does anyone have an apron to cover my apron while i eat? I don't want to get it dirty

Christmas martini!

also, Christmas apron.

Which my cousin made herself for me. Amaaaazed. So beautiful. I think it might be the most beautiful fabric I've ever seen. Maybe. Can I wear this out and about?
Can I please have my own house and family now and wear this around all day?

All I want to do is eat and eat and eat. Everyone else is in the same boat, yeah? I'm not even hungry! It's just that there is way too much delicious food around. Ridiculous amounts of delicious foods!

Yesterday I made my birthday supper (tacos!) and I made my birthday cupcakes. I don't mind cooking too much. And actually it kind of soothed my terrible achingly-bad mood yesterday afternoon to putter around in the kitchen. But especially because it all worked out. If it hadn't then I might have had a real melt down.



Today has been fantastic so far. And we're done now with all the heavy stuff (not quite for my mum since she's preparing dinner). Breakfast is our big crowning jewel of the festivities. And it was all it should be. Along with the regular (but still amazing) eggs and potatoes, we had the (gluten-free!) crepes with gingerbread cheesecake stuff and poached pears my cousin made! Jeeeezus!
So lucky!

Along with the apron I got mostly a tonne of plates and dishes and each one is so wonderful. Good life, this one.


Okay you wanna know about these flourless chocolate cupcakes with maple creamcheese insides that I made for my birthday last night? (I know my cousin does so I thought I'd just post it here for everyone.)

I took a few different recipes and sort of combined them. I'm not the best baker for that exact reason -- that I have difficulty following recipes and sticking to things, luckily these turned out soooo good.
You know how eating gluten-free is all about trying to find things that are almost as good as their glutenful counterparts? Well these cupcakes were some of the best cupcakes I've ever had!

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES (WITH MAPLE CREAM CHEESE):
8 (1 oz) squares of semi-sweet chocolate
(you could do half of the squares of chocolate with 1/2 cup cocoa)
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

okay so I didn't have a double-boiler so I heated the chocolate squares and the butter in a pyrex over top (not touching the water but resting on the saucepan) of boiling water until they melted.
While that was going on I beat the eggs a lot with an electric beater. Then I beat the sugar and vanilla in. I may have used more vanilla than that.

In another bowl I combined
1 package cream cheese (warmed slightly to mix easier
1 egg
1/2 cup maple syrup (I would use more next time or possibly maple flavouring, you could also do some pumpkin or gingerbread type mix that'd be so good)
1/3 cup sugar

Then when the butter and chocolate were all melted and mixed I poured them into the rest of the cake ingredients and mixed it lightly.
Then poured it into the cupcake wrappers in the tins (it's very runny so don't be worried). Then I dropped spoonfuls of (the also very runny) creamcheese mixture into the centre of the cupcakes.

I baked the cupcakes at 300 degrees for half an hour. Except I forgot about the second batch and they were in there for probably 40 min at least and it didn't do them any harm at all.

If you were to make a cake with this recipe it's suggested to grease the tin and then flour it with cocoa powder. Apparently this amount is good for one 8-inch round cake (without the creamcheese bit -- that's the part I completely made up) but I would suggest making it in a bigger pan and spreading it out very thin. I would also suggest making mini cupcakes. The crunchy bits around the top edges of the cupcakes were everyone's favourites, that's why. These cupcakes are very soft and squishy and a bit more like pudding than cupcakes but I like fudgey brownie-type cakes way better anyway, so it's perfect for me!

Ugh so good. Now I wish I weren't so full so I could eat another.



Anyway, Christmas has been delightful thus far and I'm exceedingly pleased about today, etc. And I'm also pretty exhausted. Maybe I will have a little lie-down before dinner. Mum's making veggie pot pies and a big salad!
eeeeeee! christmas!

I hope you're having a lovely lovely lovely little time wherever you are and also that your family leaves you alone for awhile like mine does because man, so many people get overwhelming after awhile!

simply having a wonderful (early) christmastime dinner party

I'm in a way better mood today!

Yesterday I felt like I had not done a good job at my audition, I felt like I had just not looked as good as I could have or been as lively as I could have, etc. etc.
anyway, they want to see me again for it. So that means I wasn't the worst. Yay!

Also, I had a super nice time at my dinner party!

awww look how happy I am in my little tiny kitchen! cooking away for some of my favourite people. awwww what a life what a life! pictures are such good things to have to remind me how much I like things.


This guy told me he's been angling to make an appearance on my blog forever. I love him! He also said he needs an awesome nickname but then failed to choose one for himself. Hmmm. I kind of like Beastly. How about Beastly? No, wait, what about Sweet Beastly?
I'm going to go with that for now anyway.


haa I'm such a round little elf lady. kind of nice. I should get to be a mum someday I would rule at it so hard. I fully ruined that dress in a bunch of ways. Ah well, whatevers. I should definitely have found my apron but I really just don't know where I would have put it.


ooooeeeee so dashing, hey??



