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elliethesuperfruitlover · 4 years

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Midnight Snack

A/N: I can’t get enough of this man and I got an idea for a good smut fic and here it is.

Warnings: smut, oral sex (fem! receiving), fingering, dry humping, squirting, wet dreams, soft rob

You and Robbie were tucked into your humble abode because of miss rona, and the two of you were quite comfortable. With him doing work for the Earth Locker ™ , and you trying to relax and not watch too much news, you’d been kept quite busy and the chinese takeout containers were stacking up day after day. Rob is a bit of a hippie, but even he was getting tired of the same old ass routine, and he’d started meditating more, and spending less time with you. You’d sleep together in your bed every night and mumble greetings every dawn and dusk, but you were growing apart. It wasn’t a problem with the relationship, it was a problem with the fucking world.

However, you had a plan for that.

You’d braved the outside world and went to the grocery store, avoiding the angry Karens and missing toilet paper aisles. You picked up some italian themed food because it was a comfort for the both of you, and you threw salad materials into the cart because eating broccoli with brown sauce for weeks on end can send anyone on a rampage of high blood pressure. You’d thought about buying condoms, but you had some at the house, and who wants to have sex while in a food coma? Back at the house, you cleaned all the ingredients and started prepping the food. The lettuce was taken apart leaf by leaf, rinsed, then thrown in the bowl, along with the sliced radishes, carrot, and you even made homemade croutons because why the fuck not. Robbie’s been quite busy, staying outside most of the day, having one of his longer meditating sessions. Soon enough, once the vinegar dressing had been poured heavily over the salad, you placed it in the fridge to chill.

Next, you started prepping you chicken titties (im sorry i had to.). They got a quick thaw and rinse, and you seasoned them with salt, pepper, basil, and Italian seasoning, and tenderized them until they were ready. Those were also placed in the fridge to marinate until you were ready to cook them. After that ordeal was finished, you fetched a glass of red wine, as you were preparing to make a chocolate cake, and baking was not your forte. You got the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and vegetable oil into one bowl, mixed well, and got the mixer out because the wooden spoon was not cutting it. The dry ingredients came together a little easier, and the flour decided to make its way into your hair and your face (like something else which is a lot less dry), but you gave it no mind as you were gonna shower for dinner later. Everything was poured into the pan, and put it in the oven to bake while you were getting the chicken ready to be sauteed. You were proud of the work you’d done, and you polished off your glass of wine.

“Hi honey, whatcha cookin?” Robbie said, entering the kitchen, and hugging you from behind, as you inhaled his scent, masked by the sweat of his session.

“Dinner, I got really fucking tired of chinese takeout, so I got a little somethin’ somethin’ cooking in the oven, and chicken boobies.” you said, turning around to kiss his lips, him sighing against you. His arms wrapped around your waist, and yours lingered by the small of his back. His tongue glossed against yours, and you moaned lightly, letting him take over for the time being. You touched upon his back, and he arched into your touch, and he humped against you, turning you into the counter, deepening the kiss. You broke off the kiss when Robbie started moaning louder, getting closer to his climax. A line of saliva was between the two of you, and his eyes were blown wide with lust.

“Well, I’ll get the frosting together for the cake, and you cook the chicken and boil the noodles. We’ll be finishing this later.” you said, hopping off the counter, and swaying your hips while grabbing the fettuccine from the fridge.

Robbie smirked at your comment, and turned the heat up on the skillet on the stove, ready to get the meal over and done with so that he could get his dessert early. The two of you worked quickly to get the food done, dumping the pesto in the noodles, then the chicken, frosting the cake with delicate precision. The two of you shared a bottle of wine, white this time, after taking a special shower together and steaming up all of the mirrors in the house. The two of you dressed modestly for dinner, the both of you in sarongs, only Robbie wore a shirt, and you decided to put on a bra because you were still hot from the earlier frolicking. The two of you ate slowly, savoring the meal, and your time together. Quiet, gentle jazz played in the background, and birds chirped to each other outside.

“I love you, I want you to know that.” Robbie whispered, stopping you from putting the chocolate cake in your awaiting mouth. He looked at you with endearment in his eyes, wanting, no, needing the same to be told to him.

“I love you too, Robbie. Just took me a while to say it, is all.” you stated back, looking into his eyes.

Soon after that, the meal finished, and the two of your worked in comfortable silence while doing the dishes, working assembly style. You two watched some Queer Eye before bed, sparking you to think of possibly picking up repainting your house. The two of you fell asleep at around the same time, Rob’s arms wrapped around your torso, his chest to your back. His dreams actually were calm that night, but yours were not. You had the wettest dream of them all. Beautiful, erotic, hot wet dreams are rare. That one, though, you’d always remember.

Robbie was touching you, just like in the kitchen, but it was much more real, oddly. He moaned in your ears, grinding his dick into your ass crack, humping you quickly and harshly. You both were loud, very loud, you could feel the counter shaking. Robbie turned you around, wrapping your legs around his waist, fucking you as hard as he did when he finished Season 2 filming. He came home with his pants already off, dick stretching his black boxer shorts. He got you against the wall that day, and the couch, and the kitchen island, and the pool, and the floor. He wanted to fuck you until you couldn’t walk or talk.

You didn’t for two and a half days.

Now, however, while dream Robbie was fucking you into the kitchen counter, actual you was having a nice self-love session in your sleep. You’d gotten the covers off your body, revealing your hand beneath your panties, rubbing along your clitoris, applying just the right amount of pressure. Along with that, your knees were bent, and legs were spread, and you humped the air, arching your back with each thrust. You also began to moan, but that didn’t wake Robbie. He woke from the change in the bed shape, you were moving slowly, but harshly at the same time, making quick work of yourself. He woke up to you grasping the sheets in your hand, pulling them. He smirked, but slowly moved until he was positioned in front of your pussy, your hand not giving him a clear view. He kissed along your thighs and legs, leaving little hickies in his wake. You convulsed in your sleep, getting closer, but he wouldn’t have you cumming before he tasted you.

He pulled your panties from your body, holding them against his nose, taking in your arousal, in peak condition. He placed those on the sheets he previously occupied, for future use. The cold air halted you, and Robbie blew cold air onto your sex, causing you to wake up and look down to see his curls touching upon your thighs so delicately. The very thought sent you flying, thrusting your hips to the air. Robbie watched as your clit pulsed, swollen, waiting for attention. His hands went around your legs, moving them apart, to reveal your beautiful, pink pussy, waiting to be eaten. He gave it a lick to test, the tip of his tongue barely brushing against you. Your breathing was quite heavy, and he went back in, ravenous.

Robbie’s lips touched your pussy’s, forcing a strangled moan from you. His tongue moved to your clitoris, giving it kitten licks, knowing where you wanted the most pressure. You put your hands on his head, ready to send him in the right direction. He pushed you closer to him, his tongue meeting your hole, giving it quit a broad lick, sending you panting for air. Rob slurped what you’d freshly created for him, his chin already glistening with your juices. He dove in, his nose nuzzling your clit, his mouth right where you wanted it. He gave licks in quick succession, creating a very lewd, wet sound. He grunted against you, as you’d decided to push his head further, and he liked the pull on his curls each time he attacked your sex. You were thrusting lightly against his face, using him how you wished. His hair was against your pubic mound and your thighs, adding to the feeling of pure euphoria that he was giving you.

“Robbie, I- oh goodness!” you choked on your words, as he’d inserted a finger into your birth canal, and he thrusted it in and out, letting it gather on his finger while kissing and nibbling your clit, then taking it out to lick it off like frosting from a cupcake. He added two fingers, and began grunting against your vagina, sending vibrations through you. Robert started shaking his head against your pussy, urging you to moan loudly, pulling his hair, causing him to moan as well. Sending you over the edge. He still fingered you through that white hot pleasure, then bit your thigh.

What a mistake that was.

You squirted. Hard. Right into his face and mouth, and hair. He almost came right then and there, as you groped your breast, pointing your toes, yelling his name in praise. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as you squirted onto his face, soaking him thoroughly. He started grinding against the bed, desperate for some type of release. The remaining liquid he licked off of your pussy, and he kissed your thigh, looking into eyes with his emerald orbs, wanting you to be okay before he proceeded with the next step. Robbie quickly got up, grabbed a condom from the side drawer, ripping it open with his teeth, then slid his boxers off. He quickly shoved it on his length, jerking it quickly for reassurance, then he slowly slid into you. You inhaled with him, and soon enough, you became one being.

Robert thrusted gently into you, his face in front of yours, reaching down to grasp your lips in a beautiful kiss. He hit a spot that always sent him rolling, and broke away from the kiss, moaning and whimpering at the squeeze of your pussy against the intrusion. He started thrusting into your heat quicker, creating a wet squelching sound, one of which the both of you liked the feeling of very much. He hid his face in your neck, his nose pushing against your collarbone. His lips making small kisses underneath it. The pace was getting faster, and Rob was moaning in quicker succession, a sign that he was getting close. You looked past his head and saw his pert ass flexing, the muscle more defined when he pushed into you. That thought alone sent you for your second orgasm, him following you. Your wet tunnel tugged against his cock, causing him to explode into the condom, you seeing his face contort in pleasure, his eyes rolling again. His hair stuck to his forehead, his mouth open in appraisal. You felt his light bush press against you, pelvis meeting pelvis. His balls emptied themselves into the condom, and his toes were curling from the power of his orgasm.

It took Robbie a while to come along this time. You’d no idea why other than the fact that he’d had a very hard orgasm. You wiped the tears from his face, and you sat him up as you took the ruined condom from his cock, tying it into a knot and throwing it into the trash. He was sniffling from the bed, clearly overwhelmed. You brought him a glass of water, which you had to help his drink, and he was curled into a ball on the bed while you cleaned him, breathing quietly. The sheets would have to wait for the morning, and you cuddled him as he nuzzled his way into your neck, a smile on his lips.

Masterlist

#robert sheehan imagine #robert sheehan smut #robert sheehan x reader

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futurewriter2000 · 4 years

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Girls play Games, Women don’t. - pt.10 - final part

A/N: Okay, so here we are. I still haven’t started to write it, so this is just before part and after I finish and I’ll see if I’m going to make a epilogue? Or is it a prologue? Damn. I gotta google. - It’s epilogue. I knew that, I just had to be sure. --- Finished. So freaking long but it was all just as I imagined. Even better tbh. I think we all deserve a good epilogue out of this.

It was managable. It wasn’t perfect but you were a Slytherin and Slytherins are definetly known for their resourcefulness.

You were in your most comfortable sweatpants. They weren’t yours, they were Sirius’ and he didn’t mind sharing... to your knowledge. It was steamingly hot and you could barely breathe in the T-shirt, also Sirius’. Everything was from Sirius’ because you really hadn’t had a chance going back to your parents’ house to gather your things and leave peacfully.

You had just finished with all the exams Dumbledore was kind to give you so late in July but after the results, you are sure you will graduate and have your Hogwarts’ diploma.

Lately, after the exams you had done nothing but sit around this old, disintegrating apartment as Sirius just started his internship job in Auror’s office. He was usually late home and gone before you woke up. You two barely spent any time together but when you did he was always filling up the paperwork. He kept appologizing to you and saying he will make it up to you, which you didn’t mind but still missed him dearly when he left.

Now, you waited for the results. When you get results, you get your diploma and when you get your diploma, you can get yourself a job.

Until then, you have to deal with this apartment.

So you did.

You took the television from the unpacked box and with some hard effort moved it closer to the electrical socket. Since the cabel was short, you had to push the big box closer and was finally abel to turn it on. When you did, you skipped programe from programe on the buttons under the TV screen- you had no idea where the remote was- until you found the music programe.

Smiling to some background music, you stood back up and looked at the piles of unapacked boxes. “Let’s do this.” you smiled and started with the living room.

---

Sirius was climbing up the stairs, panting and looking up at the pile of stairs that awaited him. He was exhausted from today’s work so much, he was afraid of apparating. His brain was drained as if the Ministry squeezed every bit of them until they’re dry like the desert. He just wanted to provide for you. He wanted you to have everything you want, not this apartment he had to rent and ask James for some money to lent. It wasn’t fair but he had to. For you.

He finally managed to get to the door, putting the key in and opening them.

He heard a music playing and he immediately sobered up. He was not tired as before since his ear felt something so relaxing and familiar to his ears.

‘ I know your eyes in the morning sun I feel you touch me in the pouring rain And the moment that you wander far from me I want to feel you in my arms again... ‘

He smiled at the song. Bee Gees? He didn’t think you would know them.

He walked into the living room, finding sofa cleaner than before, a coffee table in front sinking into a furry rug he had no idea where it came from. The coffee table was glass and it had an adorable little cloth in the middle with a candle and two remote controls. He looked to his left and found the TV sitting on a small chest with two drawers.

That chest was broken? How did you make it stand up like that?

It was at that question his nostrills sense a nice scent of roasted chicken, leading him into the kitchen.

He walked to find you standing behind the counter, cutting the paprika fairly quickly with the sharp knife, your fingers carefully hidden under your joints. Your hair were up in a bun with a few strands sticking out and a headband around your head. You jumped your head to the song, singing softly.

‘ How deep is your love, how deep is your love How deep is your love? I really mean to learn 'Cause we're living in a world of fools Breaking us down when they all should let us be We belong to you and me.’

He let you continue without knowing he was standing behind you. He was afraid that if he says anything, you might jump and cut yourself with the knife.

The song changed to Brandy by Looking Glass and you started gently thursting your hips left and right, catching Sirius’ attention. You wore his sweatpants that fell so perfectly down your wide hips, hugging your curves just in the right places. Seemingly, you cut his shirt into a crop top, showing your lacy bra that peeked under the shirt.

Sirius couldn’t help himself to grin. Especially when the song changed again: Cheryl by Yung Gravy.

You put the knife down and grabbed the wooden spoon, sliding to the pot but not for stirring. “ Juice, sauce, little bit of dressing (Ooh) Ice, wrist, little bit of flexing..” you opened the lid and finally stirred the sauce, shimmying your shoulders as you did and making Sirius laugh behind you.

You jumped at the sound of his chuckle, looking at him with wide eyes and blushing completely red into your cheeks.

“You’re home!?” you exclaimed, touching your messy hair and looking down at your outfit, knowing you cut his shirt in half. “I- uh- it was really hot and uh-” he started to approach you with opened arms, grinning cheekily. “I meant to change before you came- uh- you’re-” he was holding you in his and kissing you softly on your lips. “- early.” you smiled as he pulled away, putting his hand on your cheek and brushing his thumb across it.

The song changed again: George Harrison - My Sweet Lord

“Sweet Lord indeed.” he looked you up and down and started to kiss you again and as much as that pleased you, your sauce might got overcooked.

Giggling to yourself, you pushed him away a bit, still holding him around the hips as both of you swayed to the pot. “Oh, Lover as much as you want to, the sauce is dearly important.” you gave him a peck and stirred again, turning off the stove and moving the pot on the other side, letting it cool of.

“You did all of this in one day?” he asked, looking around the kitchen and how brightly it shined.

You looked over your shoulder, catching his eye and winking at him. “I had nothing better to do anyway.” you grabbed the apple cider and olive oil, mixing the salad.

“Can you just put the plates and cutlery?” you glanced at the drawers to the side and he didn’t think twice to argue. If he was honest, he was hungry just as he was exhausted.

“Don’t mind if I do.” he quickly set up the table as you turned to leave the kitchen.

“Okay, I’ll just go get dressed-”

“Dressed?” he quickly took your hand and pulled you back. “I prefer you in my clothes.”

It was your time to smile cheekily at him, tapping his cheek with your finger and matching his grin. “No, you don’t.” you gently removed his hands from your waist and left to your bedroom.

Surprised, he kept staring after you, wanting to go see but objecting himself. “I’m marrying this woman.” he kept smiling and hearing something tumble in the bedroom.

It didn’t take you longer than 15 minutes when you walked back into the living room, finding him in the balcony, leaning over the fence and smoking his cigar. As much as you hated him smoking, you knew it was the only thing that kept him awake enough to spend some time with you.

You followed as quietly as you could, placing your hands over his eyes and kissing his ear gently. You could feel him smile just by feeling his cheeks touch the edges of your hand. He put his hands over yours and turned around slowly.

When he opened his eyes, he found you wearing a silk, red dress, which hugged your hips, your breast and your thighs. The edge was a few inches above the knee, your hair pinned back and some curls nicely loose in front of you. They were still a bit messy but you did think you had more time before he came home. With no foundation, the cream made your skin glow in the light just perfectly, an eyeshadow gorgeously done yet never seen on you before, mascara outlining your eyelashes and black underline exposing your twinkling eyes he adored so deeply.

“Wow.” he marveled, taking your hands in his and putting them behind his neck. “I wonder what would happen if I was late?”

“You’d probably faint.” you joked and he let out a laugh.

He kept looking at you, his hands on your hips, then on your face to your hair to everywhere they could touch. “You look absolutely stunning.” he kept looking and touching, as if you weren’t even real.

“Thank you.” you blushed again, giving him a soft peck on the lips and causing his stomach to burst from all the butterflies.

He felt his hands clammy, his heartbeat rise up as the next tought entered his mind.

You noticed his uncomfort a bit and pulled yourself away. Insecurity entered your mind and you quickly felt too much exposed to him. “Is something wrong?” you asked and he shot his head up to you, finding you just as confused as he was when he heard you listen to Bee Gees.

