I was hanging @ The Great House with Shun and Nathan, and Emily was over and Griffin was over, and Lucy was there, and the fire was going, and it just felt like a nice family. Me and Emily went and (spent too much money) getting lights for the house and a fake tree and some lights for the tree and a few ornaments (we’ll get more from the ones we made as kids). I’m working from Tampa a lot right now, so I don’t see them as much, but it’s very nice when I’m there with them, and ab;e to visit others. At least the guys (and the weather and accommodations for that matter) in Tampa are very nice.

Saturday morning I woke up and went downstairs and found Emily, Shun, Griffin, Eric, Chris, Melissa, Gregory, John, Trey, Bryant, MomP, Jasmine, Becca, Adria, and Steve in The Great House. They were surprising me for my birthday! It was my first ever surprise birthday breakfast! Many people helped cook and/or brought groceries. We had pancakes (I had some dark chocolate chip+banana pancakes, and there were also blueberry, and pecan, There were omelets and homefries, it was delurshurse! It was so nice to see everyone. MomP got me a watch, Jasmine got me Monk Season 3, Shun and Eric got me Harold Crick’s Watch (from Stranger Than Fiction), Emily gave me 3 of her favorite DVDs, cooked me her favorite menu (Chicken Spaghetti, corn and green beans, and fruit salad), and burned me some of her favorite music. *UPDATE: on my birthday/Christmas list, among other things, i ask for “your favorite anything” so it’s not like emily got me a bunch of stuff she’s been wanting, she got me stuff she already had or copies of it.

I found out today that I’ll be in Tampa next week and the next, and then most of the M-R in January-February. Working in FL is like being on vacation, except having to go to work. The nice weather and the palm tress and eating on an expense budget and the whole-living in notTGH thing makes it seem like vacation. The guys down here are really nice and I’m learning a lot, but I miss everyone in NC.

Time: 15 minutes or fewer. Serves 4.

Equipment:

• 3 (preferably small [~8-10"]) Sauce pans
• 3 Cooking/Serving Spoons
• 4 Plates
• 4 Spoons

Ingredients:

• 4/3 Cups of Couscous
• 10 oz (1 box) Frozen Peas with Pearl Onions
• 15 oz (1 can ) Black Beans

Instructions:

1. Cook Couscous according to instructions on package
2. While the couscous is cooking (or while its water is boiling), heat up the black beans in a small saucepan (or pot) heat up the black beans
3. ALSO, while the couscous is cooking, cook the frozen peas and pearl onions according to the instructions on the package.

Serve peas and pearl onions over black beans over couscous.

Goes well with buttered, toasted baguette and/or salad. Reheats well.

So, just to inoculate my audience a little, I would much rather just do this post as audio, but it’s late (early), and I fear my voice would be…yep I’m right, a little scratchy, and I don’t want to put anyone through all the uhs and ums that would undoubtedly be in the recording (it seems that I use the same system as Liss, I kind of list topics [though only mentally] and then just extemporize).

Today my RA staff had a staff development activity. Several of us went to Katelyn’s apartment, I brought Kingsley (my Wii), and my big knife (thanks Barrett), big cutting board, and all kinds of ingredients. I was the cook for the dinner we were going to have. I made tostadas (”I am down for Mike’s tostadas…they are basically the closest thing to an orgasm that comes on a hard shell circle of goodness” - John Greer warning: hideous site). While there are a lot of ingredients, and it always takes me about an hour to make them (when I [think] am cooking/making them for appx. 12 people), they really aren’t very difficult, and they are delicious. The nearest image I could find is not quite good enough, for starters, mine are vegetarian. Anyways, tonight the avocados were not yet ready, and I still had people eat several, so unless I find out tomorrow that they are all broken, these are pretty much the best (I tried to make them for Barrett and Dan while in Naples, but the Pube-licks don’t carry the tostada[shells?]).

The Great Tostadas (Recipe mostly stolen from Sra. Scerbo, la madre de Siroberto y Celia Scerbo)
Ingredients:

• Produce:
  • 8 Roma Tomatoes
  • 8 (not Hass) Avocados
  • 1 large (Vidalia, Red, White, Yellow, it is not Great to discriminate) Onion
  • 1 bunch cilantro (you can’t really have too much cilantro, so as many bunches as you like)
• Dairy:
  • 8 oz Sour Cream (not gonna contribute a lot, you could probably use fat free)
  • 24-32 oz of shredded (mild, sharp, w/e) cheddar cheese
• Other:
  • 2 bags of appx. 24 Corn Tostadas (round these parts, ya haf ter get em from Food Lion [HT, nor Le Target carry em])
  • 3 cans of refried black beans (some ignants thank the refried beans are only brown, which are refried pintos)
  • Valentina (yummy not too hot sauce, I do not agree with Wikipedia that it has a citrus flavor)

Directions:

1. Cut up all produce (I will post about how to do these tasks well later)
2. Mix all produce in a bowl
3. Put black beans in a microwaveable (Pyrex) bowl
4. Wet a paper towel, and spread it over black bean bowl
5. Microwave black beans on high 4-6 minutes
6. Have individuals make their tostadas
   1. put sour cream on shell (if you like it)
   2. put blackbeans on shell (which may now have sour cream)
   3. put cheese on beans (on shell)
   4. put some of the produce mixture on cheese
   5. put Valentina on top (try some on you finger first, don’t waste a whole tostada b/c you don’t like The Great Sauce
7. EAT/ENJOY/ORALGASM
8. Post praise here (post negative feedback with your mom)