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me and my turkey

Our Thanksgiving party ended up being a big success! Lots of fun!

Do you like my homemade sushi apron??

lotsa food

I overcooked the turkey a bit (was so worried about it being safe!) but everyone said it was still good. We put bacon on the top! All 12 of us ate through most of the 13 lbs, except for one tupperware of bits of meat that I pulled off later for sandwiches and a bunch of lunch packs that I sent home with some people. My stuffing got devoured, mmm it was so good. It was a savoury fruit stuffing with apples and cranberries, and vegetarian so Scott could eat it too. We also had two kinds of mashed potatoes (one with mascarpone and crab!),  roasted vegetables and squashes, bread, cheese, beans, salads, 50 million desserts and lots of wine. Probably more that I am forgetting!

I’m pretty impressed that we had such a big dinner with the supplies we had. We had to share knives and Stew had to eat out of a tupperware container though, haha. And Scott had to perch on the back of the couch. I loved how it all went though, with everyone just digging into the food and lots of laughter.

post-turkey pre-dessert coma

haha why does Rosemarie look so disgusted?

After dinner we played a few games of Wits and Wagers and drank more wine. Then the night ended with the boys playing Street Fighter and girls playing Carcassonne, and then one final late night Carcassonne game with Scott since Lauren would be leaving in the morning.

Took me ages to fall asleep. Too much adrenaline after all the hosting and all the fun!

A+ Thanksgiving 2011. Hope yours was amazing as well!!

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I am excited! Since a lot of our friends here are not actually from Vancouver and won’t be going home for Thanksgiving we decided to have a potluck Thanksgiving dinner at our house. I think 11 people are coming! I am making a turkey (with bacon!) and everyone else is bringing other bits and pieces. Mmmmm it’s going to be goooood.

It’s my first time making a turkey but we bought one of those oven bag thingies so I think it’ll be pretty easy.

Lauren has been staying with us this weekend. Yesterday we went to the Vancouver Aquarium, which was awesome. I liked the dolphin that kept spitting his food into the air and catching it, and the otter that was doing some kind of backwards wavy swimming.

They also had a sloth!

We also went out for sushi for dinner (ironic?) and then to a friends goodbye party. All in all a very fun day.

Party-times today and then tomorrow I have to do mega homework. Boooooooooooooooo.

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Remember my last update where I said it was super dark outside and therefore super dark inside? Well, 3 minutes after posting it actually became SUNNY! Scott rushed to put his bamboo plant in the sun and I rushed around taking pictures of some parts of our house.

I don’t have time to post all the pictures now but I have prepared one of my desk area and one of my new painting series that I finished in those two weeks I had off before school started.

My work area. New desk, Craigslist chair, new computer, new printer, new desk lamp! Lucky me!!

I think we hung the paintings slightly too high. Oh well, too late now.

Do you like my paintings? I am pretty pleased with them! I especially like the middle one, because I only used red, yellow, and blue paint and mixed all the other shades. It was kind of mathematical!

I like rainbows. Also evidenced (is that a word???) by my latest nails.

I find it reallllllly hard to put my hands the right way when I use my webcam. SO confusing!! I had to get Scott to come press the button. Oh and my pinky looks blue but it’s purple in real life. I promise I know my rainbow order.

OK I really must get to my homework now. I had a EUREKA moment at school today with a classmate and need to get pen on paper before I forget. (It’s a question about elastic collisions of alpha particles and a gold nucleus, in case you were curious.

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Sigh, I really wanted to take pictures of our apartment/art today but it’s really grey and gross outside and that means our apartment is extra extra dark inside. It’s already very dark on a normal day, so now it’s like a cave. The lack of light may be my biggest complaint about this place. I really like all the big trees and flowers and plants around our building, but bye bye sunlight.

Instead I will leave you with two Katrina recipes.

Katrina’s Modified NY Times Cookies

My new go-to cookie recipe. The recipe is a bit picky, but you should have seen the original! I simplified it in a few different ways and think that these are still REALLY good, and quite a bit easier. You do have to plan ahead for them though, as they need to sit in the refrigerator for 3+ hours. They’re worth it though!

I like this recipe because the cookies turn out soft and chewy, and they don’t spread as much as Fannie Farmer cookies. I guess they look pretty humongous in the picture above but they’re not! Our oven is really tiny, we even had to buy a new smaller baking pan because the old one couldn’t fit. You can see that our silicone mat is too big now. :(

Yield: 50 cookies! This recipe can be halved fairly easily.

Time: 15 minutes of prep, 3+ hours of waiting! 15 minutes baking time.

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp course salt
  • 1 1/4 cups butter
  • 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
  • 1 cup + 2 tbsp white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • chocolate chips/disks (white, milk, semi-sweet etc), skor pieces, as many as you prefer

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and course salt. Set aside.
  2. In a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugars. I don’t have a mixer so I soften the butter a bit in the microwave.
  3. Stir in the eggs and vanilla.
  4. Add in the flour mixture. I do it in several phases to minimize mess, since this recipe makes quite a lot of dough.
  5. Add in your chocolates chips/disks and candy pieces
  6. Cover the top of the bowl and put it in the fridge for 3-4 hours.
  7. Preheat oven to 350º F. Pry of chunks of dough and roll into 1″ diameter balls and bake for 15 minutes.

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Ummmm… Mexican THING

This monstrosity is what happens when it is my turn to cook. Hehe.

Layered from bottom to top: diced tomatoes, tortilla, black beans, tortilla, cheese, chipotle peppers and sauce, diced tomato, tortilla, cheese, green onions, and two eggs cracked on top. Basically whatever you ingredients you like.

Bake for 20 minutes. Top with a bit of sour cream and some sliced avocado.

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I survived my first day of school. After nearly 4.5 years off, I realized last night. Wow.

Today was orientation. We listened to a welcome speech and a seriously unfunny comedian. That was awkward. Then they split us off into our programs and we met our profs and got some more info, but it was mostly boring stuff like not to cheat and not to be a jerk and other obvious things like that. My program has 16 people. I think I am one of the oldest and pretty sure I’m the only married person. Everyone was pretty shy (inluding me!) and scared (24 hours of lectures + 6 hours of labs a week!!!!).

A guy came to take us on a campus tour, which would have been good if I could figure out which direction we were facing at the start. It was concrete in all directions!! Very confusing. Luckily all of us have the exact same class schedule so really only one of us needs to memorize it and where our classes are, haha.

The tour guide dropped us off in the GREAT HALL where they had all sorts of booths with semi-useful stuff. Best part: free popcorn. Really delicious popcorn actually. I am attending every event from now on that advertises free popcorn!!! I also got some info about the health plan and something called Harvest Box (cheap veg) and free dental cleanings and stuff.

It’s kind of funny how BCIT uses students in different areas of the school. The IT desk is full of IT students. You can get cheap massages and free dental cleanings. Media made by media students. I bet you could get your car fixed for cheap.

See, they should have picked me to be the BCIT Health Science blogger: my first day and I’ve already done a post. FOR FREE. Grrr.

Yippee, two hours of radiopharmaceuticals lab and two hours of anatomy and physiology lecture tomorrow!