#except there already is a hashtag lemon

[freckleslikestars]

When life hands you lemons... Make lemonade? No.

The Fall of the House of Usher

Murder in the Rue Morgue

[pinkjiminssi]

So.. About That Hickey..

I think I’m still processing all of this and reminding myself I’m not dreaming 🤣 I seriously only got 3 hours of sleep last night and when I woke up the first thing I did was check twitter to be sure this “drunk bridal-style spinning hickey neck biting proudly showing off” moment actually happened!! 

.. I hate the way my brain works though. I was so happy that it took me forever to fall asleep, spent all day on cloud 9 despite being tired, .. and then my old nemesis, anxiety, stepped in. Well kind of. TBH if all of the MOTS ON:E Jikook moments we got happened with Jimin/anyone else or Jungkook/anyone else.. I would seriously be sitting here saying “well fuck.. I believe they WERE a couple, but looking at all of this it seems they are no longer together.” So really, this just confirmed what I already knew about Jimin and Jungkook: they’re a couple. My anxiety is over.. why? Why show us this? If they can cover all of JK’s tattoos, a hickey/bite mark/whatever we’re calling it should be super easy to hide. Sure it was just rehearsal.. but it was rehearsal with cameras rolling with every intention of releasing what was being filmed as future content. It could have (and some might argue should have) been covered.

Guys... I’m confused. And concerned. ❗❗❗ TW for drama, hate, homophobia, the usual anti issues

That “official” explanation.. again.. why? I’m assuming Jimin and Jungkook were asked and allowed to explain because of the chance of it being spotted and armys freaking out, so BH (or possibly even Jikook) thought to get ahead of the speculation by just being up front about it all.. but THAT explanation? I suppose it works for covering up the army panic of “Jungkook has a girlfriend?! *insert fangirl sobbing*” .. but that’s literally all it does (and only barely if you go looking at some of the anti’s reactions to it all). Really, all it did was draw even more attention and speculation. I mean.. this is, essentially, what we were told: Jimin and Jungkook were together the night before drinking, apparently without the other members as they didn’t seem to know all of this already (and they would have if they had been there), somehow hanging out and having drinks turns into Jungkook picking Jimin up bridal style (random but some of the k-army reactions on twitter were translating through google into “princess style” and I just think that’s so cute 🥰), spinning ensues, Jimin gets dizzy and wants Jungkook to put him down, ... and so he proceeds to do the only logical thing that any of us would have done in that situation... biting Jungkook’s neck? And hard enough to leave a mark the next day?? And instead of being peeved about it (like most of us would have been if our friend bit the crap out of us), Jungkook looks happy?? proud even??? 

And they arrived together the next day and continue to be cute and playful? 

I just.. I mean.. come on. First of all.. that’s a hickey. A bite leaves teeth marks. And one would assume a wild, drunken “let me down” chomp would be something that happens suddenly and ends very quickly. I know I for sure would drop someone on their ass if they decided to take a bite out of my neck (assuming I was even picking up and spinning around with one of my friends like that to begin with.. but let’s not even get into why that was going on at this point) .. but the way this bruised? Yeah. There were no teeth involved (at least not hard enough to leave indentations) and this took more than a couple of seconds of mouth-to-neck contact to still be that visible the next day. So.. in short. Jungkook arrives with a hickey, JK decides to not cover it up (or he would have shown up with it hidden and we see him get out of the car that morning with it clearly visible), BH staff sees it and also decides to not have it covered up and actually have it explained... and the explanation is “oh yeah Jimin just bit him, you know.. no big deal hehehe isn’t that funny?” 🤯 WHAT?! Yeah.. that’s totally normal, platonic behavior between adults...

I’m not saying Jimin and Jungkook are lying btw. I have no doubt it played out more or less exactly as they said with the exception of what they’re calling the end result. Jimin and Jungkook are fine.. I mean, what were they supposed to say? They’re not going to show up saying Jimin was sucking on Jungkook’s neck the night before. We’ll probably never know why Jungkook decided to not cover it up before arriving, but it’s his body and he gets to decide. It’s BH that has me so puzzled. Other than antis and people who refuse to see what’s literally right in front of their faces when it comes to Jikook.. who were BH expecting to believe the bite thing? Just among staff and the other members, it’s a laughable but safe “oh of course *wink wink*” explanation that allows everyone to carry on like normal. But to the public who don’t know them personally, don’t know their usual behavior and patterns, and who don’t have something like a non-disclosure agreement or professional courtesy preventing them from openly speculating.. it doesn’t fly. Pretty much everyone teen and up knows what a hickey looks like (either from having gotten/given one or at least seeing one on someone else in person or online). It’s immediately obvious what it is. And even if there was some uncertainty.. that it’s on his neck (instead of other easily accessible and less sensitive/stimulating locations) and just so happens to be right near his mole as it Jimin were aiming for it? Just another “too many coincidences” thing when it comes to Jikook.

Even antis on twitter couldn’t deny what it was and, so, had to resort to the “well I do that with my sibling and my uncle’s pet raccoon all the time it’s just family things” excuse and/or the “yeah well someone ELSE in the group (or a girlfriend) gave him that and they’re just covering by saying it was Jimin.” Oh. And the same old “it’s just fan service” excuse (as if Jungkook would let someone bruise his neck for the purposes of fanservice which, again, BTS has never done or needed to do. Forever pissed off that so many in this fandom act like Jungkook is a puppet doing whatever the “evil company” tells him to do regardless of his personal feelings or boundaries. The man has tattoos covering nearly every inch of his arm despite that being looked down on in Korea. At this point he can do whatever the fuck he wants). So.. why?? Seriously, why? This all could have easily been avoided with simple makeup.

When they’re doing official content they’re all literally followed around by a flurry of staff fixing hair, dabbing sweat, touching up makeup, etc. Even though it was rehearsal, staff were everywhere in the footage that’s made its way online. If they were worried that it would be seen in the background and “taken the wrong way,” just have the staff occasionally touch up the makeup. “Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” But instead of doing the obvious, BH decides to: not cover it, draw attention to it by asking about it and letting them continue to talk about it, go out of their way to get a camera on it, and then include it in the final cut of the content they sent out?

BTS is literally the most popular group in the world right now and BH has become a behemoth of a company that runs like a well-oiled machine. They’re not stupid; this was not a mistake. For some reason they wanted us to see this and, one would assume based on the lack of a more believable explanation, they wanted us to come to the conclusion that we all have: Jimin gave Jungkook a hickey. You know they have teams dedicated to monitoring reactions to content on social media. You know they know the dialog surrounding Rosebowl, Black Swan MMA, the Memories 2020 “almost kiss,” etc. etc. All of this got “jikook,” “hickey” and variations of their names trending for HOURS (in multiple countries and worldwide). 

Out of curiosity, I decided to check the trends at the time of writing this. As of 3 AM CST (about 24 hours AFTER the clips started showing up online), there was still a hashtag trending related to all of this: #FREEJUNGKOOK.. and the tweets being directed toward BH are.. disturbing to say the least:

While I agree that the boys should trend more often based on their talents and music.. what’s going on right now is a homophobic 💩 show accusing BH of “scripting” interactions (rather than.. you know.. Jungkook interacting with whoever he wants however he wants.. the usual “mindless puppet JK” narrative), trying to coordinate the mass sending of angry emails, trying to get people to stop buying paid content, accusing BH of taking advantage of the members.. I mean it goes on and on. And BH know what’s going on right now. They’re seeing the reactions... the good and the extremely negative. And still they let this out. And this is all not even CONSIDERING the mountain of other moments that made the cut on MOTS ON:E. 

(side note, the above pic just oozes happiness and it’s so cute I love it!! 😭)

So.. even though I’ve said it dozens of times already... WHY? W H Y? I’m an anxious person by nature and not very trusting. I believe Jimin and Jungkook and I don’t think they’ve been lying and pretending for “fanservice” all of these years. I respect them both too much as individuals and artists to believe that they would stoop to such tactics just to generate a little more “interest” and revenue. I’m suspicious of BH. BTS doesn’t need fanservice to get attention; literally all of 2020 and 2021 so far has proven that beyond a doubt. Even if they suddenly made the decision to do fs.. why not go with the most popular ship (taekook) or at least one that isn’t so hotly debated on social media (remove Jimin, Jungkook and Tae from the equation and you still have four members to “play” with who have much less potential to have fs devolve into a toxic crap show all over the internet). Showing us this will do nothing to help BTS as a group or Jimin and Jungkook at this point. In fact.. all it can do is hurt. Hurt BH, hurt the group, and hurt the individual members, heck.. even potentially hurt other BH/HYBE groups. I’ve already seen people on twitter saying they’re “done” spending money on anything BH or BTS puts out because they’re “sick of jikook in their faces and just two of the seven hogging all of the screen time.” Whether or not that “spending freeze” actually materializes into anything noticeable remains to be seen of course.. but the threat is there and always has been. What is the motive? And why now? As much as my “hopeless romantic” heart would like to believe they’re preparing us for Jikook to be “out” .. I seriously don’t think that is ever going to happen. Certainly not now at the height of the group’s fame, with them being given Presidential honors and ambassador status, and with military service still looming over them all. And let’s not forget... Korea is NOT a safe place for a queer couple. Letting us see and know what they did through what was released has the potential to put Jimin and Jungkook (and the other members by proxy) in danger. Sure.. BTS has never been hardline rule followers and have been breaking molds and shattering norms from the start, so “officially” having an openly gay couple in the group wouldn’t be impossible.. just... highly highly improbable. Especially right now... and I’m concerned. I don’t want to sound like the creeps I posted a screenshot of above throwing blame at the company. The boys chose to renew their contracts with the for a reason so we have to trust their judgement as a group... but still, I’m worried and I’m questioning what the purpose was here. 

[ef-1]

hello dearie,

hope you were able to get some sleep. stressing over sports is giving . . . remnant’s of animal tata leakage. and we now have alternatives, like pistachio apparently! joy of joys!

pivoting, your bio has LLB and that was confusing so i hashtag googled it. and here is what i found from scouring the inter webs

Looks Like Book from r/LodedDiper

Lemon Lime and Bitters

Lazy Lesbian Bitch

Bachelor of Law

Laughed a Little Bit

Look Like Busy

please let me know which one it’s supposed to be. i’ve been marinating on this for a little too long.

hugs!

vanon!

Dear Vanon,

I stand before you ready to disappoint once more. I wish it were a loaded diaper but it's a lot worse...

bachelor of laws🤢

I should probably edit my bio, ef-1.com was a psuedo studyblr at some point but even post purging my blog of study content, I've yet to remove it. It's that weird unshakeable, encompassing parasitism of Law.

Even rivals are warmed by the fires of the same fraternity.

A pleasure to have you pass by as always.

As for your second ask, if you must know, you've already cha-cha slid your way into my heart and my messages are not an exception. you would be welcomed with open arms ♡

[smutember]

The prompts for Smutember 2020 have arrived!

There they are! Ready to make 2020 a bit smuttier. As you probably have noticed, at least some prompts above are related to the Miraculous fandom, from which Smutember (AFAIK) originated, but as I’ve mentioned before - this event is most certainly a cross-fandom one, so don’t be discouraged. Anything can be smuttified, rule34 applies. Oh, and speaking of rules:

Rules

All posts have to be tagged with either smutember or smutember2020 hashtag (preferably both). Be aware that ns fw tag is shadowed, and posts with it are not visible in the tags. I personally suggest the revived old lemon tag. it wouldn’t hurt to @ this blog, so that your post won’t be missed, especially if your blog is new and still not shown in the tag.

No minor/underage content.

All submissions have to be at least somewhat smutty/naughty. We don’t require hard Explcit rating, a Mature one is fine too.

If you are planning on posting suggestive pics/drawings, remember that tumblr still has the ridiculous p0rn filter, so I suggest cropping the pic and adding links to external sites.

If your work contain kinks that may offend some, please tag them either in the tags, or in the body of the work.

Prompts are merely suggestions - at the end of the day, you are the one who chooses how to interpret the prompt. You can also completely ignore the prompts and have your own 30-day challenge, we’re not gonna call the internet police on you.

