#I’m rooting for you egg cooker!

[the-bluestreak-cat]

Idk man. Never once has making an object a person ever made my life worse

[chronicas]

Okay just because this has been on my mind for weeks now. You should never have to choose between food and rent. One, if such a choice comes up, always choose rent, obviously. BUT if not being able to afford food is the problem, there are options. Sorry this post got so long it wasn’t meant to..

Apologies in advance I only know how this works in America, but it’s likely your country has something similar. What you’ve gotta do for this is go to your state government page and find your state’s food assistance program, SNAP, Food Stamps, whatever it is, find that and apply. You’ll probably get around $250 a month for a single household. If you’re low income, you should be eligible. If you’re on SSI/SSDI or Medicaid, you are almost certainly eligible. On top of that you gotta find a local food bank. They might ask you for your income, but they likely won’t bar you from their services if they’re a good food bank. This is a good place to get any kind of canned food and pasta, but good food banks will likely also have meat, eggs, and milk. A lot of food banks have even started delivering straight to your home. I’ve also worked with a lot of Churches to get food. I’m sure plenty of Synagogs and other religions orgs have similar programs, but it depends on how well funded they are.

Use any money you save from this for your fresh produce, but I recommend getting frozen vegetables as they have just as much nutrients as fresh produce would. I also recommend getting an instant pot or slow cooker if you can afford it. Thrift stores might have some that still work decently. I got my instant pot and my slow cooker second hand from family members so I got lucky, but if you can afford them they’re seriously a life saver.

My biggest recommendations of food to keep on hand is bread and stuff you like on sandwiches, always have eggs, always have rice, and always have some frozen vegetables. Invest in spices wherever you can, you can make a lot or really delicious meals that are super simple just by having some good seasonings. If you get on food assistance, spices are covered by that, basically everything consumable is except alcohol.

Spices I recommend to keep on hand: Sea Salt, Black Pepper, Basil, Thyme, Oregano, Ginger, Red Pepper, Garlic, Onion, any Umami/Mushroom Blend, Rosemary, Marjoram, Sage. That’s everything I use for 90% of my meals.

Also grow your own food! Mainly herbs! The easiest one to start with is green onions, you can buy some from the store, put the bottoms in a small cup with just enough water to reach the roots, let the roots grow a bit then put them in soil after about a week. Basil, thyme, parsley, and rosemary are my other favorites to grow. You can get a devoted pair of kitchen scissors to just cut your herbs directly into whatever you’re cooking! If you have enough space and time on your hands I really recommend growing tomatoes and bell peppers!! Feel free to ask me about gardening!

My Favorite Easy Meals:

Spaghetti with meat sauce: Get canned tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, mix those in a pan and add as many spices as you want until you like the flavor, you can look online for common spaghetti sauce seasonings. Get some ground beef (btw meat can be frozen indefinitely) and cook that up then throw it in your sauce. Cook noodles while you’re doing that, the whole process shouldn’t take more than an hour if you have an extra pair of hands, hour and a half if you’re by yourself at max.

Teriyaki Chicken: Easiest thing ever, just buy some chicken strips and some teriyaki sauce, marinate that shit then pop it in the oven for like around 20min or until it’s cooked to 165°F.

Egg Fried Rice: One of my favorite easy meals. Pop the (WASHED!!) rice in an instant pot or rice cooker (if you don’t have either a pot with a lid will work fine!), toss in about a tablespoon of mirin in with your rice then let it do it’s thing following instructions. About 15min before your rice is done throw some frozen vegetables in a pan (whatever kind of vegetables you like!! It really doesn’t matter!) cook those a little, put em aside in a bowl. Then take some eggs, scramble em in the same pan, put aside. Throw your cooked rice in the pan then add soy sauce, red pepper, umami blend, and any other spices you’d like (but no salt! There’s plenty of sodium in the soy sauce!).Then add your ingredients you put to the side. If you add enough eggs or are just tired, this can be it’s own meal! Or you can have it as a side with teriyaki chicken or anything else you think it’d taste good with!

Ramen: Get a bunch of packs of cheap ramen noodles but don’t use the soup packet. Make your own soup with any kind of broth (chicken or seafood works best, but just pick a favorite), add a tablespoon of soy sauce to a cup of broth, a teaspoon of mirin to cup of broth, some minced ginger (or powered) to taste, any spices you want (I like to add the mushroom blends and some seaweed flakes), cook the noodles for the recommended time in the broth then add an egg cooked in any style you want. You can get fancy with a soft boiled egg, but those take a while to learn to get right. I normally fry my eggs. And if you have any ham or beef strips those also go good with it! Top it with green onions! Takes about 45 minutes roughly.

Omelet: Whisk some eggs in a cup and add some spices (and fresh green onions if you want!), throw it in a pan, add any cheese, meat, or veggies you like on it (I like cheddar, bell peppers, and bacon in mine) then wait for it to cook on one side then fold it in half, after it’s cooked on one of the half sides, flip it over to get the other side, you can stab it in the middle to see if it’s fully cooked in the center. Takes less than 20 minutes.

Buttered Potatoes: You can get some small potatoes, cut em up, throw them in an oven-safe dish with some butter (1/4-1/2 a stick depending on how many potatoes you’re making), salt, rosemary, and black pepper. Cook them in the oven on like 350°F for about 25-30min. You can use this as a side with any kind of meat or anything else you feel it’d go good with! Sometimes it just makes a good snack as leftovers.

Things you can cook up and add to other stuff: cook a bunch of bacon and you can crumble it into stuff like omelets, mac ‘n cheese, salads!

Feel free to ask me for cooking advice! It’s one of my favorite things to do and there’s a good chance I can help you figure out how to make something. I’m happy to help talk to you about dietary restrictions and substitutes also!

I do all this and never spend a penny from my paycheck on my food! Good food is obtainable! Look online for more recipes or try and use some of these methods to enhance a simple recipe you already know!

And remember to fight to keep food assistance programs open and available! It’s an insanely valuable resource for folks in poverty! If your local government acts against these programs, speak up against them! If you can, please donate to your food bank and ask them what kind of food they need. Volunteer with them also if you can!

[salanaii]

Bibimbap

비빔밥

Rice mixed with vegetables, meat, an egg, and chili pepper paste

Today’s recipe is bibimbap, a super-popular Korean dish you might have heard about already! It’s made of a bowl of rice, sautéed and seasoned vegetables (namul: 나물), a bit of hot pepper paste (gochujang: 고추장), and usually a bit of seasoned raw beef, too (yukhoe: 육회).

Bibim (비빔) translates as “mixed,” and bap (밥) means “cooked rice,” so bibimbap literally means “mixed rice.” Before eating it you’re supposed to mix everything all together.

There are many variations on this dish, from simple to elaborate, and this recipe I’m showing you today is for one you could consider “classic” bibimbap. If you ordered bibimbap in a Korean restaurant, you would probably get something like this dish, with regional variations. I’m also going to show you bibimbap prepared and served in a heated stone or earthenware bowl called dolsot-bibimbap (돌솥비빔밥). “Dolsot” means “stone pot” in Korean, and this version is well-known for the way the bowl makes a layer of crispy, crackling rice on the bottom of the bibimbap.

Even though we mix up bibimbap before we eat it, each ingredient needs to be prepared with care and individuality, bringing out their unique flavors, textures and colors so they come together beautifully in the bowl and deliciously in your mouth. The different ingredients aren’t random, they’re chosen because they balance, harmonize, and offset each other.

This recipe isn’t quick and easy, it takes some time to make. But if you’re really in a rush you can make a great bibimbap with the soybean sprouts, spinach, and carrot (or red bell pepper, or both), and gochujang, toasted sesame oil, and an egg— those items are unskippable!

I’m going to share some more bibimbap recipes on my website in the future, and you’ll see how many different variations there are. This version is a little different than the version in my cookbook, because I make a quick and simple soup with the bean sprouts. When I started my YouTube channel, bibimbap was one of the first recipes I made, because it’s such an essential dish in Korean cuisine. So I’m happy to remake the video now in HD with much better editing and instruction. I’ve been building up to this video by remaking videos for the ingredients, too. I remade yukhoe, and sigeumchi-namul, and my yukagaejang video has a lot of detail about preparing the mountain vegetable fernbrake.

So if you’ve been following my videos, you’re now ready to be a bibimbap master! Ready? Let’s start!

Ingredients (serves 4)

5 cups cooked short-grain rice

12 ounces soy bean sprouts, washed and drained

8 ounces of spinach blanched and washed with the excess water squeezed out by hand

1 large carrot

1 large red bell pepper

1 large zucchini

1 English cucumber

3 to 4 green onions, chopped

½ pound fresh lean cut of beef (fillet mignon, flank steak)

4 ounces fernbrake (gosari), fresh or soaked from ½ ounce dried gosari (details below)

1 ounce dried bellflower roots (doraji), soaked in cold water for 18 to 24 hours.

4 eggs

kosher salt

vegetable oil

toasted sesame oil

toasted sesame seeds

garlic

soy sauce

honey (or sugar)

Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang)

How to prepare dried fernbrake (gosari) for use

If you have presoaked or fresh fernbrake you can use it straight away, but if you have dried fernbrake you’ll need to get it ready to eat. It’s fast if you have a pressure cooker, but if you don’t it will take some time.

With a pressure cooker:

Wash ½ ounce of dried gosari and boil it with 5 cups of water in a pressure cooker for 30 minutes.

Drain and rinse in cold water a couple of times.

Drain. It should make 4 ounces.

In a pot on the stove:

In a large saucepan add ½ ounce of dried gosari to 7 cups of water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil for 30 minutes. Cover and let stand until cool, about 2 to 3 hours.

Rinse the fernbrake a couple of times, drain and put in a bowl. Cover with fresh cold water and let soak for at least 8 hours or overnight in a cool place, changing the water 2 or 3 times during the soaking.

Taste the gosari: It should be soft. If it’s tough, boil it again in a fresh pot of water for about 20 minutes and then let it sit, covered, until soft.

Drain. It should make 4 ounces.

Make rice

If you have a usual method for making rice or have a rice cooker, go ahead and make 5 cups of rice like you usually do. But here’s how I do it on a pot on the stove. 2 cups of dried rice makes about 5 cups of cooked rice.

Rinse 2 cups of rice in cold water and scrub the wet rice with your hand. Rinse and drain until the drained water is pretty clear.

Put the rice in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add 2 cups of water, cover, and soak for 30 minutes.

Cook over medium high heat for 7 to 8 minutes until the surface is covered with abundant bubbles that are spluttering noisily and look like they’re about to overflow the pot. Turn the rice over a few times with a spoon and cover the pot again.

Turn the heat to very low and simmer for another 10 minutes until the rice is fully cooked and fluffy. Remove from the heat.

Fluff the rice with a spoon to release excess steam. Let the rice stand, covered, at room temperature to keep it warm.

Prepare and cook the ingredients for bibimbap

I like to get a big platter and then put each vegetable on it as they’re ready. I think it looks really pretty, but you don’t have to do this. When all vegetables are prepared and ready to use, the platter looks pretty delicious!

Soybean sprouts:

Put the soy bean sprouts in a pot and add 4 cups water and 2 or 3 teaspoons salt. Cover and cook for 20 minutes over medium high heat. Take out the sprouts with tongs and put them into a bowl, leaving about ½ cup of sprouts in the pot with the water you used to boil them. This is the soup to serve with bibimbap later.

In a bowl, mix the sprouts by hand with ½ teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, and 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil. Put them on the large platter.

Spinach:

Cut up the blanched spinach a few times and put it in a bowl. Mix by hand with 1 teaspoon garlic, 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 teaspoon sesame seeds. Cover and put it next to the soy bean sprouts on the platter.

Other fresh vegetables:

Cut the carrot into matchsticks, put them in a bowl, and mix with a pinch of salt. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes until sweating.

Cut the red bell pepper into halves, deseed, and slice into strips. Put them in a bowl.

Cut the zucchini into matchsticks and mix with ½ teaspoon kosher salt.

Cut the cucumber into halves lengthwise and slice thinly crosswise. Mix with ¼ teaspoon kosher salt.

Beef:

Cut the beef into matchsticks and put them in a bowl.

Mix with 1 tablespoon minced garlic, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon honey, 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil, and 1 teaspoon sesame seeds with a spoon.

Cover and keep in the fridge until ready to use.

Mountain vegetables:

Cut the fernbrake (gosari) a few times into bite size pieces. Set aside.

Put the bellflower roots (doraji) in a large bowl. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons salt. Rub for a minute to wilt slightly and release some of the bitterness. Rinse them in cold water a couple of times and drain. If you find some roots are too thick, split them lengthwise. Set aside.

Let’s cook!

Heat up a pan over medium high heat. Squeeze out excess water from the carrot. Add a few drops of cooking oil to the pan and sauté the carrot for 1 minute. Put it on the platter next to the soy bean sprouts and spinach. Clean the pan with wet paper towel or wash it.

Heat a few drops of cooking oil in the pan and squeeze out the excess water from the cucumber. Sauté with ½ teaspoon minced garlic and a few drops of toasted sesame oil for 30 seconds. Put it on the platter. Clean the pan.

Heat up the pan with a few drops of cooking oil. Add the red bell pepper and sprinkle a pinch of salt over top. Sauté for 30 seconds. Put it on the platter. Clean the pan.

Heat up the pan and squeeze out excess water from the zucchini. Add a few drops of cooking oil and sauté with 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 tablespoon chopped green onion, a drop of toasted sesame oil for 1 minute until slightly softened. Put it on the platter. Clean the pan.

Heat up the pan with a few drops of cooking oil. Add the bellflower roots and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes. Lower the heat to medium so as not to brown them. Add 1 teaspoon minced garlic and a drop of toasted sesame oil. Stir for another minute until a little softened. Put it on the platter. Clean the pan.

Heat up the pan. Add a few drops of cooking oil. Stir the gosari for 2 minutes until a little softened. Add ½  teaspoon of minced garlic, 2 teaspoons soy sauce, and 2 teaspoons sugar, and keep stirring for another minute. Put it on the platter.

Serve

Here are a couple of ways to serve: bibimbap in a regular, shallow bowl, and dolsot-bibimbap in a stone or earthenware bowl.

In a regular, shallow bowl

Reheat the soybean sprout soup.

Divide the cooked rice into 4 portions. Each portion will be a little more than 1 cup of rice.

Put the rice in each of 4 bowls and arrange the vegetables and beef on the rice. Top with a raw egg yolk and gochujang. If you prefer your eggs and beef cooked, use a fried egg sunny side up and slightly pan-fry the beef before putting them on the top of rice.

Sprinkle the bibimbap with the sesame seeds and drizzle with sesame oil to taste.

Ladle the soup to a small bowl and sprinkle some chopped green onion over top.

Serve right away with more hot pepper paste on the side, and maybe kimchi too.

Dolsot-bibimbap in a hot earthenware bowl (ttukbaegi) or hot stone bowl (dolsot)

Reheat the soybean sprout soup.

Put a few drops of toasted sesame oil in the bottom of each of 4 earthenware bowls. They should be big enough to hold 4 to 6 cups each.

Divide the rice among the bowls. Arrange the vegetables and beef on the rice. Top each serving with a raw egg yolk and 1 tablespoon gochujang. If you prefer your eggs and beef cooked, use a fried egg sunny side up and slightly pan-fry the beef before putting them on the top of rice.

Set each pot on a burner. Heat over medium high heat until you hear a ticking, crackling sound coming from the rice.

Sprinkle the bibimbap with the sesame seeds, drizzle with sesame oil to taste.

Ladle the soup to a small bowl and sprinkle some chopped green onion over top.

Serve right away with more hot pepper paste on the side and maybe kimchi too.

Eat

Gently but firmly mix everything together in the bowl with your spoon. Try not to crush the more delicate ingredients.

Eat with your spoon.

Posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 11:14 pm. Last updated on September 18, 2022.

[pinkhairedlily]

The Day Sakura Stopped Being Human

Summary: Strong smell of tobacco cuts through the petrichor. The smoke comes from the branches above her. He’s tall, around nine feet, or probably more than that when he stands upright. Stories say they enjoy making people walk in circles. The only way to end it is to reverse one’s clothes. “You’re a kapre.” “And I heard you would like a smoke.” Rating: Teens and up

For Kakasaku Halloween Week 2022 @kkskevents | AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42752997

Sakura gives up lighting the candle. The wind is strong, and the rain seems to have no intention of letting up. It’s a good thing she deferred on buying flowers. She only had enough until next week. She tightens her hold on her umbrella as she feels the gusts come her way. No use; it bends upwards, drenching her from head to toe.

Time and elements have eaten away the letters on the stone on the fifth floor of a grave apartment. To a stranger, it’s unmarked. To her, it’s a brief interlude of sunshine. How cruel — to have someone’s life be remembered through a bunch of lines.

Sakura waits for the tears. It’s always better to cry when it’s raining.

