Give thanks. This is life.

Hi.

Do you remember this blog thing at all? Don't worry if you don't; I pretty much forgot about it too. I last posted on October 3rd. It is now November 22nd, the day before Thanks-frickin-giving. We're here. It's the holidays, people.

To recap: I was complaining about not following my school year resolutions, and I was gonna bake some stuff, and I was trying to get y'all inspired to make yourselves more awesome, too. The usual.

Pretty sure I didn't actually get around to baking anything for my friends before fall break. Nor have I made any progress on school resolutions or the lame resolutions I threw together after fall break. The deal is, I started rehearsing a show, which pretty much consumed my life in a totally wonderful way until just this past Sunday.

But you know what? I'm happy. I'm excited. This girl is pumped up about life.

We'll get back to that later. I owe you food.

This is the beginnings of what became the famed cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread that began this whole crazy baking journey at the beginning of the summer. I finally got around to making it, and holy lord, am I glad I did. At so many steps in the process I thought I was screwing it up, but I totally wasn't. It came out beautifully. A totally affirmation of where I've come as a baker and a cook since I became serious about it. Below, see the dough after its first rise. When I really thought that it was too sticky and I'd screwed it up.

Oohhhh. It's a little hot and steamy in there, isn't it?

I swear to you, this stuff sounds like it's breathing after you punch it down.

One of the best photos ever taken with my camera.

In the photo below, I have slathered the dough with browned butter and cinnamon and sugar. Gaahhhh.

It looks like a map of Happy Imara Land. 

Now there are the beautiful pillows of goodness layered in a buttered pan, after rising a second time. Or before their second rise. Can't remember which.

It just kept rising and rising and rising.

The finished product. Drool. Now. Lose it.

Whoaaaa.

The inside shot. Golden brown, yeasty, fluffy, cinnamon sugar-y bliss.

My family pretty much just picked at it constantly for about three days. It was incredible. I seriously cannot wait to make it again. Due credit goes to the consistently mind-blowing and inspirational Joy the Baker.

Next up: brown sugar cookies. These were a gift to a couple friends who I didn't get to see over fall break, and they held up incredibly well. As in, I brought them back to school with me and didn't mail them about until about two weeks later. And then they took a few days to get to my friends. Who proclaimed them delicious and intact. Miracles happen, people.

You know what's a great thing? The macro setting (aka the flower button) on your camera.

Crackly, chewy, sweet, fall-flavored goodness.

These were also courtesy of Joy the Baker.

Next came apple crisp. Which was heavenly. Absolutely heavenly.

See the blue-handled thing on the cutting board? That's a tomato corer. Which I used to core a bajillion apples for this apple crisp. (P.S. Just learned today that that's not an apple corer, as I was attempting to core even more apples for apple pie.) And then silver thing on the left? A vegetable peeler. Which I used to peel the apples. And that butcher knife? Yeah. Not so good with the fine motor skills. I almost lost a finger that night- several times.

How I almost lost a finger.

Oats, flour, and butter. Mashing this up with your hands is wonderful. Love.

Close up shot of the apples macerating (say that out loud...sorry, sometimes I have the maturity of a twelve-year-old boy.) in their juices, sugar, and spices.

In a well-buttered baking dish.

Covered with the magical crumble stuff.

Golden brown and bubbly. Boy, did this make the house smell beautiful.

My Facebook friends freaked out over this picture. I promise you, it tastes even better than it looks.

 I attempted to get a shot of the bubbly, juicy, glowy goodness. So much delicious.

Phew. So that was actually all I made on fall break. There just was not enough time to make more stuff. But I feel like I did these things well. And that's what really matters.

I'm still gonna talk food for a little while here. Here's what I ate at my birthday dinner. This is veal osso bucco. I swear to you, it was one of the most memorable things I have ever eaten. And the best thing I put in my mouth in weeks. It pretty much fell off the bone, and then rested on a bed of olive oil mashed potatoes. The only mashed potatoes that I think would compare to my dad's.

I spent about four hours today baking two pies. The first was a pumpkin pie. I took the recipe off the can of pumpkin puree, which was really quite easy. The most difficult things about this pie were the crust- which actually was not even as difficult as I thought it was going to be- and the fact that the filling is totally liquid, so it spilled over the edge when I put it in the oven, and my house smelled like it was burning for about an hour.

Here's the crust in the pan. I used the Betty Crocker recipe. Don't knock those old cookbooks your parents and grandparents might have! Remember that that's where your favorite recipes come from!
From this angle, you can't see the fact that I had to patch large sections of it back together.

Check the decorative trim. I'm legit.

 The finished product. I really thought that the crust was going to burn, the filling wouldn't set or would taste off...I don't know. I was really not feeling good about it. Then I pulled it out of the oven. Yeah. I had nothing to worry about.

However, I did have extra filling left over. I did a quick google search, and I was told to put it in an oven-safe dish, top it with sugar, and bake it up with the pie. The crunchy carmelized stuff on the edges is amazing. I've eaten about half of it already. Bonus: it's a taste test of the pie, without actually digging into the pie itself.

 While the pumpkin pie was baking/cooling, I assembled the crust for the apple pie. I got that recipe here, at Brown Eyed Baker, which I have found to be a great blog, like Joy the Baker and How Sweet It Is (have to plug How Sweet. She cracks me the heck up. And makes some really brilliant stuff.).
Now is the point at which I have to give my dad credit for peeling and slicing all of the apples, after he saw me attempting to core them with a tomato corer. I'm just lucky he caught me before I had started peeling them with a vegetable peeler and risking dismemberment by butcher knife again.

Natural light. It's a beautiful thing.

I'm gonna be conceited here and suggest that we take a moment to suggest the beautifully, rustically arranged crust pictured below. I did that. With my own two hands.

Be. Jealous.

Now for the grand reveal...

It glows. Like it's heavenly.

Get right up in there and smell that crust. It's buttery. It's sugary. It's gleaming because of an egg wash. Get it.

Here are my pies, being best friends and chumming it up before they get in our turkey-stuffed bellies tomorrow night.