And in case they weren’t clear, here is a list of prompts with explanations and some propositions:

1. Dirty Talk - Let’s start with some naughty words~. Possible prompts: dirty talk, sexting, writic erotic fics for each other, etc. 2. Foreplay - Self-explanatory: anything related to the heat before the main event. Kissing, petting, grinding against each other, body worship, etc. 3. Striptease - The fun is not just in the destination, but also the journey… of removing clothes. Lap dances, pole dancing, striptease, erotic lingerie, etc. 4. Oral - French love for the win! Blowjobs, cunnilingus, deepthroat, 69, swallowing, rimming - anything related to making love with your mouth and tongue. 5. First Time - It’s supposed to be magical, it’s usually awkward, so let’s make it magical again. First intercourse, first time trying something new, first time in a specific place, etc. There are lots of possible “firsts” 6. Swap! - Switching places is fun. But how about switching roles, or bodies? Possible kinks include: bodyswap, dom/sub swap, or maybe crossdressing/clothes swap. 7. Sweet Treats - Fresh from the bakery, but reheated in microwave counts too. General food play, sex in kitchen/restaurant, etc. 8. Long Distance - Sometimes you can’t be in the same room, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. Prompt includes: sexting, spicy letters, sex through phone/webcams, but also telepathic/portal sex, etc. 9. Fantasy - We all have them, and it turns out our characters have them as well. Prompt includes: dreams, daydreams, acting out a fantasy, but also possible incorporation of AUs. 10. Masturbation - Sometimes you gotta take matters into your own hands… literally. Prompt Includes: masturbation, single or mutual.   11. Costumes - Naked bodies are fun and all, but the real pleasure is imagining what hides underneath fancy clothing. Prompt includes: sex in costumes/fancy clothing, crossdressing and anything related to that. 12. The Morning After - You wake up and the memories of the previous night start flooding in… Morning after intercourse/performing specific kinks for the first time, etc. 13. Messy - There’s a reason you should be keeping a box of tissues on a night stand. Cumshots, facials, bukakke, creampies, but also body paint or messy food play. Anything related to the messier aspect of sex. 14. Moonlight - The most romantic of times, especially when the Moon is enormous on the sky. Sex at night, in the moonlight, late night cuddles. 15. Naked Photo Shoot - Opportunity is right there: a naked model, and an artist, starving for… well, some art in this case. Prompts may include: nude photography, drawing acts, nudism, being filmed, making erotic videos, etc. 16. Caught in the Act - GASPEST OF GASPS. They have found us! But what were you doing? Kissing, groping, having sex…? Or have they caught you moments before/after the main event…? 17. Roleplay - We like to imagine our characters doing new stuff, but turns out they have minds and ideas of their own. Prompt includes: roleplaying, acting any scenarios and anything related to that. 18. Teeth and Claw Marks - We have those to make sure out partners won’t forget the nights… Biting, scratching, leaving hickeys, marking partner, blood play (remember to tag), etc. 19. Yo-yo and The Baton - Toys galore! And they are not for kids. All the usage of sex toys, or mundane objects that suddenly become deeply erotic with some creativity. 20. Adrenaline Rush - So, your hearts are pumping and you are out of breath… Perfect moment for sex, right? Includes: sex after workout/exercise/fight/adventure, glad-to-be-alive sex, but also sex in dangerous place, on a risky day, etc. 21. The Water is Just Fine - So let’s jump right in! Sex in a bath tub/hot springs/shower, beach date, skinny dipping, underwater sex or maybe even some shenanigans involving those who live in the depths of the sea… 22. Who Watches the Watchmen? - Peeping Toms, that’s who. Voyeurism, exhibitionism, sex in public/indecent places, anything related to sex in places where one can be seen, either accidentally or deliberately, nudism, etc. 23. Clothes Stay On - Either because we don’t have time to disrobe, or maybe it’s sexier that way. 24. You can touch, but you can’t look - Anything related to sensory deprivation - blindfolds, sex in the dark, etc,. 25. Three isn’t a crowd - It’s only a beginning. Orgy galore! Have an OTP? Turn it into OT3 for a night. Already have an OT3? OT4 then! And generally, for any OTn, have an OTm, for m>n… Threesomes, moresomes, orgy, multiple partners, double/triple/multiple penetration. The more the merrier. 26. Heat - Love is in the air…! Quite literally sometimes. Prompt includes: Animalistic tendencies, sex pollen, ABO, heat/mating seasons. 27. Try Everything - You gotta stay open minded and do something more than missionary of cowgirl… new positions, new kinks, or just anything new that would spice up the night life. 28. 1+1=3 - Just like we enjoy making OCs, so does out OTPs… Except for real. Pregnancy, pregnant sex, impregnation, accidental or deliberate, breeding, mating, as kink or for real - anything related to securing the future goes here. 29. Ecstasy - Ever wanted to write a scene where earth shakes upon having an orgasm? This prompt is for you. Prompt includes: passionate/exhaustive sex, sex marathon, explosive/multiple orgasms, etc. 30. Free day - Didn’t enjoy the prompts? Or have you enjoyed them too much and have more ideas? Use this as a wildcard to express your creativity. Anything goes here, as long as you tag it. Thanks to @noblesnook, @thatguywiththefaceog, billythesquid and several anons for sending prompts propositions!

Also, here’s a list of prompts people submitted:

blindfolds, skinny dipping, bodyswap, double penetration, rimjob, facials, titjob striptease/lapdance, hot tub, crossdressing, food Breeding or M/M/F voyeur, exhibitionism, pregnant Beach, Moonlight morning or evening cuddles partner swap, live show Body worship, Lazy Morning sex, exhibitionism body paint “I walked in on you by accident but you didn’t notice, how do I act normal from now on? ” Workout/Exercise favorite position being filmed bet glory hole nudism

[cyncity2000]

73 questions tag! tysm @goodlesson , can’t say i’ve ever had anything like this before but hey it’s not like I have anything better to do rn 😅 

answers under the cut! i tag @rene-royale @teenager-confused-tired @sawafilmtoday @onedoesnotsimplystormthebastille if you feel like it, but no pressure bc this is a LOT and took me a couple days to finish lol

on a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now? um. could be worse, could be better?? so 5. 

describe yourself in a hashtag? no. twitter and all its shitty hashtags can go to hell.

if you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be? weird question. nobody?? i wouldn’t want to??

if your life was a musical, what would the marquee say? not to be all dan smith on main but like...’come to this please’

what’s one thing people don’t know about you? uhhhh idk. i’m very open about most aspects of my personality i’d say

what’s your wake up ritual? stay in bed as long as possible and then YEET at maximum speed so i don’t waste the day

what’s your go to bed ritual? tell myself i should go to bed. pick up my phone instead. regret it in the morning.

what’s your favorite time of day? 2pm or 9-10pm 

your go to for having a good laugh? macdoesit or drawfee videos on youtube. truly the best.

dream country to visit? i wanna go back to england and france, also i’d love to visit literally anywhere i could

what’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever had? falling in love with my college roommate probably,, didn’t see THAT coming

heels or flats/sneakers? bitch i’m 5′10″ with size 12.5 feet. converse.

vintage or new? vintage looks cool. i am not cool. so new.

who do you want to write your obituary? idk man i don’t wanna think about that now???

style icon? if you knew me irl you’d know style is not a word in my vocabulary

what are three things you cannot live without? my cat, my friends/gf, and my cd collection 

what’s one ingredient you put in everything? i do not bake or cook, the real world is going to kill me immediately

what 3 people living or dead would you want to make dinner for? i’d be too stressed to make food for people but i’d love to like. go OUT for dinner with...dodie, dallon weekes, and pj liguori. they’re all just cool people i follow and i wanna know what they’re LIKE. 

what’s your biggest fear in life? failure due to lack of confidence, motivation and direction in life :)))

window or aisle seat? i’d say window but i am long boi so aisle is usually nicer unless i trip someone by accident

what’s your current tv obsession? still supernatural, also brooklyn 99

favorite app? tumblr :D

secret talent? despite my crippling procrastination issues i’ve almost always been a straight-A student 🤷��♀️

most adventurous thing you’ve ever done in your life? drove myself two hours to a concert in february, or maybe the time i did a really hard ropes course or went to the badlands?

how would you define yourself in three words? introverted, distracted, nerdy

favorite piece of clothing you own? maybe my waterparks sweatshirt bc i had a dream last night that i donated it and then went back to the store to buy it back lmao so subconsciously i must really like it

a must have clothing item that everyone should have? you gotta have that one pair of black jeans that goes with anything imo

a superpower you would want? flying. it’s the only recurring dream i’ve ever had and it’s my only answer ever

what’s inspiring you in life right now? all the people doing big or little things to help. the ones doing instagram lives or sending money or supplies to people in need or just giving me more faith in humanity

best piece of advice you’ve received? can’t remember any. why doesn’t anyone give me good advice

best advice you’d give your teenage self? do your laundry on time. don’t wear...whatever that was to school. just wash ur fuckin clothes. also don’t let it bother you that you’re single the whole time. you’ll get there.

a book everyone should read? they both die at the end by adam silvera. you WILL cry. but you will love it. 

what would you like to be remembered for? i have no idea. being a non-shitty person at least.

how do you define beauty? happiness.

what do you love most about your body? idk being tall is kinda nice

best way to take a rest/decompress? get a blanket. comfy clothes. my cat. put headphones on. put some music on or watch youtube.

favorite place to view art? on tumblr and instagram! i follow soo many wonderful artists it’s great

if your life was a song, what would the title be? Oh No (What Is She Doing Now?)

if you could master one instrument, what would it be? piano or guitar. i suck at both and if i could be good at ONE i’d be happy

if you had a tattoo, where would it be? been thinking about this tbh. somewhere on my arm definitely but idk where D:

dolphins or koalas? dolphins!!

what’s your spirit animal? a cat?

best gift you’ve ever received? for christmas my sister bought me a cute lil box meant for displaying concert tickets and it was the most thoughtful thing ever. also the AMAZING studio headphones i’m currently using that my mom got me like three years ago for christmas

best gift you’ve given? probably when i bought me and my best friend tickets to see the Sherlock S4 finale in a movie theater 

what’s your favorite board game? cards against humanity, one night ultimate werewolf/alien, settlers of catan

what’s your favorite color? porpleee 💜

least favorite color? hmm they’re all valid except for like. puke green.

diamond or pearls? neither lol

drugstore makeup or designer? neither 😜

blow-dry or air-dry? blow-dry but i never do bc it takes y e a r s

pilates or yoga? yoga!

coffee or tea? both but only hot tea or frozen coffee 

what’s the weirdest word in the english language? thanks to tumblr the word ‘defenestrate’ has entered my vocabulary and I do not regret it

dark chocolate or milk chocolate? either. chocolate is chocolate 🍫

stairs or elevators? tbh stairs, i’m just a lazy bitch

summer or winter? winter. cold > hot

you are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat? i’d still get tired of it :( i need that variety!!

a dessert you don’t like? none. dessert is dessert and it is all valid if i can eat it

a skill you’re working on mastering? writing, working from home, playing the guitar

best thing to happen to you today? currently watching mike gross play old brobecks tunes :’) he also just saw my comment yay

worst thing to happen to you today? i had cheesecake for lunch. sounds good but it’s the only thing i’ve had today besides a piece of chocolate and my body is Not Happy

best compliment you’ve ever received? someone on fanfiction dot net once left me a comment saying they’d almost cried at my story and called me “a true writer” and it’s honestly one of the only thing that keeps me writing...i’m still mad they weren’t signed in so I’ll never be able to thank them for it.

favorite smell? lemon, cookies, fresh-cut grass

hugs or kisses? hugs!!

if you made a documentary, would it be about? somethin gay probably

last piece of content you consumed that made you cry? honestly...probably “who the fuck is keith” fjadskljfd

lipstick or lipgloss? like peyton said chapstick is the only valid answer

sweet or savory? depends how i’m feelin, love both

girl crush? besides the obvious one (my girlfriend), honestly not many? there’s this one girl i follow on insta who’s big in the panic! fandom and jESUS SHE’S SO PRETTY. also the girl who plays kaia in supernatural is CUUUTE

how do you know you’re in love? has only happened to me once but for me...i already loved her platonically for months and then suddenly one day i was like oh. why am i getting the urge to kiss you rn. oh no.

a song you can listen to on repeat? anything by idkhow or bastille. never gets old.

if you could switch lives with someone for a day, who would it be? not to copy peyton but i would love to know what goes on inside my cat’s head

what are you most excited for about this time in your life? next semester of college!! i got into a super-competitive dorm and i’m gonna have my own room and live with nine other people and gahh i’m just so excited to be chaotic with all my friends again and meet new people :’)

[familycuisinee]

