#there are like: tons of variations of the recipe

[eighthwholove]

OK I have attempted to make *ahem* a certain pudding for Christmas. It is currently steaming in the crock pot, and will be for 6 freaking hours. Oh boy.

I personally blame Eight (And my love for A Christmas Carol) for this disaster

[justacozybug]

Cozybug Mod Recs: Ranching

Something about those cute little farm animals always hooks me!! I'm always on the lookout for new animal skins/retextures, or cute animals to add into the roster. Here are a few that I've played with before, all 1.6 compatible and available on Nexusmods.

Mizu's Quail

This mod has become a staple in my last three playthroughs! The quail themselves are absolutely adorable, come in up to 4 different variations, and make the cutest sounds. I especially love that they're a little cheaper than chickens, so they make a great starter coop animal when you're still pinching pennies! This mod also has compat with Animal Husbandry, if that's something you play with.

Ice Cream Cows

Who can resist a cute lil ice cream cow?? Certainly not me. These little guys come in 7 "flavors", each producing their own milk. You can either turn it into ice cream using the included machine recipe, or just make regular cheese out of it. Taste implications aside, I like the flexibility there lol. There's a whole layer of recipes, gift tastes, and buffs to explore as well once you get deeper into the mod!

Otter's Barn + Coop Animals

If you're looking for super cute reskins of the barn and coop animals, Otter has you covered! As a CP enthusiast, these are the two I've used, and they allow you to customize which skins appear in Marnie's shop when you purchase animals. There are also AT versions available though, if that's more your jam! Otter also has a collection of other animal retextures/additions, so you could make your whole farm match if you want.

Elle's Coop + Barn Animals

I would be absolutely nuts not the mention the ✨classics✨ that are "Elle's Cuter" mods. There is something just oh so satisfying about how these little guys look, especially when they're laying down for a little rest!! Absolutely adorable CP mod with tons of configurability for skins - in fact, my only criticism is that it took me AGES to decide which skins I wanted to turn on in my game from the pages and pages of options.

Livestock Bazaar

This mod 100% revolutionized Marnie's store for me, and now I won't play without it! Not only does it organize the front page for better scrolling/locating animals if you have a bunch of custom ones installed, it also has a super nice UI for choosing skins. I've been burned too often by the "random" choice that always gives me the same brown cow, so being able to preview and pick is a game changer.

[demonslayedher]

The first fanbook tells us that lately, Mitsuri is hooked on "youshoku" (Western food) like pork cutlet and omelette rice, so her expenditure on food is pretty extreme.

Nowadays, these Japanese-style "Western foods" are pretty ubiquitous but not actually things you run into much in "the West." The ingredients and recipes have changed here and there with how long they've been around, so a nerd buddy who knows Tokyo better than I do (and who is a Mitsuri fan) insisted I try out what these things would have tasted like in Taisho. That's why she took me to Rengatei, where some of Mitsuri's favorite dishes were born.

I'm going to let this food blog do the talking about the restaurant itself and how it has the credit for creating many well-known dishes, including pork cutlet and omelette rice. It's an interesting, short read.

We'll focus most on what Rengatei might mean for Mitsuri, and on that note, I'll call your attention to the fact that this food blog article first mentions looking for a similar restaurant with a long history in the Azabu Juban area. Mitsuri is from a spot that was known as the Iikura neighborhood of the Azabu area in the Taisho period, and what is now known as the Azabudai area. Back in the Taisho period, this was a glitzy shopping and entertainment area where Mitsuri would have had many options for popular Western style restaurants. Even today, Azabudai feels like an area meant for people who make far more money than I do.

So, if she was spoiled for choice closer to where she lived back then, would she have bothered going over to Ginza, another glitzy shopping area of Tokyo, to visit Rengatei? The restaurant opened in 1895, a year or so before she was born, so it would have been well established, but not exactly new. To that I say, let's assume she'd have had plenty of opportunities to go to Ginza. It's perfectly reasonable to assume she might have visited the restaurant that developed some of her favorite dishes. Even today, Rengatei plays up the retro atmosphere with the table setting and wait staff uniforms.

Thing is, despite the retro feeling of modern-day Rengatei, this building was constructed in the 1960s. Mitsuri's wouldn't have seen the place in the same way you can see it today.

The kicker is that it would have been the same Meiji era recipes.

My friend who took me along asked for my thoughts on the food afterward, and we arrived at the same conclusions about it being not amazing, but feeling a little imperfect compared to many other versions of these recipes that we've had. Like you can tell these were freshly developed and on the homestyle side. I had the omuraisu (omelet rice, as it is better known today instead of the long o-mu-re-tsu-rai-su* as it used to be known), and she had the tonkatsu (pork cutlet, which is also a shorter way of saying po-o-ku-ka-tsu-re-tsu*, with "ton" for "pork").

*Both the KnY fanbook and the Rengatei menu use old, long names, though there was some linguistic variation like ka-re-ka-tsu or ka-to-re-to until the current names were settled on.

So why were these sorts of foods such a big deal? There were a lot of new foods introduced to the Japanese diet over the course of the Meiji period, especially meat, since Japan was very influenced by Buddhism and not widely in the habit of eating it (but you can always find exceptions, and different strains of Japanese Buddhism vary in how much they condemn certain lifestyle choices). Many new meat dishes, like curry and sukiyaki (or rather, gyunabe as Rengoku knew it in his bentou), were fancy and expensive and novel in the Meiji period. Perhaps more surprisingly, eggs were also a luxury item (though they have a complex history in the Japanese diet).

Granted, by the time the Taisho period rolls around, a lot of high society in Tokyo has already had some time to get used to these new menu items being a thing, and how much they were adopted into people's lifestyles varied as much as how much they adopted Western attire and houses. On that note, it is very interesting how in the flashback to Mitsuri's family life, they live in a very Japanese-style home and visit Japanese-style establishments and eat Japanese-style sweets, but by the time we join Mitsuri for Hashira training, there are Western elements to her home (though it is not clear if she lives with family or not), and she eats Western style sweets (beekeeping has a long history, and Western methods of beekeeping were introduced in Meiji long before Mitsuri was born). We can see how quickly what was normal for Mitsuri changed over the course of her life, so it's possible she really hadn't been in a habit of eating Western food until closer to when she joined the Corp. While I'm sure Rengoku was happy to eat anything, his home and tastes still seem to lean distinctly non-Western in comparison.

Anyway, so how was the food at Rengatei? Back to that topic!

I usually associate restaurant omuraisu with being impeccably fluffy, and with a variety of sauces and rices seasonings to choose from, even if ketchup is traditional. However, this omelet had a distinctly flatter, more inconsistent texture than you usually get with standard restaurant omuraisu. It's closer to just the usual flat, bumpy, but at least smoothly beaten omelette you'd be more likely to accomplish at home. Even the ketchup had a bit of a freshly-blended quality to it, but I can't exactly say I'm ketchup connoisseur. For all we know about Mitsuri, she might be.

The pork cutlet was, as you get into it yourself instead of having somewhat pre-cut strips like at many tonkatsu establishments, very clearly a hunk of meat. My usual image of tonkatsu is a evenly tenderized, evenly cooked hunk of white meat, with a stretch of fat along one side. Not so with this--the textures and darkness and lightness of the meat, as well as the amount and distribution of fat, was more typical of a cut of meat that is first and foremost meat; not a uniform product. My friend really loves tonkatsu, and says she prefers this juicy, not-quite-perfected version. Because it is a greasy dish, this is why Rengatei introduced the convention of serving it a bed of shredded cabbage to aid in digestion, which all of Japan has copied ever since.

As a brief note, most online sources say "yeah, Rengatei invented tonkatsu (but we're all probably copying the same source)." It seems there is another restaurant (Ponchitei) that claims to have invented tonkatsu before or after 1897, and for what I've poked around, the claims for Rengatei's invention aren't clear, but 1899 seems like the most likely time it entered the menu (I saw a claim for 1890, but the restaurant didn't open until 1895...).