“No, no, no, no. Nothing is- well-” he cut himself off, looking up at the ceiling and contemplating. “There is something missing with the whole outfit.” he grinned and you felt a bit angered by the comment.

You crossed your arms over your chest, giving him the intimidated, furious look you gave to most of the people that tried to control what you should wear yet there was something in the way his eyes avoided you and his mouth kept twitching into a smirk that let your retorts keep themselves in your mind and not on your mouth.

He reached his hand in his pocket, shaking it as he struggled to get it out but when he did, it appeared to paralyze you completely.

It was a small, velvet box and it didn’t take an great aritmanist to figure out what was inside. You slapped your hands over your mouth, preventing any odd noises to come out as he went on one knee and opened the books. He smiled at the ring but smiled brighter and wider when his eyes met yours.

“I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to introduce the two of you but as patient I thought I was, tonight made me realize that I will definetly marry you... if you will have me.” he smiled as your eyes started to tear up. You tried to stay calm, tried your best to wait for the next few lines and as you did, he took a deep breath and asked: “(y/n)(y/l/n), will you marry me?”

You started nodding franatically, tears of joy escaping your eyes as he put the rind on and stood up. You jumped into his arms, kissing him and looking at him as he did the same. “Yes! Yes I will!”

“Thank God!” He breahted out, causing you to laugh.

“I told you before I would, didn’t I?” you pulled away, framing his head as he continued to beam at you.

“I wasn’t sure if that was you or the adrenalin back then.”

You started laughing again. “It was me, silly.” you started to kiss him again. He deepened the kisses as time passed, letting his hands roam your body until they found themselves carrying into the bedroom, completely forgetting about the cooked dinner in the kitchen....

---

He continued to kiss your bare shoulder after. His hand travelled up and down your hip and thigh, then finally up your arm and to your hand. “You’re so much more flexible than I thought.” he growled into your ear, nibbling on it.

“And that’s after renovating the whole apartment.” you started to tease, interlacing your fingers with his. “Imagine what I would do to you if I’ve done nothihng but wait for you.” you turned your head to him only sligthly as he burried his nose into your neck.

“Oh, woman. You’re going to make me go crazy with that talk.” he kept nuzzling closer, making you laugh.

You turned around, removing his head from your shoulder and cupping it in your hands. He kept looking at you with that grey storm of his, softly calming down into a calm ocean water. His front curls fell on his forehead and his lips kept kissing your palms. He took your right hand into his and kept kissing it until his lips got stuck on the diamond ring. He kissed it gently and looked back up at you.

“Now, you’re really stuck with me.” he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close.

“Or you’re the one stuck with me.” you raised an eyebrow.

“We’re stuck with each other.” he continued.

“Oh, what a shame.” you smiled as he kissed you again and again, never getting enough.

All until something fell from the other room.

Both of you stopped to look at the door, glancing at each other and hearing another object- plate- shatter on the floor.

He got up the bed quickly, grabbing his underwear and pants as you did the same, grabbing the sweatpants you wore before and a larger shirt to cover most of your body. He gabbed his wand first, then passed down yours. Before he opened the door, he looked back at you and already found you more prepared than him.

“Do you-”

“No. You open, I go first.” you cut him off, tightening the grip around your wand and waiting for Sirius to open the door.

He smiled at your fierceness and prepared himself as well. That’s what he trains for- he opened the door and you stormed out and into the kitchen, pointing your wand at the dark figure sitting on the chair and eating the dinner you prepared for your fiance.

Sirius quickly followed, standing next to you with his wand pointed at the man as well.

“The chicken is done nicely... yet I see it missing something.” he grabbed the napkin and patted his lips as he stood up. “Curry maybe?”

“What are you doing here?” you growled, focusing your wand at him and going through all sorts of spells in your head.

His eyes glanced at your ring finger yet no reaction was readable enough to tell you what he thought. For you, it wasn’t needed to see a reaction. You already know what he felt; fury and betrayal.

“Congratulate you.” his voice spoke monotone and his lips curved into a smirk. “When’s the wedding?”

“Why are you here?” you persisted, trying to stay as calm as possible.

“Who’s the dramatic one now?” he gestured his hand to your wand as you rolled your eyes at him, scoffing.

“Must take after you.”

“So you still imply me as your father?”

“Do you still imply me as your daughter?”

“Heavily but yes...” he sat back down, leaning back and crossing his fingers. “Disappointed... but yes.” he quirked an eyebrow than glanced at Sirius, who only glared at him. “You’re training to be an Auror yet she’s the one in charge here?”

“Yes.” Sirius replied through his teeth, seething at him.

He looked back at you, placing his locked hands on the table. “I would have gotten you a stronger man than him. Someone who could take charge in your marriage... someone-”

“I don’t want a dominant partner. I want an equal.” you cut him off as he fell back in surprise. “He knows what I want and I want to know what the hell are you doing in our home?”

He stood back up, rubbing his chin and leaning against the chair. His eyes were now narrowed, filled with something much more darker than before. “You know what I want.”

“No.”

His mouth twitched.

“I am not opening the stupid box for you, especially if it’s really filled with so much more dark magic as it is rumored to be.”

He let out a chuckle, a wicked one indeed. He stared at you for one minute than the next he was already gone and holding Sirius with the tip of his wand pointing at his head.

“NO!” you screamed but he only laughed.

“Hey, Sirius.” he whispered, tighting his grip around Sirius’ neck. “Maybe you should say hi to Devon McKingley for me.”

At the mention of that name, you lost it. You completely lost it, disarming your father immediately and stupefying him the next. He fell against the wall next to the television and the next thing you knew, you were using the crucifying curse on him, causing him to laugh and scream at the same time.

Sirius behind you was gasping for air and strugling to get up as you approached your father, tears falling down your cheeks. “You think you can kill another man in my life, just because YOU DON’T LIKE IT!!” you bellowed, making his laugh turn into pain with the strenght of the curse.

You stopped, letting him breathe a bit.

“You don’t control me anymore.” you squeezed his cheeks together. “You don’t intimidate me, nor scare me.” you growled and pushed his head away, right into the wall so the sight spun in front of him. “You think I’m still your little girl trying to play your stupid little games, daddy?” you cooed the last word, provoking him a bit and earning a spiteful glare. “Girls play games. Women don’t.” you walked away, back to Sirius who took a hold of you, looking into your eyes as the Ministry popped into your apartment, due to the underage use of magic that was tracked from your apartment.

It didn’t take you any effort to explain. People knew, all the wizards in the world knew what your father has done. Dumbledore went public with all the cases months ago. Your father was wanted for a long time but now? Now he was taken to Azkaban where he will rot till his death.

#sirius black imagine #sirius black x reader #Sirius Black

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hallowed-be-thy-username · 4 years

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Can you do J trying to surprise reader cause she had a rough day once she gotten off work and j thought of something that he think it'll make her sequel with joy

Thank you so much for your request @jokerslittlekeeper 💖❤️💕💜 I’ve had some really rough days lately myself so this was nice to write, I really hope you like it!!

Self-insert, Ledger Joker x fem reader, romantic relationship, fluff

Word count: 1,827

Warnings: light alcohol consumption

Dinner with a Show

Well today was shit. Nothing seemed to go right, everyone was in your face about something and on top of that, you didn’t get lunch and you were starving. People could probably see the dark cloud hanging over your head while you walked to the bus stop after work. You kept your eyes down to avoid eye contact with anyone and stared at the cracked pavement beneath your feet. You tried not to let things like that get to you but when one thing after another jabs you in the side all day, you start to break down.

Too tired to watch where you were going, you walked straight into a ‘road work’ sign, tripping over your own feet until you fell hard onto the sidewalk. You quickly stood and rubbed your sore knee, fighting the tears that gathered under your eyelids and trying to ignore people’s stares around you. You just had to get home and forget this day ever happened.

At first you wanted to be alone, just crawl under your covers and shut out the world outside. But you wished J was with you. Getting involved with the Joker certainly wasn’t something you could have seen coming but what started with you becoming a hostage when you went to deposit your paycheck at the bank, has turned into the strangest relationship you’ve ever been in. J knows what makes you cry, what makes you laugh, what brings you joy. You’d think he’d use this to his advantage and he does, but only to make you happy. Your smile seems to be the only one he takes pleasure in seeing.

You felt warm just thinking about him being near you and you pulled out your phone to type a message. You closed your eyes and sighed as you sat at the bus stop, hoping you’d hear back. The bus arrived as the street lights flickered on above you and when you got to your seat, the phone buzzed in your hand and you took a breath before looking at the screen to see a message from an unknown number.

‘half hour. your place.’

Your heart fluttered and a little smile pulled at your cheeks for the first time all day. The ride home was already easier just knowing he was coming to see you. You certainly can’t go on a typical date but he always seemed to find a way to put his own spin on a night out. You didn’t really know what you wanted but you just wanted him with you.

It didn’t take long after changing your clothes and freshening up for your phone to ring.

“Hey, doll.”

Your eyes lit up at the sound of his voice and you answered, “Hey, J.”

“Come downstairs, the usual spot.” he said before hanging up.

You quickly slid your shoes on and locked up before heading down the hall to the stairs at the back of the apartment building. Housing in Gotham proper was often a gamble on what you’d have to deal with. Whether it was rats, leaky pipes, or paper thin walls, it was always something. But you were lucky enough to find a place that just had creaky floors and as a bonus, a secluded lot behind it where J could pick you up. The back door of the familiar black car opened and you climbed in to be met with J’s lips crashing into yours while he pulled you close.

You melted into his touch as he held your face before gently breaking the kiss, your eyes still closed. “Rough day, doll face?”

Your eyes opened to meet his dark-rimmed gaze and you sighed, nodding your head. “Its getting better now, though,” you answered.

He chuckled and tucked a stray hair behind your ear before replying with a smirk, “Well I may have thought of something to, ah, cheer you up.”

You couldn’t help the big smile that grew on your face. You hoped he would say that. “Really?”

“Mmhm. Ya hungry?”

“Starving.”

He chuckled louder and said, “Let’s fix that, hm?”

The car pulled away down the street while the last of daylight disappeared behind the towering buildings. Your muscles finally began to relax as you leaned against J in the back seat. He hummed and put his hand on your thigh. Even through his glove it felt warm. When the car stopped you noticed it had pulled up in front of your favorite Italian restaurant. Your heart sank a little because you knew they weren’t open on Mondays and you tried to tell J but he’d already gotten out of the car.

When you closed your door you noticed him walking toward the alley on the side of the building, looking at you with a smirk before beckoning you to join him. You followed down the alley to see him knelt in front of the side door with a pick in the lock.

“Now I know your favorite place is closed on Monday, which just so happens to be ah to-day, but I still want ya to have a nice dinner.”

Before you could respond, he had the door open and disappeared inside.

“J! What d’you mean?” you called out as you tried to catch up to him, his purple coat swishing through the door at the back of the dining room.

Once you pushed the swinging metal door open, you saw him with his coat and gloves off and his sleeves rolled up. He started clanging pots and pans around underneath the stainless steel countertop and you giggled. “So you’re cooking for me?”

He grinned at you with a delighted look in his eyes and said, “I’m a man of many, uh, talents, princess,” before wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Your heart did a little flip as you grinned back, unable to hold back a little squeal of excitement. “Well I’ll just sit back and enjoy the show then.”

You looked around and spotted a stool by the door then pulled it up the the countertop to sit down and rest your chin in your hands, propped up on your elbows. He chuckled through his nose and set a large pot on the counter before sauntering over to the fridge. Opening the door to lean his head inside, he started humming to himself while he nonchalantly tossed various items over his shoulder in search of what he needed. You couldn’t help but laugh as vegetables, eggs, and containers of various sauces hit the floor behind him while he paid no attention to the mess he was making. He finally emerged from the fridge with his arms loaded up with ingredients.

Your stomach started to growl so loud he could probably hear it. “So what are you making?”

“Welll, what is it that you always get?” he asked in return.

“Chicken alfredo,” you answered without having to think about it, the order already at the front of your mind.

He clicked his tongue and winked, letting the items in his arms tumble onto the counter while you smiled at him. You were so excited to eat your favorite dish, and not to mention curious about whether he could actually cook.

J ignited the burner on the giant stove and poured oil in a pan that he put over the flame. The fact that J had it in him to produce a controlled fire and not let it grow out of control was already a surprise to you. He made you laugh as he made a big show of dropping chicken to cook in the oil and flinging spices on it, making an absolute mess. For his next trick, he threw butter and garlic in another pan then added heavy cream to make the sauce, pouring the cream from as high up as he could reach so that it splashed everywhere. While that simmered, he reached for the handle of an impressively large kitchen knife. You found yourself holding your breath when he started spinning it around, doing tricks and tossing it in the air to twirl around and catch it before swiftly cutting up the cooked chicken as you sighed with relief, making him chuckle. Then he stuck his finger in the boiling hot sauce before putting it in his mouth to taste it.

“J!” you exclaimed.

He shrugged with a smile, clearly unfazed by the burning hot liquid, and concluded that it was to his liking before grabbing a huge handful of prepared fettuccine pasta from a container. He slapped it into the sauce with a splash, laughing when he saw you got some on your face. Letting it all simmer together for a minute or two, he grabbed two plates and started searching the kitchen for something.

Just when you were going at ask what he was doing, he shouted, “Ah!” before coming back to the counter with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. He smirked at the huge grin on your face while peeling the foil from the top then aimed the bottle and popped the cork off, sending it whizzing through the air to hit a light switch, lowering the light in the room. You giggled and looked at him with your eyes sparkling like the champagne. A smug smile on his face as he could see you were clearly impressed, he tipped the bottle of bubbly to take a swig before pouring it in the glasses.

You sipped from your glass and next thing you knew, a big plate of alfredo-dressed fettuccine topped with delicious smelling chicken was placed in front of you. You looked up from the plate with a smile to meet his gaze with yours, heavy-lidded and full of admiration. He returned it and held his glass up for you to tap yours against it with a clink before you both dug in to the best chicken alfredo you’d ever had.

“You know this means you’re gonna have to start cooking for me all the time now, right?” you said while J drained the last of the champange down his throat, both of your bellies full.

He snorted and replied, “Mmm is that so?”

He laughed when you nodded with a satisfied expression then approached you with a sly grin, turning your stool to face him before putting his hands on your thighs and leaning in to kiss you. Your eyes closed while you savored it, the warmth and tenderness of it adding to the sleepiness that was making your eyelids heavy. After helping you down from your perch, he reached for his coat then wrapped it around your shoulders as you both headed for the door to go home. Before leaving the kitchen, he stopped in front of the dessert case and opened it to grab a huge chocolate cake while you giggled.

You fell asleep with your head on J’s shoulder in the back of the car, your hunger more than satisfied and your mind finally at ease.

#heath ledger joker #the dark knight #ledger!joker #tdk joker #joker fanfiction #fluff #romance #tw alcohol

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wayvshop · 4 years

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Cooking Together

↠ Word Count: 1,370

↠ a/n: I am not very familiar with cooking so I used what I could remember about making dumplings (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on something)

↠ Pairing: Qian Kun x Gender Neutral Reader! (call me out if I missed anything)

↠ Warnings: there is an accident involving glass (no one is injured) and slight burns (not on purpose)

Kun rested his hand on your thigh, thumb absentmindedly writing his thoughts. After a short trip to the store to get groceries, you both discussed what to eat for dinner. You loved Kun’s cooking but you weren’t as experienced, relying on your boyfriend to patiently guide you through the process.

“We can start with something easy. Like dumplings! You like dumplings right?” Kun looked at you for a second, smiling as you nod your head, and returned his attention back to the road. “Did we get everything for dumplings?” You shifted your position, trying to look into the bags behind you.

“We should have everything already. Sit down love, I don’t want you getting hurt.” You sat back with a huff, taking his hand in yours once again.

He pulled into the apartment complex’s parking garage, quickly finding an open space to park in. “We’re home~” He hummed, unbuckling the seat belt and getting out of the car to reach the back seat.

You followed suit, reaching for a few bags but Kun grabbed most of them. “Here, let me carry some.” As you reached for one of his arms, he pulled away shaking his head.

“You already have some, I can get the rest.” He nodded at your hand, holding two of the lightest bags out of the 8 total. You rolled your eyes and started walking towards the elevator, knowing your boyfriend was going to carry what he had even if he had to waddle.

“So how do you even make dumplings anyway?” You both stepped into the elevator, smiling as Kun struggled through the small doors with bags on both arms.

“Should just be making the inside and any sauce we want with it. Everything else it just putting it together and cooking it.” He stared up at the ceiling, recalling the recipe. You nodded, watching the doors to the elevator close after pressing the button for the 3rd floor.

“Are we making it now or waiting for later?” He turned to you, leaning his head against the wall. You’d been staying together for a year now, you have seen him do that over a thousand times, yet your heart fluttered at the way his eyes looked so bright yet intense as he waited for you to answer.

“We can start once we finish putting up the groceries, that way we’ll work up our appetite.”

Ding.

The elevator stopped, the doors sliding open to reveal the familiar hall leading to your apartment. You were grateful as he pushed himself off the wall, politely waiting for you to walk out first before following.

The third door on the right read 313, the familiar numbers matching the same ones on your shared keys. You managed to pull your keys out, but struggled to flip through them with one hand already full. Sighing, you were about to put the bags on the floor when Kun reached forward, easily sliding them out of your hands and into his.