Kebab Shop Garlic Sauce | Family Cuisine

Kebab Shop Garlic Sauce <p>This Kebab Shop Garlic Sauce is easy to make with just <strong>7 ingredients</strong> in <strong>two easy steps</strong>, and tastes just like your favorite <strong>kebab shop’s garlic sauce</strong>! It’s wonderfully <strong>creamy</strong> with a slight <strong>hint of tang</strong>, and is <strong>delicious in kebabs</strong>, on salads, with grilled meat, and as a dip!</p> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3kR0g3G" alt="" /></figure> <p>Have you ever wondered how to make the addictive and delicious creamy garlic sauce that they use in kebab shops?</p> <p>Good news! I have an easy recipe for that garlic sauce today, so you can make and enjoy it anytime at home!</p> <p>This recipe was inspired by the garlic sauce at my favorite and the BEST kebab shop (in my honest and humble opinion) in Hong Kong - 27 Kebab House. After years of relishing (read: inhaling) their sauce and asking for EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA sauce in my chicken shish rolls, doner meat kebabs, and doner meat and salad boxes, I decided it was time to make it at home so that I could douse everything in it. </p> <p>This garlic sauce is wonderfully creamy with a mayonnaise and Greek style yogurt base. It also has lovely garlicky notes, and is seasoned with a sprinkling of a Middle Eastern spice blend called za’atar (more about it below).</p> <p>Once you make this sauce, you’re going to be making it over and over again because it’s SO GOOD on and with everything! 😋</p> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3h6me1O" alt="Chicken Shish on tortilla with lettuce, onion, cherry tomatoes, and sauces." /></figure> <h2>Why This Recipe Works</h2> <ul><li>You only need <strong>7 ingredients</strong> and <strong>5 minutes</strong> to make this garlic sauce in <strong>2 easy steps</strong>!</li><li>It’s made with <strong>mostly everyday ingredients</strong>. You’ll most likely only have to pick up the za’atar if you don’t have it on hand.</li><li>It’s <strong>wonderfully creamy</strong> thanks to using a combination of mayonnaise and Greek style yogurt - not one or the other.</li><li>It’s versatile because <strong>you can use this sauce in many ways</strong>. It tastes great in kebabs, but also makes a spectacular salad dressing, dip for french fries or chips, on pizzas, sauce for grilled meats and fish…the options are limitless!</li><li>It’ll keep for a few days in the fridge, and <strong>can be made ahead</strong>.</li></ul> <h2>Ingredients</h2> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3n6caJL" alt="Labeled ingredients for Kebab Shop Garlic Sauce on wooden board." /></figure> <ul><li><strong>Garlic:</strong> I used three fat cloves. I personally like a strong garlicky flavor in my kebab garlic sauce, but see below for tips on how to make garlic milder if you’d like this sauce to have less of a garlic bite to it.</li><li><strong>Mayonnaise:</strong> I use Kraft’s full-fat mayonnaise in my home, but any brand will work. Coincidently, I spotted a few gallon sized bottles of Kraft mayonnaise at my favorite Turkish kebab shop. I highly recommend Kraft Real Mayo to make this garlic sauce because it’s less egg-y tasting than some other brands, and has the perfect amount of creaminess.</li><li><strong>Plain Greek Style Yogurt:</strong> Or use plain yogurt. Don’t use Greek yogurt though - it’s thicker and less fluid in consistency than Greek style and plain yogurt.</li><li><strong>Lemon:</strong> For freshly squeezed lemon juice to give the garlic sauce a hint of tang.</li><li><strong>Extra Virgin OIive Oil:</strong> To make the sauce smooth and more fluid. You can use olive oil instead if you don’t have EVOO on hand. </li><li><strong>Za’atar Spice Blend.</strong> This is a middle eastern spice blend made usually with dried thyme, sumac (a bright red lemony flavored spice), sesame seeds, and sometimes other spices and dried herbs. There are different regional variations, but the first three ingredients will be in most blends. I chose this spice blend because my favorite kebab shop told me they used a mixed herbs blend in their garlic sauce. One time, I “picked apart” their garlic sauce and discovered it had ground coriander, dried oregano, sumac, marjoram, and thyme. My store-bought blend of za’atar is from Marks & Spencer and it has all those dried herbs and spices (except the dried thyme), as well as ground cumin incorporated in it. I recommend it for making this sauce if there’s an M&S near you. Or you can use another store-bought blend or a homemade one. I’ve linked to one that’s similar in flavor to the one I’ve used in the recipe card below if you’d like to order it online.</li><li><strong>Dried Oregano Flakes:</strong> I like to add an extra sprinkle even though my za’atar already has it incorporated in it. You can add more or less to taste.</li></ul> <p>Full ingredient list and amounts are in the recipe card below.</p> <h2>How to Make Kebab Shop Garlic Sauce</h2> <ol><li><strong>Smash the garlic:</strong> Simply smash the garlic cloves into a paste. I like to use my mortar and pestle to achieve a nice and smooth texture. </li></ol> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3jOh3oS" alt="Smashed garlic in mortar with a spoon." /></figure> <p>But if you don’t own a mortar and pestle, you can use a mini blender to pulse the garlic into a paste instead. Alternatively, crush the garlic with the flat side of your knife and then use the back of the knife to smash it into a paste.</p> <p>2. <strong>Combine all the ingredients:</strong> Then combine the smashed garlic paste with all the other ingredients in a bowl. Mix it all together until evenly combined, then enjoy!</p> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3tiMvP4" alt="" /></figure> <p>You can make a spectacular Chicken Shish Kebab Roll with the sauce and drizzle it all over the meat and salad.</p> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3n7rtC0" alt="Close-up of chicken shish on a tortilla with garlic sauce." /></figure> <p>Or make a tasty grilled salmon kebab for an easy lunch! </p> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3tiGmCx" alt="Close-up of salmon kebab with garlic sauce wrapped in foil." /></figure> <p>Full detailed instructions are in the recipe card below.</p> <h2>Cook’s Tips to Make Garlic Milder</h2> <p>If you prefer this sauce to have a milder garlic flavor, you can…</p> <ul><li><strong>Blanch the garlic.</strong> Place the peeled garlic cloves in a bowl of warm water from the kettle for 5 minutes. Then pat-dry the cloves and let cool completely before smashing into a paste.</li><li><strong>Microwave the garlic.</strong> Place the peeled cloves in a small bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Let cool completely before smashing into a paste.</li></ul> <p>I <strong>don’t recommend roasting</strong> the garlic for this sauce in the oven as it will make it sweeter. </p> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3jLoxc5" alt="Front view of garlic sauce in a bowl with a spoon." /></figure> <h2>FAQs</h2> <h2>Ways To Serve Garlic Sauce</h2> <p>Besides drizzling the delicious sauce over the meat and vggies in your kebabs, you can use it as a…</p> <ul><li>Dip for chips or french fries. (Fritos Corn Chips and thick cut fries taste AMAZING with this sauce!!)</li><li>Dressing for salads.</li><li>Dipping sauce for pizza.</li><li>Sandwich spread.</li><li>Sauce for grilled meat or fish. (Grilled chicken, pork chops, salmon, cod, etc.)</li></ul> <figure><img src="https://ift.tt/3yRfwma" alt="Garlic sauce in bowl and close-up of chicken shish. Text overlay" /></figure> <h3>More Dips, Condiments, and Sauces</h3> <ul><li>Thai Sweet Basil Roasted Tomato Salsa</li><li>Cooling Cumber & Mint Yogurt Dip</li><li>Homemade Spicy Mayonnaise</li><li>Or browse the entire Dips, Condiments, and Sauces recipe collection.</li></ul> <p><strong>MADE THIS RECIPE?</strong> If you make this recipe, leave a comment and review it below with a star rating! I always appreciate your feedback. Take a photo and be sure to tag it with @thatspicychick on Instagram and hashtag it #thatspicychick so I can see. 😉</p> <p><strong>STAY CONNECTED!</strong> You can also follow me on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram. Sign up for my email list to get my latest recipe in your inbox weekly!</p> Print <p>This post may contain affiliate links. We are a part of the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you) by linking to familycuisine.net and affiliated sites. The nutritional information provided is approximate and can vary based on several factors. It should only be used as a general guideline. For more information, please see our Disclosure.</p> source https://familycuisine.net/how-to-make-doner-sauce/

[sandralmuller]

Using Facebook and Instagram like a superstar

One of the things I love about organising The Great Melbourne Blog-in is that I get to shape the event. At September’s blog in, I got to question Catherine and Cherie from The Digital Picnic about all things Facebook and Instagram during our Q&A panel. You know that glorious moment when you have all these questions simmering in the back of your mind and then suddenly you’re face-to-face with some very generous social media experts and you get to ask them all those questions? Yes, that moment. It was awesome!

Social media experts Catherine and Cherie from The Digital Picnic. Oh, and that’s me in the middle.

Pin it to read later

Running a Facebook page

Best tips for running an engaging Facebook page #Facebook #FacebookPage #SocialMediaStrategy Click To Tweet

As most people are aware (except those that make this critical error) one of the biggest mistakes Facebook page owners make is using it as a dumping ground for self-promotion. Using Facebook page only as an advertising platform is not what gains you engaged fans and followers. You need to draw back the curtain and put yourself out there. Show some of the back end of your business. Make your page about your audience and what they want.

As a copywriter, this makes sense to me – know your audience, what are their pain points, how can you address them, sell the benefits and not the features yadda yadda yadda.

Since the blog-in, I’ve created a schedule for my Silk Interiors Facebook page. This page supports my eCommerce site Silk Interiors, where I sell wallpaper online. My plan includes a mix of:

design quotes

inspo photos/eye candy

recycled blog posts

decorating and styling tips

videos

FB live

before and after home makeovers

celebrity style

discounts and sales happening in Australia

memes

questions

our wallpaper products.

My next step is to use the native Facebook scheduling app to schedule content to post each day for a full month. Doing it in one big batch will save a lot of time, even though it will take some time to curate and schedule the content, but I’ve made a BIG list of sources (I’ll blog about how I find them another day), which will be a great help. I’ll monitor the engagement metrics via Facebook’s ‘Insights‘ dashboard and see which post types perform well and I’ll experiment with different times of the day.

Whatever you plan, test, test, test and figure out what works best for your business.

If you have any plans, even a very vague and distant plan to use Facebook Ads, install the Facebook pixel into the header of any or all pages on your website you wish to track. This means setting up a Facebook business account and grabbing some code to paste into your website (very easy to do with a plugin if you’re using WordPress). The FB pixel is a sneaky little thing. It gives you the data to show your ads only to people who have visited your website in the past, for example. It helps you target people already interested in your business. You can also create ads to target users in the same demographic as your website visitors. Ooooh. Sneaky sneaky. And perhaps a bit creepy…

Have you installed the Facebook Pixel yet? #SocialMediaStrategy #FacebookPage Click To Tweet

Facebook. Knows. Everything… my business bestie and I were chatting on Facebook Messenger about awnings (totes random, I know) and then we both started seeing ads for awnings in our newsfeed. We hadn’t visited any awning or blind sites or visited awning pages. In fact, in our Messenger chat, we were coming up with the most random thing we could think of in that conversation. And then there were ads for awnings. Just saying.

What I learnt about Facebook Live videos

Pre-promote your Facebook Live session so you won’t chicken out. If you’re running a Facebook Live Q&A session, give people a chance to prepare their questions that you (hopefully) can answer. As a Facebook Live novice, I’m not sure what’s worse though – people turning up or people not turning up!

Pre-plan what you’re going to say. Always have something to talk about. Talk about something before you get into the guts of your video to give people a chance to join you, live. If they’re following you, they’ll get a notification to say that you’re live.

Avoid the wobbles and use a tripod for your Facebook Live videos #FacebookLive #FacebookTips Click To Tweet

It’s best to set-up your video on a tripod so your video is steady. A steady camera can also save you a lot of data – those micro wobbles when you hold your phone camera create a fatter video file. Not that I have to worry about data here in Korea, but a tripod will give your FB video a more professional look. I tend to swing my body from side to side while my head remains stable-ish when I do Facebook Live videos. I don’t know why. Perhaps that’s where my nerves manifest. Or I’m just a weirdo.

After you finish your Facebook live video, you can upload it and then change the video thumbnail. For laughs, Youtube and Facebook are in some kind of conspiracy to make sure they choose a thumbnail where you look your absolute worst.

See what I mean? Worst thumbnail choice ever! Excruciating for me… and the potential viewer. I look so bored with my own FB Live vid I’m falling asleep on myself.

But it’s easy to change it.

On the video post, click on those three dots on the top right… then click on ‘Edit post’.

Next, scroll through the available thumbnails and hopefully, there’s one that looks like you haven’t just eaten a sour lemon or are about to pass out. But if that fails, add your own custom image.

While you’re on that screen, you can add metadata to your post to help it get found more easily in Facebook’s search engine.

After you’ve uploaded your Facebook live video, go through the comments and respond to any questions people have. This will give your post a bit of a boost. The more comments (including your own) the more reach your video will get.

If you’re happy with the video, you could also consider using it in a Facebook Ad.

What I learnt about (non-live) videos on Facebook

If you’re going to add your video to Youtube, don’t share a link to the Youtube video with your Facebook audience. Instead, for better reach, upload the video directly to Facebook. Apparently, Facebook loves native video content. Of course, this makes sense. Facebook wants to retain as much ad revenue as possible. Keeping users ON Facebook and not sending them away to the Adsense share of the market is the sensible thing to do if you’re Facebook.

For greater reach, upload your video direct to Facebook, not via a Youtube link #FacebookTips Click To Tweet

Also, consider using a square format for your video as this is becoming really popular – people are used to and expecting the Instagram size and style of videos.

Don’t share everything between Instagram and Facebook or your audience, if they follow you on both platforms, will start to look like me in that thumbnail picture above. Yawn. I think it’s lazy social media-ing when businesses do that. Especially when you’re confronted with a face full of Insta hashtags on Facebook. I’m petty like that. Mix it up and share your video on Instagram a different day (or at least a different time of the day) then when you published your Facebook post.

I need to start a Facebook group and so do you

At a past TGMBI event, Linda Reed-Enever talked about building a Facebook Group to support your business or blog. I won’t rehash those bits, but it’s a timely reminder that if you share your Facebook page’s post to your Facebook group, it sends powerful signals to Facebook’s algorithms and can help increase the reach of your post even beyond the group.

I’m still considering what my FB Group will be about, how it fits with my brand and vision for my business and who I want in it besides my business besties. But first I need to schedule content, experiment and evaluate my Facebook plan.

Stay out of the naughty corner

Something else I learnt just this week is that Facebook has legislated yet another reason to put your page in the naughty corner – not disclosing sponsored or affiliate links. Facebook calls it ‘Branded Content’.

If you’re doing sponsored posts or publishing, as Facie puts it, content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value, you need to tag the business partners in your branded content posts. But it’s not that simple. So you can do this, first you have to sign up for Branded Content within the Business Manager section of FB and be approved. If you’re publishing branded content (by Facebook’s definition) and not disclosing your relationship with the company, then you could find yourself in the FB naughty corner. This has happened to someone I know I know in a Facebook group just this week.

You can identify Branded Content posts because they have the small text ‘Paid’ whacked next to the time stamp of a post. This is different to posts you pay to boost where it says ‘Sponsored’. Other than that, I’m not sure what it all means, yet! You can read more about Facebook’s Branded Content tool and laws here.

What I learnt about Instagram

LinkTrees! AKA where had you been all my life/why didn’t I think of that.

Solve the 'link in bio' dilemma with a LinkTree @Linktree_ #instagramtips #linktree Click To Tweet

You know how you have to write something like Link in bio on your Instagram post and then update every single time you promote a new page or post or product? So annoying. Well, enter the Link Tree. You put one link in your bio that goes to a landing page where you include ALL your links. There’s even a website you can outsource your link management to – LinkTr.ee. (I wrote more about this tip in my recent post What to do after you publish a blog post.) You could also host a link tree page on your own website.

Instagram Stories – you need to be there and in the regular ole newsfeed. Your ‘story’ only lasts for 24 hours, but now that Instagram is no longer chronological, it’s your best bet for getting noticed at the top of someone’s Insta feed.

Look at your insights. What are the peak times and WHY are they the peak times? Look into the reasons why certain posts are popular than others.

If you haven’t already set yourself up with a business profile, it’s easy to switch from a personal to a business profile – here’s how. You’ll need a business profile to access your account’s insights.

