FLAVOR.
Sriracha actually has flavor attached to the spice. So I use that.
But anyway, you mix it up together, put it into a bowl, top with fresh cilantro and sprinkle with more Sriracha sauce.
{All done!}
Mind you, you will want to have copious amounts of milk nearby. Even though Sriracha is not painful like Tabasco, this stuff is HOT!! It is tasty, but spicy. The cilantro adds to the spice, but in a fresh, green way.
I joined the Resident Housing Association council for the housing complex where I live. As a hall rep, I represent the interests and concerns of my buildings on my council. I also work on/walk by the RHA float in BYU's homecoming parade. today, in order to get my three required hours of out-of-class float work in for the grade.
It was snowing, blowing, and cold as blue blazes for those of you reading from outside of the Provo area. But I worked on--I want our float to look nice as much as anyone else!
However, while spray-painting the letters "R H A" to go on the float, I drenched my hands in blue {I believe latex} spray paint.
{Um...yeah, about like that. I'd have actual pictures of my own hands, but didn't wish to ruin my camera}
So, after a vigorous hand-washing in the bathroom of the building near the pavilion where we have the float stored, about half the paint was gone. Yes, I did use my fingernails.
All I could think was "Oh gosh how am I going to get this stuff OFF??"
I called my immediate family and other relatives. All of the removal methods seemed pretty caustic and hard on the skin.
My Father suggested I buy paint thinner and pour some on a rag, wipe the paint off, and then wash my hands thoroughly. Yeah, we aren't even allowed to OWN paint thinner here {apparently it is highly flammable}, plus NO WAY am I putting that on my hands.
I thought of nail polish remover, but I'm pretty low on that, and even it isn't wonderful on skin.
My uncle suggested dousing my hands in gasoline or turpentine.
So I figured I was on my own.
However, Brittany, my friend and student coordinator, dropped me off at my apartment before we took a housing car to get more staples for the staple-guns.
"Ok, I have, say, five minutes."
Not enough time to google, so I did the first thing I thought of.
I got the big bottle of dish soap from our kitchen, doused my hands in it, and began to scratch away under warm water.
{Basically, the Great Value brand of this stuff with a handle}
It still wasn't working, and I began to despair, when I realized: this paint is like a sticky, blue layer of extra skin. An d how do you get rid of extra skin, i.e. calluses?
You use an emery board.
So I grabbed the emery board I keep on top of my dresser {soapy hands and all} and rubbed away at the paint.
It was a miracle.
Yeah, there is still a little stuck in my cuticles and other places it was hard to reach, but I no longer look like I'm turning into Katy Perry as Smurfette.
{Both are lovely ladies, and blue is my color, but spray paint feels so gross on the skin!}
So, when I visited my mom and dad over labor day, they informed me that a large portion of our food storage was about to expire. They proceeded to remind me that there was no way they could eat it by themselves before it would all go bad.
{No spit, Sherlock! My parents eat like birds!}
"But you can," my mother said.
I chose to take that as a compliment to my cooking ingenuity rather than a "you should go to the gym and practice portion control more often" comment.
{I do need to go to the gym more, but that is beside the point}
So my car was packed with various food items, all of which I intend to transform into masterpieces. Among other things, I got five cans of stewed tomatoes, a case of oriental ramen noodles, a large can of gatorade mix, and eleven boxes of mac-n-cheese.
I really don't see what we saw, as little kids, in this stuff. Yes, it is simple and easy to prepare, but I somehow remember it cheesier than what it is now. Kraft, go back to your cheesy powder recipe from the 90's; it was SO much better!
In the meantime, I was stuck with eleven blue boxes in my pantry. I thought "What on earth am I going to do with all this mac-n-cheese?"
And then it hit me: I can blog about it.
The challenge: to turn eleven boxes of mac-n-cheese into eleven different dishes and make mac-n-cheese exciting again!
I will not, barring any nightmarish brain freezes, be doing this the way my friend Ryan does it. No. Chicken. {Frakking.} Nuggets. Or. Spam.