Most funerals fall on rainy days. She wished it was like that when her parents died, but the actual forecast was sunny. Not too humid, not too hot. The perfect summer day on a beach. No rain fell that day so she couldn’t cry.

When she went home, she tried to make a meal for herself. There was leftover rice on the rice cooker. She heated a pan to fry an egg, the last one in the fridge. She cracked it just fine. She watched as the edges made small bubbles before turning brown and crisp, waited until all but the yolk cooked (she liked her eggs runny), then she tried to scoop it onto her plate. The bottom stuck, and the yellow spilled over.

Right, it was still food.

She turned off the gas, assumed her position at the table for the last 13 years, and ate. Fat teardrops slid on her cheek. The rice went bad and the egg was unseasoned. She missed her parents.

Present day Sakura pats the wet blades of grass off her clothes and finds shelter under the thick canopy of balete, a strangler tree. A line of them has taken residence along the walls of the cemetery. Stories about them are plentiful across places, from cities to mountains. No one dares to cut them down lest they invoke the wrath of its otherworldly residents.

She only sees them as trees. Good for the environment but parasitic. Eats up non-balete species easily. Might also eat up the graves in less than a century. Some part of her is grateful for them; they’re one of the reasons why lots at the back are cheap. But if she doesn’t pay the next installment next month, Mebuki and Kizahi’s bones will be replaced by someone else. (She hopes the balete grows overnight and takes over the whole place.)

Ironic considering how no one is visiting the dead when it’s All Souls Day. People pay for space and markers as grand tributes and never come back again. Some bullshit.

“I would kill for a smoke right now.”

Strong smell of tobacco cuts through the petrichor. It’s distinct from normal nicotine sticks or the trendy vape tools. The sharp scent brings her back to her auntie’s house in the province, stringing fresh tobacco leaves and hanging them up to dry. When the leaves roll up nicely, that’s when she knows she did a good job.

The smoke comes from the branches above her. She follows the trail of the roots and its draping limbs until she sees the rorschach blots of orange and red before they could disperse in ash gray wisps.

He’s tall, around nine feet, or probably more than that when he stands upright. Sakura sucks at metrics. His hairy legs dangle loose over the branch — it’s a wonder how the wood can hold its weight. 

“I’m pretty sure I’m not lost,” Sakura says out loud.

“Yes, I can see you.” She’s expecting a more guttural noise but his is flowy and clear, almost like how a violin would sound. “And yes, I haven’t played a prank on you yet although the desire is tempting.”

Stories say they enjoy making people walk in circles. The only way to end it is to reverse one’s clothes. “You’re a kapre.” A pervy one at that.

“And I heard you would like a smoke.”

He jumps down from his position with a loud thud and settles on the cradle of the humongous balete roots. Pretty sure his landing would have carved out a hole in the earth. Oddly enough, being at arm’s breadth from this supernatural creature doesn’t ignite fear in her. Paralysis, anxiety, cold, desperation, fight or flight — all of these abandoned her psyche.

She’s simply tired.

And she needs a smoke so bad.

The kapre opens his metal tin the size of her torso. She gingerly picks the one in the middle and cuts a third out of it; no way is she gonna smoke an arm-sized roll. That would be like contracting lung cancer in just two long drags.

She sits beside him, much more conscious of their size difference, and asks for a light. He leans in towards her roll, and that’s the only time she feels scared.

Because he doesn’t look like a kapre. He looks beautiful.

Oh, she underestimated her cockiness.

She coughs when the nicotine hits her lungs. His laughter is a rumble, quite a nice companion to the pitter-patter of rain, if only she isn’t fighting for her life being cool and unaffected. Sakura always had walls to build, but seconds only with him, and she’s a mess. Absurd.

“It had been a long time,” she says as an excuse.

“So you say.” He takes another long drag. That tobacco roll seems to never run out.

“You look more of a mix.”

“Please don’t loop me with the kinds of tikbalang - part horse, part human. They look horrendous.”

"True. The proportions don't match with them." Smoking gets easier. Familiarity, with something you hate and love, makes it difficult to forget. It's always in the back of one's head. "So what are you? An albino?"

The kapre considers the word for a moment and shrugs. "Probably."

Sakura sharply turns to his side. "Wait — your engkanto mom probably had an affair with a kapre!"

The creature smirks at her. "Hmm. Perceptive. You're right." He crosses his arms behind his head, and she finds it difficult to look away from the bulging veins of his biceps.

"I bet your whole kingdom is envious of you."

He laughs. "Oh it's the best of both worlds."

"I know I'm right. You look —" 

Beautiful.

"— so out of place." 

Sakura stares at him like he has grown two heads. How?

"The perfectionist engkantos think my height is an anomaly, and being five shades revokes your kapre citizenry." 

"Oh."

He takes a long drag again and puffs out circles. "Yes oh."

The end of her roll is succumbing to the cold, diffusing in wisps that join the fog of the rain. Sakura pulls her knees closer to her chest. "Is that why you're here?"

"To project my misery on people?" He scoffs. "Of course, you're right."

"What's the worst prank you did?" 

"I killed one."

She waits for her blood to run cold at the casual confession.

And waits and waits and waits. It doesn’t come. She remains the same nonchalant lady who entered the cemetery an hour ago.

Life, she realized, has numbed her to this point.

"Why?"

 “Why?”

The creature looks at her incredulously, probably in awe why she hasn’t bolted yet. He licks his lips and rests one side of his chin to his palm. Sakura realizes this is how he recalls things.

He describes a long object with his arms and swings it horizontally. “He wanted to take down my tree.”

“Can’t you transfer somewhere else? It’s easy to grow a balete tree. You just leave it be.”

“My father’s side sticks strictly to one. It’s hard to find empty lots right now where I’m at.”

“Your house literally grows through concrete.”

“It’s much of a hassle when you wake up every other day with your house cut down. You understand we operate on two different time frames? Your life expectancy is only a few years to us.”

Sakura nods. “So the roadworks also affect you?”

“This is why you never progress.”

“Says someone with backward filial beliefs.”

“Excuse you, we have a different worldview.”

“You’re weird.” Sakura’s shift in topic is jarring. “You’re easy to converse with.”

“The gravediggers don’t talk to me anymore.” He resumes his attention on his tobacco.

Meanwhile, Sakura’s is wet from the rain. The half-consumed roll rests on the soil, crushed by muddy rivulets. 

“So what’s your story, pinky?”

Sakura rests her back on the large trunk. “I’m visiting my parents.”

“At the height of a storm?” 

In her soaked bag, a phone rings. Three rounds of alarm, standard disaster notice. The automated voice reads, Warning. Red rainfall warning and signal number four in Konoha. Evacuate now. Another three rounds and then it falls silent.

Sakura nods. “It’s my last goodbye.”

“Going away?”

“You could put it like that. Our house is on mortgage, and some local officials want to demolish it for a right of way.”

“Roadworks?”

“Roadworks. It would have been done and sealed if they gave me money.” Sakura starts to chip off the sides of her nails. “But they said I’m the one who owes them. It turned into a screaming match, and then I got a blotter.”

“Rough life. So you’re wanted right now.”

She side-eyes him. “What? Afraid of me?”

The kapre laughs. “No, you’re cool. That’s a word you use, right?”

“My parents don’t know though so be a good kapre and keep mum.”

He puts out his tobacco against the trunk and scoots closer to her. Sakura is silently grateful for the warmth. She’s drenched and the cold is sinking into her bones. A little more and she’s sure to contract pneumonia.

But this creature, this man, is like a campfire on a beach in the middle of December. If someone would cover her with a blanket, she would instantly fall asleep.

“Don’t you have someone?”

She thinks of all the people she slept with. Her best friend turned stranger. The school librarian and the expulsion after the discovery. Random Tinder matches. The bakery boy who always gave her one extra pandesal. The man she thought of as the one but hid her from his family.

She has memories of heartbreak, of crying and thrashing and cursing, but the pain has left her for good.

“No. I’m the first one to always leave.”

“That’s a shame. You’re pretty.” A finger lifts the end of her ponytail. “But this makes everything easier.” 

“Are you hitting on me?” She flicks his large hand away.

His mouth curves upwards. A sneer. Menacing one. “Ah you’ve reached bottom rock if you think a kapre is a good prospect.”

Sakura drops the cool act and grunts. “I don’t think I’ll get married in this lifetime. Love is just too taxing.”

“But you’ve slept around.”

“Are you actually following me?”

“No, it’s a human thing to do. Sleep around. Some people do it on top of tombs.”

Sakura winces in disgust. “You’re such a voyeur.”

He holds up both of his hands. “Against my own will.”

The rain mercilessly keeps on, and the winds start to pick up speed. It’s chaos all over, but in her mind, Sakura is busy fondling sensations. Her fingers unconsciously trace the outline of her lips. “I miss kissing. Being kissed.” 

“Is that a request?”

She snaps as if waking from a trance. The giant is teasing her, but the question piqued her curiosity. While he trained his gaze elsewhere, she slipped her small body near his frame, using the roots as her leverage. She quickly captures his face with her small hands.

He’s surprised. Or he went into shock. Either way, he’s not moving.

“What would it be like,” she stares deep into his eyes, “to kiss you?”

It’s a litmus test.

This creature’s actually intelligent so he must have known by now why Sakura wants to be riled up. All that she has felt lately is emptiness. She’s not expecting much. It might be just like other kisses before him — mechanical, numb, unfeeling.

Under all of these, she’s just scared to admit she lost the capacity for emotions.

What would it be like to kiss you? A horrendous folklore creature? Will it give me disgust or fear?

Sakura’s lips are only a fraction of his mouth.

Something ignites — from him or her, she doesn’t know. It feels like she grew several feet tall, and his face somehow perfectly fits the cradle of her hands. And his mouth which tastes of nicotine and rain and mint is accurately slotted against hers. 

She shudders at the goosebumps that prick her skin. Figuring it’s just the cold, she inches closer until her hands reach his hairy chest. Those large hands find their way on her back and push her tighter against him.

She moans at the growing friction, inadvertently opening her mouth to his access. Tongue meets tongue and from there on out, everything is lost under the canopy of the straggler tree.

“You can shapeshift,” she notes after a long while.

The giant hums in agreement. “I’m a bit of everything, Sakura.”

She stills at the mention of her name. “How did you —”

The guilt on his face is an afterthought. “I told you. I’ll come back for you.”

Recollection comes to her in sweeping moments.

She remembers him.

She knows him.

These memories finally move to the forefront.

“Kakashi.”

Sakura utters the same name he gave so many years ago. A distant memory of her getting lost in a sea of legs. Grasping a hairy ankle. She held onto the hairs as the man walked and walked and walked. She woke up in a room bathed in blinding sunlight. She squinted a lot before finding focus on the giant man in front of her.

Silver hair, grey eyes, and a kind smile.

“Pretty.” She reached out with her short arms, and he crouched down to her level. Fingers squeezed the skin of his cheeks, making her giggle. “Pretty pretty pretty!” she kept repeating. 

In retrospect, this must have been the first time he was described like that. The man cried when he heard the word. Sakura didn't think much of it back then. She was too hungry to think straight.

Seeing her expression, he quickly led her to a table filled with food, and she took her favorite — a sweetened milk powder one ate through a straw called mikmik.

She also grabbed a Chuckie, a chocolate drink. Her classmates had this for snacks while she was stuck with diluted milk. 

"Thank you!" She minded her manners. Her mom says they can get you through life. "You have a nice house!"

The creature kept smiling. "What's your name?"

"Sakura!"

"That's a rare name."

"Father says it matches my hair!" She points to another carton of chuckie. "Can I bring some for my parents, mister giant?"

He nods. "Call me Kakashi."

“When I grow up, I’m gonna marry you Kakashi!” She indulged in every treat at the table, and he let her. 

“Why?”

Sakura counted the reasons on her stubby fingers. “You’re pretty. You have food. You have a nice house.”

He laughed, and she felt the whole room rumble.

“I cannot keep you here. You should go home,” he said with fondness in his voice. “For now.”

Once again, she was wrapped around his ankle. When he stopped walking after a while, she knew it was goodbye.

“Will I see you again?” she asked him. “Thank you for feeding me, Kakashi!”

“Do you want to go back?”

Sakura didn’t know her answer would matter much.

“Yes!”

“Then I’ll come back for you.”

He dropped her off at the entrance of the cemetery from where she traced her steps back to their house. Haruno Sakura had been missing for a week.

x x x

Sakura still made no move to go away. She sits still on the damp root system and watches every microexpression on his face.

“Your parents made it hard to see you again. Had you visit a folk doctor and gave you some charm to ward me off.”

“Did you kill them?”

Kakashi twirls his finger in the air. “No. Road accidents aren’t my thing. Can’t say I wasn’t happy. That made it easier to see you from time to time.”

She weighs his words carefully. “Are you gonna kidnap me now?”

“Hmm, no need for that. You already took a puff out of my tobacco roll, and you kissed me.” He sounds so proud of himself. “I don’t think you need any more convincing.”

She feels an eerie pounding in her chest. The way she went from extreme butterflies (after a long drought) to desperation is whiplash. “Are there any more machinations in my life courtesy of you?”

“None really. I was merely a bystander, patiently waiting for the right time.”

“And now is?”

He smiles again but doesn’t answer. “I guess I need to give you the courtesy to choose. Come back to my home and I’ll make you stay missing.”

The courtesy to choose does not exist. She knows she has sold her soul to him the moment she grabbed food on his table. It’s a common warning — never accept any food or drink from these types of creatures. Once you do, you become one of them.

Kakashi only extended her grace period on earth.

Sakura closes her eyes in frustration.

“What happens if I say no?”

“You’ll just have to visit me every other day to keep me company.” She won’t get rid of him. She’s not entirely sure if she wants to get rid of him.

She thinks about their house along the railway tracks. Most furniture was already sold. The mountain of bills she stuffed in the trash can (tomorrow’s the collection day). Five disconnection notices. Three eggs past the expiration date. A rejection email for a job application. The crumpled recommendation slip inside her pocket. The bottle of pills she swiped at the public health office. 

She has prayed long and hard for this opportunity.

To disappear.

Sakura grabs Kakashi’s wrist and stares at him. “Come on then.”

She expects atmospheric pressure, the kind where you feel all sorts of weight push towards you and propel you in another dimension. It turns out to be as easy as stepping into a bridge and walking the whole way through.

She should have done this sooner.

Kakashi’s world is bathed in sunlight. Sakura immediately feels warmth travel the inches of her skin. A modest spire gate and a room that’s carved out from her memory.

It’s the bedroom she draws on the back of her notebook. Queen-sized bed with pastel green sheets, fluffy pillows, and a duvet. A bedside table with fresh chrysanthemums on a vase. A desk on the corner. A reading nook with built-in shelves around it.

“You’ve been preparing,” Sakura notes.

“I wanted to make you comfortable,” Kakashi replies. He takes her hand and leads her into the dining area. It’s exactly how she remembers it, filled to the brim with not a space uncovered with a dish. “This is now your world Sakura.”

She picks up a Chuckie carton. “Thank you, Kakashi.” And then she starts to cry.

[keyofjetwolf]

Chirashizushi, otherwise known as “Deception Cake”

Unless they come back to this for a part two (and while I don’t think they will, it’s possible), they left out all the information on how to assemble this thing. Like, what’s the “icing” on the top? Crunched up chicken flavour ramen noodles? Those French’s onion things? I’m a humble liveblogger who is absolutely inept in the kitchen, I can be of no help to you here. So if you’re looking to make your own Deception Cake, consider instructions outside of the cooking anime.

~~~

First, after rinsing the rice, you put it in a strainer and drain the water out. Then slice your carrots, lotus root, bamboo shoots and rehydrated shiitake and soak the lotus root in water.

Now, put everything you just sliced into your rice cooker along with the rinsed rice. Add a little less than the water-level marker. Then for seasoning, add soy sauce, mirin, and the dashi liquid from the dried shiitake. Normally, you'd boil the ingredients separately, but today I'm doing it the easy way, with the rice cooker.

Next, the kinshi egg. Mix the eggs, season them with salt and sugar, then strain them to make a thin egg crepe. Julienne the eggs and your kinshi tamago is done.

Bring the snow peas, strings removed, and the carrots and lotus root you'll be using for garnish to a quick boil in salted water, then cool them off in a bowl of water. Add sake to this pot and heat the shrimp. Then marinate them in sushi vinegar.

When the rice is done, pour the sushi vinegar, minus the shrimp, over it all. Then mix the rice in a vertical chopping motion. When your rice scoop starts to feel havier as you're mixing, stop mixing, then cool it off by fanning it. From time to time, flip your rice over to expose the hot parts.

Cooling it all off at once gives the sushi rice a nice sheen.

~~~

CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE BISHONEN RICE

Wow, there is so much here I have no fucking idea about. What is lotus root? Yes, okay assholes, “root of a lotus”, thank you, but it’s not something I’ve ever seen in the store, I don’t think, and I have no idea what it would taste like. I assume it gets soaked in water first to plump it up a bit, which only makes me more curious what it tastes like.

