And a Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday!

I can’t believe the year’s already drawing to a close. These last couple of months have certainly been a whirlwind of holiday activity with Thanksgiving, visiting my folks, Christmas, and even my birthday. I even forgot to post this yesterday.

It felt like just the other day that I was starting up this blog but it’s been four months already! I’d had reservations about starting a blog in the first place because of questions like “What if I can’t come up with content?”, “How often should I post?”, “Will people like what I write?”, and the dreaded “Does anyone really care?”. I came to the conclusion that if I want to write, I should. If people see my blog and like it, it’ll be a pleasant bonus!

Another issue I had when starting my blog was the direction I would go. I initially planned this blog to be a place to post crochet and knit patterns that I made. However, I haven’t really made any recently. So now, as you know, I’ve been posting food that I make or games I review, and if things go well in 2019, I’ll add some drawings and maybe try to move to a different web host.

Christmas Time!

To get ready for the holiday, I made amaretto fudge (recipe)! I haven’t tried making fudge on the stove before but the final product was extra creamy. I pushed about a cup of leftover chocolate chips into the top, let it set in the fridge, and the Cat cut it into one inch pieces. The two tablespoons of amaretto are subtle but stand out more if you savor each piece or eat more than one.

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The Cat made some quick cheeseburgers with red onion, jalapeno, and Roma tomatoes. Looks like we forgot pickles and lettuce this time.

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We found out one of the local grocery stores sells fresh mozzarella for cheaper than we usually pay so we snagged some and made mozzarella, Roma tomato, and basil sandwiches with olive oil and balsamic. The mozzarella didn’t disappoint with its buttery cheesiness matched by the savory tomato and the freshness of the basil.

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The Cat reheated the leftover curry from last week with a can of coconut milk. Splendid over rice that can soak it up. I think I overate!

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On Christmas Eve, the Cat made my current favorite dish: spaghetti and meatballs topped with some Parmesan and mozzarella.

I also had a shot of butterscotch schnapps with a cup of cream soda = instant adult butterbeer! Warning: it’s very sweet. Very, very sweet.

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For Christmas, the Cat made a lot of mashed potatoes with roasted garlic (recipe; we only did two heads of garlic), butter, and milk mixed in. I made a key lime pie for dessert.

At my folks’s dinner table, I loaded up my plate with a bit of everything: turkey drumstick, green beans, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with gizzard gravy, baked ham, and stuffing. I cleaned my plate.

And then came time for presents! For my family, I got a handmade Christmas ornament, some hand lotion, and some snacks. The Cat got a decorative desk plate. I got a baking set, a sweater, a camera easel, and a drawing tablet. I haven’t broken-in the baking set or tablet yet.

And a bit of after-present dessert. My folks gave me most of the pecan pie to bring home in exchange for most of my key lime.

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For my birthday, the Cat went the extra mile and fried chicken for me! We used this copycat Chickfila recipe except we skipped the marinade and combined the wet and dry ingredients into a batter. The batter is double-able! I bought two sauces I wanted to try and mixed half of the chicken with each of them. They were fantastic! Served with rice and steamed broccoli. I preferred the Panda Express Beijing sauce which had a good sweetness, strong garlic and ginger flavors, and a surprising amount of kick. The Cat preferred the Tsang General Tso Sauce which strongly reminded me of steak sauce: a bit sweet and ketchup-y with little to no heat.

Can’t have a birthday without a cake! The Cat bought me a simple frosted chocolate cake and it was delicious.

Since I love tacos, the Cat also got me a taco plushie that I’ve named Pachelbel or Paco for short. His long name may or may not be Pachelbel the Tacobel.

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No matter how this year was for you, I wish you all a happy new year and I’ll see you in January!

Cheers from both of us,

-Corgi and the Cat ❤

 

Merry Christmas!

An early Merry Christmas to all of y’all!

T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not a creature was stirring not even a … Corgi!

It’s been a pretty good year and now it’s time to settle in and eat way too many goodies during this holiday season, visit the folks, and celebrate my birthday! I’m also going to be making some items for the season so stay tuned for the next post: it’ll have yarn and Christmas food!

Pre-Christmas nosh

Barbecue chicken burritos with caramelized onion, cilantro, sliced jalapeno, iceberg lettuce, steamed jasmine rice, and sour cream. Very simple meal with ample amounts of vegetables. It’s probably quite evident by now that I’m a sucker for tacos and burritos.

