Tofu Stir-Fry Recipe! Or, How To Succeed At Cooking Without Really Trying

We came up with a fantastic recipe last night. I will now share it with you.

Tofu and Whatever Stir Fry

Stir-fry components:
Some chicken
Some tofu
Some broccoli
Some onion
Some red bell pepper
A few carrots
Cashews (whatever you have in the cupboard)
A little peanut oil
A little sesame oil
Some garlic
SRIRACHA!

Sauce-thingy:
Copious amounts of internet research
1 tbsp + 2 tsps soy sauce
1 tsp of sesame oil
1 tsp of mirin, or not
Some rice vinegar
A little less than a tsp cornstarch
A little more soy sauce to top it off and get you up to 1/4 cup of sauce-thingy

Rice on the side! Any kind you like, cooked how you like.

OKAY COOKIN' TIME.

1. Realize that recent dinners have been wholly unsatisfactory. This includes but is not limited to earlier "stir fry" which came out too sweet or too saucy, depending on who you ask (not Boo), and the "avocado fries" at Rosepepper which resembled ankylosauruses and tasted like breading. Just breading. Let's not get into the entrees, swear to God.
2. Decide to stop at store to facilitate home-cooking on way home from picking up barely-a-licensed-driver-really girlfriend from work, since she has decided that a declared snow day means "too snowy to drive," and look here, you're off work, SNOW DAY, why don't you drive her, yay!
3. Present plan. Alter plan when girlfriend says, for the 180th time, that you cannot do anything directly on the way home from work because she really has to pee and she didn't pee at work before she left, because the bathrooms are, like, far away and sometimes the guards are sitting around and it is awkward and sort of fraught.
4. Rejigger plan. Home first, then copious amounts of internet research, part un.
5. Make ingredient list while GF goes to the bathroom like a big girl.
6. Stick recalcitrant dog into cage. Wave bye-bye!
7. Go to Turnip Truck.
8. Get yelled at by Turnip Truck patron in parking lot.
9. After perturbment, realize Turnip Truck patron was telling you that Turnip Truck is closed, despite it not yet being 7 PM, wtf.
10. Go to Kroger. Grumble grumble grumble.
11. While procuring necessary groceries, stand for a while at poultry section. Stand for a long while, considering the relatively scant options. Notice that girlfriend has wandered off. Watch girlfriend approach, holding up a random box from the freezer case, saying, "Look! I found Superpretzels! Can we get a pie?"
12. Say FUCK IT to the overpriced and/or unacceptable chicken options Kroger has on display. This will be a tofu night only.
13. Ignore girlfriend raising eyebrow at sudden vegan tendencies.
14. Self-checkout!
15. Home. Don't die slipping on ice all over street, sidewalk, stairs to house.
16. Let loose canid from enclosure.
17. "DOWN."
18. Encourage girlfriend to begin chopping vegetables while you go walk the dog.
19. Walk the dog. Come inside.
20. Chop all vegetables.
21. Ignore girlfriend when she says, "Are you done chopping the red peppers? Those look kind of long. I think it's supposed to be chunks, not strips."
22. Encourage girlfriend to make saucy thing in light of recent successes with potsticker dipping sauce construction.
23. Take out sesame oil, sriracha, mirin, soy sauce for girlfriend.
24. Start cooking tofu.
25. RUDELY tell girlfriend she always makes too much sauce, and to keep it under a quarter cup total. When she replies that the problem with the last stir fry was that it was too sweet, not that it was too saucy, respond that in fact it WAS too saucy, and also she always makes too much potsticker dipping sauce. So.
26. Ignore dark looks, under-breath curses from living room (copious internet research, part deux), other side of kitchen.
27. Step on dog.
28. Move lightly cooked tofu to bowl.
29. Begin to saute garlic.
30. Quickly throw garlic onto surface of the stove with the spatula thing because the wok is too hot and the garlic is burning, oh shit oh shit.
31. Okay, no garlic.
32. Begin cooking vegetables.
33. Toss them like a madman until know-it-all-ass girlfriend says, "So, are they cooking at all? I think you can let them sit for a minute, then stir, then sit, then stir, like the dudes at the med school cart, who are like, WAH, stir, put the lid on, okay, do something else, okay, lid up, squirt bottle, stir again, lid again..."
34. Conclude that test-piece of broccoli is cooked to the point of "warm salad."
35. Consider whether girlfriend has a point, despite literal sense of "stir fry" implying constant stirring.
36. Put lid on wok.
37. Make appropriate noises of sympathy when girlfriend pinches finger in misguided attempt to clean as she goes, by putting soy sauce back in sticky lazy susan cabinet.
38. Remove lid, stir vegetables.
39. Make more appropriate noises of sympathy when believed-pinch is actually disgusting cut/crimp thing in girlfriend's finger. Wish she hadn't insisted on you looking at it. Immediately order, "Band-aid, soap and hot water, neosporin." Ignore smart-ass girlfriend who says, "Not in that order, presumably."
40. Marvel, silently, at endless clumsiness of girlfriend who took ballet for YEARS, for Pete's sake.
41. Ignore whimpering noises from sauce-thingy-making girlfriend.
42. Realize that girlfriend cannot be ignored when she cries to the heavens, I CANNOT GET THESE CORNSTARCH LUMPS TO GO AWAY, AAARRRGHHH.
43. Take over sauce-thingy construction.
44. Continue to cook vegetables.
45. When vegetables are quite al dente, throw tofu back in. Have now-relieved-of-duty sauce-thingy-maker throw in cashews. Two handfuls or so. Stir.
46. Drizzle sriracha; stir.
47. Remark that using squeeze bottle on wok makes you feel like a real chef.
48. Ignore eye-rolling from direction of now-relieved-of-duty sauce-thingy maker.
49. Realize, OH MY HELL, I forgot the rice. And now this is almost ready.
50. Decide, FUCK THE RICE, healthiest dinner EVAR! Lots of brightly colored vegetables! No starch! Awesome!
51. Have now-relieved-of-duty sauce-thingy maker taste-test bit of broccoli.
52. Kvell with pride when she pronounces it "delicious. Almost as good as the dudes at the cart."
53. Transfer to bowl.
54. Transfer from bowl to plates.
55. NOM NOM NOM (concurrently: "Law & Order" rerun from 2001. Marvel at detective needing to explain what a Blackberry is to older detective, and what blood diamonds were to everyone. Ask girlfriend when "Blood Diamond" came out. Decide "Gerard" is L&O-code for "DeBeers." Marvel at how relatively uncraggy Sam Waterston was back then. HEY IT'S DANIELS FROM THE WIRE, wow, he's got a nice African accent here, huh? Remember that episode when you saw Daniels with his shirt off and his waist looked like Scarlett O'Hara's and his shoulders and chest looked like He-Man? Wasn't that NUTS?)
56. Come up for air.
57. SECONDS!

