Nibble Boxes: Graze Box #2

Received my second Graze box in the mail the other day. Been way too busy to even dive into it so I'm excited to snack on the goodies. As with the lost box, I got a small packet with notes about what the company does for charity and it included a few "friend invites". So if anyone is interested in joining, let me know as I've got a few to give out.

A very good variety this box. My first "flapjacks" from them, I am intrigued to see what the consistency is (looks like a soft granola bar). The last "dip & dippers" I got from Graze was not that great yet it was due to me not liking the sauce itself. This one I'm very excited to try and predict I'll love this one. Then rounding out the order are 2 "healthy treats" which are mainly fruit based.

My Thai (sweet chili sauce with baked soy bites)

Ok, this was amazing! The sauce is very viscous so the soy bites get covered in it when you dip them. The dip was very, very good! It was a normal sweet chili sauce so there wasn't a big surprise to me. Had the touch of sweet taste with the slight burn aftertaste. The dippers themselves go very well with this as they aren't too powerful of a taste to distract you from the dip. I can see myself eating those dippers plain as a normal snack. The only problem I had was that half of the dippers broke apart in shipping, so I had small bits left over that were difficult to get the dip. After eating all the pieces I could easily dip, I just tipped the leftover dipper crumbs into the remaining dip and ate it with a spoon. It would be awesome to get a box comprised of 4 of these, they were THAT tasty!

Scrumptious Blueberry Swirl (blueberry yogurt raisins, raspberry infused cranberries, and blackcurrants)

An interesting mix and it is indeed scrumptious! The blueberry yogurt raisins have a nice blueberry flavor, yet they're not strong in raisin taste or texture. I actually had to bite one in half to see if it actually had raisins as all I tasted were the blueberry and vanilla yogurt. Which isn't a bad thing, just something I found interesting. The "raspberry infused cranberries" are great yet I am a bit confused as to where the raspberry is since the ingredient list says "elderberry juice concentrate" with no mention of raspberry. Guess people wouldn't be excited to try it if was called "elderberry infused cranberries," huh? Still tastes great even if it wasn't really raspberry infused. Only problem I had with this mix is the blackcurrants were a bit bitter compared to the other 2 items. If you eat a handful, you KNOW when you're chomping on a blackcurrant. Not that it's really a bad thing, I just don't feel it really meshes well with the mix. It could also be my batch had a strong dose of the lemon juice concentrate they were soaked in. 

Fruit & Seed Flapjack (rustic rolled oat flapjack with mixed seeds and dried fruits)

This was nice and soft, a bit springy to the touch. It definitely leaves you with a satisfied feeling, likely due to the oats. It had a big buttery flavor yet looking at the ingredients it's margarine instead. Guessing margarine was used instead of butter to make it vegan. I honestly felt the butter taste was a bit too strong for my liking, but I do have peculiar tastes so I don't think anyone else would notice. The mixed fruit and seed content was nice and eclectic, comprised of apricots, dates, currants, raisins, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds. I'm excited to get some of the other flapjacks, especially since I considered this to be most "simple" of the flavors. 

Eleanor's Apple Crumble (apple, raisins, cinnamon honey almonds)

I'm surprised by how great this! I was expecting a normal mix, something I've had hundreds of times yet this one actually surprised me. The raisins aren't the normal raisins everyone is used to, I'm guessing these are golden raisins as they are plumper and more moist than normal dark raisins. I was expecting the apple pieces to be like the chips, where they are hard and crispy. Nope, these are soft and moist so they work well with the raisins. The cinnamon honey almonds aren't anything new but the cinnamon is powerful here. Usually when you get these types of almonds the shell is more honey tasting than cinnamon, yet these are a good mix. This mix is pretty much the perfect thing for me to eat before drinking the Trader Joe's Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea that's waiting to be drunk.

Recipe: Dismembered Gingerbread Man Cheesecake

I found a recipe which describes how to create a Gingerbread House Demolition Cheesecake. I decided to try my hand at it with a different type of cheesecake, using the basis of the recipe as a starting point. Instead of using a gingerbread house, I bought a large gingerbread man at the store to decorate.

I forgot to take a "before" but remembered to take a dismembered picture.