Anyway, tl,dr; I did feel I was eating something closer to what Mitsuri would have known and loved by having eaten at Rengatei.

I also felt it went to show why her food bill was so high, because Rengatei is not cheap (like, about twice what I'd typically be willing to pay). You're paying for some ambiance and history here, as opposed to just a standard meal. Also, it is worth noting that although there is scant official information for the parent restaurant in Ginza, there is a lot more information for an off-shoot restaurant in Fukagawa that opened in 1928. That includes a short, cute English article introducing Western foods.

But hey, despite the stiff prices, I was full and satisfied after one plate of omuraisu and a couple bites of pork cutlet. Mitsuri-chan has a Hashira salary, so she can afford as many servings as she likes.

[sainamoonshine]

Was talking with someone the other day about the basic human nature and they posited “what if we sent a bunch of people to create a colony on another planet and then checked back after a decade, what would we find?” And this person (a pessimist who thought we would find the colonists all having descended into chaos and killed each other) did not like my answer very much lmao.

(Keep in mind in that hypothetical scenario, the colony has all it needs to survive. They have a way to grow food, to construct shelter, they have medicine, etc. This is not a “the environment will kill them” scenario, it’s strictly “what will they do with no supervision” scenario.)

Here’s what I think we would find, based on historical data regarding human behaviour:

- A ton of new recipes based on the local ingredients, including at the very least new type of alcohol, a variation on dumplings, and soup.

- New words. So many new words.

- At least one song about how great this place is and one saying it sucks ass. Both are bangers.

- At least two sports teams.

- A variation on a known sport and lots of arguing about whether it’s better or worse than the old sport

- A new pigment

- A new clothing style, and lots of arguing about whether it’s better or worse than the old clothing styles

- If there is fauna on that planet, a species has been identified that is likely suited to domestication

- A little girl has already started taming an animal from a specie unlikely to be suited for domestication and she’s trying to hide it from her parents

- There’s a graffiti somewhere there really shouldn’t be. Like, how the actual fuck did somebody manage to get up there???

- The graffiti has a typo

- The catholics have schismed twice. It’s over something stupid.

- There is a long oral history about the convoluted romantic intrigues of a local celebrity

- There has been several attempts to classify some local aspect of the landscape (the rocks, the plants, the animals, etc.) into categories. Everybody is arguing about this.

[cookingthehungergames]

Cooking the Hunger Games Meal 2: Tessera Bread

"We drink milk from Prim's goat, Lady, and eat the rough bread made from the tessera grain."

Okay, this one was interesting.

I'm going to say straight up that I gave up on the goat's milk. Like the blackberries, this was mostly an ingredient access problem; I could find goat's milk, but it was a) a large quantity, b) quite expensive, and c) in a location that was a pain in the butt to get back to after I initially walked away without the milk because of a) and b). I would've gone through with it if it had been integral to the meal, but I didn't think it was, or at least not to the extent that subbing in cow's milk would ruin the experience. The milk really isn't the point.

No, the point of this meal is the bread - and, specifically, the contrast between this bread, which defines the taste of Katniss's everyday life, and the finer bread (and, later, other finer foods) that she could never afford.

This bread is the taste of life in the Seam, and more than that, it's the taste of working-class life everywhere in the districts - because other district breads, despite their regional variations, are ultimately "made from the same stuff". Symbolically, it's also the taste of the Games, because it's made from the stuff of tessera rations: rough grain and oil.

I knew I had to get this bread right. Unfortunately, this turned out to be pretty difficult, because the bread's defining feature is that it sucks. And nobody is posting recipes for bread that sucks.

And thus began... my Research (TM).

First of all, I knew I couldn't make this bread Bad through ineptitude alone. This is meant to be the bread made and eaten by every home baker in the districts, and it would be ridiculous to assume that none of those guys can bake. Also, the entire point of this bread is that it sucks because of systematic inequality, rather than because of any individual failures. So it was going to have to be an ingredient issue.

I started my research by thinking about scarcity. I looked up some Depression-era recipes, but while those were pretty simple - just flour, water, salt, and yeast - they weren't really different from the recipe for the lovely artisanal bread I made the last time. So that was a bust. I decided to break down the problem:

The flour:

Tessera grain is described as coarse and rough, and based on the fact that Katniss is always saying "grain" instead of "flour", I figured I'd want some kind of wholemeal situation where I could see the individual Bits. This is especially so because at one point she talks about how tessera grain "cooks down into an unattractive mush", which suggests that she's tried making a porridge of it - not something one typically does with flour.

I'll admit that I was starting to worry at this point - I was imagining some sort of stone-ground hand-milled organic wheat situation, and I was not relishing the thought of trekking out to a health foods store to pay a shit ton of money for weird flour so I could make bad bread. I did some googling to see if maybe Katniss was accidentally talking about oats, but - come on. She probably knows what an oat is.

Finally I went to my local supermarket chain's website and they had wholegrain flour in stock, along with superfine wholegrain flour - intriguing. Presumably the not-superfine stuff was... not super fine? That listing also suggested using the regular wholegrain flour as a mix-in to bread made with normal, fine, white flour. Interesting.

So I got off my ass and actually went to the store and felt up the bag and it felt like literal sand. Okay, then. That's our tessera grain! Surprisingly simple once I stopped overcomplicating it.

The leavening:

Yeast or soda?

The type of leavening agent used to make this bread would determine what sort of bread it turned out to be. This was a bit of a puzzle for a while - both yeast and chemical leaveners are very cheap in the present day, and there's no real reason to believe either of them would become terribly expensive in Panem. Honestly, I'd expect people living in deep poverty to use sourdough starters - after all, the leavening is free! - but I was not about to make a wholeass starter just for this project.

While I was justifying this decision to myself, I thought about the fact that a coal miner might not have the time or energy to properly care for a starter, either. This helped me realise the real question here, which was not about ingredient price but rather about ingredient storage. In a world where replacing spoiled food is often a serious difficulty, you'd want your bread leavener to be the easiest thing to store.

This put me down on the side of baking soda/baking powder, because while both things - like yeast - require protection from moisture, they're not actually living organisms, and take a lot more effort to "kill".

Also, this meant that I could use this recipe -

The loaf:

Looking at breads in the Training Centre, Katniss describes the District 12 loaf as "drop biscuits". I always assumed this was referring to the shape: drop biscuits are small, round, and lumpy, like chunks of coal.

But then I thought: what if this bread actually is drop biscuits? Drop biscuits have a long history in the American South, giving them cultural ties to Appalachia, and - perhaps more importantly - they're a chemically leavened, low-effort bread that is quick to cook. Plus, they use fat, specifically butter - providing a way to incorporate the oil component of the tessera ration, and to realistically degrade the quality of the recipe based solely on ingredient availability rather than skill - since butter would be prohibitively expensive, and it would simply make sense to replace it with oil.

I used this drop biscuit recipe from Serious Eats, but swapped in wholegrain flour for regular flour, oil for butter, and water for milk. I also halved the recipe, because I expected to sort of hate the results, and I didn't want to be stuck with ten biscuits to hork down.

The final recipe came out as follows:

3/4 cup wholegrain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon oil

3/4 cup water

mix drys

add oil

add water

shape

put on baking tray at 200 celsius for ~12 minutes

And here are some process pictures:

The biscuits were kind of hard to shape since the flour didn't absorb much moisture - it felt like I was shaping wet sand. Honestly, it was kind of fun! I also had some trouble figuring out when the biscuits were done - they looked basically the same brown then entire time.

So how was it?

I mean... bad!

