Food, Friends and DnD
There's going to be lots of pics in this blog, so enjoy! So far things in Mville are going alright. I've got a job - FINALLY! I hate not working. I mean, it's nice at first. Sleeping in, wearing pajamas all day, basically lazing around. But it gets old after like three days. So boring. Anyway. I have orientation on Thursday and start after that. I've been working on a 13 days of Halloween swap that's due to be sent to the UK in early October. She's sent a day to me...but she sent it to the old address! Onoes! Luckily it's only a minor kink that can be fixed. I'm not set to start opening until mid-October. Yay!
Getting used to cooking for someone other than myself is a little strange. Matt is so picky about veggies and things, and there's a lot that he's never eaten before. I get grouchy when he's like, "Well I've never had that." in a suspicious tone of voice, like I'm trying to poison him. Even worse is when he goes, "Well the last time I ate that, I didn't like it." News flash, sweetie, just because the dish goes by the same name, it doesn't mean it'll taste the same. He gets appalled when I mention I'll be using onions in something, even though he's had dishes I've cooked with onion in them! It's like having a kid!
One thing that was a big hit, tho, was sheperd's pie. I remember the lunch ladies at Mountain View cooked it a lot when I went to school there and that's where I fell in love with it. We had gotten quite a bit of chicken in a "buy one get one free" sale for boneless skinless chicken breasts, so I was looking for ways to cook them without us getting sick of chicken. I decided to do sheperd's pie with chicken instead of beef. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the finished results, but we were too busy digging in:
I baked chicken in some "Who Loves Ya Baby Back Rub" that I'd gotten from my partner in the Alton Brown swap. The rub is meant to be used on pork ribs, but it tastes DIVINE on chicken. Here is the recipe for the rub. Alton Brown is the shit. Seriously. Back to the pie! I cut up the chicken in slices (I used 2 of the Tyson's chicken breasts for this, by the way), and put it to the side. I made some chicken gravy (the easy way. McCormick's dry gravy mix and water), and steamed up some mixed vegetables. In a glass casserole dish, I put the chicken, veggies and gravy, mixed it up really well. Earlier in teh day, I'd put on 5 good sized white potatos to boil, and mashed them up with milk, butter, salt and pepper. Over the chicken/veggies mixture, I sprinkled a good amount of colby cheese, then put the potatoes in a thick layer. The whole shebang got baked for about 20 minutes until the potatoes were starting to get golden on top and the gravy was bubbling up in thin spots of the spuds. It was just awesome. Some pics of the process:
Cat smelled the chicken and came to beg.
I've found myself getting a little protective of the boys here. John and Dustin are starting to be like brothers to me (just as annoying sometimes as my own baby brother. =P ) Matt and I have argued a little, but nothing that I don't think is ordinary for a couple living together. The disagreements are over within an hour, and it's not really the same thing over and over. We're learning the different boundaries and moods, something that we never really got the chance to do as a long-distance couple.
Matt:
John and Dustin (in costume) being silly.
My boys:
Also, Matt is a total bedhog. Unless I've secured my space before he gets in, I'm on the edge. The other night he went to bed before me. He rolled right into the middle of the bed and fell asleep. I wanted to prove to him that he sprawls in the middle, so I grabbed the camera and stalked to the end of the bed. I lifted the camera but the sounds of it turning on woke him and he sat bolt upright just as I took the picture:
When I start the new job, I'll be working with a friend of his, Cross. Cross is also the DM of Sunday night DnD. I'm making a character for Matt's Eberron campaign, a Changeling rogue. Cross runs his in 4th edition. I asked him last week if I could join in. Sitting there watching other people have fun is no fun at all, so I made a dwarven warlord. Her name is Shanna (because Shannon supposedly means small but wise.) Here is her little sketched portrait:
My changeling, whose name is Dust:
My creative juices have really been flowing here. After looking through the Book of Erotic Fantasy, the character of a half elven Sacred Prostitute came up into my mind and I had to do a portrait. Here's the pencil sketch and the finished colored (with marker) version.
Oh, more on the cooking side of things, I've gotten to make more bread braids. I've done strawberry, (several) Peanut butter and jelly, and apple cinnamon. The apple cinnamon ones were my favorite, and I nabbed some pictures of them.