After letting him live for a night, with a heavy heart, I dismembered him into small pieces. Then I ground it up in a small Cuisinart food processor, edible decorations and all. You want it to be finely chopped to get rid of all the candy chunks. Sadly I don't have a normal size food processor so the one I had was lacking in power. While it had no problem grinding up the gingerbread and the peppermint candies, the jelly candies were too tiny for my already small blades. It thinned them out a bit forcing me to take a pair of scissors and cut them up into small pieces. I think if they had been normal sized jelly candies (such as Chuckles) then the food processor would have had an easier time taking care of them. Not sure if a normal food processor would have the might to take care of them.

Candies and all!

To make the crust, I took about a cup and a half of the crumbs/powder and mixed that with a third cup of melted butter. When I make cheesecakes, I only coat the bottom of the pan and leave the sides bare. If you want to coat the sides, I'd likely increase it to 2 and a quarter cups of the crumbs and half a cup of melted butter.

You can see the tiny bits of peppermints and jellies.

Then I decided to spruce up the crust a bit more. I used Trader Joe's Cinnamon & Sugar Grinder to coat the crust with some extra spices. Then I made a small bit of glaze icing and drizzled that over the bottom. I baked it at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. Take it out and let it cool.

Mmmm!

As for the cheesecake, I decide to whip together a vanilla spice cheesecake to complement the gingerbread crust:
Three 8 oz cream cheese packages, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 scant tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, room temperature, lightly beat

Mix the cream cheese until it is smooth, then mix in the sugar. I actually had some homemade vanilla sugar laying around so I used that for an extra taste. Once the sugar is blended completely with the cream cheese, I mixed in the pumpkin pie spice. Honestly, only reason I used pumpkin pie spice is because I homemade a cup of it and had a bit leftover and figured it would work here. Then mix in the vanilla extra. I also homemade my own vanilla extract which is why I have no problem using a large amount, if a tablespoon is too much you can use 2 teaspoons of it. Finally slowly mix in the eggs. It's important to not incorporate too much air into the mixture so mix on slow until well blended. If you mix on high then the cheesecake will come out too puffed up with air, almost doubled in size. If you feel the mixture is too thick, you can always add in a splash of milk to thin it out a bit.

Pour the mixture over the cooled gingerbread crust and you're ready to bake. You can bake it in a water bath (wrap you pan in foil and submerge in an inch of boiling water while you bake), place it on a baking sheet, straight on the rack, use bake even strips, wrap a damp dish towel around it, etc. Normally I'd bake in a water bath but today I just went with it on a baking sheet. Bake for about 35 minutes or until there is only an inch of jiggle in the middle. Don't bake until it is completely set as that is too long, the cheesecake will continue to set after you've pulled it out of the oven so you want it to be still firm but jiggly in the center.

I stupidly forgot to take an after picture. I planned to take a picture of a slice yet it was gone before I really could. Guess that's good, huh?

After I let it cool, time to decorate! There are many different ways to decorate:
- Sprinkled some of the remaining gingerbread crumbs (this is what I did)
-Dress it like a gingerbread man with more jelly candies and icing
-Whipped cream
-Thin coating of vanilla pudding

Nibble Boxes: Nibblr Box #1

Yesterday I got my first Nibblr box in the mail. I actually got an email the night before letting me know to expect it in the mail, which was pretty helpful. Whereas Graze is a square, this is a rectangle with a much more decorative box. Yet unlike Graze's recyclable/compostable/whatever box, this box doesn't appear to be. Yet graphically it is far superior!

As with the Graze box, this came with an insert. Again, graphically this insert is much better. In fact, it's a fold-out poster of "Life's Too Short to Be Hangry" by Dana Tanamachi with a bio of the artist. One thing that I appreciate about this insert is that it has a handwritten note!

The snacks themselves are just like Graze, individual packs that contain the name as well as nutrition info on the box. There is a "use by" date for each snack as well as weight. Same with Graze, the weight varies from 0.95 oz/27 grams to 1.45 oz/41 grams (and as with Graze, the heaviest item is the more "junky" item).

