Making crayons into colorful lip balm!

Moisturizing lip balm:

• pure cocoa butter sticks (you can find these at Walgreen's and are great to use as a hassle-free base)

• various colors of crayons (use 2 crayons for every stick of cocoa butter)

• little tubes or pots to put them in (I recommend saving old lip gloss pots and tubes for this very purpose)

1. Peel off the labels and break the crayons into pieces in a small, crappy saucepan that you bought at a thrift store for this very purpose (or just one you don't mind ruining).
2. Scoop the cocoa butter stick into the saucepan and heat on low, stirring occasionally, till melted and combined.
3. Let cool for a few minutes and then pour (using a funnel if necessary) into the small tubes, using a spoon to help scoop out the liquid balm.
You can also just combine these in a plastic bag using the recipe below

Straight da bomb gloss:

• 2-4 TB mineral oil (pssst it's just baby oil!)

• 1 crayon

• plastic bag

1. Combine ingredients in a plastic bag
2. Soak in warm water until things get melty
3. Microwave for 20-30 seconds and shake the bag to mix thoroughly
4. Snip off a small corner of the bag and squirt into containers to cool

Vegan ruby-red gloss: use beet juice instead of crayons (which are not vegan), and make sure to use cocoa butter or mineral oil instead of beeswax


Other items that can be used in home-made gloss:

• Petroleum jelly

• Beeswax

• Old loose glitter that you never use anymore to add some shimmer

You can buy tiny plastic tubes and gloss pots at most craft stores, and even some dollar stores! And pillboxes are a great way to store different colors of gloss.

Being better than hippies at festivals: grill marinades; enjoy your hotdogs, suckers!

Going grilling! New marinade recipes to follow. This weekend we are going to a music festival. So, as always, turning my nose up at plain ol' rubber hotdogs and pre-pattied burgers, I am going to create a lot of extra work for myself, as well as waaaayyyy more delicious food than my lazy homies.
We have some award winning beef brats from this rambly old guy at the Farmer's Market. This last time I thought he wasn't going to be as chatty, since I watched him simply bring some meats to the customers in front of us and let them on their way, but apparently Dustin and I are friendly and talkative looking and sure enough, he babbled for several minutes before he let us escape.
Also from the Market we have:
zucchini and summer squash
bell peppers
baby potatoes
corn

I aslo have a pound of chicken breasts in the freezer that I'm planning on making a marinade for and letting it thaw all night Friday so it'll be ready by Saturday for a tasty lunch.
So I'm going to make a marinade for the chicken and another for the veggies.
Veggies: just a simple olive oil/balsamic marinade
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 TB balsamic vinagrette
2-3 cloves garlic
basil, savory, thyme

Chicken, hmm classic peanut marinade, or classic jerk marinade...tough one.
Peanut Marinade:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/8-1/4 canola oil
3-4 TB creamy PB
1 TB miso
2 TB white wine, sake or even beer in a pinch
1/2 lime squeezed
3 clvoes garlic, pressed or minced very fine
3 slices ginger about 1/4 inch thick, minced

Mix and store in a snapple bottle to pour onto chicken once it thaws.

Or a somewhat more complicated Jerk recipe adapted from Epicurious

Cajun Chicken Burgers

Cajun Chicken burgers
Seasonings: 1/2- 1 tsp of each
blk pepper-paprika-garlic pwdr-onion pwdr-wt pepper-sea salt
fresh
1 TB fresh thyme
2 tsp oregano

TB (or so) spicy brown mustard
1/4 c green onions
1/4 c sweet peppers
several cloves garlic
some feta (to stuff inside)

Make burgers several hours ahead so all you need to do at the last minute is mushrooms and then cooking burgers while mushrooms finish up.

Lazy hungover Saturday stir-fry!

1 head of broccoli
1/4 lb green beans *
2 TB canola or peanut oil
2 tsp minced ginger
3 cloves garlic
Opt. 1 TB minced cayenne (or other chile)

Sauce:
2 TB hoisin sauce or teriyaki
1-2 tsp sesame oil (or sesame chili oil if you have it)
2 TB soy sauce
1 TB lemon or lime juice

Rinse and chop the broccoli into bite size pieces and cut the ends off the beans. Whisk together the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Heat wok over medium high heat till a drop of water sizzles and evaporates and then swirl in 1 TB of canola oil. Stir in the green beans and stir vigorously for 2-3 minutes, add broccoli and stir for 1-2 more minutes, adding a tsp of oil of necessary. Clear space in the middle, add the remaining oil and stir the ginger and garlic for 30-60 seconds. Add the sauce, bring to a simmer and cover, reducing heat to medium low. Cook till beans and broccoli are tender, about 8-10 minutes. Squeeze the lemon or lime over before serving. Pair with lemon-grass infused rice for an extra special meal.

