Some easy cooking/meal tips as an adult grad student:

You dont need to chop amazingly perfectly and meticuously. At the end of the day chop safely and however. If it tastes good its good.

Instant things can make things 1000% easier for yourself. Instant mash/instant mac/instant rice/instant pasta/etc. Add Frozen things. Add premade things. Your dishes don't have to be from scratch at all aspects ever. Do what is easiest for you and delicious!

You can use pre-ground spices. I know, yes, whole spices and roasting them and grinding them and using a mortar/pestle yourself is delicious and wondrous. But you can use preground spices to save time. You can use a food processor to blend spices/garlic/etc. together.

If you struggle with making too much food (ie food waste concern), try to make dishes you know will freeze well that way you can have leftovers that store for a long time (ie potatoes dont necessarily freeze well imo, whereas rice freezes just fine!). I also recommend just halving recipes and try to shoot for as many portions is suitable for you.

Uh oh made too much rice? What do I do and i dont want to freeze it? 1-2 days in the fridge and you have rice that is going to make an excellent fried rice. You always want to use old rice! And you can put whatever you want in it!

Canned food is okay. Canned food is okay. Canned food is okay. Eat canned meats, fish, vegetables, etc. Imo some canned veggies arent my favorite flavor wise but if you like it and it works USE IT.

Add mayo to each side of your bread when making grilled cheese. It'll make a great brown crust in a buttered pan.

American/processed/velveeta like cheese is fine. Its delicious it melts well its totally fine. Stop demonizing processed foods and "preservatives". Velveeta/kraft cheeses are going to melt so perfectly for your grilled cheese the end.

Instant pots & slow cookers & air fryers can make your life a lot easier, and at least for instant pots/slow cookers I find them easier to clean!

Meal planning will really help you. Plan what you want to eat every week (or as far ahead as it helps you). Pre-cut vegetables. Buy meat in bulk and freeze/thaw as needed. Etc. Prepping/planning will make your life easier!

You can often buy shrimp that is pre-peeled & deveined, and even pre-cooked. This makes cooking time easier and faster.

It's okay to order takeout if you dont have the energy to cook. Its okay to order takeout if you do have the energy to cook. Enjoy and treat yourself.

Preboiling your potatoes (tender but not fully done) then baking them can make a crispier roasted potato.

Ultimate glow up guide to glow up before school!

(I'll try to put these in sections + I'll also be using these tips my self as well)

To glow up you must have to take care of yourself in these areas physically, emotionally, and mentally so I'll try to help you conquer these things!

What is wonyoungism?

A: it's a term created by Ives fans thats centered on the princess pilates aesthetic. Wonyoungism is all about living a healthy lifestyle, positive mindset, keeping fit, eating healthy, and most importantly self love and loving your self!

1. How to enter your wonyoungism era?

Workout could go to the gym or work out home (I recommend pilates and cardio)

Try to stretch every morning and night

Sleep well at least 8 hours a day

Try to build a skincare routine I recommend finding your skin type and finding products that work for it

Ice your face (makes you look more put together and gives you a refreshed look)

Eat healthy or in small portions

Find a make up routine (if you need it)

Be nice to people around you!! If someone is mean you be nice to them

Drink enough water ik everyone says this but its actually really benifical to glow up cuz it flushes out all the nasty toxins in your body. It makes your skin look brighter and hydrated

2. Glow up mentally

Learn to love your self beacuse if you can't love yourself then who love you?

Try I have an idgaf mindset this is so helpful because if someone disrespects you, you don't care

Walk around w/ confidence

Tell your self affirmations

Try to limit your screen time an the amount of negative things you consume (negative things leads to bad mentality)

Try to put your self first

Have a "I don't chase, I attract mindset" this is by song jia

Find motivational quotes to help you feel good

Spend some time alone! Do the things you love

Journal it gets all your bottled emotions out

Write goals you want to achieve

Work on healing your self

Surround your self w/ positive ppl

Start doing meditation and yoga!

Get LOTS OF SLEEP at least 8hrs per night

Try to connect w/ your religion more

Create a summer playlist!

3. Self care

Pamper your self more

Skincare tips:

Use cold water to help your skin

Wash ur face 1-2 times a day w/ a good cleanser

Rubbing ice on your face

Moisture daily (day and night)

Find your skin type

Gently dry ur face after washing it

Shower tips:

User rice water for shiny an silky hair (not too often)

Cold showers

Use conditioner on tips

Shampoo on roots (bubble it up first)

Let hair naturally dry most of the time blow dry it rarely

Wash your pillows frequently

Smooth skin:

Use lotion Immediately after showering or bathing (surprisingly ppl don't do this ?!!)

Body butter after showering to keep skin extra hydrated

Wear silky types of clothing while sleeping

Shave (don't have to if you dont want to)

Use body scrubs once a week so you don't overly strip your skin of it's natural oils

Use body oils when your skin needs it or every other day

Few other tips:

Take warm baths when you need them especially on long mentally draining days to restore your energy

Don't shower with hot water bc it can really damage your skin

Brush your teeth with toothpaste then w/ water (makes them look whiter

Wash your hands regularly to keep them smooth and clean (moisture them after to keep them soft not hard!

Ware gloves while cleaning and washing dishes because the harsh chemicals can make your hands dry and rough!!

Diet:

Drink at least 6-8 cups of water per day

Include fruits and veggies in every meal (try to)

Eat healthy fats like; avacadoes, nuts, seeds, fatty fish. These types of foods contain omega-3 which gives your skin a healthy appearance

Whole grains like; quinoa, brown rice, oats, and whole wheat bread. They provide you fiber, vitamins, and minerals that are good for your skins health

Lean proteins like; fish, tofu, beans, and Greek yogurt they can give your hair and skin a healthy look to it

Physically glow up:

Invest into a good skincare routine

Try a new hairstyle this can change up your whole look

Get your nails done

Everything shower (exfoliate, shave, hair mask, ect)

Find new clothes

Get a SIGNATURE SCENT!

get a tan (optional)

Dye your hair (optional)

Use a gusha and face roller (it changes up your face shape sm)

Summer bucketlist ideas:

Have picnics w/ ur self or friends

See sunrises and sunsets

Paint or draw

Read new books (I love reading webtoon sm)

Go on a road trip

Thrifring

Have a girls night

Go on walks

Make bracelets

Have a photoshoot

Fashion tips:

Always wear accessories they make you look more put together and they can spice up a boring outfit

Always smell good

Don't pair a baige or black colored cargo pants w/ a bright colored top. Pair it w/ black

Some colors beige goes well with ; brown, black, silver

Always do a nice hairstyle that matches your outfit

To make a skirt look better add leg warmers

Pair the right shoe color with the right outfit or else you'll look less put together

sophia do u have any vegetarian/vegan holiday recipes 🤲🏼

I'm so glad you asked, of course I do!

Some of these things are from my cookbooks, so anything with a book emoji will be shown below the read more just to save space

Starting with desserts:

Vegan chocolate pie (Nora Cooks) - my favorite one to make for thanksgiving, my family (all meat eaters) loves it so much that I end up making two every year! It's really important to use the tofu that comes in aseptic packaging (the kind that's shelf stable) because the refrigerated kind WILL taste like tofu and you don't want that lol...works great in an Oreo crust or just as a mousse too!

Chocolate pecan pie (Isa Chandra Moskowitz)

Cranberry Spice Oatmeal Cookies (Isa Chandra Moskowitz) - these have great flavor but I recommend subbing butter for coconut oil so they don't spread super thin

Vegan Coffee Cake (Vegan Richa) - great for breakfasts! You could easily make them into coffee cake muffins too

📚 Pastry Crust (Isa Chandra Moskowitz's The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook) - great staple pie crust that gets its flakiness from a mix of olive and coconut oils! I use this for savory stuff like quiches and pot pies too. Highly recommend the cookbook, it covers everything from Valentine's Day to Passover to Halloween!

📚 Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies (Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Isa Does It cookbook)

📚 Chai Spice Snickerdoodles (Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Isa Does It cookbook)

Savory Thanksgiving & Christmas things:

Easy Vegan Gravy (Nora Cooks) - really simple & much better than the store bought stuff

Easy Vegan Quiche (Jessica in the Kitchen) - more for lunch/brunch than anything, but I like to make a couple these around the holidays because they're so easy to customize & put together

Vegan Alfredo Sauce (Purely Kaylie) - you can put this on pasta of course but I like to use this to fold into mashed potatoes or make a gratin with during the holidays!

Green Bean Casserole (Isa Chandra Moskowitz) - made this one year at the request of a family member, it came out great!