The texture really was quite challenging - I felt like I was chewing through fine unpopped popcorn. You really do taste every grain, and at some points I got a little worried for my teeth. Also, the heaviness of the flour probably worked against the baking powder - I didn't feel like these were meaningfully leavened at all. And because I used oil instead of butter, there was no flakiness; the bread really was flat and dense.

But it stayed remarkably moist on the inside, and the flavour was actually quite nice - mildly salty, malty, and roasty. It tasted like what it was, which was a pile of roasted grain; but roasted grain has quite a pleasing nutty taste, so it wasn't all bad.

I did try it with some milk and the milk helped me not choke on the bread on the way down, so maybe it was more integral than I thought.

I can see this being kind of enjoyable sliced or pressed flat, with some soft cheese spread on top. As an everyday bread, though - ugh. No.

Success!

[agentoffangirling]

There are ways to make any food look appetizing. You could make fried scorpion look good if you tried. The problem I keep noticing with British food is that they don't

You already have a solid base with all the meat and potatoes, there's tons of native herbs used to spice things up. Hell, if beans on toast was presented like this:

I would eat it, bc that looks appetizing. If you used the spices you colonized half the world for, you could have something really really good. If British cuisine bothered to put the slightest bit of effort into making their food look actually edible, more people would be open to it

Think about it this way. If I gave you this hamburger:

You would realistically think that it's meh at best. Sure, the taste might be fine, but this is boring. Bland. Nothing to it. Now, I add a few things, like lettuce, tomato, cheese, a few sauces, a spice blend, and boom:

That looks fucking delicious! It's the same concept with every single food

Or perhaps something from my own culture, khoresh gheymeh:

Again, it looks fine, but it can be better, something like this:

To be fair, this one is from a vegan recipe, but much nicer, yeah? And it still keeps the base we know and love

You don't need to stick with the same five ingredients every time, branch out! Use what you have, add what you took, and twist it into something presentable, bc every single British dish I've seen is just a different variation of mashed potatoes and meat. You don't have to ration anymore, stop acting like it

[sharenadraculea]

Writing Tips: Autistic characters and their Safe Food

Disclaimer at the start: this here is mostly based on my own experiences and some stuff online written by other autistic people

So, first off, what is a Safe Food? A lot of autistic people struggle with food, especially due to sensory sensitivities. A Safe Food is a food that can be eaten at pretty much all times without distress. Depending on the person they might eat their Safe Food just like once a week or it might literally be all they can eat. A person might have multiple Safe Foods (I have three, one of has variations) or just one.

I often see the cliche that every autistic persons safe food is dino nuggets or plain pasta, which is just not true and it‘s kind of annoying me to see this reflected in stories, so here is some advice to avoid this a bit!

First off, decide wether the character in question is a sensory seeker or sensory avoidant in regards to food specifically. A sensory seeker well seeks out strong sensory input, like food that is very spicy, sweet or salty or food that‘s very crunchy or a lot of diffrent textures and tastes mixed in one dish (this is what I am). Someone who is sensory avoident on the contrary would prefer plain foods, without tastes and textures mixing.

This can be enough to know in a lot of cases, but if you would like to go into further detail, you can also think about things like the following: -Does your character prefer salty, sweet, spicy or bitter food? -Chewy vs soft vs chrunchy food? -Hot vs cold food? -Certain foods they absolutly won‘t eat? -Textures that just ick them out? -Do they have additional intolerances/allergies?

Something very importang with safe foods is that they are always the same. This is why many autistic people struggle with fruit, a apple tastes diffrent every time. Because of this a lot of peoples safe food is highly processed, like dino nuggets or pasta. The only reason why I can have a specific veggie dish as one of my safe foods is because I cook it myself, so I can always use the same ingredients in the same amount, and I use a ton of spices. (I should also note that I at the moment don‘t struggle as much with food as many other autistic people do)

It should also be noted that safe foods often change throughout a persons life time. This can be because a food becomes unsafe, for example due to trauma/bad experiences or a changed recipe, or just randomly. This can happen very quickly or over the course of multiple weeks.

Some other things to keep in mind/think about: -Safe Foods are often hyperspecific, like a certain brand of a food, and the cooking process usually needs to always be the same -Can the character in question cook for themself or do their caregivers cook for them? -Do they mealprep or not? (A reheated food might not be tolerated) -A lot of people stockpile their safe food -A safe food might need to be taken along while traveling -How many other foods can they eat? (At some point you enter ARFID-teretory, which is a whole other beast) -Do they have other issues that may make eating more complicated? (For example I have coordination and fine motor issues, that make eating with a fork or fork and knife more difficult) -Safe drinks also exist! -A Safe Food can be literally any food

There are definetly more things, these are just the ones that came to my mind! I hope this is helpfull!

[jujuberry136]

Recipe recs

Since anyone can get themselves into a cooking rut, here are some things I made over the last couple weeks that you may also like (and why). I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't tend to eat a ton of meat, so take these recommendations with that in mind:

Corn Butter Farro

Not the most aesthetically pleasing dish, but I love corn, farro, and onions and there's maybe 10 minutes of active work for this recipe (assuming that you, too, are able to chop stuff pretty quickly). Farro may be harder to find for some folks (I swear by the Trader Joe's stuff since it's cheap and tasty), so this is like a $5 recipe in peak summer when corn is ~$0.10 an ear (or you can use de-frosted frozen in a pinch).

Zucchini Rice and Cheese Gratin

Another Smitten Kitchen recipe, but fair warning that I really recommend using the alternate, alternate instructions in the comment sections since it takes even more steps out and still tastes great. I am that weirdo who loves zucchini and this one is great to re-heat in the air fryer to keep the top crispy. Another great one for mid-summer when the zucchinis are plentiful.

Korean Beef Bowls

I'll frequently make this one with ground pork, turkey, or chicken since I'm ambivalent about ground beef and it's often way more expensive. This one is definitely not super authentic, but it's great for making ahead of time and keeps well for left-overs. These days I'll often make a quick cucumber salad (toss cut up cucumbers in a jar with sugar/soy sauce/sesame oil/chili crisp) or add some boiled edamame on top just to add some green to the plate.

Air Fryer Tofu

Admittedly, this one is a go to when it is just to hot to entertain the idea of turn on my oven or stove (there is no A/C in my kitchen... it depends on the main living room conditioning which is normally fine except for those 95+ degree days). I use the proportions as a rough guide, but this is basically an equivalent of chicken nuggets sometimes and I'll frequently just eat the seasoned tofu without anything on the side when I'm feeling lazy

Carrot and White Bean Burger

Yes, in this house we trust Deb Perlman, ok? This comes together quickly but somehow outpunches a lot of competitors. Nothing in here super seasonal per se, but I'll make these on a weekend and re-fry a patty for dinner over the next couple days and it's a delight. Please trust me that topping with avocado and pickled red onion is the way to go.

Zucchini Pizza with Feta, Lemon, and Garlic

Again, I love me some zucchini and when it's tolerable enough to turn on the oven this is a great treat. The salty feta plus garlic-y zucchini and mozzarella makes for a really tasty treat. Feel free to follow the recipe exactly, but I've been playing around with minor variations for years and it's always come out just fine. I don't both to matchstick the zucchini and just grate the zucchini instead since I'm lazy - I also just tend to throw the lemon juice on at the end instead of including the rinds alongside the zucchini itself. I'll make pizza dough, but it works just fine with store bought!

[ntaifitness]

Your Overhead Press Sucks—Here’s How to Make It Elite

Ever hoist a barbell overhead and feel like you’re fighting gravity itself? The overhead press is a beast of a lift, and for most gym-goers, it’s a humbling one.

A while back, a heated discussion in a popular fitness community blew up when a seasoned lifter shared their grind to master this move. It wasn’t just a flex—it was a no-nonsense breakdown of why so many people stall on the overhead press and how to push past the plateau.