Sesa-Me & You (sesame honey almond)
Very tasty! It's similar to other honey glazed nuts. It's simply almonds with a hardened honey glaze then rolled in sesame seed bits. The only thing I wasn't too thrilled about was the fact that sugar was the #1 ingredient. I expected almonds (or honey) but it's sugar. Other than that, it definitely a great snack!

Ale House Blend (brazilian steakhouse peanut crackers, corn nuts, and mini pretzel)
It's been a very long time since I had any corn nuts. I'm not the biggest fan of them but they're not bad. They do work in this mix, a perfect fit! The mini pretzels were slightly salted and, well, they're mini pretzels. Not much else to report. The "brazilian steakhouse peanut crackers" were peanuts encased in a spicy cracker shell. So you had the very slight hint of strong spices to mix with all the salt. Obviously being "ale house" I expected it to be salted (since the whole purpose is to get you to buy more drinks) and the name was exact. It wasn't too salty but it was salty enough to make me thirsty.

My Ipanema Love (banana chips, currants, brazil nuts)
From Wikipedia, "Ipanema is a neighborhood located in the South Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil." I've heard the name before but honestly didn't know much about it. Now I know! As for the mix itself, it's WYSYG (what you see is what you get). No extra spices or anything, just a simple fruit and nut mix. It went together pretty well, but I was disappointed to only have 1.75 brazil nuts (yeah, one of them had a quarter missing off of it). So besides getting fewer nuts than I wanted, I enjoyed it.

PB Graham (peanuts, peanut wafer, graham cookies)
Lot of peanut flavor here! The peanut portion is the majority of the mix which is expected, but the peanuts are unroasted and unsalted. The graham cookies matched well here. The peanut wafer is basically a disc of sugary peanut butter (think those peanut butter chips used in cookies melted into a disc). Obviously that was the most delicious part of the mix! Overall I think it would have been better if the peanuts were roasted and salted. I can also see using this mixture in chocolate for "peanut butter chocolate bark". Hmmm...may have to whip up a recipe for that!

Nibble Boxes: Graze Box #1

The other week I decided to join a subscription program called Graze, which mails you a box of 4 "healthy" snacks. Obviously they're not tasteless healthy, but instead healthier snacks which taste great. These types of boxes are called nibble boxes.

With Graze, there are 100 different types of snacks they have to get. You don't explicitly choose what you're going to get but you can rate the various snacks available on a 4 option scale of "do not send" up to "I want this snack more frequently". Almost all the snacks to choose from sounded delicious but I knew I wanted to try new items so I selected about a fifth of the options as "do not send". You can always change how you rate the items, in fact they encourage you to always update based on what you like and don't like from what you try.

I got my first box this week, so it took them only a week to get it to me. It's a nice size box 9.5 inches by 6.5 inches so it could fit in your mailbox. All the snacks are in a plastic container so if it doesn't fit in the mailbox it will still be protected. In it is a welcome note introducing me to the company and some other notes. On the back of the note is the nutrition facts for the 4 snacks in the box which also includes weight and "best by" dates. They're 28 grams (0.99oz) up to 41 grams (1.4oz). The "best by" range is pretty good, going from 4 weeks all the way up to 20 weeks. Not that I honestly expect any of these to last that long!

Chili and Lime Pistachios
It didn't look like a lot but about halfway through I realized it was actually quite filling, which surprised me. The pistachios tasted like the name suggests with hints of lime and chili. The chili isn't too overpowering but you can still feel the slight tingle of chili on the tip of the tongue, while the hint of lime is soothing. This was a very well done combination!

Brooklyn Bites (poppyseed pretzels, cheese cashews, roasted pumpkin seeds)
I tried this one-by-one so I could get an accurate taste of each piece. The poppyseed pretzels were ok but nothing outstanding. I honestly found they lacked taste since majority of the poppyseeds were scraped off in the container due to friction. I still enjoyed them, just not as much as I hoped. The cheese cashews, though, were fantastic! It has a cheesy rub on it that isn't too powerful but still has an adequate cheese taste. The roasted pumpkin seeds actually picked up the flavor of the cheese rub and also were attached to a few of the rubbed off poppyseeds giving them an extra "oomph" taste.

