OMG, I'm so happy about this recipe I could pee.



So I've been going on and on about making a red bell pepper sauce for a while now. Most of the recipes - make that ALL - required that I blend the peppers to make a sauce. I had no blender. I did not realize this until I bought the peppers. So my mom basically had to order me to buy a cheap blender, which I did, along with a fillet of salmon for tonight. So I did what I usually do (butter, garlic, pepper, lemon, broil, yum!) and set myself to making that damn pepper sauce.

( Lemon Pepper Salmon with Red Bell Pepper Sauce )

I am so, so happy I made this. But even more than that, I'm happy I have a blender now! Now I can make so much stuff that I couldn't before. Now the only trouble is finding a place to store it...

I was way too hungry today to wait around for a slow-cooked chili, so I made a quick sausage and peppers with a bit of tomato sauce and broccoli on the side. I can also say it's in honor of the Top 3 sausagefest on Idol tonight :D



( Sausage and Peppers )

I don't think I've ever posted my chili recipe up here; which isn't much of a recipe as just "throw things into the pot and stir!" I'll definitely post it once I make the chili, but that might not happen until Thursday as tomorrow I have a dentist's appointment and probably won't feel like eating, much less cooking.

105 David Cook icons from my photos in Newburgh, Atlantic City, and Williamsburg.

Please credit honestys_easy if you use any, and you can tinker with any of the blanks if you like!

Teasers: 1) 2) 3)

( For anyone who's listening )

When I was a little girl my family listened to Motown and oldies all the time and I loved the songs. (I've been saying for years now I want a Doo Wop/Specter Sound theme week on Idol.) When I was a little bit older I listened to Smokey Robinson's "Tracks Of My Tears" and I thought the lyrics that are actually "I'm masquerading" were "I'm masturbating."

Now go back and listen to your Adam Lambert studio version, bbs.

XD

ETA: Also, I'm listening to Anoop's studio song (thank you _kittenheels!) and going about my morning routine and completely forgot this was Anoop's version and not Smokey. The boy sounds perfect on this track, I can't even believe it.

It's late but I finally finished this (this is the last time I make a character/actor themed moodtheme, but that's what I said about the David Cook moodtheme) and I wanted to post it. I hope others are interested in it :)

LJ Mood Theme
Carla Hall (Top Chef Season 5, New York)
132 images



Download here!



( Instructions for downloading and making this your mood theme: )

If you do use the mood theme I'd appreciate it a whole lot if you credit honestys_easy in your userinfo, I worked for a while on this to get it just right. Hope you all enjoy. :D


In other news, Stephen Colbert is pretending to be in 1997 due to the economic recession, and he danced around to MMMBop and it made me ridiculously happy. :D

46 icons from Book 3 (chapters 1-10), excluding The Beach because I've got way too many of those and they'll have to go in a separate post :P



( This is Katara, my flying sister )

I think I'm going to have to make an avatar tag soon :P

Finally posting some of my Avatar icons! I was going to wait until I finished the series and made all the icons I wanted, but the number of icons I'm making is a bit....large for one batch. (What can I say, I can't say no to one of Sokka's O_O faces.) So here's the first batch, from Book 1 and Book 2. Take and tinker if you'd like, just please credit honestys_easy if you do.

Teaser:

( Flamey-o! )

Hope you like them, and there are a bunch more on the way, hahaha. (I seriously made about 30 icons just from the Beach episode alone, that ep was GOLD.)

Aioli...I still don't know what aioli is but I like to call it this. (What IS an aioli?)

My first rule of cooking is...what's going bad? And today I discovered that my jar of mayonnaise is about to expire (I basically only use it for tuna fish sandwiches). I searched the Internet for a dinner dish that involved mayonnaise and found a few things called "aioli"...I totally didn't make them but put my own spin on it, and it tasted excellent!

( Chicken and Vegetables in a Lemon-Pepper Aioli )

The chicken came out tasting GREAT, it has a tanginess to it and heat that I love. The pasta...not so much, lol. Maybe next time I'll just keep it dry or just make a simple butter sauce for the pasta and vegetables. But I'm definitely going to try more of this again. Who knew you could actually cook something so yummy with mayonnaise?

