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 ❤

 

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

Thanksgiving Post (photo heavy)

As you might have noticed, the Cat and I really like food!

Pre-Thanksgiving

The Cat makes a mean pizza! We forgot to grab toppings so we made a plain mozzarella cheese pizza. Super cheesy means super stretchy.

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We also had ourselves some nice soft shell tacos with chicken, caramelized onions, diced Roma tomatoes, sliced jalapenos, cilantro, sour cream, and lime juice.

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Later on, we had some pasta with fresh Romas, white mushrooms, yellow onion, and chicken with a bit of sour cream mixed in. I can’t eat cream cheese or cream (lactose sensitivity) but for some reason I can eat sour cream, so I just use sour cream for my pasta dishes that call for cream cheese. It tastes pretty much the same to me. Sorry for the quality of the photos; hot pasta lets off a lot of steam!

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To prepare for Thanksgiving, I baked peanut butter oatmeal cookies to bring to my folks’ place. It’s definitely one of my favorite recipes. I don’t even make the frosting or make any adjustments to the measurements. The only thing I changed for this batch was that I used natural peanut butter (stirred well) that my Mom bought me, so even with all the sugar in the recipe, they’re not too sweet. They’re soft, crumbly, and very peanut buttery! I joke with the Cat that they’re a tiny bit healthy because of the oatmeal, but I know there’s a good deal of butter and sugar in them. Some day I’ll have to make them with chocolate chips for that extra wow-factor. Below is a slideshow of my whole process.

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Christmas Plans

I already wrapped up my gifts! I couldn’t find any tape so I grabbed some several-year-old turquoise duct tape I had for making duct tape flowers. Nevertheless, it still looks nice and festive.

• Mom’s gift is a round decoration.
• Dad’s gift is an oddly-shaped practical item.
• Sister’s gift is a tiny care package.

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Thanksgiving

We went to my folks’ place for Thanksgiving and had a non-traditional feast of Vietnamese summer rolls with dipping sauce, homemade rolls, pecan pie, and the peanut butter oatmeal cookies I made. The dipping sauce for summer rolls is sweet from sugar, sour from lime juice, savory/umami from fish sauce, and loaded with carrots, fresh garlic, jalapenos, and peppers. The bread rolls were baked fresh that morning by Dad. He said accidentally added too much sugar but I thought they were delightfully sweet like Hawaiian bread.

Since we were over there, the Cat and I helped decorate the Christmas tree. First were the lights, next a ribbon and beads, then the ornaments, and finally an angel tree topper. I also stowed my gifts to the family under the tree at the end so they’re ready for giving on Christmas.

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Post-Thanksgiving but Pre-Christmas

Now that Thanksgiving is over, we’re on a bit of a roll since Christmas will be here soon. The local stores are bustling with way more people than usual, resulting in crowded aisles and sparse pickings. Thankfully our diet doesn’t vary too much and we eat foods that are usually available like chicken, onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

Speaking of foods, here are a few we’ve had this past week:

Cheeseburgers with jalapenos, red onion, Roma tomatoes, pickles, and iceberg lettuce. We used to get romaine but they all got recalled. Also pictured are crinkle fries and my homemade version of Chickfila sauce (about 1/4 cup mayo, 2 TBSP BBQ sauce, 1 TBSP yellow mustard).

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Pepperoni pizza with sliced spicy pickled pepperonatas. Check out that nice browned crust! Served with linguine topped with homemade meatballs, marinara sauce, and Parmesan.

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Last night, the Cat made us hard shell chicken tacos with diced Roma tomatoes, diced red onion, jalapenos, cilantro, lime, “taco blend” cheese, and sour cream. The taco shells were nicely toasted.

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Whew, that was a lot of pictures. I would rather make a nice content- and picture-heavy post than a lean one, though. I’ve also been reminding myself to take more pictures since I’m not used to taking pictures of my food before I eat it unless it’s a holiday. Difficult to remember the camera when you’re already drooling!

In other news

I’ve been taking a shining to EQEmulator servers which are player-hosted Everquest servers. The people in charge of these servers can do as they please with them like customize loot, alter the maximum player level and experience gain, add custom items or models, or even change the entire progression route.Here are my favorites so far:

• Storm Haven
  • Unique tradeskill progression
  • MQ2 allowed
  • Max level 75
  • Epic 3.0
  • Custom content
  • Clickies galore (they even have a clicky to cast clickies when you have too many)
• Visions of Grandeur
  • Locked at Planes of Power
  • Solo-tuned content; duo-tuned for major raids
  • MQ2 allowed
  • 4-box limit
  • Raid repops every 2 hours
  • Pre-nerf items like Manastone and Guise of the Deceiver available
  • No death penalty
• Casual Dreams
  • Solo-tuned (yes, even The Sleeper)
  • Locked at Planes of Power
  • Instant Gate, instant targetable Complete Heal, and damage shield potions
  • Free Bag of the Tinkerers and Journeyman’s Boots
  • Custom content
  • GM events all the time
• Imperium
  • Solo-tuned
  • 1-box limit but you can spawn up to 20 bots
  • Max level 80
  • MQ2 not allowed
  • Custom content
• Raid Addicts
  • Unique progression
  • MQ2 allowed and no box limit
  • Bots available
  • Max level 105
  • Custom content
  • Daily quests
  • Somewhat laggy in my experience

Right now I’m playing one character on Storm Haven and sometimes solo or duo with the Cat on Visions of Grandeur, and it’s been very enjoyable. I’m usually a solo-geared player so I tend toward solo or at least box-friendly servers. If I recall correctly, I needed a lot of setting up for Raid Addicts since you have to assemble your horde of boxes and have macros for everything you want to control. Similar idea for EZ Server and I believe PEQ The Grand Creation as well.

Other server I’ve been considering in no particular order:

• Sanctuary
  • Custom classes
  • “high difficulty”
  • Full custom (basically new game using EQ building blocks)
• Leetsauce Productions
  • Solo-tuned
  • 2x experience
  • Max level 85
  • Multiple lines of progression
• Addicted Dads
  • MQ2 allowed
  • 2-box limit
  • Raids tuned for a full group
• Vegarlson Asylum
  • Locked at Planes of Power T3
  • MQ2 allowed
  • 6-box limit
  • “classic-like experience but without tedium for the sake of tedium”
• Scorpious 2k: The Next Generation
  • Custom zones
  • MQ2 allowed
• Shards of Dalaya
  • Full custom (basically new game using EQ building blocks)
• The Hidden Forest
  • 24-box limit
  • 1-bot limit
  • Custom content
  • Donate real money to get dyes, aug removers, and fancy armor/weapons
• Envy of the Irish
  • Solo-tuned

I think the ones that are appealing to me the most right now are Leetsauce Productions, Envy of the Irish, and The Hidden Forest.

Shutter-happily yours,

-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.

Pre-Halloween and Semi-Solo Self Found

Wow, Halloween is just around the corner!

It’s about that time of year that I have to start thinking about what to make for people’s Christmas gifts so I have ample time to craft. Unfortunately, my mind is blank. I don’t know what to make people. They never send me any sort of wish list so I usually sort of make something that I think they’ll like. Last year I got my sister a white board and made my parents a round sunflower lap blanket/table cover (Ravelry project page).

Sunflower for Dad who likes yellow and Mom who likes flowers

Other News

The Cat was at it again with making amazing food this week! He also taught me how to frost cupcakes since I’ve never done it before.

• Burgers with all the fixings
• Semi-homemade cookies and cream ice cream — Breyers Lactose Free Vanilla mixed with half a container of Oreos, crushed
• Pizza topped with pepperoni and spicy banana peppers
• Red onion, roma tomato, and jalapeno salsa for chicken burritos
• Devil’s Food cupcakes with chocolate frosting (not pictured because they mysteriously disappeared)

 

 

Semi-Solo Self Found

The Cat and I are having some fun doing a personal challenge in Path of Exile. I got my Canary pet from the Delve League challenges, so we’re starting to branch out a little from the league. We decided to do a self-imposed “Solo Self Found” challenge on Standard with some rules.

Rules

1. If we play the “Semi-SSF” characters, we must play together.
2. No trading with anyone except each other.
3. No using currency from previous leagues or standard. Must use
   1. Empty currency tab
   2. Empty divination card tab
   3. Empty essence tab
4. No using gear from previous leagues or standard.
5. We each get 25-30 empty tabs. Quad tabs count as four tabs.
6. If we make another character for the “Semi-SSF,” it will have full access to the only the “Semi-SSF” stash. This way we can make a league starter and switch if desired.
7. We’re allowed decorative microtransactions.

Goals

1. Reach level 95.
2. Complete atlas up through tier 15.

These rules and goals will probably get edited along the way but it’s a good foundation to get started. The Cat made a Sunder Duelist and I made an Arc Templar. So far it’s a lot of fun and we’re in Act 2 already. The lack of gear almost makes it feel like the Gucci Hobo challenge where you can’t equip anything but unique items that you find on your own with no trading. Our damage is surprisingly good for a couple of characters that aren’t rocking full rare items much less unique ones.

Pictured below is a nice empty currency tab and divination card tab.

Happy Halloween,

-Corgi

P.S. Since I’m not a real dog, I’m going to stockpile Halloween chocolate. And maybe some brownies too. Mmm, chocolate.