Death by Butterbeer.

I went home today to do boring stuff like laundry and more laundry and blah blah blah.  One of the highlights of the day though-- BUTTERBEER.  Over spring break, my family galavanted off to Florida without me and went to Harry Potter World.  They came back raving about the butter beer and the Harry Potter-ness of it all.  It was sad and rub-in-my-face-y.  

But then, my dear mother made up for it by finding a recipe for butterbeer and making it herself!  I completely expected it to taste like magic and henceforth be able to wave a wand and make shit move and/or avada kedavra my way out of sticky situations.  

Here I am, before the whirlwind of stomach cramps hit.
Look how happy and unsuspecting I am...

Unfortunately, it tasted kinda yucky and made me feel even yuckier.  It's basically made with heavy cream, sugar, and soda, so....LOTS O' DAIRY.  I haven't had any dairy products for quite a while, so I'm not feelin' so hot.  Butterbeer was not the greatest idea... I commend Harry & friends for chugging them on a regular basis.  Excuse me while I go throw up in some corner of Diagon Alley.

Bunny Chompin'

Guess what my fifteenth favorite thing in the world is.  If you guessed fluffy dogs and/or peanut butter, you are on the right track, but unfortunately not correct.  If you were thinking stale peeps, then you are ABSOLUTELY correct.  Those thangs are delicious.  Especially when drunk.  Like now.  Nothing better than chunks of sugar dyed pink and molded into the shape of bunnies.  Especially ones that have been hangin' around since Easter and happen to be tough as walnuts.  No big deal, that's what molars are for-- chomping stuff..

Here's a picture of me, nommin' some bunnies right after gym-time.  Also, that shirt I'm wearing?  Got it for FREE outdside of the Davis Center.  Yayz.

FREE PLANTZ

What is the absolute best thing that could happen to you on a dreary Wednesday morning?  Whatever you're thinking-- WRONG.  Obviously, the answer is finding an abandoned de-potted plant tossed carelessly on the lawn behind the Rowell building.  Duh.  I spotted it on my way in to class.  It looked like this:

Adorable and little and precious and oh so MINE.

And then me, being the innovative creature that I am, stuck it in my empty coffee cup.  Perfect temporary potting mechanism.... until I kept going to take a sip of coffee and getting a mouthful of dirt.  Dirt doesn't really taste like coffee, but it does taste amazingly similar to that mud mask I wrote about in the previous post...  Anyway, I named the thing Reggie.

Little Reggie lookin' all cute n' stuff in his little coffee cup... 

After letting Reggie sit in the coffee cup for a day and a half because I was too busy (read: lazy) to pay attention to him, I finally transferred it to a coffee mug.  It's only been like 5 minutes since the big move, but I can tell he's way happier.  

So now, here's my list of challenges:

1.  Keeping it alive.  My thumb is the exact opposite of green.  I kill just about everything I touch.

2.  Figuring out what kind of plant Reggie is.  The only plant I can confidently identify is a dandelion. Maybe a hydrangea bush on a good day.  This little green thing could be poison ivy and I would have no idea.  Maybe I'll rub it on my face and see what happens.

3.  My parents got a plant in college, named it Fred, and kept it alive somehow.  It just recently kicked the bucket a year or two ago.  I dunno if I'm ready for that kind of long-term plant relationship. Sheeeesh it's like having a kid!  I'm not ready!  I can't do it!  I'm gonna end up tossing it back behind Rowell again!  What if I feel that way when I actually have kids?!  Can I toss them behind Rowell too?!  

This is too much pressure.  Reggie's gotta go.  Who wants him...

A face mask that didn't end in tears?! What a concept!

HEY.  It's about time for another post that has absolutely nothing to do with food!  Let's talk about face masks.  I've had a wee bit of experience with face masks, and by face masks I mean just putting weird shit on my face.  For example, there was that one time in high school my friend Betsy and I rubbed raw egg on our faces and left it there for hours.  Then we got rashes.  Another time, I got a green tea goop in my Easter basket and that one made me break out.  There are more stories, but they all pretty much end the same: me looking more stupid than I already do.

This one didn't turn out so well.  It just made me smell like babies and irritated my T-zone.