Okay maybe you're wondering about the food for this dinner party. It wasn't terribly exciting more like just basic and good. That's what I was in the mood for. I had originally planned for making curried lentil quinoa soup but then on the day all I could think about was stew. It was just so grey and windy and I wanted stew and biscuits.


VEGETARIAN STEW:
man, okay, you can just boil some stuff up together, that's what I do. But what I did for this particular soup was

butter/olive oil
1 large onion
2 medium potatoes
lots of mushrooms
some carrots
lots of broccoli
some zucchini
veg stock
Italian seasoning
cumin

Is that it? maybe?

Fried up the onions in some butter mixed with olive oil. Then sauteed all the mushrooms up in that. Then added the potatoes and the stock because I like when my potatoes are fully cooked right up the most so mushy. Then added the rest of the vegetables then the seasonings then it just stewed around for a couple of hours while I made other things/cleaned up/etc. It could have been done an hour earlier if necessary I think but it didn't hurt for it to stew around. Ya know?
I like my stews with lots of broccoli and mushrooms. That's what I like.
You can also add TVP (textured veg protein) to this if you want but just before serving I would think. I've done that in the past makes it like chicken stew sort of. but I mostly like this stew just on its own.

(christmas napkin roll-ups!!!!! ugh ugh lovelovelovelove)

The biscuits I just made with a gluten-free mix I got in Kensington. BUT I added dill seeds and cheddar. Mum-style.
The dill and cheddar just fucking make them. Also putting butter on them. Butterbutterbutter.


We had a big salad as well. I should always remember to eat more salad. Like the salad that's in the fridge right now.

I'm in love with all my dinnerware and glassware and my silver salad tongs. Just in case you were wondering.


I also made candied cranberries. I got the recipe from my cousin's blog. So festive! I wish I'd gotten them done earlier so they could have crisped up a bit longer. Still pretty nice.


And we also had some spiced cranberry-almond sugar cookies for dessert. They weren't the best but they were alright. I'm still learning about gluten-free cooking, so cut me some slack. Also some clementines. I had never heard of a clementine before Toronto.


For drinking we had lots of red wine and we had gin and/or vodka mixed with a punch I made that was cranberry pop mixed with lemonade basically. With cranberry ice-cubes and lemon slices.

llllllove gin with cranberry and lemons. I was first introduced to this years ago in Saskatoon when I had a weird brief fling of a friendship with a girl. Along with our gin adventures we had a New Years party just the two of us at the mansionhouse she was house-sitting that involved cigars and wine in the hot tub and dragging all of our blankets and stuff into the living room to sleep under the 10 foot tall Christmas tree and be beside the fireplace and then we had a motown dance party. Crazycrazy fun.




We had a real nice time just sitting around talking about anything. And listening to the Christmas mix I had prepared, of course.


Wanna know the track listing? obviously.


OH MISTLETOE CHRISTMAS MIX
The Three Kings* - Mormon Tabernacle Choir
It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Johnny Mathis
Ring Ring - Sleigh Bells
Wonderful Christmastime - Paul McCartney
Paris 2004 - Peter, Bjorn & John
Jingle Bells - Ella Fitzgerald
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
What Christmas Means To Me - Stevie Wonder
All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
Carol Of The Bells - Home Alone Soundtrack
The Holly And The Ivy - Mormon Tabernacle Choir
We Three Kings - Wintersleep
Maybe This Christmas - Ron Sexsmith
December - Basia Bulat
Merry Christmas Baby - Otis Redding
The Man With The Bag - Kay Starr
Sleigh Ride - Ella Fitzgerald
Home Alone (movie theme)

*this song is different than WE three kings, it's the most amazing carol. if you need a copy of it email me and I'll send it to you for sure

 
This smile looks forced, but I assure you he was having the time of his life.


I'm very happy that everyone agreed to wear their Christmas hats from their crackers and also their Christmas jewels I bought to wear on our faces.

Aww I'm so happy thinking about this.



haaawww Sweet Beastly, can't take him anywhere.


wellll... they can't all be flattering shots, eh?

I want to have more Christmas parties now. Luckily I have about 10 on the horizon. Never enough! But I do feel like I should do something for my birthday/Christmas. Hmmmmmmm.


I do have a few more photos but I think I'll save them for tomorrow. To have some content going while I'm away.