I’ve never heard of “kinshi” egg. Is that a cooking style or type of egg? No idea! Is that maybe the stuff on the top of the Deception Cake though? From the picture, it’s the only thing that looks to me like it might be egg, and if it’s mixed all in there, I’m not sure why you’d specifically julienne it.

Why the vertical chopping motion on the rice? If you do a horizontal chopping motion, does The Ministry Of Lying Baked Goods come for you? And while I’m on the rice, why the fucking BARREL for the rice? Larger surface area to cool it in, would be my guess, but does every household fucking have an eighth of a barrel just lying about? IT SEEMS SO UNWIELDY TO STORE I AM UNREASONABLY WOUND UP ABOUT THIS

Finally, standing around and fanning one’s rice may be the best, sheeniest way to cool it down, but let me tell you right now, I would literally never. That shit’s going on a cookie sheet and into the fridge, I do not have that kind of time.

Anyway, DECEPTION CAKE

[waynewifey]

A dream of you and me—

soulmate!au

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader

Summary: In a world where a dream means something more, trying to save the boy from your dreams can change your life.

Warnings: angst, crying

Words: 1900.

A/N: Thank you so much for the amazing feedback on my last fic! I’m sorry it took me so long to comeback, please remember that my requests are always open! I hope you like this.

I've always liked dreaming. It's the moment of the day where I'm taken to a random place with random people to live a priceless adventure. Tonight I dreamed with a boy. Well, I was the boy. We were running through the Hogwarts corridors, but somehow no one saw us. It was like we were invisible. We ran up to the bridge, staring at the moonlight. He was sad for an unknown reason, I could feel it. I saw his black locks blocking the vision when it winded. I've never seen his face before, but, somehow, he felt like... home. He let out a deep breath and I heard some footsteps approaching. Suddenly, the image became blurred. I let out a gasp, waking up. I stared at the ceiling for a moment, before opening my curtains, looking around and noticing it was still night. I got up and walked to the biggest window in the room. The moon looked exactly like the one in my dream. Maybe it is happening right now, I thought. But that was impossible. Well, not really impossible, more like improbable. The soulmate link was a very rare occasion. One would dream about the day or the moment the other were living for days or years, until they meet and recognise each other as soulmates. But they wouldn't see faces or hear voices, so that turned the meeting more difficult and rare. I've never met soulmates beside the ones in fantasy books.

The morning after, I woke up earlier than usual, as I could barely sleep. I got ready quickly and ran to the Great Hall. I was looking for someone who looked like they haven't slept properly, someone who may be up all night. But, to be honest, all seventh graders looked almost dead, thanks to the exams. A red head sat beside me, putting some books on the table.

"I have something to tell you." I immediately said.

"Not even a 'Good Morning'? Fine then. What is it?" Lily Evans replied. I rolled my eyes at her, beginning to speak.

"I dreamt with someone. I know it's rare but I really think it may be... that." She looked disinterested, picking her food. "Lily, I'm serious! It felt so real! And I could feel his feelings too! What should I do?"

"There's nothing to do yet, I guess. You'll have to keep dreaming and collecting clues. But maybe you could forget about it and help me with my charms assignments." She bit a piece of bread and I gave her an yellow smile. By the corner of the eye, I saw a group of boys approaching.

"Or you could ask your pain in the ass boyfriend." She scoffed, turning around and smiling at James Potter, whom were now sitting beside her, embracing her back with his arm and laughing loudly about something I didn't knew. Remus Lupin sat on my side, as usual. He was the only tolerable one in the group. He often helped me with my studies, but our relationship was very far from a friendship. Other two boys sat in front of us.

The day went by normally. Too many classes for my last two neurones. I was exited to go to my dorm and sleep, to test my theory.

I could see the dark sky and the Whomping Willow. A rat ran to the roots of the tree and pressed a small knot. The tree stoped moving. We dove into a hole next to it. After a long time walking inside of a tight tunnel, we arrived at the gardens of a house. The Shrinking Shack?! What is he doing here? We entered the house and walked to what looked like a living room. I watched as a gigantic creature approached. Some kind of wolf, but it was standing in two legs. It's arms were thin. It was looking a bit... tired? I analysed the beast carefully. A werewolf! Why was he around that monster? He was in danger!

I jumped out of  bed, running to get my robe and my wand. I left the dorms, running to the Castle Grounds. The wind was extremely cold, but I kept running. I searched for the knot on the Whomping Willow. After a few times being thrown in the air by the tree, I finally got to the secret hole. It seemed like it took me forever to get to the house. I heard a howl and a growl, which made me desperate to find my soulmate. Would he even be alive by now? I came across a bizarre scene. A werewolf, a huge black dog, a stag and a mouse – the mouse in my dreams – all laying on the floor. The werewolf turned its head to me, growling at me. The dog jumped, getting in front of me. Where was my soulmate? The werewolf tried to attack me, but the stag got on its way. They were protecting me? Why? The dog barked at me, getting my attention. He ran to the exit door, turning his head back at me, as if he were calling me. I followed him. I ran to the gardens, but the dog was gone. Suddenly, a boy came out of behind a tree, wearing a black fur robe. I annalized his face in the moonlight. I recognised his black locks from my dreams. Sirius Black.

"What are you doing here? You need to go back to the castle right now." He said, eyes not focusing on me and ears on alert, still taking care of whatever was happening in the house.

"What are YOU doing here?! Did you know that is not a regular wolf, but a werewolf?! And if it bites you-"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Now, you. Leave." He cut my speech, making me roll my eyes.

"I can't let you die! Every night I have these dreams, you're always getting yourself in trouble and-"

"You dream with me? You saw Moony?"

"Yes, Black, keep track. Stop interrupting me. Wait, who's Moony?" Sirius looked around, getting closer and lowering his voice, like he was about to tell me a secret.

"Remus Lupin. He's a werewolf. The stag is James Potter. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but the rat is Peter Pettigrew and... I'm the dog. Yeah, yeah, woof. We're animagus. Remus is under control... well, kind of. But it's still not safe for you and I need to take you back to the castle." I was stunned when he grabbed me by the elbow and made me walk all the way back. My thoughts wouldn't process, my mind was a mess.

"You're supposed to drink the tea, not stare at it, you know?" Sirius said, his voice echoing in the empty common room. I blinked for the first time in a while. I took a last look at my teacup, glancing upwards. I stared at his obsidian orbits, frowning my eyebrows trying to figure out what to say. Sirius Black was my soulmate. This guy I've never really talked to before, whom I know practically nothing about, and now I discover he's an illegal animagus, friends with a werewolf and will probably reject me so badly the angels will pity and and let me escape from hell. Because I made it quite obvious by telling him about my dreams, and he ignored it.

"I dreamt about you, you know what this means, right?" I couldn't keep the eye contact for long and quickly went back to staring at my tea. I moved in the couch to a more closed posture.

"Yeah, I understand it just fine." He said. I couldn't figure out his emotions by the tone of his voice, so I looked at him. His expression was as neutral as his tone, not helping me at all.

"Oh, okay. I wasn't expecting this." I rested my cup on the coffee table in front of us, getting up. I felt a slight spark of anger inside of me, starting to burn everything. He scoffed, leaning back on the chair. "Well I don't like that either! It's just- It seems unfair to condemn me to literal hell just because you're not happy about me being your soulmate!" The words bursted out of my mouth without a previous warning, tears forming in my eyes. I had waited for so long to see if I had a soulmate and he just scorn me like that? "I'm sorry if I'm not what you expected, but this isn't my fault!" I blubbered, gathering all the small amount strength that kept me on foot to turn around and walk away. But before I could do so, his arms embraced me in a harm and desperate hug. The smell of his hair made me dizzy, and I could honestly live there.

"I never believed in this. I never thought fate would bring someone to keep company to a person like me but- seeing you cry made my heart ache... So please stay. I don't care if we're soulmates or not, I just... need you here."

Epilogue — 3 years later.

I finished mixing the coffee and placed it at the silver tray. I took a final look: scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, and bangers — it all looked delicious. Not the kind of thing I was used to do, but I definitely am good at it. I walked to our room and opened the door. He was in the same place he was when I left earlier: the bed. I put the tray on the nightstand, preparing myself to wake him up. I sat beside him, staring at his unique features. The sunlight coming through the curtains lightened his nude torso and I got myself admiring his skin.

“Breakfast in bed? Who are you and what have you done to my girlfriend?” His husky morning voice, massaged my ears. “Fiancée, actually.”

“Well, I thought this was a great way to celebrate your first day of work and our three year anniversary.” I kissed the top of his head as my hands danced around on his curls. “But don’t get used to it, you’re the cooker in this relationship.”

“I love you, Y/N L/N Black.” I stared down at his face. The same face of the boy I fell in love with, a long time ago, and I remembered the first time we kissed through sobs and hugs. This was when I realised I loved Sirius Black more than anything in the world and I knew we were forever. I smiled at him and kissed him passionately.

“I love you too.” He smiled widely at me and pulled me to under the sheets, throwing my apron across the room. “You’ll be late, Siri.” Sirius rolled his eyes at me and got on top of me.

“I have more important matters to deal with right now.”

[artificialqueens]

Down with the Recipe, Bake from the Heart, 10/10 (Taywhora) - Juno

Chapter Summary: The three finalists are just three challenges away from the end of the Bake Off, and the reunion with their fellow competitors, families, and friends at the finale garden party. The Signature and Technicals will be the hardest yet, and the Showstopper will ensure the three finalists bare a slice of their hearts to the country. But who will take the winning cake stand?

A/N: I have been utterly blown away by the support and comments I’ve had for this fic on tumblr and AO3! Huge big thank you to everyone who has cheered me on with this. For ease, the finale and epilogue are in one here (but are split on AO3). I hope to be back soon with some short stuff for rare pair challenge! xo Juno

WEEK 10: GRAND FINALE

Aurora felt like she didn’t sleep all week back in Worksop, and now, the night before she had to take the train down south to film the grand finale, the very idea seemed virtually impossible. Her body and her mind tossed and turned, every time she closed her eyes she saw cakes and breads and pastries and all sorts of things she was sure she’d never have any desire to eat again.

She had no time to think about Tayce, but Tayce had found her way in through the cracks in her mind while she had practised. Gone from the tent, but not gone from her life. And her last act in the tent had been to give Aurora five words that had rung like a melody in her head ever since.

You can win this, bitch.

She reached for her phone in the darkness, and it said it was half past one in the morning. She’d have to get up in three hours to get ready, before she headed out for the train. Lawrence would already be on the sleeper train, and Veronica was probably getting up at around the same time. But as she opened their own three-way chat, she found both Lawrence and Veronica were also messaging at silly time in the morning.

They weren’t sleeping either. Aurora understood why now.

Sure, she’d see Tayce again this weekend at the grand finale garden party. But her departure still replayed in her head.

Why did I end up this reliant on her anyway? I can bake without her. I’ve done it for years!

But this wasn’t just baking. It wasBake Off. It was surreal, intangible. It defied gravity. How many times had Aurora had to anchor herself to Tayce to keep herself from floating away?

Her phone came up with a notification from Lawrence.

Lawrence:why tf ru awake

The irony of Lawrence’s message was not lost on Aurora.

Aurora:your meant to be on the sleeper train Aurora: sleeper Aurora: clue is in the name Lawrence: yh but its stopped Lawrence: we’re in carlisle  Aurora: what’s it like in Carlisle x Lawrence: dark

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but it tickled her far more than it should, and she found herself laughing far too hard at the message.

Aurora: how much ru lookin forward to this bein over now x Lawrence: oh loads babes Lawrence: cant wait to bring that cake stand to Glasgow x Veronica:keep dreaming Lawrence  Aurora: unlikely lol x

On second thoughts, the teasing and the laughter were a balm for her worried mind right now, and Aurora found she was laughing more than she had all week at their conversation.

Sleep is overrated anyway.

——

The tent looked huge and imposing, but Aurora was still not at the front to her relief. If Lawrence had gone home last week - not that Aurora had ever expected her to - Aurora thought she would have squirmed at the front under the gaze of the judges. Especially now, with just the three of them left, their voices echoing like a vast cave, all of their heartbeats just sounding amplified as they hammered against their ribs.

It’s the finale. I made it.

Aurora glanced at the two badges she’d won. The same amount as Lawrence, with Veronica having one to her name. But as they’d seen from previous series, the amount of times someone had won Star Baker was not an indicator as to who would win the whole thing. But it certainly gave both her and Lawrence a minor edge, and both of them a swell in their chests.

Everything felt new and fresh. Lawrence had re-dyed her hair, blue this time, the vibrant colour almost a distraction in itself. Veronica had new black nails which she tapped on the workbench, and her roots had been redone. Aurora hadn’t thought to do any of that, so she was pleased to still be at the back.

Her turquoise KitchenAid still glistened like new, the workbench sparkled with the glassy varnish, and the cupboards and shelves around in their pastel colours made the summer air feel all the more fresh and clean. She glanced over at Veronica, her own green KitchenAid in the same state, and Lawrence’s Cadbury purple one too.

I wonder if I can pinch the KitchenAid after filming without the crew noticing.

——

Signature: 12 iced doughnuts - 6 ring, 6 filled

If there was one thing Aurora hated doing, it was piping filling into something as fiddly as a doughnut. They’d have to cool down, be hollowed, and then filled, a really fiddly process.

It was the hardest day in the tent by far. The morning was rainy, light rain that almost felt like it wasn’t there, and the air was sticky and humid, pushing the temperature in the tent up, especially with the deep fat fryers they’d been provided for the doughnuts.

Aurora chewed her lip so hard that it bled, piping mixture, watching them all closely in the deep fat fryer, filling up her jam piping bag and spinning it so tightly that it threatened to burst and cover her in sticky apricot jam.

In front of her, Lawrence groaned a few times as she battled against the heat and the doughnuts as they spat in the fryer, while Veronica was wringing her hands at the dough as it came out of her own fryer.

“Too soft,” she muttered, followed by “God, too hard,” at the next batch.

By the time judging came, with Prue back from her illness this week, Aurora had almost forgotten what she’d flavoured them with, but she wasn’t alone. Across from her, Veronica stuttered as she spoke about her doughnuts, while Lawrence just pushed her hair back at the question.

“Don’t know,” she’d mused to the judges, some of the old humour returning to her voice. “Started making them, had a breakdown, and here they are. Enjoy!”

The judges all laughed, but Aurora caught a glint in Lawrence’s eye, and the same thought passed between them both.

It’s not a lie!

All of them had similar critiques. Unanimously told they had good flavours, good bakes, and good designs, it was becoming virtually impossible to differentiate between them. How were they going to decide a winner?

“How are they going to do this?” Veronica said aloud to the room, as they sat in Norton Hall (not Carr Hall, Aurora said to herself) waiting for the Technical challenge to begin.

“Not a fucking clue.” Lawrence sighed.

“Are any of you thinking about today though?” Aurora asked. “Are you just thinking about the Showstopper tomorrow too?”

Lawrence and Veronica both nodded slowly, none of them looking at each other.

“Are you all … doing the same thing as I am?”

Lawrence and Veronica just continued nodding.

None of them even needed to say a word. They all knew.

——

Technical: Victoria Sponge (no recipe)

Technical sounded daunting at first glance, but Aurora tried to reason with her worried mind. Baking a Vicky sponge from scratch with no instructions? Please. Aurora baked a Vicky sponge twice a month for the local shelter. She could probably have done it in her sleep.

But the pressure cooker of the tent just made everything go up in smoke in her brain.

Her nan’s voice rang in her head for the proportions that she used to use. Two, two, two, and two eggs. But two what? Two cake tins? Two bowls? Two competitors? No, two pounds. When would her nan come into the new millennium and learn that no one talked about measurements in pounds and ounces any more?

“Lawrence?” She leaned forward.

“Alright, babes?”

“How much is two pounds in grams again?”

Lawrence was frowning. “What?”

“Please - just tell me. I know it’s a competition and all -“

“I’m not trying to stitch you up hen, I genuinely don’t know, I don’t use pounds and ounces because I entered the twenty-first century a while back.” Lawrence shook her head, holding her hands up in surrender. “What do you need it for anyway?”

“Recipe,” Aurora said, her already-hammering heart feeling like it could break her ribs.

“What’s up, love?” That was Veronica’s voice. Aurora closed her eyes, wracking her brain, but Lawrence’s voice pierced the gloom.

“How much is a pound in grams, d’you know?”

“Yeah,” came Veronica’s in response, “a pound is about four hundred and fifty grams. Y’know, you can also go the other way. A kilo is two point two pounds. What do you need that for, yours is already whisking?”

“No, Rory’s having a meltdown, and not with the butter.”

Jesus Dawn French Christ, Lawrence.

