No adulthood today, sorry.

Last night was not a successful night of sleeping for me.

So nope, I am not going to the store today. (I did stop by and pick up a jug of water on the way home; that is waaaaaaaaaaay better than trying to lug thirty-two bottles or whatever.) Nor am I cooking. I am sitting here and eating leftovers and pudding and drawing with my markers. Good thing I made this blog, though, otherwise I wouldn't know that it was time to use up my bell peppers.

Drink ALL the coffee, finish ALL the work.

But here, though, have a picture of a butterfly I saw today. 'Cause it's cool. Why not.

Brown rice verdict: Meh.

Today I tried cooking brown rice in my slow cooker, with the intention of putting the slow-cooked chicken and sauce that I froze a couple of weeks ago over the brown rice. I just threw a cup of brown rice, two cups of water, some salt and pepper, and a clove of garlic into the crockpot and set it to high for three hours.

The slow-cooked chicken was nowhere near thawed in time. It's still a block of ice in my fridge.

As for the rice, the experiment was not a total disaster, but... well, I'll hopefully do better next time. The rice turned out way too mushy - and I like my rice mushy - but it's probably because when I looked in at it and it seemed too dry, I panicked and added a lot of water. It was not very flavorful until I added more salt than I thought seemed reasonable, but at that point the garlic and pepper flavors became more pronounced and it was very yummy. Next time I'll mince the garlic rather than just cutting it into a few big pieces and tossing them in. I'm hoping that before next time I'll pick up some onions and other veggies to chop up and add to the rice, but I just didn't have the energy for the grocery store today.



In completely unrelated news, I've had to take a very firm NO SPIDERS INSIDE stance, since I found the black widow. I feel really mean, but no, we don't play around with deadly venom in this house.

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Tips from my cousin Katie and my friend Llewelly: Use broth next time for the rice, and don't add the garlic until much closer to the end of cooking, because garlic loses its flavor when slow-cooked.

Um... Well... That went well.

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who wanted some delicious baked apples.
She couldn't remember which apples she wanted to get, so she just bought some that looked nice, including two Granny Smith because she knew those were good for baking.

A photograph of two reddish apples and two smaller green ones sitting on a counter in front of a crockpot.

She tried to core them and peel just the tops, as the internet had instructed.

 She failed at coring them, resulting in a giant mess on her counter and holes all the way through the apples, but seeds still inside. She dug out the seeds messily and then she thought things would be okay, but then it turned out that the apples didn't even fit in her crockpot.

Sadly, no picture of this stage is available.

Then, the young woman got VERY ANGRY at her apples. She cut them all in half and threw them into the crockpot all willy-nilly, then moved on to the butter.

By this stage, the young woman was so frustrated that she no longer cared about recipes. She cut up a huge quantity of butter, threw it into the crockpot on top of the apples, dumped in a ton of brown sugar and a handful of raisins, and sprinkled a random quantity of cinnamon on top of everything. She mixed it up with a wooden spoon.

A picture of a mess, including pieces of red and green apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter in a black crockpot.

Then she turned the crockpot on High, covered it, and stomped off.

The end.

 This is how I cook, y'all.

Animated gif of Moriarty from BBC's Sherlock smiling mischievously and shrugging.

...Fingers crossed that it actually turns out to be food.

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Update:

Apples inside a black crockpot are visible. The peels show a little bit of color, and the apple flesh is lightly golden; the apples still mostly hold their shape. A plump raisin sits on top of one of the apples.

Here's it after one and a half hours on high. The raisins are getting all plump, which is weird. I had to open it and stir it because the water was trying to boil over...

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You all cannot even imagine how fantastic this smells.

The apples are now a darker gold and soft, and the liquid surrounding the pieces of apple is bubbling and caramel-colored. Several raisins are visible, and the peels still show a slight bit of color.

Being an adult is not always awesome.

Blurry picture of a black widow spider, shiny and black with long sharp legs, inside a screen door.

It's really, really not.

I like spiders, I do, but when I see something that looks like this, I'm not going to mess around. I had to put on my high boots, open the door, and quick spray down the whole area with large quantities of bleach. It was not a fun time.

To Do

18 pink and white post-it notes shaped like hearts, stuck to a wall, with assignments written on them and cute little pictures drawn on each one in marker.

This is the best possible way to make a to-do list.

In crappier news....

There's a spider living in my screen door. I'm pretty sure it's a black widow. (I did not see the red bits, so I'm holding out hope.) I tried to chase it outside yesterday, but when I went to open the door I scared it and it disappeared.

Also, I absolutely have to do laundry today or tomorrow. And y'all, srsly, I DON'T WANNA.

Being an adult sucks sometimes :(

So. Much. Better.

12 successful pinwheels on a plate on my lap.

Y'all seriously don't even know.
This time I used twice as much cream cheese, and I twisted the ends of the tortilla tight, and I used the plastic wrap lengthwise instead of using two pieces of plastic wrap... *ahem.*
I also sprinkled bacon crumbles into the cream cheese and pressed those and the shredded cheese down gently into it before putting the ham on.
Sooooo good.

