Work, school, & Warcraft: no sleep for you!!

YAY! I finally have a new full time job! Thank God, because I didn't know how long I could last working part time at BB. Retail is definitely not for me. Good experience though, even if there were a lot of creepy customers.

And, school started up again last week. This will be a little bit of a challenge for me, I love my sleep!! I left my last full time job so that I could study, but luckily my new job tends to have a lot of downtime so I can do some homework while I'm at work. The very first day I had so much downtime that all I did was watch YT videos. That's not to say that this is an easy job. The only problem is that there's so much information that I have to remember! So many phone numbers, names, back lines, nurse lines... doc lines.. I don't know how the gal that that's training me keeps it together!

I'm going to need a lots and LOTS of coffee and energy drinks. I will have to catch up on sleeping on the weekends...except the new Mists of Pandaria was released. :X its the new Warcraft expansion. And I just have to say, I love you Blizzard. You would be my 3rd husband (after Dillon and Alexander Skarsgård) and we would have many, many Pandaren babies. I started playing wow right after the Burning Crusades expansion, and I think that MOP is the best expansion that has been released. I don't want to do a full review, because I haven't leveled a panda yet, but with the 85-90 quest leveling it has been fantastic. Lots of lore in the quest lines, which only makes me want to read the books even more. Sorry, total geek moment.

So it's looking like I'm never going to get any sleep until my December break, OR unless I win the lottery. Eh, a girl can dream can't she?

Healthy(-ish) smoothie

I really, really want a Vitamix. If I were to write my x-mas wish list early a Vitamix would be at the top. SIGH. For now I have to tinker around with my refurbished Breville mixer; no, not tinker, BEAT WITH A HAMMER. It worked beautifully for the first few months after I got it, but now it freaks out if there's ice cubes or if my frozen bananas aren't cut into teeny, tiny pieces. Okay, enough venting--just get me a Vitamx for xmas Santa and I'll be a good girl for the rest of the year. ^^

Vitamix CIA Professional Series Blender - Brushed Stainless Steel (Google Affiliate Ad)

Ingredients:

•  1/2 frozen or fresh berries; my bag of frozen has dark cherries, strawberries, blueberries, and pomegranate
• 1 banana
• 1 yogurt cup
• 1 cup of almond milk
• Scoop of powdered wheat grass

Method: Hopefully you don't have a junky mixer like I do and you don't have to cut everything down to little pieces. I always throw all the ingredients in the order I listed above. If you are using powder wheat grass or if you add any protein powders you will want to add it last or in the middle. The powder tends to not mix well if it's at the bottom (or course that's just MY janky mixer).

You should get two servings. Silly me I forgot that Dillon is allergic to bananas. But that just means there's more for me! And I usually it will keep me full for hours. And I say it is healthy-ish because it does have a lot of sugar from the yogurt I used and of course the berries. But you know I can't always stay away from sugar. And I say it's better than getting a sugar fix from candy bars.

YAY, the wheat grass didn't make it army green! (no filter pic)

Beauty box: Julep Maven

One of my many guilty pleasures is watching some of the "beauty gurus" on YouTube. And a lot of them promote monthly subscription beauty boxes. There's Birch box, Glossy box, Beauty box five, Blissmo, Beauty Army box.. list goes on and on. The only box I subscribe to is Julep Maven ($19.99/mo) which is mostly nail polish and nail care products, but I've received full size skin care products and makeup products. I've received sunblock, anti-aging lotion, skin brightener, and a blush. And my September box (American Beauty) had two nail polishes and a full size mascara. Thank god, because I was running out and I didn't want to drive all the way to Greenwood to go to Sephora.

The green color is called Hoch and the white polish is Eileen. I'm not sure how good these two colors will look on my darker skin color, but I'll give it a try. Oh, I can use these for some of the cool nail art designs I saw on Pinterest.

