Brimstone Bread

Have I mentioned I love Halloween?

Well, buckle in folks, because I'm talking about it again and bringing you another spooky recipe!

I build costumes as a hobby, how can I not love this time of year? And when I'm not in costume, my fashion sense does have a Gothic edge, and I actually have used pieces that I get at post-Halloween sales just in my daily life (when else can you find striped stockings for $3?). Haloween gives me an excuse to bust out some of the costumes I'm really proud of and may not get to wear very often.

And this year I had an idea. An awful idea. I had a wonderful, awful idea. Wait, wrong holiday. I'll be doing Christmas recipes soon enough, let's focus.

Living in the city, a lot of local venues such as restaurants, bars, and other event spaces have costume contests with some pretty sweet prizes. I went to all this work to build a costume, might as well show it off. I ended up going to a food hall, which is like a food court, but with local and artisan type restaurants instead of big chains. They were having some musicians play that night, and of course a contest, which I entered. Very few people showed up in costume, so I took top prize with no trouble at all. Easiest $300 I ever made in my life, and I got to relax, have some good food, and listen to live music. I do cosplay for the fun of it and definitely am not in it for money, but it was nice to get a little something to offset the costs of my expensive hobby.

Now, on to my cheap hobby. Seriously, when compared to cosplay, the cost of a few high-quality ingredients here and there is nothing. This being Halloween, you would think I would make a bunch of sweet treats because we all know I love my sweets, and what's Halloween without candy? But actually, I decided to find some savory recipes. If you want to do a proper Halloween party or themed dinner, you gotta have all flavor profiles, not just sweet.

Behold my latest creation, Brimstone Bread.

And this recipe isn't just exclusive to Halloween, it would be great for a fantasy or fairy tale themed party, or to accompany a fitting movie. The original recipe came from a blog on recipe for a "Phantom of the Opera" theme. The colors could easily be changed up to make blue and white "glacier balls" or red and green "cracked ornaments." No matter what the occasion, I feel like a dragon eating these little lava bombs. They taste just like a normal bread roll, so top them with whatever you like and serve them to your friends and little monsters. Or be like a true dragon and hoard them for yourself.

This is actually a pretty simple recipe if you've ever made dinner rolls before. If you have a yeast roll recipe that you like, feel free to use it. Just dye it red and you're good to go. The important part is the rice coating. If I may get scientific on everyone for a second, here's how it works. The wheat flour in the yeast rolls has gluten, so it stretches as it bakes (this is why gluten-free stuff can be crumbly and not as fluffy), whereas the rice outer layer does not, so as the inner layer expands, the outer layer can't keep up, so it cracks, revealing the red inside. The black layer does make a bit of a mess when you cut into it, but I think it's worth it for a little spooky fun.

Original recipe:

Brimstone Bread

Sprinkles of Kim:
-I could not for the life of me find plain rice flour. I must have just been looking at the wrong grocery stores. The only thing I could find was fancy organic brown rice flour. It was expensive, but it worked.
-Definitely use gel food coloring. It took a lot to get the dough this red, I can't imagine what it would take with liquid food coloring
-I had a fair amount of the coating leftover, so you may be able to reduce the recipe some and still be okay
-For once in my life, I actually used a timer because I can't use visual cues on a black bread, so pay close attention to the time on this one. But then again, if it does burn a little, no one will be able to see!

I hope you all have a happy Halloween and I hope you're excited for holiday recipes, because I sure am!

Soup Season

Even Texas gets cold.

Okay, not as cold as anywhere else I've lived, but cold enough for me to be uncomfortable and shivering. Especially when the cold is accompanied by enough rain that I practically need scuba gear to get to work. And I hate the train even more because it makes the medical couriers late, and throws off the whole schedule for me at work.

I will say that I'm not much of a fall person. I hate the cold, I'm not a fan of the muted colors, and while I do enjoy the warm spicy flavors, I prefer the bright, fresh flavors of summer. But when fall does roll around, I embrace the parts of it I do enjoy, like the lack of bugs, the holidays, and the food of this blog post, soup.

There is nothing like a nice, hot bowl of soup. The smell, the feeling of the warm bowl in your hands, the rich flavors, it's just very nice after a long day of work. So, because the weather has been so awful, I have been craving some soup, and because I am an adult who can cook, I made some, and I would like to share it.

Honestly, this blog post is pretty lazy because I was pretty lazy in the kitchen. I went to a midnight screening and was out late the night before. Hey, it's almost Halloween, and I celebrate all month long. It ended at 2 am, which last I checked, was the exact right time to find an all-night diner and get pancakes. A friend and I ordered pumpkin spice and vanilla pancakes and swapped half the stacks in what the waitress called a "pancake suicide." (for those of you who didn't have a childhood, a "suicide" is mixing all the sodas at the soda fountain to see what it tastes like) And it was a very good idea. But, the next day, I dragged myself out of bed and didn't want to do anything complicated, so I made this delicious soup while I worked on cosplay. This is not a difficult recipe. Most soups are basically just throw stuff into a pot until it tastes good. It made for a nice lazy weekend and a start to fall.