📚 Maple-Mustard Brussels Sprouts with Radicchio and Pecans (Isa Chandra Moskowitz's I Can Cook Vegan cookbook)

Creamy Polenta and Mushroom Ragout (Good Food) - just comfort food tbh!

📚 Glazed Tofu Ham (Isa Chandra Moskowitz's The Superfuntimes Vegan Holiday Cookbook) - I swear by this and make several before thanksgiving because I inhale them - imo works better as a filling for sandwiches or on the side for breakfast, but could be used as a main dish as well!

📚 Winter Squash Cups with Wild Rice, Hazelnuts, and Cherries (Isa Chandra Moskowitz's The Superfuntimes Vegan Holiday Cookbook) - made this once and used cranberries instead of cherries!

Some Hanukkah stuff! which I highly recommend trying even if you don't celebrate Hanukkah, my family does a mixed holiday celebration so I keep these in my rotation for those occasions:

Latkes and Vegan Sour Cream (Isa Chandra Moskowitz) - can also dip in applesauce or top with caramelized onions if you prefer sweet!

📚 Raspberry Rugelach (Isa Chandra Moskowitz) - classic, chocolate, and raisin variations from her holiday cookbook

📚 Matzoh Ball Soup (Isa CHandra Moskowitz)

And I have to include a couple heavy hitters, these are for if you're serious about spending a lot of time in the kitchen and maybe want to show off a little lol - well worth the effort, but not for everyone!

Succulent Roast Turky (The Gentle Chef) - I haven't tried a seitan turkey that's come close to being as good as this one. Lots of time & ingredients, but well worth the effort

Anything from Miyoko's Artisan Vegan Cheese cookbook - the best vegan cheese you will ever eat. Requires a couple weeks prep because you have to allow time to ferment the base liquid and culture the cheese - I'm starting mine today! I made a detailed post about my experience trying this out here, and there's images with instructions for making the rejuvelac, cashew base, and a Boursin-style cheese in it as well! Of course if you don't want to do all that you can buy the Miyoko's cheese that's sold in stores, those are great too 😅

Peter Reinhart's Bagels (Smitten Kitchen) - if you suffer from lack of good bagels in your area, this is one way to fix that! Bagels are essential to any holiday celebration in my family so I figured I'd include this lol

Here's the stuff from the cookbooks!

Pastry Crust:

Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies:

Chai Spice Snickerdoodles:

Maple-Mustard Brussels Sprouts with Radicchio and Pecans:

Glazed Tofu Ham:

Winter Squash Cups With Wild Rice, Hazelnuts, and Cherries:

Vegan Sour Cream:

Rugelach (Classic, Chocolate, and Raisin variations highlighted):

Matzoh Ball Soup:

Some of my safe foods/meals just for myself to keep track of!

Popcorn! Air popped without any butter or salt is around 30 cals per cup! unseasoned popcorn just tastes better than popcorn with butter imo <3

Sugar free gum bc duh! I really like the watermelon flavored gums cuz they taste soso good and they fill my sweet tooth!

These low cal cookies! 50 cals each, love baking these and pairing them with black coffee <3

Cauliflower rice! 27 cals per cup, and super filling! I dont usually eat it by itself, I like to mix it with some protein or veggies!

Rice cakes bc you know the drill, 35 cals each yum yum, I usually pair plain rice cakes with greek yogurt and a few of these stevia-sweetened dark chocolate chips!

Diet Arizona Green Tea! Tbh just any diet drinks, but this ones a personal fan fav! 0 cals, as all drinks should be <3

Shirataki noodles! Tons of fiber, only 5 cals, and filling! Make sure to look up a good way to prep them! I usually boil and stir fry them before eating them!

Boiled eggs! 78 cals each, but still super good for you <3

Teas, teas, and more teas! Theres a tea for everything from metabolism speeding to sleep aid, drink some tea!

Greek Yogurt! This isn't a revelation I've figured out by myself ofc but still! 100 cals per cup, and super healthy! Plus its a great substitute in a lot of cooking!!!!

Canaloupe! 19 calories for a WHOLE wedge! A whole medium sized canaloupe is 180 cals!

Pickles! 7 cals each and suuuuper yummy imo <3 cucumbers are also a major safe food of mine I have them almost every day for a snack!

Soup!!!!! Tomato soup has around 80-100 cals for a whole bowl and its so yummy imo!!!!

Casabella peppers! (yall know those little peppers at in-n-out?) 10 cals each, literally any peppers are my favs, but my friends love to go to in-n-out together with me and I always love getting a diet coke and some casabellas to munch on <3

Chicken! Just in general! 120 for a whole chicken breast is the best thing ever <3

Almond milk! I've always been lactose sensitive so I've never genuinely had regular milk, plus almond milk is 30 cals per cup and full of calcium which is super important for hair and nails!

Miso Soup! My dad's made this stuff for me since I was a wee little kid, its just one of my favorite foods, period! When i found out it was only 50 cals per cup I was absolutely THRILLED

Healthy Choice power bowl microwaved meals. Oh my goodness absolute godsend! 170 for a whole DINNER!!!! Super filling, high protein, literally just put it in the microwave and bam omgggg its so nice to have these when I need them <3

Strawberries, Watermelon, blueberries! Oh my! <3

Low cal versions of my favorite meals! I've been experimenting with a bunch of low calorie recipes of different stuff and they've all been great! If you like cooking, it can be a great way to keep busy and keep with your goals! My favs so far are low cal pancakes, low cal tortilla wraps, low cal margarita pizza, etc!

I'll add more as I discover more! Stay safe <3

It's Blorbo Blursday! For this question, you might need a bit of context!

A few fast food chains, Mcdonald's most notably, have done celebrity meals (CardiB and Offset, BTS, Travis Scott, to name a few!) that consist of a chosen combination of their regular menu items and might also come with some sort of special dipping sauce or branding on the packaging.

So for today's question, I want to know, what would your OCs "celebrity meal" be?

Thank you for this Ask, @writernopal!

I'm terribly sorry for the late answer. I don't know if this is a proper answer, but since I don't know much about real menus of fast food restaurants, I will answer with an "In-Universe" version of a "Celebrity Menu" for my cast!

RAELEN - (Raelen is a complicated one to answer for. She doesn't have a very specific "favorite dish", and is not a very picky eater either. But, I would say that Raelen's food of choice - if she had to answer this - would be) :

(SAVORY) Any kind of pasty with roasted venison for filling, preferably as warm as possible (as in, fresh out of the oven).

(SWEET) Pure chocolate cake, or overall anything with chocolate, though chocolate and fresh berry pies are her all-time favorite.

(DRINK) Fruit teas. Occasionally, warm wine - it's the most easily accessible beverage in the kingdom she grew up in and since she hates ale, it's the next best thing to find in taverns while on the run.

VALLERIUS -

(SAVORY) Anything spicy and extremely well-seasoned. Spicy pasta dishes, with flaming hot sauce or any kind of hot pepper stew would certainly be his favorites.

(SWEET) Vallerius is not a huge fan of desserts, but he would never say no to a well-made breakfast cinnamon roll or a creamy lemon pie.

(DRINK) Voidberry Juice. Sounds menacing, looks dangerous, but actually tastes really good, once one gets past its initial tangy/acidic taste. (The stems and leaves of the plant are poisonous though, so one needs to be really careful before making juice from the berries. That's why he only drinks this juice if he made it himself.)

EMRYC -

(SAVORY) Roasted deep-sea Kraken or fried lobster claws. Sometimes those two things go together in one dish. He hasn't had something like that since he left the Storm Isles, though.

(SWEET) Caramel Fruit - as in, fruits covered by burnt caramel - or any kind of hard candy, as long as it isn't acidic.

(DRINK) Chocolate milk is his go-to drink of choice.

TANWIN -

(SAVORY) He is vegetarian, and meat makes him sick. His favorite dish would be pumpkin and spinach pie. He also likes soup but hates salad.

(SWEET) Frozen Blueberry cake, he also likes anything with vanilla and blueberries, preferably if it is in a cake.

(DRINK) Wild blackberry wine/juice.

ANSELL -

(SAVORY) Anything with roasted/baked partridge wings, or river fish cooked with pasta. He does not like spicy food but doesn't like bland food either - his taste in food sits right in between those two options.

(SWEET) Glazed cherry rolls, but being a huge dessert fan, he ends up eating any kind of sweet rolls available to him.

(DRINK) A warm, sweet, mildly alcoholic (includes wine), butter-infused drink that usually includes honey and nutmeg.

MORWAN -

(SAVORY) Well-done mutton leg, roasted over a fire, with a side dish of creamy rice with vegetable sticks to follow.