The apple pie is definitely the glamourous, guy-getting, high-drama friend. The pumpkin pie is frumpy and has a fragile crust, but everyone loves her anyways.

No, I didn't just talk about my pies as if they were people...

I'm sleep-deprived, okay? I just spent six days a week for five weeks putting my heart and soul into a play and somehow managing to keep passing my classes and have a social life as well. I had to compromise. (This is the truth.)

But that leads me to my next thing. Which is why I am really loving life and should have an incredible Thanksgiving this year.

Everything is coming together. I can feel it. This show was an incredible experience. Never before have I seen a group of people so different come together and put out something as remarkable as what we did. I learned how to be vulnerable, how to commit, and how to be busy every night of the week for weeks without losing my mind. I also re-learned my passion for theater. The bug bit me again. And hard.

So I declared a Theatre major. At this moment, I am currently enduring major ball-busting and harrassment from various family members for this decision. I need to clarify: I added a Theatre major to a Political Science major and a Latin American Studies minor. So as long as I stick with those things (although really, just as long as I don't drop Political Science), I'm golden. Really. My mom asked me about the practical value of the Theatre major, and I threw something together about how it makes you learn about other people and empathy and stuff like that, but then I realized how unconvincing that was, and then I told her, "Because I love it and it makes me happy." Those words literally came out of my mouth.

But truly, that is the practical value of it for me! Why can't being happy be practical? Isn't that kind of the most practical thing of all, besides being able to make money (which I can still totally do, everyone!)?  And seriously, I'd been circling that major pretty much since I'd entered school. Even just a month ago, I thought that I would be content just doing shows as an extracurricular and wouldn't need to study it. Then my director sat me down after rehearsal one night and asked me what classes I was taking next semester. And that's when I realized it was a sign. This theater thing wasn't going to let me go. So I might as well just embrace it and give it a shot.

And I'm happy about it! I am really, genuinely excited for everything that's coming. So what if I have to negotiate a land mine of questions and concerns about this new path? How many people can honestly say they're doing something because they really love it? To put it quite frankly, I don't want to get to 35 and hate what I'm doing with my life. I don't want to have regrets. This all just feels right. All the stuff that I was worried about at the beginning of the year is kind of falling away out of my mind. And I think it's because of this.

So what am I thankful for this year?
1. A healthy, supportive and protective family.

2. Friends old and new.
3. An amazing show under my belt, and the affirmation that I can in fact still do this acting thing.
4. Easily accessible and nutritious food.
5. Rediscovering passions.
6. Taking chances.
7. An awesome new job.
8. Safe places to live.
9. Turning a corner.
10. Getting the chance to reflect and enjoy the ride.

My darlings, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Take a second to be quiet and just look around the room, and smile. We are blessed. We should be thankful.

I am thankful for all of you, and all of the things you have brought to my life.

Much love,
Imara

Goodness gracious, it's October

Wait, really?

It's October?

The eighth month of the year? As in 5 months from today, the very first days of 2012 will already have gone by?

Um, when did this happen?!

P.S. Remember the last post I wrote where I said I was going to be more efficient about things? Progress has been mixed. On the one hand, I wasn't running out the door like a crazy person on Thursday morning for my 11 AM class. On the other hand, I did yoga maybe once, I hit the snooze button every single morning (for a 9 AM alarm. On a weekday. What kind of adult am I going to be??), I didn't take my vitamin as much as I should have, I went off green tea and onto coffee (hello, caffeine, my old friend), snacked too much at night, and didn't work out for two days in a row (I fear falling off the wagon, okay?).

But anyways. What was I going to talk about today? *pulls out shabby outline*

Oh boy. I just turned on my Sara Bareilles Pandora station. That means deep, meaningful girl music. So let's get down to business.

If I have to ask if I'm overanalyzing things, does that mean I already am? Because that question pops into my head about five times a day. Whoa. I think I have my answer to that one...

(NO. Michael Bublé's "Haven't Met You Yet" came on. Anyone else have a love-hate relationship with this song? At first, I loved it. And some days, I still do. I'll be like, "Oh hey! That's fun and upbeat and describes my life!" And then other days, when I'm really not feeling fun and upbeat, I think, "This still describes my life. Awesome." At which point I punch the skip button and crank up something more fitting like "White Blank Page" by Mumford & Sons.)

I have been reassured that I am not the only one who thinks too much. Thank you, friends, for helping me out there. But does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can...stop? I feel like I will just be a much funner, happier, more real person if I do. I can't ever remember being this self-conscious and cerebral. And I can't figure out how I got here or how I'm going to get out.

Also: I was nearly played. By a guy. Although I am slightly, guiltily pleased that he even wanted to hook up with me, I'm a little pissed. Actually, that's a lie. I'm a lot pissed and still a little disappointed. Super-short rundown: I had a crush on this kid. Big-time. He and I are polar opposites. He has serious issues with depression and self-esteem, and by virtue of my personality, I am a helper. Which means all I wanted to do was love him and fix him. Dangerous combination, especially considering we had opposing sets of moral values. Yeaahhhh. It was a good-girl-trying-to-save-the-bad-boy kind of thing. As it turns out, he had feelings for me too, but the timing wasn't right (he had a girlfriend, it took me several months to tell him how I felt, etc.) and we got stuck in what-if limbo.

I should have known better than to start Facebook chatting him again. To keep this short, he started telling me that he's back into some scary stuff and he missed me and he wanted to see me. And I, knowing in the back of my mind that he might want to hook up, but being optimistic that maybe he's changed and we could hang out as friends and I could help him out, I was like, "Yeah! We should!" Then he started asking me "how the guy market is." Then he got all flattering, saying "there's no guys because they all think they're out of your league and they're right." He called me "pretty girl." And that's when the ulterior motive alarm started to go off. I asked him to start talking about something else besides our shared lack of relationships, and he asked me what I do for fun. When I explained to him that I'm still a goody two shoes, he suggested that he be the one to end that pattern for me.

My jaw dropped. Seriously?! At which point I reminded him that I have rules- I don't want to be a hookup buddy. To which he said, "never mind." Never mind! That was all. And after I made it clear that I wasn't into that, he said we shouldn't even hang out.