Until recently, I’d only been using the image tools like Filters in Instagram on my pictures. Then I discovered an app called Fotor. The basic version is free. You can use the app or the desktop website to manipulate your images to make them look gorgeouser. I must admit, I’m a bit visually illiterate, but with Fotor, I’ve been having fun experimenting with image manipulation.

Get your images Instagram ready with the Fotor app @fotor_com #instagramtips #photoediting Click To Tweet

To illustrate my point, here the original photo I took.

And here’s the edited version. How much cooler and more interesting does this second image look?

Final words on social media-ing

Ultimately, when it comes to sharing content, be endearing to your audience. Maybe even a bit vulnerable. Be relatable. Suprise and delight your audience.

Thank you, Cat and Cherie, for sharing your time and knowledge.  If anyone wants to improve their social media skills, then you need to attend one of their online or in-person social media courses – and not just in Melbourne. These savvy social media experts travel!

Have you experimented with anything on social media lately? Any success or spectactular fails to share? Let me know in the comments below.

Using Facebook and Instagram like a superstar was originally published on Sandra Muller

[stockbeaver96-blog]

Shrimp Scampi Pasta with Asparagus (VIDEO)

Shrimp Scampi Pasta with Asparagus… it really doesn’t get any better than this! The light lemon garlic and herb sauce packs so much fresh and amazing flavor.

We took classic Shrimp Scampi and turned it into this shrimp scampi pasta recipe. Just like our Creamy Shrimp Pasta, this is perfect for busy weeknights because it’s easy, takes less than 30 minutes and tastes like fine dining.

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.

Shrimp Scampi Pasta Recipe:

Tossing shrimp scampi with pasta is our favorite way to serve scampi. The lemon butter scampi sauce is so fresh, vibrant and flavorful and goes so well with pasta.

Watch the video recipe below to see just how easy it is. You’ll make this shrimp scampi pasta again and again!

What is the Best Shrimp for Scampi?

Look for raw shrimp (preferably wild caught) that are large 21-30 count. Slightly larger or smaller will still work but you will have to increase or decrease cooking time accordingly as shrimp can easily overcook.

Save prep time by purchasing shrimp that are already peeled and deveined. Tail on or tail off is based on preference. It’s easier to eat without the tails but the presentation is nicer with tails on.

Can I Substitute Cooked Shrimp?

Cooking raw shrimp will give you the best flavor as it takes on the garlic flavors from the pan and will add flavor to the sauce, which is why we highly recommend raw shrimp.

If you have cooked shrimp on hand, be sure to fully thaw and thoroughly pat dry with paper towels. Add them to the pan just long enough to heat through. If you re-cook the shrimp, they will end up overcooked and rubbery.

How to Trim Asparagus:

Asparagus ends are fibrous and must be removed before cooking. The fastest way is by snapping off the ends and wherever they snap is where the fibrous part ends. You can also use a vegetable peeler to remove fibrous ends.

How to Make Shrimp Scampi Pasta:

With the exception of the pasta, the shrimp and scampi sauce come together in one pan. This recipe comes together fast so have all of your ingredients prepped and ready before you fire up the stove.

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook pasta until al-dente.

2. Place a large, deep pan over medium/high heat with 1 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp butter. Add asparagus, season with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp pepper and cook uncovered for 5 minutes until crisp tender, stirring occasionally. Transfer asparagus to a plate.

3. In the same hot pant, add 2 Tbsp oil and 2 Tbsp butter. Once the butter melts, add garlic and sautee 1 minute. Add shrimp in a single layer, season with 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper and saute until shrimp are pink and opaque (2 min per side). Do not overcook.

4. Add 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/3 cup parsley, 1 Tbsp lemon zest and stir to combine. Turn off heat, return pasta and asparagus to the pan and toss to combine. Serve with grated parmesan.

This shrimp scampi pasta with asparagus is so juicy and flavorful. Every noodle is coated with amazing fresh flavor.

Our Best Reviewed Pasta Recipes:

Watch How to Make Shrimp Scampi Pasta:

Mmm… this shrimp scampi pasta is ridiculously tasty. Enjoy this my friends!

Shrimp Scampi Pasta with Asparagus

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 23 minutes

Total Time: 28 minutes

Shrimp Scampi Pasta with Asparagus has a lemon garlic and herb sauce that packs so much fresh and amazing flavor. A 30 minute shrimp scampi pasta recipe!

Author: Natasha of NatashasKitchen.com

Skill Level: Easy

Cost to Make: $18-$20

Keyword: shrimp scampi pasta

Calories: 525 kcal

Servings: 4 as a main course

1/2 lb spaghetti

1 lb asparagus trimmed and cut into 2" pieces

3 Tbsp butter divided

3 Tbsp olive oil divided

4 cloves garlic minced (about 1 1/2 Tbsp)

1 lb large shrimp peeled and deveined (16-20 or 21-25 count)

1 1/4 tsp Sea Salt divided, plus more for cooking pasta

1/4 tsp Black Pepper ground, or to taste

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice from 1 large or 2 small lemons

1/3 cup fresh parsley finely chopped

1 Tbsp grated lemon zest

Grated parmesan to serve

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add 1 Tbsp salt and 1 Tbsp olive oil and cook pasta according to package instructions until aldente, or desired doneness (meanwhile, continue with recipe). Drain pasta, return to pot and cover to keep warm.

Place a large, deep pan over medium/high heat and add 1 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp butter. Add asparagus, season lightly with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp pepper and cook uncovered for 5 minutes or until crisp tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from pan.

In the same hot skillet, add 2 Tbsp oil and 2 Tbsp butter. Once the butter is melted, add minced garlic and sautee, stirring frequently for 1 minute. Add shrimp in a single layer and season with 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper. Saute until shrimp are pink and not translucent (about 2 minutes per side). Be careful not to overcook or shrimp will be tough.

Add 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/3 cup chopped parsley, 1 Tbsp lemon zest and stir to combine. Turn off the heat and return pasta and asparagus to the pan. Toss everything to combine and serve with grated parmesan.

Nutrition Facts

Shrimp Scampi Pasta with Asparagus

Amount Per Serving

Calories 525 Calories from Fat 189

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 21g 32%

Saturated Fat 7g 35%

Cholesterol 308mg 103%

Sodium 966mg 40%

Potassium 501mg 14%

Total Carbohydrates 49g 16%

Dietary Fiber 4g 16%

Sugars 4g

Protein 33g 66%

Vitamin A 30.9%

Vitamin C 32%

Calcium 21.8%

Iron 33.3%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen

Q: What’s your favorite go-to (quick) weeknight meal? 

Source: https://natashaskitchen.com/shrimp-scampi-pasta/

[sarkastically]

prompt 16 and spiritassassin please!

(Modern Spiritassassin AU. Cloyingly sentimental. I’m so sorry for all the fluff. Vague, generalized background homophobia but nothing explicit.)

16. Roses are red, Violets are blue, You can do whatever you want to me. (please do.)

It starts as a joke. It starts because Jyn, in her flat direct Jyn way, asks a simple question, “Do you guys have anything planned for Valentine’s Day?” It means nothing. It is just idle chitchat from her lips, a random question that has more to do with a date on the calendar than anything else. This is Jyn. Who does not pry because she does not really know what to do with personal information anyway, certainly doesn’t want it. No, Jyn would rather someone ask her for help fixing their car than ask her for help with a personal crisis. Jyn does not want to see tears. Jyn does not want to know about the disquietude that sometimes haunts people alone at night when the darkness makes the inside of the soul rattle and shake like a tree limb against a window pane in fall when the wind is high.

Jyn doesn’t want to know because hearing about other people makes her examine the broken pieces inside of herself, and that has never been her goal. Don’t linger. Don’t stick. Move on. Shove it aside. Move on. Lock it up. Lock it away. Go to the next thing, next name, next job, next apartment, next town. Never settle anywhere for long.

Except that she has been here for nine months, two weeks and five days already and not one fiber of her body is demanding that she leave yet. In another town, with other people, this would be disquieting, it would bother her. As it is, though, she feels something she has not felt in a very long time. She feels calm. It’s not happiness, but that’s fine. Jyn doesn’t think she would know that even if it came to her door with a sign around it’s neck to proclaim its name, blasting some obnoxious song through the speakers of a boombox, swearing undying love; she would probably just close the door in its face to drown out all the noise. This is contentment, and it’s okay. It’s fine. It calms her when she wakes in the middle of the night feeling like there’s a hand at her throat and the desire to pack in her bones. She just breaths, the way Chirrut taught her, and it settles, she can sleep.

It’s fucking weird, but it’s not unpleasant.

She learns to make chitchat the way other people do. She asks about holiday plans the way other people do. People with ties, people with friends, people who finally allow themselves to care. This is part of the process of integrating into a group, after all.

And Baze, who recognizes this for what it is, a hand held out, a first grasping attempt at normal everyday friendships cannot deny her because that might send her hurtling through the night without so much as a goodbye, beating her steady way onward on her broken bird wings. So even though he really doesn’t want to get into it, doesn’t like sharing, as content with being quiet and working on physical things as Jyn herself normally is, he decides that he will answer. Only because it is important; only because it is Jyn.

Later, when they are home curled around each other on the couch while Chirrut reads with his fingers and hums and Baze sketches, he knows that Chirrut will grin and tease him about this, claim that Baze is just as big of a softie as ever, that he bends over backwards for the kids he hires to work at the bakery, that he isn’t fooling anyone with his gruff bear routine. And Baze will just grumble, like said gruff bear, and pull Chirrut into his lap to hush his mouth with kisses because that is the best and normally only way to win an argument with his partner. Chirrut, of course, is right, but Baze is loathe to admit it, which they both know, though it never stops him from trying to wrangle it out of him one way or another.

Jyn clears her throat pointedly even as her hands flash through the process of cutting the large mound of beige dough into small sections waiting to be shaped. Neither Baze nor Jyn work the counter; they exist in the press of hot air filled with yeast and sugar and flour behind the kitchen door. They wander around the machinery, old and loud but much loved, each and every one of the pieces as liable to break as to work, but it’s okay because between the two of them they have found that they can fix anything. Jyn coaxes metal gears back into grinding away by first shouting profanities at them and then plying them with sweet words while Baze can completely strip out and rebuild the stand mixer’s inner workings in a few hours. Things break but nothing ever breaks for long or forever.

Baze sighs, dipping a spoon into the buttercream to taste, asses the texture and the flavor. He starts with base recipes but never follows them, tosses them aside to play the mad scientist–Chirrut’s words, always said in a sing song tone and with that bright tooth smile on his face that means he is proud, full of it, ready to burst with it like a balloon inflated too much–and adjusts things on the fly, makes one of a kind creations that will never been seen again. It’s why their bakery is so popular, especially with the younger crowd who post and tweet and hashtag them. Baze tries to be gruff and grumble about it all, but he can’t find it in him. He loves watching them flock to the store with their brightly colored hair and piercings, lines of ink dotting their skin, dressed in their ever-changing fashions, preening for each other and themselves, sometimes just so dismissive of the lingering, withering looks angled their way by the older self-proclaimed sensible customers. Chirrut whispers that half of it is because Baze sees himself in these children, finds the streak of their own rebellion waving at him from perfectly shaped undercuts, a welcoming hello in every Pride flag shirt or piece of jewelry, every anarchy tattoo, every blue mohawk, and half because Baze has always been soft at the edges when it comes to children, always wanted to protect them.

Always wanted them.

And, even though he led himself there, that revelation will make Chirrut sigh sadly and wander away for his meditation, all crossed legs and closed eyes and murmurs that Baze can hear and feel in every inch of their shop when he presses his hands against something or when he toes his shoes off to stand barefoot on the floor, which is a bad practice in the kitchen but still something he indulges in occasionally. Chirrut has always filled every space that he enters, sinks into the very bones of buildings as though he is some sort of spirit, miring himself into wood and metal, leaving pieces of himself behind in everything without ever diminishing himself. It is just another wondrous trick he can do.

They never talk about adoption anymore because it only upsets both of them; Chirrut more than him because Chirrut thinks it is his fault because of his blindness as much as because they are two gay Chinese men living in a college town that is still slightly on the backwards side, running a bakery that is popular with one portion of the population and is boycotted by another faction of the town who only sees them as having some sort of agenda.

Baze’s only agenda is to make delicious things and through that to make people happy, especially Chirrut. Chirrut’s agenda is to protect Baze’s heart from the arrows and the stones thrown by the very people he tries to please. Sometimes both of them fail all day. So they pick back up and try again on the next.

And sometimes, when it is very bad, Baze wonders why they don’t leave. Then the door will chime, and he will hear the voices of the students, the ones that he knows, the ones that come every single day, and he will remember. Brightly colored hair, tattoos, leather jackets with patches about NASA and peace and love being stronger than hate. Hope. Hope will cross the threshold, and it is enough to sustain him. Again. Probably always.

No, they have no children of their own, but they have the small clutch of young people that Baze hires and inevitably cares for, takes under his wing, gets strangely dad-like about. Chirrut does as well, though he hides it better, carries it in the sleeves of his robes, tucked up inside them as though nestled into pockets, only taken out when they have need of him. Like how he taught Jyn to meditate because she was a vibrating wire about to snap at every instant or how he has been working with Bodhi who still stutters and get flustered when there are too many people in the shop, the clamor becoming too much for him sometimes. They have each other to care for, and this long line of students, workers and patrons alike.

It is enough.

Just Chirrut would be enough, which is something that Baze whispers in the dark sometimes when he goes upstairs to find Chirrut hunkered, praying, all the lights out, their apartment so quiet and still that Baze wonders whether he has walked into another world altogether. Until Chirrut smiles at him, and every light in the universe shines. Just for him.

