Cowboy Bebop T-Shirt

Those the Gods wish to destroy they first make think it's a great idea to stencil Spike Spiegel onto a tshirt. Oh my god, this was the most hideously awful stencil to to cut out ever. In all seriousness, it took me at least three hours to cut out this stencil, and I may have left off a couple of the fingers on Spike's right hand, (well, my right, his left, I guess. The one holding the cigarette either way). All I wanted to do is just cover up the stain that was on this shirt I found, and I thought Spike's afro would do the job nicely. Also, it provides me with the opportunity to air my opinion that Bebop is the second best name for a ship ever. (The Belafonte is the best name for a ship ever). I can't honestly say I recommend anyone else trying this, unless they possess superior patience and dedication to the Bebop cause, but if you do, here's the stencil. I flipped it in photoshop. (That version is here.)

Baklava

Baklava is definitely one of the more tasty things you can possibly imagine. After making baklava ice cream twice last week, I decided i had to try making the actual stuff. The fact that I had a shit ton of fillo dough to get rid of before it spoiled was in no way an incentive to get that done. None at all. The recipe I used was for Turkish baklava. I found it here. You can tell the difference because the Greek baklava is generally made with walnuts and honey, and middle eastern style baklava generally is made with pistachios and a syrup of sugar and water. I had heard rumors that baklava was a seriously time consuming experience, and it was for me, but I think the time it takes to do this could be seriously shortened. For instance, I didn't really think to get the pistachios ready beforehand, and so I had to sit and shell them all right then. You could probably cut down on time by buying unshelled pistachios, or doing this beforehand while you watch tv or something. It's not really taxing work. If not for that, other than baking time, I probably could have gotten this done in an hour or so. Also, I recommend not cutting the pieces as huge as I did 'cause they're drippy and hard to carry that way. Alternately, you could not put all the syrup in with the baklava and that might also make it not drippy. All I'm saying is that it dries white, and you don't really want that on your pants. Not that I know this from experience or anything. Other than that, this is pretty tasty.

Milano-esque cookies

I love the Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies. They're super tasty, and also they have chocolate in them in a dose I can totally handle. Also, they are pretty much the tastiest thing to eat while drinking Chai, milk and cookies style. So, lately, whenever I start to like something, my first instinct is to see if I could make it myself. So I was googling Milano cookies, and i found one recipe that was completely strange and called for almonds. I was going to make them, and so went on The Great Almond Adventure of 2007. However, the next day I found this recipe which looked much more accurate, and as far as I can tell tastes much more accurate than the almond involving one would have. I have to say, these seem to taste a bit nuttier than I remember Milano cookies tasting. Now first of all that's strange, because there aren't actually any nuts in the recipe. But I randomly hypothesize that's entirely because of the brown sugar in the recipe and I think you might get better results if you used regular sugar. I'd have to test that out to be sure, and in the mean time, these are quite tasty themselves.



Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 C. butter, softened
3/4 C. light brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 C. all-purpose flour
1 T. butter
1 C. semisweet or milk chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325ºF.

In a bowl, cream together the 1 cup butter and sugar. Add vanilla
extract and flour; mix until smooth. Shape level teaspoons of dough
into log shapes. Place on cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 17
to 19 minutes or until golden brown. Cool.

Microwave chocolate chips and the 1 tablespoon butter for 2 minutes;
stir until smooth. Spread chocolate on flat side of cookie and top
with the other

Baklava Ice Cream

I found this recipe at the Desert Candy blog. Apparently the woman who runs it went through and tried to make 20 different types of ice cream in twenty days. I can do nothing buy admire her audacity, especially since I'll be mining her hard work for tasty treats for the next couple of weeks. Also, she's clearly learned the art of taking attractive food pictures, a feat I fear I will never master. It's always "Look! It's ice cream! In a bowl!" Of course, methodology could have something to do with that. I'm sure she probably puts a lot more thought into taking the picture than I do. Mainly because my thought process is "I'm going to have some ice cream. Oh, I should probably take a picture for the blog first." *picture snap* It's kind of a shame because I feel like I'm letting the food down. I'm looking at the picture now, and the ice cream doesn't look particularly tasty. However, that's clearly not the ice cream's fault, because it is particularly tasty. So it can only be my fault.
Anyway, the only advice I could recommend is that she suggests crumbling actual baklava and putting it in the ice cream, and that seems like a sensible option unless you randomly have fillo dough in the house. You use a tiny portion of it, and it's a complete bitch to work with, as I found out this afternoon. However, the walnut crunchy bit is particularly tasty, and would probably also work well on an apple pie or something.

