CASA Superhero Run Costume

For the CASA Superhero Run, I decided that I should dress up as something children would recognize.  Also, I didn't want to find out that my Sailor Moon costume doesn't fit anymore.

Since my father was going to be wearing a Batman costume shirt I'd won in a raffle, I decided to make a Batgirl costume rather than reusing one of my Catwoman costumes.  Yes, of course I have multiple Catwoman costumes.  Who doesn't?

One of my issues with the store bought Batgirl costumes is that they either look nothing like anything Batgirl has ever worn or they are one piece monstrosities.  To make your own Batgirl costume, you need the following:

• Large yellow T-shirt (or a T-shirt 1-2 sizes too big)
• Yellow felt
• Yellow yarn
• Black shirt (short or long sleeved depending on the weather)
• Black leggings/yoga pants
• Batman mask (I recommend the cheap one at Party City with built in scowl lines!)
• Gloves

For the logo, I used the incredibly sophisticated and creative technique of googling "Batgirl symbol" and then printing out the largest one.  Pin that to your felt and use it to cut out your chest emblem.

For the cape, cut off the back of the yellow T-shirt.  Cut off the bottom hem, then cut out semi-circles to make the bat wing points.  A smart person would probably make a pattern, but I was able to do it freehand without things going horribly wrong.  To really get the TV/comic book effect, you will probably need to use actual fabric and a pattern rather than cutting up a T-shirt.

The front of the T-shirt will be used to make "boots."  The bottom to the armpit of a large craft store T-shirt is long enough to make knee high fake boots for me.  It's probably easier if they're just under the knee since 1)walking and 2)covering the shoe piece.  There is no way in hell they will completely cover your calves unless you're made of twigs, so just slowly rotate to make sure no one sees the back of you.

If you have boots you are willing to ruin, glue the T-shirt "boots" on top of them.  Otherwise, put on your costume leggings.  Wrap a piece of yarn around your calf just below your knee.  Cut a piece long enough to tie, then measure your ankle the same way.  Glue the longer piece to the T-shirt hem.  Practice swearing ahead of time so you'll be ready when you severely burn yourself.  Glue the shorter piece near (but not at) the bottom of the "boot."

Once you've glued both ties on, flip the "boot" over.  Using your template, cut out the top part of the bat logo.  Glue this on the top center of your boot tops.

Cage Free Pasta Recipe

I have finally caved and ordered an add-on item for my produce box: herb fusili from Bombolini Pasta.  Fortunately another Dominion Harvest customer came up with a recipe for me to remix.  My secret is to take someone else's hard work and add more vegetables I had lying around.

Bootleg Pasta (originally Flippant Flip's Tomato and Zucchini Pasta, linked above)

1 pint sun gold cherry tomatoes from Adlyn Farm
1 zucchini from my last Dominion Harvest box (sorry, Zucchini Farm, I forgot who you are)
1 Marconi pepper from Adlyn Farm
Some broccoli
Mushrooms to taste
Leftover onion
Basil
Garlic salt
Olive oil
Feta cheese from Lover's Retreat Dairy
1/2 lb herb fusili from Bombolini Pasta
1 lb ground beef

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slice tomatoes in half, cut up the zucchini and mushrooms, them mix them in a rectangular glass baking dish with olive oil, garlic salt, and basil.  Trust your heart on how much seasoning to add.  It is most likely impossible to have too much garlic or basil.  Bake for 20 minutes.

While vegetables are in the oven, cut up the pepper.  Brown the ground beef with your pepper and leftover onion.  Since it is impossible to have too much basil and garlic, you might as well add some to the beef.  And some tarragon--everyone knows that the more seasonings you use, the better you are at cooking.

Once beef is cooked and other vegetables are done, combine and mix in your glass pan.

Part of this culinary adventure involves cooking with pasta that is not part of a 10 for $10 promotion at Kroger.  This is fancy pasta for fancy people as it says on the passive aggressive Post-It note I used to keep anyone from messing with my local, cage-free noodles.  Apparently it has to stay in the refrigerator and only takes 1-2 minutes to cook.

 Have chair stolen by cat while slaving away over a hot stove and contemplating making a Facebook status update about how lucky everyone is that you don't have Instagram.

Top noodles with meat and vegetables or combine before serving.  Top with feta.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

My dear friend Brian turned even more despicably old the day before America did, and I discovered a recipe for cupcakes infused with spirits.  As everyone knows, the Irish only stop drinking in order to get into fist fights or to eat potatoes.  Sadly, my own wretched Irish blood causes me to lust for potatoes, but I was able to stop shoveling them in my inferior gullet long enough to make alcoholic dessert products.

My attempt is the combination of two recipes: one with an argument over the offensive name in the comments and the other posted on the Duncan Hines website.  The cupcake base is taken from the Duncan Hines recipe in the fine O'Simone tradition of tradition of culinary laziness.  As is the filling since that has more whiskey and less butter.  Since I know these people from a graduate English department, the more whiskey the better.  At least one of them would probably have preferred it if I'd just poured whiskey into cupcake wrappers and skipped the cake.

This project was also how I learned that Virginia ABC stores keep a binder with measurement conversions.  Yeah, I did ask for a conversion from airplane bottles to tablespoons, but I want you to know I prefaced it with, "Uhh, I don't know if you can answer this, but..."