(SWEET) Anything large and bountiful, though her all-time favorite consists of a caramel cake with chocolate and cream filling.

(DRINK) Ale, preferably of the strongest sort.

BRYN -

(SAVORY) Crawfish sandwiches, but he also loves mountain ox stew with cheese.

(SWEET) Anything with strawberry. His favorites include (strawberry) cupcakes, muffins, and cakes.

(DRINK) Strawberry Milkshake

YUNA -

(SAVORY) Spicy goat and pork casserole with foraged vegetables.

(SWEET) Almond pancakes with any kind of syrup

(DRINK) Rum

ELLINOR -

(SAVORY) Anything grilled. She is particularly fond of grilled chicken or turkey, with a side dish of creamy pasta and vegetables.

(SWEET) Warm rolls or pies with a vanilla cream filling. She is also a huge fan of almond pudding with burnt caramel toppings.

(DRINK) Hot milk with burnt sugar and mint. She also likes sparkling wine.

JULYAN -

(SAVORY) Spicy chicken/turkey pies or pasties.

(SWEET) Cookies of any kind, though he prefers chocolate cookies over all the others.

(DRINK) Black tea, with a spoonful of either sugar syrup or cream

AZRA -

(SAVORY) All kinds of stews and warm soups. Azra likes venison and oxtail the best of all types, though when it comes to soup he prefers ones made with vegetables over meat.

(SWEET) Vanilla bread pudding or honeycombs

(DRINK) Warm wine, as well as any kind of hot chocolate

JAMIE -

(SAVORY) Mushroom pancakes and any kind of crepe with enough filling, preferably not spicy.

(SWEET) Dried fruit rolls with powdered cinnamon and sugar

(DRINK) Apple cider, or light wine

ZEPHYR -

(SAVORY) Fish sticks, or any kind of fish pasties

(SWEET) Jam-filled biscuits

(DRINK) Green tea, as well as any kind of juice. Hates alcoholic beverages.

NADINNE -

(SAVORY) Seafood casserole bowls, usually made with sea-monster meat, as well as roasted lobster claws or shrimp.

(SWEET) Vanilla and strawberry jam cheesecakes

(DRINK) Sweet bubbly/sparkling tea

LUCIYA -

(SAVORY) Vegetable sticks, as well as baked/cooked venison with creamy pasta (preferably with some kind of sauce on the side)

(SWEET) Fresh fruits

(DRINK) Cold Tea, Wine (the stronger the better), or just water

NYX -

(SAVORY) Stuffed and roasted hare/rabbit

(SWEET) Orange and fig cupcakes. Learns to love chocolate desserts due to his friendship with Raelen.

(DRINK) Apricot licor

KADEN-

(SAVORY) Mutton with rice

(SWEET) Vanilla cakes, blueberry pancakes, and sweet pepper jam sandwiches

(DRINK) Grape/Blackberry juice

SYBIL-

(SAVORY) Smoked hare with "burnt" pumpkin rolls

(SWEET) Doesn't like sweets.

(DRINK) Ale

NETHEN -

(SAVORY) Swan pie or roasted goose with cheese and vegetable fillings

(SWEET) Rose and Caramel cakes

(DRINK) Mead. He also likes coffee with cream

I still need to figure out the favorite foods for the rest of the cast, but these are the main ones! I hope you like this and that this answers your Ask properly!

Cranberry-Pomegranate Mousse Pie, p. 79, Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz

The photograph of this pie is seriously gorgeous I think it should have been the cover. I think Claire even says at some point in her Youtube series that it’s her favorite photo in the book. Anyway, obviously I was really excited to make this one, however it had a TON of substitutions to make vegan and needs a ~little~ more tweaking to be where it needs to be. I might make this again as a Thanksgiving pie, like Claire suggests, but until then I’ll be moving on in my project.

Make it vegan!

Starting with the crust - Lotus brand Biscoff cookies are ACCIDENTALLY VEGAN! These are the cookies you’ve been eating on flights lately, I’m so happy to know I can eat them in good conscience. Sub - butter for Earth Balance, egg for a flax egg.

Now for the mousse - Sub heavy cream for coconut cream. Take 4 cans of coconut milk, put them in the fridge, and then ONLY use the solids, (save the liquids for a different recipe like curry, coconut rice etc.) definitely grab 4 cans, I tried doing this with only 2, hence why I don't have as much whipped cream on the top, sub gelatin powder for agar agar (I’m using flakes).

Tips:

One aspect to doing this project is finding cool ingredients that I normally wouldn’t have thought of using. I had to hunt down pomegranate molasses (surprisingly not that hard to find) and Lotus brand Biscoff cookies (VERY hard to find). I ended up finding both at Zupan’s (a fAnCy grocery store) here in Portland. Good luck to the other Dessert People out there!

I will say this about the crust - my crust slumped a bit in the oven, this may have been because it was too wet. Maybe skip the egg all together, or try less water than normal (I used 1 tbsp flax egg with 2 tbsp water, so maybe try only 1 tbsp water?). Graham cracker crusts I’ve made in the past have never used a flax egg, so it might be ok to just leave it out. I also left the crust in the oven longer than Claire recommends, because it looked SO wet still, but mine did burn slightly. Take caution!

There were SO many steps in this that made me nervous it wouldn’t come out very well, the largest that loomed in front of me was using agar agar. I’ve used it successfully in the past, but I have also made jello shots with it and it was a disaster (you literally had to CHEW your jello shot… not ideal). So, I knew I needed to be careful with how much agar agar I used. I only used ¾ tsp, brought it to a quick boil until it had all dissolved and then immediately poured it into the cranberry-pomegranate mixture and mixed. I would say you could go up to 1 tsp, and that might be the sweet spot. The mousse still set up in the fridge, but it was a bit less firm than I wanted (as you can see when we cut it out, it didn’t really hold its shape as a slice).

Last tip, Claire says you can’t use frozen cranberries to do the cute sugared cranberries on top but I decided I could and it looks cute so, you do you.

This pie was so daunting for so many reasons and I am thankful to be moving on. My BFF Caroline gave this a great rating so I’m stealing it: 11/15

The Only Guide for Fried Rice With Chinese Sausage Recipe

Chinese Sausage has a special taste, a great tasting mix of wonderful and tasty. It are going to take considerably longer than you presume because unlike others that use it, you will definitelyn't require to placed it on top of a mixed greens or to mix all together veggies. What concerning veggies? The reason we think onions are thus prominent is that they've been incredibly properly examined, and one may utilize the exact same test to observe if you're receiving the right volume of onions. Offer it up with some rice and slathered in a abundant and delightful soy dressing – so excellent! 8. Panko Pizza This one is for those opportunities when you acquire a fresh set of pizza at any kind of house or outlet. It has actually such a wonderful spicyness and its like possessing a major cut of pizza in your fridge freezer that you aren't truly starving as it gets hard on you. The pizza is really easy and sample magnificent. Why This Chinese Sausage And Rice Is Therefore Good A great tasting method to prepare Chinese bratwurst An addictive savoury wonderful soy sauce A fast choice to take out Merely a handful of substances needed Ingredients Lengthy grain jasmine rice Water Mandarin sausage For The Sweet Soy Sauce Cooking oil Garlic cloves, shallots Soy dressing, darker soy dressing Chinese rice wine or completely dry sherry Sugar Water Eastern sesame oil How To Create This Chinese Sausage And Rice – Step Through Step Let’s clean the fresh rice grains fist. Fill a pot along with the rice and cool water to cover. Get rid of the rice coming from the pot and position it into a huge bowl, helping make certain it does not touch the rice. Take the cooled corn and rice to a blister and minimize the warm to 4 ¼ to 8 ¾ – 12 ¼ minute periods until grains are cooked to the uniformity of a tiny batch. Cook the cooled down corn in the water for 5 to 10 minutes until browned, stirring often. Make use of your hands to swish the rice grains, releasing any type of additional carbohydrate and filth. In a dish, mix the rice and rice vinegar. Put one tbsp of the vinegar over the rice and stir to mix. Put another tablespoon of the white vinegar over rice and stir to be certain the rice has worked out right into the dish. Did you see this? with and permit it all resolve for 5 to 10 minutes (no stirring required). Maintain mixing until you have a smooth cash that's ready to roll for cash administration.