To start off, Mac-N-Cheese classico. Just the way the package says it. My friend and roomie Hailey thinks I'm a food nut {Ok, she thinks I'm an all-around nut} and that mac-n-cheese should be enjoyed purely as is. So that's how she prepped it one night when she was hungry and we didn't feel like driving to Wal-mart for a rotisserie chicken {but that's another story for another day}.
So, that leaves me with ten blue boxes to transform!
A year later, here I am, sitting on the top floor of the Wilk after my laptop's yearly check-up with the IT guys in the bookstore {Thank you, Stuart and Thomas}. Apparently, I have to check for security updates myself--who knew?
About a month ago I packed my little Prius full of belongings and drove down to Provo.
Let me tell you something about packing half your life up into a little red Toyota Prius: Just when you've finally convinced your Mom that you can fit it all inside, your Dad starts telling you that you're going to get a traffic ticket for obstructed view. So unless they're offering to help, you're going to have to let some things slide off you like water off a duck's back at that point.
But, in any case, I set off along the freeway the day before move-in on my way to Ikea. They had some great deals in the catalog, and this little chickie wanted to take advantage of that. Plus, they had a cafe and I was starving.
Once I was able to find the maps and make sense of the store, I found the cafe, because nobody ever made a good decision on an empty stomach. I ordered the Swedish Meatballs combo, and let me tell you, those were fantastic! Little brown meatballs in a tawny gravy with skins-in mashed potatoes, a roll, and a mixed green salad. Everything was delicious! So I picked up what I wanted, bought it, and finished driving down.
It's weird to have your heart in two places. Roy will always be home to me, but Provo is too. And it was weird because as I got off the freeway onto the parkway, I thought "I'm home!! But, I just left home...ok this is weird!"
But as I was waiting for Hailey after the IT guys helped me with my computer, I realized that I was starving. It was like that enormous plate of meatballs, mashed potatoes, and gravy just disappeared, never mind the roll and salad! And all I could think for some reason was "Want...PIZZAA!!!" It was like my mind had been taken over by the Audrey-II plant from Little Shop of Horrors and saying "FEEEEEDD MEEEE!!"
How on earth this happened when I spent almost the entire time after my meal sitting down is beyond me, but oh well. All I could do was sit there and distract myself on Pinterest until it was half-past-four.
Thank goodness Hailey had pizza to make when we got back to Orem.
I'm now happily moved in, and life is a blast...but where did those meatballs go?
Dear Muscles,
Hi there, it's me your partner, Lindsey? The person who you help to move around all day?
First of all, let me thank you for your nearly 20 years of faithful service. You are truly amazing. Today, however, actually make that lately, you've been really tense and tired.
I'm not sure what I've done to tense you up and tire you out, but whatever it is I am very sorry. I know I haven't been to faithful about working you out lately, but as soon as we get back to school and I get free gym access again, I promise to take you to the pool and on that elliptical we both love--we can even try out the new gym in the Smith Field House, wouldn't you like that?
I've been trying to sleep well, I try to eat enough protein for you, and I do try not to stress. I promise to take you to either a massage chair or a hot tub tomorrow.
In return, I need you to go back to being the dependable, strong muscles you usually are. We are doing some pretty hardcore moving this coming week, and I need you at your peak! I will try to take better care of you from now on, and I'll even give you Tylenol if it will help.
Now let's go to bed--we've both been tired since we got home from Brittney Porter Wallentine's lovely reception.
Can y'all say "midnight premiere"? Because I was there. I dragged Hailey and Cherie, two of the greatest sports in the world, along with me, and Cherie dragged her friends Mark and Joe. All in all, it was a fantastic finale to one of the most stressful semesters conceivable.
I had a countdown clock going since last year
{Sorry Folks, the cropping I just did was apparently for naught}
I've been practicing Rachel McAdams' Irene Adler Makeup, which I wore to premiere
Only to find, of course, that Irene is now sporting a slightly more minimalist look.
And I was, thank goodness, given the reward of this touching scene:
{And may I say that I "shipped" them before the movie, RIGHT after I read "A Scandal in Bohemia" for the first time, thank you very much! It was painfully obvious that here was someone he could respect enough to be attracted to and I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS SO but that's another story for another day.}
I confess, I was a trifle apprehensive when I heard that Jared Harris had been cast as Moriarty. Professor James Moriarty is so sinister, so greedy, arrogant, and evil, but he is also so easy to overplay. And, come on--the son of the original Albus Dumbeldore portraying the most arrogant, sinister, greedy, downright EVIL criminal mastermind in the literary world? I had my doubts.