Jyn makes the noise that means she thinks she is being dismissed or ignored and the shuck of metal through dough grows louder as she works. It rouses Baze from his thoughts, which can be a long tunnel he gets lost in, a deep ocean where he can linger forever. He shakes his head and puts the tasting spoon aside, adds slightly more lemon juice and powdered sugar and bright pieces of crystallized ginger to the buttercream, talks as he folds the ingredients in to achieve the perfect consistency. “Valentine’s is busy. There are always custom orders and demands for cakes and cookies and things.” Too much time needing to be spent to make the day wonderful for everyone else.

“So. Nothing then?” There is something in her voice now, something beyond her normally flat affect, which unnerves some people but never bothers Baze, that flashes like a hidden knife in the gleam of the sun. And then it passes. “It’s just some stupid commercial holiday anyway.” With that Jyn begins to shape the bread loaves, one after the other, quickly but with care because Jyn often comes off as a raincloud about to burst but there is sunlight within, unsure of how exactly to escape.

They settle back into the companionable silence of the kitchen, which is never actually quiet because the machines run and tick around them, but all of that becomes background noise after a while, a wall of comforting, known sound like a heavy blanket to soothe the senses. As Baze frosts the cupcakes with the buttercream, he wonders. They have never done anything to mark Valentine’s Day, and he cannot remember why, cannot recall whether this was intentional or just something that happened. It has never meant much to him. Baze takes care to ensure that Chirrut knows the depth of his affection each and every single day. The idea of just one day to mark that idea is odd, too simple, an easy out. When he was younger, he might have chalked this up to their brand of being anti-establishment, but he is older now, more sentimental as Chirrut likes to tease him, and he wonders.

When he slips out of the kitchen door, a quick excuse thrown over his shoulder at Jyn, she only smiles at him as if she knows, as if this has all been a ploy, some plot, and he wouldn’t put it past her and Chirrut to be in cahoots over something, but Baze cannot allow himself to linger on that or it will eclipse his forward momentum and mire him back in the kitchen. Baze is not Chirrut; he does not shift gears as quickly, and he must let his impetus carry him while it exists or find himself stranded, unable to move, stuck.

A week later, he presents the gift. The first Valentine’s Day gift he has ever given Chirrut. It is just a bear. Nothing fancy. No flowers or chocolates or jewelry because their life has always been simple, and Chirrut loves the confections he makes more than any commercial chocolate available. It is just a bear, but it talks when its belly is pressed, in Baze’s voice, in Baze’s deep, wandering river, earth moving Mandarin because it is just for them, after all. It says something silly that Chirrut once found on the internet and laughed about for three hours, which Baze remembers because he loves to hear Chirrut like that, voice breaking from being out of breath because of glee for such an extended period of time.

“Roses are red, violets are blue. You can do whatever you want to me. Please do,” the bear intones in Mandarin when Chirrut plucks it from Baze’s hands.

Baze had blushed the entire time while trying to record it even though the employee at the store obviously had no idea what was happening, what he was saying, but she was kind enough and patient enough to help him make the attempt six times before it was right, before his voice did not waver in an unwelcome way. He can only look down while his listens to the mechanical play of his voice from the bear, but he can feel Chirrut’s smile through the floor, leeching into the boards and travelling through the grain to his bare feet.

“Anything?” Chirrut asks, his Mandarin always cleaner and crisper than Baze’s own, clear indications of their upbringings that only they know how to parse in this town, and that is when Baze allows himself to look up, to find his partner’s eyes, veiled and turned just a hair away from where he stands but close enough because Chirrut is very good at this by now.

“Yes,” Baze answers, mind spinning through all the things that Chirrut might ask of him, each of them dear and wonderful and welcome. He is on the verge of apologizing for the silly gift, for its sentimentality, for caving to societal capitalistic pressure; Chirrut’s smile stops him, it speaks of something else, and he wonders again whether Jyn’s question was not just idle talk at all, whether it was part of something bigger.

He gets his answer when Chirrut, bear tucked lovingly under one arm, starts fishing through his pockets until he finds a small wooden box, which he holds out in Baze’s general direction. “This. This is what I want.”

Baze recognizes the box, knows what lingers inside, a titanium band with rose gold running through the middle like a river. He has seen it before, and he told Chirrut to wait because he was worried about the world around them, concerned about political climate and family and. He hurt Chirrut’s feelings, soundly enough that he worried it might break them asunder, though it didn’t. He hasn’t seen the box since. And now there it is, on Chirrut’s palm, presented back to him, and Baze agreed to anything. Baze has never been a man who backs out of promises.

“Baze,” Chirrut’s voice is strong as steel, but Baze can hear the way it wavers, the slight dip of concern that dances across his tongue because it tickles the soles of his feet through the floor. “Will you marry me?”

When Chirrut had asked the first time, both of them barely older than twenty-five, Baze’s heart and throat had clenched so hard that he thought he might die from the fear. There is none of that now. There is just the light of Chirrut’s smile invading his entire body, and the calmness he feels surrounded by the kitchen machine noises. There is the smell of ginger and yeast that permeates the entire building always like Chirrut’s mantras, which he thinks have soaked into the walls such that they would play back like a record if he rubbed his hand over them. Nothing here scares him, nothing here worries him not even the looks they sometimes get on the street, the disdainful ones. They are so few these days.

Baze closes the distance between them, hand folding over the box and Chirrut’s fingers in the same grasp even as his other arm wraps around him, pulls him snugly against him, pulls him into a kiss that is just as ardent as any they shared when they were young and could barely contain their desire for one another. Kissing Chirrut is always like this, like a match being struck throughout his entire body. When he pulls away, his breathing is ragged like he has been running.

“You haven’t answered me.”

“Did you entice Jyn into helping you?”

“You haven’t answered me.”

“You haven’t either.”

“I asked first.”

Their back and forth is nothing new, all the words soaking into the building around them, and Baze hopes that structures carry on the light and souls of the people who lived inside them once they are gone because he needs to know that pieces of Chirrut will continue to be bright and infuriating even when he can no longer be that himself. He wants to think that there will be a patch of earth wherein he and Chirrut’s loving bickering continues forever, a recording to ease or haunt the next people who claim it as their own.

They answer in unison because their hearts have always beat together, “Yes.”

[ykmv]

Your First Fountain Pen

For a beginner, and a student beginner especially, the largest consideration is price. I have had all the pens mentioned as good starter pens (except the Al-Star and the Loom, but have borrowed both multiple times from friends) and they are all good pens. Even the Petit1 is a good pen!

For "credentials", I have convinced more than two dozen people the past year to buy their first fountain pen. As far as I know they all still use the pens. Hashtag penvangelism.

My default answer to people who want to buy their first pen is the Pilot Metropolitan. Why? A lot of people (especially at my age; '90s kid) are used to ballpoints and gel pens. I know exactly one person in my life who uses a rollerball pen. This means most people are used to thin line widths which, in my experience, only the Pilot Metropolitan <F> can offer. I've used the EF nib of Lamy and TWSBI and both are demonstrably thicker than a Pilot Fine.

The logic behind suggesting a pen within the prospective convert's comfort zone is that you don't just want to suggest a good pen to someone, you want the person to keep using that pen and abandoning the use of non-fountain pens. Easing them into it helps.

Back to price. In my country, a Safari is three times more expensive than a Metro. The Safari does not come with a converter. Even if you want to switch to a Con-50 or Con-40, the Safari is still more than twice as expensive—I hate it). In my country as well, the Eco (about $40.00 here) is two dollars away from being four times as expensive as a Metro. This is a huge difference because even if we "sell" fountain pens as being built to last, most first-time buyers are perfectly fine using a $1 Pilot G-tec. They absolutely love the G-tec. A Metropolitan is fifteen G-tecs. To stretch the comparison a bit, a Porsche 911 Carrera S is just five Toyota Corollas.

A super budget pen would be a Preppy, a Petit1, or a V-Pen. The cap of the Preppy breaks with regular cautious use and a Petit1's clip will break-off. A V-Pen is too cumbersome to refill unless you have one where the feed can be pulled-off (mine can't, even with pliers). A Plaisir might be nice but that terrible looking nib and the local price have stopped me from trying. It is pretty cheap in China though (about $12) so..

I do like Chinese pens because they're so cheap. Definitely good writers when you find them (I have bought probably 30+ already this year, some for myself, most to be PIF-ed or sold and get people into Chinese pens). There are a few concerns for me if it's someone getting their first few pens. First, there will be lemons even if you buy from the "reputable sellers" we often hear. Even if they all write and are in good condition, some write better than others. I once bought a lot of 10 pens. 7 wrote well but 3 wrote incredibly incredibly well. Returning them or contacting the vendor will be a pain. The wait is also excruciatingly long and the pen might not arrive at all.

Another thing is consistency. eBay sellers would actually indicate if a Chinese pen was "M" and in some cases even put nib width "0.5" which is what I think a lot of pen users here (me included) wished pen manufacturers would do to standardize how thick pens are. But these listings aren't always true. A "0.5" actually doesn't mean "0.5". In fact I found a listing last night in Taobao where the seller had a table that "0.38" is actually 0.38 to 0.6 and "0.5" is actually 0.4-0.8 or something like that.  

Now, why would you not buy a Pilot Metropolitan? Besides an uncommon problem of some people reporting that it ejects ink into the cap for no reason, the most obvious are the large step and the design. For quite some time, I didn't get a Metropolitan because the design didn't speak to me. They wrote well enough but not well enough for me to get over the weird middle band. I just couldn't understand why the background of the middle band was different in shade to the the rest of the pen (in MR1), and later on the animal bands just horrified me (in MR2). Eventually I got used to the design and I have three of them right now (I've owned five in total). Then there's the step. From all the pens mentioned this has the largest step. I understand why the step is there but I still prefer a pen that is streamline uncapped versus a pen that is streamline while capped. I look at pens when they are ready to use, not when they are to be kept in storage. I have since been able to modify my grip when using this and similar pens such that they are no more uncomfortable than other pens (my fingers sort of cling to the ledge of the step). You could also get a Kakuno instead! It is being introduced to more markets and it’s a good writer in fun colours. Somehow, my Kakuno felt sharper than my equivalent Metropolitan though.

That said, Pilot Metropolitan <M> sometimes have a tendency to skip when you first write with them. The problem miraculously goes away after a short while. I don't know if it is baby's bottom because I haven't gotten around to getting a loupe. I have bought and handled a few used Metropolitans and none have skipped. Now, why would you get a Safari instead? While the nib width and quality control is a bit of a lottery and the inner cap does tend to break down, both problems are easily dealt with. The biggest draws for me is the easy exchange-ability of nibs matched only by Kaweco among current pens. Of course, depending on the market a Lamy nib costs more than a Metro... The section/grip of the Safari is also talked about a lot. It really depends on your grip and it's important that you be able to borrow a pen first before you buy it. There are also people who buy the pen after trying it in the store and then sell it a week later because it's too big or too heavy but these are unusual people. For me, the Safari is easier to hold than a Metro even if I don't hold pens the way Lamy wants me too (only one of my fingers is "where it's supposed to be").

Why don't you get an Eco? The grip is the easiest to use and the capacity will not leave you wanting. To me, the largest barrier is again the price. You must be a great fan of the demonstrator look and the piston capacity if you want this pen where I live. In the US it is the same price as a Safari so that might not be a consideration for others, of course. I do like the screw cap (I wish all pens were screw caps) but if you post your pens this has the worst posting experience among all of the pens mentioned. I'm sure it's secure but it doesn't inspire you about its security. I also think it looks the worse among all the pens. I actually like how the Preppy looks more than an Eco. The all clear version looks really great though, up until you fill it and ink inevitable gets on and behind the inner cap...

The Eco performs at a comparable rate to the Safari (again, I think they all write well albeit slightly differently) and it may come down to personal preferences. Do you value nib-swapping more than a piston's capacity? Do you prefer a screw cap to a snap cap? If you want to experiment with unusual inks you may be better off staying away from the Eco. There's too much worrying involved in keeping the barrel pristine.

Is anyone still reading?

Alright, a Kaweco Sport is alright and I really like the look. Besides the possibility of a poor nib (happens to all manufacturers anyway), you have to be open to dealing with unavoidable barrel wear. Unavoidable! You also need to post the pen to write with it. Another thing is that if you want to use cartridges on a transparent Kaweco you should know beforehand that it looks pretty lame. A lot of people complain about proprietary cartridges and there was a recent post here about someone making a permanent international cartridge; Kaweco needs to make a proprietary cartridge that fills the length of the Kaweco barrel. Short international cartridges look terrible!

A Loom is great and I really want to buy one save for two worries. First, the cap looks really bad and there is something off in the way it clicks shut. It also has a terrible looking clip. It is the pit of cap-shutting feel, at the opposite end of the Prera. Another is that it there is a risk of parts incompatibility. It's standard international but not all cartridges and converters work on it. A friend bought a Faber-Castell converter from the same store and it didn't fit..

The Prera is great (I really want a slate grey one) but do you want to pay that much more for the same writing end as a Metropolitan? Locally, it is about thrice as expensive as a Metropolitan. I’m not going to buy one brand new. On the secondhand market? The going rate is about five times. Again, a Porsche 911 Carrera S is just five Toyota Corollas. It face the same problem of Lamy system pens. You really need to want the different, more expensive body because it’s the only thing you’re paying a premium for. You also need to post the Prera to be able to write with it. If you're Kawhi Leonard don't even consider it.

For the less mentioned pens a Parker IM I think is the most expensive mentioned here. I have one. The clear coat has come off in spots and it's very ugly because of it. I think it's a good review pen because it's so easy to clean even if you can't remove the nib or the section. I would not recommend it. It's a $10 value to me. I also have a Parker 45 and it's good, smooth, and easy to disassemble. I think it's also the one with the most "character" among all the pens. I would caution everyone as to nib width though. I bought an NOS "45" that had a “fine nib” and wrote as thick as my Medium Safari. Very smooth writer, sure, but it needs an IG ink to be at a width I can work with. Otherwise I can only use it to underline my readings and that would be pretty sad for your first and only (so far) pen.

