Chili Cook-off!

Last night Ross and I had a vegetarian chili cook-off. Frankly, after tasting both chilis/hearing peoples comments, I thought Ross would be the chiliarian of the night, but somehow I managed to take home the gold (and eternal chili glory).

Usually I keep my winning recipes for bargaining purposes, but I'm feeling generous, so here it is, folks.


Ellie's Chili

1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
1/2 package of frozen beef substitute crumbles
3 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
1 canned chipotle in adobo, plus 1 tsp of the sauce
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 jar tomato sauce (I used mushroom flavor this time)
1 cup water (I usually just rinse out the tomato can/jar and put the water in the pot)
1 bar dark chocolate

Cook the peppers, onions and half the spices in olive oil until tender. Add the beef substitute and cook for a few minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer on low for 1/2 hour. I usually add the chocolate at various times in the cooking process, just in case it gets too chocolaty, which might be impossible, but I do it that way anyway. I also usually do the same with the spices, and my measurements are approximate for those.

My favorite way to eat it is with avocado, sour cream and cilantro. It's super smokey, rich and a little sweet and spicy. I love it.

Enjoy!

Freedom (for now) and Travels

Whew, another semester done.

Just finished my cleanings on Tuesday and thanks to my teachers updating my grades online, I don't have to wait to see how I did. Overall, not my best work ever, but I'm still happy with it. Due to my everlasting sickness for the past month, I seriously thought I'd be seeing some Cs on my report card, but thankfully I managed to work some magic on my finals so my lowest is a B- Really snuck under the wire with that one.

Now that I'm recovered from sickness and done with school until June, I'm back to being sleep deprived by my work and actually having free time. So what does that mean, you say? Road trip! Actually, train trip, which is even better in my book. Since I won't have much time once school starts in June, I'm going to Rochester Saturday-Wednesday to do things like dance, visit the sister, and have chili cook-offs.

One benefit to visiting Jessekins this month is we get to celebrate Sisters Day, which is an annual holiday Yvonne, Jesse and I started last year. So that means presents, lots of hanging out, and in general celebrating our awesome sister-ness. Recently I've been driving her insane by not telling her about the awesome present she's getting. Muaahhahaha.

Speaking of travels, I've also recently booked a flight to Portland to visit the brother. Recently I've been missing the gorgeous weather and beautiful scenery, so I figured that means it's time for another trip. While I'm there Eric and I are definitely going to make a road trip to Seattle, which we'll hopefully be able to see more of this time. And who knows, maybe Eric will be able to drag me out to a blues dance in Portland.. this thought might normally make me queasy, but what happens in Portland stays in Portland, right? Right. Anyway, I plan on doing lots of exploring to see about it being a potential living place. We'll see.

Hugs & Cupcakes.

-Ellie

Findings

Today was good.

I woke up late and ate some breakfast in the form of sugar covered raisins and bran flakes. Got dressed and figured I should do something mildly productive, so I packed up my books and headed to B spa and parked myself at coffee planet to study for my commercial baking final. I listened to old ladies talk about finances and sipped my coffee while trying to ingrain marketing aspects into my head.

On my way out I tried to find the used bookstore, but sadly it had closed before I ever went in. Instead I got to have the wind try to blow my shirt up by my waist. Nice try there, wind. Without any bookstores to go to, I headed over to the giant antique store to mosey and check if they had any good vintage clothes. No on the clothes, but I found some old issues of life magazine and a lot cool antique suitcases. Now, maybe part of me has secretly wanted to be Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday or something, but I wasn't leaving without one of these suitcases.

My first finding was small, gray and cute on the outside, but the inside revealed it had seen better days with the previous owner. No wonder it was under $20. Second was a bit more pricey at $35, but I was intrigued when I couldn't figure out how to open it. This one was a bit larger, brown with light stitching, and still very cute. The interior had some damage, but stuff that could be fixed, and hounds tooth lining. This one was coming home with me, but not for $35. Muahaha.

Ahem. I walked over to the two old men at the counter and sweetly asked if they could show me what the interior pockets and buckles were intended for. "Oh.. so you mean that buckle is broken?... shame. Any chance I could get it for $25? No? $30? Wonderful." Not my best bargaining work to date, but at least now I could by myself a fancy $5 starcrap latte if I wanted to.

Proud of my bargaining efforts, I happily skipped along back to my car and thought about ways to clean leather on my way home. I tried a few different ways, and here's what I came up with:
-Lemon juice and cream of tartar: It's not really worth it.
-Mr. clean magic eraser: Surprisingly awesome, but some of the color may come off if you rub too hard.
- Rubbing alcohol and q-tips: Best bet. Some of the color still may come off a little, but it's better than the magic eraser.

Sadly the hounds tooth interior was pretty stained, probably from N.J.S. (the initials on the suitcase) spilling coffee on it forty years ago, so I did my best with some diluted shout.
Tried to repair the little leather piece that made it easier to pull the divider, major fail. I should probably leave the broken buckle to a cobbler after that dilemma.

Wish I had pictures to post, and maybe I will soon, but I'm still camera-less, so you'll have to look at the pretty google images for now. Probably once I get the buckle fixed I'll post some nice ones.


Overall though, it looks pretty nice, and I'm happy to give it some life after N.J.S. did. :)

and she's back

Sorry you haven't been able to follow me much recently, I kind of went MIA in blogland.