Rice (like grains) is a raw component and it is essential to wash and wash! The only means to stay clear of the necessity to eat this things is to consume a dish full of water, typically it are going to be difficult to take it in to your office. As a general policy, you require to acquire a container to hold salt after being washed. I have located this to be a little costlier because I am always on the hunt for brand-new concepts. Clean also rids the rice of extra carbohydrate, which will certainly offer us light, cosy, ventilated rice – not heavy, sticky and starchy. One more approach hired for stashing rice is a little canister of sweets. This sweets is utilized in helping make pie (directions for how to do it right here). This assists to offer a crisis (the cake is definitely smooth and total) and is valuable for flavouring sauces. But that's not how this rice is produced. Hint the container and carefully pour out the water. Allow the flowerpot churn for 15 minutes or until the butter is perfectly softened. If you wish to include even more fluid, you can easily include it directly to the pot and incorporate to the boiling water. You could additionally make an effort making use of simply a cup even more of olive oil or half a tsp even more if you favor. Stashed at property, our Butter Cakes are loaded with butter, which you could effortlessly grate on an engrossment food processor or dishwasher. Drain as much water as feasible from the flowerpot. The method goes pretty rapidly because the water gets gradually eliminated all the means to the surface. A lot of the water in the water may sink in to the pot just as swiftly as it would get gotten rid of through the water acquiring deeper. This are going to help make the container too deep for the dish to dry adequately. This procedure can last anywhere coming from 15 minute increments, for a container to be cooked to 60 minute increases for a pot to be helped make.

How To Make Corporate Catering Affordable

You will perceive why it’s referred to as rice thief when you end your first bowl of rice in the blink of an eye. However, some people are reluctant to eat this dish as they don't seem to be keen on consuming raw crab. Ganjang gejang is likely considered one of the most contentious of Korean dishes. A box of pineapple desserts is likely certainly one of the most popular memento meals items you possibly can deliver again from Taiwan. As its name suggests, it’s a gentle and sweet traditional pastry made with butter, flour, eggs, sugar, and pineapple jam. You’ll find a minimum of one stall selling tanghulu at just about every night market in Taiwan. The most commonly used fruits appear to be strawberry and cherry tomatoes stuffed with a sliver of dried plum. Crackingly crisp on the skin, biting into the fruit fills your mouth with a burst of acidity to stability the sweetness of the sweet coating. Pictured under is the pork bun we had at Liouhe Night Market in Kaohsiung. My favourite discovery when we were in Japan was how really scrumptious a bowl of ramen could presumably be. Much better than the instant, just-noodles model I would make in school. Buy oh my goodness, yikes, those eyeballs would freak me out in the occasion that they had been staring up at me from a plate. Japanese meals is as much in regards to the preparation and presentation as it's the meals itself. A great deal of thought goes into each merchandise served. Catering Along with the numerous extraneous elements, such as arms, garments, equipment, hair and mustache, internally derived elements, such because the breath, spit and wounds, can be sources of contamination. It was reported that food processing employees were able to spreading 10,000 to a hundred,000 microorganisms every minute . Thus, staff ought to avoid sure behaviors at the manufacturing web site, corresponding to smoking, coughing, sneezing, chewing and eating. 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Suggestions for halloweeny black-coloured ingredients or desserts, if you don't want to use activated charcoal for whatever reason because charcoal ice cream is a lie

disclaimer: I am not a chef.

Long post under the readmore:

Black cocoa powder A kind of Dutch-processed cocoa powder: Looks like charcoal, actually has a flavour! There's some things to be aware of when using black cocoa - unlike regular cocoa powder, it's low in acidity, which means if the recipe relies on that acidity to react with baking soda, it won't work; also unlike normal cocoa, it's much lower in fat, which will also affect the recipe.

What this means is, instead of completely substituting black cocoa for normal cocoa in a recipe, go for either a 50/50 split, or maybe one-third black to two-thirds regular. It’ll still end up darker than the original, while keeping the intended texture.

(If you're not using black cocoa for baking - dusting it over chocolate truffles, say - then don't worry about it.)

Oreo cookies or any of its knockoffs I feel like everyone was making oreo cheesecakes and oreo ice-cream cakes and then stopped cold? When did that happen? Anyway, try using oreos to make cookie butter (smashing the biscuits to crumbs, adding water, sweetener, and oil, and blending it into a smooth spreadable paste) which you can use like nutella. It’ll end up looking even darker than the original, almost like tar.

Black sesame paste To be honest, I'm not familiar with Japanese black sesame paste. But if you can find it, you can use it on both sweet and savory foods - black sesame ice cream sounds really good. I've seen recipes to make black sesame paste at home instead of ordering a jar online, though I wouldn't if you don't have a high-powered blender or don't want to use a mortar and pestle.

This is not the same thing as black tahini (tahini uses hulled sesame seeds, sesame paste uses unhulled & roasted), although that's also an interesting ingredient option (I've never tried tahini cookies, but they're apparently a thing?).

Maangchi recently posted a recipe for dasik (Korean pressed cookies) that includes one with crushed black sesame seeds and honey.

Black rice pudding Bubur pulut hitam in Indonesia, khao neow dam in Thailand, might also be labelled as black sticky rice / black glutionous rice / purple rice pudding. There's a bunch of other Asian variants. Generally served with coconut milk. I don’t think it’s served with mango like white sticky rice desserts often are, but if you like mango, knock yourself out.

Grass jelly Also called cincau - it's a fragrant, dark-brown almost-black jello. You might have seen grass jelly sold in soda cans, or as a milk tea topping like boba.

If you can't find it...

Coffee jelly I've found just-add-water coffee jelly powder, but if you can't find it, you can make it with strong black coffee (the stronger the better), sweetener, and gelatin or agar. It should be stiff enough to cut into cubes. Eat with whipped cream or ice cream, or on its own.

Just straight up food colouring Assuming you aren't allergic to it, why not? I don't know when it became gauche to admit to using store-bought food colouring instead of boiling onion skins or making spinach purees or steeping cornflower petals. Decades of innovation and invention means we can just use a bit of paste out of a bottle instead of having to alchemically formulate it yourself. It's fine. It’s going to be fine.

Food colouring gels or pastes tend to be stronger than liquids (i.e., you'll need less pigment to colour a dish, which means it’s cheaper overall). Gels are also preferred because liquid dyes can throw off the moisture levels for a baking recipe. On the other hand, liquid dyes are cheaper and easier to find at a grocery store.

If you can't find black, you can try to mix blue, green, and red together; try 1 part blue, 2.5 parts green, 3 parts red.

Granted, to make something properly jet-black, you'll still need a decent amount of pigment - not enough colouring tends to end up greenish-grey, too much colouring and some people might taste an off-flavour. (This is also why red velvet cakes sometimes taste a bit odd.) It'll help if you're adding black pigment to something that isn't pale to start with, like brown or grey - trying to turn frosting from white to jet-black is an exercise in annoyance. Also, ice cream will always end up a shade or two lighter after being churned and frozen.

If this all bothers you, consider:

Accept that every single food photo you've seen in the last twenty years or more has been colour-corrected or doctored in some way

I've had activated charcoal ice cream. It was, shock and horror, slate-grey and not vantablack like some foodie blogs made it seem. It also tasted like regular old vanilla. (A few years ago you could get gold-leafed charcoal ice cream in Kensington Market at twelve goddamn dollars a cone, which makes me very tired.) Food photography is a bed of lies and deceit. If you've made something that doesn't look like something you saw on pinterest, it's because it likely never existed that way. Either it was photoshopped, or the actual food was modified to fit the Aesthetic with no thought to how edible it ended up being. This can mean anything from literally drawing on grillmarks on steaks, to horrible fondant crimes committed to cakes.

(Tangential example - I've looked at checkerboard cookie recipes, and some of them are disproportionately high in flour and low in sugar and fat; this is to make them more foolproof (less likely to puff or spread in the oven), but ends with a pretty-looking but not very tasty cookie. These cookies are generally meant to be pretty crunchy, but some of these crappier recipes would be like eating bisque clay. TIP: RESTING/CHILLING DOUGH MATTERS, neglecting to do so is usually the reason why a cookie spreads  instead of keeping its shape. Resting times also matter if the recipe has baking soda or baking powder; if it sits unbaked for too long then whatever chemical reaction the baking soda was supposed to trigger will peter out. This has been a PSA.)

Are there cooks and bakers who actually can produce pretty food that also tastes good? Sure yeah. But accept that you are a home cook and not that chocolate guy, and don't worry too much about it. Be proud of the food you cook, you don’t need to prove anything to anyone.

But also:

Take advantage of colour perception So, okay, most of my suggestions will either produce something dusty-grey or dark brown, not true black. This is why you match it with another colour to trick your eyes into thinking it's darker than it really is. Maybe don't use green, since your brain will see green and brown and think "dirt", but white or red or orange for halloween should work just fine (maybe even purple, if you can get it to not look muddy). Getting pure colours for any of these, whether for frosting, cookie/cake batter, or whatever, is much easier than trying to make jet-black, and can make for a pretty striking effect.