He quelled them. Let's just say that I will never be able to listen to Schubert's "Fischerweise" the same way ever again. Ever. If I can listen to it at all.
{If you would like to listen to it before you see the film and so have pleasant memories of this melody, here you go. Please know that I went through a hideous case of the willies to put it here for your potential listening pleasure.If you have seen the film, I don't blame you if you can't take it.}
Of course, I was JUST as excited two years ago when the first movie came out. I knew it was coming for a long time; I was watching Regis & Kelly {as I do most summer mornings over breakfast} when Robert Downey Jr. was there promoting Iron Man 2 and announced the new Sherlock Holmes movie.
After this I was a woman possessed, or rather possessed anew.
My fascination with the greatest detective of all time came on when I was about nine years old. I was already a voracious reader, and if library cards were like credit cards my parents could be in debt by now. But when the 5 & 10 near my grandmother's house offered the cheap abridged illustrated classics, my mother was only too happy to oblige. Among the small volumes purchased that day was a small collection of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
{How cover art has evolved since then!}
It only contained three of the most famous cases--that of The Red-Headed League, The Speckled Band, and The Copper Beeches--but I re-read that tiny book again and again, wishing against wish that a new adventure would somehow pop up.
A few years later, I was walking around Barnes & Noble--an activity my parents soon realized could be hazardous for them and their wallets with a girl of my tastes--and spied two enormous hard-backed volumes with the same title as my own little grey book with its cheap paper. Here they were! More of these wonderful adventures, precisely as I had asked!!
But how to get them? My father has a philosophy about books: He doesn't understand why I read them more than once, being able to extract little pleasure from literature himself. And as I looked at the price tag on these exquisite volumes, I already knew his answer: Linds, you don't need those, you can read those at the library!
So when he gave that answer, that's precisely what I did.
It was in the days before I learned to drive, and by then he was accustomed to my request that he drive me to the Ogden Library, which had much more to offer than our own. He was accustomed to seeing me appear on the floor, looking up from CD's containing songs from the 1950's to see my arms straining with a stack of books. The only question was whether he would ask if I were over the limit or if he would prophecy darkly of my mother's reaction when she saw me coming home with so many books.
And one week, one of those "so many books" was a copy of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I ate up "A Scandal in Bohemia" and then realized that these were too good, I must save them for the end.
The end came and I had not finished the collection. I was very sad but my mother would not allow me to renew them, as it was near the end of the year and she wanted me to concentrate on school.
I meant to go back for the collection, but I have a condition I like to call literary ADD, which explains both the length of my "books to read" list and why all my writing projects sit unfinished.
Less than a year passed, and something arrived in the mail for me from my Father's winter home in Las Vegas. In a fit of generosity, he had given me both a Barnes & Noble membership and $150 dollars to inaugurate it!
I now knew my path. My path could not have been any clearer if Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas was speaking to me.
My mother said yes, once my math homework was done we could go buy something. Once it was, we got in the car, and decided we might stop at our favorite Mexican restaurant for takeout after.
Mom: Do you know what you want?
Me: Well, yeah Mom I do.
Mom: What?
Me: I've had my eye on this nice boxed set of every Sherlock Holmes story ever written for two years.
Mom: {Looks surprised at my patience} Why didn't you just ask for it for Christmas?
Me: It was fifty dollars. Dad said no.
My mother then nodded knowingly, having before {and since} witnessed my father and I arguing over discussing the worth of books over dinner. {Quite candidly, I think she is sick to death of it}
So we went to Barnes & Noble and I headed straight for the Arthur Conan-Doyle section. The fancy edition was sold out BUT I was able to purchase these:
{I couldn't actually find a picture of volume two, but I have it}
I started reading as soon as dinner was over {My Dad instituted a strict no-reading-during-dinner-rule halfway through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire} and never looked back.
