Things I Eat Tikka Marsala (Crockpot Style)

It's been a while since I have been foodcited. You know, excited about food. Then, I took FaceBook advice.

Thanks, FB friend!

This is the recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala that she had posted and I thought - I like Indian food. I don't like to really say "Indian food" because India is made up of many types and styles of food in different regions. I'm sure I don't like them all. But, let's face it. .curry.

Curry is the paprika of India.

Also, I suck at using a crockpot. So, extra victory.

To the details! By the way, this is how I made it because. . you know, I got issues.

What You Need

• Olive oil: For sauteing
• Onion: Delicious, delicious onion. I used one GIANT onion. 
• Ginger: I used Gourmet Gardens Ginger because it's delicious and easy. Use a couple inches.
• Garlic: I used my pre-chopped garlic which is in a giant jar in the 'fridge.
• Tomatoe puree or crushed tomatoes: 1.5 cups-ish of  or about half a 28 oz can - I skipped the diced tomatoes and tomato paste because it wasn't worth open a whole giant can.
• 3 Tablespoons Cornstarch: You could use flour
• Half tablespoon cinnamon
• Half tablespoon cardamon
• 1 teaspoon and some of cumin
• 1 Hungarian tablespoon of sweet paprika
• 1 tablespoon of basil
• Hint of oregano
• .5 jar of 1 oz container of curry or maybe more. A lot. I used like 1 ounce. My favorite is McCormick.
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 family sized back of chicken thighs - maybe 2lbs.I used boneless because I wanted it to fall apart. You could use bone-in.
• Coconut cooking spray
• 1 cup light coconut milk - If you do dairy, you could use cream or yogurt. 
• 1/2 a jar of dried cilantro (and then some)
• Spinach: I chopped up some to put into the crockpot at the end and to eat with it.

What You Do

The night before, you cut up your onion and saute it with the garlic and ginger. Don't be shy. Cook this until the edges of the onion start to brown a little AT MOST. Or just keep it transparent. 

Stir in crushed tomato and simmer everything for about 3 minutes. Add the cornstarch in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk until smooth. Add paprika, curry powder, salt, cinnamon,  cardamon, cumin, oregano, basil - Cook for about a minute. 

TASTE TASTE TASTE - add a little more of whatever! Don't be shy!

Take out your chicken thighs - dark meat is the best! Anyhow, spray those mo-fos with the coconut oil spray and stack them in your crockpot. Add the tomato mixture over the chicken. Maybe adjust some of the meat to make sure that sauce gets all over. 

Now, I did all this the night before and stored the pot in my fridge. Then in the morning, I put it in the base. Live as you would like, folks. You could probably make the sauce like a few days in advance, really. Mmm. 

Cook the awesome at love. . I mean. . low for 7 hours. It will look like this when you come back. It will also smell very, very delicious. Give it a stir!

Then, add the coconut milk, curry power and cilantro and put that pot on high. Give it a healthy stir. It's super nice if the chicken falls apart. It should maybe look like this. I used boneless thighs, might I add - so it fell apart and became all thick and meldy in the. . .*drool*

Make up some white, long-grain rice. I used a dash of chicken bullion in mine and a base of sauted onions. Spoon this joy over the rice, add some spinach. Top with a sprinkle of dried cilantro. 

Don't overeat and convince your husband there is nothing left.

Maddy-Monster: YOU

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Bump It

My fist. Bump it. 'Cause we're all in this together.

Maddy-Monster: Worry

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Writing Update

I found maybe another person who agreed to edit my awesome works. Inspired, groundbreaking. . .yes. .

Seriously - feedback for writers is like water. We need some to keep us going and hydrated but too much and we drown.

And by "we" I. . .mm. . I just wrote that so I sounded deep.

I did make some covers up for my stories because I find if I can keep engaged in the project someway, it is less likely to fail.

Would you read these stories based on the font Birth of a Hero by Segments Design and random clip art?

(Click to enlarged because I was too lazy to actually cut these into reasonable chunks)

Maddy-Monster: Hair

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Maddy Replies to Marriage (Fixed It)

If anything turns my lip it's these posts. How do you manage to stay married? You don't get divorced. Being married doesn't mean you are happy or even living with your spouse. Marriage does not indicate love. Sorry, folks.

I have family members and friends who have been married for a long, long time and see each other a couple times a year for public type functions. Otherwise, they just do their own thing.

Not a model.

Anyhow, for this post - if this couple has been married for 65 years, let's assume they got married in the 1940-1950s, right?