Here are some of the results of my cosplay work. I am a beautiful mermaid.

And behold, the most boring food picture ever posted on this blog. Who cares what it looks like if it tastes good, right?

Here's my recipe:

Spinach and Lentil Soup

Sprinkles of Kim:
-I couldn't find sumac, so i had to leave it out. And the grocery store was out of mint, so I put in a couple drops of mint extract, which seemed to work
-I added a can of tomatoes because there needed to be another acid ingredient
-A bit of cayenne gives it just a touch of heat
-I tossed in about a teaspoon of basil
-extra garlic because I like a lot of garlic flavor
-the two cups of parsley is a bit much even for me, so I would recommend cutting that back and may be adding some extra spinach

This is a surprisingly hearty soup that goes well with some cheese bread or crackers. I know this isn't the most exciting blog post, but I don't see any rule that states that I have to be exciting all the time. Sounds exhausting. So, here's hoping you all have a nice, relaxing beginning to fall.

When I'm 80

When I'm 80, I'm going to have stories to tell.

This week, I saw an interesting hashtag going around Instagram. It's called #whenim80. It's related to the fact that this last week was Mental Health Awareness Week. The hashtag has several purposes that I'd like to talk about. I have friends and family with mental illness, and while I can't get into their head and know exactly what they're going through, I encourage and help in any way I can. So, I'm going to discuss this hashtag and the encouragement it has given me and anyone who reads it. Whether you have a diagnosed mental illness or not, everyone needs to take care of their mental health. You still wash your hands and eat your veggies when your body's not sick, right? same with your mind.

1. There is a future, and you can be a part of it. If you are going through something and you feel like this is just your life now and you're stuck in a flatline, or you've considered ending your life, this is for you. You CAN think about what life will be like when you're 80 and looking back. The here and now may feel like all there is, especially when each day feels almost insurmountable/You've made it through every bad day, every anxiety attack, every depression phase, and every relapse so far, this one isn't going to take you. You're going to be there #whenim80

2. Life does not have to be perfect. Those beautifully posed pictures you put on Instagram will likely not be your favorite when you're 80. If you are going through a rough time but feel the need to hide it, or to put up a perfect front, it's okay. Talk to a friend, family member, mentor, pastor, or mental health professional. The good times you pretend to have will be tainted by the anxiety of constantly trying to hide panic attacks or bingeing and purging. That need for perfection causes a sense of isolation and "I'll live life when..." Let me tell you, that goalpost will keep moving and you will never achieve the perfection that your illness wants. It's not something you can just snap your fingers and change, it takes a lot of hard work because you are literally rewiring your brain, and that's okay. There will be slip ups along the way. Recovery is not perfect, and that is okay. You can live the life you want to live without the pressure of social media perfection. Find those horribly unflattering pictures of you when you really are living your life, and treasure those. Maybe it's that picture your friend snapped right after making an awful pun and you're cringing. Maybe it's that beach day photo where you're sunburned, covered in sand, and your hair is a mess but you just learned how to water ski and had a blast. Those moments of perfect imperfection are what you're going to treasure #whenim80

3. Life is happening right now. This one does relate to my previous one, but it's a slightly different angle. If you've been afraid to get help, or putting off a difficult part of recovery or management, now is the time to challenge that. No one is ever 100% ready, there will always be a reason not to seek help. How much will your illness have to take before enough is enough? How many days will depression isolate you from the people who care for you? How many events will you miss or not be able to enjoy because you're paralyzed by obsessive thoughts and actions? How much more of your life will you give to an illness that only gives you temporary comfort and demands more and more? It's scary, it's difficult, but life is happening right now. It's time to live it. Looking back, you won't think "I'm so glad I checked to make sure my house was locked exactly 17 times." "I'm so glad I starved for a week leading up to that vacation so I could be at my lowest weight ever" "I'm so glad I spent my mother's birthday lying in bed too numb from to even cry or answer the frantic phone calls." No one ever wishes they'd waited till they were sicker or "more ready" to take the next step. Life is something that you can live, and you'll be glad you did #whenim80

Yeah, you may not live to 80, but the idea is still the same. Take the risk, do something difficult, and make those memories that you can look back on.