Tomorrow I am going on a road trip with Dayna and I am SO EXCITED. I think I already said that, but it bears repeating. I keep thinking something's going to interfere and ruin it. I don't know why.
I'm not a big worrier but sometimes I'm a neurotic worrier.
I am such, such a big fan of road trips. And of parents. And of dogs and of adventures. And of thrifting. And of crafting. And of Sweet Thing. We're going to their show on Friday in Ottawa, so fun! I'm going to hit on all the OTTAWA BABES.
Hey do you guys know any babes in Ottawa?

Hahaaa I was yelling at a babe the other day about babes and he was like "I have a name you know. we aren't just all just babes"

crisps and things

It's apple season and I had a bag of apples needing to be used up so I went ahead and made a crisp!
I had a bag of frozen berries in the freezer (I always buy these when they're on sale) so I added some of those to the mix and it turned out super good.
I like to cook my crisps until everything is right mushy. My mum likes her apples to have a bit of firmness left to them. Not me! Mushy all the way.

So I'm having crisp and a chai tea latte and that's making it pretty much the best morning ever. And it is still morning. Usually I am not even up until noon (hey, I'm usually awake until 4 a.m. so leave me alone it's not like I'm the laziest. Except I am kind of the laziest) but today for some reason I woke up at a reasonable time and fought the urge to go back to sleep. Maybe iron pills are working! 

Oh yeah, also I added ground chia seeds and flax seeds to my crisp topping and cut the butter with olive oil and it's pretty much the best. jfyi.

SNOWFLAKES

I DRAW SNOWFLAKES ALL DAY LONG NOT JOKING.

Also while I draw or work (waste time) on the computer usually this is going on on my lap:


I don't know when the last time I had a real lap cat was. I mean, she just hangs out on my lap all day. It doesn't really matter if I'm paying her attention or not, she just chills out. Pretty nice pretty nice.



I work well under deadlines, in case you were wondering. In fact, I won't actually get anything done until I actually have to. Therefore driving my own work on working on my own schedule is pretty much the worst. Getting better getting better.
Remember when I used to make zines of poetry and photos? I definitely never finished them until I had already planned and announced the get-together party to launch them. Ha, I like that I used to do that.

I used to have chai latte parties in high-school. Those were the best.
I love little get-togethers so very very much. We'd all pile into supertruck and go over to my mum's little house after school and I'd make chai lattes on the stove and we'd all sit around and chat. How fun!

Accidentally started watching Teen Mom on MTV last night at Dollface's while waiting for her to be done work so we could get to partying and, MAN, I would totally get addicted to that show. The sad truth is that I would probably get addicted to pretty much all reality TV if I gave myself the chance. Therefore I avoid it.
I would watch Teen Mom to perfect my middle-american accent though, that's for sure.

Oh yeah, here's a video where I officially introduce Lucinda Bright:

lot of tags

wowwww. I am not doing a good job on keeping you updated.

still in Saskatoon. Still on holidays. Still mostly in bad moods (I'm sure that's going to let up soon though).

I made pumpkin cheesecakes for my birthday and so I'm having some of the leftovers of that for breakfast this morning. It is one of the best cheesecakes I've ever had - not too dense or thick or too-much, it's a bit lighter. I would put more spices in next time.

I've been cooking a bit, actually. I should've taken pictures to prove my kitchen prowess. I made burritos for my birthday dinner (which even the kids liked), and I made all of Christmas dinner because at the last minute my aunt really didn't feel like going home after a big morning of brunch and gifts to go home and slave over a turkey.
Fair enough.

I made pasta baked with cheese and also a big salad and also yellow beans and spinach and mushrooms in pesto. Preeeetty good.

Part of my bad moods I think has to do with not having enough time by myself -- too much family togetherness (gross) and then also I feel kind of trapped/subject to everyone's plans because of not having access to a car.
I WANT TO GO FOR A DRIVE!!!
by myself.

I'm used to being able to go places like the mall or value village or even out on the town without it being a big pain.

Saskatoon is for driving. It's actually kind of bad how much people depend on cars here. Definitely drive two blocks sometimes.


I spent the first few days hibernating. I still feel that inclination. There's fewer people around that I need to see. And at first it's hard to get back to good with certain people. Obviously.

It's been six years since I moved away. All of my twenties have been in Toronto. It seems like it's only been a couple of years, really. But, nope, it's been quite, quite awhile.

I miss some Toronto people, too. I wish they were all here, that'd be the best.
At Amigos the other night I mostly talked with people who don't live in Saskatoon anymore. And also to a couple people from Toronto who were there with their Saskatoon babes. Kind of funny.



I want a home. That's what I think about these days when I'm hanging around my friends with husbands and babies and my family with their beautiful homes.
I want my own place to decorate and design. I want a place to put all the beautiful china and glassware I got for Christmas. I want to build up a home that's really me and for me.
I love my apartment and I've loved my apartment for almost six years now.. but at some point I would really like to own a closet. Is that a lot to ask?


