October 10
Home Chef's One-Sheet Pretzel-Crusted Chicken
Home delivery meal kit
https://www.homechef.com/invite/NLYn4yT6VarVl
Note: This link is a referral link. Bonus, you'll get $30 off your first order!
I decided to join the hip crowd and get a meal delivery box about three weeks ago, and I did a ton of research before I picked which one I was going to go with. The prices all seemed pretty comparable, so it really boiled down to who had the most items on their current menus that I thought I would eat. Home Chef won out on that one. Plus, they had pretty good reviews.
I got my third box from them today, but this meal was actually from a previous box. See, I'm just one person trying to eat these meals and they make usually 2-3 meals each so you know, it adds up. Anyway, today I decided to make the One-Sheet Pretzel-Crusted Chicken, which also came with broccoli to roast on the same sheet pan. It was really good, I enjoyed it more than I actually thought I would considering I wasn't feeling well today. I don't always go for this particular kind of crunchy topping thing but it worked. I also wasn't sure I'd like the roasted broccoli but it was really good. I'm sure the Parmesan cheese helped.
The only thing I'd say negative about Home Chef so far is it creates a LOT of dishes and cleaning up work, which I guess is par for the course with any cooking, but that's part of why I don't like cooking. I guess I have to get used to it though.
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Tuesday, October 09, 2018
#OpinionatedOctober - GoodKnitKisses Cast On for Beginners
October 9
GoodKnitKisses How to Knit Cast On Beginners
YouTube Tutorial
I've been loom knitting for about a year and a half now, and I love it. It's really versatile and there's a ton you can do with it. But I've been kind of curious to go back to looking at the technique for needle knitting again now that I understand the actual process more through watching the fabric come out of the loom. I also not so secretly want to try those really big knitting needles that can knit up fun stuff with super bulky yarns. You can get looms that do that (notably, the Zippy Loom from Authentic Knitting Board) but the big needles just look so fun. So when my best friend ended up with a pair of needles and trying to learn needle knitting, I thought I'd give it a try too. We'd both watched GoodKnitKisses videos before because she does a lot of loom knitting tutorials too.
Tonight I watched the cast on video, and I have to say it really is a great video for beginners. She uses a bright yarn that's easy to see, she goes slowly, exaggerates her movements so that you can see what she's doing, and does it enough times that you can watch her go through it more than once. And she doesn't ramble on for a minute and a half before she even gets started on the technique, which is my biggest pet peeve in knitting tutorial videos. Just show me what I came here to see! Anyway, in her cast on video she says to practice casting on a lot and don't jump to the knit stitches, but I don't follow directions well and watched her knit and purl stitch videos next, and I've knit five rows now...
GoodKnitKisses How to Knit Cast On Beginners
YouTube Tutorial
I've been loom knitting for about a year and a half now, and I love it. It's really versatile and there's a ton you can do with it. But I've been kind of curious to go back to looking at the technique for needle knitting again now that I understand the actual process more through watching the fabric come out of the loom. I also not so secretly want to try those really big knitting needles that can knit up fun stuff with super bulky yarns. You can get looms that do that (notably, the Zippy Loom from Authentic Knitting Board) but the big needles just look so fun. So when my best friend ended up with a pair of needles and trying to learn needle knitting, I thought I'd give it a try too. We'd both watched GoodKnitKisses videos before because she does a lot of loom knitting tutorials too.
Tonight I watched the cast on video, and I have to say it really is a great video for beginners. She uses a bright yarn that's easy to see, she goes slowly, exaggerates her movements so that you can see what she's doing, and does it enough times that you can watch her go through it more than once. And she doesn't ramble on for a minute and a half before she even gets started on the technique, which is my biggest pet peeve in knitting tutorial videos. Just show me what I came here to see! Anyway, in her cast on video she says to practice casting on a lot and don't jump to the knit stitches, but I don't follow directions well and watched her knit and purl stitch videos next, and I've knit five rows now...
Monday, October 08, 2018
#OpinionatedOctober - Plants vs. Zombies 2
October 8
Plants Vs. Zombies 2
Mobile Game
Do you ever have those games that you're not sure you even like and yet you're still playing them for some reason? Yeah, most mobile games end up like that for me, and PvZ2 is no different. I loved the first full Plants Vs. Zombies game, but this second one designed specifically for mobile devices is just a microtransaction hellscape, like you'd expect. There's a ton of super useful plants from the original game you can't get without paying $5 _each_ for them, and it's ridiculous. The game itself also gets to a point where you actually just can't beat it without "leveling up" plants which takes forever if you don't spend cash. So far I've managed not to spend any money on it, but it's been difficult, at this point I basically can only play the daily special level because everything else is too hard.
That's how they keep me playing incidentally, the daily special level. And this really poorly implemented PvP thing called "Battlez" that for some reason I've gotten sucked into actually trying to be vaguely competitive in. The daily levels are fine, they're usually relatively easy and kind of fun. Battlez are the same map for a week at a time, and they're often so hard that the only reason you're not losing is there's no real "losing" in Battlez, you just play for two minutes and whoever has the higher score wins. The level I played today was ridiculous, I can't figure out how in the world you're supposed to really get anywhere with it, and even if you can't get your brains eaten, it gets really disheartening to be losing so badly but you can't quit because you'll lose your rank on the leaderboard.
If you haven't played PvZ2, then don't. Don't bother downloading it. It also runs like junk on all my mobile devices, but I can't make it work on my Android emulator so that I can actually play it in a way that's more enjoyable.
Two detached thumbs way down.
Plants Vs. Zombies 2
Mobile Game
Do you ever have those games that you're not sure you even like and yet you're still playing them for some reason? Yeah, most mobile games end up like that for me, and PvZ2 is no different. I loved the first full Plants Vs. Zombies game, but this second one designed specifically for mobile devices is just a microtransaction hellscape, like you'd expect. There's a ton of super useful plants from the original game you can't get without paying $5 _each_ for them, and it's ridiculous. The game itself also gets to a point where you actually just can't beat it without "leveling up" plants which takes forever if you don't spend cash. So far I've managed not to spend any money on it, but it's been difficult, at this point I basically can only play the daily special level because everything else is too hard.
That's how they keep me playing incidentally, the daily special level. And this really poorly implemented PvP thing called "Battlez" that for some reason I've gotten sucked into actually trying to be vaguely competitive in. The daily levels are fine, they're usually relatively easy and kind of fun. Battlez are the same map for a week at a time, and they're often so hard that the only reason you're not losing is there's no real "losing" in Battlez, you just play for two minutes and whoever has the higher score wins. The level I played today was ridiculous, I can't figure out how in the world you're supposed to really get anywhere with it, and even if you can't get your brains eaten, it gets really disheartening to be losing so badly but you can't quit because you'll lose your rank on the leaderboard.
If you haven't played PvZ2, then don't. Don't bother downloading it. It also runs like junk on all my mobile devices, but I can't make it work on my Android emulator so that I can actually play it in a way that's more enjoyable.
Two detached thumbs way down.
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