Cauli-whaaaa?

I haven't done a proper blog post in awhile, mostly because my schedule got all out of whack from being off for roughly three weeks. I'm back to the regular show schedule after Tuesday though, so hopefully that means more regular blog posts.

No news about the domain issue... I really haven't done anything about it since my last post. I had lost my patience with the whole ordeal and I'm slowly recharging and waiting for a time where I'm ready to deal with it again. In the meantime though, I've been doing some fun stuff with GIMP, a free program that is a lot like Adobe Photoshop. For example, I made the banner at the top of the screen here, and also at the top of the Ermahgerd! Berk Clerb!'s blog. I also am making Christmas cards, that I can hopefully figure out a way to print before Christmas. Just another hobby, I guess. I have so many! I really need to stop finding new hobbies and work on my fascinator endeavour. But for that, I must get my house clean and organized. For some reason, my work space becomes the catch-all for our dumb crap we don't use. Probably because that is the part of our house least likely to be seen. Sigh.

Anyway, enough of my yammering. I thought I'd talk about one of my favorite vegetables: Cauliflower!

Growing up, I really didn't like cauliflower. I thought it was broccoli's albino cousin that didn't taste nearly as good. But when I started my sordid love affair with the South Beach diet, I needed a legit substitute for carbs and I was willing to try anything. I'd heard about using cauliflower as a substitute for potatoes in mashed potatoes and tried it. When I make mashed potatoes, I usually just estimate the amounts of all the ingredients and do a lot of taste testing. So I did the same thing with the cauliflower. First, though, I steamed the shit out of it. Like, steam them as you would for eating steamed vegetables, and then steam them like twice as long, until it's falling apart at the slightest nudge. And then add milk, butter, and salt, and voila! Mershed curlerflewer! Sometimes I add garlic powder too, if I'm feeling frisky. You could probably substitute greek yogurt or something similar for a low fat option. I think it's a whole lot easier to prepare than mashed potatoes and although it doesn't taste exactly the same or have that fluffy texture, I think they are a damn good substitute.

After I tried those, and loved them, I tried more adventurous recipes, like Cauliflower Pizza Crust. My boyfriend, Brandon and I LOVE pizza. And that was our serious weak spot in our healthy eating plan. So again, I was desperate to find a substitute. I tried a ton of different recipes, and while it tasted good, it was sort of mushy and you had to eat it with a fork... it's not as satisfying as picking up a big slice in your hand and shoveling it into your mouth. After several different tries of several different recipes I finally found the one recipe to rule them all. You can find it here, on the Detoxinista blog, a great blog for healthy living. It is a little heavy on the preparation time, but I think it's worth it. And it's picky-eater boyfriend approved!

The final cauliflower recipe I tried was Cauliflower Bread Sticks. And although I think this recipe is pretty good, it's not amazing and I'd like to try others. It's pretty similar to the pizza crust, and I might try just making the pizza crust without the toppings someday.

In summation, you should give cauliflower a chance. I know I am going to keep scouring the internets looking for more recipes. I challenge you to do the same. And then send me a link. DO IT!

Oh the joys of domain mapping.

Lately, I've been struggling to map my custom domain names to this blog. It seems like it should be easy but the instructions on the blogger site are unclear and I'm suspecting they are out of date. However, I googled the problem and came up with better instructions that made sense... but to no avail. If anyone has any advice please please please help!!!

For now my blog is on two different sites.

Old blog (but with less pictures): risboombah.wordpress.com

And of course you're on the new one.

risboombah.com is being held hostage for awhile, but hopefully I can get it to direct here someday.

You can also find me and info about the new book club I'm involved in here. I'm super excited about it, and you should be too!

Ermahgerd! Berk Clerb!

You're witnessing history, everybody! First off, three posts in one day by yours truly... and most importantly, the dawn of the best book club you'll ever pay attention to: the Ermahgerd! Berk Clerb!