Remember, a woman's career was considered being married - she was not expect to go to college or work, she was only expected to find a husband. Let's check on a little timeline of why marraiges "worked so well."

• 1908 - Oregon limits the workday for women to 10 hours (That means no real income, women couldn't be single and live, they needed a man).
• 1940 - WW2, most men went to combat leaving women alone (No fights, no disputes, no contact)
• 1941 - Wonder Woman is introduced (Just like to mention this)
• 1940 - Marital conflicts were usually handled within the home and kept private (That's right. Private.)
• 1950 - Domesticity was idealized in the media, and women were encouraged to stay at home. Women who chose to work when they didn't need the paycheck were often considered selfish, putting themselves before the needs of their family. (This means, less options, less choice - more happy marriages?)
• 1950 - Sex was viewed as a key component of a marriage. Without an effective female-controlled contraceptive, young wives faced three decades of childbearing before they reached menopause. (Submit to your husband, stay pregant)
• 1974 - Equal Credit Opportunity Act passes in the US. Until then, banks required single, widowed or divorced women to bring a man along to cosign any credit application, regardless of their income. (That's right, women could not get credit or often have access to money without a man)
• 1978: The Pregnancy Discrimination Act is passed in the US. Until the law was put into effect, women could still legally be dismissed from their jobs for becoming pregnant. (Can't get birth control? Married? Pregnant? Get thee home!)
• 1980: Sexual harassment is first defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, although a court had heard the first case in 1977 (Up until this point, women could be openly abused outside the home.)
• 1993 - Marital rape becomes illegal. (That's right. 1993, it became illegal to rape women)

Infidelity, one of those things that tends to end marriage, if it was committed by the male was normal. Marital abuse was a private matter and women were raised that these issues were their fault as it was a woman's job to create a happy marriage and if that didn't happen, it was her fault. 

Experts suggested that wives consider whatever they were doing or not doing to cause their husbands to cheat, drink or abuse them. Women could not leave their marriages, they could not support themselves and "experts" easily told them it was their fault.

Husbands and wives of the 1940s began having children at a younger age on average. Therefore, most spouses learned to relate to each other in the context of parenting together early on. Couples had more children on average as well, as birth control methods were significantly limited. Imagine that burden on people today.

So, is this to say all people who have been married for 60+ years are unhappy or all the marriages of those times were unhappy? No. But, let's not pretend because time has past after a contract has been signed, everything is fantastic and we all need to learn a thing or two. 

Make you own decisions. Walk away when it's right to walk away. Ain't no shame in admitting a mistake, in leaving a bad situation or even trying again. Don't stay in any type of bad relationship because you think the length of time you suffer is a "good" thing. 

Be equal. Be smart. Be kind. Love. 

Maddy-Monster: Change Your Life

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Applebee's Replies!

Applebee's thinks I'm funny. Rather, I appreciate that Applebee's has a social media person with a sense of humor.

I did not have the heart to tell ARN that I don't even know where the nearest Applebee's is.

Ringworm Strikes Again

Curses! I can't help but snuggle those kitten faces even if they are sick.

And. . .why is the back of my arm itching too?

SO ITCHY!!

Happy 2016.

Safe and Sober Ride (Still Costs Money)

IDK who drinks and drives anymore. Not like. . in the way one drink can get you a DUI if you didn't wait exactly 60 minutes. I mean being truly impaired.

That stupid post is going around about the 1-800 number that does work - here are some better resources. And, YES, you do have to pay for someone to drive you around so just go somewhere where you are going to stay overnight or have a DD.

You can check out the Holiday Safe Ride Program

Or check out the Sober Ride site that gives you a list of cabs and the general prices for lugging your drunken self around.

Cheers!

Maddy-Monster: Overwhelmed

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Maddy Replies to Fish Bowl

You are not lost, you are in a fish bowl. You are a female beta with another female beta in horrible living conditions. I'm sorry the jar-master is abusive.

You are not lost.

Merry Christmas

Merry, Merry! Happy, Happy!

Happy Five to Me!

Happy 5 years out of treatment to me!

I battled for my life for over 15 years – with a couple close calls. So, quite a nice time for me – I normally try to get myself a treat and reflect on the journey from active sickness to chronic illness to permanent damage.

As with my sickness, though, it’s a lonely marker. I never looked sick enough and then I was sick for too long for too long for it to be a milestone. I was also sick for almost half my life, making it almost a layer of my personality rather than a real fight.