WOW. That actually happened to me. A friend of mine called it the most insensitive booty call ever. And another called him a dog. I guess I should be thankful for his honesty, that we can now stop playing these games. But he didn't even pretend! He didn't even try to play it off at all. Once he realized that I wasn't letting anything happen, he just gave up. Well, he may have tried to guilt me a bit- he talked about how he just wants to feel numb and he got all excited for us to hang out. But there was no, "Wait, that's totally not what I meant!" It's like he doesn't even want to be friends unless we're gonna get busy.

That's the most disappointing thing for me. I didn't want to hook up, because I knew I would get emotionally attached. And getting into a relationship would be an absolutely terrible idea- it'd be long-distance, his problems are practically insurmountable, nor does he even want help. I just wanted to be able to stay friends with this kid. But my feeling is that he's not interested in any of that.

However, there's a serious plus side to this. And it's why I was able to go to bed last night feeling really good and even a little bit excited. I'm letting go. I am officially letting go. I feel like I can 100% move on. It's a really freeing thing to stand up for yourself, know what you want, and tell somebody, No. I don't want that. You're not getting it from me. I went to bed last night empowered. No heartache. A little fire. Feeling seriously kickass. Now that I'm moving past this guy, I feel more ready than I did before. I can move on to the next thing, with absolutely nothing holding me back. I'm turning the corner. And it feels so good. I told him that what he wanted wouldn't make me happier. I believe that. So we're closing that book now. The next one can start.

(Eh, no thanks, Sara Bareilles. I'm over the guy now. "Shake It Out" by Florence + the Machine?! Yes please.)

On my outline, I have it written down that I was going to ask all these questions about making new friends, fitting in, being able to tell if you're awkward, if you're forcing your way into a group, whatever. But I'm in a good mood. I'm not dwelling on that stuff right now. I think I just need to stop thinking, and let it happen. I certainly wasn't this up in my head when I made all the friends that I have now. Maybe that's what's keeping me back this time. And let's face it, I've got nothing to lose. So why worry about it?

Oohhh, I kinda like putting the photo on the side. This is the
delicious dough.

Food break? I think yes. I made s'mores bars! Super-duper thanks to my RA for the fun trip to Target and the Latin music baking party after. Sadly, I was kinda running around post-baking, and I was unable to get a picture of the bars in their finished form. I will try to describe them best I can, but here is the recipe with photos. Ours came out pretty close to that. Basically, you make a delicious graham cracker cookie dough, smear half of it in a foil-lined baking pan, cover that with marshmallow fluff, top with chocolate chips, and then dollop the rest of the dough on top in clumps. They are so gooey and greasy and delicious. Chewy, and melty, and chocolatey, and sticky, and messy, and all the things I like about food. I can promise you that they were so visually appealing that when my RA would offer one to someone, and people said no, she made them then look at the bars before they made their final decision. And after seeing the bars, they caved. I think that's a better testament to the bars then my shoddy food photography.

I am trying to bake one more thing for my friends before I go home for fall break. I haven't decided what it will be yet, but I'm thinking chocolate and peanut butter. And once I get home for the week- holy crap. My family had better be hungry. Would you like a preview of the deliciousness you'll be seeing on this blog pretty soon? Apple crisp, chicken stew, cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread, pumpkin pie, apple pie, macaroni and cheese (with bacon. That is not a joke.), cinnamon sugar apple cake, maybe a pork, apple, and cider pie (yeah. Three pies.), and a variety of other baked goods to be determined. It'll be a good week. I mean, not for my waist. But for my soul. And for your eyes.

So I'm starting this week on a good note. It'll be a busy one. But I'm looking forward to it. I have two weeks until I head home and reset, two weeks until the halfway point, at which I will reflect and refocus. But today is a brand new day. I've got a new start, one that's been a long time coming. I'm feeling it.

Before you go: look at this. It's hanging up right next to our door, as seen on the right, so that we see it every day as we go in and out and hopefully internalize it, letting it drive us through what we do. I'm also digging this quote right now, for reasons you can probably guess.

Get inspired. Keep moving forward. Be kind. Smile.

It's October!

Love,
Imara

It shouldn't be so easy...

Part I:

We need to talk.

Don't worry. I don't have major life problems or anything. This isn't like that post I threw at you where I used phrases like "cry by yourself in the shower." We're not going that deep here.

How do you get things done in your day? Seriously. I'm only going on Facebook twice a day and I'm STILL having issues getting in bed before 1:30. And getting to my 11 AM class- WHICH IS MY FIRST OF THE DAY- on time! What I am even doing??

Well, what happens in my morning? Get up. Stretch. Some days of the week, I eat a bowl of cereal, drink some orange juice, take my vitamin, and have my green tea. I check my email and Facebook, and then go to a couple other websites like the NYTimes, Busted Halo, and One Lovely Life. I also check the weather.
Let me make out this timeline for you: I get up around 9 AM. I usually don't start dressing until 10 AM, and I try to be out the door at 10:25 AM for my 10:40 class, 10:50 (at the latest) for my 11 AM. Is all of that seriously taking me more than an hour?

The same stuff happens at night, around bedtime. Once I'm done with my homework, which usually isn't too terribly late, I check my email and Facebook, Joy the Baker (if I haven't already succumbed earlier in the day), my sports teams' scores, check out Foodgawker, check the dining hall menu for tomorrow, make my to-do list, and do the daily readings. I may also journal. On top of that, I need to do all that regular bedtime stuff like brush my teeth, floss, wash my face, swish Listerine (which I have been really good about this week), etc.
On nights like tonight, I totally could have been in bed at 12:30, ready to get up and do my Friday morning workout at 8:30. What did I do instead? I baked cookies. Really.

They're brownie chip cookies. I got the recipe here when I was trying to bake something for my roommate's birthday last year. They're made with brownie mix and chocolate chips. Super easy and fast. This is what the dough looks like when they come together.

Had to include this because it would have been a great picture had the angle not been so screwy.

Delicious.

