Foto Friday

I didn’t really have a photo for today’s Foto Friday. I haven’t really taken any pictures lately, so I had to go to an outside source. PETA has released this photo, trying to get people to eat healthier this Thanksgiving. No offense to any vegetarians, but I love meat. I love steak and chicken and pork and everything meaty delicious. So when I saw this photo, I just laughed. Really hard.

Uh…PETA. I want to tell you something. Putting a dog head on the body of a turkey creates a small monster that people want to kill and get rid of, not keep as a pet. It doesn’t make me think of a turkey as a dog, something I want forever, it makes me want to hurry up and eat that creature. So now, in honor of PETA. I will be eating my turkey with more pleasure than ever.

Vieve’s Videos

A year or so ago, I posted a video about Marcel the Shell with Shoes on. I hope you saw the video, because I love it. He’s so cute. The other day, they posted a sequel – Marcel the Shell with Shoes on 2. (Fancy title, eh?) So now, in all it’s glory -

I think my favorite line from this is - “Guess why I smile a lot? Because it’s worth it”. I just like it. I hope you like this video too.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Well, I caved and did some bakin’ yesterday. This recipe is ridiculously easy, and I really like the end result. These bars (while hard to cut into then) are good when they’re still warm and gooey.

In case anyone wants to make them, the recipe:

1 (18.25oz) Box Plain Yellow Cake Mix

½ cup butter, melted

1 cup creamy peanut butter

2 eggs

1 (12 oz) package milk chocolate chips

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

2 TB butter

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine cake mix, melted butter, peanut butter

and eggs into large bowl using mixer or spoon.

Press into a 9x13 pan, reserving 1 ½ cup of the mixture.

In small pot, melt chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk and butter until smooth. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

Spread chocolate mixture evenly over the pressed mixture in the pan. Crumble the reserved mixture on top evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Cool completely before cutting into bars.

I cannot stress enough that you need to cool the bars completely. If you don’t, it’s dang near impossible to get through them, as it’s just gooey chocolate coming out. I had to just eat a bit with a spoon, it wouldn’t work the other way. But these are super good, warm or cooled. Enjoy!

Itchy. So very itchy.

I have prided myself on not having any food allergies. I feel bad for people (Chelle) who are allergic to my favorite foods. To not be able to eat delicious things…oh man. That would depress me. I know that for the most part, they usually don’t know what they’re missing, but still. I like my wide open choices that I have for eating. But sadly, this, like all good things, has come to an end. Lets recap.

Last night, Husband and I made Chinese food for dinner. When we were at Target on Saturday, we tried a sample of this frozen Chinese stuff that was pretty good, so we decided to get it. The kind we sampled (orange chicken) was sold out, so we got a different kind (sweet&sour chicken). Husband made dinner while I was reading, and it was smelling pretty dang good, I was looking forward to eating it. As we were eating, there was something in the sauce that was making my gums sting. Right now, I have a little tear or something in my upper gum, behind my teeth, and sometimes, foods hurt it. But I just kept eating, despite the stinging. After dinner, I was sitting next to Husband on the couch, and he looked over and asked if I was ok. I’m like, yeah, totally fine, and he said that my skin around my neck was all red. My chest was itching a little, so I said that, and then, right before our (well, his, I can’t see myself like that) eyes, my skin itching and rash started to spread, and all of a sudden, my whole upper body itched. It was on my chest, neck, chin, arms, back, and it was itchy. There were hives breaking out, and I was trying not to scratch. After a few minutes more, my neck area had swollen up. This was panic time, since this is the first time this has ever happened to me.

We quickly went to the local Target, and got some allergy medicine. I took it as soon as we got home, and after a while, the itching subsided. After a while longer, the redness went away. I’m still not sure what was in the food that did this to me. I’ve eaten frozen Chinese foodstuffs before, but never this brand, so perhaps that was it. Alls I know is, I’ll not be eating this again. I should probably find out what exactly it was that I had the reaction to, but I’m not sure how’d I go about it. Read the packaging, and the ingredient list? Get everything on there, and try them, one by one until I find out what it is? Luckily for me, it wasn’t a super bad reaction (It could have been worse!) so I got through it with flying colors, and lived to tell the tale.

Miscellaneous Monday

We have come to the time of the year when it’s chilly in the mornings when I come to work. It’s not freezing yet, thank goodness, but I do prefer to have the heater on in my car when I drive now. I blogged a little about this a year or so ago, and I’m still having this problem in my car. Sometimes, for no reason, the heater in my car doesn’t work. It’s not like it’s cold air coming through or anything, its that the heater doesn’t blow. So thank goodness, it doesn’t make me colder, it just doesn’t really make me any warmer, either. When I’m driving fast enough, warm air will blow through a little (I don’t understand that at all) so that’s nice.This morning was another morning in which my heater didn’t work. If I wore shoes, it probably wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but so far, I’m clinging to my flip flops.

