Alice in Regularland |

Its my moms birthday today. Happy Birthday mom! So I thought it would be sweet to cook her dinner and desert since I have the day off. Plus I have been looking for an excuse to try making this desert I saw on Giada.  I was craving something southwest so I decided to layer a roasted poblano pepper, with pan fried polenta topped with pinto beans, pea shoots, roasted corn and fresh salsa and a side of anjo chilli green beans and wild rice. And for desert chocolate purses. Sounds good right?

No. No. No. No.

Dont get me wrong it wasn't awful but, it wasn't great either. The pinto beans were bland, the poblanos were too small, the polenta didnt crisp and the pea shoots were too bitter to use at all. Unless I served a plated dinner, there was really no way to stack the ingredients so I put them into a casserole dish and tried to layer it there but then it looked like a casserole so I decided to just make it a casserole so I threw it in the oven for 20 mins, and threw some cheese on top. The green beans shrunk up so much it was barely enough for one person so I went back to the store (at this point I had already been to two), and picked up a bag of brocolli. The rice was sub-par really nothing special.

                                        (a real chocolate purse. and the source of my inspiration)

The chocolate purses were the only thing that turned out good. Even those were almost too rich too eat a whole serving. But I was proud none the less since I had no recipe to work with just a list of ingredients with no amounts. If your wondering they are not a purse made of chocolate they are infact some flourless chocolate cake layered nutella and hazelnuts all wrapped up in a beautiful phyllo dough package. My biggest mistake there was that I accidently picked up puff pastry instead of phyllo dough therefore making a ginormous hazelnut chocolate turnover than a purse.

Here's the capper... my dad and I are standing around hungry and waiting for my mom to come home, who was now 2 hours late when she finally walks in she declares "I cant eat that, its my alkaline day."

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!?

What is an akaline day you ask? Apparently you can only eat fruits and vegetables. Why? because shes on some crazy diet for doctor for a week.
So all that work was for nothing.
My dad and I served ourselves a plate, slopped on a bunch of sour-cream which made the casserole thing pretty good and then gorged ourselves on too-rich-chocolate-purses.

Fantastic.

Spent the weekend doing nothing. Worked on my moms scarf. I hate that thing. Bobbles are driving me crazy. Cant wait till its done.

I REALLY should be studying right now. REALLY. I realized today that my test in patho is not next week like I hoped but in fact this Thursday and being that today is my only day off and I did not make this realization until about 5pm.... well you get the idea.

What did I do today? Pretty close to nothing. Woke up at 10, decent hour for me, showered, dressed, got ready (for nothing), put clothes in wash, paid some bills, ate lunch and then decided to go to the yarn store.

At the yarn store I picked up two skeins of Encore worsted, one in bright pink for Christy's Christmas present and one in a berry color for a future hat for myself which embarassingly took me over 2 hours to decide on. First I couldn't choose the right shade of pink for Christy, then I wanted to make a hat for myself but didn't know what color. At first I was thinking a cabernet one I saw but then was unsure becuase I don't look good in red. I really liked this really dark greenish teal tweed one that I found but it was too scratchy for a hat so I, put back the cabernet one and tried, with no avail, to find one like it. Then I went back to the cabernet. Then saw a shrug I liked got the pattern, spent a half an hour picking out yarn for it, settled on a pretty heathered celedon, then decided not to make the shrug so I put the yarn back. I wandered into the baby section, as I do everytime, and stared at the lush, soft yarns they have and once again had the urge to pick up a few skeins and knit a blanket or a cardigan for Sierra's babies and then remembered, like always, that I have no time to do that and walked away. I then found a beautiful shade of a dark blue-green in a dk alpaca, but I need a heavier weight than dk for a hat so I put back the cabernet, and wandered around some more trying to find a worsted that is the same shade, but didnt. So, I put the dk back and fell in love with another one of their colors, a warm honey camel, stared at it for a while, then remembered I don't have anything in mind to make with it so I put it back. Went back to the worsted and picked up, for the third time, the first color which I now decided is really more of a berry than cabernet, and then for lack of looking even more stupid, hurridly paid for my two measly skeins and left.

This was all quite silly and unecessary as I have 3 WIP's right now. The cloudy embrace sweater which I need to undo and redo the bind off becuase it is so tight I can barely fit it over myself. I'll probably just thread some elastic yarn through there to keep in line with the stretchyness of the rest of the sweater. It also still needs sleeves and the cowl neck. I have Christopher's scarf about 30% done. And the more it stares at me the more I hate it one, because I need/want to do it now that I have started it and I planned on giving it as a gift for Christmas and two, because in reality I don't even think he'll wear it. In fact as I'm writing this I'm considering frogging the whole thing and just making him a beanie. And I have my mom's scarf that I would really like to finish by the 21st, her birthday. She brought it from their trip to Vermont and said "Here you go, you can make me this scarf!" Eh.... thanks? Haha

Oh boy this is growing long. Gotta go!

I have this strange desire to be extremely productive and zero motivation to do anything at the same time.  Oh Well.

School is.... insulting really. This math class as of right now isnt even worth going to. I mean I litterally say through a lecture on how to add and subtract decimals. Are you serious? Am I not in college? Are there not prerequisites? Needless to say its frustrating.

My mom bought this great vegetarian cookbook last week. Every recipe has a picture. I love that. They all look amazingly good. My mouth was watering just looking at all of the delicious potential dinners I'm going to be making. It great cause its not a lot of meat substitute recipes or a bunch of pasta dishes. Very cultural food. I made a stir fry from it last night with bok choy, tofu and cashews. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with my self. ; ) 

I finally finished the body of my September Haze (temporary name) sweater. I started it a few months ago but I haven't been really excited about it so there wasn't a lot of motivation to finish. Anyway, my bind off was waaaay too tight and I can barely get it on so I'm going to have to redo it. I'm thinking it may just be best to use elastic thread. But now that the body is done I'm in the homestretch. Just need to do the neck and the sleeves.

This is good as I had delusions of grandeur and was planning on giving everyone a knitted gift for christmas and as of yet, I have one and a half people done out of seven. Ouch.

I have been really wanting to take a photog class. I want to learn to use a camera better and use photshop. I don't have plans of going pro but I would love to be able to produce some really stellar shots. Gotta look into that....

Au Revoir