Since I'm determined to use my cookbooks and not just stir-fry everything that comes into my kitchen, this recipe comes from Tastes and Tales of New York's Southern Tier, a book about the restaurants in Broome County, NY, of today and yesteryear. It makes me really nostalgic for Binghamton, and it certainly doesn't help there are a dozen recipes for Spiedies in this book. The book also has the signature recipes (the ones they'd divulge, anyway) from the best restaurants in the area, and this was one of them. (You would not believe the obsessive-compulsive organization system I have for my cookbooks to determine what I want to make. You just don't.)

I bought the book the last time I was in Binghamton for Alumni Weekend; the author was in the University Bookstore signing copies, and since I'm a huge local history nerd I had to pick up a copy :D

( Baked Zucchini )

I was not a huge fan of this, and honestly it didn't need much of a recipe. If I were left to my stir-fry devices it would taste about the same and take a lot less time.

One thing I have to suggest for anyone who likes to cook, or even for those that don't, grow your own fresh herbs. You don't even need a garden outside, I have mine potted and on a stand next to my window. I keep basil and rosemary, which are two of the hardiest herbs and two of the most pungent, so you only need a few sprigs to liven up a dish. (I highly suggest rosemary; I just keep it in water, no soil needed, it flourishes and baked rosemary chicken is absolutely DELICIOUS.) It's just as easy as caring for other plants, and my reasoning is, if you're going to keep plants, might as well have them work for you, right?

A meme of my own creation that I haven't done in a while. Try it! It's fun :D

Album Meme:
1. Think of your favorite album and list the track titles for each song.
2. Open Google Images.
3. Type in each track title, in quotation marks so it's noted as a phrase.
4. Post an image from this list with the track title. It cannot be an image related to the artist, band, or actual album in any way.

I used Flickr instead of Google Images because it comes up with more interesting photos than Google, which usually comes up with more news-y photos.

And, of course, I did the big goofball's album:

( David Cook )

Try it with your favorite album! Sometimes you get something you'd never expect. :D

I love looking at random pictures and manipulating search engines so I might do this again soon!

The recipe is called "Pasta with Broccoli and Bacon," but I had spinach instead of broccoli so I improvised! I find this alone to be a little dry though; it could really use a simple tomato sauce or even just a butter and garlic sauce to accompany it.

( Pasta with Spinach and Bacon )

I have a lot on my cooking backlog (I've been so lazy to write them up!) but I'll have those up soon, I hope!

This bartender/graphic designer/muffin baker/video store clerk/full-time rockstar has completely won me over.

32 icons from my photos I took at the Hard Rock Cafe concert on November 18. Take if you like and add what you will, just please credit honestys_easy if you do.

Teaser:

( He didn't stand a chance, they said )

Yes I'm still at work...but there is literally NOBODY here since most of the office took the day off. I am the n00b who can't access her vacation days yet so I'm just hanging out and doing research on digital cameras because despite David Cook being magic, my current camera sucks. Lol.

So! I am mucho late on this post but better than never! I want to send out holiday cards. If you want to get a holiday card from me in the mail, comment with:

- your name
- your address
- what holiday you celebrate
- something you like during the holidays!

Comments will of course be screened, and if you have a holiday card request post feel free to link that in your comment, too! I want to get mail at my new address other than bills :D

Also, if you have a holiday wishlist post, please link that as well - I haven't been going through all of them and I'd like to. I'll try to get mine up over the weekend - and this time I won't ask for a paid account since I'm making big girl money and can now afford $20 a year :P

Also if you got a card from me last year you might get the same one as I haven't been card shopping and silly me I bought like 2 dozen of those Cake holiday cards last year, lmao.

♥!

Icons from the Light On video and recent photoshoots; take, tinker, enjoy, but please credit honestys_easy if you do.

( 15 photoshoot, 25 Light On )

My first meal I cooked all by myself in my new apartment. :)



I decided to go for something really easy and that I had all the ingredients in my new kitchen. I'm a big fan of stir-fry as anyone who has eaten my cooking knows. I added a bit too much cayenne pepper considering I don't have hot pepper flakes in my house, so I call it spicy teriyaki chicken, lol. Cut down or eliminate the powdered cayenne red pepper to make it milder, but don't think the red bell pepper is any of the spice! Keep that, it's actually quite sweet.