Today, we’re unpacking the mistakes holding you back and dropping battle-tested tips to make your overhead press a force to be reckoned with. Let’s dive in.

The Overhead Press Problem: Why It’s So Damn Hard

Let’s get one thing straight: The overhead press is a gut-check. Unlike the bench press, where you’re cozy on a bench, this lift demands every muscle from your shoulders to your core to fire in sync.

In that fitness community thread, a veteran lifter called out the biggest issue: Most people treat the overhead press like an afterthought, tacking it onto their routine without a plan. The result? Weak presses and zero progress.

Why does this happen? Because the overhead press is unforgiving. It exposes weaknesses—shaky shoulders, a wobbly core, or sloppy form—in a heartbeat. If you’re stuck, it’s likely because you’re not training it with purpose. A smart approach might involve pressing once or twice a week with 3-5 heavy reps, paired with accessories like lateral raises or dips.

But too many lifters just wing it, doing random sets and wondering why they’re not getting stronger.

A 2020 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that structured, progressive overload programs—adding weight over time—drive significant strength gains in compound lifts like the press. So, if your overhead press is stuck, it’s time to get serious.

⚡ “The overhead press doesn’t care about your excuses. Train it with a plan, or stay weak.” ⚡

Conflict #1: Pressing Hard vs. Pressing Smart

One big debate in the community thread was about effort versus strategy. Some lifters thought grinding out max-effort presses every session was the key to gains. The veteran disagreed, arguing that smart programming—mixing heavy and lighter days—beats brute force every time. Who’s got the edge here?

Here’s the truth: Going all-out every workout is a recipe for burnout. Your shoulders and triceps can’t handle constant max lifts without breaking down. A better plan? Press heavy (3-5 reps at 80-90% of your max) once a week, then do a lighter day (8-12 reps with variations like dumbbell presses) to build volume. This balance builds strength without wrecking your joints.

A 2021 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine supports this: Combining high-intensity and moderate-volume training maximizes strength gains in lifts like the overhead press. Yet, tons of lifters hammer away with max reps, then wonder why their shoulders feel like garbage. Press smart, not just hard.

Hot take: Stop treating every press session like a Strongman contest. Mix heavy and light to keep climbing.

💬 “Grinding max presses every day is like sprinting a marathon. Balance intensity and volume to win.” 💬

Conflict #2: Core Strength vs. Shoulder Obsession

Another heated topic in the discussion was about what really drives the overhead press. Some lifters focused only on their shoulders, thinking bigger delts equal a bigger press. The veteran pushed back, stressing that a weak core is often the silent killer of overhead strength.

Think about it: When you press a barbell overhead, your core is what keeps you from folding like a lawn chair. If your abs and obliques are soft, you’ll wobble, leak power, and stall out.

A solid routine might include core work like planks, hanging leg raises, or even deadlifts to build stability. I know a lifter, let’s call her Sarah, who plateaued at 95 pounds on her press for months. She added 3 sets of heavy planks and Romanian deadlifts weekly, and six months later, she was pressing 115 with ease.

A 2019 study in Journal of Sports Sciences confirms that core strength enhances performance in overhead lifts by improving stability. Yet, so many lifters skip core work, thinking it’s just for abs. Newsflash: Your core’s the foundation of a big press.

⚡ “Weak core, weak press. Build a rock-solid midsection, or your shoulders will never shine.” ⚡

Conflict #3: Form Freak-Out vs. Progress Focus

Form was another sticking point in the thread. Some lifters obsessed over “perfect” technique—knees locked, back straight, bar path flawless—while the veteran argued that overthinking form can stall your gains. Sure, technique matters, but progress comes from lifting, not analyzing.

Let’s be real: Nobody’s overhead press is textbook on day one. Good form—tight core, slight leg drive, bar over mid-foot—keeps you safe and efficient. But if you’re spending 10 minutes tweaking your stance instead of pressing, you’re not getting stronger.

Progressive overload is the game: Start with a weight you can handle for 5 reps, add 2.5-5 pounds every couple of weeks, and refine form as you go.

A 2018 study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that consistent load progression, even with minor form imperfections, drives strength gains in compound lifts.

Compare that to the lifter who’s still pressing 65 pounds, scared to add weight because their form’s not “perfect.” Get the basics, then press and grow.

💬 “Perfect form is a myth. Nail the essentials, add weight, and let experience polish your press.” 💬

Time to Own the Overhead Press

That fitness community discussion wasn’t just gym talk—it was a blueprint for anyone chasing a stronger overhead press. The takeaways? Treat the press like a priority with a structured plan, balance heavy and light days, strengthen your core, and focus on progress over perfection.

But here’s the deal: None of this works if you don’t show up. A killer press is built through consistent, smart effort—not wishful thinking.

So, take a hard look at your overhead press game. Are you stalling because you’re winging it? Skipping core work? Obsessing over form? Start with a plan—press twice a week, mix heavy and light, add core and accessory moves, and track your numbers. Fuel up with enough food, sleep like a pro, and keep grinding. The overhead press is a beast, but you can tame it.

What’s holding your press back? Got a tip that’s worked for you? Drop a comment and let’s swap ideas. Your next PR is out there—go claim it.

Gold Nuggets to Power Up Your Press

⚡ “The overhead press doesn’t care about your excuses. Train it with a plan, or stay weak.”

💬 “Grinding max presses every day is like sprinting a marathon. Balance intensity and volume to win.”

⚡ “Weak core, weak press. Build a rock-solid midsection, or your shoulders will never shine.”

💬 “Perfect form is a myth. Nail the essentials, add weight, and let experience polish your press.”

[explorer-of-art]

Chinese New Year

My parents celebrate Chinese New Year by making turnip cakes (lo bak go) and giving them to friends. I've seen fandom posts celebrating so I got around to writing this. Time to project onto my OC who I already project parts of myself on. One day I'll make this into a oneshot.

North never got around to checking whether or not a Lunar New Year existed despite the existence of a TWST counterpart of Mulan and China so the holiday wasn't on her radar. The variation of date in the solar calendar, the chance of cultural differences between worlds, having no way of knowing others at Sage's Isle who do celebrate such a thing, and her focus on survival were additional factors.

Sam giving her payment for a week of part-time work in a red envelope was the first sign. North got confused, not expecting red envelopes or anything. She then remembers that Mulan exists in Twisted Wonderland, and so does a version of China and the culture. Of course there's a lunar calendar and a lunar new year.

North reminisced about how her family celebrates Chinese New Year. Her parents made turnip cakes and gave them to friends. She would get red envelopes. She doesn't know the total amount of money from the red envelopes over the years but whatever it is, her parents better be using it for themselves.

Why is Sam giving her red envelopes? He got a pack but there's no reason for students to buy them when adults are the ones giving red envelopes. Students aren't going to send tons of money to each other when they could be using it for food and material things that bring them joy. North is right there, far from home. He could give her pay in red envelopes. It sounds like a bad joke but the sentiment is there. Did he think she was homesick? She did stay on campus over winter break.

"Oh- just remembering that my parents would give me red envelopes too." She never thought she would see this again.

Is it too late to try making turnip cakes? But that requires using the kitchen for hours, buying ingredients and catering containers, and a ton of work for one person. That and she needs the recipe. Her parents make those things once a year and they've done it for years. She does not vision herself making multiple in one day. (My parents make enough to fit ~8 rectangular foil trays)

"My parents would celebrate by making a certain cake- not the kind that's baked- and giving them to friends. They'd make enough for 8 trays."

"Do you want to make it?"

"Only if I could. But it takes HOURS to make. And that's without getting into ingredients and takeout containers." That last part is a pretty dumb statement considering that they're in the Mystery Shop which has everything a customer is looking for.