Long-term illness is a lot like space like REAL space. Where astronauts go and all that. It’s endless and epic beyond what we can often comprehend so we rarely think or notice anything about it.

So, happy 5 years out of treatment to me! It is not an unnoticed time for me even if it passes like a normal day for everyone else.

Faith in Humanity Restored

So, for the last few weeks I have been volunteering with this guy who is there for court ordered community service. You know, you kinda roll your eyes about it when kids come in for some type of mandatory community service. Court, school, religious - they tend to be a little flighty, not really into it. They just trying to get in and get out and get that box checked. They normally do what you tell them, that’s about it.

So, some kid got himself into trouble. He’s this big dude, too. Football player. Kinda quiet. Could be really intimidating. He tells me he has a dog but his girlfriend has a cat. So, I go over the basics. We chat about how many hours he needs to put in.

Every Monday he’s there with me. He does everything to the letter. Shows up on time, gets right in there cleaning out the litter-boxes, cleaning the cages. . .. You want to think, “of course he’s going to do a good job, it’s court ordered. He doesn't want to screw up.”

But, he’s spending a little extra time with the scared cats and laughing at the kittens playing in the cages. A couple little kittens got to scared and he waited and talked to them at the cage door until he could coax them out and cuddled with them.

This Monday he says, “Hey, listen. My CS is up next week. I’m going to keep coming in though, if that's ok.”

So, here’s this silent-type, giant football player guy who got himself into some trouble, has done a SUPER awesome job cleaning cages, soothing scared kittens and talking to people, showing kids how to hold the cats - holding a tiny little kitten who’s falling asleep in his hand – saying he’s going to keep coming to help out.

Faith in humanity restored.

Things I Eat: Baked Spring Rolls

Good! GOOOOOOOD!

Ok, I need to work on this. I think it's important to showcase failure and success.

I decided I would make a seafood spring roll and bake it so it's like a fried type spring roll.

What You Need

• Parsips: White carrots of love
• Scallons: LOVE
• Spinach: NOM
• Garlic: I used my squeeze supple
• Ginger: Cause: POW
• Shrimp/Seafood: I used Trader Joes's Seafood Blend
• Sesame oil: Boom
• Rice paper wraps: You gotta soak 'em for a hot minute
• Spray non-stick stuff: I used coconut oil spray

What You Do
Preheat your oven to 350. Mix up everything but the seafood. Should look like this. It's all good - season as you want!

Saute up your seafood

Soak your wrappers for a hot minute so they are soft. The longer you soak them, the softer and yet stickier they get. Pile up in your foodz and wrap that up.

Spay a cookie sheet with non-stick stuff - like coconut oil spray (that's what I used) and set 'em out. This picture below is the finest one I did. They all were so bad after this - proving once again, practice is dumb.

Then you bake them at 350 for about 20 minutes. At the 10 minute mark, flip them. They. .mm. .were delicious. . but. .sort of a presentation fail. And one busted open.

If only all my failures were this delicious. 

Writing Update

The dream continues! Not really a dream. Actually, no, it is a dream. A fake-next-to-reality series of fictional events that live only in my head.

Yes. The dream.

Producing Content: B+
I’m giving myself a B+ on producing content. Everyone is super-obsessed with word count so I tallied:

Title Word Count

• Calpurnia Mission: 9,299
• The Rebel Lion: 13,308
• Between Life and Dark: 11,778
• The Stark Truth: 12,814
• Of Haves and Wants: 24,845
• Safe Harbor: 13,466
• Rebel Valley: 24,274
• Of the Best Intentions: 13,208
• Eight o'Clock (Pending): 5,690

Total  Words: 128,682

I don’t know why word count is so important. If I can say something in three words or twenty words – is one better? I just never got the word count thing in fiction. I know teachers need to require it because. . .actually, no, I don’t know what the important of word count is ever.

I have been averaging about 2 stories a month. I feel like December will be a no-show month because I’m still figuring out what to do with the story “Eight o’Clock.”

If anything, “The Stark Truth” taught me sometimes a good twist in a story can take a while to formulate and execute properly. I hated and fought that one for like six months. And wanted to scrap it. Oh well.

I’m really just hitting outlining really hard and testing out different situations and outcomes in my head. I am not as happy with my re-working these stories. A couple I just don’t like as much. Actually, I hate them all for different reasons. Even when you do what you love, you will eventually hate stuff. I’m cool with all my feels. I just feel like I do need to work a little hard on a few of them.

I’m sort of proud of the work I put into this stuff – not always the product, but the work, yes.  Bonus points: I turned a nightmare I had into a viable story. That’s why I gave myself a plus.