Mumbling a quick thank you, you focused on opening the door. Quickly finding the right key, you slid it in and turned the nob letting the door fall open as Kun walked in.

It didn’t take very long to put everything up with the both of you working together, occassionally tossing boxes across the kitchen and stopping to dance to the music you don’t remember turning on.

Somehow you found the skin, the chicken and vegetables for the inside, and ingredients for the sauce and watched as Kun set everything out on the counter while grabbing pans and oil.

“Okay, ready to learn?” He turned to you and smiled. After washing your hands, Kun gently handed you one of the round skins.

“Now, just dip your finger in the water and wet the edges.” He demonstrated on his own and watched you imitate him.

“Perfect. Now we can put the filling inside, about a spoon full.” He placed the filling in his and handed you the tablespoon.

Hesitantly you placed a small amount on the skin, watching his reaction to decipher if it was too much or not. “That’s good, just a bit more. Like this.” He placed his hand on yours and helped you scoop more, placing the filling on the skin.

“Okay, now what?”

“Now, we fold it!” He folded it like a taco, then slowly pinched the edge of it like small arrows.

You folded yours like a taco but struggled to pinch it like his. “Hold on you went to fast, how do you get it to look like that?” You leaned closer to his now completed dumpling, confused on the details.

“Here.” He stood in front of you, folding and pinching one end so you could watch. When you still struggled with it, he guided your fingers to the right spots and put pressure to show you how it works.

“Oh!” You hummed as you started a new one, mimicking the way the showed you and smiling proudly as you did it.

“Good job, now we have to do it 4 more times.” You slouched, sighing as you realized how much work was put into making dumplings. What about all the other things he cooks?

“Here, you do everything up to folding and I’ll finish it.” He moved some of the bowls around on the counter and set the plate of uncooked dumplings on his right as the stove took up the space on his left.

You smiled and stood on the other side of the plate, organizing everything so you could reach easily.

The rest of the dumplings didn’t take long to complete, the two of you easily falling into a rythm of preparing them and folding.

“Now all that’s left is cooking.” He grabbed the pan and set it on the stove while pouring some oil on it. Once the oil was hot, he set the dumplings on the pan while you watched from the side.

“Ah, can you watch them while I grab something?” Setting the lid on top he quickly walked away and left you alone to finish cooking them.

You watched as the dumplings sizzled, the water inside slowly evaporating as it helped cook the sides and keep them wet. You had watched your boyfriend pour water in when it seemed low, and with the water almost gone you decided to pour more. Shouldn’t be too difficult, all I’m doing is pouring some water in.

Grabbing the measuring cup, you gently lifted the lid off the pan and poured. The water and the oil heated caused the sizzling to grow, a few droplets popping out of the pan and hitting your hand. You jumped, not expecting the sudden heat and dropped the measuring cup.

"I heard glass, is everything okay? What happened?” Kun came running back into the kitchen with a small bowl and bottle but quickly set them aside as he noticed the glass surrounding your feet.

“I’m fine, just wasn’t expecting the oil to attack me.” You chuckled, trying to keep the mood light as he ran to grab something.

He returned wearing shoes and holding a towel and slippers, tip-toeing over to you. He set the towel in front of you and helped you put the slippers on so you could escape after setting the lid down again.

“Are you sure you’re alright? You didn’t get burned or cut anywhere?” He held your hand as he glanced over your form.

“I promise, I’m sorry about the measuring cup.” You glanced in the direction of the kitchen, brows furrowed as you recalled the mess.

He shook his head, pulling you closer so he could press a kiss against your lips before mumbling about getting a new one. “You stay here, I’ll clean up the kitchen and we can finish making the dumplings.”

After about ten minutes, he walked out holding the plate of dumplings with a cup of ramen in the center. “Let’s eat in the living room, hmm?” You smiled, following him to the small table and setting up.

As you sat down on the floor, Kun grabbed cups, soda, and utensils before joining you. You both quietly enjoyed the food, the only sound coming from the music still playing.

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oldtumblhurgoyf · 4 years

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Chicken Ramen Recipe

So I looked at like 4 different recipes and just sort of compiled them all into one, picking the bits I felt I’d like most as well as what was actually available at the store. It’s simmering on the stove now and smells delicious, plus the broth tastes pretty good to me so far. Though I haven’t actually eaten it yet (that will be later tonight).

I think total prep time for me so far has been just under 2 hours, but about half of that was either waiting for water to boil for the ramen eggs or cooking chicken/letting the broth simmer for about 20 minutes. You could cut this prep time down a bit by not cooking the chicken first. Instead, you would cut off the raw meat into bits and then toss it in after you’ve added the chicken broth (and all the other stuff that goes in at that points), letting it cook while the pot simmers there.

Also worth noting you could totally do an even bigger batch of this, it would still only take about 2 hours, and you’ve got a few meals ready to go throughout the week. Just have to heat up the broth and prep the noodles.

Ingredients:

4 chicken thighs, with skin, on the bone 3 TBSP miso 1 TBSP oil 1 onion 4 oz shiitake mushrooms, stems removed 1/2 cup soy sauce (this and the water are the only things I actually measured, everything else was eye-balled and then I just tasted the broth and adjusted) 1/2 to 3/4 lbs bok choy (I think I ended up using a little over a pound) 4 cups chicken broth 1 cup water 1 TBSP chili sauce 4 cloves minced garlic 1 TBSP fresh grated ginger root

Instructions:

First, if you want ramen eggs to go with this, prep this first part anywhere from a few hours ahead, to the day before. For best results, let them marinate over night.

Mix 1/4 cup soy sauce with like, iunno 2 TBSP of miso. The actually recipe I have says to use 1/4 cup rice vinegar or mirin, not miso. But I don’t have those things so... and lastly, 3/4 cup water. Mix that all together and set aside. Also my container didn’t allow me to fully submerge 6 eggs with this much, so I doubled up on everything. If you only do like 2 or maybe 3 eggs in probably a tall glass (or individual cups?), this is probably plenty.

Bring a pot of water to a soft boil and (gently, with a slotted spoon) toss in however many ramen eggs you want. Let them go for 7 minutes, then remove and put in an ice bath for 3 minutes. From there, carefully peel them and put them in the marinade you made above. Set in a fridge for up to 12 hours. You can keep the eggs for up to 3 days in a fridge, but if you do that you’ll want to transfer them out of the marinade and into a dry air tight container.

Now for the actual ramen.

I started with my chicken thighs. Took my ramen pot and put it on the stove with that 1 TBSP of oil and let it heat up a bit (med-hi heat). Plopped the thighs down skin side down in the bottom of the pot and let that fry. Added some salt and pepper and then just made sure they didn’t get stuck to the bottom of the pot. Flipped ‘em after about ten minutes and went another ten minutes. Then I removed them to a plate.

The pot now has some chicken grease and oil and bits of fried chicken in the bottom. Toss your onions (I diced them, but all the recipes I saw showed bigger chunks, so do what you want there) on top of all that and scrape the bottom a bit to get all that flavor intermingling. Sweat the onions for about 5 minutes.

Then you toss the mushrooms and miso in with that. I quartered my mushrooms (my wife doesn’t like mushrooms so she should be able to avoid them more easily this way, otherwise I would have diced them as well). Let that fry in with the onions for about 3 more minutes.

Then we toss in the garlic and ginger. It only needs to be in there about 30 seconds to a minute. Just enough time to get aromatic. After this we toss in almost everything else.

The soy sauce, chili sauce, water, and chicken broth all goes in now. Bring this concoction to a simmer and let it go for about 15 to 20 minutes. While it does that...

Take two forks and shred up your chicken that you’ve had set aside. And if you’re like me you’ll now see that your heat was a bit too high so this chicken isn’t cooked all the way through. No worries. Shred off what you can then toss it all back in the pot. After about 15 minutes you can fish out those bones and pick the rest off them. Stir in your bok choy and let it go just 3 more minutes.

Now if you aren’t eating any right away, let this stuff cool off and keep in the fridge in air tight container for about a week.

Whenever you do want to eat it, heat your noodles as recommended on the package (if using instant noodles as I’m stuck doing this time around, obvs I’m not using the flavoring packet that came with them and I’m also going to make sure they’re just a little bit under-done. They’ll finish in my broth and hopefully not get soggy). Put it a bowl and ladle your hot broth over top of it. Warm one of those ramen eggs (preferably briefly in your broth) then cut it in half and add to the bowl. I’m going to serve mine with a sheet of nori, some green onions diced and sprinkled on top, as well as some poppy seeds sprinkled on top.

Note that if the broth is too salty or spicy for you (do a taste test before you put the bok choy in), you can stir in 1 tsp of sugar to cut those flavors and taste again. Do this until it tastes how you like, just a tsp at a time, well-incorporated.

Also note that you can totally sub in things you like or specific types of like miso or chili sauce or whatever that you prefer. My miso of choice here was “mild and sweet.” Instead of miso you could use mirin or rice vinegar or even sake (about 1/4 cup), or one recipe called for 1 TBSP fish sauce and 2 TBSP oyster sauce instead. You could toss in carrots or other veggies. You could add a lime wedge or cilantro when you plate at the end instead of things like nori and poppy seeds. Switch from chicken broth to some other stock and this probably works just as well as a base for a beef or seafood ramen. Like it’s just versatile and easy to mess with. Tweak things and use what you have and what you know you like.

@sumguyhunglow

#food #ramen #I'm pretty happy with this broth currently #like it's better than I expected #maybe a bit salty #but for me that's fine #and that was before I added the bok choy so

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hecallsmehischild · 4 years

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On Losing Weight

Recently I was asked a question that prompted me to pull together all the information I could remember about how my husband, Sergey, and I have been eating over the last few years. We both struggle very much with food and have been trying to do better by our bodies for a long time, but are wary of all the diets and fads. This post has details about what we’ve tried to date and what has worked for us. Most of it is written by me. At the end, Sergey wrote a few paragraphs also. Very long post under the cut.

Disclaimers and a few generalities

One thing about eating and weight loss is that accountability really helps. However, I’ve found personally that even if everyone in your family means well, accountability partners should not be within the family. The main reason I've found is that there's too much baggage with any family member (with the potential exception of your marriage partner) for accountability to ever go well and function as it should. Resentment, triggers, irritation, even accidental shaming crops up because of old baggage and derails everything. You need accountability with someone who you don’t carry a lot of baggage with, because there’s often a huge emotional component to eating.

It takes a LONG time to lose large amounts of weight. You can lose five to ten pounds relatively quickly, but often your body will stabilize on the new number and then you may find it very hard to get lower for months, so continuing to try new things is helpful.

You will yo-yo between 3 and 5 pounds all the time. That is standard. So think in five pound increments in any direction, because your bodyweight is constantly in flux over a few pounds. For this reason, weighing once a week is a lot more accurate than weighing every day and will cause a lot less despair and frustration.

We are not vegetarians at all. We cannot offer any thoughts on a vegetarian diet.

Whatever you do, food-wise, has to be part of your ordinary life. Short term diets set you up to fail. Changing your lifestyle is what will produce long-lasting changes.

Also, some of the things my husband and I try, in some ways, appears to walk the line of eating disorder. I’m watching it very closely with that in mind, and I still don’t think it falls into the trap. Sergey and I do not have enough activity to burn off all the food with take in, so we’re trying things to decrease our food intake AND increase our activity, so that we reach a reasonable balance. But people who have (or are tempted by) eating disorders need to take care, and I would recommend not reading this post or else proceeding with utmost caution.

Obviously not all of the things we do are feasible for everyone, but maybe even hearing some of our ideas might spark a different way of thinking about food and being active for you.

One Meal a Day

Three meals a day makes a lot of sense if you’re doing hard labor all the time. It doesn’t make as much sense if you have a desk job or take care of a house as your main occupation. So the first thing we did a few years back is cut down to one meal a day. It could be anything at all, but it had to be just one meal. That alone dropped us both about 10 pounds down. We’d have one meal around lunch, and later in the evening we would share a large bowl of some sort of fruit (like tangerines or cherries). The aim was to eat things that were both good and filling. Variation keeps you from getting bored and abandoning the lifestyle.

Meals were often grilled salmon or home-warmed burgers (lean, when we could) or a soup from Trader Joe’s. Some of our meals now:

Two burgers with lean beef patties, pickles, and some mayo on bakery fresh onion rolls

Lox (with is VERY low cal, if expensive) on onion rolls with tomato and onion, a little oil and pepper and salt

Sharing a whole roast chicken from the store, plus a roll each

Large can of tuna mixed with a little mayo on two onion rolls

Shredded chicken and mashed potatoes from the store’s fresh packaged food section

Pot roast and mashed potatoes from the store’s fresh packaged food section

Meatballs. Just meatballs.

A spicy beans/rice/sausage/mushroom dish we brainstormed that we make in a pressure cooker

Home-made chicken mushroom fettuccine alfredo. Not super healthy, but hot and homemade. (this is a “maintenance” meal, see what I mean by that later)

A bag of chicken fried rice from Trader Joe’s

Soup from the grocery store (not the canned kind, but the fresher ones sold by the store)

Two larger sized tamales

One frozen pizza (inspect the full calorie count, you’re shooting for something between 600 and 1000 calories total, which does exist but it takes some looking and experimenting with types) whose flavor can always be spiced up with extra mushrooms or garlic powder. Not the Tostino’s or Party pizzas. I promise there are healthier, tastier, and more varied pizzas to be had in this calorie range.

Chicken breast or chicken thigh meat is sold frozen. Cook that and make that into sandwiches for very lean, filling meals. Use of various spices encouraged.

A tray of baked “catfish nuggets” which are chunks of catfish cooked in the oven

A tray of baked white meat chicken nuggets

Cocktail shrimp (thawed from frozen) with cocktail sauce

I have just broken into the frontier of omelettes, also low-cal and filling in conjunction with onion rolls.

Sergey would often go to a salad bar and load up on the salad, then also load up on the chicken noodle soup which is very filling and very low cal.

Sergey eats his meal closer to noon or one. I try to eat my meal around 3 or 4 if I can hold out, because then I’m not groaning about how hungry I am in the evening or being kept up by hunger pangs. For me, that’s the mid-point of the day and the one that helps me deal with hunger best.

Snacks and Sweets

Snacks are always tricky, and large bags of anything salty are automatic failures in this house; we are incapable of portioning them. So we stopped getting them unless we acknowledged the truth to ourselves, which is that one bag is one serving size no matter what the back says (i.e. we embraced that we’re being bad and got it anyway).

For a while Sergey and I had an occasional bowl of non-buttered popcorn with powdered salt. This worked for a bit because it was pretty filling, but Sergey found himself making multiple bowls so we had to stop because that defeated the purpose.

Some stores sell very small snacks individually portioned, like a tiny foil pack of variously flavored olives, or banana bites coated in cacao, etc. Those are great. Rice cakes can be good, though I get tired of them after a while. I like the cinnamon apple and chocolate ones best. Speaking of cinnamon apple, individual oatmeal cups are good too. I aim for around 140 cal for a snack.

Sometimes I will snack on a lean burger patty or chicken thigh-meat piece, each of which is about 70 cal.

By himself, Sergey often would (and still does) fill a large bowl full of small quartered tomatoes mixed with pepper, oil, and onion. He can put away two of these tomato salads a day as “snacks.” He says they’re very filling, good for you, and low-cal. He’s leaning more on bowls of baby carrots and sugar snap peas these days. Sometimes he will make a large bowl of Golden Apple slices to chow down on.

I keep NO ice cream in the house. I may get a larger quantity for a birthday celebratory binge, or use individual containers as a reward system, but I never “stock up” on ice cream. Birthday? Maybe 4 of the personal containers of various flavors, and that’s it for my birthday treat. Reward system? Once I get to a certain weight, I allow myself to have one small personal container of ice cream (or my other favorite, a jar of honey pecans) a week. The incentive to get to a certain weight balances out the slow-down on the weight loss the treat causes, because this can’t be all about deprivation or I couldn’t sustain it. Being able to sustain a way of eating into a lifestyle is a huge deal.

I keep dried cranberries in the cabinet. Sometimes if I’m hungry and need to hold out, I’ll grab one handful of those to eat. I keep larger quantities of oatmeal too, but I’m not sure if that’s working against me or not, because I dump high quantities of honey in to bring it up to my sweet tooth standards so it might end up being a bad thing for me. I haven’t sat down to figure that out yet.

I make a mean chunky cinnamon applesauce that is a delicious and pretty healthy snack, too, when I have the energy to make it.

I would like to make sweets all the ding dong day, but it works against us, so I have to reserve my sweets making for when there’s a large group to share them with. Otherwise we would eat all of that ourselves.

Tools that help

Making your own food at home becomes a lot more enjoyable and feasible for low-energy people like us when there are tools that cut back on the effort it takes. To that end

A good 6 qt pressure cooker does everything a crockpot does, but it has more options and is faster.

A good food processor can do almost anything, from applesauce to milling oats to slicing veggies to finely dicing the onions you don’t want to deal with, to making ice cream out of frozen bananas and cocoa powder. We have an older one and it still does wonders, even though some of the latches don’t work right.

A good indoor grill machine.

Electric mixer/beater. The effort of making cookies goes down by a third to a half the personal energy cost when you use this, plus the process goes faster and the texture is so much better.

A dishwasher. A good dishwasher means you aren’t spending a ton of energy cleaning up all the dishes you soiled just making food. Did you know there are portable dishwashers that hook up to your sink if you don’t have one in the home? I just learned this...