Have a happy Halloween. Stop eating charcoal, if your doctor hasn’t prescribed it.

night hawks iii

words: 2.1k

pairing: Hayakawa Aki x reader, Denji & reader

Also on: ao3

a/n: very, very, light spoilers for the bomb girl arc, if you haven't read it you probably wouldn’t even notice so it’s fine lol. anyways, I originally didn’t plan to do this for this chapter, (it was actually supposed to be just pure angst) but I thought this would be nice before I stomped on ur heart! next update might be  for a while since school is coming to a close soon!

part ii | part iv

Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you wonder if there is something in the town that the country can’t offer.

You don’t want to think too hard on that, either.

ii. blue shift

You’re perusing through the snack aisle, debating which awfully sugary and salty potato chip you’d force Aki to buy this time, when Denji ambles towards you.

“Town mouse or country mouse.”

You grab a boldly colored bag of chips--‘taste better with each bite!’ in a fluorescent lemon --and shake it twice. Too light for your liking, you grabbed two more. “What are you talking about?”

“D’you think the town mouse or country mouse is better?” Denji questions, studying your movements before shuffling the items in his palms into the basket hanging off your elbow. He looks at the row of chips, grabs two random bags, and shoves them in as well.

Brows scrunched in confusion, you halt in your movements. “Mmm..is that a new fad from some teen magazine? I never heard of that before.”

“Nah, it’s this guy named Asshop? Acehop? I dunno.” The syllables slur together when he says it, rushed, and you can hardly decipher the words. “But there’s these mice, one’s from the country, the other the town.”

“The country mouse is safe and all, but it has zero fun or good grub. The town mouse gets all the fun and grub, but it's always getting into trouble.”

“And you have to pick between the two?” You confirm. Denji nods, hands shoved in his pockets.

You tilt your head, “Lemme guess, you picked the town mouse?”

He grins. “Who wouldn’t want good food?”

Chuckling, You fight the urge to ruffle his blonde strands. From what Aki’s told you, Denji’s virtually been close to homeless for the past sixteen years of his life. No family but a dog he refers to from time to time.

Sometimes, when you’d come over for dinner, you’d see the way he eats; scarfing down every grain of rice and almost licking the plate clean, a man eating his last meal, that your whole body would ache, starting from your chest and spreading all over.

Everyone should have that at his age, right? Loving parents, no worries if you’ll have warm food on the table or a roof over your head ( but did you even have that? If you didn’t would you even know? How could you feel pity for the youth if you don’t know what youth looks like? )

You try not to think about it too often.

The options milled about in your head, like marbles in the palm of your hand.

“Being safe sounds great and all, but I’ve never been to the countryside before, so..” Denji nabs another bag and shows you for approval. Wasabi and Beef. You give a disgruntled face and he tosses it back with a huff.

“So the town mouse then?”

“I’d say yes, but that’d be a little biased. I’ve never been outside Tokyo.”

A groan sounds from behind you and, across the aisle, is Aki juggling ten different types of meat in his arms, his face matching the red of the marbled pork. Power is right behind him, shoving an unnecessarily large slab of wagyu beef into the cart with maniacal laughter.

( I’m saying this for the last. damn. time.-)

You should probably intervene before he grows homicidal.

“Why are you interested in this anyway?” You ask. Denji huffs, fidgeting with a red bag of shrimp chips (now with garlic and butter!) and haphazardly tosses it into the basket.

“There’s this girl,” He starts.

“Oooh, a girl..”You drawl.

He sputters.“I don’t like her or anything!”

Grinning, you bite your lip to hold back a laugh, “Never said you did.” You think he looks a little irritated, with his cheeks flushed a deep rose and a scowl framing his face, but the same mischievous smile stays on his lips.

“Anyways, she was the one who told me about it, I was wonderin’ what you would’ve said. We’re supposed to go to a festival tomorrow night.” He states lightly.

“Ah, if they have it, you should eat some takoyaki while you’re there. That always tastes the best from a festival stall.” You beam. “Be sure to have fun! Oh--and tell me about it once you get back.” For any devil hunter, it’s difficult to hold connections to those outside the business. You wonder how it must feel for Denji, sixteen and not knowing a single person his age who’s, well,

Normal.

The only times he goes out is for work or rare days like these when Aki (foolishly) thinks they’ll behave at the supermarket. Does Denji even know what’s normal for someone like him? Do you?

He gives you a thumbs up.

( in the corner of your eyes, you spot Power with at least fifty different types of cat food in her arms, marching to an oblivious Aki with a tyrannical smile on her lips.

it’s probably time to leave anyways..)

You sift through the basket hanging on your arm, double checking the junk food will last until the next time you decide to mooch off Aki’s credit card. A variety of bagged chips with different mascots thrown across the bags, pints of icecream and mochi, and at the very bottom, a magazine with...two naked women on the front. You snatch the offending book with a gasp, thrusting it into the blonde’s face.

“No way, you know for a fact he’s not gonna buy this. And if you hand him this at the counter, Aki will punch the crap out of you.”

Denji grabs both the basket and the magazine, rolling the book before slotting it under his arm. “ Not if you but it.”

“I’m not buying that.”

“Then I’ll just sneak it in.” He waves off. At the sound of shouting, you both run to deescalate whatever nonsense Power got herself into this time. The magazine and Aesop forgotten.

( Aki does notice the porno mag and he does hit Denji over the head with it...but he buys it anyway.)

-

“Town mouse or country mouse?”

He scowls at you through the mirror, muttering. “God, not you too.”

You swing your legs from where you reside on the kitchen counter, tapping your nails against the marble, anything to ease the nervous energy that makes your hand shake. Nyanko is slinking through your legs like a maze, begging for your pets every so often. You bring the cat into your arms, scratching the spot right behind her ears and she purrs, bingo. You raise a brow. “Did Denji already ask you?”

He doesn’t answer for a few moments, busy as he loops his tie and knots it. Aki takes a moment to scrutinize its placement, then turns to face you. “Angel Devil.” He states, he says the name like it’s poison on his tongue.

“Oh yeah, how’s that working out for you?”

“He’s a hindrance.”

You stroll over to him until you’re both chest to chest and he stills. This close, you can feel his exhales drift the hairs at the top of your head and discern the specks of jade that’s always consumed by his seas of deep blue. He notices your stare, and swallows.

You take the tie into your hands and tilt it a little to the left. “You think everyone is a hindrance when you meet them. I’m pretty sure you loathed me at first, but now look! I get to babysit your cat!” Nyanko meows on cue and you turn back to him with a wide grin.

Aki stares for a moment, taking in the both of you before groaning into his palms and striding into his room.

“That’s not my cat.” He calls out.

“You still haven’t answered my question!”

He groans again.

“Why do you need to leave so suddenly anyways, it’s Friday night, we should be done for the week.”

“Nomo called for me!” He shouts. The name doesn’t ring a bell.

“Great, now answer my question.”

He trails back into the hallway, coat in hand. Nyanko follows his footsteps, meowing after him.

Not his cat, huh?

“What’d you say?”

You roll your eyes, exasperated, “I said: answer my question!”

“No-- to Denji.”

Oh. You shrug, “I didn’t give him an answer. I’ve only seen the city, so I don’t think I could’ve given an accurate reply.” You say nonchalantly.

“It’s not really about where you’ve been--it mostly deals with preference.” Aki hums and shrugs on his coat.

“Yeah, but,” You finger at the stray hem of your sweatshirt, skittish, “well, I don’t know much from before I was like, what? Fifteen, sixteen? Even then things are kind of fuzzy..”

The hand he had on the doorknob stills, and Aki gapes at you, silent. You don’t know if you should continue your thought, unsure if this is information you want to give away to him, but his silence eggs you on. “ But I wouldn’t really know what I would prefer, since I don’t know alot about..me. Maybe I hated the city, but I’m still here--Or I hated the countryside which is why I live in Tokyo, but I’ll never truly know the original intent..I’m just here. Who’s to say the things I do now are things I would’ve done before I forgot everything”

The words come out muddled and jumbled together, and with the way he’s staring, you wish you could shove them all back into your mouth, never to come out again. You know that he knows that you worry about this from time to time, but the thought of being this vulnerable to anyone, even the person you know better than yourself, shakes you differently than any devil ever has. You wonder if you’re acting selfishly, to bare this out to him, because it always looks like it hurts Aki more than it hurts you.