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Classic wintertime hot cocoa with mini marshmallows. I slipped in some butterscotch schnapps too. Warm, sweet, and tasty.

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The store had really cheap London broils so we snagged a couple. The first one became part of Vietnamese pho. We used pho bouillon cubes for the broth and added wide rice noodles, cilantro, thinly sliced yellow onion, sliced jalapeno, and lime. Sambal and hoison sauce on the side.

To prepare the beef, we used this cooking guide for the cooking process. For the thickness of this broil, five minutes might have been too short. We’ll broil them longer next time. This was also the first recipe we’ve done with a cast iron pan. The meat seared and sizzled, the kitchen smelled like a smokehouse, the Cat and I marveled at the delightful smells … and then the fire alarm went off.

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We made a mistake with that pho. A crucial mistake. We didn’t check the ingredients of the pho bouillon cubes. MSG was the third ingredient. The third! We had used two cubes in the past with no ill effects but this time we used three cubes. Feeling sick the next day ensued. Basically too much MSG makes it feel like all of the water in your body is gone: killer headaches, trouble with maintaining body temperature, dizziness, nausea, and stomachache. It’s more or less what I imagine a hangover feels like. I haven’t had a hangover and I don’t plan to have one any time soon.

Several cups of water and Kool-Aid and several pretzels later — we didn’t have any Gatorade or toast — we were composed enough to make a simple dinner of baked barbecue chicken, roasted potatoes, and rice.

1. Preheat oven to 350F and start making rice.
2. Cube potatoes, put on a cookie sheet, and season with oil, salt, and pepper. It’s easier if you put the potatoes, oil, and seasonings in a bowl first and mix them up for even distribution of toppings before laying the potatoes out on a sheet.
3. Cube chicken. Put in a casserole dish and coat with a layer of oil and BBQ sauce.
4. Put chicken on the top rack and potatoes on the bottom and bake for 15-20 minutes. Take chicken out. Move potatoes to top rack.
5. Increase oven temperature to 400F and bake another 10-ish minutes or until golden.

Super simple dinner in less than an hour! I like making this meal in a pinch, at the end of a long day, or, in this case, when one or both of us is not feeling well.

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The next day after the tragic MSG “hangover”, the Cat and I were feeling right as rain. We got the second London broil out, cooked it the same way as the last broil except we left it for a few minutes longer, and the Cat whipped up some Philly cheese steaks with caramelized mushrooms and onions, and some sharp cheddar cheese. I’d never had Philly cheese steaks before except for the Hot Pocket ones in grade school, but I don’t really think those count! The slices of beef were a bit too thick but this was an amazing and very rich and hearty meal that I’d definitely have again.

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The Cat used a whole pack of chicken (six or seven boneless, skinless breasts) to make a giant pot of curry that we could eat off of for a few meals. I forgot to take a picture of the final product, but here’s a picture of the Cat mincing ginger before dicing or slicing Roma tomatoes, jalapenos, and a yellow onion. Not pictured are three peeled carrots and many cloves of garlic. The other photo is over five pounds of potato that we cubed, seasoned, baked, and added. We ended up snacking on about eight ounces of the roasted potatoes each but the rest went straight into the curry.

Think we had curry for dinner? Nope. We had tacos! Curry is like a fine wine or whiskey that gets better with age so we cooled it off and put it in the fridge for the next day, and all we would have to do is make rice, hard boil eggs, and reheat the curry. Here we have tacos with chicken, sliced jalapeno, diced Roma tomatoes, cilantro, caramelized onion, sour cream, and lime. The Cat and I agreed that next time we’ll stick to raw onion. It just adds another punch of flavor to tacos that the caramelized ones don’t have.

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Other news

Ultimate EQ is a bit different from the other EQEmulator servers I’ve tried. This one has a token system where if you kill anything, you get a chance at a token and tokens are redeemable for really nice gear.