In other news, I figured out how to solve my problem with bananas. See, I love bananas, and they are very healthy for me, but the texture is such that I can only get through about half of one before I start gagging. But after you've exposed them to air, they get all gross! So it's hard to save them. Solution: Eat half of banana, freeze other half for smoothies. Win!

Going to bed tips, 1/1

Make sure your stuff is cleared off your bed well before you intend to go to sleep.

In a pinch, your brain will absolutely resort to "But you can't go to bed now, it's full of flashcards" when it wants to mess with you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

Also it's my mommy's birthday.
I called and sent flowers. She's doing great.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMY!

Did all the things

Today, I successfully registered to vote (!!!) and took care of business at the financial aid office. I also made a new draft of my personal statement and CV which I, personally, find to be passable and which is the perfect length. Coolest of all, though, I walked to a brand new place, a Halloween store that I've only ever passed in the bus. I was confident that I would be able to find the bus stop that I knew must be nearby, and in fact I did so, just as the bus was pulling up.
I've also almost finished my work for the evening and will get to bed early.
Hurray!

P.S. A followup to my post about pinwheels: When I wrote that post, I had forgotten that I had also sprinkled some bacon crumbles into one of the three roll-ups I made. It was a wonderful surprise! ALWAYS do that.

P.P.S. I did not, however, succeed in eating my salad. Better luck tomorrow.

Facebook status, Sunday, 1:08am

"I know it's one in the morning, but I'm just too wired to sleep now!" is an excellent argument for watching Firefly or doing some more flashcards or trying to get through the easy parts of my Latin assignment. It is a less good argument for learning a new skill involving sharp objects and dexterity. Life lessons.

On the bright side, I have lovely shredded carrots and sliced up red bell peppers for my salad tomorrow. Woo!

A little thing

Picture of my bed, made with a white sheet and my red comforter and red pillows.

My bed looks nice when I've made it.

Guacamole...ish

With the rest of the cream cheese, I tried to make guacamole. It did not work out for me.

Ingredients
One avocado
Pepper to taste
Salt to taste
One clove of garlic, minced
Half a block of cream cheese
Chips for eating

Stuff
Microwave
Microwavable bowl
Fork

Preparation
Warm up cream cheese in the microwave in the bowl, get the avocado out of the avocado, put all the stuff in the bowl, and mash it with a fork til there aren't any avocado chunks left. Should be a lovely seafoam color and a good consistency for dipping. Eat with chips.

Now, when I say "salt to taste," I don't mean "slip and dump in like a teaspoon of salt all at once and then shrug wearily and mix it in like nothing happened." I mean like put a little bit in there and then taste it and then add more if you want more. I know it's confusing, but really, it's for the best.

Pinwheels

Nothing too exciting here today, just a recipe for the ham and cheese pinwheels I made yesterday, with a little help from my mom via text.

Ingredients
Thin-sliced Virginia ham from the deli
Lucerne medium cheddar shredded cheese
Mission tortillas (I got the big ones, but I recommend using medium instead)
Philadelphia cream cheese (on sale!)
Hidden Valley ranch packet

Stuff
Knife, fork, spoon
Cutting board
Microwave
Microwaveable bowl
Paper towels or microwavable plate
Plastic wrap

Cream cheese spread
I used only one half of a block of cream cheese for three big tortillas, which was not enough. (The fate of the rest of the cream cheese will be revealed in my next post.) I microwaved the cream cheese for about thirty seconds. I mixed in a small quantity of ranch mix, probably half a teaspoon or a little less, into the cream cheese. It was all soft and creamy, and that was good.

Assembly
Then I nuked the tortillas for about fifteen seconds between paper towels, which is how I roll (<- that's a pun, please note it) and spread the cream cheese mix on them, apparently too thin. I recommend using enough cream cheese that the shredded cheese can sink all the way down into it - so a thickness of cream cheese greater than or equivalent to the thickness of the shredded cheese. I placed thin slices of ham over the top, then rolled the tortillas up tightly, then wrapped them tightly in plastic wrap.

Finishing
I placed the roll-ups in the fridge and left them overnight. Then the next morning I took them out, unwrapped them, and cut them up into pieces about 3/4 of an inch thick. I still have one full roll-up left, which is nice.

Picture of 7 pinwheels, some of which are coming unwound, on a messy plate with cheese and pieces of tortilla scattered around.

 

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

What even is this blog?

I'm going to use this blog to document my attempts to take care of adult responsibilities... Hopefully in order to learn from experience, but more probably to entertain people with my stunning ability to find unique and exciting new ways to fail at things. :P

The address of this blog is owed to two people, namely my mother for naming me Amanda, and my friend Kassiane for teaching me the word "adulting." The title is an old internet meme, from the very ancient days of the internet. Don't make fun.