Anyways. And now it's 1:20 AM. And I'm trying to get up at 8:30 tomorrow to work out? What is wrong with me? Why am I blogging right now??

Efficiency. That's the mantra for next week. Get up and do stuff. Cut out or do the less-important stuff last. Oy. Failing so hard at that right now.

But on the bright side, I've been a very good girl this week by taking my vitamin every morning and drinking green tea. I've also been flossing and swishing Listerine at least once a day. I've been snacking a little bit less at night, excepting the fact that I have been craving chocolate like a madwoman. It's been a busy week, so I haven't been able to work out as much as I would like, but that's all right. Sometimes you have a busy week and that needs to be put aside. I think next week will get me back on track.

Part II (because I stopped writing that at about 1:30 AM the other night, thinking that maybe I should go to bed like I was complaining about the whole time.):

It shouldn't be so easy to:

Hit the snooze button.

Put off calling your family.

Buy Starbucks.

Eat French fries instead of real vegetables.

Shop online.

Ignore a text message.

Delete an email.

Reject a donation request.

Let your mind wander during worship and prayer.

Stay up late doing nothing of importance.

Grind on a girl without introducing yourself, or even asking her if it's all right.

Grind with a guy, because your friends are dancing with guys too and you don't want to be left out.

Choose to browse Foodgawker for an hour instead of work out.

Eat cookies and chocolate. 

Not eat salad greens and brown rice and other vegetables.

It should be easier to:

Start up a conversation with people.

Say no.

Say yes.

Get up and go in the morning.

Focus.

Give.

See the signs.

Listen to your gut.

Keep from running into anything and everything...all the time.

Tell the truth.

Know the truth.

Can you maybe see where I'm going here/how this relates to Part I? I've been back at school a month already- officially one month today. And when I look at my goals and resolutions, I think I'm doing all right. Could be better, could be worse. Some things are more spectacular than others. And then there's stuff that still leaves me totally dissatisfied. Those are the "It shouldn't be so easy" things. Those things get in the way of achieving my goals. The "should be easier" list? That's the kind of stuff that needs to happen in order to get where I want to be. And it feels like something's in the way.

Ugh. Life. I need to bake something.

Love,

Imara

Here's a song that was really speaking to me this morning. I thought of it outside of its Christian music context. If you watch the video- don't worry. No one dies.

Switchfoot, "Dare You to Move"

New resolutions!

Hello lovelies!

I am happy to report that I am in better spirits and generally in a better place than I was when I posted last weekend. I've had a few experiences that have made me feel a little more affirmed about where I am right now, and that I'm not alone in whatever it is that I'm going through.

In the midst of all my emotional hubbub last weekend, I was unable to write my post about my school year resolutions! I've got sixteen of them this time around, and I'm really hoping I can stick to them better than I have before. I think they're very concrete, doable goals that can very much help me out in the long run. So here goes!

1. Keep track of my finances: Last year, I pretty much just withdrew from my savings at will and didn't have any idea of how much I had left. Luckily, I'm quite frugal, so I made out just fine, all things considered. This year, though, I find myself wanting to spend more and get more things for myself. In a nice development, I have a new job that will make me more money. BUT, I want to build up my savings. So I created a makeshift checkbook for myself on an Excel spreadsheet that tracks every withdrawal, deposit, and charge on my accounts. I've already started it, and it's definitely making me realize how much I'm spending, even on little things!

2. Make new friends: Don't get me wrong. I LOVE all of the friends that I have now and wouldn't trade them for anything. But in the interest of my own personal development, of giving my current friends a break from my regular craziness, and of just liking to hear different stories, I want to keep branching out. To do so, I'm already involved in new activities and hope to keep adding on more as the year goes on, and maybe form a circle of friends from those groups.

3. Bake more: I have really grown to love baking and cooking over the summer, and I just can't see myself giving it up completely while I'm away at school. As you have probably seen, I already made Oreo brownies, and I'm digging for another easy (and hopefully cheap) recipe to make in the next week or so. I'm feeling cookies. But we'll see! The real gist of this resolution is that I like baking things to show people that I love and appreciate them and that I'd like to brighten their day a little bit. So in the interest of spreading the love, I'll be spreading more brownie batter this school year.

(Speaking of food: there is none in this post. Sorry! Go to foodgawker and get your fix. All those people are better and have more money to spend on food than I do, anyways.)

4. Push myself harder with my exercise: I dropped a dress/pants size over the summer. Do you know empowering that is? I'm not saying that the number is important, because it really isn't. What was important was that it proved to me that I was doing something right. I would like to continue doing that this year at school. It doesn't have to result in more sizes dropped. I just want to feel good and healthy. And I definitely feel like I got myself on that track this summer.

5. Do yoga first thing in the morning: I tend to tense myself up a lot in my sleep. Oftentimes I wake up in the morning and I have a lot of tension in my shoulders and neck. I want to try and get in the routine of doing a little in-bed morning yoga/stretching, and then a couple of sun salutations once I'm up. It will help to wake up my body gently, to loosen up and greet the day a little less grouchy, and also to get myself focused and energized, without the use of large amounts of caffeine. Plus, yoga is just plain good for you. I love doing it; I just sometimes forget it in the interest of doing "harder" strength exercises and cardio.

6. Eat more salads: Greens are packed with tons of vitamins and minerals that you really don't get in other foods, and I just don't think that a multivitamin- while amazing and something I totally swear by since I don't get a large variety of fruits and vegetables- can do the same things for you as actual plants. My dining hall also does made-to-order salads during lunch, and they are usually pretty delicious. So there's not much of an excuse to leave out the greens in my diet.

7. Pray a rosary at least once a week: Yup. I'm Catholic. And I'm a big believer in the calming and strengthening powers of the rosary. Many an insomnia-filled night has been eased by that prayer. But I would like to pray it regularly, when I am not just using it to sleep. This is also kind of a goal to get prayer more into my life generally.

8. Collect change for a donation: Occasionally, my dorm will have collections for a charitable organization. And I always seem to be caught a little bit short. So lately, I've been trying to keep the change down in my wallet (which can really be excessive) and store a portion of it away every few days to save up for the next giving opportunity that comes up. Little things really do make a difference!

