For Comparison

Regarding that last.  Tonight I bothered to grab the SRL when making chili just to see the difference.  Then I remembered, Oh yeah, I friggin' love this camera.  Chili's more about the aroma (and taste, obviously) than its look particularily - at least to me - so.  Case made.

 Zucchini, broccoli, green olives, yellow, orange and red peppers, chopped tomato, red onion, mushrooms, TVP (textured vegetable protein) and my sauce of Prego, pesto, basil, oregano and red pepper flakes.

 About a teaspoon of olive oil and got the onions going till they turn translucent.

 Prepped the lean ground beef the night before with a smoked paprika & chili rub, bay leaves and chopped garlic cloves.  There was no way this picture was going to not look weird.

 The traditional adding and cooking of meat.  Wherein we turn brown from pink.

 Final addition of beans, veggies, sauce, water and any additional flavours to taste.  See, this is why I love TVP, it blends in seamlessly with the ground beef making it seem like I have almost twice as much dead animal.

 Then I let it sit for at least 30, allowing the chili to thicken as I like.  (I used the time to sneak in another Insanity workout, Fast & Furious - so I could really earn that chili - while trying not to kill my joints.)

This is another super healthy meal with the same problem as wrap night: I've never seen anyone stop eating it after getting full. Seriously, unless I make a point of putting it away it'll be gone before bed.  Serves at least 10 people within reason, or 2 - 3 people without reason.

So to sum,
Canon T2i: All the points
HTC Desire:  Negative points

For fairness it should be noted that in the category of making phone calls and texts though, the scores are reversed. 

Oh, and here's the Chili's scorecard for those curious:
Serving size: approx. 1.5 C
Calories: 380
Total Fat: 6.3 g
    Saturated: 1.8 g
Cholesterol: 50 mg
Sodium: 68 mg
Total Carbs: 34.4 g
Dietary Fibre: 9.9 g
Sugars: 4.9 g
Protein: 50.3 g
Vitamin A: 39 %
Vitamin C: 125%
Calcium: 14%
Iron: 53%

Well, I'll Probably Never Starve...

So after injuring my knees on Insanity (by simply being neglectful to my body's early warnings - don't do that), I've had to stop.  For now.  Skipping over the part where this is a spectacular downer/setback.... Well long rambling "story" short, this somehow connects to me putting up photos off my phone of all the things I've been making in the mean time.  Cheers!

This is a Public Service Announcement

If you are like me you may have a tendency to sit at your computer with one foot tucked under you.  PRO-TIP:  Make sure it is not asleep when you decide to stand up.  That tingling is not your body being cute, it's trying to prevent this:

"But I don't have my computer next to a cliff..."
Don't be a fool!  The descent will find you, and will strike suddenly, leaving you crumpled on the floor, a disoriented, undignified, dishevelled mess - assuming it did not kill you by having your head strike something (possibly a desk-y corner, or a cat) on the way down.

BE SAFE.  Follow sitting protocol and beware all tingly feelings in your extremities.

There's No Reason for Me to Be Sharing This. (Or 98% of the things I do, honestly)

It's time for!  Another Weird Fucking Dream I Had

"Another?" you might respond.  Well, yes.  They occur, I just don't write them down.  Through I really should.  "Should" like one "should" build a case for their future insanity plea.  Sometimes I text them, but I don't know if that'll hold up in court.

Setting: My apartment
Time: Night, after say...0300
Scenario: Stormy
Dream: Woke up within the dream, with the feeling that my home wasn't right... So naturally I start prowling it, in the dark, until I make my way to the study.  A flash of lightning at this point reveals an large avian shadow on the wall, which, of course, is moving closer.  Turns out a pigeon (that tried to pose as a crow for misguided intimidation reasons: think "Mushu") broke into my apartment during some godawful dark hour.  I vaguely recall him making demands - in pigeon, not English, but this, being a dream, didn't stop me from understanding him.  IIRC, I believe he was after a drink, a glass of water or milk...  I do remember him being quite huffy when he realized he wasn't pulling off "giant crow".
Oh, also it should be noted he was master of storms.  Yeah, that's a thing.  Bright enough to control the weather - straight up showing off even, conducting lightning with his wings - but the concept of glass doors still eluded him when he tried to leave.  Which was both sad yet satisfactory as he was kind of a d-bag.

God, I hate birds.

RE: Soul Calibur V

*Le sigh*  ...Really, Namco?  If you're trying to get Soul Calibur to break up with me there's more tactful ways of going about it.  You'll always have a special place in my heart for the good, the amazing times - the joy, struggles, the laughs, the triumphs... before you were forced to turn cheap tricks for coin.

Keep the change.

P.S.  In fairness I  would be remiss if I didn't give credit where it's due and so I feel I should say the Creation mode is really well done.  It's like someone gave a tricked-out luxury car to a premature baby.

A Note About Peanut Butter

From this post you may deduce "one" has a lot of peanut butter.  Like, a lot a lot.  It's been almost a year and I think we've managed to whittle down....3 of the 10 kg tub of Skippy Smooth that's sitting on my floor. (Friends in restaurants, what?)  From that experience I can assure you, thorough research has been done, experiments baked, boredom temporarily staved off... you get it.  And so I bring you,

THINGS TO DO WITH PEANUT BUTTER (Vol. 1):

• Introduce to jam
• Invite honey and bananas
• Murder them with your mouth
• Make a new sandwich
• Make a valentine
• Make dinosaur
• Make a painting
• Make a mess
• Eat said mess
• Invite others to eat said mess
• Give it away
• Write threatening letters to Reeses' to expose their secret recipe.  (add chocolate)
• Paint a picture
• Paint the wall
• Paint yourself a.k.a. Invent PB&J tattoos
• Make another sandwich

…Poison the remainder with hair product so you stop fucking eating it.

Off-Book

Apparently there's a reasonable danger of this blog just turning into "Things I Consume".  That said, adventures in bark!

The only thing fat-free about this is the pictures.  So lucky you!  Now originally it was supposed to be two layered and macadamia nuts but being me, well when do I not go off recipe? "You can't tell me what to do, instructions!  You're not my mom!"  Though in my defence, this time it was an accident.  Partially.

No macadamia nuts, so I replaced them with almonds, hazelnuts, pecans  and the occasional walnut.  Then took a hammer to that shit.  Warning: this procedure may miss some nuts entirely while turning others to powder.  (Fine for taste, just depends on the texture you're after.)  I took a knife to some of the remaining whole ones to slit them in halves for managability.

So poured the first layer (Dark chocolate) and decided it would be better to mix half the nuts in so to capture them between layers (already off-book!) - as opposed to just on top.

Second layer was to be white chocolate but it turned out I didn't have enough... BUT I did have butterscotch chips!  Which are delicious in a way that works with all the flavours and also light coloured (this mattered because I planned on dying this layer red).  Unfortunately I did not consider that butterscotch chips have a different texture and aren't really....melty in the way I needed.  Adding eggnog helped make it a little more viscous but it wasn't spreadable enough.  Also, kind of hideous despite the dye and not melding with the first layer.

Solution!  Third layer of milk chocolate to seal it all in.  First laying down the rest of the nuts, then pouring that sucker on.  Of course now it's ridiculously thick, but whatever, that just means there's more delicious - and it'll take longer to set.

Upon freeing it from it's frozen prison after an hour or so I quickly learn this particular bark is now thick like family and does not want to split.  I can respect that, but now it is, quite literally, hammer time.

And hammer time.