You don’t like to think too hard on that either.

“That’s why I wanted to ask you,” you rush out. “I thought you’d have a better idea..”

Aki abandons the door altogether, standing before you in the kitchen. His eyes are glassy but the rest of his face is set in stone, unsure. “Does that even matter?”

You frown.“What?”

“I mean, if you enjoy yourself here, isn’t that good enough? Does it really matter what you thought , or who you were, five, ten, years ago? I like who you are now, I’m not that worried about who you might have been before.” He says, voice just above a whisper.

You blink, mind blank. You can feel the blood rush in your ears, roaring, as he searches your face.

I like who you are now

You think you should say something back, something just as momentous to ease the furrow in his brow, the same heat to your neck,but all that comes out is a measly, “Oh.”

Aki looks into you with the same eyes he had back at the diner and all at once you’re unsure of where he’s going with this. What you should do. What lines to cross. Your fingers flinch at your side. In the corner of your vision, his fingers do the same.

But then he blinks and it’s gone. You don’t know if you should sigh out of relief or disappointment.

You pointedly decide to hold your breath.

“And for the record,” He starts, hand on the door, “I chose the town mouse.”

The door clicks just as silently as it was opened.

Nyanko meows out to you, pawing just below the cabinet that holds her dinner and you breathe out a sigh.

“What would you prefer to eat, town mouse or country mouse?”

She hisses.

You should probably feed her before Power accuses you of animal abuse.

-

Later into the night, with the cat now fed and sleeping, you’re perusing the bookshelf when a small children’s book stands out to you.

The rest on the shelf are novels of varying lengths, so it sticks out like a sore thumb and, out of curiosity, you grab it.

The binding that holds it together is frayed and aged, the fabric of the book singed and faded. The cover is almost completely black, with the exception of a smiling rat on the corner.It’s a miracle it’s even in one piece.

You flip through it, an array of colors flickering on each page until it lands on the last one. It’s covered in blue crayon in a child’s chicken scratch, but at the very top of the page it reads:

‘Which mouse has it better?’

Town: Me, Dad

Country: Mom, Aki

‘And for the record, I chose the town mouse.’

Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you wonder if there is something in the town that the country can’t offer.

You don’t want to think too hard on that, either.

hi <3 I wanna know what ur go to meals r! I eat the same b l and d everyday and need some inspo

For breakfast, i usually eat something light and easy like yogurt (balkan yogurt is my favourite btw!!!) with maple syrup and i add seeds and granola to it! Oatmeal is also very good and like yogurt you can add whatever topping you want! And then on days i don't work i go for heavier and more labour intensive meals like omelettes and pancakes and bruleed french toast or remake what left over i have for brunch put it on fried rice add some egg! And then just eat it w whatever fruit i have!!!

And then for lunch i just have whatever they serve at work, i usually get sandwich and very good soup like the best soup of your life soup and you can do this too like i find esp with soup making all you need is a really good stock to save you and whatever vegetable and meat you want to add to your soup and then you can switch it up everyday, just invest on having good stock at home and you're set with soup making! and then when i'm on my day off i like making simple cucumber and sprout banchans and i have that with kimchi/tofu soup or kimchi fried rice! It's important to have a tub of kimchi in ur fridge i think, you can do so much with it - soup, fried rice, pancakes, omelette, on its own as a side, add to ramen etc... and then a couple of days ago i had tomato poached fish yummy, i also like making tempura bc all you really need is the batter and you can tempura whatever veggie you have! And like i said!!! If all else fails!!! Just make a soup!!! Like what i do sometimes is grab my left over veggies and usually it's just carrots and some cabbages and maybe potatoes and i soup them together and then i add dry beans if i have some and let the stock do the work and i'm saved and i have that w bread or whatever carb i have!

I go all out on dinner bc i have the most prep time for that! So that's when i make pasta and my go to sauce base is just butter and lemon zest and pepper and lots of garlic and whatever herb i have mixed w the pasta water and parm cheese to make that a lil creamier! I also like making japanese curry during colder days and i make katsu to go with it - bc u can make katsu out of everything just stock up on panko - so for me it's usually eggplant or tofu katsu or if i don't have that i just make tamagoyaki! I like making braised pork belly too, very easy! And then sometimes i make chicken adobo - this is very good if u live alone bc it has long shelf life, just refrigerate it and it gets better the longer it stays in the fridge bc ur protein absorbs the flavour it gets from the vinegar and soy sauce so like u can survive off of it for daysss! I also like making karaage out of broccoli or cauliflower! Miso soup w udon and i eat that w fried tofu!

I think the key to making your meals interesting is to have a really good pantry/fridge full of versatile ingredients so like i said keep a good stock around bc you can turn that into stews or soups or put in ur gravy or what have you, kimchi, panko bread crumbs, eggs always eggs, msg so that u get that boost of flavour, butter to make everything u cook taste decadent etc... like the way i cook, i try to revolve my meals around the ingredients i have on my pantry/fridge and see where it takes me and you can just be as creative as you want! Pretend ur in cut throat kitchen or something!!! Have fun!!! Eat well!!!!!!

hi there ! may i request jjk first years cooking together?

It starts, as most things do with them, with a game of overly competitive rock-paper-scissors. 

“Real men play rock,” Nobara insists, as they stand in front of each other. Megumi seems unconvinced but Yuuji’s wavering as he looks between them. He’s not actually involved this time, exempt under ‘head chef privileges', but it means Nobara can’t conveniently cheat Megumi into having to peeling vegetables for the foreseeable future. 

“Are y’all ready?” Yuuji says after a few more seconds of impassioned staring.  “Rock! Paper! Scissors!” 

Megumi pulls his scissors, Nobara crows triumphantly as she pulls rock. 

“I told you,” she laughs as she hands him his Luigi apron, “real men play rock,” Yuuji laughs nervously while stepping behind the other boy to tie the garment, it’s evident that he’s glad he didn’t have to participate and Megumi rolls his eyes.

They aren’t cooking anything particularly challenging: ginseng soup, some rice balls, a sour salad dish. Standard stuff. If Yuuji was alone he wouldn’t have given it any real thought. 

But he isn’t alone. 

Nobara and Megumi weren’t bad cooks, far from it. Just, when they were cooking together, the outcome seemed to veer closer and closer towards a culinary disaster, as opposed to if they had been cooking alone. 

So a game of  rock-paper-scissors banishes one of them to the side of the island closer to the compost bin and the mountain of vegetables that needed to be peeled and washed, while the other stood by Yuuji with the stuff that need to be put on the heat. 

It seems Megumi had drawn the shorter straw. Regardless, he takes the peeler with good grace and sets to work on the small mountain of yam, ginger and papaya. 

Nobara turns to Yuuji expectantly, a self-satisfied smile lingers on her face, so much so that he can still see it as she helps him tie his Princess Peach apron, “So what should I do first?” 

There’s several things she could do, Nobara was pretty handy to have in the kitchen — her skills with a knife undeniable. Sadly the majority of things that needed cutting, required peeling first and as such the options became pretty limited. 

“Well the mushroom and berries need to soak?” Yuuji decides after a minute of deliberation; while she weighed and prepped those he could start on the rice, and the pork ribs — maybe he could blanche those first and set her up making the miso butter. 

Before he’s even realised it they fall into a sort of rhythm. It’s a lot like fighting but also a lot like dancing. 

Megumi finishes peeling and helps tidy up the accumulated mess from the other prep work; Nobara reminds Yuuji that the blanching time for the pork ribs has elapsed. 

They shape rice balls together and make a competition out of it, Megumi has the best technique, says Inumaki-senpai taught him the secret. 

Somehow they end up playing rock-paper-scissors again to decide whose going to go dig out the bag of coal for the grill, surprisingly Nobara looses, but the victory is short-lived as a quick confirmation from the recipe their following confirms the need for a cast iron skillet. 

The sun sets on the horizon, and Yuuji flicks the lights on just as the dusty rose of the sky bleeds indigo.

His friends look ethereal in the lowlight, with the glow of the flames warming the brown of Nobara’s eyes, the curve of Megumi’s smile. It takes him by surprise, how good they look like this: in the kitchen with too many pots on the stove and the fog on the windows and the sunset and their tacky aprons and its just like stepping onto the battlefield together, just like swaying in the living room together. 

“I think where almost done,” he says once he’s managed to begin pull himself out of his reverie. Nobara gives a cheer, and Megumi’s smile widens. 

“That guy better appreciate all this hard work and buy us really good sushi next week,” Nobara says as she begins to peel herself out of her apron. She doesn’t get very far before Megumi has to pull her away from stove and untie the red ribbon that was holding the Mario apron up. 

