This is compilation of my deeepest thoughts, my shallowest thoughts, my life, and my enlightenment.

She Cooks: Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza

I love my days off and I love cooking, so naturally I spend my days off trying out new recipes and testing out my culinary skills.
This is how it turned out...yum!
Since I've been wanting to attempt my dough making skills for the longest (this weekend, or next week, I wanna make pretzels), I decided to avoid a take-out favorite and make a pizza at home.

Bacon cheeseburgers happen to be a favorite of mine, so I decided to top my pizza with just that.

I got the crust recipe off of SparkRecipes.com here.
The topping was my own creation.

Bacon Cheeseburger Topping Recipe:
1/2 lb ground beef
3-4 oz American cheese
3 oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1 medium onion
2 slices bacon
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
onion powder
garlic powder
italian seasoning
salt or salt substitute
cracked black pepper
parmesan cheese, grated for sprinkling on crust

I started by chopping a medium onion and 2 cloves of garlic into a small dice. Then I took 2 slices of bacon and cut them into small strips. I cooked the bacon until it was crispy and reserved it for topping the pizza later.

Then I cooked the onion in the bacon grease on medium low heat until it was translucent and carmelized. I seasoned it with salt substitue (I'm on a low sodium diet) and cracked black pepper (to taste). When the onion was almost done cooking, I added the garlic and half of my onion I just cooked to another pan with 2 tbsp of olive oil and sauteed the onion and garlic together in the pan.

To the onion and garlic mixture I added tomato sauce and stirred until it started to thicken. To the sauce I added onion powder, garlic powder, italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and ketchup. Once it simmered for a while and heated through, I set it aside.

The remaining onion was cooked with ground beef until all the meat was browned.  I seasoned the beef with salt and pepper, and a little italian seasoning. Once it was cooked through it was also set aside.

Once my crust was rolled out into a layer about a 1/4" thick,I rolled the edges to form the crust. I then layered my pizza with sauce, cheese, and meat, and sprinkled with the crumbled bacon from earlier and cooked at 400 degrees on a greased baking sheet for about 20 minutes, or until the bottom of the pizza and the crust are lightly browned.

It came out really good. The only thing was that I overworked the dough so it was just a bit tough, and the topping could of been a little sweeter (which can be remedied with a little more carmelized onion and a little more ketchup in the sauce, but try it like this and adjust it as necessary). Overall, it was satisfying and delicious, and I can't wait to make this again with another topping!

So in short, be careful not to overwork the dough (and be patient and let it rise!) and don't be trying to get rich off my recipe (lol).

If you try out the recipe, let me know how it turns out!

A Thousand Words: The Suns on Schuylkill


Taken during a lonely walk on the Schuykill River. It appears the sun attempted to keep me company. It did a lovely job.

30th Street Station









One of The Things I Do: I Draw

Not too long ago, I took the time to talk out what I'm good at.  Not to prove it to anyone, but to help myself understand why I'm not willing to pin myself down to any one thing.

I want to do everything.

To experience life all the ways I've ever enjoyed experiencing it.
To "Eat, Pray, Love", photograph, cook, dance, sing, draw, create, and travel.

To have my "perfect" life.

Each day this blog evolves, I express myself in new ways.

I cook, crochet, write poetry, and talk about my hair- all things that are important to me at this moment.

But there is a lot more to me than even that.
What I haven't shown yet is my sketching skills.

I love to draw.
Its something I'm very passionate about that I often forget.

Sadly, my former interests in photography were diverted when I went to college for pre-med and discovered "The Real World" as I never knew it.

Too bad I didn't realize earlier that I never wanted to be a doctor.

Well since that doesn't matter anymore, I've found myself lost but a lot happier.  Since photography and drawing both capture images, I decided to show you what I've done.

My talents have often proven to be secrets to many people, but now as I'm becoming more comfortable in my skin, I'm learning to express myself in ways I haven't felt comfortable before.

I stopped thinking that it mattered that I wanted to impress someone, when what mattered was that I wanted to express myself.

I wouldn't go as far to say I am an artist or photographer, but I love capturing shapes, and life and moments.  It makes me happy. To see life expressed exactly how I feel it is at that moment, something is powerful about that.