So I was SO happy, when on December 27, 2009, I looked up Guy Ritchie on imdb.com and saw, under his list of projects "UNTITLED SHERLOCK HOLMES SEQUEL (pre-production)"
{The Man Himself}
{The Perfect Partner}
{She's not Irene, but cool in her own right}
{I will besmirch neither my tongue nor my blog with what I think of you, you evil...}
Suffice it to say that I already know what I expect for my birthday this year.
PS: If anyone close to Guy Ritchie is reading this PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE one more? With Irene PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE????
I never had any assigned reading for the summer, but I always liked to read a lot in the summers anyway. The school would always send home a challenge to read 1,000 pages over the summers, and you got a prize if you did. I remember once I read a bunch of books, including two runs through Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire almost right after the other, and still worried I wouldn't have 1,000 pages. As Eames said in Inception, "Math was never my strong suit."
I have two library cards, if you don't count my student ID at the BYU library, and I will have three by this time next year. I remember summers full of mornings when I begged my Dad to take me to the Ogden library. I checked out stacks of books, and while Mary Higgins Clark and Agatha Christie eventually replaced Nancy Drew, mystery remained a favorite.
In my room there is a large bookshelf. Five shelves, each slightly more than a foot across. My Mom picked it out for me in Shopko because it was the biggest one there. And even this monster cannot hold all my books. I have several that I haven't even read yet.
There was so much that I meant to read this summer. So many high-minded works of history, philosophy, political science, regular science, the classics.
And then my dear, sweet friend Rosie lent me her collection of Meg Cabot Chick-lit. Can you say new favorite guilty pleasure? The Heather Wells series caters oh-too-well to my mystery addiction!
I was going to write this about all the wonderful things I meant to read this summer, but no. This is about all the unexpected, wonderful things I DID read.
Victor Hugo's unabridged Les Miserables: I've been working on this for awhile, it's SO good! I started it last fall, but school and my other reading got in the way. So I really wanted to just take a day or two and finish it...still working. But it is SO worth it. {Side note: Anyone else conflicted over Nick Jonas as the new Marius? Because I am. So much}
Shakespeare's Hamlet: Or at least I will have by Sunday morning. When I found out that you could watch David Tennant play Hamlet on PBS online, I was hooked. So, I am going to watch it from the beginning and follow along. {Sorry Scottish Play; You'll get your chance when I find a good version online/see it live. Can't get through it yet otherwise} Want to join me as I follow along/make goo-goo eyes at David Tennant as the Dane?
{Gosh I am obsessed. But David Tennant is freaking amazing}
The Head Trip and Insomnia (50 Essential things to do): Two very different books, but they both deal with the subconscious and sleep patterns, so I am grouping them together. Head Trip is more entertaining and up-to-date, and I am also still working on it. It's freaking huge, but it was both interesting and on the dollar table {Score for the book addict!}
The last half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Wish I'd had the time to re-read the entire series. Maybe next summer I'll have a nostalgia high?
Meg Cabot's Heather Wells and Shadowland series: It's the literary equivalent of eating chocolate-covered-strawberry ice cream as you watch 13 Going on 30. I needed a simple, gloriously feminine pleasure like that.
What Da Vinci Didn't Know: My mother bought me this when The Da Vinci Code first came out and she thought I'd get confused and apostatize from the Church. Her fears were needless, but I read it two days ago anyway. It brings up some good points, but the author's tone is arrogant and defensive. Calm down man. Dan Brown is not at the head of a conspiracy to make Christians not believe in the Divinity of Christ. He is, like many authors, at the head of a conspiracy to entertain people for money. Still, this book does bring up some interesting points and facts, as well as give a very interesting history of all the crap/restoration done to The Last Supper.
Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage: People in my New Testament class last semester were quoting this right and left, and I felt like I wasn't part of the cool, spiritually-smart people club. So I begged my mother for a copy and am working my way through it. Amazing book; it is a spiritually academic, thoughtful look at the Savior. Beautiful, beautiful book. {PS: If anyone knows of a BYU or institute class that focuses on this book, please let me know!}
So, now that we've got through that list...I want to know what YOU all read this summer! Comment it up down there!!