Sam continues the conversation. Maybe she should make that cake anyway. The only way to make a good cake is to make a cake even if the first few turn out bad. He's not saying that just to get her to buy something. If it makes her happy, she should! If not this year, there's always next year (even though the juniors will have left for their internships by then).

Part of me visions North talking to the Chef Ghosts about it and they help out. Maybe the dish is incorporated into the Master Chef course as a way for her to share with others so she doesn't have to shoulder the burden alone and back out of a custom she seems interested to take part in? Part of the process involves steaming for less than an hour depending on the recipe so the class probably has another dish to work on while steaming.

For the sake of this post, let's ignore all logistics and skip the part where North had to cook several containers worth of turnip cakes. Let's say she makes enough to give to the people she has in mind. (In North Magica, she makes enough to give to a select few)

She doesn't want the Octotrio knowing because she doesn't trust Azul to not monetize something that feels personal even though it's just a dish that gets popular in certain holidays. She also can't let Kalim know either because she thinks he'll blow it up into something way bigger than it should be.

Delivery (Ignoring Logistics)

Sam: He believed in her! And the turnip cake turned out well! Not bad for a first time!

Trey: A cake? It's steamed, not baked? You thought of him so you're giving this to him? What are the ingredients? How is it made? It can be served with oyster sauce? He'll have to check the rules just in case.

Jamil: Food? For him? (It's not poisoned, right?) Did Kalim get one? No? You're worried that he'll- ah, that makes sense. (Oh good.) Your parents make this for a holiday and give it to friends? I see... (She gives him the recipe so he can make his own if he wants. He sounded interested in the finer details. He can be a little selfish as a treat.)

Ruggie: Free food? For him? Thanks! Your parents make this every year to give to friends, so you're doing the same? He'll be looking forward to next year then. Shishishi!

Lilia: Oh! He remembers having something like this back when he traveled to the Land of the Red Dragon! Yes, something about celebrating the new year on the lunisolar calendar at the time. It has to be prepared by cutting and pan frying? They can be eaten with soy sauce or chili oil? Thank you but the instructions are a suggestion. Maybe he'll use mayonnaise. Malleus, Silver, and Sebek must try this! (North doesn't intervene. In her mind, she is sending an o7 to the poor souls eating Lilia's version. Please don't kill her for this.)

VDC Group: (VDC takes place mid-February. This is during training.) North didn't plan to give to the VDC group (would they even be allowed to eat it? Vil is running it after all) but Rook went up to her talking about the cake. Then North asked if Rook wanted one or if he wanted the group to eat it. And so Rook got a box for the VDC group. Jamil notices when Rook comes in but doesn't dare mention that he too had the cake because more for him.

Rashad: Did he have this before? He recognizes the taste... He did! He did have this years ago! They've only known each other for a few weeks and this kid is giving him food? Well, he can't complain. They worked hard for this. Plus, it's free food.

Varius, Rufus, Espinosa: (Canon in North Magica) She decided to kill three birds with one stone and give it during a tutoring session. It's always just them so it's fine! She shows up later than usual with the cake already cut and prepared. Oh, your parents do this for a holiday? Maybe they should do something similar. It's only fair. No, really! They want to! You put a lot of time and effort into this! Espinosa claims that they can use the energy after surviving another school day and it's normal to have afternoon snacks.

[picnokinesis]

What are your three favorite family recipes?

Oh man, okay so this has been in my inbox for AGES (I'm so sorry!!) because I was like damn, this is such a cool ask, but honestly I wouldn't say my family has any 'family recipes' so to speak, at least not anything that I'm aware of as something that's been passed down, y'know? I think this is mostly because my mum is a fantastic cook, and generally found/came up with her own recipes rather than doing anything my gran taught her haha. I learnt pretty much everything about how I cook from her, which is what I would describe as 'a vibes-based approach', where rather than precise measurements, she'll say 'oh a bit of that, a bit of this', and also ignore half of what the recipe says and do her own thing. She makes roux sauce without measuring anything and by pouring all the liquid in at once, and just whisking it like a mad thing to get rid of the lumps hahaha

So then, following on from that, I figured actually whilst I don't really have any passed-down family recipes (other than like, my mum's amazing quiche, which I do not know how to make myself rip), I do have recipes that I've made up, based on other recipes! So I'll quickly tell you about those!

Courgette Pesto Pasta Ingredients:

Pasta (I use 50g of penne per person)

1 onion (or half if you're only cooking for one person)

Mushrooms (like. a bunch. follow your heart)

Courgette

Bacon (2 slices per person)

Pesto

Lemon Juice

Butter

So you'll need to chop up everything before hand (or, if you're like me, time it with how long it takes the kettle to boil, but I have a gas kettle that takes 5-10mins to boil, and also screams at me). So: chopped onions, sliced mushrooms, sliced courgette, and cut the bacon into little squares. Then - kettle boils and pasta goes on. By the time you're done with cooking everything, the pasta should be about ready.

Put the courgette in a small pan, and add a lump of butter, some lemon juice and a bit of some of the boiled water left over from the kettle. The aim of the game here is that the water/lemon juice is gonna boil off and leave the butter behind to fry the courgette a little before adding it in with everything else, so only have enough liquid that it doesn't quite cover the top layer of courgette. Then whack that on the heat. Grab a wok, throw some oil in and start frying the onions. After a few, throw in the mushrooms. Then, add the bacon. I personally like my wok-fried food a little seared, so when it's getting crispy, the courgette will hopefully be beginning to fry in the other pan. At this point, I usually tip the courgette AND whatever liquid is left in that pan into the wok, and start frying it all together. By now, it should have been about five or ten minutes, so test the pasta, see if it's cooked. When it's ready, drain the pasta, turn the heat down on the wok and then add the pasta. Then mix in a healthy teaspoonful of pesto for as many people as you're making it for, and that's it!

Potential variations:

So my mum makes this one differently - no lemon juice, no courgette, no pesto. Instead, she cuts up a red bell pepper and adds that into the wok after the bacon, and adds in a ton of Philadelphia cream cheese for the sauce. It tastes incredible haha. I've also made a variation on this where it's the same as my mum's version, but I add in a couple of teaspoons of sun-dried tomato pesto as well, which was glorious. And then the other day I made up a new variation, which takes my version of the recipe as outlined above, but uses grilled vegetable pesto instead of normal pesto - and then, before serving, beat one egg per person in a mug, and pour that into the wok and stir it in throughout. That was AMAZING

Quail Egg Carbonara Ingredients:

Quail eggs (5 per person)

Pasta again

Single cream

Butter

Parmesan cheese (1 hearty tablespoon per person)

Mushrooms

Bacon (again, two slices each)

Okay so you don't have to use quail eggs. However, I get quail eggs for free from work because we have like, six or seven quails HAHAH so we get a ton of eggs and most of my co-workers don't eat them so I make the most of it. This recipe is based on a recipe from a cook book that I have, but the proportions are kinda whack, so I riffed off it, and I use quail eggs because the yolk to egg white ratio works out better, I think? However, you can absolutely try and use a chicken egg - my mum tried this the other day and just used one chicken egg per person, and she said it was fine, just a lot more liquid than my version haha.

Anyway. This one is so simple. Make the sauce first: beat all the eggs together in a large bowl, then add a lump of butter and the single cream (I'm so sorry. It's like - okay, last time I made it, I wanna say I used about 100ml cream to cook for three people, and a healthy sized lump of butter. But it's a vibes based approach. Follow your heart) and then 1 hearty tablespoon of parmesan cheese per person. Yes, it's a lot. That's because this recipe is good for the soul. Anyway - important note, do NOT MIX the ingredients together. Just throw them into the bowl and let it stand. Put the pasta on to cook, and then fry the bacon in a frying pan (oh, the bacon and the mushrooms should be chopped). After the bacon is getting on, add the mushrooms. Again, we love these slightly seared. THEN. When the pasta is cooked - do NOT turn off the heat, but turn it down, and then drain the pasta and return it to the pan. Add the mushrooms, bacon and pan juices into the pan with the pasta, put it back on the low heat, and then pour everything in that bowl into the pan and mix it together. The og recipe was like 'turn the heat off, the heat of the pasta will cook the eggs!!' but I don't trust that lol so I do keep it on the low heat as I stir it for about a minute or so, and then I take it off the heat and serve it immediately. With more parmesan on top, of course.

