Pashwar Naan & Mango Red Curry

Two and a half recipes today! Because it's Spring Break, I'm off work until next Tuesday (my birthday, by the way), and I was a little bored and I wasn't quite ready to get to grading on my vacation. Also, all this past weekend, Caleb and I and the rest of the Gamers Northwest gamers have been stuck inside the house during our Epic Disney Marathon. It was super fun, but also really exhausting. I felt like recharging a little by getting some time in the kitchen with my other favorite past time.

These two recipes today can definitely be made separately, but together, they make a fabulous Asian-ish fusion meal, which I had all to myself for dinner last night. Because I'm a lonely lady and the cat doesn't eat Asian-ish fusion. My point is, I have naan and Pashwar filling for days.

Healthy Foods: Cheesy Cauliflower Pizza

This pizza crust tastes exactly like the melted cheese on top of typical pizza, which is the best part, of course. I mean, for me, it's the part I can't stop nibbling on long after I've hit my 2-slice maximum.

This pizza crust is also extremely easy to make. To give a not too graphic example, I am currently under the heavy weight of yet another cold (that's what I get for teaching grade school), and I am also pleasantly full of delicious cauliflower pizza. This whole process took me about 30 minutes from start to finish to plate to mouth, and I even have left overs for lunch tomorrow!

Fun Foods: Dani's Cheese Rolls

String cheese - it's a texture thing

Right now, my food cravings are pretty much only for the foods of my childhood. Mmm, (vegetarian) baloney and american cheese sandwiches with mustard, Gushers, Capri Sun, and string cheese. Oh goodness, string cheese!

I remember when I first saw a string cheese commercial in the 90's and I thought that was an inspired idea and I had to have some. Twenty years later, I still put string cheese in my lunch (of course, it's the light version now). This is why I can't be a real vegan. Also fish sticks.

Anyway, now that I am 26 27, I need more grown up ways to eat my childhood favorites. Here, now, is the homemade cheese roll or pizza roll (which is an ironic twist for string cheese since that commercial is all like "pizza without the pizza!").

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

I LOVE the holiday season! For me it means traveling to visit my family in California, eating good food, relaxing and having fun! In my mind, today is the real start of the holiday season. I'll plan some trips to go to the outlets for present shopping (although I'm not big on presents, I'm big on shopping), and I'll make lots and lots of cookies.

Gosh, I love cookies. And there are few things as wonderful and warm gooey cookies fresh from the oven and a hot cocoa or cider (or something something alcoholic for us big kids). This season, I will be making one new cookie recipe every week and share the results with you!

Today, I bring you an ultimate holiday-y flavor of spices and pumpkin in one scrumptious cookie!

Make 3 Cool Science Toys!

... in jars

I spend a good amount of my time looking online for sciencey educational and fun activities, to use in my work as an educator. I always end up learning something new, and every now and then I discover a little gem somewhere in the blogosphere that I get really excited about. These are three DIY science toys that I've stumbled upon over the years. They're really cool, I just kinda wanted to make them for myself.

The Ultimate DIY At-Home Spa (for less than $15)

Sometimes I get home from work and all I want to do is take off the heels, put up my feet, and turn off my brain for the next 4 hours. Sometimes I get home from work and all I can think about is settling into a comfy message chair at a spa in town and having all my tiredness and achey-ness scrubbed and polished away so I come out of it refreshed and smelling pretty. All of the time, I am looking for ways to save money and live on the cheap... because I'm broke, what else is new? So naturally, my favorite weekly tradition is the $15 Home Spa, putting together all my best laziness, sweet-smelliness, and cheapiness ideas into a luxury experience I don't have to get in my car and drive to. I do this little spa treatment once a week, and it's the perfect kick in the butt for going from "ugh, I'm so tired and bloated, I hate life" to "gosh I'm cute! and perky! and I smell pretty!"

DIY Foam Eyeball: Science Project or Creepy Halloween Prop?

Today in science, I am working on this:

I can't tell you too much about it (yet), other than it's an eye... and it's cool. It's also kind of creepy. Right now in other parts in the world of science, eyes are a hot topic, particularly the gigantic softball-sized one that someone found on a beach in Florida O.o

Day 1 (Thirty-Day Vegan): Shopping! and Vegan Flatbread

My 30-Day vegan adventure... vegadeventure?... starts today! And a good place to start is with the basics: to eat vegan, I need FOOD! I very cleverly ate my ate through all my non-vegan foods in my kitchen (or used it up as beauty products, more on that later), so I had a lot of room in the ol' fridge for some vegan-friendly vittles! I worked up a shopping list that was mostly foods I know I like, and everything is double-checked for vegan-approval...

Gamer Artsy: How to Make a Graphic Tee

Sometimes I go to my closet - stuffed with all kinds of crazy things that I thought looked good on me in the magical light of dressing rooms - and I cannot find a single thing I want to wear. Sometimes I go to movie premiers or special video game-themed parties and I want to stand out or fit in, but my flowery work blouses are not quite the thing. My solution? It's not to hit the stores with the full power of my debit card... instead, I grab my laptop, some fabric paint, and a clean tee and I get artsy!

Adventures in Bread Making: Soft Vegan Whole Wheat Bread

The search for homemade, vegan, healthy, whole what soft sandwich bread has come to a happy ending with a warm and delicious discovery!

YarnLove: Cozy Slippers, Funky Luna Lovegood Style!