Producing Support: D-
I got one person to read and give me useable feedback. My circle of friends and family is not supportive in ways that would be most valuable to me.

Against my better feelz I also joined this writing group. I sent my writing, as requested, to a batch of maybe 8 people – it was the first story. I only got back, “I’m so looking forward to reading this!” and “Great! I’ll have it back to you soon!” and we’re in December and I think they are all filthy liars.

I actually sent a copy of it out in July.

I edited work from about four people in the group within the week I got it because I know how valuable feedback is.

The main problem with writing groups is this:

• 70% of the people are head-in-the-clouds feelers who never do anything or want to improve or grow themselves or others. They want to say they are in a “writing group” and talk about their problems and about books they read.
• 10% haven’t written anything in a really long time but they have a great idea for a movie or maybe a short story or a comic or something. Maybe something like Harry Potter but with a fan fiction element maybe for like something good like based off of this other thing but like with funny stuff. Like, maybe a poem. But maybe it could be like a sit-com or just a novel it might have a witch in it or like a mystery but maybe not.
• 7% are poets who believe writing helps them through bad times and is pure and wonderful and just a touching as they broken feelings are. Just like I don’t go to physical therapy places for entertainment, most of this poetry is best kept in desk drawers. 
• 5% of people are students who are still in pain over the first time someone said something negative about their work. They are applying to get into grad school. They are unrefined because they are untested in anything besides the norm.
• 3% think they are awesome but they are just TOO BUSY, OMG LOLZ! But they are full of name-dropping authors whose books they have read and how you wrote something like one of them once did and you should read that to learn how to write like that and how they went to the book signing and once read an article online about writing and it was so good and they want to tell me about it while I die on the inside because all they are doing is vomiting un-inspired BS made frothy for the masses of failure of which I am one and the weight of their inability, ignorance and disorganization brings the whole goddam group down.  
• 3% are self-published and are there to promote that work. They are working with this guy on a new project which is still in the air. But, it’s cool. It’s going to be big. Did you read the first book? It’s on Amazon for $1.99 and here is the link. It has four stars.
• 2% actually want to learn, grow and help others. I don’t know where this 2% is.

I really miss sharing a passion with someone or a group and learning and growing through it – having that positive influence. Mostly around me right now is. . .not that.

I give myself a D- because I’m just utterly defeated with the learning, growing and branching out my stuff to any receptive area for productive feedback.

There was a group that you paid to join with a pretty good track record of support – according to reviews – and I just couldn't do it. The defeat from before I carry with me and trying again and again with the same results just seems endlessly annoying.

I give myself more than a F because I also believe if I could get all 33 stories on paper rather than invest my time in trying to produce something I am obviously incapable of doing. . .maybe I would be more capable later.

Currently
I’m in a patch of writer’s block.

Actually, that a dumb term everyone uses. It’s not a real thing. Like, you can always write or edit or re-work SOMETHING. I just have a story and I am not sure how to twist it just right. I’m still turning it over my brain. I know I will do it and it will be amazing – I just need to keep working at it. And it’s brutal.

Nothing is blocking me. There’s no blockage.

Blockage means that there is something already created beyond. There is nothing beyond because I didn’t create it yet.

Bellabandz!

A long time ago - when I had long hair - I learned how to do this cool wrap thing in the Do Something With My Hair. And now my hair is long enough I can do it again.

One of the main hair problems I have is that my hair is fine. I have a lot of hair, but, it's fine and slippery. Any hair bands I use slip back and I need to use a lot of hair pins to keep it steady. By the end of the day, though, they always slip.

My former coworker and friend started making these hair bands. I watched her post about them on Facebook - she is an AVID runner. Like, she wins stuff. So, she was saying how the bands help keep her hair out of her face when running and being awesome.

I don't run or do anything, really.

Anyhow, she was making more and more designs which were all super-cute so I had to get one and see if it would work.

Holy. Molie!

I currently have my hair up in one, and I have not used a SINGLE PIN. Sure, some in the back I wrapped around it is coming out because it's short. That would require a pin or so to keep it in no matter way. However, the band is comfortable and it's not moving - I keep thinking it should move, but, it doesn't.

Check. It. Out.

I suggest you check out Bellabandz Headbands on Facebook or Bellabandz on Etsy to see everything in stock and if you have any need for hairbands. They are also super cute. She has sooo many designs.

Look at me - sporting one right now!

Awesome!

Maddy-Monster: Awesome

Just a message for you!