Random stuff that makes me happy

On a chilly, rainy Monday morning in Ohio, it's always nice to think about little things that make you happy, right? Like this make up primer from Sheer Envy. You can get it at Wal-Mart for eight bucks. It makes your skin a little glowier, and your make up goes on nice and smooth and stays put. Yeah, I was kind of unsure about the word "primer" in terms of my face, too, but this stuff is magical.

Wolfgang's Vault, a website that streams live concerts for free. They have everything. I spent the morning listening to Van Morrison from 1971, and it was transcendental. Oh, Van, how I love you. They have shows from back in the Fifties, all the way up to shows from 2011. You can also buy concerts, posters, t-shirts, and other fab stuff. This is a musical treasure trove.

Japanese Kawaii stationery. So very cute, and often so very weird. Dancing food, happy pandas, Hello Kitty, and some of the strangest translated to English phrases you will ever run across. Every sheet is a little piece of joy. And don't get me started on the stickers!

Lucky Charms cereal. Of course I pick out all of the marshmallows and eat them first. Nom.

Cooking with MAB, fingerling potatoes

Okay, to say that I'm not much of a cook would be a drastic understatement. I have burned a can of soup and set pancakes on fire. I'm not good at paying attention to food while it's actually in the cooking process. The food often suffers because of this.

However, I have recently stumbled onto the easy joy of fingerling potatoes. I have made them twice, and they are delicious. Here's how you do it! And, if I can do it, anyone can do it!

Get a bag of fingerling potatoes. Yeah, I don't know how much the bag weighs or how many are in the bag. You get them at Wal-Mart for around three bucks. The potatoes are red, white and deep purple, and super cute. I thought I might varnish them and make a necklace, but I cooked them instead.

Turn on the oven to 400 degrees. Make sure you haven't stored anything in there before the oven preheats.

Scrub the potatoes like crazy and dry them off.

Get out your baking pan, the large one, like a brownie pan. You know what I mean. Line it with aluminum foil so it doesn't get all gross.

Throw the potatoes in there. Pour some olive oil over them. Add some salt and pepper.

Stir them around so all the taters are coated.

Throw them in the oven for fifteen minutes.

Get them out and stir them around again.

Bake them for another fifteen minutes.

Voila, you're done! Prepare for happy, potato joy! Seriously, these are some yummy little dudes. And easy. And not flammable!

Blue Moon ice cream: An ode

Oh, blue moon ice cream,

You are packed with creamy sweet goodness.

I cannot decide exactly

What you taste like.

Whatever it is

It is full of blue winning,

Yes, in the Charlie Sheen

Sense of winning.

You make me stop

At United Dairy Farmers

Because I can find you nowhere else.

And if little nuggets of cookie dough

Are added. . .

Sublime.

Cooking with MAB: Waffle-pocalypse

So, you all know I'm not much of a cook, right? Okay, that's drastically understating my cooking ability. 84% of the time, my cooking attempts end up in some sort of apocalypse. We've had Pancake-pocalypse, even Cannedsoup-pocalypse. Now, let me tell you about Waffle-pocalypse.

Saturday, I decided I wanted waffles. Or even one waffle. Half a waffle would have been all right too. I took my Krusteaz pancake mix, actually read the directions and mixed up the mix with the correct water and oil. Got out my waffle maker/sandwich maker/renaissance cooking thingie, and heated it up. Here we go!

I poured in the first batch of batter, closed the lid. Batter oozed in a dramatic goop out both sides of the pancake machine. Not a problem, I over-filled. This is not like getting gas, where the pump cuts you off automatically when you're full. I mopped up the partly cooked goop and waited. I lifted the lid on the waffle machine. Waffle top stuck in lid. Waffle bottom stuck in bottom. Ripped up tragic waffle shreds in between.

I was not discouraged. I pried all the stuck crap out of the waffle nooks with a fork, scraped out all the rest of the destruction, and coated the iron quite liberally with mystical nonstick cooking spray. Filled the waffle maker again with batter. Cleaned up crumbs and general destruction from the kitchen counter. Waited.

Unctuous goop again dripped from the sides of the machine. I lifted the lid after a few minutes. White pale weird waffle, like a ghost waffle. Closed the lid. Peeked again after another couple of minutes. White pale weird haunted waffle that would not cook to a yummy waffle finish. Tried to remove spooky waffle, and it fell apart into miniscule, sticky waffle confetti. Crumbs everywhere. Ick all over the counter. Tasted a corner of the waffle and it reminded me of sweaty athletic socks, only slimier. Pried slimy Japanese horror movie waffle out of waffle iron. Put iron plates in the dishwater. Threw away remaining waffle batter. Power washed the entire kitchen to get rid of gritty batter remnants.

Hey, look at the vegetable oil. It has a Best Before date stamped right on the front. And what is that date? 4/11/10. I don't use a lot of oil. It's 7/8 of the way full.

Threw wasted, rancid oil in the trash. Scrubbed nasty waffle grit out of kitchen sink. Put waffle machine/magic sandwich cooker back under the sink. Microwaved some vegetable egg rolls.

Time spent preparing and cleaning up waffles: 65 minutes
Actual waffles eaten: 0
Waffles won this one.

My summer McRomance

Ah, medium mocha McFrappe. How I love you.

So cold, so full of sugar and caffeine. So simple to procure.

You have filled my summer with joy and hyperactivity.

Even the one time, when the drive-thru girl accidentally dropped you,

And you spilled all down the side of my car, I didn't care.

She upsized me to a large for free.

And it rained soon after and washed away the mess.

