All Things Amai: August 2016

HOLY FUCK

It's been a goddamn month since my last post.
SO MANY THINGS

Get ready for the longest entry ever. (Maybe, I'm just kind of guessing)

First off, I want to say I've been dealing with some personal shit that gave me SO much anxiety. I pretty much stall everything when that happens. I get overwhelmed so easily and it's like I just can't handle more than one thing at a time.

Good news on that front though. BUT I was dealing with two things at the same time and I'm still possibly dealing with the latter. AND IT'S DRIVING ME FUCKING INSAAAAANE.
Fuck. No more talking about it.

TO BETTER THINGS.

So I love picture apps. My husband introduced me to open source software so I use free to use programs like Open Office (which is comparable to Microsoft Office Suite) and Gimp (pretty much a free photoshop). I use Gimp for a lot of photo adjustments because it's relatively easy. I do also have Photoshop CS4 I believe and photoshop comes with artistic photo image filters. They're cool but the best thing I've seen yet is this new (I think it's new) app called Prisma.

IT'S AMAZING GUYS.
The absolute best photo art filter I've ever seen. It takes a solid minute to apply it to a photo but it does a fantastic fucking job.

CHECK IT

LOOK

IT'S MY HANDSOME HUBBY

This one has gotta be my favorite though

Him not so much.

I could totally model

If you can't tell these are a combination of snapchat and prisma lol

Couldn't resist.

Nightmare fuel

Still enjoying my job for the most part. No longer doing sweaty manual labor though if I do full time that may change. But I need the money and it wasn't the worst thing.

I JUST LOVE TO PLAY WITH ALL THE KITTIES. That's just the best part overall. Fuck everything else. Cats will forever be number one.

I feel you eharmony cat lady.

I feel you.

I guess I haven't really been up to a WHOLE lot. Sewing has kind of been stalled until my current problem clears itself. Hopefully I can start up some new projects in a month or so.

But until then, I shall make ALL the things.

So a friend of mine was surprised I have never had a caramel apple. ( To be honest I've never been a big fruit dessert person. For god's sake it's an apple for dessert. Come on people)

I mean, I'll still eat fruity desserts. They're just not my first pick lol

She came over with a recipe to try. She found this caramel apple tart recipe, I bought all the ingredients beforehand, and we gave it a shot.

Now, I LOVE buzzfeed. Even though they're all copy and paste they at least give credit lol. It was all I did at my old job. But I gotta say, I either haven't made caramel in too long because we fucked it up or the recipe is not great. It says when you make the caramel you frequently stir the sugar at low heat, but in reality you shouldn't stir because that helps the sugar reach the proper melting point to caramelize. I fucked up the first batch because it was still rock hard like 10 minutes later so we just did a traditional caramel recipe and it worked way better. Not as thick as the stuff they churned out in the video but still caramel and still tasty.

Looks good right? It wasn't bad.

I paired it with some vanilla frozen custard and went to diabeetus heaven.

Next I made a rainbow veggie chili.

I did enjoy this, but not as much as I had hoped considering the high reviews. I think I'm just picky when it comes to chili. I don't find many that I really want to keep the recipe for very often. Super healthy though! If you're someone that likes this stuff I'd recommend giving it a try.

Let's see. I also made just a side dish recipe of garlic red potatoes. We bought some seasoned crusted tilapia on sale so I figured this was a good chance to try this type of thing.

It was good. But the lemon juice you add kind of threw me off.

Another recipe! This time it's pasta!

This was delicious. Surprisingly so. I've made many a pasta dish that has a short prep time and ingredient list and this is definitely on the top of my list.

Gosh it seems like I cook a lot. In reality though this is over about a month's time lol

Next up is a contender from the deep south. How about some hearty shrimp and grits?

THIS WAS AMAZING. Seriously, if you got the time and money to shell out for this recipe, DO IT. Only thing I changed was the type of grits. Quick cooking is the only type that exists this way but really that didn't change much. It only makes cook time shorter so that'll work in your benefit.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST. Broccoli and cheese soup!

Dear lord this stuff is good and SO easy. There's still some lingering the fridge. I've literally been using it as a soft pretzel dip lol. It's good as soup but phenomenal this way.

ONTO DESSERTS.

AGAIN.

You guys like cake? I LOVE cake. Especially chocolate cake.

Even better if it has dickbutt. I think it enhances the flavor.

But (lol) in all seriousness this was a decent cake recipe. I made a chocolate buttercream recipe and it was twice as yummy.

So I got the bright idea to make scones for the soul purpose of sharing. I found this scone recipe and got to work. First I looked at the recipe and how many it made and thought that wasn't enough so I doubled it.

Now take a second to look at this recipe and imagine me DOUBLING it. That's 8 cups of flour and 4 fucking sticks of butter. I realized my mistake halfway and had to split the mixed dry ingredients as best I could before adding the wet.

It ended up being two batches. The first came out TERRIBLE. Tasted great, but it was so shitty to work with and spread like mad. I got the bright idea to add milk because I thought it was too dry. HUGE MISTAKE. Scones are almost like a pie crust. The dry ingredients will never make it very wet, just enough to come together, so you really need to get your hands in there and mash that shit with your fists.

Second batch was way better after I figured out what I did wrong.

Recipe says this has been passed through three generations and I believe them! They were quite wonderful when you make them right.

Finally, I made a quick apple cake.

I know I made a big fuss earlier about fruity desserts but this is different. This is fruit IN something good. Like cake. So bite me.

HELL YUM. This shit is dense and sweet as fuck. SO GOOD THOUGH. I'm sure eating it plain would have been great but I decided to go all fatty and make a cream cheese frosting. Took that shit up a notch.

I was able to finish a sewing project I mentioned a while back.

Ta-da! Burp cloths.

Never thought I would have ever made anything for a baby. Let alone one that isn't mine lol

But they're for my life long best friend. Had to give her something. Plus, I actually didn't mind. I enjoy making stuff and learning new things. Also doesn't hurt that fabrics for babies are the cutest ever. S

For anyone interested I used the pattern from Sew So Easy.

I didn't use her method of sewing and cutting ( I might just be weird that way) but they came out nice and hopefully functional.

Me and the hubs are pretty into trying new local restaurants. Mostly because he's so into brew pubs that it's our only option. Chains only have generic beer.

There's a new place that opened called 49th state brewing company. For a Thursday the wait was atrocious. There was open seating downstairs but we waited for assigned seating upstairs. We waited a fucking hour and a half. We get upstairs and it's so small. No wonder it took so long. Plus, we went on a rainy day and most of their seating is outside. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt because the food made the wait fairly worth it.

We waited downstairs in their bar area and they had these massive antler chandeliers. It was hard to get a good picture but they were pretty neat.

Also got the opportunity to try another restaurant. Super awesome new best friend got a job promotion! So her and her man rented a limo and we rode out to this ski resort about an hour out called Alyeska and we ate at this restaurant on top of the mountain called Seven Glaciers. You even ride a tram to the top. It was pretty cool.

We got all fancy and had a blasty blast.

Love this lovely lady!

MMMMM TITTIES AND BOOZE

I got the duck. SO GOOD.

I fucking love duck.

Dessert of course! They had a baked alaska (though I don't remember if they called it a baked alyeska?) This shit sounded so familiar and I was like HOLD THE FUCK UP