“Sushi does sound good, a place with expensive pickled ginger on the side,” Megumi agrees as they step around the counter. Yuuji watches them as they start pulling out bowls and chopsticks. He should step forwards now, back into the moment: check the soup, throw the salad together. 

And yet, he’s stuck in the moment watching them revolve around each other. 

Nobara walks by dropping the plate of onigiri in his hands and the heat of the plate brings him back, there’s mirth in her eyes as she looks up, “You’re probably planning how to convince sensei into buying us steak instead?” She teases. 

Megumi snorts good-naturedly as he steps behind Yuuji to untie his apron. This is what pulls him fully into the moment, a half step late to the dance but they still make room, the way they’d always watch his back in a fight. 

“Maybe I am,” he says around too fond of a chuckle, “But anyway, let's call sensei and eat!”

Big question!!!!

What would Night serve Samantha as a Meal, when Sam ask them for a typical turkish meal?

*overexcited noices* @samshogwarts I HOPE SHE İS READY BECAUSE NİGHT GONNA PREPARE WHOLE BİG DİNNER FOR HER JFJLFMFMMFMFMF I think you will find these, a bit romantic. In a very different way. Turks loves to eat okay, really l o v e s.

We should start with a beautiful soup. Tarhana Çorbası (tarhana soup)! @cres-aragon come quickly its Cres's fave soup!

"This is a soup that’s made and eaten at home. It’s a comforting, winter family staple. It’s what parents make and send to their kids who are away at uni or working away from home, just so they can be sure their offspring are at least eating one wholesome sensible meal occasionally."

Another famous Turkish dish, Dolma is next!

Maybe calling it turkish dish is wrong? Pff im not really sure. Wikipedia says it comes from Ottoman, but now it also means Balkan's knows that too!

"Dolma is a family of stuffed dishes from Ottoman cuisine that can be served warm or cold. Some types of dolma are made with whole vegetables, fruit, offal or seafood, while others are made by wrapping leaves, most commonly grape or cabbage leaves, around the filling. These wrapped dolma are sometimes called sarma."

"Dolma is divided into two groups: dolma without meat and dolma with olive oil. Those without meat and cooked with olive oil are called yalanci, meaning imitation.

Meat dolmas must always include rice, or sometimes bulgur. As explorer Pietro della Valle wrote, "If it doesn't contain rice, it is not a Turkish dish." Nevertheless, the end result is always the same–delicious and flavorful stuffed rolls of grape leaves."

And you h a v e to eat dolma with Turkish Yoghurt aka Yoğurt. No, its not like the ones you know.

(DAMN im so hungry now...)

"Once you cultivate an appreciation for plain yogurt you will have a hard time eating the sweet, fruity varieties, although they too are available in most urban areas. Turkish yogurt is so rich and creamy it more resembles sour cream.

Some varieties are sold with a thick layer of cream or skin on top, called 'kaymak.'"

Next? Mantı!

aAh my beloved mantı... yes its also yoghurt you see top of it.

"Manti, which is also referred to as Turkish ravioli may vary in size and shape depending on the region from which it comes. They may be boiled, steamed, baked or fried, but the recipe itself is fairly standard. A classic pasta dough is rolled out and filled with a mince of either lamb or beef and onions and spices then folded and cooked. It is then served topped with a garlicky yogurt sauce and sprinkled with sumac, red pepper, oregano or mint.

The making of manti is nothing short of a family affair. Ladies get together rolling, filling and folding these dumplings, spending hours gossiping about the latest news. Aunts and sisters, mothers and daughters, the making of manti is a group effort. Especially if the dish is being served to celebrate a wedding or engagement. However, it would be just as common to make for the family dinner. While dried manti is sold in little shops and at neighborhood bazaars, there is nothing more comforting than homemade manti, it’s almost certainly the extra infusion of gossip that ishomemade manti’s secret ingredient."

You can be sure Night will have one of the best homemade mantı's ever fufufu

My inner chef said Sammy should taste Kısır too. Baş üstüne Chef! (Hai hai chef)

"Traditionally kisir is made with bulgur wheat, if you are avoiding gluten, you might want to use quinoa, millet or even rice instead. Kisir is one of these dishes that tastes even better the day after so it’s great for making a big batch in advance and bringing it into work the next day. If, like me, you like mezze-style meals kisir makes a great addition to any mezze.

Its zingy, spicy, and fresh taste will excite your palate and its vibrant colours will brighten up your table."

Hey Sammy, wanna something cold to drink? heres your Ayran! (It pronounce exactly like "I run." ) Another yoghurt in our dinner XD

"By diluting plain yogurt with water and adding salt, you have created ayran. It is a very simple and very delicious drink which is served ubiquitously throughout Turkey. Common with meat or pizza sort meals, ayran is not often offered with seafood because of some superstitious about a negative reaction occurring in your intestines."

Are you full yet Sammy? Good! You ate so much didnt you? Youre lucky we are in the end!

Now we can have one of the best sweet in the world! Baklava!

"The recipe may sound too easy to be true: chopped nuts are spread in between the phyllo (yufka) layers, dressed with butter, baked and sweetened with syrup or honey. But the excellence depends on the quality of the flour, the thinness of the dough (phyllo) and the proportion of the syrup."

And here something kinda funny:

"There was a special reason for baklava being a favorite among the wealthy families and the Ottoman Sultans with their large harems. Pistachio and honey were the two prime elements and when consumed regularly they were believed to be aphrodisiacs. Cloves of two spices, cinnamon for females and cardamom for males, were added to increase the aphrodisiac effect of the pastry."

See? Its a sweet of riches XD

Every quality Turkish meal must end with tea, and you will be suprised how it will help your stomach after all the things you just ate ��

The thing about Turkish meals is, not eating in hurry. I said Turks loves to eat right? Mostly, we love to eat together. Even if you were so busy with eating to talk, when your tea and baklava comes i can guarantee you, you will have such a lovely and warm time with the ones youre with!

Afiyet olsun! (Bon Apetite!)

the best laid plans

day 1 for @wayhavensummer because this is the only prompt I'll have time to do this week!

T Rating (for one brief mention of sex and one brief reference to emotional abuse) Felix x Detective Esme Kingston, 2300 words

The migraine cuts her to her core, and Esme can’t even manage the usual dose of guilt and hesitance she’d feel about canceling plans with Tina. They were supposed to go away this weekend, and Esme hasn’t been on a vacation since uni, but right now she couldn’t even make her way out of her flat, never mind into a car for a seven hour drive down the coast. 

She feels like vomiting, the pain is so intense, as if she’d been concussed. Migraines have been a constant for her since puberty; she has a vivid memory of her first one, when she was thirteen, and the long wait in the nurse’s office at the private school her mother paid so much money for. The same mother who eventually sent someone else to pick her up, ninety minutes after the first phone call. 

Esme doesn’t even remember who it was; some Agency intern? A vampire? A demon? Whoever it was, they brought her home, gave her some painkillers, and told her to sleep it off. She woke up hours later, in the middle of the night, to a still empty house. Rebecca had come home briefly to leave a note for her about some leftovers in the fridge and another one excusing her from school the next day if need be, and then gone straight back to work. 

Maybe Esme should have been outraged or hurt by this, but she doesn’t recall feeling much of anything at the time beyond hunger, when the pain had finally receded enough to think straight. She ate the leftovers cold in their sterile, silent kitchen, and put herself back to bed.

The migraines had intensified through high school, to the point where her mother considered putting her on permanent medication, before receding just before she went away to university. After that they were far more infrequent, which was both a blessing and a curse- it was easy to forget what the pain felt like, and to feel like it was weak, lazy of her to let it get the best of her. 

Bobby certainly didn’t help matters; the first one Esme had during their relationship came around shortly after they’d had sex for the first few times, and Bobby quickly became convinced this was her version of ‘not tonight, dear, I have a headache-’. That she was, for some ludicrous reason, exaggerating her migraines. 

If she didn’t want to have sex with him, she’d never had much of an issue saying as much, bluntly, clinically. Another thing he despaired of- her lack of social graces, her insistence on saying exactly what she meant, in her usual ‘ice queen’ manner. Now he had reason to call her frigid in more ways than one. 

Esme still isn’t sure how things between them ever lasted as long as seven torturous months. She assumes they both had a private masochistic streak- why else would two people who made one another so blatantly unhappy stay together? 

Bobby isn’t here now, of course, to whinge and moan about her ignoring him, but there’s still a little voice in her head telling her to get up and stop acting like a baby when the evening rolls around. The pain has greatly lessened, thankfully, and she’s hungry, which is usually a good sign, but she’s also exhausted and cranky and generally miserable, feeling as though an entire day was wasted, one she could have spent with her best friend, on her way to a vacation. 