On my very last day of summer before I begin a crazy work schedule that has me doing 7 days, 56 hours per week (it's true, and it starts tomorrow), I decided to spend my time re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and crocheting - hoping to make a dent in my embarrassingly large collection of random yarn. I manage this with a digital copy of the book on my lap top next to me, my cat at the foot of my bed, some iced tea on my night stand next to my crochet hooks, and lots and lots of yarn everywhere (mostly the cat's fault).

Science Toys: Cartesian Devil

There are a couple of ways I am like an elf - not the archery or magical spells kind, I mean elf as in little guy in pointy shoes works in the North Pole variety. I like to do things that make kids happy, and I love to make toys (I'm also adorably short at 5'0", tiny, just like a real elf)! My favorite toys to make are the kind I can dig through my crafts and recycling drawers to find the materials for, and the kind that teach something amazing in a simple way. I'm slowly but steadily building up my personal collection of homemade science toys that demonstrate all sorts of things like molecular polarity, cyclone formations, air pressure... the list goes on! About a year ago, I made up one of my first ever science toys, the Cartesian Devil. This is a nifty little thing that demonstrates Archimedes' Principle about how pressure relates to the buoyancy of an object. It's also super simple to whip up at home with 4 common materials. I had to make myself another one after my original one made its permanent home at the museum.

Classy Noms: Baked Crab Rangoon

Every now and then, I put down the Stormtrooper action figures and put on a flowy dress and high heels and go out like a grown woman. I know, it's shocking to me, too, but it's fun to get dressed up and sip wine and talk about grown up stuff. The other night, I went out with some friends to a local winery for some live music and yummy wine. We went to Sweet Cheeks Winery out here in Eugene and it was soooo beautiful! The weather was perfect, the scenery was gorgeous, and the wine and music were lovely.

YarnLove: Lucky Möbius Shawl

While I was off exploring Southern California with the youth group, I hunkered down during the 18+ hour bus rides with my crochet hook and a couple of skeins of some soft bamboo mix yarns. I had it in mind to make a prayer shawl to send to my grandmother. See, the trip was centered on a Catholic youth retreat in San Diego, and I was going as a chaperone. This whole past year and a half has been pretty Catholic for me: I finished RCIA and took my first Communion and had my Confirmation last Easter, I became an art teacher at a local Catholic school, AND I was one of my own students' sponsor for her Confirmation this year. Then there was this trip with the youth group last week for a huge retreat called Steubenville. It was really cool, and the whole time I kept going over my Catholic journey in the back of my mind. My grandmother is inseparable in my mind from my religion. Well, my whole family is part of my religion. But my grandmother is most closely linked with my conversion in my adolescence because of her great and gentle influence.

Feed the Hunger Monster Oatmeal Snack Bars!

I'm one of those people who are prone to crankiness due to hunger... which may be putting it mildly. Ask anyone who loves me enough to stick around after I've gotten hungry and let loose the brat within, and they'll tell you I can be a wee bit unbearable those times. I'm not the only one; chances are you know someone or are yourself a cranky hungry person. I had to research this and I did find some interesting things. Of course it all leads back to brain chemistry: it turns out serotonin levels are affected when the body is hungry. Research from Cambridge University, cited in two articles I found in a quick search online (Huffington Post, US News), reveals that serotonin is needed to for different parts of the brain to communicate, and weakened communication can lead to *less rational* thoughts and behaviors. Interestingly, serotonin is also related to social dominance as it is particularly related to a perceived availability of resources - a.k.a FOOOOD. This "social dominance" affect can translate into agression in some vertebrates (including humans) when the perception of resources is low (see this 2002 Stanford University article). Evolutionarily, it might be more advantageous to scare off competitors with agression when there are limited resources.

3 At-Home Science Experiments

Just for the heck of it, and because science is fun, here now are three science projects, tried and vetted by me personally in my adventures as a museum educator. Of course, I can't help but put a little science blurb about each, but you don't have to read them :)

Strawberry Chocolate Fudgesicles

It is definitely summer up here in the Pacific Northwest! Today is supposed to reach the 90's, which is downright shocking when you consider we were trudging through the 50's just a couple of weeks ago. I'm not complaining, of course; as a native Californian, sometimes the rainy Oregon winters can seem like they go on forever and I sure do miss the sun those days. But now it's here, and it's HOT! So, naturally I have stocked up on cold beers, cold pickles, and cold popsicles ;D I've also been looking around for some homemade treats to keep cool. When I was little, we had a popsicle making set and my parents used to fill them with Gatorade for us (that's pretty much the only way I like my Gatorade). Out of an urge of nostalgia, I got some funky popsicle molds from Bed Bath and Beyond the other day, and I set out to find some yummy cold treats to make (Gatorade pops are so 1990's, psh). I found a really simple fudgesicle recipe on Pinterest that uses Nutella and I was like YES (because what every dieter needs is a jar of Nutella in her house). The original recipe is from 52 Kitchen Adventures, which has lots of really great om noms. I adapted the recipe a little bit: I don't really like milk and I never have it on hand, so I substituted almond milk, which is my favorite non-dairy alternative. I added come cut up strawberries because I noticed I had some that were pretty ripe, and then I could make the pops kind of like chocolate-dipped berries. Also, I used Jiff Chocolate spread instead of Nutella because it was 70¢ cheaper and I'm cheap, and chocolate spread is chocolate spread as much as I can tell.