Updates: As you probably imagined, I survived at the very end of last semester, and I've just about finished this one up as well. In most cases I have one to three labs left, and after that, I'm done with most all of my labs for my time at Schenectady (except banquet) and geared up to graduate in December. Be expecting a party.

Plans for the summer include taking summer classes (bleck), Beverage Management (how to run a bar) and Food & Beverage Control (continuation of math for food service). Also working to try to save the monies for multiple things like a car, LF, and a possible trip out west. Trying my best by not going to big dance events (sadface) like SONH & Frankie 95, although as far as being in other cities go, I plan on making a few trips out to Rochacha. :)

Oh, and I got a job! Previous to the current job, I was going through lots of job drama trying to figure out which of 3 different jobs was best, but I finally decided on part time sweets baker @ Bountiful Bread in A-town. It sucks waking up at 3am to be at work at 4, but I deal. Plus it's freaking sweet job (no pun intended) - my department is in charge of all of the cookies, cupcakes, muffins, scones, brownies, danish etc.. I'm sometimes jealous of the bread bakers who come in at 8am, but whatevs, I get to have glamorous moments up to my elbows in batter multiple times a day. Who wins there?! Ok.. maybe them, but I get to say I'm a sweets baker, so THERE.

Anyway.

Added to work and school that mainly eat up my life, Chris and I have just about wrapped up another semester teaching the kiddies at RPI how to dance and shit. Again, the kids are great, and although we've had dwindling numbers recently due to finals and school activities, it makes me so happy to see them improving and I hope we'll get a big showing at our annual end of semester party.

This weekend I'm looking forward to taking a break from school/work and going to Stompo, one of my favorite events of the year, with my fourth year attending. Can't wait for all the solo jazz goodness I've come to adore.


Love and muffins.

-Ellie

I'm ready

to be done. I know how I always talk about how much I love culinary school and all that bullcrap (which I do), but hell, I'm ready for this semester to be over. I want finals, all my lab cleaning, and the freaking last lab to be over (damn cheese).

I'm sick right before I'm supposed to have a presentation in the morning, a snow storm is threatening me to miss two classes and write yet another 2,000 word paper, and I can't take it. Plus I still need to get my scholarship application in and all of my Christmas shopping done. If anything, I should be healthy for all of this.

End rant.

Thanksgiving

Oh man, I love thanksgiving. It's like the ultimate in foodie holidays. This year it was mostly done by me with some help from the sisters. Our menu included:

Appetizers (always eaten around 1:00) -

-Toasted baguette slices with goat cheese and balsamic tart cherries
-Veggie platter
-Deviled eggs
-Brie wrapped in phyllo dough with jam
-Stuffed dates

Dinner -

-Turkey (which I vowed not to overcook, and succeeded!)
-Homemade apple cider gravy
-Roasted sweet potatoes
-Roasted brussels sprouts
-Green bean casserole (which I personally despise, but other people like it)
-Onion and celery stuffing with raisins and walnuts
-Cranberry mousse (a dessert from the 50's made with lots of jell-o and cool whip. It's delicious, I don't care what anyone says. And somehow even though it's a dessert we always eat it with dinner.. though I'm totally not complaining)

Dessert -

Pumpkin cheesecake (i.e. the best thing ever)



In between preparing and eating all of this goodness we played lots of board games and watched movies. Good holiday in my book.

Maybe I can actually make a difference.

Last Wednesday was my last week of teaching at RPI for the semester. Usually by that point in time, we'd probably have 5-10 students left in lindy 1 and lucky if we still had a lindy 2 class going.

At the start of the semester I tried to be optimistic and even threw in a different set up, starting with them off with some easy solo jazz steps (thanks Jesse and Mike!), which I continued to do throughout the semester.

Now, I don't credit myself to being the best teacher ever, but I can definitely see when people are struggling. A month or two in is when I started to see the frustrated faces of the kids trying to get their swing outs, that's when I knew it was time to switch gears and say to hell with swing outs for a couple weeks. That's when I broke out my super fun and silly classes, guaranteed to get some laughs and make people feel like it's ok to be a little less serious. For me that means mess around, mini dip, and some easy styling. I don't know whether these classes are more for me or the students, but it makes me so excited to see them having fun.

When I was teaching the girls their first swivel, I was talking about how I think of it as the opposite of a "model walk". So for the hell of it, we did model walks up and down the floor. The boys even got a kick out of it while they were having their pow wow in the corner. I love having them do ridiculous things. Hahaha, I should never have this much power. ;)

To my surprise, come October into November will still had a good 30-40 kids for lindy 1. So for the last week we threw a party for them after class. During this time we had elections for all of the club officers, and they gave their speeches telling everyone why to vote for them. It made me ecstatic to see people who had just joined that semester so enthusiastic and telling everyone that swing club was their favorite club.

Afterwards we all hung out, ate pizza and danced. I can't even begin to say how proud I am of every single one of them, they've all come such a long way and are SO excited about it. It makes me proud to teach them. :) We even had a special performance by the lindy 2 class, who are getting so good! I love teaching those guys.


I had a lot of people come up and thank me before they left, and when I asked them if I'd see them next semester, I think the general response was, "Psssh, of course!"


:)