This one heavily depends on how much you’d use it, but it can be very inexpensive to get an electric citrus juicer. I can go through about 40 lemons for a party-sized quantity of lemonade and it wracks out my wrist to do that manually, so I got a good one for about $20.

This website is one Sergey uses to see what products are legitimately good, because Amazon is starting to have major issues with fake reviews PLUS Chinese knock-offs getting passed off as the good product. This site user-tests a ton of different brands of the same product and tells you which one they found to be best and why, then gives a few runners up in other categories like price or different type. I used this to find a good set of salt/pepper grinders, a good knife sharpener, and an individual serving coffee maker. I also found my electric mixer and citrus juicer on here.

Also, pickling things is fun and very cheap and easy.

A few radical things

This is our lifestyle, not a diet. We go crazy with our eating when we’re on a trip, but normal, everyday eating is the one-meal-a-day plan for us. Going to a friend’s place for a meal is a balancing act that we often fail (because it’s often all-you-can-eat), but we’re already brainstorming ways to compensate.

Here’s for something radical sounding, to be handled with care. While Sergey aims for around 1300 calories a day, approximately, I aim for under or close to 800. I’ve found that if I eat the same things as him, I maintain my current weight but do not lose any. It’s when I, the smaller and less active person, undershoot him, that I start gaining ground. When I reach the weight I’m aiming for, I will allow myself more leeway to get to his calorie intake level, because that’s “maintenance” level for me.

Here’s the current thing we are testing, so the results are not in yet. We’re doing this because neither of us has been able to budge our weight for a while. It’s a combination of factors so track with me. We like a place called Star Cinema Grill which is a movie theater that serves you a meal and/or drinks while you watch the movie. But even for one meal this is a very high calorie day if we go there. We swore off going for a long time, until their marketing department sent out a wave of “Two free tickets!” in the mail. Sergey figured that he would go, and then he would not eat for 48 hours to make up for it. I was a little concerned by the idea, but after thinking it over for a while (with the concern about eating disorders in mind) it didn’t actually seem that unreasonable. So I joined him in this. So now we’ve worked out that we can go to Star Cinema Grill on occasion as long as it’s followed by a 48 hour fast.

We had previously tried 48 hour fasts (which consist of, for example, eating lunch around noon on Sunday and stopping food until lunch on Tuesday, so that you sleep through much of the 48 hour period) but we first did the fast on ONLY water. By the second day we were both so lethargic and unfocused that we could hardly function. This time we allowed ourselves to have several rounds of tea or mocha throughout the day. That time, we experienced very negligible energy drops and made it through the period of no-eating with a lot less suffering.

NOW. I was reading Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the expanded and revised edition, and at the end they included several articles they had written as bonus material. Please read this article to understand where I’m going next.

Excited, I rushed over to Sergey to make him read this bit. This is already sort of what we had been doing. Though this guy had distilled it down to sugar water, tea with a cube of sugar isn’t much different. My mocha had about three times the sugar, but was still on the very low end of calories for a day. So this idea (that sugar-water helps trick your body past hunger) was being confirmed for us by someone else. So we’ve decided to test out doing this 48-hour fast once a week, which may also allow for re-inclusion of things we tend to forgo more often (like weekly ice cream? Or a fresh batch of cookies?). Stay tuned...

Going out

We built a list of places and categories of how good or bad they are for us to go to. We divided them into Healthy and Healthy Cheat. Bad ones don’t make it on the list so we’re not tempted when we’re thinking of where to go out.

Healthy Restaurants are places where, if you’re reasonable with your choices, you can eat pretty much any one meal on their menu. (Lemon Shark is our Poke place in the area. Poke is unreasonably good and healthy and filling for you, and most will have vegetarian or cooked options on the menu if you don’t like raw fish. Jinya is a ramen place, though you have to be a little more selective about because some dishes are two meals’ worth, and Sweet Tomatoes is a salad bar also known as Souplantation in some regions)

Healthy Cheat Restaurants are places where we know we’ll probably eat more than we should, but the food is still relatively healthy. Tokyo Grill and Dimassi’s are both buffet places with relatively healthy options near us. Fukuda Sushi is our sushi go-to for now (though we’re looking to replace it as the fish quality went down).

Avoid most all-you-can-eat places like the plague, unless it’s a salad bar. Even then, if you gravitate toward the breads and creamy soups like I do, just say no.

Places we love that are also pretty bad for us on any kind of regular basis: Rudy’s BBQ, Star Cinema Grill, Wine Tasting Room (large meat and cheese platters), anywhere Italian.

Being Active

We took up Krav Maga, which had us doing off and on rigorous exercise for an hour twice a week. That went on for about a year. After I broke my toe, we switched to a home exercise regimen.

Instead of home exercise equipment, we opted for DDR pads, and have been doing hour-long DDR sessions most mornings. After an hour long workout (25 songs on easy-to-medium levels) we each do 20 crunches and then Sergey does extra burpees or push-ups. As the crunches get easier for me, I will be adding five at a time. I’m up to 30 now. Crunches were initially added to help me maintain the muscles that hold up a weak place in my spine, however now it’s also a good end-workout routine. I cannot get through all this without frequent water breaks because I drip sweat, and Sergey turns into a waterfall.

Sergey has added about 3-5 extra mini-workouts (a set of pushups or burpees) sprinkled throughout the day.

Some days we go to a park in the morning and walk for 30-50 minutes instead of DDR. It’s less strenuous, but a nice change of pace and scenery.

Some days we go kayaking in a nearby waterway, which REALLY works the arm muscles that day, but it’s a fantastic workout. We keep saying we need to go more often, but often forget.

Failing

It’s going to happen. It’s going to feel miserable. Sometimes I have found myself up at three AM, unable to sleep, making myself another whole frozen pizza or eating all the spaghetti leftovers. Sometimes I can talk myself into something slightly better, like a bowl of oatmeal, but not often. Sometimes I’ll just mix white and brown sugar, butter, and raw oatmeal and eat this lump-of-barely-cookie-dough as is. Sometimes I come home from the grocery store with an entire round loaf of bakery bread and eat it, much to Sergey’s fascination and surprise. One time I scooped one out and filled it with clam chowder and ate my own homemade bread bowl. It was great. It was also way over my limit.

Sometimes “failing” is known and expected, like around the holidays or birthdays. It’s okay to celebrate. Food is a very social and emotional experience as well as a sustenance deal. Keep picking yourself back up and trying again.

Sergey, who is SUPER good at distilling core concepts, adds his own TLDR:

On Losing Weight

Dusty and I have both struggled with overeating. For me, there have been sad times when plowing through a huge meal may have been the happiest 20 minutes of my day, and it’s no surprise that I would resist any attempts to eliminate that. However, I’ve found that losing weight and getting healthier leads to better moods and reduces the frequency and severity of impulses to binge.

Whatever you do must be incorporated into your lifestyle—if you are “going on a diet,” then you are setting yourself up to fail. If certain behaviors become part of your ordinary day, and you maintain that for months at a time, it’s much more likely that you’ll be able to keep going.

The most important change I’ve made is limiting myself to 1 meal a day. After a short adjustment period, I feel only a little bit hungrier than I did with 2 meals a day while consuming half the calories. That meal should be a reasonably-sized meal (typically 800-1200 calories for men, 600-900 for women), not an extra-large one. If I get hungry again, I only allow myself some very low-calorie snacks like carrots, sugar snap peas, or tomatoes.

The second thing I did was institute a daily exercise program. Dusty and I start each morning with an hour of DDR when we can, and I stop what I’m doing every 3-5 hours to do a set of 20 burpees. As I gain strength, I plan to increase this number. We also go for walks or go kayaking when the weather and our moods allow. What’s most important is that you do something to get your heart racing and get sweaty, and that you do it every day.

The last thing I did was institute occasional 48-hour fasts. For example, I would have lunch on Monday and not eat again until lunch on Wednesday. If I have tea with light sugar during a fast, I only feel moderately hungrier than I would otherwise. It’s much more tolerable than I thought it would be. There is considerable research suggesting that intermittent fasting is good for you, and it can be a reasonable way to offset the binge you couldn’t resist having. It’s definitely a healthier approach than purging, which hurts both your body and your soul.

#food #eating #rlchild #exercise #if you struggle with eating disorders this post is not good for you #not vegetarian

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plague-of-insomnia · 5 years

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Sebciel Drabble - Excerpt from “Circus” AU

So I was feeling really low this weekend and decided I’d try to write some fluff or PWP to cheer me up and ofc this came out instead, which is neither.

It’s a slice from an AU I'm working on (tentatively titled Circus). It's likely to be a dark, complex story. In it, Joker runs an escort agency called Circus. Sebastian, now almost thirty, has been working for him as an escort and fixer for years and knows he’s going to probably have to retire from the former soon. Ciel is in his twenties and the two of them have been dating for some time by the present point of the story. Seb, Finny, and Ciel share an apartment. I don’t know the full details yet, but Finny and probably Ciel also work for Joker in some capacity, though Sebastian has insisted Ciel go to school (since that was always Ciel’s dream). Lau is the big antagonist of the story whom both Seb and Ciel have a personal vendetta against, though I don’t want to go into more detail as that’d be a big spoiler (and isn’t necessary for enjoying this little snippet).

This scene is basically just Sebastian and Ciel talking over dinner. There's some heat and nudity, but no sex, sorry.

I thought about putting this on AO3, but honestly I have no idea if this scene will make it into the final story since it's still in the early stages. But this is probably relatively early in, probably within the first few chapters.

Anyway, enjoy, and if you liked it (and want me to post more of my in-progress stuff on here) please let me know by liking/commenting/reblogging!

_____________

“Seb? I’m home,” Ciel called as he entered the apartment.

“In the kitchen.”

Ciel followed the delicious aroma, dumping his bag on the couch before wandering over to his boyfriend.

Sebastian stood at the stove, using cooking chopsticks to stir something sizzling away in a wok. He had borrowed some of Finny’s bobby-pins to keep his long bangs out of his eyes while he cooked, and they shone when he moved and caught the light just right, the colored metal standing out sharply amidst his ink black hair. He was dressed in old, faded, low-hanging jeans that were fitted but from before the skinny fad, with holes everywhere, including a large one that started at the bottom of his right back pocket and expanded across his lower butt, revealing a muscled, pale cheek. Unsurprisingly, Sebastian was going commando. He was bare from the waist up except for an apron (hot oil on bare nipples was a lesson he’d learned the hard way).

Ciel took a moment to appreciate the line of his boyfriend’s back, the shift and slide of skin and muscles in his shoulders as he moved, the hint of his tattoo peaking above the waistband of his jeans. A stereotypical pronged devil’s tail along his tailbone that curled down and over his currently covered left ass cheek. He took his persona seriously. Sometimes too seriously. “Whatcha cooking?”

Seb paused to lean over and press a kiss to Ciel’s head when he grew closer. “‘Use up all the leftovers in the fridge’ fried rice.”

Ciel snagged a carrot from the cutting board and popped it in his mouth, humming appreciatively. Sebastian knew what it was like to starve, and so he was ruthless in making sure they had almost no food waste. More impressive than that was how delicious his meals could be, no matter the ingredients. Sebastian was such a talented cook, Ciel had tried to convince him more than once to enroll in culinary school with no success. As confident and domineering as Sebastian could seem, the truth was he didn’t see himself as worth much more than being a whore and a thug.

“How was class?”

Ciel gathered the cutlery and bowls as Sebastian added the finishing touches to the rice. “Eh. We have to write a business plan.”

Sebastian accepted the bowls, one at a time, filling them with fried rice.

“Finny isn’t eating with us?”

Sebastian shook his head. He’s training with Bard, and then he has clients so he said not to worry about him; they’d grab something.”

Ciel nodded absently and followed his boyfriend to their small table, where they both began to dig in. “Awesome as always,” Ciel said with a grin as he gathered some more spoonfuls.

Sebastian smiled fondly and picked at his own meal.

That didn’t escape Ciel’s notice, but he said nothing. “Anyway, I was thinking of doing this idea I’ve had for awhile, but it’s probably stupid.”

“You’re brilliant, so I doubt that,” Sebastian assured Ciel, his unusual mahogany eyes showing nothing but pure sincerity. Ciel had fallen in love with Sebastian years before they’d acknowledged it partly because of the taller man’s sometimes brutal honesty. He could be duplicitous and a flatterer while in his Luci persona, but Sebastian himself preferred to lay everything out on the table.

Ciel blushed and took a bite of food to give him time to stall and figure out how to formulate what he wanted to say. “I want to start a toy company that makes toys designed for sick kids. Stuff that’s easy to disinfect and resistant to allergens, that’s compact so they’re easy to bring to a doctor’s appointment or when in the hospital. Stuff that will help comfort and distract kids who are in pain or not feeling well.” Ciel blushed again and ducked his head.

The slate-haired man felt fingers cradle his chin and direct it back up so that he was looking at Sebastian, who was leaning in almost too-close as he was overly fond of doing. “That’s a wonderful idea. I would probably start a knife company or a sex toy company.”

“Or something to do with cats,” Ciel grumbled good naturedly.

Sebastian chuckled. “Maybe a whole line of cat-themed dildos and butt plugs.”

“You and cats and your oversexed brain. No one wants to think of their cat when they’re masturbating.”

Sebastian shrugged with a playful smile. Then he leaned nearer and planted a chaste kiss on Ciel’s lips, but it soon turned heated when the smaller man stuck his tongue out to taste Sebastian’s own lips, soy sauce and ginger making Ciel’s mouth water.

Ciel didn’t have much to compare him to, but in his mind Sebastian had to be the world’s most fantastic kisser. He’d never truly given it a chance, but he was almost certain that—especially if he were backed up—he could come just from kissing.

Sebastian held Ciel’s face in a way that was both possessive and tender, nibbling on Ciel’s tongue in a way that went straight to the smaller man’s cock.

Ciel leaned into the kiss, chasing Sebastian, who always seemed to escape to continue dominating the kiss. Typical, but still frustrating. Knowing how to distract him, the smaller man splayed his hands on the larger’s chest, scraping a fingernail along Sebastian’s bare nipple.

Sebastian growled, but instead of escalating or allowing Ciel to control the kiss, he pulled back, his blown pupils, erect nipples and half chubby tenting his pants the only indication they’d made out at all. His look was distant, and his breathing even when he said, “We should finish eating.”

�� Ciel nodded absently, reaching down to readjust his own hard-on so he could sit more comfortably, and picked up his spoon again. “You all right?”

Sebastian smiled, but it was forced and fake and it pissed Ciel off. “Fine.”

The slate-haired man grunted. “You know, you could still go. To school.”

Sebastian scoffed as he stabbed a piece of chicken with a chopstick, fisted in one hand like a knife. “It’s too late for me.”

“You always say that. But it’s not. There are people in their thirties and forties in my classes.”

Sebastian looked away, intently focused on his food, although he was mostly stirring the rice around without eating it. “Ciel, I’m not like you. I was born into this life. I don’t belong in the light.”

“Seb—”

“What I did to you and Finny, that’s technically kidnapping, you know.”

“That was years ago. And you didn’t kidnap us, you rescued us!”

Sebastian sighed and set his chopsticks down, clearly having lost whatever little appetite he had. “Not in the eyes of the law. You don’t know what I’ve done. What I do for Joker. I’m not a good person.”

Ciel sputtered, trying to argue, but Sebastian talked over him.

“I have a fifth-grade education.”

“Only officially. But you’re smart and you’ve taught yourself a lot. I bet if you tried you could get your GED—”

“Enough,” Sebastian snarled, eyes flashing. Ciel didn’t see him angry often, but he could be truly terrifying when he was; it was almost as if his irises glowed red.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” the younger man demanded, indicating Sebastian’s bowl with his spoon. The taller man had often insisted Ciel and Finny clear their plates, reminding them they never knew when that meal needed to last them for days. Sebastian always ate, even if he didn’t seem to be hungry.

For a moment, when their eyes met, Ciel thought Sebastian was going to come clean. But instead, he just shook his head and pushed to his feet. “I’m going for a run. I’ll eat something after.”

Ciel jumped up and rushed to meet him on the way to their bedroom. “Don’t do this. Come on.”

Sebastian ignored his boyfriend and unbuttoned his jeans, kicking them off as he pulled on a cutoff shirt. “I just need to clear my head. I told you I’m fine.”

Ciel forced his way between Sebastian and the dresser, not letting the man’s washboard stomach, toned thighs or long, thick cock distract him from his purpose. “I know I’m not the only one with nightmares. I know that you can’t sleep more often than not. I know you stand out on the balcony for hours with that lighter and pack of cigarettes you keep in the top shelf of the closet, thinking about lighting up.” The taller man had quit not long after bringing Finny and Ciel home, after the doctors explained cigarette smoke was triggering to Ciel’s lungs. The smaller man looked up, trying to meet his boyfriend’s eyes, but Sebastian had shut them. “You’re not a robot, Seb. You can talk to me. I’m not a child anymore. You don’t need to protect me.”

Sebastian sighed heavily. He pulled the pins from his hair and shook out his bangs, carding his fingers through the strands to rearrange them. He darted a hand around Ciel and managed to yank open a drawer enough to grab a pair of shorts. He slipped them on before Ciel could complain. He stood for a long moment, hands on his hips, bare stomach expanding and relaxing with each breath.