For a kitchen swap on Craftster, I made an egg timer cozy that looks like a rooster, seeing as how that's the decor theme for my partner's kitchen. I was really proud of it. It's the first thing I've done that I didn't have a pattern or sit down and mock out the pattern first before I started doing it.
Getting used to cooking for someone other than myself is a little strange. Matt is so picky about veggies and things, and there's a lot that he's never eaten before. I get grouchy when he's like, "Well I've never had that." in a suspicious tone of voice, like I'm trying to poison him. Even worse is when he goes, "Well the last time I ate that, I didn't like it." News flash, sweetie, just because the dish goes by the same name, it doesn't mean it'll taste the same. He gets appalled when I mention I'll be using onions in something, even though he's had dishes I've cooked with onion in them! It's like having a kid!
One thing that was a big hit, tho, was sheperd's pie. I remember the lunch ladies at Mountain View cooked it a lot when I went to school there and that's where I fell in love with it. We had gotten quite a bit of chicken in a "buy one get one free" sale for boneless skinless chicken breasts, so I was looking for ways to cook them without us getting sick of chicken. I decided to do sheperd's pie with chicken instead of beef. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the finished results, but we were too busy digging in:
I baked chicken in some "Who Loves Ya Baby Back Rub" that I'd gotten from my partner in the Alton Brown swap. The rub is meant to be used on pork ribs, but it tastes DIVINE on chicken. Here is the recipe for the rub. Alton Brown is the shit. Seriously. Back to the pie! I cut up the chicken in slices (I used 2 of the Tyson's chicken breasts for this, by the way), and put it to the side. I made some chicken gravy (the easy way. McCormick's dry gravy mix and water), and steamed up some mixed vegetables. In a glass casserole dish, I put the chicken, veggies and gravy, mixed it up really well. Earlier in teh day, I'd put on 5 good sized white potatos to boil, and mashed them up with milk, butter, salt and pepper. Over the chicken/veggies mixture, I sprinkled a good amount of colby cheese, then put the potatoes in a thick layer. The whole shebang got baked for about 20 minutes until the potatoes were starting to get golden on top and the gravy was bubbling up in thin spots of the spuds. It was just awesome. Some pics of the process:
Cat smelled the chicken and came to beg.
I've found myself getting a little protective of the boys here. John and Dustin are starting to be like brothers to me (just as annoying sometimes as my own baby brother. =P ) Matt and I have argued a little, but nothing that I don't think is ordinary for a couple living together. The disagreements are over within an hour, and it's not really the same thing over and over. We're learning the different boundaries and moods, something that we never really got the chance to do as a long-distance couple.
Matt:
John and Dustin (in costume) being silly.
My boys:
Also, Matt is a total bedhog. Unless I've secured my space before he gets in, I'm on the edge. The other night he went to bed before me. He rolled right into the middle of the bed and fell asleep. I wanted to prove to him that he sprawls in the middle, so I grabbed the camera and stalked to the end of the bed. I lifted the camera but the sounds of it turning on woke him and he sat bolt upright just as I took the picture:
When I start the new job, I'll be working with a friend of his, Cross. Cross is also the DM of Sunday night DnD. I'm making a character for Matt's Eberron campaign, a Changeling rogue. Cross runs his in 4th edition. I asked him last week if I could join in. Sitting there watching other people have fun is no fun at all, so I made a dwarven warlord. Her name is Shanna (because Shannon supposedly means small but wise.) Here is her little sketched portrait:
My changeling, whose name is Dust:
My creative juices have really been flowing here. After looking through the Book of Erotic Fantasy, the character of a half elven Sacred Prostitute came up into my mind and I had to do a portrait. Here's the pencil sketch and the finished colored (with marker) version.
Oh, more on the cooking side of things, I've gotten to make more bread braids. I've done strawberry, (several) Peanut butter and jelly, and apple cinnamon. The apple cinnamon ones were my favorite, and I nabbed some pictures of them.
For a kitchen swap on Craftster, I made an egg timer cozy that looks like a rooster, seeing as how that's the decor theme for my partner's kitchen. I was really proud of it. It's the first thing I've done that I didn't have a pattern or sit down and mock out the pattern first before I started doing it.