I think I might try either the Boho Glam or Bombshell boxes. ^__^ You can try a month free by going to this link. I have to warn you tho, while you can skip a month (maybe it's not in your budget for the month, or the box previews don't interest you) it's very easy to forget to log in on the 21st of each month to skip. That's the only thing I hate about these box programs; it makes them seem so shady! Any way, you have been warned! ^__^

The Color Institute 45-Pc. Beauty Balance Makeup Set (Google Affiliate Ad)

update: i'm alive. i swear it!

I don't know, I think I might be depressed again. I've been jobless for 2 months.. and while it's great being able to stay up late, wake up late, play warcraft 24/7.. I'm just so over it.

Oh, but Isobel is becoming a sexy beast..... I love my warlock <3

ow! don't touch me i bite...

So any way, I got offered a part time job at Best Buy. I have NEVER worked retail before. But I figured it would be perfect. I start clinicals for medical assisting next quarter and it will be another year or so before I actually start the nursing program.. and that will take about 2 years, unless I go for RN. Oy vey, why does life have to be so complicated?? Why can't I win the lottery and just play video games and read comics and watch anime all day?

I'm totally aging backwards... :|

Oh, but I might be able to make a little cash soon. I'm going to start live streaming my wow play on twitch tv. My girl Tiff has been streaming and it's been going well for her. You can watch her here. She's giving a free copy of Guild Wars 2 when she has 400 followers ^__^.

Alright, that's my geek/i'm-still-alive update. I have reviews to write and more posts to put up. I just need some motivation... SIGH.

Busy week! Long-ish update...

NOTE: I started this writing this post on Sunday, but I finished it today.. sorry if I confuse you.
******
Phew, I'm glad that week is over. You know, when I had a M-F job, Friday was always the day I considered the last day of the week. Now that I don't have a job, and EVERY day seems like a Friday, I have to go by the day that my class work is due (Sundays). One more assignment and a quiz and I'm home free. And I'll say what I say every Sunday...this week I will not procrastinate and wait until the day before homework is do to start it. Hehe, wishful thinking.

Let'seeeeeee...finally got my ass back into the gym, went to Ru Yi, Naked Tchopstix (again!), One World Market, Saigon..yeah, it was definitely Asian food week. Of course we never get tired of it!

Earlier in the week Dillon had to go get a haircut  (his sister is a great hair stylist) and she recommended that we check out Ru Yi which is located in the same strip mall as her salon. I ordered a rainbow roll, spicy tuna (that was actually suppose to be our appetizer), and Dillon ordered the teriyaki Chicken. Even though the serving of teriyaki was quite large, it wasn't very good. The chicken was super over cooked, tough, and some parts burned. The sushi on the other hand was really, really good. If we are ever in Avon again, we'll stop here instead of Sushi Club.

Teri-YUCKY chicken, rainbow roll, spicy tuna

Saigon is my new favorite Vietnamese restaurant. The pho is so good! Especially after a long, hard, work-out. Okay, so it was only aqua Zumba AND it was for old people...I still got a work-out. :P Any way, I got pho tai and Dillon (who is sooo predictable in his food choices) ordered ginger chicken. Someday I will get him to try something new....

pho-king delicious! hehe..

Naked Tchopstix was a spur of the moment decision on Friday night. I'm surprised I convinced Dillon to even go to Broad Ripple on a Friday night. Of course it wasn't hard to get him excited to go. SUSHI, turns us both on. So does unfiltered sake. Ozeki nigori sake... oh, I could have had 3 bottles. Unfortunately, one small bottle is $15.99. Actually everything we ordered was kind of expensive. The tuna carpaccio was $9.99 and you only got 4 pieces of thinly sliced tuna w/citrus juice squeezed on top. Our rolls weren't over priced, but our bill still came out to $74.89.

No food pics...we were in the bar section and the lights were turned down super low. But I managed to get this shot before they turned down the lights. OH YER....sexy time...

i think i'm turned on..... >.>

 Saturday was suppose to be devoted to finishing up classwork. I know, I know; I'm a super procrastinator, but I do my best work under pressure! Any way, 6 hours into class work and I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. There is nothing worse than a lack of food headache. Of course, my go to food is always Asian...and I needed to pick up a few things from the Japanese market so it was win win drive up to One World Market in Castleton. We bought some goodies, but I'll save that for another post.