A hand met her shoulder, and Aurora was astonished to see Veronica at her side.

“You alright, love?”

She held her gaze for a long time, unflinching, but her eyes were softer than ever, and her hand was surprisingly warm and calming as she rubbed Aurora’s shoulder.

“Yeah. Just - this,” Aurora waved her hands, encompassing the whole tent. Maybe that was absurd to an outside observer, but Veronica knew. Veronica understood.

“I looked at your instagram,” Veronica said quietly, “and I know you bake cakes loads, so I know you can knock this one right out of the park, alright? And you know that too. I mean, I can’t remember a thing about making jam now! And I’m probably going overboard with my sugar. But hey, it’s the finale! I can’t be sent home now!”

Veronica shrugged, her face split in a grin that bordered on maniacal, and Aurora had to admit that she had a point. She took a shaky inhale, then let it out.

“Look, I know you miss Tayce,” Veronica dropped her voice even lower, her hand squeezing her shoulder now, “because I’ve missed Tia since alt week. And we know Lawrence is missing Ellie, even though she’d probably rather move to London and take up Morris dancing than admit that.”

“You say that, but I can do that accent, I’ve watched Eastenders,” Lawrence called over her shoulder. “And I won’t be any worse than Dick Van Dyke.”

“We’re all missing everyone,” Veronica said, and Aurora knew she didn’t mean everyone, “but you don’t need Tayce to be able to bake. You can do it on your own. You’ve done it loads before this show, and you’ll do it again!”

“I can’t,” Aurora heard her fear contradict her in a whisper.

“You can,” Veronica said firmly, her gaze now stern. “You can do this.”

Aurora took a deep breath, held for four, and let it out for five.

“I can.”

“That’s it, love,” Veronica said, nodding and starting to walk away.

——

“Here’s to the last time we’re here as a three,” Aurora said, raising her glass along with Lawrence and Veronica. One of the producers had brought in a bottle of champagne, and even though Aurora didn’t really like the bubbles very much - they tickled her nose - she accepted the glass that was poured for her.

“How much does everyone remember about today?” Veronica asked, her arms and legs crossed on the sofa. “Because I can’t remember a bloody thing. I can’t even remember what the judges said about that piece of crap that my Vicky sponge turned out to be. Did I come last?”

“Yeah,” Aurora nodded. “Was nothing in it, though. We were all shit.”

“Speak for yourselves,” Lawrence muttered, a hint of her old mischievous glint back in her eye.

“And tomorrow we’re recording the finale,” Aurora sighed, swirling the champagne. “Five hours in a tent, followed by half an hour break, followed by presenting the Showstoppers, followed by the garden party, followed by our speeches. And then filming three endings. Where one of us wins each time.”

“It’s gonna be worth it by the end, though,” Veronica said brightly.

“Who’s gonna come from your family, Lawrence?” Aurora asked.

“My parents, my cousin Chloe, and my best pal Stinky Pete.” Lawrence grinned. “Can’t wait to see them. And who have you two got?”

“Uhm,” Aurora frowned. “I know Blake’s coming, and my nan, but I thought you could only invite two people?”

“Mine said four,” Lawrence replied. “God, you really can’t count, can you?”

“What about you?” Aurora asked, motioning to Veronica with her glass.

“My mum’s coming and my brother.” She twitched her shoulders. “None of my friends could get time off. Shame, really.”

Aurora nodded, sipping her champagne, trying to hold off on sneezing through the bubbles. “And the others.”

“Can’t wait,” Veronica smiled her usual pinched, nervous smile, her leg jogging. “I’ve missed them all. Tia especially, but I’ve missed them all. I wonder who they all think will win?”

“And Ellie still owes me a tenner for that Puff the Magic Dragon shit that she thought Tayce’s biccies were,” Lawrence mused.

Aurora pursed her lips at Tayce’s name, but pushed it to the back of her mind. What mattered now was not Tayce, but the fact that her eyes were drooping after not having slept the previous night, and the champagne making her head throb.

“Early one?” Veronica’s sigh must have read been a telepathic projection, because they all stood in unison and trailed each other up the stairs to their respective rooms, ready to pass out and begin everything again in the morning.

——

Showstopper: A picnic for a fellow contestant - to include one celebration cake, 12 savoury pastries, and 12 patisserie.

When the three of them had seen the Showstopper for the weekend, right after Tayce’s elimination, they’d all nodded knowingly to each other.

This one has been just …made for us all.

It was obvious. It was blatantly obvious that everything that had happened had been noticed by the producers, and the staff, and everyone with eyes and without them too, that all three of the finalists were missing someone.

Veronica was setting her alarms up, all five of them as usual, before dragging her ingredients from the bag she kept. On her workbench, she’d gently placed a photo Tia had taken of some landscape or other. Lawrence had laid all her ingredients out on a baby pink tablecloth that complimented the purple of her own KitchenAid.

Aurora only had one thing to remind her of Tayce. She’d gone into a charity shop in the week with Blake, looking for something he’d seen in the window, and had found something that Blake had gasped at.

“It’s a Welsh love spoon!” He’d thrust the small wooden spoon into Aurora’s hand, and she’d turned it over and over silently in her fingers, marvelling at the twisting pattern on the handle, curling into a heart shape at the top.

“That’s fate, that is,” Blake had nodded. “You’ve got to get that.”

Aurora set the spoon now on the counter top, resting against her own KitchenAid for now, as she ran back through the timings again in her head, and what she was planning.

The twelve savoury pastries were easy. Puff pastry sausage rolls with added baked beans and cheese. Even if Prue didn’t like baked beans, that was all Tayce seemed to be eating every breakfast time.

Screw what Prue likes. This isn’t for her.

The cake? It had taken some thought. Black Forest gateau with a mirror glaze to top it off, not something she knew if Tayce liked, but something that felt sophisticated and stylish. And the deep purple of the blackberries was a colour that Tayce loved.

The patisserie was the hardest one, but she’d settled on millefeuille, similar to some that she made before for her nan’s seventy-fifth birthday, delicate and decorative, fragile-looking but built to stand tall. Not to mention they tasted so good that the world ceased to exist when someone bit into one.

“It’s like they’re all back here, isn’t it?”

Veronica’s voice was quiet, but happy. Lawrence’s intake of breath was shaky, but she didn’t turn to face her, focusing on her bake.

“You’ve got a tin of baked beans on your workbench, Aurora, it’s so surreal! And Lawrence, you’ve got so much pink on your workbench today.” Veronica motioned to the pink fondant she’d made, pink icing, pink glaze, pink cake filling. Pink and white marshmallows, pink jam … every shade of pink imaginable. Lawrence just gave a snort and shook her head.

It was meant to be the hardest challenge yet, but it definitely didn’t feel that way. The tent heated up with the warm sunshine outside and the combination of ovens and bakers and inside, but as soon as nerves started manifesting, the three of them were all there to diffuse them all for each other.

When Lawrence started dropping her utensils, both Aurora and Veronica were at her side in an instant to grab her hands and calm her down before she started panicking. When Veronica clung to the edge of her workbench, motionless, Lawrence and Aurora were both there beside her to talk her down.

But when the last ten minutes were called …

Shit.

Aurora felt cold fear creep back up her chest. She still had the millefeuille to assemble. She’d done three, but nine remained. And the puff pastry had to come out of the oven. And the glaze needed to be poured over the cake for it to set into a mirror in time -

“Aurora?” That was Lawrence, with Veronica on her heels. “You’re making a squeaky whiny noise like a balloon letting out air. What d’you need?”

“But - ten minutes - your own bakes -“

As Aurora flapped, the other two simply ran round her side and started doing it without needing her to tell them. Soon all her pastries were on the tray, and the cake was out the fridge, the glaze ready to go.

“You pipe, I’ll load,” Veronica muttered, and she did just that, while Lawrence put the cake onto the metal tray, jogging back from her own workbench where she’d had to finish off one of her own patisseries, and as Aurora finished piping the last millefeuille …

“Bakers! You have five minutes on your final Showstopper!”

They were all pulling out the stops, dashing between all three of their benches. Veronica was throwing gold leaf around like it was confetti. Lawrence was covered in icing sugar, the sweet scent filling the air. Aurora poured the deep purple onto the cake, praying to the Monster gods that it would set into a mirror glaze in time …

“Time is up! The final Showstopper has finished! Congratulations, bakers!”

The whole world seemed to crumble at Noel’s words.

Aurora looked at the mountain of food she’d produced, everything that reminded her of Tayce, and she knew then that serving this would mean serving a slice of her heart to the nation. And that was the plan all along.

Everything in her body ached, her bones were hollow, her breathing felt too loud alongside the deafening roar of blood in her ears. But as she leaned on the workbench, surveying the amount of work she’d done, she felt a tickle at the back of her throat, and suddenly she was laughing, so hard that she felt like she’d never stop. And then so was Veronica. Then Lawrence began too.

They were all cackling, all three of them, delirious with delight. Noel and Matt came to congratulate them, clapping as they did so, and then Veronica came out from her bench to hug Lawrence, and Aurora ran to join in, and the three of them were suddenly hugging, laughing, sobbing, cheering into each others’ ears.

Until they were all too weak to speak.

——

Aurora, first alphabetically, was going to be the first out of the tent with her final Showstopper, to make her way to the garden party that was always put on for friends and family for the grand finale.

All her bakes were on an enormous tray and she carried it, with Noel on her left and Matt on her right, all three of them bearing the load. Aurora was flabbergasted that nothing was moving, nothing was falling, but everything was still and settled.

As soon as she stepped outside the tent for the first time, she was met by a blast of noise like heat from a furnace.

Clapping, cheers, whoops, laughter. The crowd at the garden party was friends, family, co-workers, film crew, all the staff of Norton Hall, and of course Blu and Cheryl. She caught sight and sound of her nan - her nan! - her accent and her distinctive nasal voice above the rest of the crowd, bless. And Blake, waving his hands in the air and cupping them to his mouth to howl at the sky.

And the rest of the contestants, waiting with the biggest smiles, with applause, with cheers and shouts that drowned out everything else that was happening.

Tayce was in the centre. And Aurora had never seen her look so happy.

She rested the tray at the table outside the tent behind her name, and stopped, stunned, blinking so many times at the noise and her senses overloading. How green the grass was, how vibrant the gingham pattern on the table, how blue the sky was above her head, how bright and hot the sun felt on her bare arms.

“Go on, Aurora,” Matt muttered, pointing to the crowd. “You can go and see them!”

Aurora walked slowly, the dream she was in making her legs shake. Her feet were resting on air, two inches above the ground, just above the blades of grass. But she somehow made the walk, the whole twenty-foot walk, away from the tent towards them all, dazed by their overflowing love, their cheers and their applause.

Tayce was beaten in the first hug by Hurricane Ellie, swamping Aurora in her arms; and by the time she’d disentangled herself, Bimini was there, leaping forward and rubbing her arms and beaming at her; followed by a grinning Pip, followed by Joe, still cackling. In fact, everyone seemed to get a turn before Aurora was left with just Tayce, waiting patiently, the grin she wore showing all her teeth, her eyes crinkling in happiness.

“Told you you could do it, bitch!”

——

“I made this spread for Tayce,” Aurora began, still cursing that her name was first alphabetically and she was first up on the podium.

Part of the Showstopper this year was a little speech to the crowd at the garden party. It was meant to be a tear-jerker, obviously, for the viewers to have an emotional finale, but it had just served to make all the bakers pull their hair out while writing a speech about which contestant they were baking for, and why.

“I made it for her because Tayce has been my rock throughout the competition. We were on the back row together, we got through all the first challenges together … she corrected me on the name of the hall for God’s sake, I was calling it Carr Hall for ages!”

The polite laughter tinkled around the grounds.

“Tayce has been an inspiration in so many ways. She’s taught me that … that I can channel my worries into the energy that I use to make a cake or a bread or whatever - and that can be fuel for me, to push me forwards. Tayce showed me that they were just a source of power like anything else. She always told me to relax. Well, chillax. And when I did, I rediscovered that I loved baking.”

Aurora couldn’t look at Tayce, even from this distance. Couldn’t see her eyes. If she did she might burst.

Lawrence and Veronica sat on the chairs next to the tent, next to the judges, waiting their turns, while everyone else sat or stood on the grass; but Aurora’s position on the podium, towering over them all, kept eyes trained on her as she gave her speech about her Showstopper, before everyone would come and eat.

“Me and Tayce,” Aurora’s voice cracked. “Well, we didn’t always get along. It’s a competition, and we all have our eyes on the prize, and that pressure of wanting to be the best got on top of us both at times.”

The silence was only broken by birdsong.

“But Tayce taught me that I do my best when I’m relaxed. When I’m loving what I’m doing. She taught me that my thoughts can be my own worst enemy, especially when I’m thinking about other people.” She paused, glancing back at her cue card, the words jumbling before her eyes. “And most of all she taught me that - that I ama great baker. That …”

The lump in her throat was back, the fear creeping up her windpipe to strangle her words. She shook her head defiantly.

“That I am more than capable, that I’m skilled, and that I’m … loveable. She held up a mirror for me. So I made one for her too. Thanks, Tayce.”

More polite laughter, followed by applause, as she indicated the mirror glaze cake.

Finally, she met Tayce’s eyes, and as soon as she did, her own burned with unshed tears, emotion swelling in her like a tidal wave.

But Tayce too, her lip quivered, not even noticing the others around her or their applause. She opened her mouth, and her lips moved, but only for Aurora.

“Love you, bitch.”

Aurora managed to mouth back to her while applause rang in the air.

“Love you, too.”

——

“Ellie’s gonna hate me for this,” Lawrence muttered into the microphone, and Aurora looked over at the crowd, Ellie already shaking with silent laughter with her hands over her mouth. “I made a spread for her. She probably wasn’t expecting it, it rains too much to ever have a picnic outside in Dundee, poor bitch has probably never seen the sun -“

“Lawrence,” Matt Lucas piped up, “just a reminder that this will air before the 9pm watershed.”

“So I can’t say bitch? Fuck’s sake!” Lawrence put her hands on her hips.

Aurora put a hand to her mouth to stop herself from making too much noise, but laughing this much was making tears stream down her face; and Veronica, sat next to her, leaned into her arm, also shaking, stuffing her fist into her mouth to silence herself.

“Anyway, I made all this pink stuff for Ellie. And not just because Team Scotland has to stick together,” she added, as Ellie whooped in the crowd, “but because she really has been the best friend I could have made here.”

Veronica let out a cough that sounded a great deal like ‘sexual tension’ and she and Aurora spluttered with laughter.

“And ignore the peanut gallery over there,” Lawrence motioned to Veronica without even looking. “Because first and foremost, Ellie has been a great friend to me. She sat with me when I was upset when I did something wrong, and she was the first to celebrate anything I got right - even if it was at her expense.”

“Aww,” Veronica murmured next to Aurora.

“I take everything really seriously. I take baking to heart. If I’m not good at something, it freaks me out, because I’m usedto being good at everything I try. Gifted kid syndrome, if you know you know.” Lawrence thumped her chest. “But Ellie just has fun with it all. She taught me that you can have fun with something without necessarily needing to be perfect at it. There isn’t a yardstick of quality to having fun. And even if I’m not good at something, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth the time.”

Ellie was now quiet, as the others turned to watch her, but she was only looking at Lawrence, oblivious to everyone around her as the grin on her face quivered with emotion.

“Ellie is fun. And I wanted to make something that would be fun, and also her. That’s why there’s a lot more pink than I’m used to,” Lawrence continued, motioning to the huge pink cake and the pink icing on the choux buns she’d made.

“When I was unsure of myself, Ellie reminded me of what I could do. But she also reminded me that I should be having fun. That’s the reason I made this for her. Because baking should be fun, and should be something you don’t take too seriously. And once I got that, I loved it.”

As everyone applauded again, Lawrence gave the crowd a thumbs up, pushing her hair out of her eyes, looking as if she wanted to get off the podium as fast as possible.

——

“Come on Veronica,” Aurora muttered under her breath.

Veronica looked very short, smaller than usual, even on the podium, the microphone somewhere at her forehead before she adjusted it to her mouth. She licked her lips; her eyes darted to the crowd, to Aurora and Lawrence sat separate to them all, to the judges, and then down to her note paper again.

“Well,” Veronica said for what felt like the fortieth time, another giggle escaping her lips. “Hello, everyone.”

“She’s bombing,” Lawrence muttered.

“She’s just too nervous,” Aurora nodded.

“Right. So. I made this spread for Tia, you know this now, because there’s a sign saying Tea or Coffee on it, I thought that was a nice - erm, a nice touch.”

“God.” Lawrence put a hand to her chest.

Aurora watched as Veronica took a deep breath, held it for a second, and let it out slowly, the silence only interrupted by birdsong.

“I - I’m a perfectionist. If it’s not perfect, I don’t want it. If something is out, even by ten grams, even by a centimetre, I just want to throw it out and never look at it again.”