9. Make creative things in the dining hall: I am very lucky to have a quality dining hall that serves some good food. But I was spoiled at home with an amazing cook for a father, and I get bored really easily with the same prepared dishes over and over again. The thing is, the dining hall consistently has a lot of basic ingredients on hand to improvise a wide variety of dishes. For example, grilled chicken + pasta sauce + shredded mozzarella cheese = chicken parmesan. I can do a lot of things like that, but I just get lazy. No more! The next time I get a craving for something, I'm going to try and make it myself.

10. Read at least two news stories a day: College (well, mine, anyways) is a bubble. Sometimes it feels like the biggest news is that they're serving apple crisp in the dining hall that day. The New York Times is my home page, and I frequent CNN for brief and breaking news clips, so I'm going try and hit up those sites like I've always intended to do.

11. Maintain a weekly or daily "awesome" list. I was inspired by this site, via this blog, to try this out. I haven't started it yet, but I somehow envision just writing things down on some looseleaf every week and maybe using fun colored markers to jazz it up. It sounds like a great way to make you appreciate the everyday a little bit more, enjoy life, and get more gratitude going. Trust me- you CAN find one good thing in your day, every day. I will prove it to you with my list!

P.S. There's a calendar of Awesome. You can find it on the first link. I want it for Christmas. Hint hint.

P.P.S. The second blog? She's fabulous. I wanna be her in like ten years. Good lord. Maybe I'm just supposed to be a housewife and that's why I can't make a decision regarding a career path.

12. Only go on Facebook twice a day: Enough said. It is sucking our lives away. I break this resolution on the weekends, but I try my darndest to keep it during the week. It just helps my productivity so much. Except when I wander over to Foodgawker or Joy the Baker instead. (Let's face it: Joy's my absolute favorite. Writing style, food, humor, photography, relatability, everything. THAT'S who I want to be.)

13. Do my nails and makeup: Why? Because I like to feel pretty. Also, there's just something about having my nails and makeup done that makes me feel put together and ready to go about my day and get stuff done. Sweatpants, no makeup and bare/chipped nails make me lazier.

14. Work out on Friday mornings: So, I have an awesome class schedule. I have one class MWF. After class, I go to work. On T/Th, I have class for five and a half hours solid. Not so good. BUT, I only have one class MWF! And on Fridays, I start at almost noon. Noon, I tell you. And I'm not a late sleeper. So the plan, starting THIS WEEK (roomies, keep me up to this!), is to get up at my normal time on Friday morning, eat a little breakfast, go work out, shower, then eat lunch, and go to class and then work. Then I have all Friday afternoon after work to just chill out, instead of most afternoons where I'm trying to fit in my workout between class/work and dinner and then evening activities and homework.

15. Keep up with daily readings: This is another Catholic thing. I don't go to Mass every day. I feel like the least I can do is try to stay caught up with what's happening in scripture and get my Gospel in.

16. Journal at least three times a week, no less than once a week: Journaling helps me keep my thoughts in order. It lets me get things off my chest in a really raw way, and allows me to sort them out through having to put them down on paper, as well. I also just want to have a record of all the things that happened to me during these years.

So there you go! Those are my sixteen school year resolutions. I hope that as you start your new school year, this post finds you well and setting some goals for yourself. You can make your life whatever the heck you want it to be. Go ahead and start with small things, i.e., eat a piece of fruit every day. Or spend five minutes sitting quietly by yourself, not doing anything.

Have a happy week, everyone! I think the next time I post, I'll have delicious food to share with you. :)

Love,
Imara

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

Ben Stein

Sigh No More

I acknowledge that the title of this blog post is also the title of an album and a track from that album by Mumford and Sons. Who are my new musical obsession. Lyrically, instrumentally, everything. That music makes me want to go to the Scottish highlands, wear long skirts, white linen shirts, and boots and dance around like crazy.

But anyways. How are you? I hope you're well. I realize that I did not get a chance to post the photo and recipe for the last thing I made before I left home for school again. So here it is:

Whoa, in-your-face bundt cake! It's not just a bundt cake, though. It's really a chocolate root beer cake. More like a chocolate cake that was made with root beer and didn't taste much like root beer at all. Here's  a better picture below that doesn't make you feel like I'm stuffing your face with it.

In this picture, you can see that some of the glaze (consisting of root beer, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla) drizzled nicely over the cake. But, just like with the lemon poppyseed cake I made a while ago, the rest of it pooled around the bottom, making the bottom of the cake insanely sugary and sticky and moist.

It was a really tasty cake. Just not very root beer-like at all. I made it for my baby brother, who loves root beer. Next time I make it, I will try to add more root beer in the final root beer soaking phase, before glazing. Also, I think the next time I try to ice something with a glaze, I need to let the glaze dry a little bit before I add more. Hopefully that will reduce the mess I've had these two times. The recipe for the cake can be found right over here.

So there was your food thing. Hope the couple of pictures made you happy. Because that's all I've got on that front for now. As I have said before, I am going to experiment this semester with things you can make with boxed mixes and premade doughs- basically stuff you can get in a college convenience store. (Although, it turns out, mine does sell flour and baking soda, in addition to eggs and milk. So I could actually make something from scratch. But we'll see.) Upcoming projects include cake batter rice krispie treats (which I cannot get off my mind) and Oreo brownies- which are basically brownies with chopped up Oreos mixed in. I will also have to show you brownie chip cookies- a chocolate chip cookie made with brownie batter. I made them for my roommate's birthday last year, and they went over really well with her and her overworked architecture classmates. So yeah. I'll keep you posted. Stay tuned.

Are you ready for a heart-to-heart, dear readers? Yeah? Good.

(Holy crap, the song just changed over to Mumford's "White Blank Page." Intense. Excellent timing.)

So I'm the resolutions girl, right? I'm the one who sets goals for herself when seasons transition- New Year's, beginning of the school year, post fall-break, et cetera. Wanna know something else about me? I'm also moderately terrified of change. This is actually something I've just realized about myself in some less than pretty ways. 