The other three main things that I cook that are actually pretty decent/interesting come from some recipe books that I have, but they are: Sausage and Bacon Casserole, Chicken in Cider (this one is AMAZING and also so easy but looks very impressive haha), and Pork in Apple Gravy (also amazing, but less simple - you kinda make a roux sauce but use apple juice rather than milk!). I also like a lot of vegetarian food, so my mum and I work together to make a really lovely nut roast from an old recipe book, and also stir fry with cashew nuts fried in soy sauce, and I'm actually hoping to try and make a vegan version of that first recipe with pine nuts and cashews rather than bacon for my vegan friend who makes her own pesto at some point!

Anyway!! Hope the person who originally asked me this sees this lol, and if not I hope it's interesting for other people! I'm always interested in new recipes that don't involve spices because I'm very weak when it comes to heat in food (like......peppery sauces taste spicy to me RIP) so if anyone has any recommendations, send them my way!

[cursivebloodlines]

011. in the dining room building a home: a gingerbread home! decorate the home and make it one fit for a little gingerbread man. - lydia!

🌙 * ― 𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒: 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ( a collection of various settings for drabbles or prompts, or both!) | @overnightheartbeats

011. in the dining room building a home: a gingerbread home! decorate the home and make it one fit for a little gingerbread man.

The first – and last – time Lydia attempted to build a gingerbread house, it had been a catastrophe. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong: the house itself crumbling, pieces not staying together, icing smudged the whole thing and the candy pieces of decoration fell off. Honestly? It had looked like the wolf from the Three Little Pigs story huffed and puffed and blew the silly, little gingerbread house down. It was all so completely unlike Lydia, someone notorious for her perfectionistic ways and meticulous precision. The hours she spent dedicated to it and nothing to show for it. A complete waste of time. And so, she vowed she would never ever waste her time trying to make one again. Never. Ever.

That was… until Aaron suggested trying to build one. Lydia’s face must have said it all, her nose scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed. “Why on earth would I want to waste time doing that when you can buy one that already looks nice enough from the store?” she questioned, a not-so-subtle ploy of trying to wriggle her way out of it. Aaron had gave her a look that said, really? She wondered what else was running through his mind. Maybe something along the lines of, since when does Lydia turn down a challenge? In that moment, she knew there was no way she was escaping it. Even a small smile threatened to worm its way on to her lips. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? He’d said. She looked at him blankly, eyes going distant as she spoke, deadpanned, “The worst thing that can happen?” A dramatic pause. “I’ll show you.” With that, she cleared her throat, picked up her phone and scrolled through until she found the photo from a good few years ago. Without saying anything else, she passed her phone to Aaron, feeling quite triumphant with herself about being determined, not going through that ordeal ever again. Her gaze fixated on him as she watched his reaction, watched as his expression swiftly changed from being puzzled, to curious and morphed into amusement. Brows arched, Lydia mirrored his face, her hands on her hips as she demanded, “What’s so funny?” Trying to conceal the laughter in her voice as she quickly cleared her throat. But she couldn’t keep a straight face for long. The sound of his laugh was contagious, his smile so wonderful and infectious. Even if she had a severe case of Resting Bitch Face, she couldn’t stop herself from cracking. So, now they were both just laughing. 

In the end, he managed to persuade her to take another shot at building a gingerbread house. “The way I see it…it can only go up from here.” Or something along those lines. Some variations of it can’t get any worse. Earning a playful roll of her eyes, but in the end, she conceded. She’d already lost some of her pride and dignity the moment she showed him her poor first attempt. But at least if this one sucked, then they would suck together. But weren’t two heads supposed to be better than one? If it had been with anyone else, she may have disagreed. Having someone under her feet whilst she was trying to concentrate on achieving perfection? Lydia would’ve ushered them away and not-so-politely told them to go away. But nope, he was persistent. They were definitely doing this.

A quick trip to the store to get everything they need, and more just because they may as well since they’re there… and there they were, diving straight into it. Lydia read out the instructions from the recipe she found on Pinterest after tons and tons of scrolling, and they took it in turns to do all that was needed to do. Getting the things out as and when they needed, she was surprised how comfortable and easy it was to adjust, shuffling around each other. It was amazing how he fit in perfectly with her. No awkwardness, no Lydia getting frustrated because something was out of place or not done to her standards - a shocker. It was all very new to her but it didn’t feel new. It was like they’d been doing this forever. Shuffling around, arms occasionally brushing against each other, smiles on their faces all around. Christmas songs faintly played from the stereo, humming along as they made the dough; humming turned into singing as they waited for the gingerbread to break, happily setting up the dining room ready for decorating. She playfully swatted Aaron’s hand when she realised he was slipping the candies meant for decorating their work-in-progress gingerbread house in for a little treat. “Enough of that, we won’t have any for the -” Until he was the one plopping a gumdrop into her mouth - she wasn’t complaining then. Another laugh tumbled from her lips as she chewed it, leaning in to kiss his cheek gently before the timer on her phone beeped. They were ready!

“Now… now is make or break,” Lydia declared when the gingerbread finally cooled. Everything already set out, ready for them to dive straight in. First, to assemble the house. Her mind cast back to her first attempt, how disastrous the whole thing went. It will be better this time. Had to be. The aroma of cinnamon and ginger filled the cosy, festive-filled atmosphere, every inhale made it all the more tempting to just give it all up and dive right in to gobbling it all up. It was like she was waiting with bated breath, any moment it could crumble and fall apart. But Aaron’s extra pair of hands made it all worthwhile. He would help her assemble the little house piece by piece, holding things in place as she brought the next part out. So far, so good. It was like they had all the time in the world, every piece fitting together felt like a gigantic milestone worth celebrating. And at some stage, Lydia definitely cracked out the bottle of wine as incentive to keep them going.

In the end, it was all worth it. She hated to admit defeat but Aaron was right; it did only go up from there. Though, the bar was pretty low to begin with. And sure, maybe it wasn’t her ideal version of perfection but the time spent with him absolutely was. Lydia placed the final piece, the marshmallow snowman outside the newly built gingerbread house before leaning back against him with a content sigh. “We did it. I can’t believe we actually did it.” A beaming smile on her face as she tilted her head to look at him adoringly, before looking right back at their little creation before them. The walls of the house were slightly uneven, a few cracks in the icing revealed glimpses of golden-brown gingerbread underneath, gumdrop windows a little askew, and licorice shingles overlapped on the roof. These imperfections which, any other time would have had Lydia fuming and threatening to smash the whole thing over the kitchen counter, were the magic and beauty of it. Perfectly imperfect. It was magical because it was theirs. It was something they built together, and it was what they had to show for it. A funky yet whimsical-looking gingerbread house. Feeling him nudge her with his elbow, a grin curved Aaron’s face as he passed her something, a brief flicker of confusion etched on to her face as she lowered her gaze to her hands, a laugh leaving her as her fingers traced the ridges of the gingerbread man - or should she say woman? - before her. “Is this supposed to be me? Wow. Impressive. And, that’s funny, actually, because…” Biting her lip to conceal a laugh or give away the reveal. She couldn’t get her head around the fact they had both been doing the same thing without the other knowing. Putting her gingerbread persona to the side, she picked up the version of Aaron she’d secretly made, laughter finally escaping as she passed it to him. “I swear I didn’t steal your idea! We just…clearly have great minds that think alike.” 