The whole me, the real me, the one that lives this life right now.

A good friend once said that the problem with working to make ends meet is that you lose yourself in that.

You lose what was important to you because your busy working for what's important to "everyone else".
Cars, money, jobs, fame, fortune-it doesn't mean sh*t without a purpose.
Not the ideal purpose. But your real purpose. The one that makes you smile, makes you happy, makes you smile in knowing that you did what you've always wanted to do.

Here's a part of me that I'll share with you: I love cherry blossoms. I always have, but I loved them more when my grandmother passed. Her favorite tree was the cherry blossom tree that stood proudly in front our home on Conestoga Rd.

My inspiration:

Original

Sketch: In pencil, by ACNimmons
 
Inverted: To show the lines more explicitly

Life In General...

There are a lot of things I want by the time I'm 25: a career path, a family, and maybe a few other things I can't think of right now. But, the most important thing I want is a purpose. I mean I'm sure I have one, but I haven't a clue what it is. I'm good at a ton of things but can't find how to make use of them yet.

I am an entrepeneur. I'm an artist. I sell crochet with my best friend; a hobby I greatly enjoy. The only thing is, that those titles never seem to fit because I don't feel like I matter enough. We're making big moves, but not big enough yet. Soon we will be consigning items to a friend of mine's boutique (I'll write a separate blog for that...for info on our crafts see: Made With Love.

I'm a teacher. I've been tutoring for 2 years, and just started privately tutoring my friend's daughter. She has 6 kids (I'm mildly envious...although not of all of it, because that's rough). Its almost like its not another job because of how much I enjoy being around her family. I'd love to call myself a teacher too but I can't teach everyone, because I don't have a license. I'd love to teach in a school. That would be awesome. I attempted to find a position in a teaching program and haven't had any luck yet...the search continues.

I'm a cook. Not a chef, a cook. I'm not classically trained unless you consider absorbing the heart and soul of your grandmother's cooking, training. She taught me many things, but the best thing she taught me when it comes to food is how to cook her potato salad, and how to spice her fried chicken. I miss that woman. Fried chicken with rice and gravy in a half hour, and some of the juiciest, delicious, well-spiced chicken you ever had. She actually owned a restaurant. I want to do that. I aspire to do that. I've been cooking for 12 years, and I know I could do it; to save money to start my own business. It will happen. The plans are in the workings.

I'm a poet. I use that word loosely, but thoughtfully, because any writer can master their own form of creative expression. I love to write how I feel, and what I think. (Hence this blog). I've been published and I've been featured in newspapers (as a child). But this is one title I think I've earned through 13 years of writing poems, from the first poem I've ever written, that my father thought was so good, he didn't believe I wrote it. In honor of my grandmother (who was amazing, as you can tell), I plan on compiling our poetry into a book. I've slowly started working on it, I just need to get all the stuff my grandmother has written. Its in my blood because she's a published author (Two Cribs in the Corner" by Helen Hicks- that's her!).

I'm creative. I write, sew (a little), crochet, cook, draw (I sketch), and probably a couple other things. I love to express myself creatively. I'm well-organized, and can effectively execute projects, and create tables, charts, and graphs to express what I think. I'm an executioner, I murder tasks (don't steal it, that's my catch phrase). I know what I'm doing when its time to put things in order.

Too bad its so hard to figure out what I want to do the rest of my life.

The real problem is I want to do everything...

A Curly Girl's: Thoughts on Some Recent Events

One:
I'm love, love, loving Willow Smith. Her voice is robust and edgy and I'm diggin that she's already developed a personal sense of style. Kudos Will & Jada, kudos.

"Whippin My Hair" is a fun, fun song, with plenty of fierce naturals and heads full of bountiful braids, curls, and coils, doing their thing.




Someone compared her to Rih Rih. Sorry, but she may be better, especially with Willow still being so young; all she's gonna do is get better. (No worries, Rih Rih, you're still fly as ever!)

Two:
I saw the infamous "Ghetto Fabulous Wig" @ Kohl's. You can read Afrobella's & Luvvie's spiel as well, but in short, here's what I have to say.
I really am just appalled since my hair is so similar to that "ghetto" wig. So many Black women have to constantly deal with the ignorance and dismay that arises when you discuss natural hair, and this is no different. And the fact that they had nerve to put a Caucasian woman in it like having black hair is some sort of "ghetto" costume? I'm done. I could go on for days..