Let me see if I can qualify that statement. I don't hate change. There are many things I'd like to change about myself and my life, and quickly, too. I think what I actually don't like is leaving my comfort zone.

(Now it's Mumford's "Timshel." The lyric is "You are not alone in this." Beautiful. You all need to listen to this music ASAP. Legally, please.)

Back on topic. I don't like leaving my comfort zone. I like safety. I really really need safety. Remind me to tell you a story about me a high ropes course sometime. That was a big step for me recently- getting up on that high ropes course. And I feel proud of myself for giving it a really good try, even though it didn't end as well as it could have. But that was a physical challenge. What I'm talking about here is different. 

I'm starting a new school year, all right? I have so much more that I want to do this year. I want to meet more people, go to more parties, lead some kind of project, maybe even run a half-marathon. That would be quite different from last year, in which I wasn't a terribly committed runner, I had few extracurriculars, I spent most weekends in, and I was with pretty much the same people from the beginning of the year onward. So I envision myself having a much more active, vibrant life than last year.

But here's the deal: I was extremely lucky in that the group of people around me didn't shift very much at all last year. I had to counsel a couple of other friends who were experiencing just that as their year went on. And I thought to myself how lucky I was that it wasn't happening to me.

Now, I'm nervous. We've all had a summer to reflect and think about where we're all going. And things could very well change. Which is not a bad thing! I am a big believer in the organic relationship: people come together and come apart naturally, tough as it may be sometimes. I'm a student. People change a whole heck of a lot during these years, as well they should. And I think that certain relationships serve certain purposes, and that not all of them last forever, and that's okay.

But that's where I get to worrying, guys. What if things are changing now, and I'm not getting a good sense of it? What if I'm being clingy? How do I seem to other people? Am I trying too hard? Am I too nosy? Am I too motherly and nice? Should I be more giving on my standards? Just how uncool am I? Can I even hang with that person the way we used to- or is it just weird? What about new people? How do I even handle that??

This is almost worse than being a freshman. Because as a freshman, everyone is trying to make friends and very few people already have ties to each other. Now, there are ties, and there are shared stories. We made friends. Now what if that all changes? Can I seriously build new relationships all over again? Is anyone else feeling this way? (Don't answer that. I don't want your pity or reassurance unless you actually mean it.) It doesn't seem like it to me. Am I overanalyzing things and thinking way too much? Is this all in my head? (Yeah. I know the answer to that one already.)

On top of all this, I'm sick of being stuck in a rut. That whole "breaking my pattern of risklessness" thing I talked about very early on this blog? Yeah. Hasn't really happened yet. Not the way I've wanted it to, I guess. I'm losing patience so very quickly. I mean, I've only been back here a week. And yet I feel like so many things are happening to other people and not to me. This is where the self-esteem crash comes in (which always makes me think of this post on the unbelievably funny blog called Hyperbole and a Half. Go read it. Especially if this post bums you out at all. I know it made me feel better last night.), where I start comparing myself to other people and come up with about a billion different reasons as to why their life is better than mine and all the things I've done wrong and the hamburger I shouldn't have eaten that day and the five more crunches I didn't do and blah blah blah. Whine whine whine. You know you've been there too. And it sucks. A lot. Because it feels real! Real enough that you end up having to do things like cry by yourself in the shower and then journal for half an hour about it in order to feel just a little bit better. You know how they say good things come to those who wait? Well, I've waited for a really long time.

So that's what's going on right now. And, since this jealousy and self-pity make me feel very ugly and ungrateful, this is what I'm doing to work through it:

1) Writing. Journaling, which is extremely free-form and raw. Then blogging, which is more polished and allows me to articulate what is going on in a more focused, controlled way. Both things are a big help in sorting stuff out. Journaling is a great cathartic release of emotions, and blogging takes enough time that along the way, you can sort a couple things out a little bit.

2) I run. With some really good music. 

3) I listen to more music. Really good music. Like Mumford & Sons. And Florence + the Machine. And The Rocket Summer.

4) I pray. A lot. For patience. For guidance. For a sign. For something.

5) I think about all the really wonderful things that happen to me every day. Because I do, in fact, have a really fabulous life. I am a lucky, blessed person.

6) I remind myself of this quote from Modern Family, my favorite TV show. For context: Younger sister Alex is giving the valedictory speech at her middle school graduation, and her speech focuses on the fact that she focused on grades rather than popularity and was shunned for it, and simultaneously rubs it in her classmates' faces that she is the valedictorian. Haley, in trying to persuade her to change the speech, says something to the effect of, "We all have our stuff." We all think the grass is greener on the other side. But really, we don't know. So comparing yourself to other people is just silly.

That's all I've got for now. I will leave you with a few quotes I'm meditating on lately.

Love,

Imara

"Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars." 

- Max Ehrmann, "The Desiderata"

"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So love the people that treat you right and forget the ones that don't and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that it'd be easy, they only promised that it would be worth it."

- Anonymous

"And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding the way it should."

- Max Ehrmann, "The Desiderata"

"All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well."

- Julian of Norwich

P.S. I made the Oreo brownies. Here is the link to the original website. And here is a photo:

Delicious and chocolatey.

Food, glorious food!

Well hello there!

How are you? It's been a little while, hasn't it? I went out of town for a week. I fell in love with the Saratoga Raceway. I came back. I read some books. I cooked a bunch of stuff. And repeatedly failed to write about it.

So here goes nothing!

I think the first thing I made since I last blogged, and for which I unfortunately have no pictures, were beer and ketchup pork chops. No, not gross at all. Cheap, easy, and really delicious. Get some pork chops. Mix up brown sugar, beer (we used light beer; I'm sure a stout or ale would really change the flavor), and ketchup. Brown the pork chops a little bit. Pour the sauce over it, bring it to a boil, and simmer for a while until the sauce reduces somewhat. They come out nice and juicy and tasty. Want more exact directions? The recipe is here, at Pip and Ebby. I think the pork chops were served with carrots and probably some kind of starch. My family really likes starch- bread, rice, potatoes, whatever.