Did I go for sushi?? NAH.. I got Miso Katsu. OH, nom nom nom. So fattening, but oh so tasty. It was so good, but they gave me so much rice!

Miso Katsu

Cucumber, pile of shredded cabbage, mountain of rice, katsudon, miso soup, and miso sauce. It was really tasty, and I wish I could have it every day. But it would probably kill my diet. LOL.

If you want to learn how to make katsudon you can watch Cooking With Dog video or RunnyRunny999's video.

Sorry for the long post. I'll try to be better at posting more often so I don't have long ass posts. :P

"Yum-Yum Bento Box; Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches" (Google Affiliate Ad)

Indiana State Fair

I love state fairs. The food, the farm animals, people watching; it's just an all around good time. We went last Saturday, which luckily ended up being a gorgeous day. Of course the first thing we do is gorge on the yummy fair food. Fried chicken fingers, french fries, fried pork tenderloin (not me, our bff Mark), funnel cakes, cold tomato juice, boba tea, and honey sticks were some of the things we stuffed our bellies with. I wanted to try a fried oreo, but by that time I was ready to be rolled out of the fair grounds.

Deep fried Kool-Aid??? WTF??

 So besides the food, there were the animals.. farm animals of course. This year's fair was all about the dairy cow. And I LOVE dairy cows. I went to school at a boarding school that has a dairy farm and I always loved visiting the calves or the big old bull, Mark. Cows are sweet... smelly, but sweet. And I think my little Penelope is part cow. Hehe..

Penelope's long lost sisters!

I never did find out why they shave the cows. They shave the white parts of their bodies. Or if they are jersey cows they get a little body mo-hawk. It's so weird.

pretty girl...

Oh and lucky me.. we saw a little calf that was only 4 hours old! Poor thing was calling for his mom, who was tied a few feet away from her.

4 hour old on the left!

And of course the 4H stuff was going on. Lambs, cows, ewes, but no piggies. There were some horses, and we saw the horses that were involved in the accident yesterday with the fair princesses.. or whatever. I'm glad that nobody got seriously hurt like last year. It seems like the Indy state fair is cursed! Well, there's about a week left of the fair so cross your fingers nothing else happens!

Food Porn: Naked Tchopstix

Oh geez, it's been a long, painful week. I haven't been to the gym is a little over the week and I haven't been able to cook. Why? Stupid, old bones always go out of place. Unbelievable sciatic pain. Ufff. But I feel better; the old snap, crackle, pop doc (my lovely chiro sheila...) put me back in order.

feeling MUCH better thank you!

sort of. HAHA. I love photo apps. This one is called PhotoFunia.

So any way, that was not my food porn pic.. DUH. My friend Juliet (also a Jules) and I went to Naked Tchopstix in Broad Ripple. I seriously wish that we had looked around different neighborhoods before settling. But, BR and SoBro aren't that far from us, so I'm not too terribly upset. It would be nice to not drive all the time and be able to just run/walk on the canal. OR be able to stumble home after bar hopping. Just saying.

Naked Tchopstix is Asian infusion food. A mix of Japanese and Korean mainly, which are two of my favorite cuisines put together: HEAVEN! I usually get sushi, but I have had their Bibimbap and it's delicious. I think in the colder months I'll try the Kimchi Jigea or Yukae Jang (Cafe Korea has the best Yukae Jang). Juliet hasn't really had Asian cuisines (she's my little Latina cutie friend) and she went with the Shrimp tempura bento box. I'm so happy that she enjoyed it! I wasn't sure what I wanted, so I just ordered my usual; dragon roll and spicy tuna roll. The spicy tuna roll is not like most you'd have at other restaurants; they use gochu-jang (Korean hot pepper paste) instead of ichimi-togarashi (Japanese red pepper flakes) and personally I like it with gochu-jang. Nom nom nom...