I'm usually a pretty photogenic person, but this picture is...less so. Look at me. My hair is truly awful, I'm all sweaty and gross, and I'm out in the middle of the woods with a giant pair of clippers. But I remember exactly what we were doing. I and my summer research buddies we're building a hero fence to trap salamanders. We spent all morning building that thing by ourselves because we don't need no man! We we're so proud of it. I didn't care that I looked terrible, I was right there, in that moment, and darn it, all I wanted was to go jump in the lake! That is life, the life that mental illness wants to strip away. Don't you dare let it! #whenim80, this picture will still make me smile.

And you know what, when I'm 80, I will still love pancakes.I will always have the memories surrounding them, and they are just as good as the pictures at reminding me of the good times. So yeah, another pancake recipe. And look how pretty they are! Berries, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I had a killer chocolate craving, and on this blog, we enjoy the things we crave. There is a time and a place for moderation, but there is also one for indulgence. Also, life may not be perfect, but this stack of pancakes is pretty darn close.. It's so beautiful, and I enjoyed every moment of destroying it. Pancakes will still bring up good memories that I will look back on #whenim80

Here's my recipe. I didn't really make too many alterations to it because, honestly, this one was pretty darn good to start with:

Cinnamon Applesauce Oatmal Pancakes

Sprinkles of Kim:
-A few dashes of pumpkin pie spice and extra cinnamon because it is fall and I can
-I used a whole egg
-I used maple syrup as my sweetener
-I didn't make the maple peanut butter sauce, delicious as it sounds, because of the aforementioned chocolate craving and a desire to use the fresh berries I had

So, take time to live you life now, and encourage those around you who may be struggling. Even something as small as a green ribbon prominently placed on your bag, car, or lapel can show people that someone else wants to see them get better. One of the biggest obstacles to seeking help is the shame and stigma surrounding mental illness. The charity Stop the Stigma seeks to end this through not only helping provide affordable counseling to those with mental illness, but education to friends and family in how they can help and support those they care about. That is a cause I will advocate to my dying day, and this is one of my favorite charities, they do such good work. Here's a link to donate if you so desire.
Stop the Stigma

Tasty Toxic Waste

 As Britney Spears would say "I'm addicted to you, don't you know that you're toxic"

I am, of course, talking about cheese. (That's what the song is about, right?) Cheese itself is not toxic unless you have a severe allergy, but it is definitely a food that I have over-indulged in on more than one occasion. And that's okay, it's just food, I have more important things to worry about.

Like Halloween.

I love Halloween. My biggest hobby is building costumes, of course I love pulling out all the stops for the biggest costume-based event of the year. I love seeing all of the crazy and creative ideas people pull together to be scary, pretty, funny, and all-around awesome. I love decorations and parties and events and, of course, fun food. Halloween also kicks off the "holiday season" with Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years in rapid succession behind it. The entire month of October is Halloween for me, so with today being the 8th of Halloween, I am posting a fun recipe for this spooky season.

So, fist off, I am aware that this recipe is incredibly gross-looking and childish. Yes, I made this recipe for me with no intention of sharing it. I am an overgrown child. And for anyone who doesn't know, I work in a medical laboratory, I see things every day that a lot of people can't stomach. I majored in Biology in college, my visceral disgust reaction is basically gone. So, when I see a recipe that is designed to get and "ick" reaction from a bunch of 9-year-olds, I'm all over it because, well, it's just fun.

Thus this Toxic Waste Mac and Cheese. Because I love to make my food fancy, I surrounded it with decorative scientific-looking bottles. Toxic waste is supposed to give you superpowers, right? Comic books wouldn't lie to me!

Don't let the appearance fool you, the only thing toxic about this dish is how much you want to eat all of it. When I saw this recipe online I couldn't resist. Not only does it look absolutely vile, the ingredients sounded right up my alley and pretty easy to make. When there is cheese, I say yes please! And look at that, we even get a decent amount of vegetables in there. I threw this together in about 30 minutes, so this is a very doable recipe for those who have, you know, actual children who want to eat gross-looking green goop. And even outside of how it looks, this recipe tastes really good. It sure beats boxed mac and cheese. I would describe the taste as a cross between spinach artichoke dip and broccoli cheddar soup. Creamy, gooey, cheesy, what's not to love? So, here's my original recipe:

Toxic Waste Mac and Cheese

Sprinkles of Kim:
-I used gnocchi instead of traditional noodles. Gnocchi are little potato-based dumplings you can generally find along with pasta in the grocery store. They have a lot of starch and cook up really sticky, so I thought they would make this recipe look even more like toxic goo. You can use any pasta depending on what look you want.
-frozen cauliflower works just fine for this, it would also work with broccoli or peas or zucchini, whatever vegetable floats your boat. Or just leave it out all together if you're not a fan.
-I wanted this to be a more substantial meal, so instead of melting butter at the beginning, I browned a pound of ground turkey and used the juices as the base for my sauce, then added the meat when I mixed everything in at the end. I thought the meat added a lot of flavor. I would definitely recommend doing this with the turkey, or pork or beef, whatever you have.
-I used a generic green gel food coloring. definitely use gel rather than liquid, it's stronger and really gets that fluorescent green color.
-I added a bunch of stuff to make the flavor to my taste. Taste your sauce and add what you think it needs, here's what I did:
     -more black pepper
     -paprika and an extra dash of cayenne
     -lots of garlic powder (gotta keep vampires away)
     -a big sprinkle of Parmesan cheese

I will probably have more Halloween-themed recipes this month because there's a thousand different ones that I can't wait to try. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see if I gained super powers.