Ciel held his ground, shifting to stand between Sebastian and the door as a wordless way to indicate he wasn’t letting his boyfriend go without a fight. The smaller man folded his arms on his chest and cocked his hip, daring Sebastian to keep this up.

“I swear to Satan you’re even more headstrong than me.” He crossed and enveloped Ciel in his arms, cradling the small man to his larger frame as if worried he would disappear. He bent his head until his nose brushed Ciel’s hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered almost inaudibly.

Sebastian didn’t apologize often; it surprised Ciel enough to pull back to try to search the taller man’s face for some clue as to why he was suddenly giving in. It was an expression so complex, no matter how many years they’d known each other, Ciel wasn’t sure he could pry out exactly what his boyfriend was thinking.

“Lau,” Sebastian whispered, his voice hoarse.

“What?” Ciel didn’t understand.

“Lau’s back,” Sebastian repeated, louder, angrier. His fists tightened. “And he’s trafficking kids again.”

####

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #fan fic #fan fiction #drabble #circus au #my writing #sebastian michaelis #ciel phantomhive #kissing #sebciel #first draft #wip #alternate universe #adult ciel #angst #where demons hide story #sebaciel

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the-coconut-asado · 5 years

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Crazy for Kiwi Crickets

When it comes to eating out in Fiji, you are only as good as your last success.

Consistently get it right and the punters will flock. Anything less than excellent and it’s ‘Maaan that place has gone downhill – but the duck soup at Harbour Centre is the Bomb!’ You can’t actually get duck soup at Harbour Centre, but anything with duck in Suva is a sure-fire winner as they are in constant short supply.

Fiji is always in pursuit of the New Big Thing. That duck soup place I mentioned was actually the New Big Thing once, so was The Guava Café (doorstep griddled toast and Land of the Giant-sized portions); Singh’s burn-your-ring curry house and the Chinese restaurant at Samabula where you got a decent takeaway and a ringside seat at a sailors’ punch up.

There are some classics that never go out of fashion. The cream buns at Hot Bread Kitchen – the ‘cream’ is actually buttercream and they sell them in sets of six like monkey bread so yeah, good luck with just eating one; Cardo’s Steakhouse in Denarau – they claim their cattle are descendants of Argentine castaways from the 19th century (kind of yarn that could spark a punch up in that Samabula Chinese restaurant, but the steaks ARE consistently good); Friday seafood lunch at Suva Bowling Club (you may not recognise half the seafood on your plate, and that’s a good thing); And, sadly closed now, The Cottage – tucked behind the main drag in Suva, serving the best local Fiji food and only open at lunchtime. And didn’t we all wail when the owner retired and shut up shop after decades of top-quality chow.

Anyway, it’s quite something when the New Big Thing is your sister-in-law’s café. Weta (Coffee) Fiji, the fifth child of Mue and her husband Darran, opened its doors in March this year.

The café gets its name from a gerbil-sized cricket native to New Zealand. A quick google search and you can watch a film of a weta fighting a foraging pig, so maybe not exotic pet material.

While the lion’s share of daily sales will always be the coffee (and we returned with bags of beans to London, it’s that good), it’s the food at Weta that’s getting the lion’s share of hype. World Health Organisation apparatchiks would probably advise not have more than one Honey Butter Waffle a month, yet people are spectacularly carb-loading these Weta signature goodies daily on their way to work. Take a look at the picture below and you could so easily join them.

Aside from the waffle-fest, Mue and cousin Cherie (whose aunt founded that other Fiji café classic Bulaccino) have entered into a kind of foodie face-off with each other, competing to see who can come up with the most mouth-watering innovations. The Honey Butter Waffles already give 1-0 to Mue; but ever thought of combining crispy nuggets of bacon with a rich mayonnaise, slathering it on a chicken schnitzel and sandwiching it all in a toasted mini baguette? Then check out their Chicken Baconnaise Panini and Cherie evens the score. How about a teal-green smoothie that tastes fruity and delicious but you don’t know why? Place your order for their Ugly Green Juice - a joint invention so let’s call it a draw. I assiduously worked my way through most of their menu over two weeks and couldn’t find much that was less than evil genius.

Because this is a family concern, and Mue does a lot of her experimenting in her own kitchen, I got caught up in the whole entrepreneurial swirl when we were there this summer. Watching while Mue, with apparent carelessness cloaking a keen cook’s eye, tossed ingredients for her Marsala Chai muffins into the food processor at 5 in the morning while simultaneously whipping up a vegan version of her waffle mix. Slavishly watching her EPOS app to see if the sales dial had moved to kerching! levels – in short, generally starting to catch the fever of the hospitality business owner. Is Suva ready for Kava Hot Chocolate? (Kava is the ceremonial drink of Fiji with delicate overtones of mud). Apparently yes, and at least 10 people on the first day of sales had a dreamless sleep that night. Another invention marked up to Mue and another profit stream.

Having eaten our body weight in tropical breakfast patisserie, we left Suva for a few days to head to our own New Big Thing on Fiji’s Other Big Island.

Savusavu is a picturesque town with a bay big enough to host a fistful of yachts and a marina to moor them. Even though it’s popular, the road to Savusavu – which nestled on the South coast of Vanua Levu - is one less travelled compared to the resort islands of Western Viti Levu. It has a reputation as a millionaire’s playground and we were told ‘be careful, you won’t want to come back’ (do people wrongly assume that we are at home in the company of dicks with yachts?). Anyway, they weren’t wrong about the beauty of the place, and I can now tell them a few tales about some unexpected food epiphanies.

The first was thanks to Sarah, the owner of the Gecko Guesthouse. It said in our Airbnb blurb that she would throw in a cooking lesson if we asked nicely. Which we did, and she obliged, if a little reluctantly at first. We spent one chilled-out evening learning her techniques for snake bean and bitter gourd curries (be sparing rather than slavish with your spices), a-ma-zing fish madras (although we can’t get fresh walu in the West, swordfish would be a decent substitute) and clever hack for cooking rice (err, use an electric rice maker).

However, the piece de resistance of Savusavu is a ‘dive’ (my friend Ije’s word when he saw the Insta post) called Arun’s Hidden Taste of Paradise.

The name felt a bit at odds with its appearance, which is a little grubby and dishevelled, but don’t be fooled. The clue is in the word ‘hidden’ because if you make it through their mesh-covered door you will taste cassava chips which are meltingly creamy on the inside and quadruple-cooked crispy on the outside and, hands down, the best butter chicken I have eaten in my life. The eponymous Arun, both owner and cook, seemed frankly scared when I asked for a photo, so I didn’t push on asking for the recipe – but kept the flavour profile running around in my head for the rest of the trip.

Obsessed as I was, I hunted down ingredients lists for butter chicken on my bookshelves and I think I have found a pretty good match in Vivek Singh, who based his Cinnamon Club classic on a 1950’s recipe from the Moti Mahal in Old Delhi. But then I saw a recipe for a curry pie in last month’s Delicious Magazine and had the brainwave to make this pie with the butter chicken. And while you might have to make the trip to Suva to get Mue’s original and best Honey Butter Waffles TM, I have slightly adapted her Chai Latte and Choc Chip Muffins and Ugly Green juice here.

So raise your Ugly-Green juice-filled glass to New Big Things. And watch out for the next one - the launch of Mue and Darran’s Writers Lodge guesthouse with Kava Bar and Weta Café later this Autumn.

You can follow them on @wetafiji.

Butter Chicken Pie

You can just make this butter chicken straight with pilau rice and all the trimmings, but turning it into a pie takes it to the next level. This pastry is super short and crispy, thanks to a mix of butter and lard. Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients or the processes. It’s dead easy over a lazy Sunday and the flavours are so worth it. Serves 4.

Ingredients:

For the butter chicken:

800g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces

One red chilli and some coriander leaves

1 large red pepper, seeded and cut into strips

For the marinade:

120g Greek yoghurt

5 garlic cloves, grated or crushed

1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated

1 tbsp sunflower oil

Juice of 1 large lemon

Kosher salt and pepper to taste

3 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp ground cumin

½ tsp garam masala

½ tsp turmeric

For the sauce:

8-10 tomatoes

1 in piece of ginger, half grated and half chopped finely

4 garlic cloves, grated or crushed

4 green cardamom pods, 2 cloves, 1 bay leaf

2 tsp chilli powder

80g salted butter, diced

2 green chillies, split lengthwise but still joined at the stem

80ml single cream

A few dried fenugreek leaves

1tsp garam masala

1 tbsp. sugar

For the spiced butter:

1 Tbsp. ghee

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 tsp. crushed chillies

For the pastry:

230g plain flour

1 tsp kosher salt

65g salted butter, and 50g lard, both chilled and cubed

4tsp. soured cream

1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar( or use white wine vinegar as a substitute)

4 tsp. water

1 egg., beaten

3 tbsp. lime pickle (I like Pataks)

2 tbsp. sugar

How to make:

First marinate the chicken. Mix all marinade ingredients, stir in the chicken, cover and pop in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight.

Heat the oven to 220C/ Gas 9. Spread the chicken pieces out in one layer on a large baking tray, leaving a margin on the side to say out the strips of red pepper, tossed in a tsp. olive oil. Cook for 15-20 mins, turning the pieces halfway through so that they cook evenly. Remove from the oven and set aside while you make the sauce.

Slice the tomatoes in half and put in a large saute pan with 125 ml water, grated ginger, garlic, cardamom, cloves and bay leaf. Simmer, covered for about 25 mins until the tomatoes are mushy (the aroma from this simmer will already be driving you wild with desire). Remove the whole spices, add the chilli powder and simmer for a further 10 mins (Vivek likes to push the tomatoes through a sieve and just use the resultant puree, but I prefer my sauce to be a bit more rugged, a little less refined).

Add the chicken pieces and the red pepper slices and all their juices and give it a good stir. Slowly stir in the butter, a couple of cubes at a time, and simmer for about 8 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. Add the chopped ginger, chillies and cream and simmer for a minute or two longer. Stir in 1 tsp.kosher salt, crumble in the fenugreek leaves and the garam masala. Adjust the seasoning if necessary then add the sugar.

In a separate small pan, warm up all the ingredients for the spiced butter until the seeds start to pop. At this stage you can serve the Butter Chicken with the spiced butter spooned over the top, but if progressing with the pie (which I urge you to do) , then set both the chicken and the spiced butter to one side.

Now make the pastry (you can also make this ahead and chill, just bring back to room temperature before rolling out). Combine the flour , salt and a generous grind of black pepper in a food processor. Add the butter and lard and blitz until it has the texture of fine breadcrumbs. In a separate bowl, mix the soured cream, vinegar and water then add to the flour and butter mix and just blitz until the mixture starts to come together (don’t overwork it). Turn out onto a floured surface and bring together into a smooth ball. Wrap in cling film then chill for at least 30 mins.

Heat the oven to 200C/ Gas 6. Brush the rim of your pie dish with the beaten egg, then fill the dish with the butter chicken and drizzle the spiced butter all over the surface. Roll out the pastry in a circle big enough to cover the pie dish, then lay over the top of the dish, crimping the edges to seal and trim off any surplus pastry to neaten the edges. Cut a small cross in the middle to let the steam out during cooking and make some pastry leaves with any pastry offcuts.

Brush all over with the rest of the egg glaze then pop in the fridge for 10 minutes.During that 10 minutes, make the lime pickle glaze by mixing the pickle with 2 tbsp. boiling water and the sugar. Set aside.

Bake the pie for 40 mins then brush all over with the lime pickle glaze and bake for 15 mins more. Serve garnished with the chilli (dipped in a little oil to make it glisten) and a few coriander leaves.

Mue’s Chai Latte Choc Chip Muffins (and some variations)

When I asked Mue for the recipe she had to quantify her instincts on ingredients, (and thanks for leaving out the eggs first time round missus) but the results were judged by those who ate them as ‘the best they have ever had’. I have slightly adjusted the recipe, using chai latte mix instead of masala chai and used my favourite buttermilk instead of sour cream. (makes 12 generous muffins)

Ingredients:

3.5 cups flour (about 350g) plain flour

3 tbsp. baking powder

1 tbsp chai latte powder

Pinch kosher salt

125g butter, melted

200g sugar

2 tbsp. Coconut oil, melted

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups buttermilk and maybe a tbsp of milk

2 eggs

1 50g packet of chocolate chips plus a few extra for serving

For the streusel topping:

20g plain flour

10g sugar

10g butter

1 tsp. Chai latte powder

How to make

Heat the oven to 220C/ Gas 7-8. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with muffin holders (I like the tulip-shaped ones in the photo).

In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, chai latte powder and salt. In separate bowl mix the melted, cooled butter and coconut oil with the beaten eggs, Buttermilk, splash of milk (1 tbsp) and the vanilla paste. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until a thick, gloopy consistency. Add a little more milk if the mix is too stiff. You want it not quite falling off your spoon. Then fold in the chocolate chips.

In a third bowl, rub the butter into the flour until you have fine breadcrumbs then mix in the sugar and chai latte.

Fill the muffin cups evenly (about 2 tbsp. Mix per cup), then top with the streusel and pop in the oven, turning the heat down immediately to 180C/ Gas 5. Bake for 30 mins until a skewer comes out clean from the centre, then remove from the oven and dot each muffin with a few more chocolate chips cool and serve.

Variations

For Blueberry muffins, omit the chai latte powder and choc chips and stir in 3 oz fresh blueberries into the muffin mix. Bake as before.

For Apple, Pecan and Golden Syrup muffins. Melt 2 tbsp golden syrup with the butter and coconut oil, then add all the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients as before. Fold in 1 grated apple and 50g coarsely chopped pecans into the muffin mix then bake as before. Dot each muffin with a few more chopped pecans when out of the oven and before they cool.

Mue and Cherie’s Ugly Green Juice

This is the colour of verdigris but tastes delightful. Just shut your eyes and drink (or colour match with your nail polish, like here).

Ingredients:

½ cup frozen strawberries

2 tsp acai berry powder or lingonberry powder

2 tsp Splenda or Stevia sweetener

4 tsp. Spirulina

1-2 Cups nut milk (try to get a nice think consistency, so start with 1 cup and add more to taste

How to Make

Put all your ingredients into a blender, blitz till smooth and serve.

It’s that simple.

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abramsbooks · 5 years

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RECIPE: Broccoli-Chicken Cheddar Curry Casserole (from Matty Matheson: A Cookbook by Matty Matheson)

There’s something to be said about casserole. I’m not sure when it became popular, maybe in the 1950s, around the same time as TV dinners and the rise of Valium. Grab a bunch of meats, vegetables, and starches, and add milk, cream, cream cheese, or something else that would hold this mess together. Finally, bake it in a glass casserole dish. The sides get crispy, the cream kinda splits, and the oils run up and down the glass dish, looking like a bubbling science experiment. My mother was never an amazing cook, but she made breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I don’t think she was a bad cook; she was more about maintaining three growing boys and a daughter on a tight schedule.

I would go to some of my Italian friends’ houses and see these massive dinners with handmade pasta, seafood in tomato sauce, prosciutto-wrapped melons, veal Parmesan, tiramisu, and other foods I hadn’t seen before. We were very much a meat-and-potatoes household.

This dish is one of those fail-safe meals that parents make when maybe there’s a little too much going on. I grew to love this dinner. I’d never had Indian, Pakistani, or any kind of curry, but I loved this dish. I fell in love with the broccoli, chicken, Cheddar cheese, and curry cream sauce. Served with a side of minute rice, you’re flying all over the world with a culinary freak flag. Every family has that one dish that your parents would make a few times a year that was misunderstood. This is that dish. It’s an underdog; the original recipe was probably on the side of a can or a box, but I fell in love. It’s a what’s-on-the-inside kind of dish. It means well and is pure at heart.

Serves: 6 to 8 Prep time: 2 hours

2 chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) cubes

4 boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) cubes

Kosher salt and freshly ground

black pepper

Canola oil

1 yellow onion, diced

1 tablespoon grated garlic

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 teaspoons yellow curry powder

1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream

1 cup (230 g) cream cheese

2 cups (230 g) grated orange Cheddar cheese

1 head broccoli, chopped

2 cups (630 g) frozen hash browns

1 bunch green onions, sliced

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

2 limes, quartered

Preheat the oven to 400°F (205°C). Season the chicken with salt and pepper. In a large cast-iron pan set over medium-high heat, pour just enough oil to cover the bottom. Sear the chicken on all sides until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the chicken and set aside.

Add a little more oil to the pan. Cook the onion until lightly brown. Then add the garlic, ginger, and butter. Let the butter froth and melt. Add the curry powder and stir 2 minutes. Turn down the heat to medium-low and add the cream, cream cheese, and half the Cheddar cheese; stir until fully melted. You’ll see the mixture turn into a beautiful yellowy orange color.

Add the chicken, broccoli, and hash browns to the mixture; stir to combine. Pour into a glass baking dish. No need to use cooking spray—it’s gonna be a mess. Sprinkle the remaining Cheddar cheese over the top of the casserole and bake until bubbling and the cheese has browned, 20 to 30 minutes.

Let the casserole rest 15 minutes—it’s gonna be really hot. There’s no right way to serve this. Plate, bowl, fuck—serve it out of a boot. Scoop it out, sprinkle some green onions and cilantro on top, give it a squeeze of lime, and enjoy the one dish that still boggles my mind but is so good. Trust me!