[woundgrey39-blog]

Garlicky Feta Dip

Garlicky Feta Dip. This simple, creamy dip is tangy, garlicky, and always a crowd-pleaser.

James now calls this “Trust Your Gut Dip”, which is probably a catchier name for it, truth be told.

The story behind it is that I’ve been making this Garlicky Feta Dip for years– I first posted it back in 2014– and because my friends have eaten it so many times, I was asked to bring it along with me to a big birthday party. Take a mental note: If you do make this dip for your friends, you will probably be asked to make it again. Often.   

Luckily, the dip is incredibly easy to whip together (literally the ingredients are whipped together in the food processor), so it’s a relief when people request it rather than one of my more involved recipes. And they do request it enough that I’ve made it countless times now, and it’s always a hit. There really was no reason I should ever mess with the recipe.

But of course I did anyway. 

I bought a ridiculous amount of feta cheese because I wanted to make a massive bowl of feta dip, complete with homemade za’atar topped pita chips and bruschetta. It would be the star of the party and take me under an hour to prepare, including making the chips and toasting the bread. That’s the best kind of recipe, isn’t it?

Except this time, I figured I’d try using olive oil instead of Greek yogurt to get the dip to the right consistency. One less ingredient to pick up from the store! I’d read other recipes that used olive oil from some well-respected chefs and foodies, and even though I was hesitant about it, I was sure that “the experts” wouldn’t lead me astray. It’d all be great.

Narrator: It would not be great.

When made with olive oil, my normally delicious and creamy feta dip took on an oily texture (surprise, surprise) and the flavor of the olive oil overpowered the feta. And instead of testing a small batch first like a logical woman, I wasted all of my ingredients by making the whole huge amount at once. Not to mention, starting over from scratch when I’m already such a procrastinator would usually mean that I’d be super late to the party. But I couldn’t come empty-handed.

Cue the freak-out.

I’m going to jump to the happy ending real quick and tell you that I was able to run to the grocery store, totally restart, make the dip and the chips, get ready, and still leave for the party with time to spare. Like I said, it’s a good thing that this dip is so easy and quick to make!

But before all that, I definitely was panicking a bit. Apparently I kept mumbling “I should have trusted my gut” under my breath. I knew I should have just stuck with the Greek yogurt from the get-go! Anyway, that is how this Garlicky Feta Dip earned the nickname of Trust Your Gut Dip. 

Moral of the story: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Oh, and trust your gut.

Speaking of guts, you’re going to want to fill yours with an insane amount of this dip. I usually serve it with pita chips, crackers, and pretzels, but I also love to spread it on toasted bread or bagels. Seriously, if you have any leftovers and you get the opportunity to smear it on a warm everything bagel the next morning, it’s like heaven. Heeeeaven. Especially if you’re a huge feta fan like me. And there’s cream cheese in here too, so it’s like your familiar spread with some exciting additions.

Aside from the feta, Greek yogurt, and cream cheese, the Garlicky Feta Dip also features plenty of garlic (obviously), lemon juice, and fresh dill in the mixture. I like to top it with additional dill and some other herbs like basil or parsley, as well as lemon zest for added brightness, chopped roma tomato, the tiniest pinch of crushed red pepper flakes for heat, and…

Olive oil. Gasp.

Replacing the Greek yogurt was a no-go, but the tiniest drizzle on top is a really nice addition. 

But realistically, you can go as over-the-top with toppings as you’d like or you can serve the Garlicky Feta Dip as simply as you’d like. I guess I’d say that you should just trust your gut.

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Ingredients

6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill, or to taste

1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus lime zest, to top

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

1 Roma tomato, diced

1 pinch of crushed red pepper, to top (optional)

Fresh herbs, to top

Olive oil, to top

Pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to serve

Instructions

Combine the feta, cream cheese, greek yogurt, garlic, dill, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Taste and season with Kosher salt and black pepper, as desired.

When well-combined, scoop into a bowl and top with lemon zest, tomato, a pinch of crushed red pepper, fresh herbs, and a very light drizzle of olive oil.

Serve cold with pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to dip.

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Source: http://hostthetoast.com/garlicky-feta-dip/

[guitarsun40-blog]

Garlicky Feta Dip

Garlicky Feta Dip. This simple, creamy dip is tangy, garlicky, and always a crowd-pleaser.

James now calls this “Trust Your Gut Dip”, which is probably a catchier name for it, truth be told.

The story behind it is that I’ve been making this Garlicky Feta Dip for years– I first posted it back in 2014– and because my friends have eaten it so many times, I was asked to bring it along with me to a big birthday party. Take a mental note: If you do make this dip for your friends, you will probably be asked to make it again. Often.   

Luckily, the dip is incredibly easy to whip together (literally the ingredients are whipped together in the food processor), so it’s a relief when people request it rather than one of my more involved recipes. And they do request it enough that I’ve made it countless times now, and it’s always a hit. There really was no reason I should ever mess with the recipe.

But of course I did anyway. 

I bought a ridiculous amount of feta cheese because I wanted to make a massive bowl of feta dip, complete with homemade za’atar topped pita chips and bruschetta. It would be the star of the party and take me under an hour to prepare, including making the chips and toasting the bread. That’s the best kind of recipe, isn’t it?

Except this time, I figured I’d try using olive oil instead of Greek yogurt to get the dip to the right consistency. One less ingredient to pick up from the store! I’d read other recipes that used olive oil from some well-respected chefs and foodies, and even though I was hesitant about it, I was sure that “the experts” wouldn’t lead me astray. It’d all be great.

Narrator: It would not be great.

When made with olive oil, my normally delicious and creamy feta dip took on an oily texture (surprise, surprise) and the flavor of the olive oil overpowered the feta. And instead of testing a small batch first like a logical woman, I wasted all of my ingredients by making the whole huge amount at once. Not to mention, starting over from scratch when I’m already such a procrastinator would usually mean that I’d be super late to the party. But I couldn’t come empty-handed.

Cue the freak-out.

I’m going to jump to the happy ending real quick and tell you that I was able to run to the grocery store, totally restart, make the dip and the chips, get ready, and still leave for the party with time to spare. Like I said, it’s a good thing that this dip is so easy and quick to make!

But before all that, I definitely was panicking a bit. Apparently I kept mumbling “I should have trusted my gut” under my breath. I knew I should have just stuck with the Greek yogurt from the get-go! Anyway, that is how this Garlicky Feta Dip earned the nickname of Trust Your Gut Dip. 

Moral of the story: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Oh, and trust your gut.

Speaking of guts, you’re going to want to fill yours with an insane amount of this dip. I usually serve it with pita chips, crackers, and pretzels, but I also love to spread it on toasted bread or bagels. Seriously, if you have any leftovers and you get the opportunity to smear it on a warm everything bagel the next morning, it’s like heaven. Heeeeaven. Especially if you’re a huge feta fan like me. And there’s cream cheese in here too, so it’s like your familiar spread with some exciting additions.

Aside from the feta, Greek yogurt, and cream cheese, the Garlicky Feta Dip also features plenty of garlic (obviously), lemon juice, and fresh dill in the mixture. I like to top it with additional dill and some other herbs like basil or parsley, as well as lemon zest for added brightness, chopped roma tomato, the tiniest pinch of crushed red pepper flakes for heat, and…

Olive oil. Gasp.

Replacing the Greek yogurt was a no-go, but the tiniest drizzle on top is a really nice addition. 

But realistically, you can go as over-the-top with toppings as you’d like or you can serve the Garlicky Feta Dip as simply as you’d like. I guess I’d say that you should just trust your gut.

Print

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Ingredients

6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill, or to taste

1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus lime zest, to top

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

1 Roma tomato, diced

1 pinch of crushed red pepper, to top (optional)

Fresh herbs, to top

Olive oil, to top

Pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to serve

Instructions

Combine the feta, cream cheese, greek yogurt, garlic, dill, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Taste and season with Kosher salt and black pepper, as desired.

When well-combined, scoop into a bowl and top with lemon zest, tomato, a pinch of crushed red pepper, fresh herbs, and a very light drizzle of olive oil.

Serve cold with pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to dip.

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Source: http://hostthetoast.com/garlicky-feta-dip/

[pigeonmark6-blog]

Garlicky Feta Dip

Garlicky Feta Dip. This simple, creamy dip is tangy, garlicky, and always a crowd-pleaser.

James now calls this “Trust Your Gut Dip”, which is probably a catchier name for it, truth be told.

The story behind it is that I’ve been making this Garlicky Feta Dip for years– I first posted it back in 2014– and because my friends have eaten it so many times, I was asked to bring it along with me to a big birthday party. Take a mental note: If you do make this dip for your friends, you will probably be asked to make it again. Often.   

Luckily, the dip is incredibly easy to whip together (literally the ingredients are whipped together in the food processor), so it’s a relief when people request it rather than one of my more involved recipes. And they do request it enough that I’ve made it countless times now, and it’s always a hit. There really was no reason I should ever mess with the recipe.

But of course I did anyway. 

I bought a ridiculous amount of feta cheese because I wanted to make a massive bowl of feta dip, complete with homemade za’atar topped pita chips and bruschetta. It would be the star of the party and take me under an hour to prepare, including making the chips and toasting the bread. That’s the best kind of recipe, isn’t it?

Except this time, I figured I’d try using olive oil instead of Greek yogurt to get the dip to the right consistency. One less ingredient to pick up from the store! I’d read other recipes that used olive oil from some well-respected chefs and foodies, and even though I was hesitant about it, I was sure that “the experts” wouldn’t lead me astray. It’d all be great.

Narrator: It would not be great.

When made with olive oil, my normally delicious and creamy feta dip took on an oily texture (surprise, surprise) and the flavor of the olive oil overpowered the feta. And instead of testing a small batch first like a logical woman, I wasted all of my ingredients by making the whole huge amount at once. Not to mention, starting over from scratch when I’m already such a procrastinator would usually mean that I’d be super late to the party. But I couldn’t come empty-handed.

Cue the freak-out.

I’m going to jump to the happy ending real quick and tell you that I was able to run to the grocery store, totally restart, make the dip and the chips, get ready, and still leave for the party with time to spare. Like I said, it’s a good thing that this dip is so easy and quick to make!

But before all that, I definitely was panicking a bit. Apparently I kept mumbling “I should have trusted my gut” under my breath. I knew I should have just stuck with the Greek yogurt from the get-go! Anyway, that is how this Garlicky Feta Dip earned the nickname of Trust Your Gut Dip. 

Moral of the story: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Oh, and trust your gut.

Speaking of guts, you’re going to want to fill yours with an insane amount of this dip. I usually serve it with pita chips, crackers, and pretzels, but I also love to spread it on toasted bread or bagels. Seriously, if you have any leftovers and you get the opportunity to smear it on a warm everything bagel the next morning, it’s like heaven. Heeeeaven. Especially if you’re a huge feta fan like me. And there’s cream cheese in here too, so it’s like your familiar spread with some exciting additions.

Aside from the feta, Greek yogurt, and cream cheese, the Garlicky Feta Dip also features plenty of garlic (obviously), lemon juice, and fresh dill in the mixture. I like to top it with additional dill and some other herbs like basil or parsley, as well as lemon zest for added brightness, chopped roma tomato, the tiniest pinch of crushed red pepper flakes for heat, and…

Olive oil. Gasp.

Replacing the Greek yogurt was a no-go, but the tiniest drizzle on top is a really nice addition. 

But realistically, you can go as over-the-top with toppings as you’d like or you can serve the Garlicky Feta Dip as simply as you’d like. I guess I’d say that you should just trust your gut.

Print

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Ingredients

6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill, or to taste

1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus lime zest, to top

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

1 Roma tomato, diced

1 pinch of crushed red pepper, to top (optional)

Fresh herbs, to top

Olive oil, to top

Pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to serve

Instructions

Combine the feta, cream cheese, greek yogurt, garlic, dill, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Taste and season with Kosher salt and black pepper, as desired.

When well-combined, scoop into a bowl and top with lemon zest, tomato, a pinch of crushed red pepper, fresh herbs, and a very light drizzle of olive oil.

Serve cold with pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to dip.

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Source: http://hostthetoast.com/garlicky-feta-dip/

[sawcolor91-blog]

Garlicky Feta Dip

Garlicky Feta Dip. This simple, creamy dip is tangy, garlicky, and always a crowd-pleaser.

James now calls this “Trust Your Gut Dip”, which is probably a catchier name for it, truth be told.

The story behind it is that I’ve been making this Garlicky Feta Dip for years– I first posted it back in 2014– and because my friends have eaten it so many times, I was asked to bring it along with me to a big birthday party. Take a mental note: If you do make this dip for your friends, you will probably be asked to make it again. Often.   

Luckily, the dip is incredibly easy to whip together (literally the ingredients are whipped together in the food processor), so it’s a relief when people request it rather than one of my more involved recipes. And they do request it enough that I’ve made it countless times now, and it’s always a hit. There really was no reason I should ever mess with the recipe.

But of course I did anyway. 

I bought a ridiculous amount of feta cheese because I wanted to make a massive bowl of feta dip, complete with homemade za’atar topped pita chips and bruschetta. It would be the star of the party and take me under an hour to prepare, including making the chips and toasting the bread. That’s the best kind of recipe, isn’t it?

Except this time, I figured I’d try using olive oil instead of Greek yogurt to get the dip to the right consistency. One less ingredient to pick up from the store! I’d read other recipes that used olive oil from some well-respected chefs and foodies, and even though I was hesitant about it, I was sure that “the experts” wouldn’t lead me astray. It’d all be great.

Narrator: It would not be great.

When made with olive oil, my normally delicious and creamy feta dip took on an oily texture (surprise, surprise) and the flavor of the olive oil overpowered the feta. And instead of testing a small batch first like a logical woman, I wasted all of my ingredients by making the whole huge amount at once. Not to mention, starting over from scratch when I’m already such a procrastinator would usually mean that I’d be super late to the party. But I couldn’t come empty-handed.