Birthday Adventures

Now, I don't wanna brag or nothing, but I have so many friends that I had to have two birthday parties. Seriously. Allow me to explain.

This past Saturday, September 29th, I turned 24 years old. Yeah, I know, I'm old. But I had to celebrate with as many of my friends as possible, so I ended up having two parties when all was said and done.

So, the festivities started Friday evening with a gathering featuring my college friends that live in the Dallas area. We went to a really cool restaurant that does pizza served Brazilian-steakhouse style. What does that mean? First of all, if you've never been to a Brazilian steakhouse, put it on your bucket list. It's expensive, but so worth it. The general format is that there are waiters wandering around with various cuts of meat, offering it to each person at the table, and if you say yes, they cut you off a bit of the meat. You can have as much as you want, and if you would like a particular one again, you can ask for it as many times as you like, all you can eat. It's a really fun dining experience, great for special occasions. This place used that serving concept for their pizza. 20 different gourmet topping combinations, 15 savory and 5 sweet, served up in small slices so you can try all of them if you so desire. I tried all of them. I was really, really stuffed, but it was my birthday, I wanted to be a pig. My personal favorites were a lamb one that was perfectly spiced, and the dessert blackberry mascarpone. If you live in the DFW area, I highly recommend this place for special occasions and gatherings, it's great. It's called Delucca Gaucho Pizza and Wine, price is $20/person for all the pizza your little heart desires. Our little group of seven gathered and ate and talked and generally had a great time. It was good to catch up with my Hillsdale friends. Some of them work in politics, so this is a busy season for them, but we do try to keep up. At the end of the dinner, we got a special treat since it was my birthday. It's a Nutella pizza with ice cream, and it was delicious.

The next day was party number two, with my anime convention buds. We knew we wanted to get together and watch some "so bad it's good" old anime and movies, but the trouble came in getting a location. We all live scattered over the metroplex, and some of us have small apartments, so finding a place that can accommodate all of us without forcing people to drive two hours. We found a solution: get a hotel room somewhere in the middle and split the cost. We did, and it was great. We played games, ate, and laughed at some pretty awful old anime. And because no one had to drive home, we could stay until everyone fell asleep and just go home in the morning.

So, this is a recipe blog, so you might be wondering if this week will be devoid of a recipe because I was so busy. HA! Not so. I like to bake and share too much for that. Last week, when I made a pile of pumpkin pancakes and posted them to Instagram, a cousin of mine gave me a challenge. She recently gave birth to twins, and due to some intolerances they have, cannot eat gluten or dairy for the time being. That poses a problem because most dessert foods contain one or the other of these things, and if anyone deserves a "treat yo self" dessert, it's her. So, I decided to make a gluten-free, dairy-free treat for my recipe this week. Just because I'm the one with a birthday doesn't mean I can't make a recipe for someone else. I like to make other people happy, let me. Thus, these pumpkin muffins.

They are dense, spicy, and sweet. And they make the kitchen smell like fall. You definitely wouldn't know there's no dairy or gluten. Oat flour and almond milk are your best friends when working around gluten and dairy allergies. Oat flour can be made cheaply and easily by grinding up oats in a food processor. This recipe uses both whole oats and oat flour to give it a nice texture. I recommend warming them up and eating them with some almond or peanut butter. The concept is good, but you know I had to spice things up. Literally. So, here's my starting recipe:

Allergy-Friendly Pumpkin Muffins

Sprinkles of Kim:
-Used regular eggs instead of flax eggs, so my version is not vegan.
-Brown sugar instead of coconut sugar because coconut sugar is expensive.
-For my dairy-free milk, I used unflavored, unsweetened almond milk.
-About 1/2 t extra cinnamon because cinnamon makes things better.
-about 1/2 t maple flavoring to amp up that maple flavor., and a couple extra tablespoons of syrup. These are supposed to be sweet, after all.
-A few dashes of each of the following: allspice, cloves, cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg. You could probably throw in a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and get a similar effect.

Needless to say, I immensely enjoyed my birthday weekend. I hope my readers also had a good weekend. Remember to treat yourself occasionally, it's good for the soul!