Pros:

• Very friendly and helpful community
• Active GMs — I think there are only two and no guides
• MQ2 allowed — some warping allowed before PoP, I think
• Unique token system
• Interesting player hub (Muramite Proving Grounds)
• Auto-scribe — I played a Mage and automatically got my epic spell in my 40s! Doesn’t include certain drop-only custom spells at the end game
• Unique progression — for example, Vanilla progression is collect Nagafen’s Head, Innoruuk’s brain, and Cazic-Thule’s Eye
• Smooth progression so far — I passed the Vanilla Progression, am almost done with Kunark and I’m almost level 70 in a week of very casual play
• Buff bot in lobby
• Instant-cast lobby teleport clicky
• Free Broom of Trilon, Shovel of Ponz, Stein of Ulissa, Torch of Alna, Ultimate Charm, DMF clicky, aug distiller, and Essence Emeralds
• Custom content
• Leveling is easy than normal but you’re not invincible (unless you have awesome buffs)
• Increased out-of-combat health and mana regeneration
• Platinum is easy to come by — I already have 16k from leveling, looting, and vendoring
• Can trade AAs for plat or plat for AAs
• NPC summons awesome pet weapons for you
• Race changer NPC
• Can link your main character to your alt — I’m a bit fuzzy on the details of this as I haven’t tried it
• Alt backflagger NPC to skip those pesky flags
• Some sort of character specialization system where you choose a “path” and get an item that greatly improves your characters (i.e. clicky that gives a heal effectiveness buff for a priest that chose to become a better healer)
• Treasure goblins have a chance to spawn and they drop coins (vendor trash) and XP potions. They also have a chance to drop rare items like a Manastone and Guise of the Deceiver

Cons:

• Translocator doesn’t send you directly to some zones (WW, Seb) — A bit of running if you don’t warp. Personally doesn’t bother me.
• It seems that one of the best buff clickies is available for real money — Some people buff in the lobby with them though (It has a 16k damage shield!); I hope to find clickies with similar effects in the game
• Have to level to 60 or 70 before you get to the custom content
• Limited resources — I guess they’re still compiling info
• Forum search requires reCAPTCHA every single time
• Banker in lobby is quite far from the vendor — personal pet peeve
• Frequent server-wide /shout of people who get certain flags, gamble and win or lose, craft something legendary, or choose a character path

I might keep playing on Ultimate EQ or try another server. I haven’t decided yet. The Cat mentioned trying out an EQ Live server so that’s on the table too.

Season’s Greetings from a bear and wolf I made a while ago. The Cat and I joke that he’s the bear and I’m the wolf so a greeting from us! — links to the projects on Ravelry: bear and wolf. Bear is based on the grizzly bear form of an EQ Shaman and the wolf is his pet.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Corgi and the Cat!

December – The First Week

It’s December, y’all! You know what that means:

• Christmas parades
• Christmas music
• Christmas decorations
• Christmas sweets

It also means my birthday is coming up! I’m excited to celebrate with the Cat, family, a fish dinner, and possibly a big bottle of honey mead. I’ve got my eyes on a Viking Blod but if you have any suggestions for mead, I’d like to hear ’em. My other go-to is B Nektar but they don’t have it around here.

This Past Week

In light of my lactose sensitivity, I haven’t been having cheesecake. I used to make cheesecake several times a year when I was in grade school. It was a family treat and I was still able to eat lactose. I found another sweet pie to match my voracious sweet tooth: key lime pie. I can eat sour cream and condensed milk so this pie is perfect. In a pinch, I used regular bottled lime juice and it turned out on the sweet side but the flavor was limey and the texture was silky smooth. I’ll definitely be making this one again soon.

Later on in the week, the Cat and I went across town to market and there was a sale on steaks and ground beef (more on this later). I hadn’t had a steak in at least five years, much less one that was prepared by the Cat! He also caramelized some onions and roasted potatoes. My quick recipe for my “400-30” roasted potatoes:

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Wash potatoes. Trim if needed. Cut into 1″ cubes.
3. Place potatoes on a foil-lined baking sheet. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. (optional seasonings: garlic powder, cayenne)
4. If you have had problems with potatoes sticking to the foil, flip them so they’re skin-side down. The skin might get quite crunchy but that’s the way I like ’em.
5. Bake for 30 minutes or until browned.

A bit crisp on the outside from the oil and fluffy on the inside. Great as a side dish or even a snack.

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I made some steak sauce to see how it would go with the steaks. Not too shabby. It cut through the meat flavor when it got a little much. I made half of this steak sauce recipe and it was still a lot!

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The first part of the ground beef became cheeseburgers with all the fixings. I even put some leftover steak sauce on the bottom of my burgers and it was delicious. I would definitely have steak sauce on a burger again.