My life is great. I am very lucky.
I feel pretty certain that this next year is going to be pretty awesome. I like the promise and possibility that it's holding.
I know that even though I want a home and a cottage and tiny babies right now, it's not anywhere near the proper time for them, and that it will all be even better after I've gotten some creative stuff done and on the go. After I've worked more as an actor and written in the way that I know that I'm capable of (and yet never do).

This is a lot of text, blogs aren't really about text anymore. How things have changed since diaryland.

I still feel like I've done absolutely nothing

I keep forgetting if I've told you things or not!

On Christmas night we were over at my aunt's house for dinner and it was delicious and I was sitting beside a set a shelves filled with (beautiful) knick-knacks and there were a few pocket-watches (I know, a few, right?) and so I picked up the most beautiful one of all and promptly asked for it*. And my aunt said I could have it! And so I took it! And it's beautiful!



It's from my grandad's estate (he hit up a lot of auctions and was the best of hoarders [the living room floor in one (1!!!) of his junk-filled houses even caved in]), it's an antique, I should go get it tuned up and appraised maybe. But it is just beautiful. It has a tiny bird engraved on the back along with flowers all over and also the intials CMM which are almost like mine.
I love it.

*I find it funny to wander through people's houses asking to have the things that I like. I have a hard time asking for things in general therefore this joke is extra funny to me. I also like to wander through and ask "how much did that there set you back?" about pretty everything. Even wives.


I've been in a terrible mood today and yesterday and have not left the house. Which is good actually because I've been needing alone time and also I am broke, so it kind of works out.
But I've just been feeling sad sad. And also tired. And sort of hopeless about things. I know that this is partly hormones and that this too, in time, shall pass.
But,
you know.

I have been being productive though.

I'm almost done completely sorting and updating all of my flickr sets
flickr.com/photos/etpuis
I even made a Most Favourite set, where you can revisit the pictures of mine that I like the very most.

I made cookies!
(and only ate four of them)

I edited a tonne more of the photos from Christmas
(and even uploaded a few)

I wrote
(both here and for my prose stuff and even comedy)

I drew
(want to be much better at that sort of thing)

I cleaned the house
(I wasn't even expecting to, it just sort of happened)

I applied to some jobs

I played with Rudyard who is leaving me tomorrow! Silly beast!

I finished one novel (The Stone Angel, which opened the floodgates)
and started another (Highways and Dancehalls, which has been keeping them open)
I'm pleased to be reading again, to fully immerse and not arise for a few hours. It's been too long since I've done that.
I go through phases where I get convinced that I will never read novels again. I spend far, far too much time on the internet and watch the television.
I also get scared that I'm not smart enough for books, that I won't understand them, that they will bore me and I will be disappointed in myself.

I do love reading though. So, so much.

I'm going back to it now, in fact.
Tomorrow will be a better day. Or at least hopefully not one where the cat follows me around while I weep.

swap!

Apparently there are still people in this world who have not heard of haystack cookies!
How wild!
They were all gobbled up at my clothing swap get-together last night so I don't have a picture for you, oh wait,

I lifted this from the internets but it looks like them.
Anyhow, last night's batch turned out quite nicely (I think, actually I don't think I ate a whole one...), so here's the recipe as I make them:

CLOTHES SWAP HAYSTACKS
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup marg.
1/2 cup vanilla soymilk
Boil these ingredients together for 5 minutes (time it) on medium/high, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat or turn off burner at least and add:
2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup (or a bit more) cocoa powder
Mix well and then drop by spoonfuls onto waxpaper to let set and cool. If they seem too wet, they'll probably be nice and gooey when they've set.

This recipe seriously takes 15 minutes and is awesome and nut and wheat and dairy free.
I know, right.

When I was younger Mum counted baking cookies as a chore, and I'm pretty glad for that.
I'm pretty glad to be able to cook and bake with confidence, in general.
As much as it drove me nuts as a kid, it was good to have a night where I was supposed to make dinner. And it was especially good to have a mum who cooked good things with healthy foods.
I'm continuously surprised at how many people I know who can't make the simplest things.

The clothing swap was a success! I had the Diabetes Association coming to pick up clothes from my house today so I decided to invite people over to swap and leave their unwanteds to also get picked up.
Nine people + me is pretty much what my attic can hold, and there were some pretty nice people. I think everyone got something good and left with less than they came with, so I deem it good timez.
I also made guacomole and sangria and we ate some candy and stuff. My kind of get-together.

Last week I had two of my shifts canceled (maybe I mentioned this already), so I'm pretty glad to be working the next billion days in a row (fingers crossed, if they don't cancel me some more). I need money or else it's going to be a half-way Christmas...
And that just wouldn't do.