That's how we cook. This may be why eating out, despite travel time, is faster.

Out With The Old, In With The Poo

Silly me, to get sentimental about New Year's.

Silly me, to think for a few minutes there that if I just tried harder and had a better attitude, 2011 really could be less shitful than 2010 was.

Silly me for thinking what might be fun after the Old Crow show would be coming home, cuddling in the bed with boy and dog alike, eating some candy at 1 AM and watching a Netflix free-trial episode of Friday Night Lights.

Because instead what we came home to was the dog, for the first time in almost 18 months, having shit himself in the house. Possibly it happened at midnight when people hooted, hollered, and presumably fired some guns. Or he just relearned some unbelievably bad habits while boarding for the past four days. In any event, liquid, occasionally aerosolized, dogshit, on his crate tray (some solids on this too, HUZZAH); his towel; his crate itself (large amounts considering the only surface area it had to adhere to was a wire grid. And yet!); our bedroom floor; our really lovely still-newish duvet cover (which he's not even allowed to sleep on); our actual duvet (having soaked through the duvet cover); eventually, his bed; and his own fucking nose. The shit on which would not come off, first with a wet-ish paper towel and then even with a moderately-forceful scrub with a wet wipe. D had to do it because after two tries of trying to get dogshit off my dog's nose while we both stood outside in the rain and then screaming at him, "STOP LICKING IT, OH MY GOD," I very nearly had heart failure. Our house smells fucking horrible and the dog just had his second bath in one day and oh Lordy does this not bode well.

More Appropriate Myths Obama Could Have Suggested for His Appearance on "Mythbusters"

"Republicans are reasonable and want the best for the American people"
"I will close Guantanamo Bay"
"bipartisanship"
"I am a real Democrat"

Awesome: Swiss Miss Pick-Me-Up

New idea: I will review things I buy, when I feel like it.

First up: Swiss Miss Pick-Me-Up, aka Super-Caffeinated Hot Chocolate.

Uh, brilliant.

I can't drink coffee. I like the way it smells, a LOT, especially when in a can that's kept in the freezer (what? I can be specific), but it hurts my stomach oh my god and I feel queasy for the rest of the day.