On my last blog post before I went away, I mentioned making blueberry muffins from scratch. Well, I totally did. And they were un-frickin'-believable. This recipe I, unfortunately, cannot hyperlink for you. It is a recipe from America's Test Kitchen, which is a really great cooking show on PBS. Yes, PBS! Public television! They teach you how to cook real stuff in the best way. Go to their website and click around for The Best Blueberry Muffins to give this recipe a shot.

Picture time!

In fairness to the Test Kitchen website's access policy, I won't go into too great of detail. But above, I'm cooking blueberries down with a little bit of sugar.

This is the finished product. Keep stirring it constantly while it's in the saucepan, or it could burn. Which would, of course, be bad.

Mix your wet ingredients separately from your dry ingredients! If a recipe tells you to do them apart, DO IT. Not doing so will mess up the chemistry. I'm a chemistry geek. Trust me on this one.

Here's the batter with blueberries added in. I got some really spectacular blueberries from a gourmet market in town, and the berry flavor was really fresh and perfectly sweet and ripe. Let the batter be lumpy! I may have mentioned this when I made banana chocolate chip bread, but quick bread and muffin batters must be lumpy or else they will come out hard as rocks.

Here's a special secret from the recipe (but seriously, read the real recipe): add teaspoonfuls of the jam into the muffins and swirl it around. This maximizes berry flavor and distributes it evenly throughout the muffin. The things you can learn from public television...

The finished product! The muffins are also topped with lemon-zested sugar before baking. I thought I had a ton of extra topping, but it would not have hurt the muffins to have more of the sugar. They were incredible. Like, seriously. Stuff-in-your-face delicious. Sweet, fluffy, and juicy.

That same night, my dad assisted me with what was supposed to be dry rub barbecue shrimp. First, the idea of shrimp really being "barbecue" kinda throws me off, because I think of sweet, spicy, tangy, smoky, saucy stuff when I hear barbecue. And to me, shrimp does not go well with that kind of barbecue chicken or ribs flavor. So, I decided to use Old Bay, which is a classic general seasoning- like Mrs. Dash, but better. We sauteed the shrimp in a lot of olive oil and some butter. Why both? Because they have different smoke points. I forget whose is higher, but one keeps the other from burning. Always a good thing. After we cooked the shrimp (which, if you remember from a previous post, doesn't take long!), my dad took the shrimp out. He then added white wine and maybe some more garlic and seasonings to the leftover oil and made it into a sauce- basically let it reduce and simmer some. Then we put the shrimp back in, tossed to coat, and served.

Green beans and bread. Again, a vegetable and a starch. But see that golden stuff pooling in the side of my plate? That, my friends, was the sauce. And it was unreal. I was eating more bread just so I could sop that sauce up in something after the shrimp were gone. I cannot pinpoint what made it so good, but lordy, it was brilliant. My father could do this for a living.

One night I had to cook for myself, my brothers, and a friend. I had been hankering to try my dad's salmon recipe, so my mom was kind enough to pick up a gorgeous piece of Atlantic salmon from one of the better grocery stores around. I forgot to photograph the fish before I started putting junk on it, but a note: it should be clear and bright and glossy. Smell it. Seriously, smell it! If it smells very strongly of fish, like something that would make you plug your nose, it's going bad. It should smell a little bit fishy, but also fresh and clean. Basically, it shouldn't really smell.

Mix up mayonnaise and seven pepper blend, which is another seafood seasoning. You do NOT need a lot of mayonnaise! It just adds a little more oiliness to the salmon (which is pretty oily to begin with, in a good way) and gives you something to stick the topping to. For about 1.5 lbs of salmon, I only needed a quarter cup of mayo, if that. Then mix up some breadcrumbs (I used panko, because I like the texture better in fish), parmesan cheese (yes, you can use the Kraft powder stuff), chopped parsley, and some pepper to taste. NO SALT! Why no salt, you ask? Doesn't salt go with pepper? Yeah, but it's already in the fish. It was in saltwater before it got to your kitchen. And there's already salt in the mayo. So don't salt it! Sprinkle the topping on. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes, or until the fish is opaque and flakes easily (check the thickest part of the fish). Then turn on your broiler and let the broiler brown the breadcrumbs (just until golden, so keep your oven open to watch) for 5-10 minutes.

Then I made mashed potatoes. Wash, peel, and chop potatoes. Boil them until tender, but not mushy. Add butter and mash up. Add milk and keep mashing. I also like to add cream cheese when we have it. Mash until you reach your desired consistency. Salt and pepper to taste.

Peas. Which I picked and shelled myself! Not really. They came from a bag in my freezer and were then microwaved back to life.

Here's the finished salmon! It was really, really good. I wish we'd had more to enjoy. I definitely stuck my landing on this one.

Before dinner that night, my friend and I decided we wanted to bake something for dessert. We browsed through my bookmarked recipes on my computer, and she decided on a mocha ice box cake. The original recipe is here, at Eat Good 4 Life.

This is just a basic chocolate cake recipe, so if you have one that you like to do from scratch, just use that. The original recipe calls for whole wheat pastry flour, but I just used all-purpose and it turned out just fine. You are also supposed to add 1 cup of strong brewed coffee to give the cake a coffee flavor (that's what mocha is, after all: coffee and chocolate). We had weak coffee, and the cake just tasted like chocolate. I would add coffee or coffee extract if you want a strong coffee flavor.

One more note about the cake: I don't know how it would work if you used a box mix. I suppose it could work, but this cake just had a great texture and flavor.

Here are the ingredients for the cream assembled. There's heavy whipping cream (which is what they mean when they ask for cream or heavy cream in recipes- NOT milk or half and half), unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar, mascarpone cheese, vanilla extract (which can be substituted for chocolate extract), and coffee extract, which I substituted for coffee liqueur.

I threw the whipping cream, sugar, coffee powder, and maybe the vanilla in a bowl and whipped until soft peaks form. Unless you have strong wrists and can whisk firmly and quickly for a long time, use electric beaters. I used the whisk attachments on my beaters.