Guitar Hero T-shirt

This is pretty much the sweetest t-shirt I've made yet. I was secretly kind of hoping that it wouldn't have turned out as well as it did, because then I wouldn't want to keep it as much. I keep telling myself the blue isn't as noticeable as it could be, and it's kind of a bullshit excuse, but it helps. However, I have an obligation to not be a bastard and actually, you know, give people the presents I made them, no matter how much I wish I didn't have to. I found the whole stencil on Craftster, but I uploaded it to photobucket here. However, this stencil was a lot smaller than I wanted it to appear on the shirt, so I divided it in half and made it larger. The top half is here, the bottom half is here. I also turned the black areas grey so that it took less ink, 'cause I'm a bit thrifty that way. The fret keys I just painted freehand, which is why they're a little uneven.

Bob Dylan T-Shirt

I'm still making T-shirts. So this is a bit ho-hum. Although, I can't stress this enough. THIS IS BOB DYLAN, AND NOT JIM MORRISON as my mother might try to make you believe. Jim Morrison had different hair. He couldn't handle Bob Dylan's lustrous afro. He just couldn't. Jim Morrison's not that cool, and a poet? MY ASS.
P.S. Found the Stencil here.

Cookies

I can't stop thinking about cookies. I can't.

I have favorited tons of pictures of maracons. I want to learn how to make them.

I keep drooling over this list.

And now, to top it off: Homemade Oreos. I don't just want these. I think I need them.

Anyone out there with a good cookie recipe? I can't get over this.

Chai Latte Mix

I love tea a pretty serious amount. Like, for real, for realz love it. I've had entire conversations dedicated to my love of tea, and I'm talking about hour long conversations. So when a recipe to make chai latte appeared in a random cookbook I was looking at, I couldn't pass it up.
It's pretty good, although I recommend leaving the pepper out. I added the pepper and it made the mix a little too hot in a spicy way. But otherwise it's fine.
Ingredients:
2 ½ tps. Ground ginger
2 tsp. Ground cinnamon
¾ tsp. Ground cloves
¾ tsp. Ground cardamom (optional)
1 tsp. Ground allspice
1 tsp. Ground nutmeg
½ tsp. Freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ cups unsweetened instant tea or decaffeinated instant tea
1 ½ to 2 Cups sugar
1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1 cup powdered nondairy creamer
1 cup French Vanilla flavored powdered nondairy creamer

Directions:

Combine spices and tea in a food processor or blender. Blend 1 to 2 minutes or until mixture becomes a fine powder. Pour into a large bowl. Add sugar to food processor or blender (without cleaning it), and process about 30 seconds. Add sugar to bowl of spices. Stir in milk powder and creamers; blend well.

To serve, stir 2 heaping tbsp. Chai Tea Mix into a mug of hot milk or boiling water

The recipes came with the following additions and things, and while I can't vouch for them, it is making me consider making some vanilla ice cream so I can check out that Chai Shake.

Chocolate Chai Mix: Add ½ cup unsweetened cocoa along with dry milk powder to the blend above. Follow serving directions above (They recommend milk here)

Chai Shake: Blend ¼ cup Chai Tea Mix, 1 cup milk, and 3 ½ cups vanilla ice cream in a blender

White Chocolate Chai: Add ¼ cup finely chopped premium white chocolate (such as Lindt or Ghiradelli)
To 1 cup Chai Tea Mix. Stir well. Follow serving directions above with 2 heaping Tbsp. Per cup of hot milk or boiling water.

Dawn of the Dead T-Shirt

Cutting this out was the worst two hours of my life. If it hadn't turned out so well I would have gone crazy and cried irrationally for at least 10 minutes. It's an intense a really intense stencil because of all the tiny cut outs. However, it came out pretty well except for some weird bits at the bottom of the D. Actually, all of the letters could have come out better, however I'm pretty well pleased with it. The original stencil is here. However, here's the stencil I made after a little photoshopping, and I do mean a little. Basically all I did was invert the colors.

Bread Makery

I have, indeed, been making shit. Unfortunately, my camera is broken, so no pictures yet. Coming soon: The very exciting tale of how I conquered my fear of my own sewing machine and learned to make some straight stitches. You have no idea what I feat this is for me.

In the meantime, I have been trying some adventures in bread making, and it is going fairly well. My first attempts at making dough utilizing a bread machine ended in an unfortunate way, to say the least. I trusted a recipe that I shouldn't have, and I ended up with an incredible mess. Seriously, I was cleaning dough from the sink and table for a few days, ruined a t-shirt, and had to eat some shitty noodles for dinner because my calzone dough went to hell.

The next attempts have been somewhat more successful. Thanks in part to the fact that I have been watching at least one episode of Good Eats a day, I have picked up some stuff about bread making that is coming in handy. Also, the internet helps. Yesterday I made a few modifications (I used fresh rather than canned, chopped rather than minced jalapenos. I also added a bit of garlic and chili powder) to this recipe and made mozzarella jalapeno rolls. I, of course, sought help from the internet in this endeavor, and found some pretty helpful tips for shaping bread. Alas, my dough was sort of a bizarre consistency and didn't really cooperate with me when I tried turning it into breadsticks, it still tasted pretty good. There's always next time.