Curried Chick Peas and Potatoes #FoodPicFriday

One of our favourite dishes is curried chick peas and tomatoes served over basmati rice with a dollop of cucumber dressing. If we're in the mood for a complimentary taste, we'll add a side to it. For this meal we served it with pan fried potatoes and onions, which were crispy and delicious.

We use a full can of both chick peas and diced tomatoes in this dish, which makes a lot of amazing food. We have it on rice two nights in a row, and for the third night I'll make up some tortillas to finish them up in wraps. I absolutely love a three day meal, especially when the food is this good.

Brown Sugar Upside Down Cake

My mom recently reminded me of upside down cake. When we were kids she would make peach or pineapple upside down cake, and the fruit was always surrounded by a generous layer of crispy brown sugar topping. I'm not a fan of a lot of fruits (I have a texture thing) and I'm especially not a fan of fruit in cake (except for banana cake/bread. Don't try to figure me out!). I'm sure assorted fruits in cakes taste wonderful, but I don't like when my cake has things in it. It is silly, but there you go. When mom would make her upside down cakes, I would sneak the brown sugar bits off the top and not actually eat the gross fruit/cake. I was/am picky.

Well, I'm an adult now, and when mom reminded me of fruit upside down cake, I decided I would give it a try, but leave out the fruit. Following this recipe, I added some melted butter to a 9x13 cake pan, covered it in a bunch of brown sugar, and then poured a cake on top of it. I baked it, and flipped it over and out onto a cookie sheet. At this point I realized something was amiss, as the brown sugar wasn't as caramelized and stuck to the cake as I wanted. It's possible the fruit had a purpose that I didn't compensate for (maybe it adds liquid while baking).

So the top of the cake was a little crunchier than I expected, but it tasted pretty great. The nice thing about this cake is the topping replaces having to ice it. Easy.

Expanding My Gaming Playlist

I recently began playing Skyrim on the Xbox 360, and I'm really, really, enjoying it. It's only been a few days, but I'm already at level eight, I've collected enough gold to buy a house (5000), and I've picked all the mountain thistle I could find. So far it's been a lot of fun.

I didn't know I was going to like Skyrim, as I've watched John play it before, and I didn't think it was the kind of game I'd be interested in. My tastes are more tuned towards cartoony action/adventure games (mainly the Lego series of games), and I was sure the detailed fantasy world just wasn't my style.

But I've been looking for a new game to play and I described what I was looking for to John:

Me: "Basically I like to run around an open world and find stuff. Collect studs (gold). Unlock cool things by collecting other cool things. Not a lot of enemies. When you die you don't have to go back to the beginning."

John: "You're basically describing Skyrim."

Me: "Am I?"

It turns out I was. There are enemies, but they aren't hard to kill (I learned to use my sword and shield no problem). And sometimes the Non-Player-Characters (NPCs) kill the enemies for you. This happened most famously for me when I was supposed to kill a dragon on the main quest. I hid in a watchtower and was going to hit it with my bow, but it never flew past the window I was aiming from. I went up to the roof to get a better shot and "Completed: Kill the dragon" came across my screen. It made me laugh and I didn't mind at all because I still got to search it's body for supplies and I got all the glory.

I am really glad I gave Skyrim a try, as I like it way more than I thought I would. Plus it's been fun to have John help me with things I cannot do very well on my own (yet). The controller is most often handed over for lock picking, swimming, and for quickly finding specific buildings while I'm running through town (I always seem to be going in the opposite direction of where I want to be).

Red Lobster Appetizers #FoodPicFriday

When Mom and I go out to eat, we often end up really full (or with lots of leftovers) because we think we can eat an appetizer and a full meal all at once. To be fair, sometimes we can, but it mostly depends on how big the appetizer is (note: nachos are pretty much a full meal on their own).

These are two appetizers from Red Lobster taken from two separate visits. I realize these are presentation photos, and don't really show you what the food actually looked like, but take it from me, they were both really good. The first is Lobster Stuffed Mushrooms and the second is Escargot (they're hiding under the mushrooms and cheese).

Toy Workshop

I keep returning to my Knitted Toy Tales pattern book and having so much fun creating cute things. The pieces for the toys are quick knits, so it's easy to get from start to finish on a project.

Since completing my toy fish, I've started working on a teddy bear and an elephant. I have finished all the knitting work for the teddy bear and just need to stuff him and sew him together.

For the elephant toy, I have completed the knitting for the body, the tusks, and two of the legs. Only a few things left to knit and then I can stuff him and sew him together.
 
My delay in finishing these toys is my lack of stuffing. I know I had a bag of it a few years ago, but I've hidden it on myself exceptionally well. We did two thorough searches of the house, and eventually found the tote I was sure it was in, and came up empty. I have accepted that my bag of stuffing is lost and that I have to get a new one, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. So these toys are a work in progress, but I'm looking forward to putting them all together soon.