Then you add the mascarpone cheese and a lot of coffee extract. Whip that up until stiff peaks form (that means the peaks will hold when you remove the beaters).

I don't think I quite whipped it smooth enough- compare my cake to the cake depicted in the original recipe. But it tasted incredible. Just like my chocolate frosting, this stuff was awesome. It had plenty of coffee flavor in it, even without the instant espresso powder the recipe originally called for. If you really love coffee flavors, then get instant espresso powder and add strong coffee to the cake batter. The balance of chocolate and coffee the way I did it was perfect for me.

So I divided the cake batter between two pans, and then split one of the cakes in half so that the cake would have three layers. You're supposed to drop one layer in a springform pan, then smooth cream over it, then add another layer, more cream, another layer, and then top with the remaining cream. We had a lot of cream left over for the top, which meant that we probably skimped on the layers somewhere. So then I removed the springform part of the pan (which the cake didn't fit into, anyways: the cake was not as wide as the pan and got too tall), and tried to smooth the excess cream over the sides as evenly as possible. As you can guess, given my lack of frosting aptitude, that didn't go so well. But whatever. I like messy things. I'm not into perfectly organized and tight presentation and aesthetics. Sloppy is extremely appealing to me.

Here's the finished cake!

Here's a view of the layers.

Then I made waffles the next morning. This was probably the biggest fail of that weekend. I used my dad's recipe, which necessitates whipping egg whites until stiff peaks form, and then folding them into the rest of the batter gently. I think I over mixed the batter when I added the egg whites, though, so the waffles didn't puff up and get evenly golden quite like my dad's do. But they tasted just great!

We're getting into the home stretch here, I promise! Next: pasta with pesto sauce. Pesto is one of my favorite Italian things. I'm a big fan of both garlic and basil, and pesto combines them in large ratios. 

Pesto is really simple to make, too: take a lot of fresh basil- I used around a cup. Throw it in a food processor with three to four cloves of garlic. Add about five tablespoons of olive oil. If you want a little more texture and a little bit of nuttiness, add a few tablespoons of pine nuts or other nuts, like walnuts. I omitted them here because our pine nuts were, incidentally, expired two years and not refrigerated after opening. Also add half a teaspoon of salt.

Grind it up in the food processor until it reaches a sauce-like consistency. It won't be smooth- it will be rather pasty and gloppy. Then you add half a cup of parmesan cheese (you can use the Kraft powdered stuff, but I think real stuff grated off a wedge would probably taste a little bit better) and mix it up. You'll see that the pesto will bulk up. Then you'll think that out with four tablespoons of reserved pasta water, and toss with your cooked pasta. Trust me- it doesn't look like enough sauce to coat a pound of pasta, but it definitely does. That much basil and garlic packs a bite. You don't want the pasta to be thickly covered with this stuff.

For dessert that night, I made a nectarine clafoutis. A clafoutis is a French dessert, made with eggs and cream, that resembles a flan or a custard. It is really simple to make and very attractive. See the original recipe here.

I bought two very large nectarines. Make sure they're ripe but not soft or they will fall apart while cooking. I only needed one of them to yield the approximately two cups of nectarines the recipe called for.

Arrange them in a buttered dish. Preheat the oven to 350, and mix up a batter of milk, eggs, cream, honey, and a little flour. Whisk until smooth. Note: I had a few small pieces of flour floating around in there, but it came out just fine. Just don't let the batter be lumpy. 

Slowly pour the batter over the nectarines, taking care to ensure that the fruit is not totally covered. I managed to rearrange the nectarines so that they kind of floated in the batter.

Ta-da! The finished product. My first French dessert! It puffs up really nicely. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. We whipped up the leftover whipping cream with a little sugar, and it was delicious.

This is probably the most aesthetically pleasing dessert I've made yet. Look at how nicely the nectarines fell together!

This is how it looked on my plate. Again, I like sloppy. The clafoutis may seem a little runny or wet, but that's okay- the nectarines will release juices. But those eggs are cooked after being in the oven for 40 minutes. Just test it with a toothpick- if it comes out clean and the batter is set, then you're okay.

My baking and cooking will be winding down soon, since I go back to school in just one week! But I am going to make an effort to take on a couple baking projects while I am there- various things that can be made with boxed mixes and easy to find ingredients. I will be purchasing my own baking materials before I go, so I'm never caught without something I need in the dorm. You'll probably be seeing a lot of very bake sale-y type things on the blog: cake batter Rice Krispie treats, chocolate chip cookies (from pre-packaged dough) with candy bars added, cookies made from cake mix, et cetera. Nevertheless, I still really want to make baking a part of my lifestyle and keep my hand in it. When I come back home in October, you'll see some fall dishes, probably including lots of apples and cinnamon and maybe my first stew or roast. Many of my favorite dishes are things that are warm, meaty, and slow-cooked, and those are more suitable for the fall and winter. Get excited for the holiday season- when I'm on break in December, you can bet that I will be baking like crazy. Seriously, I already have a list going of things that are more appropriate to the holidays.

I don't think I've talked about fitness in a while. I didn't do any exercising except a brief kayaking trip while I was on vacation. However, we went to the Saratoga Raceway twice, and that involved quite a bit of walking around. I didn't eat quite as crazily as I could have- road trips usually kill me. But I came right back home, detoxed with lots of water, green tea, and "clean foods", and got running again. I did weigh myself while I was on the road, and according to a couple different scales, I'm at least six pounds lighter than I was the last time I weighed myself. So I'm definitely doing something right! I'm excited to get back to school and try a Zumba or cycling class. And eat more vegetables. I eat very little vegetables at home, I realized. I'm kind of excited to eat broccoli every day again.

But for now, I'm just wrapping it up here at home. It's been a good summer. I learned a lot; I made a little money; I made myself some really good food; and I've been with the people I love. Soon I'll be making a new set of resolutions for the school year. And I'll be sure to keep you in the loop!

We'll see if I can get in another blog entry before I leave for school. Until then, I hope you're enjoying your summer and are getting closer to your goals, too.

Love,

Imara