Matty Matheson, star of Viceland’s It’s Suppertime and Dead Set On Life, reveals his favorite recipes and stories in a cookbook that his devoted fans have been waiting for.

Matty Matheson is known as much for his amazing food as his love for life, positive mental attitude, and epic Instagram account. This debut cookbook is about Matty’s memories of the foods that have defined who he is. With a drive to share his zest for life, he creates dishes within these pages that reinterpret the flavors of his youth in Canada, as well as the restaurant fare for which he has become so well-known. Interpretations of classics like Seafood Chowder, Scumbo: Dad’s Gumbo, and Rappie Pie appear alongside restaurant recipes like Bavette, Pigtail Tacos, and his infamous P&L Burger. This is a very personal cookbook, full of essays and headnotes that share Matty’s life—from growing up in Fort Erie, exploring the wonders of Prince Edward Island, struggling and learning as a young chef in Toronto, and, eventually, his rise to popularity as one of the world’s most recognizable food personalities. His no-nonsense approach to food makes these recipes practical enough for all, while his creativity will entice seasoned cooks. This book is like cooking alongside Matty, sharing stories that are equal parts heartwarming and inappropriate while helping you cook dishes that are full of love. Matty Matheson: A Cookbook is a new collection of recipes from one of today’s most beloved chefs.

For more information, click here.

#abramsbooks #abrams books #matty matheson #matty matheson a cookbook #matty matheson cookbook #broccoli chicken cheddar curry casserole #casserole #curry #winter food #winter recipe #recipe #free recipe

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1nn32dem0n5 · 5 years

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A good spot

The ambition and determination he once felt had faded away, slowly at first, then suddenly. Drinking, partying and fucking were the only things that he still found some modicum of pleasure in, but even these were slowly starting to lose their appeal, and this frightened him. At no point in Marc’s life did the pursuit of new vagina hold such a low priority. The town had finally gotten to him, and it made it clearly apparent that his flame, his passion for studying physics, didn’t really burn from within because it would’t have so easily been extinguished. In five years time he went from aspirations of Nobel prizes and solving the problem of high temperature superconductivity to complete self-loathing and apathy about life and all the promises of happiness it held, especially those in the field of physics. Days crawled by painfully dragging behind them precious hours that could be spent working on his thesis but instead were spent doing anything but. The only remnant of his highly ritualized work schedule was lunch at fiesta, which somehow survived through the mental trauma of the last few years.

Charlie Zou was late as always. He came from a well off Chinese family and was used to having people wait around for him. He avoided discussing the topic of his family since he hated most of them and tolerated the ones he didn’t despise. Against their wishes he left to study physics at a prestigious American university, but instead he found himself in the festering hellhole of North Lydsville. He was Marc’s office mate, and shared his uneasiness with their current predicament. He recently found the writings and teachings of Buddha, and was more content with the current level of despair in the universe than Marc.

“Let’s go fat fuck, I’m starving.” “Hello!” his eyes opened widely as if this was a look he practiced in the mirror many times and determined that the full meaning of the “hello” was lost without this eye maneuver.

Mark took one last drag from his cig and shot it towards the nearby garbage bin, missing, and they were inside together. The entire staff knew them as they ate there religiously, with the exception of sundays of course, because Sunday is God’s day and fiesta is closed. It’s a sin to drink and make burritos on Sundays in Lydsville.

“The usual?” Bill asks. Bill was recently hired , and although his burritos during the first week were meek and lacked ambition, his skill was improving. It helped that we had become acquaintances too. He threw in a few extra pieces of meat once in a while.

“Yup” “How are you guys today?” His cheerful mood annoyed me on most days, today included. “Same shit. But the weather is getting better” “Oh man, hell yea. This town is unpredictable as fuck. One day its nice and sunny and out of nowhere it can just right up thunderstorm on you. It looks like its gonna rain today I tell you” “Really?” “Oh yea. Definitely, I’ve lived here my entire life and I know these things. It definitely looks like rain. I was telling my buddy the other day it was gonna rain and he didn’t believe me cuz the skies were clear as fuck, and what do you think? Thirty minutes later: rain!!” “Good to know.” “For you sir? Steak or chicken today?” Charlie often changed the regular order of steak enchilada burrito to grilled chicken, since he would often complain that the steak was too well done and he liked his medium well. He had only one serving of taste in everything, meat included, but at least five of arrogance. “Steak please.” Amidst the never ending cornfields, further in from the ghetto of South Lydsville where you wouldn’t wanna go except to visit the single “mall” in an 80 mile radius there was the Ivy League of the midwest, Peru University, and right on the edge of campus the true gem of the town - an out of place mexican food restaurant. Surprisingly good too Marcus would say and Marcus knew about such things, since he was a New Yorker. He liked to think he knew about most things, and about most things he did know a good deal, especially women. They paid and sat near the window, because those are the best seats since they allowed for watching the hot young coeds tramp by in their leggings and Uggs. Fucking leggings and Uggs, oh and the Starbucks of course. The trifecta of white sororowhores all across America, or maybe it was just Lydsville.

“So tell me about your encounter with Yuri? What the fuck was that about?” “What?”

To say Charlie was absent minded would be an understatement. His body was here but his mind, to this day, I have no idea where it was. Often he would forget entire conversations, introduce himself to the same people dozens of times, and lose his personal belongings almost on a schedule. He only carried the minimum amount of possessions on himself at all times.

“Oh yeaah! I remember now… So I was walking in the hallway umm walking to the bathroom and Yuri was walking towards me. Maybe he was umm like 20 feet away. And he saw me umm and he looked down, but as we were getting closer together. Or wait is it gotten closer together? Tell me what’s the correct thing?” “Closer together works.” “Are you sure? Isn’t the correct syntax ‘as we HAD gotten closer together’?” He asked triumphantly pointing his finger up in the air and tilting his head slightly to the side, as if he made an enlightening discovery. “Umm. Yea that works too, both are fine. Whatever go on!” Mark said impatiently. Charlie often had the habit of not only speaking in fragments, but often interrupting stories at the most inopportune times. “Okay. Anyway. Then we were like 2 meters away from each other ummm and he stared up at me for umm one moment and then he looked back down and passed me. I tried to say hello but it was so awkward.” “That’s it? That was the most awkward thing that ever happened to you involving Yuri?” “Yeaaah!” he remarked much more excitedly than before. “He just completely ignored my existence.” He said as he burst out in his usual wheezing sounding laughter. “Really? This is surprising to you? How many physicists do you know that are socially competent?” “Meh.”

They devoured the burritos like starving hyenas scouring a fresh kill, eating as if they had only seconds until the lions returned with the pack to claim what was rightfully theirs. Mark always cut his width wise first, and then lengthwise, leaving pieces that were just slightly larger than bite sized as to experience the feeling of having his mouth overly full of delicious freshly baked flour tortilla, succulent steak, cheese, hot enchilada sauce and crisp cold sour cream all at the same time. He quickly followed each bite with a scoop of pico, topped with cillantro and lettuce cut into thin squares. Charlie cut his almost into thirds, and bend over his plate as he stuffed as much as much as could possibly fit into his mouth, and letting the rest fall back down. The hot sauce could coat his massive Asian lips, which he didn’t wipe until the end of the meal. This was a very typical manner of eating in China, but most Americans observing would think of him uncultured and manner-less. He could hardly give a fuck. He hardly gave a fuck what anyone thought of him. His response when people would point out that the outline of his cock shows through his thin Chinese sweatshorts would always be a courtesy “Ohh I see”, then start laughing his second laugh, a loud raucous laugh, and then just go on wearing them day after day. One pair he had since he came to America.

They barely spoke as they ate. Marc propped his phone on his wallet and was reading something on it. Charlie just stared into the nothingness of his rapidly vanishing burrito, occasionally throwing out a single snicker which would catch the attention of his companion, thinking it was another pair of see through yoga pants walking past. Most of the time it was nothing.

“You know what the problem is with asian girls?” “They squeal during sex?” “No. They don’t shave their pussies. In China only the prostitutes shave. I like America.” “I don’t mind a little bush, but a full bush is too much, especially when the hair goes down all the way to the thighs.” “It does that?” “Yeah.”

They sat in the cubicle a few more minutes of silence, their bellies full and minds empty. Then they went out, walked across the street into a pothole-ridden alleyway between the buildings and sat down outside against the wall of a parking garage, not too far off a way from the dumpsters, but far enough that the awful smell of from the “used cooking oil” container didn’t permeate through to them. They each smoked a cig and the silence was broken by Bill who came out on his smoke break too.

“Hey, wassap guys. You know this spot too?”

It was after all, a good spot.

#prose #new writing #new writers on tumblr #new writer #new writers society #excerpt from a story i'll never write #excerpt from a book I'll never write #short story #story #writers on tumblr #writing #writer #writers

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kissnovel46-blog · 5 years

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Japanese Steaks with Ginger Miso Mustard

My Irishman has been on a Japanese vibe for his Sunday night cooking adventures. It’s been wonderful to have a reason to expolore the world of Japanese flavours.

I can’t tell you how much I love this Ginger Miso Mustard. It’s insanely good (if I do say so myself). Creamy, savoury, sharp with a real ginger kick.

It’s the perfect foil for a meaty steak and some simply cooked green veg. It’s also fab with fish. And I love it for an unusual take on my poached eggs.

I like the full ginger punch of the 2 tablespoons, but if you’re not the biggest ginger fan, best to start smaller – you can always add more!

There are 7 ingredients here but one is oil which I don’t count in my 6 (along with salt and pepper).

Ingredients

3 tablespoons wholegrain or other mustard

3 tablespoons white miso paste

1-2 tablespoons grated ginger

2 tablespoons rice or white wine vinegar

6 tablespoons neutral flavoured oil

2 bunches broccolini or Chinese broccoli

2 minute steaks

Instructions

To make dressing, place mustard, miso, ginger, vinegar and oil in a jar and puree with your stick blender. OR put the lid on and shake vigorously.

Trim broccolini / chinese broccoli. Bring about 1cm (1/2in) salted water to the boil in the frying pan you’re going to use for the steaks or a medium saucepan. Add veg and cover. Cook for 3-5 minutes or until the veg are no longer super crunchy. Drain.

Wipe out the pan and return to the stove. Increase the heat to high. Rub steaks with oil and when the pan is very hot, cook the steaks for 1 minute on each side. OR until browned and cooked to your liking.

Slice steaks and toss with the broccoli and dressing. Divide between two plates and enjoy!

Recipe Notes

WINE MATCH: An icy cold Japanese beer or glass of sake.

Variations & Substitutions

6-ingredients - I don't count oil, salt and pepper as ingredients.

Short on time - cook the steaks and broccoli at the same time in two different pans.

different veg - I've used broccolini in the photo, however any cooked green veg would work. Regular broccoli, bok choy, even cooked cabbage or cauliflower. If it's asparagus season go for it!

different meat - chicken breast or thigh fillets will work.

pescetarian - great with salmon or white fish.

5-ingredients / über simple - skip the miso and make a ginger mustard dressing instead. Season generously with salt to replace the salt you would normally get from the miso.

no miso paste - either skip it or replace with 1 tablespoon soy sauce.

vegetarian - replace steaks with roasted walnuts or use mushroom or eggplant 'steaks'.

more substantial (carb lovers) - serve with steamed rice or cooked noodles.

more substantial (low carb) - brilliant with toasted walnuts or macadamias. Also good with almonds, or try it with smashed avocado.

no ginger - the miso mustard dressing it lovely on its own. Or substitute a small finely crushed clove of garlic.

extra fancy - serve with toasted sesame seeds and finely sliced nori (seaweed) sheets.

Prepare Ahead

You could make the sauce in advance and keep it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Broccolini can also be steamed ahead and then warmed. Best to cook the steaks fresh!

Have fun in the kitchen!

With love, Jules x

Tags: 6-ingredients, broccoli, broccolini, dinner, ginger, japanese, miso, mustard, simple, steaks

Source: https://thestonesoup.com/blog/2018/08/07/japanese-steaks/

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tatooedlaura-blog · 6 years

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At the End of the Road

a standalone venture into the world of fine diner dining ...

@today-in-fic

&&&&&&&&&&&

Their first time at Waffles and Stuff, they had the heavy mantle of deadly 10-year-olds weighing on their shoulders, the diner dim with midnight shadows, the waitstaff mellow through pouring rain. Settled awkwardly at the counter, Scully felt around until her feet found purchase on the footrest while Mulder wrestled with sodden coat to hang dripping from the back of cracked vinyl swivel seat. Eventually, the foam finished giving way, shaping to backsides and thighs, warming to damp wool while the pair studied separate menus, quiet in debate over patty melt or salad, burger or chicken, coffee or hot chocolate.

Finally, the ancient waitress, small, quick, tight bun of hair, sweater hugging narrow shoulders, ended her conversation with the cook, coming over at just the moment Mulder decided what to order. How she knew, he’d never know, but know she did and stopping in front of him, “ready to order? Coffee? Tea? Space heater?”

Mulder, tired but still kicking, gave her a crooked smile, “you can’t warm space. It’s too big.”

“Given enough time, I could probably crochet it a blanket though. Maybe that would help.”

Her name was Catherine and he adored her instantly.

Scully, beside him, only absorbed half the conversation, mind caught between grilled chicken with lettuce and avocado and death by double cheeseburger, eyeing the deep-fried pickles for the interim moments between fry consumption and hot chocolate stupor. Hearing Mulder vaguely finish his order of waffles and eggs, she bit the bullet, ordering things the doctor in her screamed about at 3am when she couldn’t sleep from the heartburn singeing her esophagus.

The hot chocolate arrived first, whipped cream high, little bit of cinnamon classing up the plain, chipped mug; second came the pickles, mixing terribly with the drink and Scully loved it, the weird flavors, the grease, the ranch, the tang all smoothed out with warm milk and sugar. Mulder didn’t ask to have one, waiting quietly until she offered, holding out the small coin of fried delight, which he took, thanked her, didn’t ask for more but smiled when the flavors hit his tongue.

Scully’s feet were falling asleep but her belly was filling nicely, cheeseburger sitting precariously first on plate then in stomach, chasing away the gnawing hunger that had plagued them for the last three days, not satisfied with Payday bars and M&Ms, held barely at bay but not providing the shear beautiful thing that was deluxe cheeseburger and mound of vegetable oil crisp potatoes.

She caught Mulder staring at her at some point and when she raised her eyebrows at him, question sent non-verbally given her full mouth, he smiled his second time since they entered the restaurant and answered, small amount of egg caught in his front teeth, “I think you just moaned in satisfaction there, partner.”

Wondering if she should protest, turn red, sink in embarrassment, she instead gave it half a thought, then shrugged, talking through her mostly chewed mouthful, food in cheeks to speak without spitting bits, “damn good fry.”

Catherine refilled the hot chocolates for free, offered them pie, or cupcake in Scully’s case, given she was an ardent pie hater since the beginning of time, didn’t rush the check and circled a large smiley face on the bill, her ‘come again’ cheery against the thundering sky.

“Take as long as you like folks. I’ll be over here working my crossword and crocheting that blanket.”

Mulder snagged the bill, keeping it out of reach in his hand, “I like her and the Bureau will be tipping her double.”

Drifting towards a food coma, she propped her elbow on the counter and balanced her head on her hand, tilting enough to look him square, “if you give her triple, I bet she’ll let us nap here until morning.”

With a gaze that barely hinted at the next 70 years, he nudged her with his knee, receiving a lip twitch in return, the slightest eye twinkle she would never acknowledge having the power to do, before beginning the long slide to the floor, wiggling a little to straighten her pants, free damp cloth from the sticking places against her skin.

He saw that wiggle.

He would remember that wiggle.

Once soaking wet, 2:45am glowing on the dash, hair dripping, stomachs filled, in the car in a splashing dash, he gave her a glance, his diminutive partner already curled around the heater vent, safe in the passenger seat, “you’re going to fall asleep before we get to your apartment, I guarantee it.”

“It’s twelve minutes. I will not fall asleep in twelve minutes.”

Big fat liar.

He had to shake her arm for at least a minute before she even began thinking of forcing an eye open; ten minutes later, she was finally in her front door, Mulder holding her elbow the entire way, navigating her like a slack-jawed drunk up the steps. Setting her bag on the floor, he debating shoving her towards her bedroom so he could drop comatose on the couch but he fought gravity and overstuffed pillows to bid her g’night/g’morning.

He nearly crashed twice trying to make it to his own place with both eyes open.

Falling asleep on his couch, snuggled up tight under two wool blankets and a layer of flannel and fleece, Mulder listened the rain and thunder, wondering if they’d ever find the time to go back to the diner.

He wanted a full order of those pickle chips all to himself.

&&&&&&&&&&&&

Waffles and Stuff glowed in the night. Pitch black around them, savior in fluorescent and neon, it called to them after the longest drive known to man. They were just this side of the Bureau’s cutoff for driving to a crime scene, planes too expensive when a six-hour drive could take care of business.

It wouldn’t have been terrible save the flat tire, the stench of spilled gas from the can in the trunk and the persistent squeak, thud, thump from whatever under the car. Mulder didn’t want to look and Scully didn’t care to look so they suffered the rhythm while trying to keep the other from hangry overtones in their conversations with stolen M&Ms and Starbright mints from Scully’s secret forgotten stash in the side pocket of her suitcase.