In that moment it was inevitable: this was going down as one of the best Christmases Lydia had in a long, long time.

[ketogenicbliss]

Dive into the Delicious World of Keto Egg Recipes: 10 Tasty Ideas to Spice Up Your Low-Carb Meals

Hey there, fellow keto enthusiast! Are you ready to jazz up your meal routine with some egg-citing dishes? Well, you're in for a treat! Eggs are like little miracle workers in the keto world – they're packed with protein, low in carbs, and oh-so-versatile. Get ready to crack a few eggs and whip up some mouthwatering keto creations that'll leave you feeling satisfied and energized.

Let's Get Cracking: Understanding Keto and Eggs

Before we dive into the recipes, let's chat about why eggs are the MVPs of the keto game. The keto diet is all about low carbs and high fats, and eggs fit the bill perfectly. They're like little powerhouses of nutrition, with protein and healthy fats to keep you feeling full and focused. Plus, they're super versatile, so you can enjoy them in a ton of different ways.

Why Eggs Are Keto Superstars

They're low in carbs, so they won't kick you out of ketosis.

Eggs are packed with protein, which helps keep you feeling full and satisfied.

They're loaded with healthy fats, like omega-3s, which are great for your brain and overall health.

You can use eggs in so many recipes – from breakfast to dinner and even dessert!

Now, let's crack on with our 10 delicious keto egg recipes!

Recipe 1: Classic Keto Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients:

4 eggs

2 tbsp heavy cream

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp butter

Instructions:

Whisk together the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper.

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

Pour in the egg mixture and scramble until cooked to your liking.

Serve hot and enjoy fluffy, flavorful scrambled eggs!

Tips:

Add some cheese or veggies for extra flavor and nutrition.

Recipe 2: Cheesy Keto Egg Muffins

Ingredients:

6 eggs

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup diced bell peppers

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Preheat your oven and grease a muffin tin.

Whisk together the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper.

Stir in the cheese and bell peppers.

Pour the mixture into the muffin cups and bake until set.

Enjoy these portable, cheesy egg muffins anytime!

Variations:

Mix in your favorite keto-friendly ingredients, like bacon or spinach.

Recipe 3: Keto-Friendly Egg Salad

Ingredients:

6 hard-boiled eggs

1/4 cup mayo

1 tbsp mustard

2 tbsp chopped chives

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Chop the eggs and mix them with mayo, mustard, chives, salt, and pepper.

Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve on lettuce wraps or with keto crackers for a tasty snack.

Serving Suggestions:

Spread on toast for a quick and easy breakfast or lunch option.

Recipe 4: Savory Keto Egg Casserole

Ingredients:

8 eggs

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup diced ham or bacon

1/4 cup diced bell peppers

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Whisk together the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper.

Stir in the cheese, ham or bacon, and bell peppers.

Pour into a greased baking dish and bake until set.

Slice and serve this hearty egg casserole for a satisfying meal.

Meal Prep Tip:

Make ahead and reheat for a quick breakfast or lunch during the week.

Recipe 5: Zesty Keto Deviled Eggs

Ingredients:

6 hard-boiled eggs

1/4 cup mayo

1 tbsp mustard

1 tsp hot sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Paprika for garnish

Instructions:

Slice the eggs in half and remove the yolks.

Mash the yolks with mayo, mustard, hot sauce, salt, and pepper.

Spoon the mixture back into the egg whites.

Sprinkle with paprika and serve these zesty deviled eggs as a snack or appetizer.

Flavor Variations:

Get creative with toppings like bacon bits or avocado slices.

Recipe 6: Crispy Keto Eggplant Parmesan

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant

2 eggs

Almond flour or crushed pork rinds

Grated Parmesan cheese

Italian seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

Marinara sauce

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions:

Slice the eggplant and dip in beaten eggs.

Coat in a mixture of almond flour, Parmesan, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.

Bake until crispy, then top with marinara and mozzarella.

Bake until bubbly and golden brown for a delicious keto-friendly twist on a classic dish.

Keto-Friendly Tip:

Serve with a side of zucchini noodles for a complete low-carb meal.

Recipe 7: Spicy Keto Shakshuka

Ingredients:

Olive oil

Onion, garlic, red bell pepper

Diced tomatoes

Smoked paprika, cumin, cayenne pepper

Salt and pepper

Eggs

Fresh parsley or cilantro

Instructions:

Sauté onion, garlic, and bell pepper in olive oil.

Add tomatoes and spices, then simmer until thickened.

Make wells in the sauce and crack eggs into them.

Cover and cook until eggs are set.

Garnish with herbs and serve this spicy shakshuka for breakfast or dinner.

Cooking Tip:

Adjust the spice level to your taste by adding more or less cayenne pepper.

Recipe 8: Creamy Keto Egg Drop Soup

Ingredients:

Chicken or vegetable broth

Eggs

Coconut aminos or soy sauce

Sesame oil

Ground ginger

Salt and pepper

Green onions for garnish

Instructions:

Simmer broth and seasonings.

Slowly pour in beaten eggs to create ribbons.

Cook until eggs are set, then garnish with green onions.

Warm up with a bowl of this creamy egg drop soup on chilly days.

Ingredient Substitution:

Use tamari or liquid aminos if you don't have coconut aminos or soy sauce.

Recipe 9: Flavorful Keto Egg Roll in a Bowl

Ingredients:

Ground pork or chicken

Onion, garlic, ginger

Coconut aminos or soy sauce

Rice vinegar, sesame oil, Sriracha

Shredded cabbage or coleslaw mix

Salt and pepper

Green onions for garnish

Instructions:

Sauté onion, garlic, and ginger, then add meat and cook until browned.

Stir in sauces and cabbage, then cook until wilted.

Season with salt and pepper, then garnish with green onions.

Dig into this deconstructed egg roll for a satisfying and flavorful meal.

Recipe Variation:

Make it vegetarian by swapping the meat for tofu or tempeh.

Recipe 10: Decadent Keto Chocolate Avocado Mousse

Ingredients:

Ripe avocados

Unsweetened cocoa powder

Powdered erythritol or monk fruit sweetener

Coconut cream or heavy cream

Vanilla extract

Salt

Sugar-free chocolate chips for garnish

Instructions:

Blend avocados with cocoa powder, sweetener, cream, vanilla, and salt.

Adjust sweetness to taste, then chill until set.

Top with chocolate chips for an indulgent and guilt-free dessert.

Make-Ahead Tip:

Whip up a batch and store in the fridge for a quick and satisfying treat anytime.

Time to Get Cooking!

There you have it – 10 egg-cellent keto recipes to fuel your low-carb journey. Whether you're craving something savory or sweet, these dishes have got you covered. So grab your apron, fire up the stove, and let's get cooking! Don't forget to share your creations with us and spread the keto love. Happy cooking! 🍳

[thissilentcloth]

Fresh off the needles: socks! (ft. Lulu)

26 Jan. 2024 - 31 Jan. 2024

Ravelry project page

Yarn: Schoeller+Stahl Fortissima Coloria Socka Color sock yarn in the colorway 9096 Blau Wei.

Needles: 2.75mm bamboo DPNs

Pattern: Improvised

What I binged: like 80% of the Technology Connections.

I normally wouldn't buy this yarn, as I'm team natural fibers. I thrift all of my yarn, and last year they had a ton of Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk (on half off day!!)....mixed with other yarns and divided amongst several bags 🙄 They included two sock "kits" (two skeins of yarn each + a printed out pattern).

This week I found one of the kits in my stash. I'd recently used DPNs for the first time to knit some sweater cuffs and found that I liked them for that, so I decided to give them a go with this sock yarn since my only DPNs were the same size called for in the pattern.

Long ago I had the goal of never buying socks again, but I really struggled with knitting them on circulars and gave up. I started many, many socks but had only finished one pair, which ended up being huge.