Now, again, she is alone in a dark room. She slowly rolls over onto her side, bracing for a wave of pain or nausea, then pushes herself up onto her elbows and gropes at her night table for her phone. She has several missed calls and texts. Two from Tina, one from her mother, and one from Felix, which is the most recent, about thirty minutes ago. 

Felix H: omw over to drop stuff off. 30 min???

She checks the time, then jumps, almost bashing her head into the headboard, when she hears a quiet knock at her door. For a moment Esme considers lying back down and not answering it; Felix can be persistent but he would never try to break her door down, especially when he knows she’s ill. 

Then she clambers out of bed, some instinct driving her, a desperate kind of loneliness- for an instant tears spring to her eyes, as if she were a child again, terrified of being left alone, that she will just miss him, that she will pull open the door and he will already be gone-

“Ez?”

He’s right there when she yanks open the door, the chain still in place. Esme undoes it and pulls the door open all the way. Felix is staring at her, a small bag of groceries in hand. Vampires have far better temperature regulation than humans but it’s obvious he is feeling the heat; for once he’s not wearing a beanie or any kind of hat or cap at all. 

He’s gotten his hair braided recently; Esme looks at him for a moment, staggered by the fact, as always, that even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of her narrow hallway. Felix’s dark skin has a sheen all its own, magnified by his golden eyes. 

He prods her shoulder gently with the pad of his thumb. “If you faint on me, I’m gonna drop your gifts.”

“My gifts?” Esme shakes her head, leading the way back into her darkened flat. It’s much more cluttered than usual; she never finished packing for the trip she was supposed to take today. 

Felix does not reach for a light switch; he has perfect vision in the dark, and light from the parking lot is spilling through her blinds. Instead he sets the bag on her counter and sorts through it as enthusiastically as Santa Claus on Christmas, or a child sorting through their Halloween candy. 

“Min tea,” he says, “cold packs, squash, sweet potatoes, brown rice, dried cranberries…”

“Did you just look up ‘what to eat and drink for a migraine’?” Esme manages to ask, bemused. 

He looks up, a sheepish smile quirking at his soft lips. “If I say yes…”

“I’m impressed,” she says. “And.. thank you. Very much. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I didn’t have to supply my ailing girlfriend with nutritious food and drink?” he waves the bottle of mint teat in her face vigorously. 

“Ailing? I’m not eighty five years old, Felix.”

“That’s right, I’m the old man here,’ he cackles, then amends, “Or, will be. Technically we’re not that far apart in age but eventually when you start decaying-,”

“Decaying?” As usual, his word choice both horrifies and amuses her. 

Felix has even less of a filter than her, but with the opposite effect. She comes across as cold and controlling. He comes across as… well, ‘space cadet’ has been used a few times, but Esme likens it to a time traveler. Only, not from the past, and not quite from the future. A parallel visitor. Something out of the Twilight Zone, only… warm and colorful and eager to please. That’s Felix.

He shrugs. “Succumbing to the elements?”

“I’m not a castle,” she mutters, but pours herself a cup of cold mint tea. Will it be as good as if she’d brewed it herself here at home, no, but at the moment she doesn’t care. 

He puts the rest away in her small fridge while she drinks, leaving out the cranberries, then circles warily, as if approaching a wild animal, when she finishes off her cup. “Can I-,” his fingers ghost along the back of her neck. The hairs there raise and she shivers violently, but not in fear or pain. 

“Yes,” she murmurs, then leans back into his embrace as he wraps his arms around her. 

They scuttle over to the sofa like that, and ease down together. Felix is not terribly tall, and she is average height, so there’s scarcely a few inches between them. Esme has always liked that. All the others she’s been with had towered over her, and it made her feel spoilt and delicate in an undesirable, bratty kind of way, as if she were childish, some little princess to be coddled and indulged. Or maybe that’s just her projecting onto everything else that makes up a relationship besides height differences. 

For now, she is content to lie back so her head rests against Felix’s, cheek to cheek. His is silken smooth; she knows he is fastidious about shaving, the same as her. 

“You’re feeling better, though?” he murmurs, and snakes a hand under her pyjama top as if to check. Splayed warm against her belly, it tickles for an instant and she smiles. 

“Yes. It’s mostly passed. I’m just tired. And annoyed. Tina was really looking forward to this trip. She’ll still have fun by herself, but it was supposed to be the two of us, and I’m always canceling plans.”

“You are not,” says Felix, reasonably. “You’re just busy. And you couldn’t help it this time, you were sick. She knows that.”

Esme nods; for all his jokes and quips, Felix is always sensible in a manner that she finds comforting- stating the obvious isn’t such a bad thing when dealing with someone like her. 

“I hate being sick,” she murmurs, rolling onto her side so she can rest her cheek on his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her more securely, even intertwines their legs. Felix sleeps like this too, though at this point he’s only spent the night a few times. 

Esme is taking things as slowly as she dares, given all the other factors at play- her mother, their work, the rest of the team, the fact that he is a vampire from another dimension and she is the human equivalent of dry toast… 

“I kind of like it,” Felix confesses, with just enough lilt in his voice that she knows he’s half teasing.

Esme grumbles vengefully into his shirt. He smells like coconut butter and vanilla. She doesn’t know if that’s his aftershave or just the essence of Felix, refined to the purest degree. Sometimes he smells like cinnamon to her, or lavender and honeysuckle. 

Felix tolerates these assessments but likes to claim that it’s him producing some kind of super pheromones perfectly designed for luring in unsuspecting human prey. Or his girlfriend. Or both. 

Esme has not been anyone’s girlfriend in a long time. Years. It feels very strange. Before him, it’d been so long since she’d even touched anyone, besides Tina or her mother or shaking hands. That absence did not hurt Esme. But being with Felix is like an unexpected delight. Free dessert. Extra sprinkles on your sundae. Any number of juvenile metaphors she should be above, but isn’t. 

“You’re not going to ask why I like it?” He is winding his fingers through her hair, which she let down from its usual tight ponytail to ease the tension on her scalp.

“Because you like to mock me?” she ventures.

“No,” says Felix. “Because you would have gone away with Tina, and now I get to see you. And hold you.” He presses an astoundingly gentle kiss to her brow, like a feather.

Esme feels a queer stab of guilt. “I didn’t know you’d minded so much.”

“I don’t mind,” he says quickly. “I was happy for you to get away for once. I’m not going to third wheel you and your best friend.”

“I think the terms refers to the opposite-,”

“Hush hush,” he interrupts, which gets a giggle out of her. “But this is like… an unexpected delight.”

The back of her neck prickles. “Can you read minds?” she asks, half serious.

“Not yet,” he sounds smug. “I have great intuition.”

“Because you’re a vampire?”

“No, because I’m me,” he boasts. “Look at Ava’s intuition. Terrible.”

Esme laughs again. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“She’s always expecting the worse. And Nat swings in the other direction. Always wants to play nice and hug it out.”

“And Mason?” Esme teases, feeling energetic enough not to raise her head so her chin is on his chest. Their noses are almost touching.

“Eh… he’s alright,” Felix breathes, and then closes the gap with a kiss. 

Esme kisses him back, more passionately than she’d meant to, and only stops it when he starts to sit up so she is straddling his lap. 

“I don’t think I can…”

“Eat some cranberries?” He grins impishly and hands her the bag from the coffee table.

Esme smiles and bumps her forehead against his, something she did impulsively after their first kiss and which he never let her live down. 

“What are we, cats?” he says, on cue, but brushes his nose and lips down her cheek and onto her neck, as if to nuzzle her in turn. “Eat some fruit before your migraine comes back. Do you want me to put some of this stuff away?”

“No,” she says, pushing him back down on the sofa. “Just- stay with me, please?”

“Alright,” he agrees, amiable as ever, and reaches for the remote. “This can be like our vacation, yeah? The Felix and Esme Show. The Fezme Show-,”

“No,” she groans, but wriggles off him to curl up beside him instead, a handful of cranberries rising to her mouth as he flips through the channels.

He settles on an episode of Columbo. Felix hasn’t really seen much in the way of TV, and so reruns mean nothing to him. But it means everything to her. They keep the volume on very low, and he gets up at one point to open the windows more, even as the faint sounds of the parking lot outside drift in- the buzz of the lights, doors opening and closing, the crunch of gravel. 

Esme falls asleep sagging onto him, cranberries in her lap, mouth half open while Felix watches, riveted in the light of the screen, as the detective closes the case.