Smoky Gazpacho with Wholemeal Crisp Bread Slices
I've never had gazpacho before so I was hesitant about this one. It was...ok. It had a smoky flavor for sure, and I couldn't exactly comprehend the taste of the gazpacho. Tomato of course with strong onion and a hint of garlic. I don't know if I'd want this again. Not that was bad, just not as tasty as I want. Maybe I just need to get used to it.



Florentine (Belgian dark chocolate, cranberries, pumpkin seeds)
This is likely one that should have been "too normal" for me to get, but I did salivate at thinking of this combo. Well this was quite amazing! Obviously looking at the ingredients it's not hard to tell why. Chocolate, cranberries, and pumpkin seeds? Delicious! The chocolate discs were nice size and perfect for scooping up some cranberries and pumpkin seeds. I'm glad this one was the heaviest of the bunch.

Overall I thought this was a good introduction to nibble boxes. Had an eclectic mix of snacks including things I had never tried before. I also signed up for Nibblr which is almost the exact same thing, I should get that box at some point soon. I actually signed up there before I signed up for Graze, so I'm surprised I don't have it yet. Once I get that I'll make a post, then in 2 weeks once I get my next Graze box I'll make a post for that.

Quick Tasty Food: Naan Pizza

I love naan and find it very versatile. My favorite use is to make pizza with it. One single leaf of naan is perfect for a personal pizza and you can top it with anything a normal pizza has. And naan is much healthier than normal dough and (in my opinion) better quality.

Tonight, for example, I made a BBQ Chicken Naan Pizza. The other day I got a rotisserie chicken to eat throughout the week ($6 is a great deal for all the meat you can get off it, just takes patience to rip it to pieces). Take some chicken, mix it with a bit of sauce (tonight I went with a variety of Sriracha, Sweet BBQ, and Light Blue Cheese Dressing). Chop up some veggies that work with the type you're going with (red onions and celery go perfect with BBQ Chicken). Sprinkle a bit of cheese (Italian Five Cheese was great but I used it up on my last naan pizza, so today I went with slices of Swiss that I chopped up to resemble shredded cheese). Bake it at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until it's as done as you want (I like it crispy but soft). Voila, you have a naan pizza!

Other varieties:
- Reddit user gamergrl1018 suggested a Martguerita naan pizza with olive oil, garlic, thyme, fresh basil, tomato, and mozzarella
- Cincinnati Chili with oyster crackers and cheddar cheese; can add in onions and beans or chopped up hot dogs
- Hawaiian with pineapple chunks and capicola ham/Canadian bacon; can add on onions

Movie Review: Assault of the Sasquatch

I'm taking part in the Reddit October Horror Movie Challenge and as part of that, there is a checklist of various types of movies to watch. I wanted to try something different for the Sasquatch. Thus, I looked on Netflix and found Assault of the Sasquatch. Wow, I was pleasantly surprised by this!

It's a cheap movie, I'm not going to lie. Some of the graphics are cheesy, and the acting isn't stellar. There are a lot of gorey death scenes (Sasquatch rams his fist through someone's head and it's spectacular!). Yet keeping in mind that it's a low-budget movie, I think it did very well for what it was given. They did an interesting thing where they used CGI to manipulate Sasquatch's face so it looks as if it's movie and not just a mask, which I thought was perfect! You look at the body and it looks like rubber, yet the face looks close to real.

They threw in some comedy with Don and Murphy, a duo who are members of the Sasquatch Society and spend most of the movie in the background trying to get film footage of Sasquatch. The dole out fast dialogue between each other with Don, who is obese, claiming he is God's gift to women and wished they would realize it.

One thing that was a neat touch was adding in flashbacks to something completely unrelated to Sasquatch to give reason why two characters should have a lot of tension between each other. It worked and wasn't too annoying a deviation.

The main thing I didn't enjoy was how fuzzy/dark the film quality was. They used color highlights a lot of the time which distracted me from time to time.

Overall, if you go in expecting a cheesy movie, you will be pleasantly surprised with it not being ALL that horrible.