So due to my great experiences with face masks in the past, when Sarah suggested we try out her new mud mask, I was all, "YEAH, THAT'S THE BEST IDEA EVER!"  I just never learn, do I?  So we did it.

Here's the three of us-- me, Sarah, and Connor (cough, the SGA president) right after we gooped that gunk all over our junk.  And by junk, I mean face.  The mud mask was LITERALLY mud.  With a buncha perfume dumped in there.  ...My vocabulary is really not doing this face mask any justice though, so let's rephrase: the luxuriously smooth mixture was derived straight from the earth and infused with a lavender scent so strong, it tickled the senses.  There, much better.

Don't mess with DA BES (swagswagswag).

Mr. President looking quite dashing in a face full o' mud.

Sarah looking uncannily like a chimp.

In case you're wondering whether my skin was burnt off or if my face looks like a nuclear war zone, fear not!  It looks pretty normal!  The mask seems to have had very little effect.  Disappointing, but at least I'm not melting or throwing up.  I'd say it's a success.

Feed some kiddos! Eat some energy bars!

Discovery of the week: Two Degrees bars-- gluten free AND vegan!  I'm a big fan of clif bars, nature valley, all those gluteny energy bars, so I was SO EXCITED to have found one that I can eat.  And, added bonus-- for every bar you buy, a meal is donated to a hungry child.  BOOM, good deed for the day.  Downside: each bar is $3.49 at Marche.  If you budget out your points evenly throughout the semester, you can spend about 12-15 points a day, so...this isn't really the greatest bang for your buck (that sounds vaguely inappropriate...ha).

Chocolate peanut.  The best flavor, obviously.  Chocolate trumps all.  This was also the first flavor I tried.  On the wrapper it says the main ingredients are quinoa; chia; and millet, so I was a bit hesitant to try it.  Sounded disgustingly healthy.  But fear not, easily impressionable people!  Do not be swayed by the scary wrapper!

Cherry almond.  The second best flavor.  

Apple pecan.  The third best flavor.  Just because it came in last doesn't mean it's not finga-lickin' fabulous though.  (bahahah say "finga-lickin' fabulous" outloud.  It gets funnier every time).

Possibly the best thing I've ever found in the garbage...

Right on the heels of last nights' ridiculous trash find, came ANOTHER ridiculous trash find.  A BIKE TUBE.  Most people would see a discarded bike tube and be like, "daaaang, what a bummer for whoever can't ride their bike anymore."  But not me.  I was like "THANK YOU, TRASH GODS, FOR THIS EXCELLENT GIFT."  So so so so so sosososososoooo excited.

Last semester, I did a lot of volunteering with Bike Recycle VT (learn more about it HERE), making jewelry out of old, unusable bike parts.  We made earrings out of bike tires and tubes, bracelets out of spokes, necklaces out of little thingamajiggers, etc etc.

Here's a basic pair of feather earrings made from a bike tube.  SO SO easy to make.

This is a bracelet made from a bike spoke...not so easy to make.  In fact, I never quite mastered it.

Unfortunately, I'm too busy this semester to keep volunteering every week (maybe you should check it out! Go make stuff!), so I stocked up on some extra materials to keep crafting on my own.  After a few weeks, those ran out and I've been deprived of jewelry-making materials for a while.  So get ready for an onslaught of more feather earrings, y'all.  I can make a LOT of jewelry with one bike tube... let the crafting begin!

Unleash the trail mix beast.

There I was, sitting at my desk, sort-of-but-not-really being productive, when all of a sudden I got a text alerting me that someone was making a huge wasteful-looking donation to the trash bin... I JUMPED out of my seat, FLUNG open the door, SPRINTED down the hall, and gave a battle cry of VICTORY.  Actually, that might not have happened, but I did get there pretty fast, and there might've even been a little gasp of excitement.  For there, sitting atop the heap of to-go containers and empty banana peels, was a bag of my most favoritest in the world forever and ever food item: TRAIL MIX.  and it was FULL.  I swear, I almost pooped my pants.  Maybe I did poop my pants, but that's for me to know and you to never find out.  So... anyway.

Me + trail mix = unstoppable beast. 

I also found some gluten-y things that I left out in the kitchen.  So, fellow floor-mates, go get some trash food while it's still there!

Golden oreos.  Almost as good as regular oreos, but not really.