Veronica repeated the deep breath, clenching the podium, her knuckles white.

“Me and Tia just clicked. We’re quite similar, me and her. We have the same humour, we like the same police dramas and murder mystery documentaries, we both like art and drawing and stuff -”

“Since when does Veronica like drawing?”

“You need to check her instagram page,” Lawrence muttered back, “it’s all artwork.”

“- but the one thing me and Tia didn’t have in common was baking. Tia’s an amazing baker. But something about that tent - as soon as she was in it, she kept making a mess of everything, she won’t mind my saying that; and I know she got really frustrated, but she never wanted to quit. She just always wanted to get better.”

Veronica was tearing up, it was evident even from this distance, her white knuckles shaking. Tia, in the crowd, squirmed for her, clutching Pip’s hand as Veronica fought to get some more words out.

“Tia taught me that it’s fine to make mistakes.”

Another long pause.

“Not that - I don’t mean that Tia is always making mistakes! She does a lot of stuff really great! But she taught me that being perfect is basically impossible. And that I can trust myself if something goes wrong, that I can trust myself to be able to fix it, and not just give up.”

Tia dabbed her eyes with her free hand, shuffling nearer to Pip, who had a hand on her own chest in sympathy.

“Because she doesn’t give up. She just wants to do better. And I love that about her. I wish I’d put less pressure on myself when I first got in there, trying to be perfect at everything, instead of trying to be my best, and getting better by making mistakes.”

Veronica finally seemed to be settling, the rare smile appearing.

“She showed me that making mistakes is fine, and it doesn’t mean I’m a failure, it means I’m a person. And she - her bakes were amazing, and lovely, and she’s such a genuine person that everyone in the tent fell in love with her. Well,” she paused, looking up, “I did.”

Tia’s jaw dropped as she clutched at her chest, leaning into Pip at her side, tears falling freely down her face now as the rest of them clapped, while Veronica’s smile widened, her own tears falling too.

“That’s so …” Aurora murmured, not realising she was holding Lawrence’s hand.

“… cheesy,” Lawrence muttered, but her voice had a crack in it.

——

Aurora’s nan got the first hug when she went over to her family. Her best friend Blake had the second, patting her heavily on the back.

“So which one is the one you made all the cake for then?” Her nan motioned to the crowd of contestants, who had been mostly all mingling together, now breaking off to sit with the crew and each other.

“Tayce is - oh, she’s here.”

Tayce, appearing from somewhere, plonked herself on the grass by the picnic blanket and helped herself to a sausage roll. “Oi oi, saveloy! Oh, these look nice! You put baked beans in them?” Tayce grinned. “You know me like the back of your hand, Rory!”

“Beans on toast was your go-to breakfast, wasn’t it?”

“Oh god, yeah,” Tayce nodded. “Breakfast of kings! The only breakfast! If I could have beans on toast for the rest of my life, I’d die happy. A bit flatulent, but happy.”

She looped her arm through Aurora’s waist, planting a kiss on her lips, before picking up a pastry, leaving Aurora floating just a little from the contact.

“So are you two dating now?” Blake asked, his eyes wide as saucers, hoping for gossip as usual.

Aurora met Tayce’s gaze; they hadn’t really discussed anything official yet. Tayce’s smile was strangely shy, and her eyes earnest, a thousand questions behind them; but as they both nodded simultaneously, it felt like they could work out the details a little bit later.

“Yep!” They both exclaimed at the same time.

Tayce reached down and grasped Aurora’s hand. “And you’re the first to hear about it - not the tabloids, not Hello magazine!”

“You’re not just putting it on for the cameras, are you?” Aurora’s nan teased, wagging her finger at the pair of them.

Tayce turned to glance at Aurora, the same thought passing between them both.

“No way,” they both said at the same time, to a snort of laughter from Blake.

There had been a time, not too long ago, that Aurora might have taken the question as a cue to overthink, overanalyse - but that thought didn’t even exist any more. Instead of being like ducks, kicking to stay on the surface, they now just floated effortlessly.

Aurora just squeezed Tayce’s hand.

Everything was falling into place.

——

“Taking into account your final bakes, and your performances throughout the series, we’ve made our final decision.”

Aurora’s left hand was numb; Lawrence was cutting off the circulation to it.

They all stood before the judges, filming the first of the three endings to keep the actual winner a secret from everyone. This would be Aurora’s win; they’d then film Lawrence’s and finally Veronica’s. For now, they all stood in line; Aurora at Lawrence’s right and Veronica at her left.

Prue held the cake stand, the Bake Off emblem engraved in the glass, all of them in a line waiting for the decision, while the crowd stood impatient, ready to put on a show to congratulate them all.

“You’re all incredible bakers, the best in the UK,” Prue continued from Paul’s speech, “and this was the most difficult season by a long way to judge. You’re all so skilled, imaginative, and clever, and I know you’ll all go on to amazing things after this is over.”

Lawrence’s hand was shaking in Aurora’s; and she could hear Veronica’s breathing on her other side.

This is it.

“The winner of the Great British Bake Off is …”

Complete silence.

Even the birdsong had waned in the background.

A silence that seemed to last an eternity.

Aurora watched Prue’s mouth, wondering when she would open it again, put them all out of their misery, Veronica’s breath audible through the silence and Lawrence’s hand sweating in hers and Aurora’s heart must be the loudest thing in the whole country right now at the rate it hammered her ribs -

——

EPILOGUE

October 2021

Tayce had had to let Aurora go for Blu to wield the camera at the three finalists on the smallest of the neverending number of sofas in Pip’s sister’s house. Lawrence in the middle of the three, all squashed together on what was really a two-person sofa, but they’d all linked arms and interlocked their fingers, staring at the screen, watching themselves.

“I’m never gonna get used to being on screen,” Tia mused, shaking her head. “I swear I don’t sound like that.”

“You do, you definitely do.”

But Tia was only half paying attention to Tayce’s words, her attention on Veronica, who was ignoring her, staring enraptured at the screen. Lawrence, on the other hand, kept glancing over to see Ellie, both of them doing that strange thing they did in filming yet again, just able to know when the other was looking over at them to make sure they were alright.

Tayce tried to relax, hands in her lap, but her chest fluttered every time she met Aurora’s gaze.

The finale had been Tayce’s favourite episode to watch, simply because she hadn’t been in it. The element of surprise was there as she watched it, although it was there for all of them, because there the finalists were, on the screen, still waiting for the winner to be announced.

It must be between Aurora and Lawrence. Veronica only has one badge; it probably won’t be her.

“The winner of the Great British Bake Off is …”

The painful zoom of the camera on everyone’s faces. Aurora’s nervous smile, pure yet heartbreaking. Lawrence looking at the sky to stop herself from crying, both her hands occupied by another finalist. Veronica, her stare intent with anticipation, chewing her bottom lip.

“Aurora!”

The room erupted.

Cheryl was jumping up and down, the first at the sofa to hug Aurora as she sat still as a statue, hands at her mouth and eyes agape in shock, as Lawrence pulled her tightly to herself, planting a delighted kiss in her hair.

“It’s you!” Veronica shrieked, shaking her knee, “it’s you! You won! You won the whole thing!”

And then everyone else streamed in to hug her. Pip was first - Pip was always the first to lay a comforting hand - Tia was close on her heels - Ginny’s hands looped round her neck from behind and their eyes crinkled in joy - but Aurora still sat frozen, only her rapid blinking suggesting anyone was home at all.

Tayce felt time stop again, but this time in a moment of perfection and not defeat.

The contest environment evaporated, she couldn’t fathom feeling anything but pure elation for Aurora’s win, couldn’t fathom having felt any other way for this wonderful woman who she was lucky enough to now call her girlfriend, sat with her hands at her mouth and silent tears coursing down her face as Blu pointed a camera at it.

“Aurora! It’s you! It’s you!” Blu was patting her knee while the rest of them excitedly hugged and squeezed at her. “Do you have any words for us right now, or is it a bit overwhelming?”

“It’s - what - I can’t believe it!”

Aurora’s phone was buzzing on the dining room table, undoubtedly hundreds of friends and family calling and texting and tagging her in Instagram posts and tweets, congratulations spilling over from every direction, an outpouring of love and support and adoration.

The programme was still running, footage of Prue and Paul giving their final summaries of Aurora, and the other two finalists - other contestants giving sound bites - Aurora’s finalist speech as her face was red with tears - the where are they now segment starting to play for all the contestants.

Pip back at her day job, giving the camera a thumbs up, followed by a snap of her with Ginny at Blackpool Tower and a video of them both on the Big One. Joe reliving that Instagram video again, and clips of Cherry, Ellie and Asttina all trying to recreate it too. Cherry back at the dog-grooming business she worked for, and walking her own dog. Asttina back at the gym, followed by a photo of her and Bimini on a boat on the Thames. Bimini at their laptop, followed by pictures of them holding the childrens’ book they’d written since the show. Ellie’s move to Glasgow, a clip of her dyeing Lawrence’s hair back to the bright purple it was now. Tia and Veronica somewhere in the Lake District, windswept but with smiles a mile wide.

But Tayce didn’t see or hear any of it. Aurora was the only thing she could see.

And as she stumbled towards Tayce, draping herself into her arms and laughing in delight, Tayce held her as tightly as she could, crushing her eyes shut but not stopping her own tears, her heart bursting for Aurora as she was privileged to share this moment of exhilarated happiness with her …

She’s already a Star Baker. She doesn’t need a badge or a title.

But she’s got both now! And hopefully she can know that she’s a Star Baker as much as we all do!

——

THE END

[themiscyra1983]

Cassandra’s Half-Assed Cuisine in Quarantine: Low and Slow Beef Stew Over Noodles

Good evening, cats and kittens, and welcome to the last of my recipes, at least for the time being. This one will perhaps be judged less harshly by the esteemed @docholligay, your friend and mine, as it does involve some actual proper cooking. I’m not saying no judgment. I am saying less.

As with my Hot and Horrific Chili Queso, I don’t have a specific provenance for this dish. It’s based on something my parents would make for me and my sister since our childhood, well before I can remember. The Lease family has roots all over the place, if by ‘the place’ you mean Europe. Most immediately, we are Swedish (via my grandmother, an immigrant), Scottish (via my great-grandmother, through whom I am linked to Clan MacGillivray, if only unofficially, as that was her maiden name), and Irish (via my grandfather; the less said about him the better, but I like Ireland even as I loathe that no-account bastard through the mists of time). Any part of our heritage could have inspired this simple, hearty meal, though more likely my parents found it on the back of a gravy packet or something and added it to our repertoire. Truth be told, a lot of our family recipes were things my parents initially found on a package, which then mutated over the years when they lost the original recipe; such is the case with our Chili Ole, an amalgam of ground beef, tomato paste, macaroni, beans and various spices. No idea what that dish was originally. No idea how to actually make it.

And, though I do know how to make this, I similarly have no idea where this actually came from.

But this was a special meal for us. Simple but time consuming, it was a bit infrequent in our family meal rotation, making it special for us. Today I make it strictly on special occasions, when I have a whole day to myself, as it involves the slow cooker and while I know the point is to just let the thing run, I don’t like leaving it completely unattended. So this is a Christmas and birthday kind of meal for me. And it was my dad’s specialty; since he now lives a thousand miles away, it’s not like he can make it for me.

Now, my dad doesn’t cook very much, and even less these days, it seems. His girlfriend was shocked to learn I thought highly of his gravy, but I do have fond memories of him making gravy for our Thanksgiving dinners and for this dish. He gave me the best instructions he could recall, but the truth is, I’ve never been able to make the stuff thicken the way I like - the way he could. So, because I can’t actually advise you on making gravy, and in the spirit of this being half-assed, I’m going to tell you to add premade gravy. But in the course of this recipe you’re going to end up with a by-product that could certainly be the basis of a gravy or a broth, so I’ll tell you how my dad said to make the gravy at the end, even though it doesn’t work for me.

But let’s start with the half-assed version. As I said: this is a time-consuming recipe, but also a simple one. It involves a few ingredients, a bunch of waiting, and then tasting and adjusting to taste as you finish it off. The most expensive part will be the steak. You can use stew beef if you prefer, but I actually found my experience using small, tender steaks much more satisfying. It was necessity inspiring invention when I couldn’t get stew beef but now I actually prefer it. You can also use onion powder instead of diced onion (in fact this is what my dad does), but I find the latter makes things more flavorful. If you want to use onion powder, I’d say add a couple tablespoons.

Here’s what you’ll need.

The Stew:

About 24 ounces worth of tender angus steaks

One small or about half a medium onion, freshly diced

Two tablespoons of garlic powder

Salt

Pepper

About 24 ounces of premade gravy (Heinz Savory Beef Gravy works for me)

The Noodles:

One 12-ounce package of egg noodles

One stick of butter or margarine (or four ounces for those of you who don’t get the stuff in quarter-pound sticks)

Cut the steaks into bite-sized chunks and place into your slow cooker or Instant Pot. Add the diced onion and garlic powder, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover this mixture with water - about 4 cups, enough to cover everything. Stir until you feel the ingredients have been distributed evenly. Put your slow cooker on low and leave to cook for eight hours.

After eight hours of cooking, remove the mixture from the slow cooker and drain, saving the water for other uses if desired. Put the drained mixture in a large saucepan and heat over low heat on your stovetop, adding the gravy and stirring often. Taste occasionally and add more garlic powder, onion powder, pepper and/or salt to taste.

In another pot, prepare the egg noodles as directed on the package, bringing enough water to cook them to a boil, adding the noodles, and stirring occasionally until tender. Once they’re ready, drain the noodles. Cut up the margarine or butter and add it to the pan, then return the noodles and stir thoroughly. Add a little olive oil as well if desired.

When the noodles are done and the beef stew is sufficiently hot, you’re ready to serve. I like to put the noodles in a bowl first, add some grated mozzarella on top, and then ladle the beef stew on top of that, adding salt and pepper if needed and to taste. You can also mix it all thoroughly and in fact this is sometimes what I do with leftovers (leaving out the cheese, which I add after reheating). The stew also goes well over potatoes as prepared in a variety of ways - mashed, boiled, those little red potatoes perfectly cooked, you name it.

This can easily make six servings or so, or four very hearty servings. I beg you to have a salad as well - I make a point of eating my greens. This is a lot of starch and protein and you should get some more veggies in there.

So What About the Gravy?

Again, I’ve never been able to make this work. Perhaps it’s the corn starch that’s giving me problems - my dad was diagnosed with celiac several years ago and stopped using flour. We could have noodles made from wheat (made in a separate pot, and tasted by the non-celiac folks in the house), but he had to taste the gravy to make it properly, so: gluten-free gravy. If you already know how to make gravy, you should use your process.

But this is what my dad told me.

You will need:

About two cups of water

About 3-4 heaping spoonfuls (my dad was not specific, I went with tablespoons) of corn starch (my family always used Argo brand)

Some Gravy Master, mainly for coloring - maybe about a teaspoon at most

When the stew mixture is done in the slow cooker, do NOT drain it off - add everything to the saucepan. In a separate vessel, mix the water, starch, and Gravy Master into a slurry, then add this to the pan as well. Stir everything together, heating over low heat, tasting occasionally. Add additional water if you find the gravy is getting too thick (spectacularly not a problem for me). As in the above process, add additional spices while cooking to taste.

Last Notes

To be honest, the “or margarine” up there is about my personal taste - it’s what I grew up with, as my family was often poor. We had butter, but used it sparingly, sticking with margarine for a lot of our cooking, including pasta. Butter tastes too...’buttery’ to me on pasta now. I use margarine (and I’m specific about the brands I like; I used to use Promise but after I started having trouble finding it I switched to Land O’ Lakes); you may very well prefer butter. I wouldn’t call either option exactly healthy.

In my dad’s version of the recipe - which uses stew beef and onion powder and involves his own gravy, as described above - he also browns the beef before adding it to the slow cooker, no more than about five or ten minutes in a frying pan over fairly low heat. I’ve never found this step necessary in my version of the recipe but you may like the effect.

...now I’m thinking about that Chili Ole my family used to make, whatever the hell that actually was before we got our grubby little hands on it. I’ll have to see if my dad remembers how we made that. But that’s all the ‘recipes’ I have for now; a LOT of what I eat otherwise boils down to ‘follow the directions on the package’ or ‘make a goddamned sandwich’ or ‘okay it’s a burger, cook a burger and slap it on a bun and top it with stuff’. If I think of anything else, well, my keyboard’s always ready to go.

For now, stay safe, stay healthy, and try to eat better than I do.

[brendamariesmith]

What TO Stock for An APOCALYPSE, PART THREE (Updated)

Right up there next to water, a top-priority post-apocalypse need will be FOOD.

  5.      THE FOOD you will need:

  Since most of us will be short on water, dried beans and other foods that require a lot of water for cooking may not work out too well. Dry beans also need a lot of cooking time, meaning more firewood or other fuel. Canned goods are a practical way to go (and most come with some liquid inside), though it would be hard to stock enough to last years. Plus, canned goods can get mighty unappetizing over time, and will eventually spoil.