Cue the freak-out.

I’m going to jump to the happy ending real quick and tell you that I was able to run to the grocery store, totally restart, make the dip and the chips, get ready, and still leave for the party with time to spare. Like I said, it’s a good thing that this dip is so easy and quick to make!

But before all that, I definitely was panicking a bit. Apparently I kept mumbling “I should have trusted my gut” under my breath. I knew I should have just stuck with the Greek yogurt from the get-go! Anyway, that is how this Garlicky Feta Dip earned the nickname of Trust Your Gut Dip. 

Moral of the story: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Oh, and trust your gut.

Speaking of guts, you’re going to want to fill yours with an insane amount of this dip. I usually serve it with pita chips, crackers, and pretzels, but I also love to spread it on toasted bread or bagels. Seriously, if you have any leftovers and you get the opportunity to smear it on a warm everything bagel the next morning, it’s like heaven. Heeeeaven. Especially if you’re a huge feta fan like me. And there’s cream cheese in here too, so it’s like your familiar spread with some exciting additions.

Aside from the feta, Greek yogurt, and cream cheese, the Garlicky Feta Dip also features plenty of garlic (obviously), lemon juice, and fresh dill in the mixture. I like to top it with additional dill and some other herbs like basil or parsley, as well as lemon zest for added brightness, chopped roma tomato, the tiniest pinch of crushed red pepper flakes for heat, and…

Olive oil. Gasp.

Replacing the Greek yogurt was a no-go, but the tiniest drizzle on top is a really nice addition. 

But realistically, you can go as over-the-top with toppings as you’d like or you can serve the Garlicky Feta Dip as simply as you’d like. I guess I’d say that you should just trust your gut.

Print

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Ingredients

6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill, or to taste

1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus lime zest, to top

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

1 Roma tomato, diced

1 pinch of crushed red pepper, to top (optional)

Fresh herbs, to top

Olive oil, to top

Pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to serve

Instructions

Combine the feta, cream cheese, greek yogurt, garlic, dill, and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Taste and season with Kosher salt and black pepper, as desired.

When well-combined, scoop into a bowl and top with lemon zest, tomato, a pinch of crushed red pepper, fresh herbs, and a very light drizzle of olive oil.

Serve cold with pita chips, pretzels, bruschetta, or crackers, to dip.

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Source: http://hostthetoast.com/garlicky-feta-dip/

[vacationsoup]

New Post has been published on https://vacationsoup.com/great-spots-for-vegetarian-and-vegan-dining-in-orlando/

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining in Orlando & Kissimmee

Whether you've made a commitment to healthy eating or just fancy a change, you don't have to miss out on dinner while on vacation in Orlando. Vegetarian and vegan dining in Orlando and Kissimmee is plentiful.

There are Vegetarian and Vegan Dining options locally, in the parks and a few local haunts a little further afield.

If you're wandering around the Orlando theme parks and feeling peckish, there plenty of options to tickle your vegetarian and vegan taste buds. Menus change quite frequently, but items below will give you a guide.

Disney go above and beyond to cater for dietary requirements. Disney chefs really know their stuff when it comes to vegetarian and vegan dining, or guests with dietary or allergy requirements. Always discuss your options with your server.

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining at Disney Parks

Iconic Vegan Snacks

The first thing we have to note is some hugely popular sweet treats that are ideal for vegans. The Dole Whip is probably Disney's most iconic park snack and the pineapple version is vegan. (The vanilla version is not). The hashtag #DoleWhip has over 160,000 posts, so you can see how popular it is! And a newcomer in 2018, the Peter Pan Float has already graced the pages of many Instagram accounts. And if you order it without the red chocolate feather, it's perfect for vegans. Available from Storybook Circus in Magic Kingdom. Another to add to the list is LeFou's Brew. This delicious slush drink from Gaston's Tavern in Magic Kingdom is totally vegan.

Here's what available for Vegetarian and Vegan dining in the parks:

Magic Kingdom:

The Plaza Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street USA offers Toffuti or Rice Dream. (Cones contain honey, so vegans need to ask for a cup or float). Columbia Harbor House at Liberty Square has a vegetarian chilli which is vegan friendly if you cut out the crackers. There's also a Lighthouse Sandwich without the slaw.

Main Street USA also has Crystal Palace where you can get vegetables, rice and tofu dishes. Speak to the chef about vegan options. Tortoga Tavern in Adventureland has a Vegan Vegetable Burrito, be sure to ask for plain white rice. Plaza Restaurant has a veggie burger and vegetable sandwich on vegan bread. In Fantasyland, Be Our Guest has Quinoa Salad or French Onion Soup, (vegans ask for it without the cheese) for lunch. Dinner options include Whole Grain Macaroni & Marinara Sauce and Ratatouille.

In Tomorrowland, Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe has the Malibu Garden Burger. There are several toppings available. Vegans need to ask for the gluten-free bun as the regular bun contains honey. The Malibu Garden Burger can also be found in Peco Bill's in Frontierland. Aloha Isle offers Pineapple and Orange Dole Whip and a Dole Whip Float. Liberty Square is home to the Liberty Tree Tavern where you will find a Roast Veggie Sandwich with the option of Vegan Mayo. Tony's Town Square offers vegan and vegetarian pasta dishes.

Hollywood Studios

Several vegetarian and vegan dining options here. Malibu Garden Burger at Rosies All American Cafe and also Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant. Sci-Fi also offers vegan pasta and milkshakes.

Backlot Express at Echo Lake has a grilled vegetable sandwich available on asiago bread, without the pesto and cheese for vegans. 50’s Prime Time Cafe offers Sissy’s Vegetarian spaghetti. If you have a sweet tooth, be sure to ask about the tofutti ice cream and vegan milk shakes. Commissary Lane is home to ABC Commissary and offers Couscous, Quinoa and Arugla Salad. PizzeRizzo has Grilled Vegetable Pizza with the option to have Follow Your Heart Vegan Cheese. There's also a side salad. Vegans can have it without croutons or cheese and request Italian instead of Caesar dressing. BaseLine Tap House offers a soft Bavarian Pretzel that is served with beer cheese dip and spicy mustard dip. Vegans can get two spicy mustards dips instead.

EPCOT

Sunshine Seasons Restaurant in The Land has plenty of vegetarian and vegan dining options. There's even a Special Dietary Treats Station. Take your pick from a selection of grab and go snacks such as veggie wraps, suchi or the Oak Grilled Veggie Sandwich (vegans leave out the feta). You can even ask for the Timarand Beef with Jasmine Rice and they'll substitute beef for vegan Gardein Beef-Less Tips. (Make sure the cashier knows it's vegan beef as it's priced lower than the beef version).

Coral Reef Restaurant have a Vegetarian Chicken Breast and Marinated Grilled Vegetables. Over at World Showcase, L'Artisan des Glaces in France has a sorbet in vegan friendly waffle cones. Les Chefs de France offers Ratatouille (minus cheese for vegans).

Tangerine Cafe in Morocco has a Vegetable platter - vegans can substitute the pita bread and lentil salad. They often have vegan bread. Marrakesh Restaurant also in Morocco has vegetarian and vegan options, so be sure to ask the server. Katsura Grill in Japan has a vegetable roll suitable for vegans Mexico offers Guacamole con Totopos in La Cantina. Teppan Edo in Japan has grilled veggies with white rice. Tokyo Dining has vegetable sushi and seaweed salad. Vegan Fish & Chips are available at Rose and Crown in the United Kingdom using Gardein fishless fillets.

Animal Kingdom

Satu'li Canteen in Pandora: World of Avatar offers the Crispy Fried Tofu Bowl. Perfect for vegetarians, there's a choice of 4 vegan bases too. Vegans will want to leave off the boba balls. Restaurantosaurus in Dinoland has the Malibu Garden Burger with a selection of vegan toppings. Vegans need to ask for a gluten-free bun as the regular bun contains honey.

Pizzafari in Safari Village has a Veggie Pizza and an option of vegan cheese. Tusker House Restaurant offers fun character dining and lots of vegetarian and vegan dining options. It's buffet style and the buffet is always loaded with dishes perfect for vegans and vegetarians. Yak and Yeti is a Nepalese style restaurant offering pan-Asian cuisine. Vegetarians can get several dishes and vegans can get Miso Tofu, Sweet & Sour Tofu and rice or noodles with tofu.

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining in Disney Resorts

Animal Kingdom Lodge:

Sanaa in Kidani Village offers a full-blown Vegan Menu and has a huge choice. Vegetarian and Vegan Dining Options: For appetizers, Indian Naan Bread with a selection of dips; Potato and Pea Samosas; Salad Sampler offering a choice of 3 salads from selections; Tomato & Spinach Soup and Chickpea Cakes. Entrees: Vindaloo Vegetables, Spicy Chickpeas and Vegetables with Green Curry Sauce. Dessert: Tofutti Ice Cream (which is also available in several other places around the Disney hotels and parks); The Mango Sorbet is also available and served with a selection of fresh fruits. Website: Sanaa at Animal Kingdom Lodge

Jiko — The Cooking Place offers dinner only and will thrill the palettes of vegetarians, vegans and meat eaters. It really has something for everyone. There's a whole vegan and vegetarian menu available. It changes seasonally so we can't give examples, but you won't be disappointed! Website: Jiko - The Cooking Place

The Boma Buffet at Animal Kingdom Lodge has several options. As with everything else, their service is exceptional. The chef will walk you around the buffet explaining the items you can eat. Website: Boma Buffet at Animal Kingdom Lodge

Grand Floridian:

Citrico's Restaurant at the Grand Floridian offers a good choice and the chef will be happy to talk to you about your requirements. The wait staff are extremely knowledgable too. They'll make sure you get vegan bread and soy milk for coffee. The menu changes frequently and is Mediterranean based. Website: Citrico's at Grand Floridian

Narcoossee's also at Grand Floridian offers a full vegetarian and vegan menu. As a diner, you can also watch the Happily Ever After fireworks at Magic Kingdom from the beach area. A super fireworks view without the crowds!

Advanced reservations are strongly advised in all Disney full service restaurants and you can book ahead as far as 180 days. Dining Hotline: 407-939-3463 Book online: Disney Dining

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining at Disney Springs

Disney Springs has a ton of options for vegan and vegetarian dining.

The Impossible Burger is available at both House of Blues and The Edison. The vegan patty is served with vegan American cheese, shredded romaine, secret sauce with dill pickle chips on a vegan bun. The Edison also offer a Greek Salad (without Feta for Vegans) and a Chopstick Chicken Salad, without chicken for vegetarians and vegans.

Erin McKenna Bakery NYC is a unique bakery with savory offerings and an all-vegan and gluten-free menu. Look for a full selection of award-winning donuts, cupcakes, cookies, bagels with vegan butter. Fan-favorite cupcakes from their flagship bakery in New York include vanilla cupcakes with zesty lemon frosting, red velvet cupcakes ith creamy vanilla frosting and brownie cupcakes with rich chocolate frosting. See full menu at Erin McKennas Bakery NYC

Staying with the sweet treats, the Red Velvet Cupcake at Sprinkles is vegan. Be sure to ask if there are any other vegan versions available and they often have specials.

Raglan Road has a 'from scratch' kitchen which makes it much easier for them to rustle up a treat for vegetarian and vegan dining. The 'Super-Cauli-Caponata-Tasty-N-Delicious' is spiced cauliflower eggplant caponata with lentil and pumpkin seed dressing. They also have a vegetable medley and The Big Q without cheese.

Bongo's Cuban Cafe have a variety of vegetarian and vegan menu items including the Black Bean Hummus (vegans order it without the aioli). There's also avocado salad, mixed veggies, vegetarian stew and veggie Cuban wrap.

The Boathouse offers Garden Salad, Sea Salt Baked Potato, Corn on the Cob and Grilled Asparagus (Vegans ask for no hollandaise sauce).

Frontera Cocina offers Zuccini & Poblano Tostadas (without cheese), Vegetable Enchiladas and Mushroom Tortas (without cheese). The guacamole and chips are also vegan.

Blaze Pizza offer build your own pizzas with Daiya Vegan Cheese. The regular crusts and gluten free crusts are vegan.

Morimoto Asia offer several vegetarian and vegan dining options. Sautéed Chinese Vegetables, Vegetable Steamed Rolls, White & Brown Rice and Steamed Vegetables. There's also Miso Soup and House Greens.

D-Luxe Burger offer a vegetarian burger. The bun is not vegan, but you can get it between a halved lettuce head instead.

The House-made Guacamole at Paradiso 37 is very tasty and totally vegan. There's also Roast Vegetables and House Salad (without cheese).

Paddlefish offer Vegetarian Pasta (vegans request no cheese or butter) and green salad, along with crispy Brussel sprouts, fries and Blistered Green Beans.

Polite Pig - while a BBQ joint might not sound like the ideal place for vegetarians or vegans, you actually do have a good choice! A recently introduced vegan dish is Smoked Root Vegetables tossed in an orange-thyme vinaigrette and topped with puffed grains. Other vegetarian options include Tomato & Watermelon Salad, Roast Beets, Crispy Brussel Sprouts, BBQ Cauliflower (without sour cream for vegans), Grilled Street Corn  (without butter for vegans) and Sweet Potato Tots (without cheese for vegans).

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining at Universal Orlando

Universal Orlando offer a good selection in City Walk and throughout the theme parks. If you get a little peckish in the parks, you can snack on popcorn, soft pretzels and Dippin Dots - the Rainbow variety is Vegan. There's also fresh fruit available.

Universal Studios

Monster Cafe offers Wood Fired Cheese Pizza. Vegans can opt for French fries or roast potatoes and broccoli.