Okee, enough talking....food porn photo time:

oh Naked Tchopstix, you do me right... RAWR.

So we are suppose to go to the Indiana State Fair tomorrow. But I think we are going to need to eat dinner at Naked Tchopstix too. ^__^

Yelp

I wonder who nominated me as an elite. I don't write well, but I do like to eat. Ah well, I love eating and I'm good at it. And, I want to learn to be a better writer and that takes practice.

You can read my Yelp reviews here.

working title, thunderstorms, need mo' sleep

One of the many annoyances of being indecisive. :S I reserve the right to change my mind and change the title again. I suspect I'll change it 4-5 more times. :P

I've been up since 5ish. Thunder and lightning rolled in and the dogs jumped into bed with me. We cuddled then Dillon came back to bed. Not quite sure what he was doing (he had a long ass nap, so probably couldn't sleep.. or it was my snoring...:X), but the four of us were spooning like:

Buddy ) Dillon ) Penelope ) me

And of course I was being pushed off the bed...

labels courtesy of LabelBox 

Dogs are usually not allowed on the bed, but for thunder and lightning storms I will make an exception. Partly for the dogs, but mostly for my chicken ass. I still cannot get use to the storms here. If I had a choice it would be earthquakes!

Busy day ahead: homework due today and I need to go food shopping.

...but I think I need a quick nap first...

Updates.. but nothing to do with food really..

Alright, just as I have feared, I've already started to slack off on posting stuff.. But it's been a busy week/weekend. Dillon is back home, we went and saw Kaskade at the Egyptian room and the Murat, and watched The Dark Knight Rises.

Kaskade was AMAZING. I first saw him when I was still living in Monterey and he was just starting out. The venue was so small that I literally was able to touch him. Love him then, love him even more now. DJ Fareoh and Alvin Risk opened for him. Really liked Fareoh but I totally dig Alvin Risk.

Right before I got to the front, you can see part of my face bottom rt.

OH, and bonus! The First Friday Food Truck event was also going on outside the Murat. And who do I stumble upon? DJ Colette!!! I totally freaked out.. she's one of my favorite lady DJs. It really sucked there was nobody around her..INDY people do not know good music!!

DJ Collete

I think that The Dark Knight Rises is my new, NEW favorite movie. I love it so much I'm trying to figure out a way to convince Dillon to go watch it again. And of course I'll have to procure the Blue-Ray when it comes out and watch it over and over again. Yeah, I loved it that much.

So eating update, the only new place we visited so far is Sushi Club. I still need to write a review for it, but I will say that I probably won't be visiting that place again. One of things that sucks about Indy is the lack of decent Asian food restaurants. Oh well, just another reason we need to move to CA!

Food porn: Bibimbap

So, I just got feed back on my speech presentation on How To Make Bibimbap. I got a 93%; a few points were knocked off because I didn't have references in the Power Point. Oh well. Still an A, that's all I really care about.

If you follow me on Instagram/Twitter/FB you've probably seen this photo:

I probably could have taken a better photo, but I was tired and hungry...and I was just ready to get this assignment done. Also, you'll notice that this isn't really a traditional bibimbap. I didn't use bean sprouts, gosari, spinach, or kimchi. With good reason of course, my presentation would have taken way too long. I think explaining gosari would have taken at least 2 slides. :P You know, even though bibimbap is easy to make, there are A LOT of steps. I probably should have just made a How To Make Bulgogi.

I don't think I'll post the recipe here. But if you want a good how to, check out AerisKitchen's YouTube video.

Why am I so lazy?

UGH. I'm such a procrastinator! My power point has to be emailed before tonight...AND I started putting it together this morning. HAHA. Oh yeah, I'm a little nutty.

But so far it's going okay..

Looks really, really, really boring. But all I care about is that I follow the rubric and I turn it in on time.