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The second part of the ground beef became meatballs and marinara. The Cat is part Italian and prepares great pasta dishes that always make me want more. Raw meatballs on the left and a nice mozzarella-heavy finished pasta on the right.

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A treat I prepared for myself was peppermint hot cocoa. I made hot cocoa, added broken-up candy cane, stirred until the candy fully dissolved, then topped with almond milk whipped cream and sprinkles. Not for the faint of sweet-tooth.

In Other News

I went through a car wash for the first time! I know it’s pretty common for people to use them but I guess I missed out. This one had strobe lights so the soap foam was neat colors. Also a first, I had fruitcake! I like it. It’s flavorful, has nuts, and is good with a warm beverage.

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The Cat and I put up a tiny pre-lit Christmas tree that was a gift from Mom. It stands at about three feet tall so I perched it on a desk. It’s a bit sparse on decorations right now but I’m hoping to fix that with a bit of crochet and a few tiny ornaments.

Regarding EQEmulator servers, I gave Leetsauce Productions a go.

Pros:

• Very friendly community
• GM is often online and interacts with the community
• MQ2 /warp enabled
• Loads of custom content
• Soloable/small-groupable (unlimited boxing)
• Easy platinum farming
• Crafting armor is like printing money; spend ~5 pp to make Banded armor, get >80 pp when you vendor the finished product

Cons:

• Can get very laggy
• If you open a merchant, prepare to wait while its very long list of merchandise is loaded. Happens every time.
• I disconnected many times
• Not very clear progression

Personal opinion: First off, I understand that EQEmulator servers are made by people who work on them as a hobby. There are bound to be a slew of bugs and broken quests/items, and sometimes when one thing is fixed, ten things break. Between the disconnects and the unclear progression, I found myself idle. I wasn’t sure how to get the Leetsauce augments aside from the Ebon merchant (How do you even get Ebon? Where did I get 5?), nor how to progress through the Plane of Justice Trials. The Hanging Trial worked fine but the other two never spawned any mobs. After a multitude of Hails, porting to the Trials, and getting forcibly ported back to the Tribunal, I was lost. These Trials are one of the first steps to getting flagged for Planes of Power content. I probably missed something in the forums. I might come back to this server in the future but I’ll be setting it aside for now.

I think the next one I’ll try is Scorpious Imperium (edited). Also, the new Path of Exile expansion came out today. I’ve been on an Everquest kick, so I don’t think I’ll take part. If you’re interested in Path of Exile but you’re from Diablo, here’s a good guide to help you get started.

Until next time,

-Corgi

Pre-Thanksgiving

Wow, Thanksgiving is already almost here, and here I was feeling like Halloween was just yesterday.

The Cat baked some vanilla cake for us and we frosted them with vanilla frosting together. I got to add the sprinkles. The Cat took some of these pictures! They tasted like a birthday cake.

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The Cat also bought me some Kool-Aid packets. Here’s Fruit Punch! I haven’t had Kool-Aid since I was little and it sure was a throwback. My parents would get those plastic bottles of Fruit Punch Kool-Aid where you had to break off the tab at the top. I remember struggling with some of those and twisting them like mad before being able to break them. Success was sweet. And mildly mouth-staining.

For Thanksgiving, we’ll be hanging out with my folks for a non-traditional feast of thit kho (Vietnamese caramelized pork) and summer rolls. Mom’s not too fond of pork so we’re bringing over roast chicken for the the rolls. I’m going to bake cookies!

I’ve already finished planning the gifts I’ll be giving to my family for Christmas, and I’ve even already completed one. I hope they like what I’ve got in store for everyone. I’ve also already planned a little bit of my birthday that’s coming up soon.

Here’s a sneak preview of a gift I worked on. These are photos of the beginning of the project. I don’t want to spoil the surprise!

Games

The Cat and I have taken a bit of time off Path of Exile since the league is winding down and the new expansion is coming out.

I’ve been dabbling in emulated Everquest servers. I want to try making my own but errors have been popping up all over the place after I downloaded it. Nothing a good amount of Google can’t fix. I hope.

Happy (early) Thanksgiving!

-Corgi

 

Good Week of Food!

Hope y’all are keeping healthy this autumn/winter. Two members of my family are already sick and I think I might coming down with a cold myself. I do wish it was cold outside because I feel like that would somehow warrant my sickness; it’s hot and humid outside!

This was certainly a week of good food.