Lombard's Seafood Grill offers several options including Portobello Quinoa. Vegans can have this without the cheese and fried onions. The San Francisco Cobb Salad can be prepared vegetarian if you let the server know. The lemon and garlic shrimp pasta is served with a variety of vegetables and is perfect for vegans without the shrimp.

The Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley offers a vegetable platter (vegans ditch the breaed) that includes roast veggies, tomatoes and beets. If it isn't shown on the menu, just ask the server. There's also roast veggies and several sides which vegans can have prepared with non-dairy butter. To wash it all down, vegans can have Tongue Tying Lemon Squash, Pumpkin Juice, Peachtree Fizzing Tea,Otter's Fizzy Orange Juice and Gillywater.

Lisa's Teahouse of Horror over by The Simpsons offers salads and wraps for vegetarians. For vegans, hummus and veggies are available. Fruit plates and cups are available too.

If vegans have a craving for dessert, head over to Finnegans Bar & Grill for the fruit platter topped with raspberry sorbet. They also offer a vegan burger with mixed vegetables, if it's not shown, ask the server. The Veggie Black Bean Burger is great for vegetarians, but contains egg so isn't suitable for vegans.

Ben & Jerry's offer a vegan Peanut Butter and Cookies Ice Cream

Islands of Adventure

Confisco Grille located at Port of Entry offers several vegetarian and vegan options, including Pad Thai. Adventure in Fajitas are vegan if you leave out the cheese, meat and sour cream. Vegetarians and vegans will both enjoy the Portobello Veggie Wrap.

Mythos Restaurant has a few vegetarian and vegan options. The Meze Platter, Pad Thai and Risotto can all be made vegetarian and vegan. They will serve bread with oil and balsamic instead of butter for vegans.

The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade offers a selection of vegetarian dishes and servers are happy to accommodate vegans where possible. Vegetarians can get fresh garden salad, roast potatoes (no butter for vegans), baked potato (no butter/sour cream for vegans), baked breakfast beans, grilled tomatoes, sautéed mushroom, potato wedges and steamed vegetables.  Roast vegetables are marinated in vegan margarine, but make sure the server knows. Although vegans can't slurp on Butterbeer, you can drink Tongue Tying Lemon Squash, Pumpkin Juice, Peachtree Fizzing Tea,Otter's Fizzy Orange Juice and Gillywater.

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining in Kissimmee & Celebration

Sweet Tomatoes:

This buffet style restaurant prides itself on farm fresh, made from scratch wholesome food. It offers salads, soups, pastas, veggies and baked goods. Vegetarian and Vegan Dining Options: Whole Wheat Creamy Chipotle Salad; Whole Wheat Spicy Asian Peanut Salad; Chipotle, Lime & Cilantro Quinoa; Italian White Bean; Lemon Linguine with Fresh Basil and Spicy Southwestern Pasta to name a few. You can see a full breakdown of vegan and vegetarian dishes on their website: Sweet Tomatoes Menu If you join their 'Veg Club' they will send you coupons and deals for your visit. Sweet Tomatoes Veggie Club Address: 3236 Rolling Oaks Boulevard, Kissimmee, FL 34747 Phone: (407) 966-4664

Bahama Breeze:

One of our favorite restaurants. Caribbean inspired food, great cocktails and a laid back atmosphere. There's a live singer several times a week on the outdoor patio. And Happy Hour too! What's not to love!

They offer vegetarian and vegan dining and encourage diners to talk with their server before ordering. The chefs are happy to omit meat, butter and cheese whenever they can from any dish on their menu. Vegetarian and Vegan Dining Options: House Salad; Tropical Fruit on Mixed Greens; Stuffed Tomatoes; Baked Bimini Pretzel; Chips ‘n Vine-ripened Tomato Salsa; Tostones; Grilled Portobello Mushroom Burger or Sun-Drenched Portobello & Vegetable Sandwich. Vegans can ask for everything sautéed in oil rather than butter. Menu options change frequently, so speak to your server for up to date options. Website: Bahama Breeze Address: 8160 West Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee, FL 34747 Phone: (407) 390-0353

Olive Garden:

Very open to catering for vegan and vegetarian options.

Speak to the server when you are seated and they will offer options. Vegetarian and Vegan Dining Options: Olive Garden Address: Olive Garden, 8136 W Irlo Bronson Hwy, Kissimmee, FL 34747 Phone: Tel: (407) 396-2560

Panera Bread:

A bakery style cafe. The store offers a selection of artisan bread. There's also cakes, soups, salads, sandwiches, pastas and flat-breads. They are happy to omit ingredients to cater to vegans wherever possible. Vegetarian and Vegan Dining Options: Greek Salad without cheese, Classic Cafe Salad, Vegetable Soup without Pesto and Black Bean Soup are just a few on offer for Vegans. Try a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on several varieties of vegan bread, or one of the several vegan bagels on offer. Website: Panera Bread Address: 8120 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy, Kissimmee, FL 34747 Phone: (407) 778-4820

MidiCi The Neapolitan Pizza Company

If you're heading for a a shopping spree at The Loop, Midici Pizza Co offers vegan cheese and vegan sausages for the vegans customers. Website: MidiCi Address: 720 Centerview Blvd. Kissimmee, FL 34741 Phone: (407) 201-3824

Mexican Restaurants with Vegetarian & Vegan Options

If you are staying in one of our vacation homes, there are two Mexican restaurants close by that offer vegetarian and vegan options.

On The Border have a Vegetarian Menu that includes a selection of appetizers, fajitas, enchiladas, salads and burritos. Vegans are a little more limited, but they can get guacamole quesadillas, a vegan burrito and avocado enchilada. However, they do warn that other meat items may have been cooked in the same oil, so do speak to your server to confirm On The Border: 3250 Rolling Oaks Blvd. Kissimmee. Phone 407-452-5437

Chuy's Tex-Mex has similar vegetarian items as mentioned above. Vegans can eat chips & salsa, guacamole and nachos without cheese for appetizers. For entree, Veggie Enchiladas (without cheese) is available, topped with Tomatillo or Ranchero sauce, both of which are vegan. Other vegan choices include Mexi-Cobb salad without cheese, Bean & Cheese Burrito without the cheese. Mexican and green chilli rice are both vegan as are the refried beans. Chuy's Tex-Mex, 7913 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy, Kissimmee, FL 34747. Phone 407 787 3545 

Outback Steakhouse

A steakhouse with vegetarian and vegan option? It's true! The Outback are happy to talk to customers about dietary requirements. For vegetarians there are salad, pasta and dessert options. For vegans there's not that much, but the House Salad is available without croutons and cheese, plain baked and sweet potatoes are available and fresh steamed vegetables (without butter). Outback Locations: 7804 W Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy, Kissimmee, FL 34747. Phone 407 396 0017 895 W E Osceola Pkwy # 300, Kissimmee, FL 34741. Phone 407 931 0033

Columbia Restaurant

Florida's oldest family owned restaurant chain has a rich history and is one of our favorite local restaurants. They have several vegetarian options, including vegetable paella. Vegans can speak to the server about having dishes prepared vegan, they are happy to accommodate whenever they can. Website: Columbia Restaurant, Celebration Address: 649 Front St, Celebration, FL 34747 Phone: 407 566 1505

Imperium Food & Wine

This delightful wine bar/bistro has a great selection of vegetarian options on the menu. Vegetarian appetizers include baked brie, spinach & artichoke dip and humus. There are several salads, sandwiches, wraps and flatbreads suitable for vegetarians.Vegans can speak to the server about substitutions. Website: Imperium Food & Wine Menu Address: 606 Market St #140, Celebration, FL 34747 Phone: 407 566 9054

Vegetarian and Vegan Dining in Orlando Local Gems

If you're staying in the Disney/vacation area, these may be a bit of a trek. But, here's a pick of some firm vegetarian and vegan restaurants loved by Orlando Locals.

Dandelion CommuniTea Cafe

Located just far enough off the beaten path in Orlando to be quaint, this local haunt is a firm favorite with visitors who find it too. The bright and colorful neighborhood cafe offers a range of dishes made from scratch using local produce to support the community. Everything is organic to support the environment and everything is vegetarian to support a health conscious lifestyle. With the exception of dairy cheese, the whole menu is vegan and celiac friendly. Drivetime*: About 40 Minutes

Website: Dandelion Communitea Address: 618 N Thornton Ave, Orlando FL 32803 Phone: 407-362-1864 Hours: Sunday 11am-5pm, Monday – Saturday 11am to 10pm

Ethos Vegan Kitchen

The picturesque village of Winter Park has more than it's share of vegan restaurants in Orlando. There's a Whole Foods Market store here too, so you could combine a visit for dining and groceries.

Winter Park is a well worth a visit and is a beautiful blend of culture and history with over 100 specialty stores and boutiques. The Winter Park Scenic Boat Tour is perfect for all ages.

Ethos Vegan Kitchen won Orlando Magazine's Readers Pick 2015 Dining Award for "Best Vegetarian", Plus was runner-up in Orlando Sentinel's Foodie Awards. The menu is 100% vegan and they estimate that 50% of the menu is organic too. For appetizers, try the Garlic Knots made with hand tied house made dough or the Southern style Hoe Cakes. They offer a great selection of soups, salads, pasta and sandwiches. Entrees include BBQ chickun, Bay Cakes and Pecan Encrusted Eggplant. They also have hand-tossed pizzas prepared with their house made dough. There's a kids menu and be sure to leave room for dessert! Drivetime*: About 50 minutes Website: Ethos Vegan Kitchen Address: 601-B S New York Ave, Winter Park, FL, 32789. Phone: 407-228-3898

Loving Hut

One of the fastest growing vegan chains, Loving Hut opened it's doors in Orlando in 2009. It may be a chain, but each store is individual and the chefs can offer their creativity based on local ingredients and styles. Loving Hut say they are the world's largest vegan restaurant chain. It was founded by spiritual teacher Supreme Master Ching Hai and there are over 200 stores worldwide. The menu is Asian based and also has western dishes too. There's a selection of quinoa dishes, soups, salads, rice and noodles. They also have Family Plates such as Lemongrass Delight, King Spicy Cha Cha and Ocean Delight.Drivetime*: About 40 minutes Website: Loving Hut Address: Loving Hut 2101 E Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL, 32803 USA Phone: 407-894-5673

Other Resources for Vegetarian and Vegan Dining

Menu's are changed often and it can be challenging to keep up, but there are some great blogs that concentrate on vegan and vegetarian options that are usually pretty much up to date. Vegan Disney World gives you a comprehensive list of all vegan items available. The also offer reviews from their personal experiences. VeganDisneyWorld

AllEars: For a list of Vegan snacks in the Disney parks, check out this article by AllEars.Net. They also have a great graph for vegan and vegetarian dining in the parks.

Flying with Fosters is a travel blog that scoured every single Disney Springs menu (in March 2018) to discover every vegan option available. See the full list.

So there you have it, some vegetarian and vegan options both locally, a little off the beaten path and in the Orlando theme parks.

Go eat and enjoy!

For a Google Map showing all the above locations see here: Vegetarian & Vegan Restaurants

*Drivetimes shown are for guests staying in one of our Orlando Vacation Home Rentals: Serendipity at Indian Creek - Serenity Lake House - Sleepy Hollow

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Amy Roloff Prepares for Easter, Hears It from Jesus Fans

https://styleveryday.com/2018/03/18/amy-roloff-prepares-for-easter-hears-it-from-jesus-fans/

Amy Roloff Prepares for Easter, Hears It from Jesus Fans

Without intending to do so, Amy Roloff has managed to make a plateful of cookies seem controversial.

The Little People, Big World star jumped on Instagram last week to share a delicious looking photo.

It features Amy sitting alone at a table, except for the yummy items in front of her; from mini muffins to some kind of bread and even a few painted eggs.

“I’m already planning for Easter,” she wrote to open a lengthy caption, continuing as follows:

“It’s a special time and celebration to me because what Jesus did! And I’m with my family. Amy Roloff’s Little Kitchen is all about sharing what I love with you.

“Recipes, food and why I love being in the kitchen making delicious baked goods and meals. That gather people together and around the table.”

So… why the aforementioned controversy?

Because Easter is arguably the most sacred and important of all Catholic holidays.

It is meant as a celebration for the surprising resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And Amy is using it as a way to shill for her website and her company?!? Does she have no sense of decorum or respect?!?

So argues a few harsh critics, at least.

“Really, Amy?!? Must you exploit this holiday for your own selfish gain?” wrote one follower in response to this post.

The post, meanwhile, goes on a bit more:

I remember how I loved coloring eggs w/ my kids and hiding them before they woke up to find them. And making Easter baskets with something special in it that reminded them what Easter truly is all about. I

’d baked a lemon poppy seed bread (in photo) quiche, cheesecake, honey baked ham and other goodies for our meal. I get excited just thinking about it.

We get hungry just thinking about it.

But some get angry.

“Just stop, Amy,” said another hater. “Of ALL days, this one is not about you.”

In the past, Amy’s daughter also got dragged for using God and religion to pitch her own products.

Amy, meanwhile, typically hears it from trolls who don’t approve of her romance with Chris Marek.

But he wasn’t the source of contention this time around.

Concluded Roloff in her caption:

My kids are all grown up now and it’ll be fun to see them with their kids at Easter and start their own traditions. What are some of your Easter traditions and things you make? Check out Amy Roloff’s Little Kitchen at www.amyjroloff.com.

Thank you for your support and encouragement. Have a wonderful almost Spring day.

Roloff also used the hashtags “#amyroloffslittlekitchen,” “#Easter,” “#celebratetraditions,” “#familylife,” and “#sharingourstory.”

What do you think of this scandal?

Is it really a scandal?

Is Amy just doing what any entrepreneur anywhere would do?

Or should Easter really not be a holiday that gets the hashtag treatment because it is too sacred?

We want to hear your opinion, readers!

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