  To survive well without getting malnourished, you’ll need protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and a little fat – the basic food groups, though meat and dairy aren’t essential. Unless you have your own well-guarded farm or hunting preserve, you can’t count on being able to eat meat. And if you’re growing your own food, in most cases you will get much more protein per acre by growing beans instead of animals. But chickens and milk goats can be very useful and will take up less space than other critters (though you’ll need to learn animal husbandry between now and the end of the modern world).

 Whole proteins are made up of eight essential amino acids. Most beans and nuts have seven of those acids, while most grains have only one. To get whole protein from beans or nuts, you need a companion grain to eat with them to make the protein complete. Think beans and rice, beans with tortillas, beans with cornbread, hummus with chips, peanut butter sandwiches (made with pancakes or biscuits cooked over an open fire).

  Soybeans have the full eight essential amino acids, but they take a lot of time and water to cook. My personal experience with them (which is extensive) is that they aren’t digestible unless they’ve been pressure-cooked for at least an hour, and pressure cookers can be dangerous and hard to come by. Soybean skins tend to plug up the vent holes. If the cooker isn’t removed from the fire immediately and the skin isn’t removed from the vent, the cooker could explode. People can get burned by the buildup of steam inside the cooker.

 Soybeans are a pain, BUT, if you need whole protein, they will provide it. The flavor is not the best, the texture can be off-putting, but they’re not bad in tortillas with salsa and fresh veggies. Once the beans are cooked, you can make decent patties out of them if you have anything to flavor them with. Some women, like me for instance, can’t eat soybeans when they’re pregnant, and soy allergies are serious issues for many. If you have a lot of water, you can make soybeans into soy milk and tofu. There’s also tempeh, the making of which is an artform.

   You can make milk out of lots of things these days: almonds, oats, rice, hemp (my fave). I don’t have a clue how to make these things, but I’m sure you can figure it out—if you get to googling while the internet still works.

In my novel, prepper Grandma Bea stocks barrels and bags of many kinds of beans, flours, oatmeal, rice, sugar, cooking oil, peanut butter, sugar, salt and pepper. She has cases of canned goods—mostly soup, chili, and stew—and cases of powdered milk and eggs.

 6.      GROWING FOOD

If you want to get serious about providing for long-term survival (or if you just want to live more sustainably), you will need to do more than stockpile food. You need to set yourself up with ways to grow it. Think garden beds full of rich soil, compost piles, bee hives for honey and pollination, fruit trees and vines, and ways to scare off the birds. And you need to stockpile seeds that suit your soil, drainage, and growing season, along with plenty of organic fertilizer and the tools and equipment to help it all grow. You’ll need to get creative about where and how to grow this food: in your suburban yard, inside in front of your windows, in pots and buckets and barrels, on rooftops and ledges, along fences, etc., etc.

     My main character, Bea, has fresh tomatoes, peppers, squash, greens, purple hull peas, and herbs growing in pots and in her garden. She has a second garden full of root veggies, and she has a bee hive installed in an exterior wall. A few neighbors have chickens. One family has some rabbits. When the neighbors finally get organized, Bea has plans for urban farming that involve building gardens and compost piles in yards and vacant lots, and later plowing up front yards for cornfields, and the neighborhood park to try growing winter wheat and other grains in the scorching Texas heat.

 7.      STORING & PRESERVIING FOOD

 In my novel, Bea has a root cellar full of root veggies: russet and sweet potatoes, carrots, garlic, and onions. Beets don’t grow so well in Texas as far as I know (meaning, I don’t actually know). Turnips are, well, turnips, but they last a long time in cool, dry storage. Parsnips, rutabagas, and Jerusalem artichokes are other good root veggies to grow and store.

Root cellars are awesome if you can keep them from filling with ground water. Being under the earth tends to keep the temperatures nice for storage of food with a long shelf-life, like root veggies and—for a lesser length of time—compact cabbages, pumpkins, and winter squash (butternut, acorn, etc.)

Though impractical when water is scarce, home canning is also a good way to store food. Many foods can be dried, which only requires water for cleaning before and after drying. Of course, you’ll need water to reconstitute most dried foods before you eat them, with dried fruit and jerky being the primary exception to this, and field corn, which can be ground into cornmeal.

On top of growing and preserving food, you also need to know how to preserve seed, since there will be no seed catalogues, no seed companies. The Seed Savers Exchange is one of many good resources for this: https://www.seedsavers.org/how-to-save-seeds.

Remember that you will also need biodiversity (more than one kind of seed for each veggie) to give you better odds that some types will survive a blight, fungus, or insect attack. And you need to protect your pollinators: bees, wasps, butterflies, etc. Know your bugs and learn to distinguish the helpful ones from the harmful ones. Crickets can be eaten (sorry, but you may need to know this someday).

  I could go on about food forever (I already have, lol), but going further would be beyond the scope of this blog. My advice is to get busy studying up.

If all else fails, you can follow the example of Mad Max in ROAD WARRIOR and chow down on yummy dog food.

   We may find ourselves eating this poor guy out of our backyard someday:

 To see how my unlikely apocalyptic hero, seventy-year-old Bea Crenshaw, shepherds her grandkids and neighbors through the aftermath of a solar pulse, check out IF DARKNESS TAKES US on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHN or order it from your favorite indie bookstore:

The sequel, IF THE LIGHT SHOULD COME, will be out June 2021 from SFK Press.

 STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE INSTALLMENTS OF “WHAT TO STOCK FOR AN APOCALYPSE.”

NEXT UP: SOLAR & WIND POWER

[lovemesomesurveys]

Have you ever had a computer virus before? Not with any of my Apple laptops, which I’ve been getting for over 10 years now. Prior to that, I did have a few issues with viruses. Not fun.

Are you dependent upon anyone? >> Of course. Everyone’s dependent on someone, even if only indirectly. <<< True. I’m also very dependent upon my family, especially my mom.

Are there any book characters you’d like to portray? Uh, I don’t want to portray any character. I’m definitely no actor.

Who did you last text? My dad.

Is there anything on your bed right now? Yeah, several pillows, my bedsheets, my throw blanket, a few stuffed animals, a coloring book, a couple sets of colored pencils, two little pencil sharpeners, a little notebook, a book, an Nintendo Switch, my laptop, my phone, the chargers for aforementioned electronics... lol my bed is also my desk since I spend majority of my time in bed.

When was the last time you went to the grocery store? Back in early March. Prior to this quarantine/lockdown, I went with my mom twice a month. Since all that began, she’s just been going. We’ve been using the online order thing. What way would you like to die when it’s your time? Peacefully.

What are you most afraid of in the world? Death, diseases, violence, losing loved ones... Have you ever been caving? No.

Do you do well in math related things? Noooo. Me and math never got along.

What is your favorite fruit? Bananas. 

If you had to choose, which sibling would you live with? My younger brother and I already live in the same house.

Do you have any tattoos? Nope.

Are you planning on getting any in the near future? No.

When was your last date? Four years ago.

When did you get Facebook? Sometime in 2008.

What was your first pet’s name? Buster.

Are you good when it comes to computer issues? Uhh, depends what the issue is. If it involves the hardware itself then no.

Are there any people at your job who absolutely hates you? No job.

What was the last book you read? Don’t Tell by Willow Rose. I’m just starting, The Girl and the Hunt by AJ Rivers, which is the 6th book in a series.

Have you ever read any books in one day? Yeah, several.

What was the last thing you bought? A couple shirts and masks from Young and Reckless. The masks are black and say, “Keep your distance.” The shirts are black and say that as well in tiny font on the upper right side and on the back it says, “Thank you for staying away” in big font. I got one for my mom as well because it seemed like the perfect shirt for her to wear to work lol.

What are your plans for tomorrow? Nothing out of the ordinary.

Is there any jewelry you wear constantly? Nope. 

Are your fingernails painted at the moment? Nope.

Do you prefer cool, warm or neutral colors? >> I like a variety of colours for different reasons. <<<

Have you ever taken art classes? Just an art history class in college.

What’s the most boring movie you’ve ever seen? Hmm. I’m blanking.  Do you know how to work a cash register? I’ve never used one.

Fact or fiction novels? I’m more of a fiction gal.

Have you ever suffered from depression? Yeah, it’s been an ongoing battle for as long as I can remember, but these past few years have most definitely been the worst. Depression won.

Do you think you’re a clingy person? I can be when it comes to my mom. 

Do you enjoy kisses on the cheek? Uhh depending on who it’s from.

Have you ever been in a physical fight before? No.

How often would you say you disagree with your parents? We definitely have our disagreements, but I don’t know how often I’d say they are. A lot of them are about the same things.

What color shirt did you wear yesterday? >> Black.

Do you have a job? If so, do you like it? Nope.

Have you ever been called a slut before? I’ve had friends say it as a joke.

What’s something you’ve been craving? A day at the beach. D:

Have you ever slept with your window open? Yeah.

Can you play violin? I took lessons in 4th grade, but I didn’t enjoy it. Just wasn’t my thing. I stuck it out for the whole year, though.

What was the last desert you had? Brownies.

Have you ever had a wild animal as a pet? No.

Do you know anyone you talk to on Facebook but won’t talk to in person? No.

What color are your mother’s eyes? Brown.

Do you have a best friend? If so, how long have you been best friends? All 30 years of my life.

Do you cry easily? Yeah. Somedays I’m just on the verge of tears all day and anything can set it off. 

Have you ever been into a court room? I think during a field trip in elementary school.

How many necklaces would you say you own? Hmm. Maybe five.

Do you plan on being strict towards your children? I plan on not having children. I’m going to be 31 soon and feel strongly about not having children and I just don’t see something super drastic happening that makes me change my mind. But I’d be even older if something drastic did happen, so probably not even then. I’m meant to have doggos. (:

Do you own any tie-dye shirts? Yeah, a few.

What would you say is your favorite day of the week? They’re all the same for me, really.

Do you ever wear lipstick? I haven’t in a long time.

Do you own a pool? Nope.

Do you have a Tumblr account? Never heard of it.

Would you say you’re overweight? No. I’m actually too underweight.

How many colors are in your hair? Well, it’s mostly red, but my roots are starting to grow out. It’s not too bad, yet.

Do you flirt with a lot of people? I’m not a flirtatious person in general. If I flirt, it’s with someone I’m interested in and have been talking to. I don’t flirt with everyone or with people I don’t know.

How many bank accounts do you have? Just one.

Have you ever been falsely accused of starting drama? Yes.

How old are you? 30.

Do you attend church regularly? Not physically, but a local church uploads their service every Sunday to watch or listen to and I’ve been watching that even before the lockdown/quarantine. Since then, they’ve been live streaming since they can’t meet in person.

Have you ever found a song that describes your whole life? There’s a lot of songs where the lyrics just speak to me as they say and I really relate to them.

What time did you wake up this morning? I haven’t gone to bed, yet, but I assume I’ll get up sometime between 1 and 3 since that’s how it’s been the past few months.

What time do you plan on waking up tomorrow morning? ^^^

What kind of car do you drive? I don’t drive.

What kind of car would you like to have? Not something I’ve given much thought.

Have you ever been to Dairy Queen? If so, what’s your favorite thing to eat from there? Not since I was a kid. I remember liking the blizzard things.

How old did you turn on your last birthday? This is just another way of asking how old I am, which you already asked me.

Ever felt like falling apart? Oh yes. I’ve felt like I’ve fallen apart and like I’m going to fall apart, just barely hanging on. I’m always just trying to keep it together. I’m like Humpty Dumpty who couldn’t quite be put back together again.

Have you ever been in an ambulance? Yes.

Do you tend to worry a lot? Yepppp.

How old were you when you lost your first tooth? Like 6, I think.

Do you remember your first time on the internet? It was when I was 9 or 10.

Which website do you email from? Yahoo.

Do you enjoy receiving souvenirs? Sure. I love getting them myself when on vacation and I’d certainly appreciate if someone brought me something from theirs.

Do you get angry with people easily? Not angry, but irritated and frustrated. 

Do a lot of people dislike you or is it the other way around? I feel like I’m just not even on the radar for most people.

Have you ever had the flu? Yes.

What about strep throat? Yes. It’s been a longggg time, though.

Have you ever been to a psychologist? No, but I need to.

What’s the worst part about school? For me it was that I just got so overwhelmed and stressed out so easily.

Do you normally have a lot of homework, if you’re still in school?

When was your last vacation? Back in early February. I can’t believe that even happened this year because quarantine/lockdown has felt like 84 years.

Would you ever consider going on a cruise? I’ve thought about it and they do sound fun, but... I don’t think I could.

What did you last buy from the store? A few Starbucks Doubleshot energy drinks.

Would you say you enjoy being single or in a relationship more? All I really know is being single, so I can’t really say for sure. I do miss being interested in someone and talking to someone in that way, though, and the very little experience I do have with dating. It’s best for me to be single, though.

Do you try to stay busy a lot? I spend my days with my usual go-to distractions. I wouldn’t call that keeping busy, though. I don’t feel like spending all day on various social media platforms, watching YouTube and TV, reading, playing Animal Crossing, and lounging is “busy” if that makes sense. I think of productivity when I think about keeping busy. To me the things I do are just distractions and things to pass the time. Just something to do, ya know? *shrug*

What’s your favorite quote? “Blah.” ha.

Do you lie a lot? I’d be lying if I said I never lie, but I’m not a pathological liar. 

Do you still act childish most of the time? I sure can be stubborn, moody, and whiny like one.

Did you ever enjoy gym class? Nope.

What is your biggest insecurity? I have a lot of insecurities. 

Have you ever painted a room alone? Nope. Or at all.

Speaking of which, when did you last paint your room? Never.

What’s for dinner tonight? I don’t know, it’s only 3 in the morning.

Do you ever drink alcohol? Nope.

Have you ever had a terrible hangover? Ugh, yes.

Do you ever get migraines? No, but I get terrible tension headaches.

Do you know how to garden? I don’t do any gardening. Not my thing.

What was the last thing you plugged into an outlet? The egg cooker thing to make hard boiled eggs.

Do people consider you to be a funny person? I have my moments.

Do you have any bad habits? Oh do I ever.

Do you like children? If not, why is this? Sure, in small doses. haha.

What is your favorite snack? Deviled eggs. Super random, but they make a delicious snack.

Do you own any gaming systems? I have a Nintendo Switch. I use my brother’s PS4 to access stuff like Netflix or watch DVDs in the living room.

How old were your parents when they had you? Early and mid 20s.

Is there a big age difference between you and the person you like? There’s no such person, currently.

Do you trashtalk people a lot? Nah, just myself.

What is the most amusing thing on the internet, in your opinion? TikTok has been pretty amusing.

Does the future excite you or scare you? It terrifies me.

Have you ever been to Disney World? If so, how many times have you been? No.

Do you try to spend a lot of time with family? I spend a lot of time with my immediate family. We’re very close, but we also live together so we’re able to do so. I don’t see my extended family very often, and not at all since the quarantine/lockdown.

How often do you shower? Every couple of days.

What would you say is your favorite genre of music? I like a variety of music.

Do you need to clean your bedroom? It could use a little straightening up.

What do you plan on doing with the rest of your life? I don’t know. I don’t want to keep going on like I have been the past few years... 

Do you enjoy Chinese food? I like some. I haven’t had any in quite awhile, though. I’ve actually been really wanting potstickers.

Do you smile a lot? *shrug* I give a lot of half smiles.

What is your favorite movie from the nineties? That’s tough. I love a lot about the 90s.

Which decade were you born in? The 80s, albeit halfway through the last year of the decade. 

Are you good at giving advice to people? I think I used to be. Not now.

How many huge secrets do you have? Wouldn’t you like to know? Maybe I have a lot. Maybe I have none. Like the Tootsie Pop owl says, “the world may never know.” Oooh, I’m so ~mysterious.

How many people know these secrets?

How many times a day do you brush your teeth? Once.

Do you ever floss? Once in awhile, but no not usually. 

Have you ever been in a long-term relationship? No.

Ever considered suicide? If so, did you try to commit suicide? Yes. No. Is there anyone out there who makes you feel completely useless? No, I do that to myself.

Do you like texting or calling people more? Text. I don’t like talking on the phone. I don’t a lot of texting either, though.

What’s your favorite band? Linkin Park will always be one of them.

Do you have a lot of friends? I don’t have any friends.

Have you ever painted something and been impressed by it? I don’t paint.

Would you rather go out to eat or stay in? Oh, I’m not going out to eat anywhere anytime soon. I don’t care if dine in is slowly becoming an option again. Things are starting to open up again in phases, but please don’t mistake that to mean we’re in the clear and it’s perfectly safe to do so. We’re still very much in the midst of this pandemic. Please don’t be lax about your outings or start going all over the place. 