Movie Reviews - Dustin Wayde Mills marathon: Easter Casket, Bath Salt Zombies, and Night of the Tentacles

One of my friends is friends with Dustin Wayde Mills and he introduced me to Mills' movies. Before tonight, I had already watched Puppet Monster Massacre and Zombie A-Hole and thought they were both great and campy. I was in a horror mood tonight and wanted to watch these before watching the movies I got yesterday (bunch of potentially cruddy movies, I made a post about it last night here). So I spent the night watching Easter Casket, Bath Salt Zombies, and Night of the Tentacles. They're no budget/low budget films and for being made on just a couple thousand dollars they're pretty great!

Easter Casket basically is about the Easter Bunny getting pissed the Catholics want to get rid of him so he goes on a mission to destroy a group voting to oust him, while Father Asher is sent to destroy the Easter Bunny.

Bath Salt Zombies is based on the outbreak of "zombies" in the US after a few people consumed the drug bath salts and went a bit crazy and cannibalistic. In the movie, a scientist (portrayed by Dustin Mills himself) creates a new high dose formula to get an edge on other drug dealers in the area and the main character gets addicted. After consuming one dose, obviously you go crazy and become a cannibal for a short period of time with increased strength, then wake up with no memory. As this is going on, a DEA agent is trying to crack down on the distribution of the drugs that culminates in a standoff with the other main character.

Night of the Tentacles is about a guy who has a heart attack while jerking off to the girl in the apartment below him masturbating. Then he sells his soul to the Devil for a new heart, which is now located in a box that he keeps in his room. As long as the heart is treated right, he'll live forever. Thus, he is forced to feed the heart some meat to keep it satisfied. Hijinks ensue as he has to find things to feed it without having to resort to humans all the while creating a relationship with his neighbor downstairs. It's a play on Faust (included his new heart being referenced to as FAUSTHEART 2.0 in the contract the main character doesn't get to read). And I have to say, I love the line "you blasphemy a lot for an atheist."

I like to think of Dustin Wayde Mills as the Kevin Smith of horror. He's chunk and bearded like Smith. He's incredibly vulgar but with very realistic dialogue. He makes sure he has a bit role in each of his movies (in Zombie A-Hole he was a hilarious voodoo doctor). The one area that he differs from Smith is that his movies are filmed on a small percentage of what Smith had originally and whereas Smith talked about nudity, Mills includes loads of nudity.

The nudity isn't even needed half the time but he makes sure to get a dose in each movie. I briefly listened to the commentary on Bath Salt Zombies and in one scene, he specifically said "this scene is here for more nudity" lol! Granted, it was worth it because it's of the incredibly hot actress Erin R. Ryan (who is now a celebrity crush of mine because her involvement in Easter Casket and Bath Salt Zombies). I had a friend check out Zombie A-Hole and he commented how the movie would be at least 10 minutes shorter if the nudity wasn't as gratuitous as it was. Sometimes it is a bit weird and out of place (such as in Bath Salt Zombies where a girl is randomly stripping while the main character is taking the new form of bath salts). I'm not really complaining, just commenting on it. It definitely lives up to a classic horror standard of lots of bloodiness, cussing, and nudity.

Now one thing you have to keep in mind before watching the films is that they're ultra-low budget so don't expect a masterpiece. You are in for a good ride, that's for sure. Yet the computer graphics are sometimes exaggerated as if it were a comic book/anime movie. Some of the real special effects aren't perfect (Night of the Tentacles had the main character ejaculates on the floor and it looks like they simply spilled milk instead of trying to create something close to jism; Bath Salt Zombies had a character start bludgeoning someone in the face with a rock yet the rock was obviously 6 inches away from the face). I also had a lot of problems with the sound quality on Bath Salt Zombies, where it would constantly fluctuate. I was watching on my computer and had to have the sound go from a 12 to a 100 throughout the movie because some scenes were too soft whereas others were too loud.

Overall though, the movies are very worth it to watch. Mills reuses a lot of his cast again in the movies so it's fun to see the characters have completely different roles. The writing is fantastic, it is very fluid and has a real world feel to it.

Movie Review - About Time

I was able to get a pass to the preview of About Time (thanks to my awesome roommate!). I arrived early since these things always sell out and there was a nice crowd 45 minutes before the movie began. More and more people began streaming in but the house wasn't completely full, I'd say at 75% capacity. Those 25% definitely missed out!

