"...no dead end in sight..."

one more before bed

Okay so Bones season 5 started up last night and of course I can depend on Live Journal to bring me 4976309476 freakin adorable journal icons like 30 seconds afterward. All of about two are spoilery, though, so I will wait on that one for awhile. Along with The Office at 8 PM I think Thursday is going to be my new favorite TV night. WIN.

OH AND ALSO Michaela Conlin's hair was freakin adorable throughout the entire episode. My hair will never in a kabillion years be that gorgeous. I am so, so envious of whatever her hair people do to get it to be awesome like that. ...I wish I had hair people ;_; I think I may have a huge fangirl crush on her hair. Crap.

I have a definite schedule of working on fiction and it's going to be a spastic next ten weeks, kiddos. Prepping for Nanowrimo is bad enough, but this is working on two projects simultaneously all throughout Octobah. I'll need to purchase several wigs for the amount of hair I'll be pulling out.

Tomorrow night for dinner is tilapia and baked potatoes. BAKED POTATOES, YOU HEAR ME?? Only because I am super guilty about letting the last bag of potatoes rot in the pantry because it made a huge gross stinky mess. Seriously, our pantry smells like old man pants now or something. I have purchased two lonely giganto potatoes (gigantoes? o.o) and they are going to be eaten tomorrow. Or maybe Sunday.

Anyway.

Next week is payday, and I am determined to refresh my acrylic stock and paint. And go to Calloway's and buy some herbs for the kitchen countertop garden I've been hoarding planters planning for. And put aside another $50-$100 for my phone upgrade next month. And buy Rudie a fountain-type water dish so she will quit begging for running tap water out of the bathtub faucet. And...numerous other things.

Bedtime, everybody! Have a lovely weekend~

today's bento and weekend foods

 
Today's bento is (clockwise, from top left): dried apricots; two pb & naner sammiches; baby carrots; blueberries; and a strawberry mochi.

(My lunch was rather orange today, btw.)

 The next layer (from left): leftover jambalaya from Saturday; pecan-crusted fish from Thursday night. (I am rather skeptical about the fish.)

OH AND ALSO BEFORE I FORGET:
MOCHI. The most fun weekend project probably EVAR.

 
First, you start off with the elusive rice flour. This brand worked well and I think given the amount of mochi I made for just two people I should have halved the recipe (found here).

 
I only used two cake pans, not three (I only own two...who makes three-tier cakes? o.o ...although would I complain? probably not, because I loves me some cake), and when the mochi came out and I'd let it cool down for an hour, I really wished I'd cut the recipe by 25% and just used one cake pan. The more you can fill up the pan, the less likely you are that the mochi blocks will dry out.

 
This is the mochi block after the top layer of foil is removed. I probably should have mixed it a little better - the brown spot at the top is burnt sugar, I think.

  
Fresh blueberries and strawberries! (There would have been more but I went on a blueberry rampage Sunday morning and ate probably 3/4 of the entire container)

So then you get...:

 
MOCHI. 

Dusted with potato starch, not powdered sugar, as potato starch keeps 'em from buddying up and becoming one big gigantic sticky mochi. I had to cut the strawberries into fourths and it turned into a golf ball-sized ones, but other than that individual blueberries made for great bite-size mochi.

That's all I've got! OH WAIT NO ONE MORE.

I also made banananana bread this weekend :D

today's bento!

Today's bento is (clockwise, from top left): tiny fish sammich with elephant; grape tomatoes; strawberry fruit and grain bar; pepper jack cheese stick bites; tiny fish sammich with bunny.

The next layer (from top): tri-color rotini with pasta sauce and shredded white cheese; half a banana and some strawberries. Delicious!!

All packed away! The layer in the middle is the ice pack and a paper towel to absorb some of the condensation so my little bebeh sammiches aren't squishy.

hooray!

I've found rice flour - NOT in the baking section, NOT in the Asian section, but in the gluten-free section of my lovely most favorite grocery store. Who knew?? I was miffed because that is NOT where I would have put it. (Jay: "Why don't you just tell them to fix it, then? :P" ".....THAT IS NOT MY JOB GOSH.")

This means we are making Japanese mochi this weekend, or at least will make the effort. Strawberries are really cheap now, too, so I might use them as a filling.

Iron Chef Mochi Battle - Part 1
I miss Iron Chef :(

Not much else is going on - but now it's time to get ready for work! Have a superfun day, lovelies! <3

new bento supplies :D

The bento stuff I ordered from jlist.com came in this week!!!

I was really surprised because I thought even with airmail that it would take at least until August.

Photos!!!:

 

Zoo animal bento picks!!! OMG. SO CUTE.