Megan and I broadcasted live tonight and I have to say, it went pretty well. A few awkward lag moments and a complete crash but all in all I think it was swell and it was super fun! If you want to participate, (and we aggressively encourage it) we're reading The Hobbit, this month in anticipation for the movie coming out. Stay tuned for details!

If you want to watch tonight's recording, keep checking http://www.meganligeti.com to see it! I'll probably also post here when it finally goes up. Yay!

Live book discussion!

So my dear friend, Megan Ligeti, and I are starting a semi-regular book club. She gives an apt description on why and how on her blog: A Pretty Girl in a Nerdy World. If you haven't read all her other posts... go do it... now... I'll wait...

Okay, now that you're back from visiting that other awesome blog, I'll just say that I'm super excited about "hanging out" with Megan tonight and hope that we can continue doing so in the months to come. Here's the info again in case you're dumb and didn't read Megan's post:

Who: Megan Ligeti and Me
What: Book discussion about "Poison Study" by Maria V. Snyder
Where: G+
When: Tonight (11/9/12) at 9:30 (CST)
How: Technology!
Why: Just because... jeez... you ask too many questions.

See you soon!

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeen

Wow! What a couple of weeks it's been! I've been ridiculously busy with work, designing a high school production and decorating my house for the party of the century! It was so much fun and so much work. Things have calmed down a bit and I can take a breather. I'm on a two week hiatus from work, between shows and my high school show opened last night! It's for Crossroads College Prep School and the production is "The American Clock" by Arthur Miller. It's about how peoples' lives changed during The Great Depression. It's funny how the themes are relevant again during this recession. But the kids are doing great and I heard opening was amazing! I couldn't be there because I was at the Regina Spektor concert last night. It was pretty great, although I wish she had played more old stuff, which is like everybody's complaint about every concert ever.

But the party went swimmingly. There were less people than we had planned for, but to zero detriment. I had a blast and from what I've heard from others, they also had so much blast. I'm hoping I can talk my roommates into having more themed parties because this one went so great. The next one I have in mind is a Dance Central tournament. A friend of mine said that I had an unfair advantage since I own the game, but believe me... I ain't doin' it in my free time! I've been having some knee pain and am going to physical therapy for it and I'm just way too lazy.

But anyway, on my old blog I shared some of my decor and wanted to save the bulk of it for after the party. I did a lot of decorating on the cheap with stuff I already had. Here's a good example of cheap and easy, yet effective:

All I did was cut bat silhouettes out of black construction paper and used double stick tape to tape them to the inside of the shade. Also, that's a red light bulb. I had a bunch from who-knows-when (maybe Park Place?) but you can find them for 3 bucks at Target. Here's another example:

In our front window, I created a Slenderman out of my dress form, a styrofoam head, fabric, plastic bags for stuffing and Brandon's clothes. The result was unnerving...

 I couldn't sleep the night after I created him. I kept having nightmares that he was going to come to life and come into my bedroom. I was happy to take him down.

Here's the Batgirl cape I made for my kitty:

And finally, here's some pictures of my costume I made myself. I made the dress out of old black t-shirts I scrounged from the thrift store. I draped the whole thing, which means I didn't use a pattern, I just basically built it on the dress form. I sewed most of it together and then sprayed it with bleach to create a space-y background.

Then I used acrylic paint and sponged on some galaxies and used a splatter technique for stars. I also used glow-in-the-dark puffy paint so it would glow in our black-light dance room.

Then I sewed it all together. I also made a hair fascinator that was supposed to represent The Sun. I originally had planned to print planets on tattoo paper and put them on my arms but I ran out of time. Here is the result:

 Pictures don't do it justice. You really have to see it in person. But here's the sun fascinator:

 And the makeup I did by myself, and my face under the black-light:

I think it turned out great! Let me know what you think! And for your viewing pleasure here's a great slideshow of more decor and some of the others' awesome costumes!