-
Penne with Vodka Sauce
No Mani Monday today – I’ve had to trim my nails due to upcoming gigs on cello and the need to practice. They’re just so horribly hard to keep painted when they’re nothing but nubs. Instead I have for you a dinner I made last week – Penne with Vodka Sauce. Unfortunately I don’t have a recipe for this one. It’s a family dish (yea, a mostly Russian and Ukrainian family has a heritage Italian recipe… figure that out) that I’ve been cooking so long I’m not even sure there ever was a recipe to begin with. I just sort of go and throw stuff in until it looks right.…
-
I’ve Been a Bad Girl…
So I told you last post that I broke my spending rules already thanks to a trip to NY. Here’s the fall out. These first two skeins aren’t technically rule violations – my mom gifted them to me. A skein of Jitterbug and a skein of Cascade Heritage Silk. Both so beautiful, and ohhhh so soft. When she told me to pick out two skeins of sock yarn for myself, I tried to veer away from my usual color choices of purples, pinks, and greens and instead go for something more neutral. They’re both just neutral enough to still be considered neutral, but still interesting enough to hold my attention.…
-
Miso Salmon Dinner
As mentioned last Friday – until Easter, my one cooking day of the week is being impacted by Lent. No meat for us, because the boyfriend fasts. So as promised, after the Miso Mushroom Pasta went over well last week and it was decided that miso is not a flavor that Jim hates, it was time to go full-out and try the Miso Salmon I’ve been craving for forever at this point. Overall it was a huge hit, and it’s really simple. I basically followed this recipe only omitting the mushrooms (the ones I picked up turned out to be moldy at the bottom of the container). It’s really easy,…
-
Lucky Charm Treats – Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
St. Paddy’s Day is one of my very favorite holidays. Or rather, let me rephrase that: My hometown St. Paddy’s Day Parade is one of my very favorite holidays, topped only by Christmas. I originate from the Scranton, PA area and let’s just say this – “Parade Day” (as we call it – it’s so important we don’t even need to specify. Everyone just knows) is a big freaking deal. That said, our sacred day was actually Saturday annnnnddddd I was a bad girl and didn’t bring my camera with me. Boooooooo bad blogger. So to make up for the lack of personal photos, here’s a tutorial for Lucky Charm…
-
Miso Mushroom Pasta
I don’t get to cook often. My schedule basically allows me time to cook a nice, hot meal from scratch once a week on Fridays – twice if I’m lucky and don’t have a concert to work Saturday evening. And so I savor my cooking time. It’s something I absolutely love to do, and Friday meals usually work out very well, providing a nice hot dinner for me and Jim (the boyfriend) and depending on the recipe, several other meals that can be frozen and eaten at some point in the future at work. However, recently I’ve run into a problem. It’s lent. Now, I don’t fast. It’s just not…
-
Mani Monday: OPI DS – Magic
Not much to say about this one – I picked this up on sale at Ulta a number of weeks back. Any time I see a blue polish on sale, I can’t really resist – particularly if it’s different from what I already have. Blue is Jim’s favorite color, and so when I can’t decide what color polish to use and I ask him to pick, the answer is almost always the same. Needless to say, I like to keep a variety of shades around so the blue after blue after blue doesn’t get too boring. Now, as for this particular polish, OPI DS Magic, it’s a beautiful color, but…
-
So, Photoshop is Hard…
So I’ve finally made the switch to Photoshop – I figure get that subscription to creative cloud while I still can afford to finance it, and I’ll have it for a year at least. I’ve spent most of the weekend so far trying to re-orient myself, and I can honestly say it’s not going so well. There’s most definitely a learning curve coming at this having used GIMP for the last 7 years… but I’m getting there slowly but surely. Any of you Photoshop users? If so, any tips for a Photoshop newbie like me?
-
What’s Up, Wednesday?
I’m… Working on: making my way through a stack of paper topic proposals for class. Looks like Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the JFK assassination are well on track to remain the 3 most popular research paper topics, for the 4th year running. Reading: First into Nagasaki still… I’ve been really bad about keeping up with my resolution. I went from 6 books in January to a whopping 1/4 of a book in February. But now that the semester is in full swing, and I’m used to the hectic schedule again, I’m sort of adjusting a bit better and beginning to make some progress. I’m hoping for at least three…