Ah, medium mocha McFrappe. Your name is so alliterative.

Promise me you won't leave once the McSummer is over.

Team Bacon! has the coolest blog on the block

Check it out, my friends! Team Bacon! (yes, Bacon! with an exclamation point) has a tasty, active, informative little blog, Six Degrees of Etsy Bacon. What kind of yumminess can you expect when you visit?

1. An interview with the charming and articulate Etsy forum moderator admin cool dude, Rob White.

2. Regular groovy giveaways of fantastic artistic magical stuff.

3. Business advice and show advice.

4. And, of course, bacon related recipes.

And more more more! This blog truly has it all. Informative, entertaining, and full of such lovely, talented Etsians. Drop by, taste the Bacon! and leave a note.

MAB Studios! What do we do when the internet goes down?

Why, we eat teeny tiny angel food cakes, of course!

Happy Easter, from the Peeps!

Reservoir Peeps

The Wreck of the Edmund Peepsgerald

Window Peeper

Ultimate Peep Show

Peepsalot

The Simpspeeps

The Peeps of Wrath

Peeposuction

The Peeple Factory

March of the Peepguins

Octopeeps

Nightpeeps by Edward Peeper

Peep Art

Amy Winepeep

Gingerbread massacre!

Mmmmmm. . . gingerbread.

Home cooking, MAB style!

Fall is upon us, and it's time for a hearty home recipe from MAB. So, tonight, I thought I would let you in on my secret to making pancakes. My mom brought me homemade, organic syrup back from her vacation. The bottle is shaped like a maple leaf, and that was my inspiration for whipping up a wonderful pancake dinner. Here are my easy to follow steps.

1. Dig out your magic pancake pan, kind of like an omlette pan without the divider thingie in the middle. It has an attached, hinged lid, and the bottom has a deeper well. I think well is the right word here. It's Teflon coated, and is supposed to make large, effortless, yummy pancakes because you can flip them right in the pan. Magic!

2. Dig out your pancake mix. I had pancake mix that I bought at Big Lots. Tricky stuff, as it had no measuring info on the back, unless you want to make the whole box. I don't want to make the whole box. I'm just adding water, so I wing it, and mix up a random amount in a bowl. How hard can it be?

3. Spray the pan with nonstick spray, because you can't be too careful, right? Heat up the pan on the stove.

4. Pour in the first glob of batter for the first pancake. Realize that the batter is way too thick. Allow it to cook until it smells sort of burny. Close the lid and flip it over the sink, so that the batter spatter (fun to say) goes into the sink. Allow the other side to cook for a random amount of time.

5. Open the lid and realize that part of the top has stuck to the lid. Also, the center is raw. The edges are a nice crunchy brown. Use a plastic spatula to slide the defective pancake onto a plate. Scrape the stuck crap off the top lid.

6. Add more water to the remaining batter. Spray the pan again. Remain optimistic. People make pancakes every day. It's not like you're attempting cold fusion in a coffee mug here.

7. Warm the pan a bit again on the stove. Fill the bottom with batter. Watch the pancake bubble nicely. That's because it's pretty much boiling, because it's 80% water. You have added too much water. Curse.

8. Flip the pan over the sink. Watch in amazement as batter flies freaking everywhere--all over the sink, all over the counter, in your hair, and on the floor. Curse some more.

9. Put the pan on the stove. Begin to clean up some of the collateral damage. Note a strange pungent singeing smell. The batter has run out of the pan and onto the burner. Be amazed at the thickness of the smoke that can come from burning pancake batter.

10. Snatch the pan off of the burner. Open the pan to find a burnt black pancake the thickness of a Hallmark greeting card. Put it on top of the half-raw first pancake on the plate. Throw the pan into the dishwater in disgust.

11. Open the window to air out the smoke.

12. Stare at the pancakes, realizing that you cannot pour expensive, yummy, handmade syrup in a fabulous maple leaf shaped bottle onto these pucks of misery. Get the cheap syrup out of the fridge and squirt it on.

13. Abandon the destroyed kitchen.

14. Eat three small bites of the pancakes. Understand that no one could eat more than three bites of these pancakes. Any more than that would kill any joy you might have for life.

15. Throw the pancakes away.

16. Wash dishes. Hose down kitchen. Scrape burnt, coal-like batter matter (fun to say) off of the burner and burner pan. Shower to remove batter from hair. Curse intermittently throughout these actions.

17. Eat Munchos and Swiss cheese for dinner.

18. Despise the cute tiny bottle of syrup for provoking this entire futile exercise.

Home cooking, MAB style!

I just realized that a lot of people use their blogs to exchange recipes and other food-related information. Here is my identical recipe for two of my favorite foods, Sweet Pickles and Garlic Stuffed Olives.

1. Go to Kroger, or the grocery store of your choice.

2. Shake your head at the fact that Garlic Stuffed Olives are five bucks a jar, and that is way too much.

3. Buy them anyway, along with a jar of Sweet Pickles. You have been extra good and you love garnishes.

4. Wait until you get home to open either jar. Do not open them in the car.

5. Open the pickle jar, then the olive jar.

6. Take a fork to stab the yummy green food item, and yes, it does count as a vegetable.

7. Pluck the olive or pickle from the fork with your forefinger and thumb.

8. Pop in your mouth.

9. Repeat until either you are full or the jar is empty.

10. Do not drink the brine. Not so good. But feel free to chase down the loose floating garlic cloves and eat those, if you want.

11. Wash fork, refrigerate leftovers (or dispose of jar).

12. Brush teeth, because the olives give you fatal breath.

See, I made dinner!