( Spicy Teriyaki Chicken )

Great food + my favorite episode of Iron Chef Japan (the sommelier challenger that makes dinner a true sophisticated experience) = i don't even care that I'm that sick. :-)

I've got Olympics fever, and the only thing that'll cure it is making some icons!

I tried to get as many varied events and participants as I could but the coverage on events itself is always skewed, so there's a much higher volume of swimming and Phelps icons but I don't think anyone's complaining. ;D

Please credit honestys_easy if you use any of these!

Teasers:

( swimming, sync diving, swimming, equestrian, swimming, tennis...did I mention swimming? )

I didn't know I'd ever need this, but there ya go:

cakeshopstories

For those who are on cake_after_dark this name might ring a bell. I've made a fiction journal specifically for my American Idol/Cake AU series, Smile A Smile For Me. (a.k.a. that fic I've been ranting about since Mid-March, heh.) It's also going to house all subsequent fics, drabbles, character bios and anything else that tickles mine or dreamerren's fancy. (Because where would I be without my beta/partner in crime? ;-)

I'd love for you all to join and take a look at my writing, for those who didn't get a chance to the first time around! I'd really appreciate it. :D I'll start posting that fic on that journal very soon.

If someone could make me an LJ banner with a blend of all these pictures, and perhaps backdropped by this photo or this one, I will seriously, actually give you something. Money, a fic, LJ gifts, a kidney...because I want it SO BAD I can taste it.

More on what I'll be needing it all for later.

I did my usual today - went to Waldbaum's to see what protein was on sale - and they had pre-breaded flounder, which is a fish I usually stay away from because I like to broil my fish and flounder tastes kinda yucky that way. But since it was breaded I felt behooved to fry it, and it tasted SO FREAKIN' GOOD! I then made some Minute Rice with quickly-fried veggies, and my mom helped out by making a salad with fresh tomatoes from our garden (so no salmonella, yay!)

( Fried Breaded Flounder with Vegetable Rice and Salad (directions for salad not included because come on people it's salad) )

This was an extremely easy meal that was absolutely delicious - my mom, who has false teeth (shh don't tell!) actually put her teeth in (she usually eats without if she can) because she needed them for the fish and it looked so good that she really wanted to eat it. And that's a big compliment for me :D

Because for some reason Java is messed up on my laptop, I'm ninja-ing this from work:



My latest fic, Smile A Smile For Me (otherwise known as the hot cop/gay activist Cake AU that ballooned into craziness) in its entirety, in wordle form. I'm particularly fond of "even words felt right behind skin" and "want Brandon now", heehee.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JERI. :D :D :D :D

You seriously make my days a little brighter and I really hope that you get the same, at the very least, on this day.

♥

So I guess yesterday was the first time I paid attention to the send-off video for the dancers on So You Think You Can Dance, but the one they use for the guys is OneRepublic's "All We Are." And it freaked me the hell out because six months ago when I was first listening to 1Rep on a regular basis to get ready for their concert with morethan_hope, I listened to that song and thought, "This needs to be an elimination song for a reality show." I already knew they chose the send-off song for American Idol, so I thought, it would be great for SYTYCD. :-O !

You know what would be a good idea for a reality competition? A photography show. Kind of in the same vein as Top Chef and Project Runway, it would have a number of aspiring photographers with all different styles (photojournalism, high fashion, nature, etc.) compete to win like, a huge contract with an agency and a cash prize and a spread in National Geographic or something. And if you can wrestle him away from the clutches of Tyra Banks, Nigel Barker would be a great host for it (he's a "noted fashion photographer" lol and an established sexy TV personality). It would show off a lot of great talent in the photography world, it would have that element of "watching someone create something" that jlh had pointed out the other day is one the keys to those reality shows' successes, and photographers can be just as catty and bitchy as fashion designers and chefs if they want.

And the title of the show can be something like "The Big Shot" which would leave the writers open to lots of combatant-esque catchphrases. "Shoot first, win later." "These contestants are the 'reel' deal."

Now I really want that to be a show.

So I'm searching through websites, went randomly to check on Blake's Wikipedia entry.

( And this is the newest edit )

LOL OMG WOT. XD XD XD

Whenever someone comes up to me in the future and says, "Librarians aren't necessary anymore, I can just use Wikipedia, it's accurate enough!"

....I will show them this article.