When did you last babysit, if ever? Not since my brother and a couple of my cousins were kids. They’re all adults now. 

Do you have any younger siblings? Yep, just mentioned my younger brother.

Have you ever thought of someone as useless? I don’t think of others that way, just myself.

Have you ever considered bleaching your hair? Yes and I do.

Do you drink vitamin water? I was super into Vitamin Water back when I was in high school. I haven’t had any in quite a long time.

Do you ever straighten your hair? It’s been a few years since I’ve straightened it myself, but when I go to get my hair done the lady who does my hair straightens it.

What’s the best way to end a conversation? Uhhh it depends? 

Are there any old movies you absolutely love? Yeah, there’s several.

Have you ever had a Big Mac before? Many times. I’ll get a craving for one every now and then.

Do you think you attract the opposite sex at a reasonable rate? Haaaaa no, not at all.

Where is your favorite place to travel? Beachy places.

What is your goal for the next few months? Getting through the summer somehow. Next week we’re having a few triple digit weather days.... it’s not even summer, yet. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I can’t even escape to the beach this summer. D:

Can you count to ten in another language other than your own? Sí, en Español.

Do you own a lot of shoes? A few pairs.

What is your favorite season and why? Fall and winter. I just love everything about it--the cold weather, the holidays, the smells, the decor, and just the coziness of it.

Does photography interest you at all? >> Not really. I like looking at photographs other people have taken, though. <<< Yeah, it interests me in that way but I don’t have any interest in taking up photography myself.

Have you ever played on a sports team before? If you have, what was that sport and when? Nope.

Have you ever filed a lawsuit on someone? No.

Do you think you’re a good singer? Nope, I know I’m not. Doesn’t mean I don’t do it anyway at home to myself, though. 

Would you rather wear jeans or sweatpants? I’ve only been wearing leggings the past few years.

Do you think you have a good sense of style? I like what I wear, which is all that matters.

Do you enjoy reading often? Yes, I love reading.

Ever had food-poisoning before? Yes. Not fun.

Where did you last eat dinner at? We got Wingstop takeout last night if that counts. I haven’t physically been out to eat in months, though.

Have you ever shot a gun before? Yes, once. I went to a shooting range with friends and learned how to hold and shoot one. I don’t know what type it was exactly, but it was a small handheld. It actually made me quite anxious doing so and even just being in that environment, so yeah it was just that one time. 

[reevesdriver]

Florist

Word count: 2046.

Reader: Female reader.

Warning(s): None.

(AN: Sorry if this chapter seemed rushed towards the end. Also sorry that it’s been so damn long since I posted another chapter to florist, I swear the next few chapters are already in the making.)

Keanu woke the next morning to a wet feeling on his face, he pushed the intruder away and rubbed his eyes to see your Pitbull wagging his tail next to him. He sat up in the unfamiliar bed and soon remembered where he was and what had happened last night, he smiled to himself thinking how sweet it was for you to let him stay the night after he’d been thrown out of the hotel.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and pet the Pitbull next to him before standing up and grabbing his bag rooting through it for his clothes and toothbrush before attempting to find his way to the bathroom. The house was quiet and he assumed that you were still asleep since you had mentioned that it was your day off today, Keanu tried to be as quiet as he could when he hopped in the shower for a quick wash before getting dried and dressing before making the bed in the room.

As he left the bedroom he passed by a room that he assumed was yours since the Pitbull was scratching at the door to get in, he approached the door and contemplated waking you up before deciding to make you breakfast instead as a thank you for letting him stay.

“Come on Blue you can wake her up later.” He said patting his leg to get the dog to follow him.

Keanu moved down the stairs towards the kitchen trying his best not to make too much noise as he rummaged through the cupboards and drawers pulling out bits and pieces before making his way to the fridge. Blue scratched at the back door and Keanu opened it letting him out before shutting the door behind him as the bitter morning air hit his bare arms.

He smiled as he opened the fridge and saw that it was fully stocked with bits food on each shelf and he began to pull some things out placing them onto the counter before making himself a cup of coffee.

You woke to the smell of food cooking downstairs and slowly crawled out of bed stretching before heading into the bathroom to clean yourself up. You move downstairs in your pyjamas and see the food cooking in the kitchen but you can’t see Keanu anywhere until you look out of the back window and watch him throwing a ball for Blue.

You walk to the back door and slide it open causing Keanu to turn around and face you. “Sorry, was I being too loud?”

“No, I could smell food.” You smile and move to the side as Blue comes charging back into the house to jump up at you.

“Good morning Blue.” You say petting the dog on his head before turning to make yourself a cup of tea.

“I thought it would be a treat for you if I made you breakfast, as a thank you for letting me stay here.”

“That’s very sweet of you Keanu, thank you.”

Keanu turns to make breakfast as you sit at the kitchen table with your cup of coffee patting your legs so Blue can jump up onto you. Keanu watches the dog cuddling up to you and smiles at how natural this all is, him cooking the both of you breakfast whilst you pet the dog.

He feels his mind wander to more thoughts of the pair of you together and soon he has to shake the thoughts away when he feels the familiar tug of his heart, he’d barely known you a day and he was already starting to catch feelings for you.

You sip at your tea as you pet the hyperactive Pitbull on your lap trying your best not to spill the hot drink onto the dog who is looking between you and Keanu frantically wagging his tail. You watch how gracefully Keanu moves around the cooker as he makes eggs and bacon for you both and you can’t help but smile at how nice it feels having him stay with you.

Even though you’d never been a massive fan of Keanu you always took the time to watch a few of his movies here and there and to watch him go from a bad-ass hero in the movies to a relaxing casual family man in real life it made butterflies rise in your stomach.

“I hope these are good enough for you.” He says plating the food before walking them over to the table and placing one in front of you.

“I’m sure they will be.” You smile tapping your Pitbull on the head and motioning for him to go on the floor.

You take another sip of your tea before placing it onto the kitchen table and digging in to the lovely breakfast that Keanu has made. You watch in the corner of your eye as Keanu sneaks a piece of bacon underneath the table to give to Blue and you smile as he looks up and catches your eye.

“I always give him food too don’t worry about it.” You laugh and Keanu smiles at you before returning to his food.

Once you finished breakfast you sat back in the chair downing your tea since Keanu insisted on washing and drying all the plates and cutlery. You made yourself another cup of tea before turning to give your dog attention.

“You want some food now huh?” You ask in a soft voice opening the cupboard with all the dog food in and pulling out the small bag of dried food emptying it into his bowl.

“So, what do you normally do on your day off?” Keanu asks drying his hands on the tea-towel before hanging it up on the hook.

“Depends on how I feel, sometimes I sit and read, sometimes I watch a movie or if I’m in the mood for it then I’ll paint.”

“What do you paint?”

“Just flowers mostly, the occasional portrait every now and then when I feel motivated enough.”

“Can I see some of your work?”

“Uh...sure, if you really want to.” You mutter and Keanu nods following you out of the kitchen and into your ‘office’.

You motion over to the stack of paintings against the wall and Keanu makes his way over browsing through them all and smiling at each one. You never liked showing anyone your work but with Keanu it was different, it was if you knew you could trust him and no matter how bad the painting would be he would still find something positive about it.

“These are really beautiful.”

“Thank you, it means a lot to me to hear you say that.” You blush.

“Have you ever thought about selling them?”

“It’s never really crossed my mind, I don’t think anyone would be interested.”

“I’m interested.”

You almost choke on your tea. “You are?”

“Of course, I’d love to have one of them.”

“You can take one if you want.”

“I can pay for it.” He replies and you shake your head.

“You don’t need to pay me, consider it a gift, choose whichever one you want.” You smile.

The day slowly went by and you and Keanu seemed to talk about everything you could think of laughing and smiling as you both told one another stories of when you were younger. Keanu hangs onto every single word you say and you feel that you could talk forever and he could still listen.

You lost track of time talking to Keanu and it’s only when you look out of the window and see that the sun has set and it’s not pitch black outside that you realise just how long you’ve been talking for.

“Do you want to spend the night again? I’m working tomorrow but I’m sure I can trust you not to burn the house down.”

“I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“That would never happen Keanu, you can stay here as long as you like.”

“Thank you Y/N I really appreciate it.”

You moved into the kitchen with Keanu following right behind you as you prepared to make you both some food since you’d missed dinner hours ago.

“Anything you fancy?”

“Other than you? Nothing?” Keanu mumbles to himself and you blush hearing the words he didn’t mean to say out loud.

“What about pasta?” You ask rooting through the cupboards next to the fridge.

“Pasta sounds good, do you want me to feed Blue?”

“Yes please.”

You lean up and pull the ready-made sauce out of the cupboard followed by the packet of dried pasta. Keanu shakes the dried food container before emptying it into the bowl smiling as Blue comes running from the front room and into the kitchen almost knocking Keanu over as he falls into him to get to his food. As you begin to prepare the food you struggle to open the pasta packet and you can feel Keanu moving up to the side of you as his arm brushes yours.

“Do you want any help with that?”

“No, I can do it myself.” You pout as you tug on the bag along the marked seal.

“Let me.” He says taking the bag from your hands and rips it open.

“That’s not fair, you’ve got more muscle than me.”

“You’ve got pretty big muscles.” He smiles holding your upper arm and squeezing before breaking out into a laughing fit at your squishy arm.

“Don’t be mean.”

“If it makes you feel any better you can feel my muscles.”

You hesitate as your hand hovers over his large bicep and you try your best not to sequel as you feel his muscle between your hands. Keanu purposely tenses his arm to show off the large muscle to you as he watches your face change from happiness to what looks like pure bliss when you run your hands up and down his arm.

As you hold onto his arm you think about how easily he would be able to scoop you up into his embrace or how he could pick you up and hold you against the wall as he kisses you. Eventually your face falls as you shake the images out of your head trying to remember where you are and who you’re with but you don’t notice Keanus smile dropping as well as he watches you turn away from him.

After what felt like forever you finally finished making food. Keanu has already set the table and made drinks for the both of you as he patiently waits for you to bring the pasta over.

“I hope it’s alright.” You say sitting down and pushing the fork around the bowl.

Keanu takes a mouthful of pasta and sits back closing his eyes as he chews. “It’s incredible.”

“It’s literally from a jar Keanu.”

“You still cooked it perfectly though.”

You dig into your pasta and before you’re even half way through Keanu has already finished it and it filling the sink up with hot water as he watches the pans for you.

“Either you were really hungry or you actually really enjoyed it.”

“I really enjoyed it. You’re a great cook.”

“Thanks.” You empty the rest of your uneaten pasta into Blues food bowl and quickly wash up before making yourself and Keanu a hot drink.

After spending an hour or so in the front room with Keanu and your drinks you both decide to call it a night. You tap Blue on the head and motion for him to follow you as you let him out of the back door of the kitchen waiting for him to do his business before letting him back in and pointing to his dog bed which he reluctantly climbs in.

Keanu is already waiting for you at the top of the stairs as you turn off all the downstairs lights and move up rubbing your eyes as you realise just how tired you actually are.

“I don’t have to get up that early tomorrow but if my alarm wakes you up I’m sorry, I’ll try to be as quiet as I can.”

Keanu pulls you into his arms and gives you a hug followed by a quick peck on the head. “Goodnight Y/N.”

“Goodnight Keanu.”

(Tagged: @homesoutofhuman. If anyone would like to be tagged in this series then please let me know.)

[kunwiginjanu]

Crock pot sirloin tips. As you cook the sirloin tip roast in a Crock-Pot, the collagen between the muscle fibers breaks down, the meat reaches that "fall-apart" texture that slow-cooked beef The finished product of a slow cooker sirloin tip roast looks much like a traditional pot roast, particularly if you braise the cut of beef with. Beef sirloin is simmered in tomato sauce with mushrooms in the slow cooker. Serve with rice, mashed potatoes, or buttered egg noodles.

Beef tips can be cut from any section, but sirloin tips or tenderloin tips are usually labeled. Budget-friendly chuck stew beef may be used as well. Red wine is optional in this recipe.

Hey everyone, I hope you are having an incredible day today. Today, I'm gonna show you how to make a special dish, crock pot sirloin tips. One of my favorites food recipes. For mine, I am going to make it a bit unique. This is gonna smell and look delicious.

As you cook the sirloin tip roast in a Crock-Pot, the collagen between the muscle fibers breaks down, the meat reaches that "fall-apart" texture that slow-cooked beef The finished product of a slow cooker sirloin tip roast looks much like a traditional pot roast, particularly if you braise the cut of beef with. Beef sirloin is simmered in tomato sauce with mushrooms in the slow cooker. Serve with rice, mashed potatoes, or buttered egg noodles.

Crock pot sirloin tips is one of the most popular of recent trending meals in the world. It's appreciated by millions every day. It's easy, it is fast, it tastes delicious. They are nice and they look wonderful. Crock pot sirloin tips is something that I've loved my entire life.

To get started with this recipe, we must first prepare a few components. You can cook crock pot sirloin tips using 12 ingredients and 2 steps. Here is how you can achieve that.

The ingredients needed to make Crock pot sirloin tips:

{Prepare 1 1/2 lbs of sirloin steak tips.

{Make ready 1 of med yellow onion cut into strips.

{Take 1 of med green pepper cut into strips.

{Make ready 1 can of beef broth.

{Take 1/8-1/4 cup of worsteshire sauce.

{Make ready 1/2 tsp of dried thyme.

{Make ready of Black pepper to taste.

{Take of Optional.

{Make ready A few of shakes crushed red pepper.

{Get 2 tbs of corn starch.

{Make ready 2 tbs of cold water.

{Make ready 2 tbs of minced garlic.

Sirloin tip roast cooked in a slow cooker. Easy Crock Pot Slow Cooker Recipe~Beef Tri Tip Roast~Pot Roast Recipe. Crock Pot BBQ Sirloin Tip Steak over Mashed Potatoes - This recipe is hearty, filling and packed with flavor! BBQ Sirloin Tips over Mashed Potatoes is a set it and forget it crock pot meal!

Steps to make Crock pot sirloin tips:

In a large skillet, pour some olive oil down & brown beef on both sides (5-10min). Place onion and green pepper in a bottom of slow cooker. Top with beef. Combine broth, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, pepper, garlic if desired and pepper flakes; pour over beef. Cover and cook on high until meat reaches desired doneness and vegetables are crisp-tender, about 3.5-4 hours..

Optional: Remove beef and keep warm. Combine cornstarch and water until smooth; gradually stir into cooking juices. Cover and cook on high until slightly thickened, about 30 minutes. Return beef to the slow cooker; heat through..

Cut up sirloin tips into bite-size pieces. Serve over rice or egg noodles. Perfectly cooked Crock Pot pork loin roast wrapped in bacon and basted with sugar free BBQ sauce. Instant Pot Pork Sirloin Roast with Apple & Fennel • Bare Root Girl. Costco is running a great deal on pork this month and as part of a project to promote the National Pork Board I am posting one of my favorite recipes using my trusty crock pot and a Sirloin Tip Roast from Costco.

So that is going to wrap it up for this special food crock pot sirloin tips recipe. Thanks so much for your time. I am confident you will make this at home. There's gonna be interesting food at home recipes coming up. Remember to save this page on your browser, and share it to your loved ones, colleague and friends. Thanks again for reading. Go on get cooking!

[curutquit]

Rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables. Cooking rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken, and other savory vegetables and bamboo shoots. (Takikomi Gohan in Japanese). Traditional soy sauce fried rice uses animal fat (lard or chicken fat) Carefully taste the rice. Season lightly with sea salt if needed.

Worcestershire and soy sauces enliven creamed chicken with rice. You can make easy, natural Easter egg dyes using fruits, vegetables, and spices from your fridge and pantry. Reviews for: Photos of Soy Sauce Chicken and Rice.

Hello everybody, I hope you're having an amazing day today. Today, I'm gonna show you how to make a distinctive dish, rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables. It is one of my favorites food recipes. For mine, I will make it a little bit unique. This will be really delicious.

Rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables is one of the most popular of recent trending meals in the world. It is appreciated by millions daily. It's simple, it's quick, it tastes delicious. Rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables is something which I've loved my entire life. They're fine and they look wonderful.

Cooking rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken, and other savory vegetables and bamboo shoots. (Takikomi Gohan in Japanese). Traditional soy sauce fried rice uses animal fat (lard or chicken fat) Carefully taste the rice. Season lightly with sea salt if needed.

To get started with this recipe, we have to first prepare a few components. You can cook rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables using 14 ingredients and 11 steps. Here is how you can achieve that.

The ingredients needed to make Rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables:

{Take of rice.

{Make ready of shiitake mushroom(dry).

{Prepare of Hijiki(dry).

{Prepare of konjac.

{Make ready of burdock root.

{Take of aburaage (fried tofu).

{Make ready of carrot.

{Get of bamboo shoot.

{Prepare of chicken thigh.

{Prepare of ☆4 TBSP soy sauce.