OH, HOW I MISS THEE, CHEDDAR-Y SQUARES OF GLUTEN.

And finally, some cinnamon raisin bread to finish off another wonderful round of the "what can Caney find in the trash?" game.  

Shout-out to the provider of these wonderful trash finds.  <3

Glutey-Pants

Time for another unbelievable-but-oh-so-honest-to-god-REAL trash haul.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you a whole lotta gluteny trash (insert fancy arm flourish):

Kashi cereal.  The kind that looks and tastes like cat food, but counteracts that with being wicked nutritious or something.  Yuck.  I probably wouldn't have eaten it even if I was able to eat gluten.  Ehh, that's a lie.  it would be gone in a second.

Pretzel twists.  It was actually half full, which you can't tell from this picture.  Oh, and it was opened from the bottom.  I like when people ignore norms.  

7 grain loaf of bread.  Mega glutenous.

A PAIR OF LEGGINGS.  Holy moly WOWEE.  Such a find. 

Fresh breath and friendly freshies.

Hey world, meet Randy and Chris.  Randy shares his altoids and Chris wears cool socks.  BOOM, automatic friendship!  Please enjoy these dumb pictures of us with altoids on our tongues.

Obviously, our Thursday afternoon was productive.

Cascarones, Ke$ha, and a Big Ol' Mess.

I suppose the point of having a themed blog is to write posts that stick to that theme...it's only logical, right?  Well, I refuse to follow my own theme.  This post is about Easter and if you don't like it, you can go suck an egg.  (See what I did there?  Eggs?  'Cause it's Easter?  Get it? HAHAHAH)

Here's a quick list of things that I love.
1) Easter eggs.
2) Confetti and glitter and all things shiny that make a huge mess.
3) Walloping people with objects that (hopefully) won't do any damage.  Example: sponges, pillows, cats, etc.
4) Time-consuming crafts that keep me entertained and busy for the better part of a Saturday afternoon.

You're probably wondering what these things have in common...

WELL, lemme tell ya about a weird-ass European tradition that has just recently been gathering popularity in the US-- you hollow out eggs and then fill them with confetti.  Then, you smash them on people's heads to bring good luck.  They're called "cascarones."  I don't really understand why or how this came about, but hey, if I can smash stuff and make it rain glitter, I can't complain.  This is quite possibly the most genius combination of concepts I've ever encountered.

Step 1: Empty out the egg.  Knock out a little hole on the larger end and then use something thin and pointy to break up the yolk to help it come out easier.  I suggest a kabob stick.

Step 2: Rinse out your hollow egg so there's no leftover spoodge.  No one wants spoodgey confetti in their hair.  Amiright?!

Step 2.5: Here in the Demars household, there is no half-assing the egg decoration.  Yes, dying the eggs is a must, but that's boring.  They need some personality.  Some chutzpuh.  Some flavaa.  You can skip this step because it takes forever and eggs are hard to draw on.  Whatever.  

Step 3: Color those eggs because they're boring and plain!  White eggs are an insult to Jesus!  ....

Step 4: Admire your beautiful eggs.  But don't sit on them.  Look with your eyes, not with your butt.

Step 5: Fill those babies with confetti.  Grab a funnel or a rolled up piece of paper and go to town.  (Side story: When I asked my dad where I could go buy some confetti, he was like, "Oh, I think I have some."  Literally just reached over and handed me a bag of glitter that had been lying on his desk underneath some papers.  So typical.  Thanks, Dad).

Step 5.5: Mash the confetti through the funnel with something.  You could probably use that kabob stick you used in step 1.  Oh, and fill those suckers about 2/3 full.

Step 6: SMASH 'EM!  I suggest you do it outside.

I'm going to be finding this stuff in my hair for weeks.

Made quite a mess.  Worth it.

And there you have it, folks.  Easter shenanigans.  The confetti got EVERYWHERE.  In my hair, my shirt, my pants, on my dog, tracked all over the house, EVERYWHERE.  It felt like we were in a Kesha music video.  Except less skanky.  

Why is this post not about food?

CUZ I FOUND BOOTS, THAT'S WHY!

Last night, I walked by the garbage bins, did a double take, and then whooped for joy.  Behold, a pair of mega funky galoshes!  There are a few holes and rips, but nothing a bit of good ol' ductape can't fix!