About Time is the best movie I've seen in 2013. And I've seen a lot, about 50+ in theatres! I am so very glad I didn't have to wait another month to see this, it lived and exceeded expectations.

The premise is pretty straight forward: the men in the Lake family are able to travel through time but only to events they personally visited. The main character is Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) and his father (Bill Nighy) introduces him to the concept, saying you couldn't kill Hitler or shag famous people from centuries ago. The relationship between these two is breathtaking, you actually begin to believe they are father and son in real life based on how well they mesh together on screen. Tim's love interest is Mary (Rachel McAdams) and he makes use of his time travel ability copiously to make sure their relationship happens and works. Tim's mother (Lindsay Duncan) and sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson) are both fantastic additions as well, with Kit Kat playing an important role later in the film as she finds herself in relationship trouble.

I don't want to give away too many plot points as the whole movie was brilliantly done. It felt like The Time Traveler's Wife done right, with a perfect balance of comedy, drama, and romance. The filmmakers want you to cry while laughing in some scenes, and they definitely accomplish that. I felt the problem with TTTW is that it was too far on the drama side with not enough comedy or "normal" events, which pushes it into a depressing feel at times. About Time did not have any of those problems, the emotional ride was perfect.

Bill Nighy steals every scene he is in. He plays a very aloof and carefree character, perfectly capturing the mannerisms of someone who knows how to enjoy life. Then again, I am a bit biased as there hasn't been a Bill Nighy movie that has disappointed me! Lindsay Duncan was perfect as his wife, even though it wasn't shown as much I think their chemistry was very nice.

Domhnall Gleeson, best known for me as Bill Weasley from Harry Potter, was perfect as a lead actor. Rachel McAdams was able to easily portray her character's insecurities in the beginning of the relationship and you could see how she became more of a comfortable-in-her-skin character as time went on. It is weird that this is the second time travel romantic drama (or dramedy in this case) that Rachel McAdams has starred in (the previous, of course, being The Time Traveler's Wife).

There were a few scenes where the camera was randomly shakey, as if someone just walked off a small ledge and wasn't expecting it. Most people likely wouldn't even notice that so it's nothing major.

Another problem is that some of the time travel rules can be confusing until you really think about it. I have read some people get annoyed or confused by the ending, saying that it logically couldn't be done based on the conversation Tim had with his father about time travel. I honestly am not sure whether it could or couldn't happen (again, difficult to talk about without spoiling the scene). Only reason I can think is that it was something so small, an event that wouldn't have changed anything, that they felt the risk was worth it and it paid off. Time travel movies can definitely be confusing if you think too much about the rules because it can often distract you from the movie.

Yet those were really the only things wrong with the movie. The writing and directing was perfect. Towards the end things got a bit emotional and it was so perfect that I almost burst out crying, I had to bite my lip to stop from sobbing in the middle of the theatre! You get so drawn into the movie by the great blend of everything that it can overload you and make you believe it's real life.

Even small things such as choice of music was perfect. The music chosen to play over the montage of Tim and Mary's budding romance fit perfectly, even synching up to the events on screen. The scenery was beautiful and makes me really wish I had the spare money to travel there.

I absolutely positively loved this movie. I urge everyone to see it when it comes out in November, you won't be sorry!

Quick Tasty Food: Pumped Up Mac & Cheese

I don't always cook normal food, sometimes I create a tasty dish while I'm cooking one main item. Weird, I know. And a lot of the time the dish looks downright disgusting! Yet I know it's going to be good, I just know it. A very small percentage of the time does the dish end up nasty and most of the time that's when I'm eating it as leftovers.