Somehow both the ganache recipe and the frosting recipe yielded an unholy amount of ganache and frosting. As usual, I ended up with more cupcakes than the box promised (2 dozen large and small since I switched to the small pans while waiting for my large pan to cool).  This still wasn't enough cake to contain or support all the alcohol extras.

To core the little cupcakes, I used a straw to create small circles in the center of a cupcake and scoop them out.  I used another straw to "spoon" filling into the opening.  Large cupcakes can be cored pretty easily with one of those frosting decorating tips and a small spoon.

Honey Ginger Chicken

I have become a supporter of local agriculture.  Every other week I get a box full of assorted produce from assorted Virginia farms.  In theory this is supposed to help me expand my culinary horizons.  Mostly I add vegetables I've never heard of to things I already know how to make.  This usually means tacos or, since I now get a dozen free range eggs, quiche.

Dominion Harvest sends out recipes.  Usually I look through them, decide I can't think of a main dish to make with the side dish, and give a piece of locally grown, organic lettuce to my pleco.  Last week I decided to modify the Honey Ginger Green beans into an entree.

Honey Ginger Chicken

• Soy sauce
• Green beans, trimmed (I assume this means "cut the weird looking ends off.  This is my first experience with green beans that doesn't involve a can.)
• Sliced water chestnuts
• Chicken, cut into cubes/small pieces
• Sliced mushrooms
• Celery, cut up
• 2 tablespoons garlic
• 1 tablespoon ginger (this is from the original recipe.  Having made it once, I will probably scale back on the ginger next time).
• 1/4 cup honey

Boil water.  Add green beans and cook for ~5 minutes.  Drain and rinse with cold water.

Heat 1/2 cup of soy sauce in a skillet large enough to fit all your meat and vegetables.  Stir in garlic and ginger.  If you're lazy like me, the powder will soak up the soy sauce.  Add a bit more or see what it looks like after you add the honey.  Add chicken, water chestnuts, celery, and green beans.  Stir, cover, and go see what's on TV.

Check in on food.  Add mushrooms at some point.  Stir just enough that it looks like you're working hard and people should appreciate your efforts.  If you've got some greens from your produce box, go ahead and add those too.  I mean, they can't give you anything that's actually toxic, right?

Serve over rice or eat as is.

London Calling

I originally started working on a present for London Baby before it was even known what London Baby might be.  This lead to a heated discussion among my family over what counted as gender neutral once London Baby was male.

During this discussion the cat decided to take a nap on the star blanket in progress.  I decided that I might as well take advantage of a known gender to come up with a more striking color scheme.

(This being Simonsen Country, the debate on whether or not purple is a gender neutral color rages to this very day.)

There is nothing quite like going to A.C. Moore with two sad pieces of yarn tied together to check color matching.  Especially when you have to dig through your whole tote bag to find your two sad yarn scraps.

Unlike some of the other star blankets, this one is done entirely in baby yarn.  The largest color strip is Bernat Baby Sport in Popsicle Blue which is conveniently sold in a massive skein that, at the time, seemed like a blessing.  This matches everything!  I probably won't run out of it!  It's on sale!  I can now say with confidence that you only need half a skein of Bernat Baby Sport to make a baby star blanket with 3 other colors.  I'll let you know when I figure out what the hell to do with the other half.

Apparently all star afghans are required to have a variegated stripe (except the cat's, but she only sees half the color spectrum anyway).

We're not going to the prom, fancy peeps!

My office spouse mentioned that his birthday was coming up, and I'd already discovered his nostalgic fondness for Peeps.  I considered actually getting him a card but ultimately settled for putting a "Happy Birthday" speech balloon on a package of Peeps purchased during a buy one, get one free sale.  Which I mentioned so everyone would know that shit's totally platonic and shit.  Rumors are already circulating among the students.

This left me with a dilemma: what to do with an extra package of Peeps?  As fond as I am of the humble Peep, I have lost my lust for cramming them down my gullet.  Fortunately, Buzzfeed posted a list of ways to make Peeps even more likely to give you diabetes.

Since I had no Little Debbie brand Twinkies available, I went with Tuxedo Peeps.

Since only part of the white candy will show, you can just drag the Peeps through it.  For those of you playing at home, I'd recommend having a candy paintbrush to shape the chocolate jackets.  Either it's easier to use chocolate chips or I just suck at putting chocolate formal wear on marshmallow bunnies.

As you can see, some of the bowties came out better than others.  The bunny in the middle got that interesting expression from my touch up brush dripping.  I assume that he's the James Bond of my Tuxedo Peeps.  Or maybe they're all James Bonds, but he's the Sean Connery and the one with the really crappy looking jacket is George Lazenby.

This Peep was dipped too far in the chocolate, so she has been given a little black dress, making her Smurfette among the James Bonds (Peepsy Galore? Moneypeep?)

Pets leave paw prints everywhere else

I've been eyeing the Pet Announcement kit on the Richmond SPCA's clearance shelf for awhile.  I think announcing a pet or having a puppy/kitten shower is a classic dick move, so my cunning plan was to buy the kit and share it with other pet owners so we could all have cute little things to frame.  Because we are all childless and crazy, but not "send out pet announcements like a fucking weirdo" crazy.

The Pawprints Pet Announcement kit assumes that you have a pet that will remain perfectly still while allowing you to squish its foot on some weird magic ink pad thing.  Unfortunately, all cats hate the following things:

1. Art projects
2. Doing what you want them to do

Plan B: set up Pawprints Pet Announcement no-mess ink pad and perforated paw print cards as directed on the floor and wait for the cat to step on it.