Surprisingly, this isn't the first time I've found shoes in the trash.  (Right at this moment, I happen to be wearing a pair of black leather boots I found on the side of the road in Stowe.  How ironic.) So here are my rules for wearing shoes that you find unexpectedly:

1) Let yourself freak out for a quick sec because YOU JUST FOUND FREE STUFF.

2) Smell them first.  Gross, I know, but if they smell like death, I'd advise leaving them where you found them.

3) Put those babies on and do a few hops, skips, and jumps.

4) Be happy and appreciative for the rest of your live-long life.

Perhaps do a plié or two.

Free tastes so good :D

There is absolutely nothing I love more than free food.  That's kind of a lie, I also really love twisty barstools, leaving voicemails, winking at old people, etc etc.  There are a lot of things I love, but free food is definitely up there near the top of the list.  That being said, when I heard it was free burrito day at Boloco, I was happier than a platypus in a swimming pool.  I'm not one hundred percent positive that platypuses like swimming pools, but for the sake of my over-excited rantings, just flow with me, eh?

Since Boloco is one of my most favoritest of favorite restaurants in good ol' Beantown, I just had to find time to go.  Sarah, Katherine, and I set out on our burrito quest right after class at 11:30am.  I was on a tight schedule-- had to make it to an eye appointment by 1:15pm.  So I, being the car-privileged sophomore that I am, drove us downtown to save time.  The sight of the line stopped us cold.  It was one of those "what the flying FUCK" moments where you question your dedication to free food and all that is holy.  Take a look at this ridiculous line:

Yeah.  Holy shit, right?  Right.  But we braved it, determined gals that we are!  We got in that line!  We stood in that line!  We waltzed along at 0.00045mph in that line!  I don't think "waltzed" is quite the right word, but it sounds pleasant!  Which it was!  We ended up spending 40 minutes in line before ordering.  Not bad, considering how far back we were.  

Me n' Katherine with free shit.

I was worried about not being able to order a burrito (cuz o' da gluten, yaaaa), but hey!  I got a rice bowl instead!  It was fantastic.  I got the "classic Mexican" with rice, beans, salsa, fajita veggies, and guacamole.  Ope, I think I'm drooling again.  If I didn't have crap to do, I woulda gotten back in line.  For realzies, though.  So serious.

Katherine got a chicken caesar wrap and Sarah got a mediterranean burrito.  YUMZ.  

Here's Sarah lookin' all cute and whatnot.

This girl was made to model burritos.

We finished eating, headed back up the hill, with just enough time to run to my appointment.  SHA-ZAM.  Mission accomplished.

UPDATE ABOUT HOW UN-SUCKY MY LIFE JUST GOT

Alright, guys.  Sorry I was so moody earlier about soy sauce and ice cream.  I was wallowing in a ditch of self-pity, but hey-- I crawled out of it!

I heard rumors about lemonade sorbet, so I ended up braving the Ben and Jerry's free cone line.  It was mega uber ridiculously long and I almost changed my mind, but it ended up taking me only 7 minutes to get through the line, get my sorbet, and gtfo.  I then proceeded to go take sorbet selfies in the Davis Center bathroom.  Classy.

The only option was mango, which tastes like barf, but ya know... it was free.  It was also sort of an act of defiance.  That's not the right word.  Whatever.  All of my half-formed plans to go get free ice cream with friends somehow didn't work out and I was like, "fuck the world, imma be an independent woman and go get my own friggin' free shit."  That was a direct quote from my thought process.

AND THEN.  The absolute most wonderous, splendifermagical, fantasmic, cragmolious, plastigeral, truncleflaggimal thing happened!  I got home from a Water Tower meeting on a mission to cram my face with a humongo simpysomp salad when all of a sudden Sarah intercepted me and was all, "help me with my freezer!!!!!!!"  And I was like (here's another quote straight from my head), "well gosh darn it, you have hands, YOU do it!"  Obviously, I was feeling a wee bit sassy today.  But then I helped and YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT I FOUND. 