Oh boy. Only 10 more slides to go. >.>

Epic birthday cake fail

I was flipping through the thousands of photos I have on my phone and I found this from Lissa's (my fiancé's sister) birthday this year:

eeeeek!

First of all, I want to thank Instagram for making this epically failed birthday cake look pretty sexy in photos. And secondly, I blame Dillon. Well, I blame the both of us because we were lazy and tried to make the cake hours before Lissa's birthday party. The cake did not have time to cool, hence the icing would not go on the cake. And the icing got all melt-y. LOL. She still loved it (or was lying to our sheepish faces) because we made it AND it was a rainbow layered cake.

Next year will be better!

Friday notes

Okee, so my goal of posting something at least once a day has failed.. LOL. I'm so busy right now. Granted, I'm currently jobless, but job hunting is no joke! And I've been going to the gym practically every day. Oh, and let's not forget school.....

.....and playing Warcraft....*cough*

But any way, I have to get my bibimbap power point done by Sunday, so hopefully I will have something posted by then.

Other notes about today: IT FREAKING RAINED! And opening Olympic ceremonies tonight. WOOHOO.

laters.

Speech on Bibimbap

I have a power point presentation due for my speech class. And how luck am I that it has to be on a cooking recipe? SCORE! I better get an A on this speech. And of course I'll need too work on sounding "natural." During my last speech my instructor told me I sounded "unnatural" and "robot-like." I get excited about food so I shouldn't have a problem this week. :P

I'll post my bibimbap.. err, my mom's bibimbap recipe later this week.

Oster 10-Cup Rice Cooker

Food porn: Naeng-myeon

Naeng-myeon (or naeng myun, naengmyun..) is one of my favorite hot weather dishes to make. It's cold buckwheat noodles (gluten-free!), cold broth, hard boiled or soft boiled egg,and usually cucumbers and kimchi on top. I mom always added chopped red leaf lettuce so I always add that as well. Authentic Korean naeng-myeon will always have beef or chicken based broth. But you can make a vegetarian version; one of my favorite blogs has a great recipe posted here.

add ice cubes to make the soup colder!

Eden Foods 08639-3pack Eden Foods Soba 100% Buckwheat Wheat Free - 3x8 oz.

Spelt, egg, rice cheese, & tomato breakfast sandwich

My mom use to make us egg, cheese, and tomato sandwiches when we were younger. That's probably why it's one of my favorite breakfast meals to make. Hmm, now that I think about it, I think it's the first meal I made for Dillon when we were first dating. But, I haven't been making it lately because I'm trying to eat less dairy and wheat products, but once in awhile I'll spoil myself by making one. And this version will let me cheat more often!
I, like most Asians I know, am lactose intolerant. Of course that usually doesn't stop me from eating cheese (Lactaid to the rescue!). But I do try to use alternatives whenever I can. I recently discovered rice cheese. It's supposedly vegan and also soy free--another thing I'm trying to avoid--and it actually tastes okay. Well, it tastes okay after it's been melted. The rice cheese crumbs a little and you can tell it's not real cheese if you just eat it cold.

Gluten is another thing that I'm trying to avoid, although I'm having little success. I'm a total bread lover, but I know that if I'm going to eat anything with gluten I'll have to deal with the consequences. Why is everything that is bad for you, tastes so good?! Gluten-free bread is so expensive so I'll only purchase it once in a while. I haven't really had a problem with spelt bread even though spelt is in the gluten grains family. I love Trader Joe's organic spelt bread. It's reasonable priced at $2.99, the bread is not dense, only has 2g of sugar per slice, and is really tasty.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of spelt bread, or any bread of your choice
• 1 slice of rice cheese
• 1 fried egg, you can just use egg whites too
• 1 fat slice of tomato, I like beefsteak tomatoes
• mayo (optional)
• salt & pepper to taste

The egg will melt the rice cheese or you can just pop the rice cheese on the egg before you take it off the pan. And I usually just put a little bit of salt & pepper on the tomato instead of sprinkling it on the egg. Enjoy!

