Quick Update

Because I'm a busy little beaver. This post is for my friend H.  She asked if I had any blogs.  I said, 'yes'.  She then called me out for not posting in over a month.  *shame face* Between a full class load, work, and the general weather making me rather lazy I have not gotten around to it.  So here's a quick update.

School is going alright.  My online class, Digital Photography, does not motivate me enough.  I like taking pictures, but when I'm forced to do topics that don't interest me, it's difficult.  I don't want to take family portraits and discuss the difficulties faced during the session. I work retail, that alone has given me enough varying people experience that my brain can go wild with all the issues that could come up in a situation where I am making people sit down so I can take their pictures... peoples be crazy!

Work-wise... it's retail. Same ol' bollocks.

Friends. I have awesome friends. I suck at reaching out when I'm in a down mood. I figure that these people have enough going on in their respective lives, they don't need to drop everything just to listen to my, admittedly sometimes silly and irrational, negativity. And there's the rub for me; typically I can assess what is making me feel a certain way, what the cause is, but that doesn't necessarily alleviate the problem. Anyhoozles, my friends always make me feel great, even if they don't know it. Here's a ginormous 'Thank you!' going out to each of you. Upon request I will give you a giant hug next time I see you, but I know touchy-feely not everybody's "thing" so I'm with-holding the urge to simply throw one at you.

Car.  My happy little car, Vinnie, has not been as happy for a few months now. He was making all sorts of loud, grindy noises.  When a front light finally went out, I took him in.  Mister Mechanic Dude noticed the noise.  One problem snowballed into 4 and $390 later, Vinnie is once again happy. In all honesty, if I won the lottery, I'd pay him off, fix him up, and use him as a turn in on what I really want; a RAV 4... who may or may not also get named Vinnie, depends on his 'tude.

Family. Oy. I want out. Like I'd give $20 handers behind a liquor store to make the money to get out. I'm not though... possibly only because of the illegality of prostitution and the fact that I'd have to touch people I don't want to. If I was a hooker, I'd totally up my charges for ugly people. And it's not discrimination because attractiveness is subjective (well, mostly).

OK, now I should really get back to the homework that has me sitting in a cafe on this, the first snowy day of Minnesota's 2011 autumn.

Fish Sticks and Custard - er, Mango Sherbet

I finally got into the kitchen.  School is nearing the end of the quarter, work is - well, work - and life... it's all just a juggling act and I only ever learned to juggle two balls at once, so it's been a show for sure.

So happy kitchen time this night consisted of "fancy" fish sticks - they're fancy for a couple reasons, we'll get to that later - and mango-coconut sherbet.  I was excited for this!  Not only because both sounded über tasty from the recipes, but because it'd been a while since I'd had the time to play in the kitchen (last week's chipotlé flank steak with Gorgonzola sauce doesn't count, I was hurried).

Fancy Fish Sticks & Sauce...and beer.

The fish sticks I cut from a fillet of cod mum had picked up late last week.  Yep, that's right, cut them myself - see, fancy.  Then they were dredged first in a flour and black pepper mix, then into an wet mixture (best ingredient of which was lager) and then coated in a mix of Panko bread crumbs, pumpkin kernels and spices.  See, fancy!  Then I faux-fried them - aka put 'em on a heated, oiled sheet in the oven - and voila! Delicious, better-for-you-than-the-originals, "fancy" fish sticks!  Served those babies up with a dip concocted from low-fat mayo and sour cream, spicy brown mustard, fresh lime juice and a Cajun seasoning mix I'd already made myself and I had a great, proud-of-myself dinner.


But what is dinner without dessert? Blasphemy I say!  So I through the whopping 4 ingredients for mango-coconut sherbet into the blender and hit "liquify".  After all was happily blended I flipped the "on" switch on my Cuisinart Pure and poured all that sweet orange goo into the awaiting, frozen tub that was rotating almost as much giddy fervor as I was feeling. 30 or so minutes later the deliciousness was done. Well, sort of; you see it has to be put into a container and then in the freezer to solidify more, so I did that.  While I waited, I toasted up some shredded coconut I had.  Even though it wasn't solid yet, I could wait no longer; so I dished it up, topped it with the now golden  and nutty coconut sprinkles that I'd freed from the oven and spooned my taste buds up some tropical tastiness.

Mango-coconut awesome! I mean sherbet.

Note: I don't have the best camera for this sorta thing, but I do what I can with what I have :)

Victory!

JoAnna told me that she couldn't make a comment on here. I fiddled with the settings and bit and changed the layout and I believe I have solved the problem! Given my lacking in computer skills, this is a gold star moment for Kris :)

Let the commenting commence!