A pint of dairy free cookie dough soy/coconut ice cream.  It was SO GOOD.  Better than all the normal dairy ice cream I've ever had in my life combined.  Like, on a scale of 1-10, it would be in the 30's.  I must've said something a few days ago about being disappointed I couldn't participate in free cone day and Mr. Franck picked up on it.  (I swear, that boy is the BFG.  Minus the swivelly ears and whizpoppers.  HA.)  So when I found the pint, I did a jig and then went to go share with everyone in the kitchen, but everyone already knew about it... Best surprise ever.  Gah, I feel so loved.  THANKS, FRANCK!

So all in all, this day went from kind of blah to a little less blah and then to NOT BLAH AT ALL.

No ice cream, no seaweed, no fun.

I don't have a lot of time to post right now, but I have some frustrations to vent.

1) It's free cone day at Ben and Jerry's and some mint chocolate chip ice cream sounds fantastic right about now.  However; the line is a bajillion miles long (not an exaggeration) aaaand I'm dairy free.  So... I guess the length of the line is sort of an inconsequential detail when there's really no point in getting in the line.

2) To make up for my ice cream-less day, I was like "fine, I'll just go get some of that heavenly seaweed salad that I love oh so much."  I succeeded in this quest, but halfway through the container, I happened to actually read the ingredients.  SOY SAUCE.  You wouldn't expect it, but soy sauce has a boatload of gluten in it.  I cried.  No, I didn't.  But there was some serious frowning.

Needless to say, I am not the happiest of campers.  But hey, shout out to all my dairy-tolerant friends-- GO GET SOME ICE CREAM, BITCHES.

Magical Bean Brownies: SMASHING SUCCESS!

Tonight's experiment: gluten-free black bean brownies.  I'm going to go ahead and say that this has been one of the most successful food experiments thus far.  It was literally such a success that there have been requests that it be made again sometime this week.  It's THAT good.

Here's the recipe for those who are curious:

- 15 oz can of black beans
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 tbsp oil
- 4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 3 eggs
- salt

Mash it all up at once, preferably in a food processor.  We didn't have one, but the texture and consistency of the beans in the batter really isn't that bad, so fuck that step. Swoosh it around a bit and you're good to go.  Pop it in the oven at 350 for 30-35 minutes and then let it cool.

Because we're annoyingly impatient college students, we didn't let it cool.  In fact, it might not've even been cooked all the way through.  How rebellious.  We dug right in with forks immediately after it left the oven.  I barely had time to snap this picture:

Whenever someone makes something even remotely delicious-smelling, it attracts people like flies to roadkill.  Like mold to an aging loaf of bread.  Like fungus to an athlete's foot.  I don't know why all of my analogies are disgusting, but I think you probably get the point.  Thankfully, these brownies were a bit more decadent than all those things.  I'm just gonna forget this paragraph ever happened.  Anyway.

This is the brownie crew.  Since Mike was the picture-taker, I photoshopped him into the picture.  I bet you can't even spot him.  He fits right in.

This is a picture of the brownie pan less than 5 minutes after it was taken from the oven.  I kid you not, that shit was DEVOURED.  It was like piranhas leaving a sad cow carcass.  ...Someone please give me better analogies.  I suck.

So.  Complete success.  Easy to make, tastes like magic, and it's chock full o' sneaky protein!  Honestly, I cannot think of anything better than that.  I would absolutely make this again.  Probably within the next couple days, actually.  YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY BEAN BROWNIES!

Sometimes whining pays off...

A few posts ago, I did some major bitching about the delicious butternut squash soup that was marked gluten free, but actually contained barley.  I left sort of a scathing comment in the suggestion box and GUESS WHAT.  Guesswhatguesswhaaaaaaat?!

GLUTEN-FREE (fo realz this time) BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP.

MY DREAMS CAME TRUE.

My friend Shannon also happens to be obsessed with all things squash-y, so earlier this morning I received a text about the existence of this soup and flipped a shit.  No, I flipped TWO shits.  And even though I wasn't planning on heading back to central campus because it's friggin' 60 miles away, I went anyway.  The lure of soup was too strong to resist.  When the squash calls, you better answer.

In fact, it was so good, Shannon and I decided to go back to Marketplace for dinner for round two of squash soup.  It was still wonderful.

So in conclusion, squash is God.  If it's good enough for me to want to eat it twice in one day, I give it an A+.  Thanks, Marketplace, for listening to my annoying whininess.