A pair of cooking recs and WoW

[thistlechaser]

Almost a year ago, I bought this pasta maker on Amazon. I had read about it on my friends list, and it sounded perfect: No need to boil water or wash pots, just toss some pasta in, add water, and microwave. I was eating pasta on a regular basis, so this seemed fast and easy.

Before the package arrived, my lifestyle had a change and I could no longer eat pasta. Boo. So the Amazon box sat in my living room, unopened, for a year. Today, while shopping at Target, I saw pasta on the shelf and had a WANT WANT WANT reaction. But I resisted. "No pasta! Carbs are bad*! Move on!" and so I did.

Then I saw Giada de Laurentiis pasta sauce. I stood there long enough, trying to remember where I knew her name from (hi Food Network) that the bottle ended up in my cart. And so I needed pasta!

So, long story not-quite-short, I unpacked the pasta cooker and tried it tonight. It was just as simple and easy as I had hoped! Measure pasta and water, stick it in the microwave for 14 minutes, perfect pasta. Amazing! And the sauce was SO GOOD. Best pasta sauce since I lived in New York. Unfortunately the sauce is only sold at Target, but you can get the pasta cooker from Amazon. Keep your kitchen cool this summer, cook your pasta in your microwave!

PS: Having pasta for dinner was SO GOOD. Great sauce on perfectly cooked pasta, put some cheese on top and then broil until it was nice and melty. Mmmmm.

*I know carbs aren't bad, but lots of carbs at once are bad for me. I have major trouble with portion control, so I do better with having no pasta at all than I do with having a reasonable amount of it.

---

In WoW news, I'm out of space again. Sigh. On Horde-side I already had two guilds, His Doxy and Boxy Doxy. (Her Doxy is Alliance-side.) His Doxy has all the tabs a level 1 guild could have. Boxy was one short. So the question became: Pay 5K gold for the new tab, or get a third guild and get four tabs for a fraction of the cost?

Hello Doxy Moxy! (I know Moxie is actually spelled with an -ie and not a -y, and usually I'm strongly anti-incorrect spellings, but Doxy Moxy is cute enough that I was willing to go with it.)



So, I had 4 new tabs for about 1K gold! ...and three of them filled up off the bat. Sigh. So much stuff to sell come MoP! Mounts and pets and a crapton of mats and other assorted things.

The downside of this is, come MoP, I had wanted to get my alts into high level guilds for easier leveling, now they're going to be stuck with no guild perks at all. :/ Though I could rotate guild leadership around as alts hit max level...

Comments

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

I have some interesting thoughts about carbs in general. I think I mentioned my crazy diet before. It has worked *so* well, I get carried away talking about it, so rather than clutter up your comments, I'll first ask if you're interested in hearing more.

The short version is, I have been eating near-zero carbs six days a week, and "whatever I want" one day a week, and it's been wonderful. I probably will not stay on this extreme diet for the rest of my life, but when I find the diet I want to keep the rest of my life, it's going to be much closer to what I'm doing now, and not at all like what I was doing last year. So, it's really helped me renegotiate my relationship to food.

Anyway... I don't think you need "advice" at all, but if you'd like to hear a bit more about how my year has been, I'll happily bend your ear some more.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I do remember your "crazy" (not so crazy) diet, I think we spoke of it in comments not too long ago. I'm glad to hear it's working for you!

Unfortunately near-zero carbs six days a week wouldn't work for me. I'm required to have some carbs with every meal/snack (aiming for 30 per meal, 15 per snack). I often fail to hit the right numbers, but at least I'm aware of it so I'm generally semi-close. Not counting last night's pasta dinner.

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

"I'm required to have some carbs with every meal" - this sounds fishy to me, more like they have decided some arbitrary "target" number that they don't believe people would willingly go below. And instead of saying "you don't actually need any carbs" they've said "we know you're going to have them anyway so try to keep it down to X and spread them out over your day".

The material I've read about LCHF suggests that many diabetics do quite well on the very-low-carb plan. If you are at all interested in trying it, seriously, ask your doctor to explain the "minimum carbs" level thing and ask "If I go for a week with zero carbs, what would be your concerns, and what should I watch for?"

Anyway, I don't think I will keep the "very low carb" plan for the rest of my life, but I think I am a *lot* closer to where I want to be, and I'm very glad to know where the limits are. They are much lower than where I thought they would be. Right now about 15% of my daily calories are from carbs, 20% are from protein and about 60% are from fat. Once I am able to add in some exercise to my day, I will probably increase the carbs so it matches my daily exercise.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

In before "Foxy Moxy" becomes a reality.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I had thought of (and rejected) Foxy Doxy, but Foxy Moxy is much better! If I ever have to get another guild (please no!), that might be it. :D

[voidmagus.livejournal.com]

Doxy Moxy makes me think of a dachshund in a pimp hat...which goes creepily well with the dachshund hooker in Foxy Doxy.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, while googling options, I saw that Doxie Moxie was a dachshund group.

And oops, is Foxy Doxy something already? I thought I had heard of it somewhere!

[voidmagus.livejournal.com]

no no - Doxy is just short for Dachshund. So every guild name you have makes me think of dachshunds. His & Her doxies are blue & pink dachshunds, doxy moxy is a pimpin' dachshund, foxy moxy is the hooker dachshund, proxy doxy is an unwitting accomplice, loxy doxy is a dachshund on a bagel, etc.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh! Ha ha. And Proxy Doxy is a great one! If I make another (hopefully not), that will be it.

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

14 minutes? Seems like it would be just as easy to cook pasta the regular way. Now I want pasta...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it did take a while, but when you count in having to bring the water to a boil beforehand, it takes shorter I think. Plus it's easier!

Oddly, the one time I used it, there was no water left, either. I only used two cups for two servings of pasta, and by the time it was done the water was all gone. Nothing to drain!