Gettin' Botanical on Yo' Ass!

The botanical definitions of fruit and vegetables are often quite at odds with common parlance. For instance, almost all berries we consume are not, in fact, true berries! Many things that we consider "vegetables" are not only the technical fruit of the plant but actually berries!

Things that are berries: Gooseberry, black/red current, grape, tomato, eggplant, guava, kiwi, and pomegranate

Things that are not berries: Cranberry, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, mulberry, bosenberry, cherry

Interestingly, citrus fruits are actually a type of modified berry called hesperidium. They are just berries with a tough, leathery rind.

The point is, things that are berries, modified berries or thought of as berries are all incredibly good for you. Berries (whether true berries or fake berries I do not know) are considered a "superfood," and this is very much true. So eat lots of berries! They are high in antioxidants and packed with vitamins.

Technically the fruit of an edible plant is basically derived from the ripened ovary of the plant which results from the flower. Zucchini, avocado, cucumber, tomato, and peppers are all examples of foods referred to as vegetables which are actually fruits. Of course, if you're not a huge nerd like me, you probably care very little about this and you may resume incorrectly referring to avocados as vegetables and strawberries as berries. I certainly won't stop you.

Awesome surfin' sixties movie

For those who think young.

Get yourself a college girl.

Additions to Bad Movie Night

Spice World

Kazaam

Hobgoblins

Stop! Or my mom will shoot!

Starship Troopers 1 and 2

Caddyshack 2

Battlefield Earth

Ghosts of Mars

The hottie and the nottie (Paris Hilton strikes again!)

Step up 2: The Streets

Transformers (well the new one too but I'm talkin' bout the 80's cartoon movie)

Batman and Robin

Big Trouble in Little China

Escape from LA

Theodore Rex

Silver Bullet

Ginger Deadman

Foreign:

Cattive Ragazze

Adult:

Striptease (Do yourself a favor, read the book first, this way it goes from just plain bad to X ) bad!  

Showgirls

Pootietang

Manos: The hands of fate

Ax 'em

The People Under the Stairs!

Bubba Ho-tep

The Room

Vampire's Kiss

Bad Movie Night

Movies so bad they're good.

Best of all bad movies ever:

Troll 2

Cool as Ice

Page to screen gone horribly awry:

Alone in the Dark

Catwoman

Bad Modern Atrocities:

Gigli

I know who killed me

Bad Reputation

The Bad Girls of Valley High

Goofy 80's/ early 90's movies:

Breakin' 2 Electric Boogaloo

Rad

The Pirate Movie! (a Musical based on Pirates of Penzance) 

B-B-B B movies:

Cheerleader Ninjas

Plan 9 from Outerspace

Species 2 and (far worse) Species 3

Horror (kinda):

Frogs

Nine Lives 

Toybox

Black Christmas

Teeth

Ankle-biters

Toxic Avenger (many Troma movies are quite B-tastic and cult classics Trey Parker and Matt Stone used to be a part of Troma i.e. Cannibal The Musical)

Redneck Zombies (also Troma)

Summer drinks: gettin' crunk in the heat

Super Summer Gin and Tonics

It's a classic for a reason. I've always universally hated gin- that is- till I actually tried a well made gin and tonic recently. It blew my mind with it's deliciousness. And on the plus side, it'll help protect me from malaria! Woo quinine!

Fruity Fourth of July

1 oz (a shot glass full) of blueberries, frozen or popped into the freezer for several hours

3 oz gin

4 oz tonic

2-3 strawberries, sliced

1 strawberry, whole

Sugar

1 lime wedge

Cut a slit in the lime wedge and rub it around the edge of a highball glass. Pour the sugar on a plate and coat the moistened rim. Dump the frozen blueberries on the bottom of the glass, fill the next third of the glass with ice, then the gin, then the tonic and top with the sliced strawberries. Garnish with the whole strawberry.

Cooling Summer Spritzer

1/2 cucumber, sliced into rounds

10 oz gin or vodka
1 liter tonic water

2 sprigs of mint

Layer the cucumber, some ice and the mint in a pitcher. Pour in the gin and then the tonic, mixing gently. Makes roughly 3 largeish drinks. 

Lazy Summer Day Gin Slushie
1 pink lemonade frozen concentrate
1 limeade frozen concentrate
1  bag frozen strawberries
2 cups gin

Blend in blender, maybe with ice, if things get too soupy.