"Cooking with Trader Joe's Cook Book Skinny Dish"

Food porn: Yo Joy

It never fails, if I'm having a bad day I always head over to Yo Joy. Thank god that they have sugar, fat, and gluten free options! Oh, and how exciting, I have 54.84 yo joy points; 60 points and I get $5 off. I'll have to save that for when Dillon comes home for a visit. ^__^

Tahitian vanilla frozen yogurt, coconut, walnuts, pecan, and blueberries. YUM.

Food porn: Harumi sushi

I'm really craving some sushi right now. OH Harumi, why can't you be here in Indy? Oh wait, I'm suppose to wish I was back in California. :X

Good thing I took food porn pics. Excuse me while I drool and fantasize.....

I forgot the mix!!

Dillon said my post makes it seem like IDK what I'm doing....he is right! Lol. I make a lot of random comments, but I'm just trying to make this fun.

I went to Saraga, which is a huge international food store in Indianapolis, to pick up some pantry items and veggies. I was in the Korean/Japanese aisle when I realized I should have posted a picture of the mix I used yesterday. You should be able to find it at any Asian grocery.

Yissine pancake mix

grrrrr, photo will not rotate! So any way, you can buy this ($2.49 a bag) or just make your own mix. Maangchi, one of my fave YouTubers, has a video on green onion pancake and she has a recipe for the batter.

Korean Pancake

I don't know if I would consider myself a foodie, but I love cooking, eating, and drinking--so maybe I am a foodie. I, by all means, do not think I am the best cook in the world (Dillon thinks I am, but he thinks I'm great at everything *mwah*) but I have been trying to be better at it. First of all, it is always cheaper to cook at home than it is to go out. And second, I'd rather hang out at home. Maybe in a few months when I have the svelte body I want (hitting the gym & hitting it hard) I'll be more up for going out.

This first recipe is my version of the Korean pancake. NOBODY makes it better than my mom, but unfortunately she is 2,338 miles away (yup, I know the exact distance, I miss her lots). I've watched YouTube videos, read blogs, and dissected the pancake that I've had at restaurants and I've come up with my version which is easy and tasty (well, all of them are pretty darn tasty).

Ingredients:

• 2 green onions, sliced (diagonally, makes it look pretty)
• 1 medium, red onion, sliced (or white, yellow....i just like the color and the peppery taste)
• 1-2 red chili pepper, chopped (again, it's more about the color. jalapenos would work too) 
• 1 medium to large zucchini, julienne (with a mandolin or just julienne it yourself)
• canola oil for frying
• half cup to cup of Korean pancake mix (depends on how much batter you want)
• water (errr...1 to 2 cups... maybe more!)

(just a side note, i don't really measure.. maybe i will in the future if i get serious about this, so pls. bear with me. :P)

chop, chop, chop!

Step 1: chop, slice, and julienne all the veggies. Oh, and feel free to use whatever veggies you want. Most recipes call for zucchini, but you can use whatever veggies you love.

Step 2: mix the batter up in a large mixing bowl. You don't want the batter to be like the pancakes you eat with syrup, it needs to be a little bit more fluid than that. (oh geez, i'm terrible at giving directions.. hahah..)

Step 3: mix in all the veggies with the batter!

Step 4: put a generous amount of canola oil in a heated pan. I might have gone a little over board on the oil when I made these, but it wasn't too bad. I made some pancake size ones and some smaller patty-size. I think that the larger size came out a lot better, but I just need some practice. :X So anyway, fry until golden brown. Or crispy brown, whichever you prefer.

Step 5: EAT! Well, first you want them to drain & cool on a cooling rack OR just on some paper towels. The only problem with paper towels is that the pancakes are a little sticky. 

YUM, i ate it all!

I was too lazy to make a sauce, so all I did was dip the pancake in ponzu sause (citrus soy sauce). I enjoyed making this and of course eating it. :P

yeaaah.. stool in the background..hmm..