Speaking of, since I still wear my flip flops, I still get pedicures. This is my one indulgence for myself. On Saturday, Husband decided to take a nap, and I decided to go get my nails done. There’s something about just sitting there, having someone give me a foot massage and then paint my toes pretty that just makes me feel awesome. I’ve decided, I know it’s almost winter now, because instead of my usual flower that I get painted on the big toe, I now have a snowflake. This is how I embrace the winter, painting a snowflake on my toes. It works out for me. (I was going to include a photo of it, but I couldn’t get a good picture that didn’t make my toes look super ugly. I don’t have very attractive toes)

This past Friday, PJ and I went to Tepanyaki for dinner. I don’t know if you guys have been there (which I’m sure you have) but I love it. A guy cooking my food right in front of me, making jokes and doing awesome things? Yes please! I love when the do the onion stack train. I love the choo-choo and the smoke coming out of it. I love all the pranks that they pull, and just how fun that place is. When we went, we were at a table with a family – a dad with his 4 teens, but they weren’t all that fun. PJ & I are like, egging the guy on, cheering, clapping, which is just how you have to be at these places. When it got near the end, the guy did the normal thing, and had us catch the shrimp in our mouths. I hate shrimp, but when he threw it at me, I caught it! I never catch it! Since I hate hate the shrimp as soon as I had it in my mouth, I quickly drank a bunch of water, and ate something good. Since we were so good at cheering the guy on, he started a little fire in a bowl in front of the two of us, and gave us marshmallows on chopsticks, so we could roast it! It was delicious and awesome.

Yesterday in church, there was a child a row in front, and slightly to the side of me. She had held on to her sacrament water cup afterwards (I don’t know why, but I love when kids do that. Maybe it’s because when I was younger, I was never allowed to hang onto my cup – no matter how hard I tried). For the rest of sacrament, I kept watching her, because she would take her bottle of milk, pour it (pretty slowly, because of the top of the milk) into the little cup, then take a “shot” of it. Then she would do it again. I was dying watching her, I was trying so hard not to laugh. She just kept going, though, until the end. That’s determination, my friends.

I have a problem lately. I am finding way too many recipes of things that I want to bake. So far, I’ve been abstaining from doing all the baking, but today, I am feeling the itch again. Except I just barely made stuff less than a week ago, and I don’t want people to be like, “Dude, is Vieve baking again?” Because I know I do it a lot, but its because there are so many things that I want to make! If only I would stop finding these dang recipes! As of today, I’m trying to decide if I should make these bars…it’s very tempting…I think I might…but I’m trying to decided…Eh, screw it. I’ll probably make them at some point this week.

Slow Cookin’

Well, I finally did it. I broke down and bought a Crock Pot. I’ve wanted one for as long as I can remember, after reading recipes that called for it, trying others’ meals that they’ve done in one, and just hearing about the awesomeness. Finally, yesterday, I caved in, and bought one.

*Note: this is not the actual Crock Pot, just an image I got from the web*

I then bought all the ingredients to make a slow-cooked roast (I got the recipe off the internet, of course) and was excited to make it. So Sunday morning, we chopped up the veggies, concocted a juice of beef broth and spices, and turned it on. Throughout all the day, the house has been smelling delicious. I was really psyched to eat it. Finally, church let me out at 5, we came home, and ate pretty much right away.

It was delicious! It was all soft and tender, and the veggies were delish. There was an attempt to make gravy from juices, etc., but holy cow that did not go well. When I tried it, I couldn’t believe how bad it tasted, so I quickly threw it out. But the meal was good besides that. And now, I’m so excited to try other things. I’ve always wanted to try to make a slow-cooker chili, and so many other things. And now, I finally get the chance, huzzah!

My New Friend

I have a new friend. I was introduced to him today. At first, he seems a little off, but then the more you look at him, the more you realize, he’s probably a nice guy. This is him:

This is Inspector General. You can’t really tell from his picture, but he’s a giraffe. His face suggests he has a kind heart. Husband bought this for me at the airport, as a souvenir of his recent trip. He’s really soft, and very cuddly, so I think we’ll get along great. I know his name is quite formal, but I like how formal and fancy his name is compared to him.

Anyway, that’s my new friend. Thinking of things to blog about every single day gets tough sometimes.