They really should have stopped but the thought of Waffles and Stuff by 1:30am, navigator Scully estimated time of arrival, kept them driving past crap fast food for glorious Catherine and her bottomless supply of chocolate, hot or cold form, and the newest special, banana pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries, side of bacon, side of ham, one egg over easy, two wheat toast, grape jelly, one biscuit hold the gravy.

Actually, that was the Mulder special at the moment, of which he’d been extoling virtue since exit 4b or 610, whichever was further back and farther from destination.

Scully, on the other hand, had been drooling, physically and mentally, over the thought of mushroom swiss burger with lettuce, tomato and bacon, bun toasted, fries on the side, crisp side salad with exactly four cups of ranch dressing and croutons by the pound, mozzarella sticks, marinara dipping and for the love of God, some kind of strawberry milkshake.

In the three years since they’d began frequenting Stuff, their combinations had changed drastically in contrast to pricing, décor and staffing but the cook kept cooking, Catherine kept knitting and Mulder kept tipping his usual Bureau approved 30% tip. Finally, in reference to the glow from earlier, Mulder spotted it first and Scully, to this day, swears she heard a small whimper of want escape his lips, forcing his foot down further on the gas pedal.

Scully had just slightly more decorum to keep her sounds to herself.

“Well, hello, my weary travelers.” Catherine waved to the empty room, “your usual is open.”

Mulder gestured Scully forward to the only blue booth, the one that had been reupholstered at some point and by accident done in blue. He’d always meant to ask why blue but tonight, like every other time, the thought fizzled out before fully forming and he was perfectly fine with this. Once they were both in, coats shoved to the sides, dry, not needing a place to drip, Scully tucked one foot under her leg, swinging the dangling one lightly, the breeze of her movement ruffling Mulder’s pantleg every second or third pass by, “cheese?”

Before he could answer, Catherine called out from near the coffee machine, about to begin the hot chocolates, given the chill in the October air, “we’ve got a new item. Max thought it up about a week ago.”

Manly squee loud enough to make Catherine smile, “really? Please say it’s a fried chicken and waffles with a side of home fries and scrambled eggs with green peppers, tomatoes and just a hint of Tabasco sauce and maybe a spritz of lemon.”

Max stuck his head over the order counter, “give me a few weeks on that one but tonight’s is pancakes with crumbled sausage and bacon cooked right in, four egg omelet with jack cheddar, peppers and onions, two biscuits and sausage gravy, perfect for sharing.”

Mulder held up a hand, “I’ll take it. Burn the bacon first please.”

Looking at Scully next, “how about you, Miss Scully? What can I get for you this evening?”

After she told him her order, Catherine came by, drinks in hand, settling into the chair she bought with her, “all right. What’s happening in your world today?”

Their nights at Waffles and Stuff were part therapy, part inquisition, part intellectual debate, part necessary nonsense, Catherine helming it all, feeding them, waiting on them, listening to them and when necessary, pretending to have somewhere else to be when she saw them lock eyes, drop off the Earth, the quiet bubbling them together for what she hoped would be eternity.

Or until the sun came up.

Sometimes it was Scully who looked about to faceplant in her dessert; this time, however, it was Mulder, yawning every thirty seconds like clockwork until Scully, the other foot dangling by now, nudged him gently on the shin, accidently on purpose running her foot closer to his knee than she ever suspected she’d do in daylight.

He didn’t wake up so much as give her a sleepy crook of smile that made her wonder if she really needed to drop him off or if she could just take him home, stash him in her spare room, make him breakfast sometime the following afternoon.

Reluctantly she paid the bill, left the tip, held the coat, guided the body, drove the car, escorted the warm puppy, called the good night, drove the car, opened the door, locked the door, shed the clothes, pulled the covers, hailed the Mulder, succumbed the sleep, dreamed the partner… woke up with a smile to find him banging on her door, donuts in hand and casefile ready.

&&&&&&&&&&&&

From spinning barstool to lone blue booth to corner haven, feet on seats, hands on ankles, smorgasbord between them, plates lined up, a fry for a carrot, a bite of burger for a slice of tomato, one chocolate shake, one strawberry, one mint, each with two straws and spoons for skimming whipped cream, two cherries to Scully, more mint to Mulder.

He stole sips of her water while she talked, she slid pickle coins her way while he nibbled crusts from her buttered toast. Their fingers lingered when reaching for the same crouton soaked in dressing, sliding past and through each other, hanging on with white knuckles one second, back to eating the next.

Hours later, instead of stumbling into the night, he slid quietly in beside her, thigh warm against thigh, hand flat on tender muscle, kneading lightly, waiting as unseen forces pulled her head to his shoulder, tired eyes closed against the world. Mulder set his head against hers, eyes meeting two pair behind the counter, the slightest upturned cheek and chin nod in their direction before closing his own eyes, not worrying about the day ahead, only the Scully beside him and the quiet around.

Catherine looked at her husband, leaning against the counter across from her, “we did good, Max.”

“We did very good.”

#msr #early years #late years #years in between #i had the best deep fried pickles the other day #there really are some decent ones up here in the frozen north #at least in my opinion #my writing #xf fanfic #xfiles fanfic #diners

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edgewaterfarmcsa · 3 years

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CSA WEEK 14

P I C K L I S T

RASPBERRIES!!! - WATERMELON - GREEN KALE - LEMONGRASS - ASIAN EGGPLANT - THAI BASIL - SWEET CARMEN PEPPERS - SHISHITO PEPPERS - DANGJO CHEONG YANG HOT PEP - CARROTS - ONION - GARLIC

Pooh Sprague (original farmer at Edgewater with wife and fastest bean picker Anne) infrequently updates a blog on our website -Pooh’s Corner- that offers his seasonal farming perspective etc… he posted this on Tuesday (September 14th), just in time for the CSA newsletter, thought yall might like checking in on Pooh’s thoughts…

PRO-TIPS:

Shishitooooosssss!! You know what to do, but if you have forgotten: bring these peps right to your pan or grill, shmear in olive oil and fry or grill until popped and blistered. Salt and Devour immediately

FOR NOTES ON LEMONGRASS AND HOW TO USE:

Scroll back to week 10 and read up on all things lemongrass.

BUT FOR MY FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH LEMONGRASS, SEE:

TOM KHA SOUP (Thai coconut chicken soup with chicken, mushroom and coconut milk)

8 oz. (226 g) boneless and skinless chicken, breast or thighs, cut into strips or thin pieces

20 canned straw mushrooms

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

1 cup water

1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3-inch lengths and pounded

6 kaffir lime leaves , lightly bruised to release the flavor

6 slices galangal

8 bird's eye chilies, lightly pounded

3 tablespoons fish sauce

2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice or to taste

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Add water, lemongrass, galangal, chilies, kaffir lime leaves into a pot and bring it to boil. Add straw mushrooms and chicken and boil it on medium heat for a few minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Add coconut milk and boil for a couple more minutes. Turn off the heat and add lime juice and fish sauce to taste. Add chopped cilantro before serving.

If you can't find galangal, do not use ginger. Ginger is not the substitute for galangal. "Tom Kha" means galangal in Thai. However, if you absolutely can't find galangal and still wish to make this because you love this soup so much, just make it without galangal.

https://rasamalaysia.com/tom-kha-gai-recipe-thai-coconut-chicken-soup/

Spicy eggplant from the burma superstar cook book

Curry style eggplant awesome over rice.

3 Japanese Eggplants, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 cups)

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ tablespoons canola oil

2 cups finely diced yellow onion

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1-2 Thai chiles, thinly sliced or 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno

1 small dried chile, broken in half, seeds retained

2 teaspoons shrimp paste

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon fish sauce

Handful of fried garlic chips (for how to on garlic chips: again head to our CSA BLOG and scroll back to CSA week 6)

Cilantro or thai basil sprigs for garnish

1 lime or lemon cut into wedges for garnish

Season the eggplant with salt and scatter onto a clean dish towel. Let it sit while you prepare the remaining ingredients, at least 10 minutes. Once the eggplant begins to bead with water, wrap the towel lightly and squeeze to remove excess liquid from the eggplant.

In a wok or pot, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat. Add the eggplant, lower the heat to medium, and cook, stirring often, until the eggplant begins to soften, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, scoop out the eggplant and transfer to a plate.

Heat the remaining 1 ½ tablespoons of oil in the wok. Add the onions and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often to prevent scorching, until softened, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic, ginger, fresh and fried chiles, and shrimp paste and cook until the onions are completely soft and starting to turn golden, 3 more minutes.

Add the turmeric and paprika and then stir in the eggplant and about ½ cup of water. Lower to a gentle simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggplant is very soft and most of the water has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Season with fish sauce, adding more for a saltier flavor, and squeeze a wedge or two of lime over the top. Serve in a bowl and top with cilantro (and or thai basil!). Offer extra lime wedges along side.

The 7th Inning Stretch September 14, 2021: We are approaching mid September here. School is back in session and as if that weren’t a wake-up call, we are staring down the ultimate harbinger of fall with the arrival of the World’s Fair in Tunbridge, VT. Surely the days will start getting much shorter now, and we often remark about it. We will see the breaking out of sweatshirts, neoprene picking gloves, rain gear and wool toques. In their orange rain pants the crew looks like they just came off the boat from the TV series “Deadliest Catch.” As the season winds down, many farmers are licking their seasonal wounds. We are -in farmer terms- “just past the 7th inning stretch” in our seasons, and there is still much to accomplish. This includes a lot of planting and seeding within the greenhouses to serve the late fall CSA. Our onions are gathered up, the first of three plantings of carrots up and in the cooler, and if Mike can find enough parts between our two old potato harvesters to make one functional harvester, we will soon be digging our 6 acres of potatoes. Once that crop is all graded, sized and stored in our barn, we can start washing and shipping them. We can then turn our attention to: cleaning up the place; planting next year’s garlic; readying the strawberries with sprays and mulching for next spring; fixing broken doors and sills in our funky collection of old greenhouses. Then the contracts will expire on the Jamaican crew, and they will head home to tend their own farms by early November. Plenty to do, and seemingly insufficient time and bodies to make it through the list. I have heard the muttering of “I wouldn’t mind a good frost now….” and this time it didn’t come from my lips first. On many farms, the wet July here in the Twin States brought forth an epic surge of weed germination and growth…and Edgewater was no exception. We daily watched the galinsoga engulf the strawberries, with no spare hours available to get in there and clean it out. We are looking for a good frost to freeze it down, leaving the strawberries to bask in the filtering fall sunlight without competition. Fortunately, the strawberry plants are in very good shape, and we are (perhaps foolishly) getting optimistic about our spring prospects. But everyone is busy harvesting and packing out 10 hours a day, and soon the light levels will dictate just how long we will be able to work in the fields. Despite a crop failure with pumpkins and winter squash, we have an almost epic fall raspberries crop. Trying to harvest and move that crop is mopping up a lot of extra hours. In the farmstand we have had to close down on Mondays for the rest of the season, because of a labor shortage, and we have had to reschedule the help we have. Labor shortage or not, our melons,tomatoes, pepper, cut flowers, leeks will be out there for another 4 weeks unless a frost stops them in their steps. Weather continues to be the biggest challenge and unknown for farmers, along with a dearth of local labor. Our season started hot and droughty from the end of March until the end of June. It was abnormally hot for so early in the growing season, and that created some minor problems in the greenhouses, but there was a non-stop 10-15 mph breeze or wind that just never abated. I felt like we were trying to farm in Pueblo, Colorado. The lack of rain was tough enough, but the constant wind withered and devastated transplanted crops. Then, the weather changed, and in 20 minutes we got an inch of rain, and it then continued to rain off and on for a month. A lot of disease showed up, so we were confronted with trading one extreme problem for another. However, August turned up benignly normal, and with adequate moisture the potatoes sized up and the field tomatoes and melons kicked into gear. We have been challenged, but thus far undamaged, by hurricanes. Many of my seacoast friends prepared for the worst wind event they hoped never to see. Weather models were in constant flux for us here in the Upper Valley. On the Saturday that Hurricane Ida was making landfall on Long Island, the forecast for us from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was calling for a range of 2-12” of rain. I understand that weather forecasting is not an exact science, but for me there is a big difference in the amount that 2” dumps and what 12 “ would look like. At two inches I would get the tractor bucket out after the storm passes, and do a little touch-up work on our gravel roads and driveways. After twelve inches in so few hours I would be knee-deep in insurance claims, as well as sleeping and cooking meals in our farmstand….for a long time, too. What did we really get in the end? In what was forecast to be the middle of the storm, I went out and mowed my lawn. And I could not have been happier to be doing so. Fall will always be a great season to me. There is plenty of natural color in the pumpkins, ornamental corn, and chrysanthemums as well as on the trees in the woods. The warmth in this season is welcome, as opposed to the intense sun and heat of summer. Fall crops roll into the pack house: beets, potatoes, turnip, carrots. Onions, garlic, leeks and cabbage. When it's cold, we can add a couple of thin layers of clothes to keep warm until the sun burns through the fall fogs and warms us. Migratory birds come and go, and soon we will start to lure the songbirds to the birdfeeders. In deep fall, the woodstove starts to operate with greater frequency. Then one day in November, it (the woodstove) will start its full time nonstop operation until late April, when the sun once more strengthens its grip on us all.

PRO-TIPS:

FOR NOTES ON LEMONGRASS AND HOW TO USE: head to the CSA blog - yes! Did you know that these newsletters get posted weekly on our web page? https://www.edgewaterfarm.com/csa-blog…

Scroll back to week 10 and read up on all things lemongrass.

BUT FOR MY FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH LEMONGRASS, SEE:

TOM KHA SOUP (Thai coconut chicken soup with chicken, mushroom and coconut milk)

8 oz. (226 g) boneless and skinless chicken, breast or thighs, cut into strips or thin pieces

20 canned straw mushrooms

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

1 cup water

1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3-inch lengths and pounded

6 kaffir lime leaves , lightly bruised to release the flavor

6 slices galangal

8 bird's eye chilies, lightly pounded

3 tablespoons fish sauce

2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice or to taste

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

https://rasamalaysia.com/tom-kha-gai-recipe-thai-coconut-chicken-soup/

Spicy eggplant from the burma superstar cook book

Curry style eggplant awesome over rice.

3 Japanese Eggplants, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 cups)

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ tablespoons canola oil

2 cups finely diced yellow onion

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1-2 Thai chiles, thinly sliced or 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno

1 small dried chile, broken in half, seeds retained

2 teaspoons shrimp paste

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon fish sauce

Handful of fried garlic chips (for how to on garlic chips: again head to our CSA BLOG and scroll back to CSA week 6)

Cilantro or thai basil sprigs for garnish

1 lime or lemon cut into wedges for garnish

PRO-TIPS:

FOR NOTES ON LEMONGRASS AND HOW TO USE: head to the CSA blog - yes! Did you know that these newsletters get posted weekly on our web page? https://www.edgewaterfarm.com/csa-blog…

Scroll back to week 10 and read up on all things lemongrass.

BUT FOR MY FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH LEMONGRASS, SEE:

TOM KHA SOUP (Thai coconut chicken soup with chicken, mushroom and coconut milk)

8 oz. (226 g) boneless and skinless chicken, breast or thighs, cut into strips or thin pieces

20 canned straw mushrooms

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

1 cup water

1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3-inch lengths and pounded

6 kaffir lime leaves , lightly bruised to release the flavor

6 slices galangal

8 bird's eye chilies, lightly pounded

3 tablespoons fish sauce

2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice or to taste

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

https://rasamalaysia.com/tom-kha-gai-recipe-thai-coconut-chicken-soup/

Spicy eggplant from the burma superstar cook book

Curry style eggplant awesome over rice.

3 Japanese Eggplants, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 cups)

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ tablespoons canola oil

2 cups finely diced yellow onion

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1-2 Thai chiles, thinly sliced or 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno

1 small dried chile, broken in half, seeds retained

2 teaspoons shrimp paste

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon fish sauce

Handful of fried garlic chips (for how to on garlic chips: again head to our CSA BLOG and scroll back to CSA week 6)

Cilantro or thai basil sprigs for garnish

1 lime or lemon cut into wedges for garnish

PRO-TIPS:

FOR NOTES ON LEMONGRASS AND HOW TO USE: head to the CSA blog - yes! Did you know that these newsletters get posted weekly on our web page? https://www.edgewaterfarm.com/csa-blog…

Scroll back to week 10 and read up on all things lemongrass.

BUT FOR MY FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH LEMONGRASS, SEE:

TOM KHA SOUP (Thai coconut chicken soup with chicken, mushroom and coconut milk)

8 oz. (226 g) boneless and skinless chicken, breast or thighs, cut into strips or thin pieces

20 canned straw mushrooms

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

1 cup water

1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3-inch lengths and pounded

6 kaffir lime leaves , lightly bruised to release the flavor

6 slices galangal

8 bird's eye chilies, lightly pounded

3 tablespoons fish sauce

2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice or to taste

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

https://rasamalaysia.com/tom-kha-gai-recipe-thai-coconut-chicken-soup/

Spicy eggplant from the burma superstar cook book

Curry style eggplant awesome over rice.

3 Japanese Eggplants, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 cups)

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ tablespoons canola oil

2 cups finely diced yellow onion

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1-2 Thai chiles, thinly sliced or 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno

1 small dried chile, broken in half, seeds retained

2 teaspoons shrimp paste

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon fish sauce

Handful of fried garlic chips (for how to on garlic chips: again head to our CSA BLOG and scroll back to CSA week 6)

Cilantro or thai basil sprigs for garnish

1 lime or lemon cut into wedges for garnish

PRO-TIPS:

FOR NOTES ON LEMONGRASS AND HOW TO USE: head to the CSA blog - yes! Did you know that these newsletters get posted weekly on our web page? https://www.edgewaterfarm.com/csa-blog…

Scroll back to week 10 and read up on all things lemongrass.