Tonight I made something that looked bad but tasted fantastic. The ingredients:

• Kraft Garlic & Herb Alfredo Mac & Cheese
• can of French Style Green Beans, drained
• Sriracha Chili Sauce
• bullion  powder (I used low-salt chicken flavor)
• 1 egg
• Blue Cheese Dressing (I used light but you can use regular blue cheese chunks as well)
• Milk

1. Use the Kraft recommended amount of water and put in a bit of the bullion powder.
2. While the water is beginning to boil, I squirted in some Sriracha. You can be the judge of the amount you use based on how spicy you like your dishes. I like it nice and spicy so I did 2 big squirts.
3. After the water has boiled, dump in the macaroni and green beans. Let boil again.
4. After it has come to a boil, crack the egg and drop it straight in the water. No need to cook it ahead of time as the boiling water cooks it for you.
5. After it has cooked for the normal amount of time, strain and put the mixture back in the pot but do not put it on the stove again.
6. Put in the Kraft powder, the milk (follow the directions if you want, I just guestimated the amount), and a tablespoon of blue cheese dressing (or regular blue cheese crumble).
7. Return to the stove and heat on low, if possible you can let it boil again for a little bit. Make sure to continue stirring so everything is mixed together.
8. After a minute or two, you're done. Remove from heat and put in your dish of choice.

Remember, it's going to look nasty but will taste wonderful! You have a good amount of fiber from the green beans, a good amount of protein from the egg and milk. Not saying it's healthy for you, but for something that you literally just throw together it works fine. Plus, it definitely fills you up!

Movie Review - You're Next

It's, uh, been awhile since I made a post. Even though I've seen a hundred or two movies since my last update, I felt that when I was regularly reviewing them the actual watching session of the movie changed. I began looking for something to criticize the movie over, which is not something I enjoy doing. I'm more of a "sit back and enjoy the movie" kind of person. And as for recipes...I haven't done any new versions and didn't want to just post copies of other recipes and say "it turned out great!" which would have been obvious. I'm not a creative person, more of a near-expert copycat.

As for why I'm posting about the movie You're Next? Simply put, I really enjoyed it and wanted to share what I liked about it with others. Since I went into the movie not thinking about doing a review, I was able to sit back and enjoy what I saw.

The movie, if you don't know, is the latest home-invasion-horror-thriller movie with a slight twist, this time someone fights back with expertise. Most of the cast are unknowns but I felt they all did a great job. I will admit there were a few scenes which showed acting that was a bit shoddy, yet that's expected from time to time. It's nothing like what Justin Timberlake's acting in Runner Runner looks like, which is pure crud (which is a shame because Ben "newly announced Batman" Affleck looks superb in that movie!).

Obviously it couldn't be a horror movie without blood, and you get lots of it. There is a very unique killing of one of the villains towards the end of the movie that is quite simply Troma-esque. It reminds me of when I was a kid, yelling in excitement as the Toxic Avenger killed someone with a VHS player. In the same format I cheered in the scene in question. The blood itself in the movie did appear to be slightly faking at times, looking very watered down with a strange hue of red. Yet that wasn't distracting unless you specifically looked at it. Only reason I paid attention was because I know a lot of movies don't get it right and it looks really out of place. Not the case here, even with it looking a tad wrong it didn't look out of place or distracting.

One thing that surprised me a lot was the fact that there are a few twists. 2 major twists, in fact. I won't go into any spoilers on it but I am happy to see twists that I don't expect. One they laid the building pieces for with a random comment that you don't even think about. The other, I didn't really catch much of a hint and it did appear to come out of left field.


The big problem I had with the movie, which itself is slight, is the soundtrack. It was too overpowering at times and the music felt out of place. I kept having flashbacks (soundbacks?) of music from the last 80s/early 90s where it too electronic, almost verging on that of 8 bit video game themes. Definitely didn't fit here, but it did remind me how the movie had a bit of an 80s feel at times. Not sure if it was intentional or not.

Another small problem is after a death, the phrase "You're Next" is written in blood on the wall. Yet the size of the text doesn't exactly compute with the time given based on how fast the rest of the people ran to the room in question. Especially if you take into consideration the person writing on the wall would have to reach back for more blood to write everything. Even with 2 people I don't think it would have been possible. Then in another scene it is mentioned that the owner's of the house had been staying there for several days, yet that wasn't properly displayed as it felt like everything occurred in a single day with everyone getting to the house that day.

Overall it was a great movie. Most of the wrong things could easily be dismissed by all the good things. The high content of blood and slashes definitely appeals to horror-fans.