But most importantly let me just say, that the place where they really effed this up is the name. How many exec's sat around to think of this BS? Like if this is supposed to be a part of a 70's costume (which the gold lycra is trying to tell me), then why not call it a 70's wig (which still isn't specific enough), or just what is it, a curly damn 'fro. What is wrong with...ok really, I'm done.

That's it for now. I'm in a mo-blogging mood so if I can get my fingers tapping on my phone, I'll def have something to say!

Why Does My Sadness Always Seem Like Déjà Vu?

Life is circular.
Parallel, and a whole bunch of other things.

But what really perplexes me is that I feel like I'm always dealing with the same issues.

I don't know if its that I'm not learning from my mistakes, or if its I'm not learning enough about myself, but something is wrong.

I really believe its the latter because I'm pretty good at not repeating the same mistake twice (although nobody's perfect, so it could be a mixture).

Either way I'm on a journey to a better me, and I have been on this journey for the past year, but sadly sometimes that leaves you depressed and alone.

I'm hoping that's not the case.

She Cooks: Cucumber & Tomato Salad with Sweet Potatoes and Baked Honey Mustard Chicken


My days in are lovely.
If my kitchen is stocked, it is accompanied by many homemade meals and creative thinking.
I started the day with a leftover biscuit, toasted with jelly and a one egg-egg white broccoli omelette with cheese.
For lunch, I took queues from the produce man and made a delicious salad filled with chicken, black beans, cucmbers, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, a little shredded cheese and honey mustard dressing. Delicious, just like a Honey Mustard wrap without that tortilla getting in the way.
For snack, I tried something new. Baked apple with butter, cinnamon, oats, vanilla, and a little Equal. Sliced up the apple, mixed it with the spices in a bowl, nuked it for 3.5 minutes and enjoyed! The oats make everything nice and thickened so there's a little sauce. Mmmm. Then I got nibbly and had another biscuit and a tbsp of peanut butter.
(Sorry no pics of the earlier stuff...)
Well its come time for dinner, and since I was still inspired by my produce market purchases, I decided to use some more fresh produce for dinner (and in case you were wondering, I bought everything above and more for $8, meaning I had enough for 3 salads, dinner, and snacks..love my local produce man!).
I decided to toss cucumbers and tomatoes in a simple balsamic vinager with a little salt and pepper.
Next I decided to have honey mustard with chicken again (so good!), this time on chicken wings.
I freestyle my spices usually but here's what I used:

I love sweet and spicy things so hence the chili powder. I threw some paprika on the tops because that helps everyone in the party brown.
I hate cleaning up sticky mess from oven-baking, so all oven cooking is accompanied by aluminum foil, lol.
Then I decided to take the sweet potatoes I've been craving and roast them tossed with the spices below.
Everything on a pan lined with aluminum and in the oven @ 400 degrees. Here's what it looked like once I was done:
My cucumber salad sat marinating in the oven as I waited for my chicken and potatoes to be done.
Here's what it looked like as I took it out the oven:

I will blog next about how it turned out (yes, a lot of my cooking is experimental!).

Update (10/28/10): The meal was lovely (sorry I'm so late responding lol). The chicken was sweet and crispy, and the potatoes were yummy and delicately sweetened. The cucumber salad was crisp and well seasoned. I definitely plan on making this again!

Fuschia Lipstick

Spells power, confidence, & sex appeal.

That's why its always in my arsenal. ;)

(Along with mascara and blush...but that's a story too long to tell for now...)

A Poet's In The Corner: I haven't written poetry in awhile but let's call this...Stealthy

Standing in the corner,
Looking out on a sea of regret.

A sea I always met in shame.

Gotta protect,
The name

The game
Burned me
Burdened me

Suddenly
Unexpectedly grounded by
The lies I told
To keep you safe

Keep me sane
Hide your shame
Protect you from disdain
And remain, unembarrassed by

My constant resentment of your actions.