The "pattern" was basically just a generic 60 stitch cuff-down recipe, but I prefer knitting socks toe-up, so opted to just improvise a toe-up pattern. I bumped the stitch count up to 65 stitches as I have large feet. I do wish I'd stuck with 60, as they are a little loose on me.

The yarn is self-striping and I decided that I wanted them to match, so it was interesting having to think about that. It was challenging getting the striping to work out well on the heel, but I appreciated that it made it easy to ensure they'd be the same length. I did, however, underestimate how much yarn I'd need for the bind off of the first sock and ended up binding off about 1/4 of the stitches with the white yarn. I'm trying to convince myself that it's charming so I don't have to redo it.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how they might have looked had I decided to go in a different direction with the striping, I kinda wish I had several more skeins so I could try a few variations. I do think I could squeeze some ankle socks out of the remaining yarn (a little over 40g out of 100), but I do still have the other sock kit somewhere, so I may want to combine the extra yarn from both kits.

[trkstrnd]

here’s something i’m realizing i genuinely think my asd has made me a better writer

and i know that it’s like “oh you’re autistic that means you’re just good at something like a savant” for a lot of people but may i just say that’s a disgusting stereotype and a lot of autistic people are just okay at things and just have trouble peopling.

it’s so annoying you have like the poles of autism where you’re either intellectually disabled on top of autism and people blame the autism for something that maybe that other disability causes, or maybe you just have a fuck ton of high support needs, or maybe you’re just dummy good at something and there’s nothing in between but they call it autism SPECTRUM disorder for a reason

and when you think spectrum stop thinking of a fucking gradient a gradient is this like i know that a lot of people think this when they think autism

^ ^

low support needs high support needs

BUT THAT IS SO INCORRECT AND DAMAGING TO AUTISTIC PEOPLE

autism is like a chocolate chip cookie recipe. there are so many different variations out there, but a good chunk have close to the same ingredients in different quantities. in the end, you’re still gonna get a chocolate chip cookie, regardless of if you used milk or dark, butter or margarine, a teaspoon of salt or a pinch, it’s still gonna be a COOKIE

if the ingredients are present, no matter how severely or not they’re impacting a person, it’s STILL AUTISM.

oh my god i’m gonna have to make another post about how my asd effects my writing though because i got so off track just know i am very passionate around this subject.

[cryingoflot49]

Book Review

Honey From a Weed: Fasting and Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades and Apulia by Patience Gray

When it comes to food, Europeans have great traditions. In America, on the other hand, we make ourselves an easy target of ridicule. For example, think of drive-through windows at restaurants. Not only is fast food crappy tasting and terrible for your health, but eating a meal in your car is just downright gross. No class, no style, no elegance, no taste. People turn their vehicles into motorized garbage cans this way. I realize not every meal can be gourmet, but with a minimal amount of effort you can be a little less trashy. And its nice that we have a much broader range of ethnic options than we used to, but so many of these restaurants Americanize their food to the point where they no longer resemble the authentic dishes you get in their nations of origin. I’ve had Thai curries that were so sweet they tasted like desserts and larb without fish sauce. Ask for something spicy and they dump a ton of salt in it. Burritos, nachos, and fajitas aren’t eaten in Mexico. Hummous and falafels aren’t Greek, having their origins in Palestine. Greek people eat massive amounts of seafood but you never see fish on a Greek menu in America. The vomit they serve at The Olive Garden bears little resemblance to real Italian food. Don’t get me going on how fake our Chinese food is. Our fruits and vegetables taste like plastic, unlike the produce in other countries. Obviously not all food in America sucks, but more than half of it does. At least we have better food than British people do. What hell is marmite? Industrial sludge on bread?Axle grease in a jar? It tastes like cigarette ashes with shoe polish.

Mediterranean people, on the other hand, know all about food. So when I heard about Patience Gray’s Honey From a Weed, I knew I had to read it. The author spent time living in rural Mediterranean countries during the 1960s and 1970s with her husband, an artists she calls The Sculptor rather than using his real name. She witnessed the farming lifestyle of people in Catalonia, Tuscany, the Greek island of Naxos, and Apulia, the part of Italy shaped like the heel of the boot, a place where the local language is a mixture of Italian and Greek. As she wrote down her collection of recipes, she decided to put them into context with passages about how the cooking materials were collected or harvested, and detailed all this with short passages about the culture of the people she encountered. What results is a cookbook you can read as part ethnography, part memoir, part travelogue, and part philosophical discourse examining what it means to live a good life.

The recipes cover a wide range of ingredients with chapters on farmed vegetables, wild herbs, mushrooms, seafood, and game. If you’ve ever wondered how to cook a fox, a horse, or a sea urchin you need look no further. If you want to cook everyday items like chicken, mussels, or zucchini you can find that here too. A lot of the recipes are redundant, being variations of food fried in olive oil with garlic and diverse seasonings, occasionally with anchovies or tomatoes thrown in. But here is the catch: the types of tomatoes, or other vegetables used, depends on the season since different kinds of produce naturally ripen at different times of the year depending on the season and climate. These people did not have supermarkets that have the same industrially-grown, genetically altered produce all year long the way we do in the 21st century. European farmers lived so close to nature that the seasons dictated what kind of game you had, what fruits you could pick, or what kind of wine you could drink. It may have been a harder life, but the food was of much higher quality. In the 1970s, Patience Gray realized these cultures were vanishing so she wrote all her observations down for posterity.

The author, rightly so, must have thought that not many people would be interested in a cookbook full of recipes that most people probably wouldn’t use or even couldn’t use considering that some of these food items no longer exist. Some of the cooking utensils are rare or obsolete. In my favorite chapter of all, she gives a detailed analysis of how cooking over open flames with different varieties of wood complement the flavors of all kinds of dishes. With this in mind, you begin to see why these traditions couldn’t survive. Most of us don’t have the time or the resources to find twenty different kinds of wood to cook twenty different meals.

But to get back to the main point, she made this book readable by adding in passages about the different places she lived in. There are descriptions of villages, architecture, farms, kitchens, and landscapes. She makes mention of some of the rural people and their customs along with musings on their religious and political beliefs. With a healthy contempt for the fascism of Mussolini, she points out that these rural people were mostly anarchists or communists. In our day you can criticize these ideologies all you want, but with hindsight you have to realize that when industrial capitalism is the dominant economic system and your community is famished and living at the edge of death, all those “isms” looked like desirable alternatives.

Finally, Gray iterates her own philosophy, simply put, that lacking something is what makes it pleasurable when you get it. Tomatoes taste like ecstasy when they are harvested because the farmers can’t have them for three-quarters of the year. It’s like saying Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if you have it every day. This might be a cause of such widespred psychological dissatisfaction in our times. At least that’s what The Unabomber Ted Kaczynski said. In our age of abundance and mass conformity this might not be so clear, yet we may still know it by unconscious instinct. It is why a rare book might sell for $500 while a mass-produced Harry Potter novel will get a book dealer little more than fifty cents. The problem is that Patience Gray states her philosophical position but never explores it in depth.

In fact, she doesn’t explore many ideas at all in depth. Her writing just isn’t that good. It’s interesting that she created a cookbook you can read, but the things to be read are not always clear or even interesting. The recipes get redundant and a bit of a chore to read and some of the rest of it is just weak in its execution. I am in love with the idea of this book, but not the final product.

Patience Gray’s Honey From a Weed is not one of the most memorable books I have come across, but I don’t regret reading it. Having traveled and studied a lot, I can’t say I’m lacking in alternate perspectives on the world and the current state of our society, but I did enjoy imagining myself being in the Mediterranean places she described. It also gave me renewed inspiration for cooking; I learned the best way to cook radicchio and was reminded that I haven’t had any scungilli in a really long time. Once was enough though and I probably won’t be re-reading it this the future.