BUT FOR MY FAVORITE THING TO DO WITH LEMONGRASS, SEE:

TOM KHA SOUP (Thai coconut chicken soup with chicken, mushroom and coconut milk)

8 oz. (226 g) boneless and skinless chicken, breast or thighs, cut into strips or thin pieces

20 canned straw mushrooms

1 1/2 cups coconut milk

1 cup water

1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 3-inch lengths and pounded

6 kaffir lime leaves , lightly bruised to release the flavor

6 slices galangal

8 bird's eye chilies, lightly pounded

3 tablespoons fish sauce

2 1/2 tablespoons lime juice or to taste

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Spicy eggplant from the burma superstar cook book

Curry style eggplant awesome over rice.

3 Japanese Eggplants, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 6 cups)

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ tablespoons canola oil

2 cups finely diced yellow onion

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1-2 Thai chiles, thinly sliced or 2 tablespoons minced jalapeno

1 small dried chile, broken in half, seeds retained

2 teaspoons shrimp paste

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon fish sauce

Handful of fried garlic chips (for how to on garlic chips: again head to our CSA BLOG and scroll back to CSA week 6)

Cilantro or thai basil sprigs for garnish

1 lime or lemon cut into wedges for garnish

0 notes

cookingbymama · 6 years

Text

Mom’s cooking: by me

Last week, my ASA “dad” Matt suggested organizing a home-cooked family dinner. Since the end of the semester has been relatively relaxed for me and considering how stressed all my peers seemed, I also wanted to help out by bringing them a bit of comfort through food. I ended up dictating most of the menu to be close to a typical meal at home, and it was exactly what I needed and I think what my friends needed: the perfect combination of vegetables, meat, soup, rice, and company. As I cooked with Matt, we reminisced about the familiar smells and sounds of the kitchens of our childhood: the fragrance of garlic and the crackle of wet greens hitting hot oil. I’m so glad that after all these years I was able to pick up some things from Mom, after all. From deciding how many of each ingredient to buy, to deciding how much of what seasoning to use, how long to cook each dish, I understand intuitively what the answers were.

As I stood in the kitchen cutting chicken into bits, my “family” was sitting in the common room, working on their homework. When each dish would come out of the pan and onto the dining table, my friends would come and try a few pieces while I returned to the kitchen, just like Rui, Dad, and I would when Mom cooked for us.

RECIPES: (starting at top center, working clockwise)

Pickled mustard greens & pork This dish was devised by Matt, whose family’s culinary background is based in traditions surrounding Hong Kong / Southern China. Mustard greens (芥菜 jie cai) normally taste kind of bitter and taste really good in soups. Pickled, the original defining smell/taste is maintained but combined with a salty umami flavor. The pickled kind is packaged while still semi-soaked in its pickling juice. Soak the pickled mustard greens for at least an hour. Matt says that he usually soaks the mustard greens for longer, but because we had hungry people to feed we did the bare minimum. This meant that the dish ended up being saltier than I would prefer, but everyone else didn’t seem to mind. Another thing that we think may be specific to Hong Kong cuisine is the tendency to coat meat in cornstarch to tenderize it. Cut pork into strips and marinate in soy sauce and cornstarch mixture for at least half an hour. We used about half a pound of pork for an entire package of pickled mustard greens. Heat oil, add garlic, stir-fry pork until lightly browned, then add pickled mustard greens. This dish ended up being the saltiest dish of the four, so it was a good balance to my three dishes.

Garlic bokchoy A true classic. Green leafy vegetables stir-fried with garlic is a staple to most everyday dinner tables. Make sure you take apart each individual leaf and wash out the dirt! This process can be applied to the cooking of any green leafy vegetable, but in this case we used what we call (青菜 qing cai): Heat oil, add garlic, stir until fragrant, add washed greens, add salt and pepper to taste. The end result is a savory but clean plate of greens! How long you cook your greens should vary on your preference of softness/crunchiness. Typically leafy greens should retain some crunchiness without being raw.

Two-pepper chicken My take on a Sichuan dish called three-pepper chicken, which uses long hot peppers, bell peppers, and sichuan peppercorn. I don’t love the sensation of numbing sichuan peppercorn, so I omitted it. I love the balance between sweet bell peppers and spicy long hot peppers, but since the supermarket didn’t have any long hot, I substituted in two jalapeños. I also prefer using chicken thigh, but the store didn’t have any chicken thigh that looked good, so I substituted in fresher looking chicken drumsticks from which I cut all the meat off the bone. Regardless of what cut of chicken you have, cut chicken into bite size pieces. Heat oil, add garlic, stir-fry chicken. When stir-frying meat, the standard procedure is add some soy sauce / let that reduce / add some cooking wine / let that reduce. I didn’t have cooking wine but it turned out fine! For seasoning, I added a good scoop of shacha sauce (沙茶酱 sa cha jiang) which we typically only use as a hotpot condiment at home, but it was perfect as a coking condiment in this dish. The sauce is made of bits of different seafood and sesame oil and the flavor complimented the chicken well. While chicken in cooking, cut bell peppers into bite-size chunks and dice jalapeños. To control how spicy this dish becomes, you need to pay attention to how much of the jalapeños seeds are used. For my spice tolerance, I removed half of the seeds from each of the jalapeños, which you can do by cutting the pepper in the middle from stem to tip and scooping the seeds out. Add peppers to cooked chicken, add salt/pepper/soy sauce to taste. Optional last step: turn off heat and add chopped green onions for garnish and a little extra flavor.

Tomato egg-drop soup This is such an easy soup to make, and is a go-to when time-crunched and you don’t feel like making a bone based soup that would take longer. A hack that my mom always uses is to flavor the soup with the pickled mustard green used to flavor Szechuan style spicy/sour fish stew (酸菜鱼 suan cai yv). I actually never realized that these pickled greens were the same as the ones that Matt used in the first dish, because the ones he used in his stir-fry were mostly stem while the once used in these condiment packages are mostly leaf. You learn something new everyday! First, cut tomatoes into larger chunks and lightly stir fry in some oil. Add water and bring to light boil. We left the soup like this while cooking the rest of the meal so when we came back to it the tomatoes were definitely nice and soft, but it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes on a high boil. At this point, add the spicy/sour fish condiments aka pickled mustard greens and salt. Definitely don’t add the entire package, but incrementally add so that it doesn’t end up making your soup overwhelmingly sour/spicy. To create the egg drop texture, beat eggs in a bowl and add incrementally to boiling soup while stirring the pot. The soup is now done, but for extra flavor, chop up a bunch of green onions and cilantro and dump it all on top, as pictured.

Don’t forget to pair with white rice!

#chinese cooking #chinese food #home-cooking #food blog

8 notes · View notes

fuckinsteverogers · 6 years

Text

Olympus Has Fallen: Chapter 3

Character Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Athena x Steve Rogers

Word Count: 2.2k

Rating: 18+ Series

Warnings: Fluff, Cute ass shit, also stalking.

Synopsis: Athena works for a tech company that happens to find itself with a new client, Stark Industries. Her centuries of hiding are about to be thrown out the window, but will she find allies in the Avengers at a time of crisis or will she fight alone and risk destroying herself?

Author’s Note: I kinda wanted to post two today, or maybe I might post the 4th as well after this, I haven’t decided. Anywhoozle, feedback is always appreciated. I hope you like it.

I watch the sweat drip down my forehead through the mirror stretched along the wall in front of the Stairmaster. I rub the soreness in my thighs as I climb and climb and I imagine I’m climbing the steps of the Eiffel Tower. I imagine I’m far away from the upper east side and in a foreign country, basking in the sun or drinking hot chocolate in the cold, but I’ve run for centuries trying to escape the people calling me a demon.

I hear the grunts from the men lifting weights over Slayer playing through my headphones, and it occurs to me that if the Avengers wanted to kill me, they would have at least tried to stop me walking out of the tower. They probably wouldn’t have succeeded, but they would have tried.

I’d made a conscious effort to be more alert during the last fortnight since being confronted by the group of superheroes and had noticed black SUVS and people in black hoodies and combat boots trying to stealthily follow me. They kept a safe distance, but I was yet to determine whether they were keeping an eye on me to either protect me from others or protect others from me.

I distantly think about what I’m going to have for dinner as I lift my weights, and do my deadlifts, and I walk past countless restaurants on the way home and I notice the person in the black hoodie is remarkably bigger in muscle mass as of yesterday. I climb the stairs of my apartment building and groan at the ache in my thighs, and I notice the black hoodie actually come into the building today.

I climb the fifteen floors and the black hoodie stays two floors behind me, I regard them with clear eyes, and catch a glimpse of theirs. My brain begins to swim and ocean breeze flitters past my nostrils and I know who it is immediately.

I jam my keys into the lock and wait, turning the knob, flinging the door open, and wait for the black hoodie. He rounds the corner, sees me waiting and stops, head down, hoodie concealing the blonde hair.

“I know you all are keeping a safe distance, Captain Rogers, but please… Join me for dinner,” I invite, smiling to him. His shoulders square and he lifts his head, my eyes meet the oceans and I feel lightheaded, probably from the hard work out and my need for sustenance.

“I’m not sure I should, Ma’am,” Captain Rogers replies in the silky-smooth voice that I want to wrap myself in.

“Come on, you must be hungry from stalking me,” I say cheekily and walk over the threshold to my apartment. The room smells like lavender and I leave the door wide open for him to make his mind up. I dump my bag, slip off my shoes and pull the chicken from the fridge.

The chicken is diced and the oil is hot in the pan when Captain Rogers finally makes up his mind, entering and closing the door. He pushes down the hoodie of his sweatshirt and removes his boots, not necessary but appreciated.

“I hope you’re okay with a curry,” I tell him as he lifts his eyes to mind, he nods, mouth still in a hard line. “Would you like a drink? I have beer, I think?”

“Water should be fine, Ma’am.” I move and fill a glass with iced water from the fridge and place it in front of one of the bar stools, forcing him to come within touching distance of me. I notice how weary he is, careful with each step and each movement, almost as if worried that I might get angry.

He does as I expect him to, shuffle towards the breakfast bar and seats himself on one of the swivel chairs and sips the water leisurely. I watch the beauty of the man before me, so struck with how unbelievably breathtaking this man is even compared to the many Gods I’ve met. Eyes bluer than the oceans Poseidon controls, hair silkier than Aphrodite’s, skin more golden than even mine, and voice smoother than Hera’s as she nurses a child.

I throw the chicken into the pan to brown, and once cooked I put in the sauce to simmer. Regarding Captain Rogers who has awkwardly sipped through half of his glass, I press my hands into the counter and lean towards him, he looks at me alarmed.

“Captain Rogers, I was wondering if you could answer some of my questions?” I ask, moving my head to his level and searching the eyes that are bright and innocent. His mouth twitches slightly, enough for me to notice.

“You can call me Steve, Ma’am,” He replies, voice soaking through me, and causes my eyes to visibly flutter.

“And you can call me Athena, Steve,” I reciprocate the first name basis, he smiles slightly and I notice the weary fondness stretch across him as the tension in his shoulders loosen. “Now, are the Avengers following me because you think I might hurt someone?”

Steve’s eyes flash surprise, and his smile vanishes into confusion. “Tony has done extensive reading on your history, he doesn’t believe you a threat and nor do I,” Steve replies truthfully, I see the glint of trust in his words and I smile wide without thinking. I’d never heard trust in someone’s voice when speaking about me before, I’d been met with fear my entire existence.

“Then what’s with the security detail?” I ask, stirring the curry before turning the pot of water on to boil. Steve releases a breath and I hear him stand from the chair, I see him round the bench before I feel him. He brushes a hand on my hip and I have a very sudden urge to lean into the touch, but it’s gone within a second and he leans against the bench.

“Tony and I don��t believe you are a threat to us or anyone else, but that doesn’t mean all the Avengers agree,” Steve replies, I gather a glint of regret in his voice, regret for telling me that maybe. I understand where he is coming from, and I understand where the Avengers that don’t trust me are coming from, I haven’t given them any reason not to.

I pour the rice into the boiling water and stir the curry once more, I don’t bother replying as I grab plates from the cupboard and uncork a bottle of wine, and pour myself a glass.

“Do you drink wine, Steve?” I ask, taking a sip. He looks from watching the curry simmer to look at me, the corner of his lips raise.

“Only with beautiful women, Ma’am,” Steve replies, and I smile, and his eyes flash for a second, “Athena, I mean.”

“So, I shouldn’t pour you a glass then,” I insinuate, I place my glass down and stir the rice, turning the tap onto hot water to drain it once it’s fully cooked. Steve shifts and I feel his presence inch closer, turning I see I’m right with my body a few inches from his.

“You are spectacularly beautiful, Athena,” His mouth curves and I have to look down before I give myself away, the smile on my face still evident. “Many men have probably assured you of that over the centuries.”

“You’d be surprised. Just because they built the Parthenon for me, doesn’t necessarily mean that men aren’t intimidated by me,” I reply quickly, pouring the rice into the strainer. Swirling it through hot water, “I don’t date usually, I’m a terrible liar with those I feel connection to.”

I make the plates and pour another glass of wine for Steve, who takes it eagerly. I leave leftovers on the stove and just as I had thought, Steve questions whether he can have seconds, I nod eagerly and watch with a fondness growing in my chest.

“What did you mean when you said that you weren’t a superhero if history had anything to do with it?” Steve asks as I wash the dishes, leaning his head in his hands, I watch as his hair falls onto his forehead and note the way it tumbles.

“I haven’t always been so secretive with my origin. Apollo and I came to earth to help the mortals, with this ignorant idea that we could rid the world of war and famine and disease, we succeeded in some parts, but failed in others. We couldn’t stop the black plague, and were failures in stopping the extinction of integral species,” I sigh, draining the water from the sink and wiping my hands on my tights, my chest tightening but I continue for the sake of the man’s concentration completely on me. “I was naïve, and during the Salem Witch trial era, I revealed my existence to Salem, and was met with harsh words and pitch forks. I thought I could help these people, but they threatened to kill me. I ran and never stopped running, I move to a new city every few decades to feign off the questions about my age.”

“How long have you resided in New York?” Steve questions, enthralled by my story. I smile, and move to sit beside him, sipping on my third glass of wine.

“It has only been three years last month. I was in Rome before this,” I tell him, rubbing the muscles of my thighs as they ache, he follows my hands and his mind reels.

“How about we retire to the couch and I’ll massage your legs as you tell me stories of your life?” Steve offers, I meet his eyes in surprise, my hands stuttering as I dig my fingers into the muscles.

“You don’t have to do…” Steve interrupts me by grasping both my hands and tugging me towards the couch, obviously eager to hear more tales of my long existence.

I watch him sit, beautiful against the cream sofa, and I sit beside him, leaning against the arm rest, and drape my legs across his lap, the curve of my behind pressed to his thigh. He brings rubbing the sore muscles of my thighs and I begin talking, starting from a random spot in history, telling him about Apollo and I. This goes on for a while, he massages my thighs, then switches to my calves, then back up to my thighs, his eyes watching his hands and his ears listening intently to my words.

“We were in Brooklyn, Apollo and I, on July 4th, 1940 and we went to this dive bar. I remember that year, I had dyed my hair black and had grown it all the way down to my lower back, and was wearing this bright red dress that night. We were on vacation, and Apollo pulled me to this bar and we danced all night. I remember listening to the band and wishing that I could live and die in this era, instead of having to live through all the war and famine; it was the first year of the war, a war I couldn’t stop, but we danced, and basked in the dull lights and the laughing people. It was like there was no war in the world, like these people didn’t care what was happening on the streets, they just danced and laughed and drank,” I told him, remembering the night like it was yesterday.

“What bar was it?” Steve asks, I look at him and notice his eyes wide, and see that he has stopped massaging and his hands are motionless on my thighs.

“O’Connor’s. It’s closed now,” I tell him, feeling the clench of his hands on my thighs as I let the words slip my mouth.

“I knew when you said black hair and red dress, but I wasn’t sure,” Steve blubbers, I place my hand on his shoulder and he turns to look at me, shifting himself and my legs to almost pull me onto his lap. “It was my birthday and Bucky had taken me out to celebrate before I enlisted in the war, and there was this beautiful woman in a man’s arms and I had sat and drank my beer and wished that was me. She was so beautiful, I had thought, and it was you.”

My eyes widen and my jaw goes slack, I had been so invested in dancing that I hadn’t looked at anyone sideways, if I had I would have seen him. I remember the music that night as it floods my head, soft and carefree. I remember the happiness I felt and I’m transported to that time as I watch the beautiful man in front of me wish he had asked me to dance.

I suddenly don’t want anything more than to be here with him, and I pull myself up onto his lap, his hands finding my hips, and I look into his ocean eyes. I fall deeply into them, and press my thighs to his, and wrap myself in the man I wish I had met in that 1940’s dive bar, but we are in the 21st century and neither of us can get drunk off of wine, and I press my lips to his.

And suddenly we are dancing, and I feel weak and his hands are on my back and in my hair and I feel more like a goddess than I have in millennia.

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