What a stupid, lousy, no-good
The list goes on forever

I can't protect you forever
I gotta have my own back

I'm open.
Openly accepting your disrespect in my orifices,

Don't speak it or explain it
But conceal it in my crevices,

They overlap and hide thee

You got off easy and it burns me.

I try to speak of it,
Gently
Than louder than before

Then I scream and wail and shout my dismay,
Empty out all the tears I held for your circumstances

Hold onto my stance on the circumstances,
Romance myself into something else

Pac-ify my life into life.

Hope I can work through the strife
Grief
Disbelief

They stare at me mouth open and pointing
"You liar, you're lying,

She'd never do this...do that...
Never capable of... "

I could show you over and over again.

Not her you keep saying.

Don't got the frequency for what I'm relaying?

F**k it, back to the drawing board, I'm bored with it.

Keep being reckless and hiding it.

I'm over it, because its all over me...

And talking to you never helped me breath...

Why My Friends Are So Awesome...




(Some of my girls...I could post so many more but I didn't wanna get crazy!)

Unfortunately things happen and you don't always know how to fix them.

I really am a control freak, and for me, this is extremely hard to manage.

Its nice know someone else has got your back.
Warm dinners, hot showers, and all that.
Thank God for my friends!
(I was gonna be tacky and address all my friends by name...but I just can't bring myself to do that...you know who you are and if I told you I loved you, I meant it...so don't take it for granted!)

A Curly Girl's: Thoughts on the Brazilian Blowout

So I was eating my corn muffin (mmm) and watching "Good Morning America", when an interesting news report came on.

They cast a spotlight on products that were said to help straigthen hair or smooth hair, even in humidty.
Before I decided to go natural and almost stop heat styling (except for the very occassional blowout- about once every 6 months- for trims) I tried one product with "straightening" on the label. Clearly I was sick in the head because I'm lucky that product didn't damage my hair!

Needless to say its ended up in the trash a long time ago...

I digress.

The report talked about a straightening product from Garnier (didn't work), and a few others, but one definitely stuck out to me.

The most interesting (and frightening) product was the Brazilian blowout. It was a supposedly formaldehyde-free product that contained a mixture of amino acids that relaxes the hair for up to a month and even stays straight with washes.

Heres what the makers say about Brazilian Blowout (c/o http://www.brazilianblowout.com/):
"The BRAZILIAN BLOWOUT is the most innovative and effective professional smoothing treatment in the WORLD! Through the use of a Brazilian Super Nutrient Complex and a proprietary polymer system, the Brazilian Blowout actually improves the condition of the hair by creating a protective protein layer around the hair shaft to eliminate frizz and smooth the cuticle.The end result is smooth, healthy, frizz-free hair with radiant shine!What makes us different?The ONLY Professional Smoothing Treatment that improves the health of the hair. No Damage! and No harsh chemicals!NO FORMALDEHYDE!!Entire treatment completed in just 90 minutes!No down time! The minute you leave the salon, you can wash and air dry your hair, and it will be smooth, frizz-free and radiant!Results last up to 12 weeks.Leaves hair smooth, shiny and frizz-free!"

Honestly, it just seemed like any other relaxer to me.

The only reason it interested me was because I was wondering what was so
damnspecial about it.

Consequently, a lab tested Brazilian Blowout for safety concerns and found that although it was supposedly formaldehyde-free, in tests it was found to contain 8-10% formaldehyde.

What?

Embalming fluid...really? Like that's a compund used for dead people.


Like, come on, that's an unreasonable cost for beauty.

The sample the lab tested was taken from a distributor that was not the actual creator, so Brazilian Blowout of course rebuted the finiding, still backing their product, saying their salon-grade formula was still formaldehyde-free.


Does that mean they can't guarantee anything for their other formulas?

And what does that matter if the distribution center a salon buys from could possibly end up with a product that is dangerous and contains upwards of 10% of formaldehyde?

Umm yea, not sounding good folks.

What really put the cherry on it for me though was that one of the anchors on the show already tried the product and said she would still try it again.

Yea...

Like my friend at breakfast said, "Her hair is gonna look so awesome at her funeral."

This is all just IMO, but that makes you think about the stuff we do to be "beautiful".


Its in quotations for a reason...