{Make ready of ☆4 TBSP sake.

{Make ready of ☆4 TBSP mirin.

{Make ready of ☆2TBSP sugar.

{Take of ☆1 TBSP powdered konbu dashi.

Braised Chicken with Dark Soy Sauce and MushroomsRoti n Rice. sesame oil, cooking wine, chicken, sugar, garlic, mushroom, vegetable oil. Soy sauce fried rice is simple yet indulgent. It is a classic Chinese dish that uses minimal ingredients to create maximum flavor. Traditional soy sauce fried rice uses animal fat (lard or chicken fat) instead of oil to create the best taste.

Steps to make Rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables:

Rinse rice and soak in the water..

Soak shiitake in water until it’s soft, 15 minutes. After soften, slice them thinly. Keep the soaked water..

Soak hijiki in a small bowl until it’s soft, 15 minutes. Keep the soaked water..

Boil water in a small pot, put konjac to remove the smell. After boil, cut them into small pieces..

In a small bowl, put 1 tsp vinegar and 3 cups water. Shave burdock into the water with vinegar to avoid discoloration. Discard the water immediately after you finish shaving them all and replace with fresh water and rinse..

Cut carrot, bamboo shoot, aburaage..

Cut chicken into small bite size. In a large pan, drizzle large portion of oil and sauté chicken until it changes the color..

Add all the other vegetables into the pan and sauté for 3 minutes. Add all the ingredients of ☆ and cook for 3 minutes..

Strain the soup. Add reserved shiitake water and hijiki water into the soup..

In a rice cooker, put rice and the soup. Add water to make it to the 4 cup line..

Then add the cooked vegetables and chicken. Do not stir rice and vegetables here. Start the rice cooker👍.

However those animal fats are less commonly used in the US. Dice everything fairly small: That counts for both the chicken and the vegetables. Not only will they cook faster, but I also prefer having everything bite-sized in fried rice. Soy sauce can be poured over rice, but at the moment it is mainly found in East and South East Asia, although it seems that in these places it can be So it was possible to mix rice with soy sauce and eat the rice. This is usually how poor families ate.

So that's going to wrap it up for this exceptional food rice seasoned with soy sauce and boiled with chicken and savory vegetables recipe. Thank you very much for your time. I'm confident you can make this at home. There is gonna be interesting food at home recipes coming up. Don't forget to save this page on your browser, and share it to your loved ones, friends and colleague. Thank you for reading. Go on get cooking!

[ssportlive4]

Our Family's Oden Hot Pot Made With Delicious Broth. Oden is a one-pot dish, which is a little bit different from stew or hot pot. It's more like a simmered dish I usually make Oden a day before so that all the ingredients will absorb the delicious broth and it My family loves eating daikon in oden so I'm thinking of making it with mostly daikon since the. This is a fancier version of oden - Japanese fish cake stew made with slow cooker - with a richer, heartier broth made from a combination of oxtail and.

Put the dashi stock and all of the seasonings into an earthenware pot and. Our oden recipe will show you how to prepare Japanese cuisine's favourite seafood hot pot dish in simple, easy to follow steps. A hot pot dish made from various ingredients stewed together in dashi stock, oden is both.

Hello everybody, I hope you're having an incredible day today. Today, I will show you a way to prepare a distinctive dish, our family's oden hot pot made with delicious broth. One of my favorites food recipes. For mine, I'm gonna make it a bit tasty. This is gonna smell and look delicious.

Our Family's Oden Hot Pot Made With Delicious Broth is one of the most favored of current trending meals on earth. It is easy, it is quick, it tastes yummy. It's enjoyed by millions daily. They are nice and they look fantastic. Our Family's Oden Hot Pot Made With Delicious Broth is something which I have loved my whole life.

Oden is a one-pot dish, which is a little bit different from stew or hot pot. It's more like a simmered dish I usually make Oden a day before so that all the ingredients will absorb the delicious broth and it My family loves eating daikon in oden so I'm thinking of making it with mostly daikon since the. This is a fancier version of oden - Japanese fish cake stew made with slow cooker - with a richer, heartier broth made from a combination of oxtail and.

To begin with this recipe, we have to first prepare a few components. You can have our family's oden hot pot made with delicious broth using 7 ingredients and 14 steps. Here is how you can achieve it.

The ingredients needed to make Our Family's Oden Hot Pot Made With Delicious Broth:

{Prepare 300 grams of Beef tendons (or chicken wings).

{Prepare 4 of pieces each ★Daikon radish, taro root, eggs, konnyaku.

{Prepare 1 of prep by rinsing in boiling water Atsuage, fish cakes (burdock root, gyoza）.

{Take 800 ml of ※Dashi stock (kombu + bonito flakes).

{Get 400 ml of ※Cooking liquid from simmering the beef tendons (or chicken wings).

{Make ready 50 ml of each ☆ Sake, mirin, usukuchi soy sauce.

{Get 1 of tablespoon, 1/2 teaspoon ☆ Soy sauce, salt.

Oden is the quintessential Japanese one pot simmered dish consisting of daikon radish, konnyaku, and fish Mild and delicious Japanese Curry Rice made from scratch using curry powder, garam masala, tomato… It is a kind of hot pot or stew consisting mainly of daikon radish, konnyaku, and fish cakes. Oden has yet to really make its way out of Japan and into mainstream western cuisine, but it is a hearty and delicious hot pot meal very popular in Japan, especially during cold winter days. Oden originated from den-gaku, which was made by grilling tofu on skewers with miso paste poured over it. Oden is a Japanese hot pot dish in which ingredients are slowly simmered in a soy sauce based soup.

Steps to make Our Family's Oden Hot Pot Made With Delicious Broth:

Re-hydrate the kombu in plenty of water. If you're in a hurry, use hot water..

Round the edges of the daikon radish slices and make several crisscross incisions on the surfaces. Add several grains of rice to the water and cook the sliced daikon until tender..

Peel the taro root and rub with salt to remove the sliminess. Put in a saucepan with water and heat. Bring to a boil, then simmer until tender..

Boil the eggs and peel the shells..

Rub the konnyaku with salt and make incisions on the surface. Rinse the shirataki noodles in boiling water..

Put the beef tendons and 2 cups of water in a pressure cooker. Cook for 10 minutes after the pressure is on and leave to cool..

Pour hot water over the atsuage. Slice the burdock-filled fish cake diagonally..

Line the earthenware pot with kombu and combine the ★ ingredients and beef tendons with cooking liquid. Lay the kombu at the bottom of the pot..

Add the ※ ingredients, 1/4 cup each of the ☆ ingredients, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt..

After bringing to a boil, evaporate the alcohol content and skim off any scum. Cover with a lid and simmer slowly over low heat (45 minutes to 1 hour)..

Add the fish cakes and add more kombu based dashi. Cook for another 15-20 minutes. It might be better to add the atsuage a little earlier..

Check and adjust the seasoning if needed with light soy sauce or salt. Turn off the heat and leave to cool to let the ingredients absorb the flavour..

I added squid to the hot pot I made in 2010. It gave a great flavour to the soup with the beef tendons..

You'll be able to eat a lot of collagen if you add chicken wings. Add mirin or soy sauce to adjust the seasoning of the soup..

It's typically considered a winter dish in Japan and usually appears around September or October. Warm, filling and tasty, there are all kinds of oden experiences to be had. Hot pot is Chongqing's local culinary specialty. Tables in hotpot restaurants usually have a central pot where food Chinese hot pot is perfect for winter entertaining. The colorful array of meats, seafood, vegetables Bulgogi Jeongol Bulgogi Hot Pot made with Bulgogi, Tofu, Mushroom and Vegetables.

So that's going to wrap this up with this special food our family's oden hot pot made with delicious broth recipe. Thanks so much for reading. I'm sure that you will make this at home. There's gonna be interesting food in home recipes coming up. Remember to bookmark this page on your browser, and share it to your loved ones, colleague and friends. Thanks again for reading. Go on get cooking!

[juilojio753]

Easy Vegetable and Chicken Stew. This very simple chicken vegetable stew or sauce recipe is a great pair to rice, potatoes, yams, beans, bread, plantains and many more, your kids will love. In this video, I will show you how to make Chicken vegetable stew. This Chicken vegetable stew recipe though made with green leafy vegetables is different.

Chicken Vegetable Stew. this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines. Roast the vegetables in the oven before adding them to the stew. It's also an easy way to build complexity by concentrating the sugars, and deepening the flavors.

Hello everybody, it's Brad, welcome to my recipe site. Today, I'm gonna show you how to prepare a distinctive dish, easy vegetable and chicken stew. One of my favorites. For mine, I am going to make it a bit unique. This is gonna smell and look delicious.

This very simple chicken vegetable stew or sauce recipe is a great pair to rice, potatoes, yams, beans, bread, plantains and many more, your kids will love. In this video, I will show you how to make Chicken vegetable stew. This Chicken vegetable stew recipe though made with green leafy vegetables is different.

Easy Vegetable and Chicken Stew is one of the most popular of current trending meals in the world. It's simple, it is quick, it tastes delicious. It is appreciated by millions every day. Easy Vegetable and Chicken Stew is something which I've loved my entire life. They're fine and they look fantastic.

To begin with this particular recipe, we have to first prepare a few ingredients. You can cook easy vegetable and chicken stew using 19 ingredients and 25 steps. Here is how you can achieve that.

The ingredients needed to make Easy Vegetable and Chicken Stew:

{Get of Main Ingredients.

{Prepare of Chicken thigh.

{Take of Burdock root.

{Get of Carrot.

{Take of Lotus root.

{Get of pack Konnyaku.

{Take of Boiled bamboo shoots.

{Prepare of Taro (frozen).

{Prepare of optional Snow peas.

{Take of Meat Seasoning.

{Take of ●Soy sauce.

{Prepare of ●Cooking sake.

{Take of Flavoring Ingredients.

{Get of ◇Soy sauce.

{Prepare of ◇Cooking sake.

{Take of ◇Mirin.

{Take of ◇Sugar.

{Get of ◇Dashi stock granules.

{Get of ◇Dried shiitake mushrooms.

This stew is bursting with vegetables, chicken, and the kinds of warming flavors needed for the long, dark evenings of winter. This chicken stew recipe can be cooked in the slow cooker or baked in the oven. Use bone-in chicken pieces or make the stew with boneless chicken thighs. Cook the stew in the oven or cook it low and slow in a crockpot.

Steps to make Easy Vegetable and Chicken Stew:

(Ingredients) There are so many. It doesn't matter if you don't have enough! The point is in how they're prepared!.

(Meat Seasoning) Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces and add the seasoning! This is important! Rub the ● seasoning into the meat very well..

(A dirty burdock root is not scary!) It's easy if you use aluminum foil to scrub the burdock like this..

(Burdock root) Wash the burdock root well and cut into pieces with diagonal cuts. Soak in water to remove the harsh taste! Change the water occasionally!.

(Carrot) Since this was a nice carrot, just chop it up!.

(Lotus root) Since lotus root changes color easily, soak it in vinegar water! 1 tablespoon of vinegar + 300ml of water is a nice balance!.

(Konnyaku) Boil to get rid of the bad taste!.

(Give the konnyaku some shine) Once it has boiled, drain in a colander..

(Boiled Bamboo shoots) Cut like this! The white mealy parts actually contain the nutrient tyrosine, so don't cut it off!.

(Taro root) I used frozen ones this time. Thaw at room temperature..

(Snow peas) Remove the stems! Then cut in half diagonally!.

(The preparations are complete.) First the meat! Pan-fry in a frying pan with the skin side down on high heat..

Once the chicken is browned as shown in the photo, flip over..

Dump everything, including the oil, into the pot! This is where the flavor will get packed in..

(Pack in the flavor.) Turn the heat to medium. First add the ingredients that take longer to cook (burdock root, carrot, lotus root, konnyaku, bamboo) and coat with the oil rendered from the chicken..

Pour in enough water to barely cover the ingredients and bring to a boil. Don't forget to remove the scum!.

Once the scum has been removed to a certain extent, cover with a drop-lid! It's okay to only remove the scum that you can see! If you do too much, you'll take away the flavor~.

Wait for 10 minutes with the heat on low, then add the taro! Add all of the ◇ ingredients! Cook on low heat for 5 minutes!.

Add the snow peas and gently stir for 2-3 minutes..

Done! This is good served warm but it is also a delicious chilled stew!.

This excellent miso soup with pork and veggies, directly written down from a pro, is a must-see! You'll never betray this recipe!. https://ift.tt/3b5DLEg.

How about trying it together like this? Unique Soboro Chicken & Egg Rice Bowl!. https://ift.tt/3to1PIO.

The standard simmered dish! Somewhat unique kinpira! The point is the hidden flavor!. https://ift.tt/2PTxELX.

Hijiki Seaweed plus a special flavor.... https://ift.tt/3b3OS0g.

The representative for a healthy side dish! Simmered Okara!?. https://ift.tt/2PRp9Ro.

Click Play to See This Easy Chicken Stew Recipe Come Together. This easy Chicken Stew combines browned chicken thighs with onion, celery, carrots, potatoes, green beans and peas in a rich Slowly whisk in the chicken broth. Once whisked in add the vegetables and seasonings back in. Learn how to make Chicken-and-Vegetable Stew. For an easy supper that you can depend on, we picked out some of our tried-and-true favorites that have gotten us through even the busiest of days.

So that's going to wrap this up with this exceptional food easy vegetable and chicken stew recipe. Thanks so much for reading. I'm confident you will make this at home. There is gonna be interesting food in home recipes coming up. Remember to save this page on your browser, and share it to your family, friends and colleague. Thank you for reading. Go on get cooking!

[novoplata]

Starting over again.

The first step towards change is to acknowledge that change is needed. So, that’s exactly what I did two weeks ago. I haven’t been up on a bathroom scale in years and after one too many questions about whether I’m ‘okay��� -- meaning healthy and sane -- and my dad poking innocent fun at how I look like a butod (sago grub), I finally decided to get myself a new bathroom scale and measure myself.

What I found shocked me. Turned out, I’m now 25lbs heavier than what I weighed during my BJJ days. Over the past five years that I’ve ‘let myself go’, I didn’t realize that much has changed. I did notice that some clothes had become tighter, but instead of getting to the root of the problem immediately, I simply chucked those old, tight clothes away and carried on with my life.

Then, I realized that I’m finding it more and more difficult to catch my breath when I had to carry groceries up to my second-floor apartment. Subconsciously, I also began to avoid mirrors and conversations relating to exercise and healthy eating. That was until my colleague who is moderately overweight -- like me -- had to get medical treatments for multiple ailments last week. Like me, he’s just 36. Hardly old enough to be frequenting hospitals that much.

The sign was staring at me in the face, and I later came home from my dad’s house eager to make a change. I immediately contacted a Facebook contact who is offering online weight-loss coaching services and asked for a quote. The next day, I got my half-naked day 1 pictures (front, back and side) taken for her review and future progress comparison. It was the hardest and most embarrassing thing I’d had to do in a while, but it had to be done.

I downloaded MyFitnesspal -- an app that I’ve downloaded, uninstalled and redownloaded multiple times over the years -- and started tracking my meals. I bought myself a small rice cooker to cook my own brown rice for meal prep. I went grocery shopping for chicken breasts and vegetables and got rid of unhealthy foods I have in the fridge.

Yesterday, I finally invested in my own two sets of adjustable dumbbells. I’ve bought two pairs sometime ago but I’d left them at my dad’s house before I moved out and when I asked (to take them back), my dad said he’s using them too. Based on my trainer’s recommendations, I’ve also gotten myself a 4lb tub of protein supplement, and a crate of eggs. Phew!

I’ve done this before the first time I lost weight in 2011, but I’ve forgotten just how painful it is to start over again. Even more in pain is my body -- all muscles sore from two weight training sessions yesterday and the day before. I will remind myself the next time I intend to let myself go again that it’s not worth it. Starting over is not worth the pain, if you can afford not to.

I should’ve just carried on with the momentum. Continue with my fitness routine, continue eating well and taking care of myself. Then, I wouldn’t have to be here again.

I’m thankful that I’m still healthy. It’s mind numbing how my body can still have normal blood pressure and regular menstrual cycle at this weight. I also surprised myself by not throwing up after my first intense weight training session in a long time, two days ago. All these gave me a brand new appreciation for my body. My body is awesome. It is strong and obedient (I’m a mesomorph, so I gain and lose weight relatively easy), and it is sacred.

My body is a temple and I should treat it as such. My trainer told me that I won’t be entitled to a cheat meal until after two weeks of the program. I’m not complaining. After all, I’ve put so much crap into my body for the past years -- during the past three months of the MCO especially -- and it deserves to be treated and fed better.

Starting over sucks. It’s stressful and embarrasing and painful, but it has to be done. Nonetheless, weight gain and falling off the fitness bandwagon happens to the best of us. I will not bash myself for being human, yet strive to be better in the future.