Until I realized it was the coffee (this was like, late middle school, early high school), I kept thinking I had food poisoning. And then when I hadn't eaten anything, and it was just the delicious cappuccino in my stomach (aren't I so-phis-ti-cat-ed), I decided that it was, like, the oils in the coffee that were doing it, making my stomach feel fucking horrible like that. (My dad said, No, kid--that's the caffeine, which I am skeptical of, because in a pinch, I can take caffeine pills and chew caffeine gum and down Mountain Dew, and all I get are the shakes--no queasiness, so I don't know about that, Pops.) Anyway, whether it's "the oils" or just the caffeine, or some interaction between the two, but I do not drink coffee. It does not agree with me.

Nevertheless, I am a student. I have needs. They are needs for stimulant chemicals, and since it's a good idea for me to stay on the right side of the law, caffeine's the way to go.

So I drink tea. A lot of tea. In semesters when I have morning classes, I generally have tea every week day morning. Then sometimes another cup after class if the hot water's still out. I like tea, definitely, yes. It's awesome and there are lots of varieties and I luh-huh-huve the way it smells.

But.

One needs variety.

Enter: Swiss Miss Pick-Me-Up. Hot chocolate "with as much caffeine as one cup of coffee"! (As trumpeted on the box.) Uh, brilliant. As I said.

Also: delicious. Just like regular Swiss Miss, which, as you may know, is awesome. I need to get some marshmallows for this shteez, because they don't make a Swiss Miss Pick-Me-Up Marshmallow Lovers', unfortunately.

But this is totally worth buying, if you want variety in your morning caffeine delivery system and also like Swiss Miss. Which you should, because it's delovely.

I definitely felt energized, but it's hard to say how much was just the placebo effect. But I did do a little dance.

Pros: caffeine; hot chocolate; yummy.
Cons: no marshmallows; placebo effect.
Score: ****

From the Department of Unintentional Hilarity:

"...Kevorkian criticized the Supreme Court, the American people, and national security legislation passed after September 11, 2001. 'The country is sick, very sick. And it needs lots of help,' Kevorkian stated."

--Andrew L. Kalloch, "Kevorkian Reconsiders 9th Amendment," Harvard Law Record, October 9, 2008, p. 2.

Funny because: How Dr. Kevorkian help the very sick, as a rule?

Redacted. Poop.

Oh, fine. Redacted.

New Product Review: Skittles Chocolate Mix

Aww. Full circle, y'all. I started out in the early days with a (terrible) review of Skittles Smoothie Mix, and now I'm going to give a slightly less terrible review of Skittles Chocolate Mix. It makes me feel young again.

Disposing with the first obvious question, namely, "Why would you get chocolate-flavored skittles when there are, like, you know, M&Ms less than eight inches away from them," to which I have no answer, I will answer your second question. What flavors are in the mix? Answer: five flavors--vanilla, smores, chocolate caramel, chocolate pudding, and brownie batter.

Vanilla tastes sort of nasty. Other candybloggers like it best, but I don't really like vanilla all on its own, and it's just really really sweet to my taste, without a lot of actual flavor to distract you from the sweetness.

Smores tastes sort of like a tootsie roll. That's the note I'm getting. In the way that Tootsie rolls don't really taste like chocolate, that's the way that these don't really taste like chocolate, but more so. There's maybe the tiniest hint of graham cracker flavor.

Chocolate caramel tastes like cheap chocolate-flavored lip balm. I wanna say Bonne Bell, circa 1995, when they were trying to be hip, and branch out past Lip Smackers, and they started packaging new lip balm with lots of black accents. That's what this tastes like.

Chocolate pudding is my favorite. It tastes like expensive chocolate-flavored lip balm. Fine, a little bit like pudding. And a little bit like hot chocolate mix.

Brownie batter was the one that got some of the highest marks from other reviews I've read. They noted that it indeed had a relatively strong chocolate taste, and that there was a sort of unbaked aspect, to connote the "batter" element. Well, friends, I will tell you what this tastes like. It tastes like Chocolate Play-Doh. It is disgusting. Yes, there's chocolate, SORT of, and yes, there's the unbaked-ness, but that is not batter, it is dough, and it is dough of the "Doh" kind, by which I mean, omfg, PLAY-DOH. Oh GOD is that disgusting. Blech blech blech blech blech. But also sort of amazing--look what they put inside a Skittle! It makes me believe that some day, some scientist really figure out a way to put a full three-course-meal into a stick of chewing gum, without any unfortunate externalities.