Thanks to Social Media and the Internet...

DOMESTICATED

...I made some fabulous food this week. I came up with these recipes thanks to stalking someone's Instagram and then putting my own twist to it and thanks to boredom at work and going through a bazillion Buzzfeed articles centered around food.

First there were sriracha wings, collard/kale greens, and shrimp. The sriracha wings were stolen from IG, I cooked baby wing portions in a pan on the stove on the medium-low heat sprinkled brown sugar on them, added sriracha, and then a little soy for salt. I turned the heat up later for a crisp. I used soy instead of salt to match the Asian sriracha hot sauce. Not to mention Bon Chon has a sriracha, garlic, and soy sauce mix for their wings, so I knew it paired well. The flavor was similar to teriyaki with the spicy and sweet mix. Next, greens, my mom's greens are the best greens I've ever eaten, then Carolina Kitchen is second. I actually bought the greens whole and had to clean them myself for the first time ever. I usually buy them in the bag, but that wasn't available at the store. I cooked my greens in the Crockpot for the first time ever too, for about 6 hours. Seasonings used were garlic, chicken bouillon, soul food seasoning, vinegar, hot sauce,  olive oil, bacon grease, and I used smoked pork. Everybody knows shrimp takes 2 seconds to cook, so I threw that on the stove last with butter, Phillip's seafood seasoning, and garlic and parsley seasoning. 

That same week I made salmon for a salad and seasoned it the same way as my wings...or so I thought, it was a bit more spicy, I presume I was little heavy headed with the sriracha, but it still tasted wonderful. 

My pride and joy is the breakfast spaghetti I made this morning. Again, while at work I read a Buzzfeed article specifically geared towards spaghetti and they had a breakfast spaghetti on there. I've been wanting to make more 1 dish meals instead of compartmentalizing my meals, here's your meat, here's your veggie, here's your other veggie, here's your grain. I was excited to try this and it came out wonderfully. I used whole grain noodles which I cooked al dente, then immediately shocked the noodles in cold water so they would stop cooking. While the noodles cooked, I had the bacon frying (3 slices), I only buy Hormel Black Label bacon, it's expensive but totally worth it, the maple flavor is the best. Once that was done cooking, I set it on a paper towel to drain the grease and let it rest. I then sauteed yellow sweet onions in the bacon greese and when they began to sizzle I threw in a handful of spinach to cook down. I then added the noodles and let them warm up, while chopping 2 slices of the bacon into pieces, I cut the last slice in half. I added some of the fancy cheese I still had from my adult grilled cheeses to the spaghetti mix, and then plated. From there I added 2 fried eggs to rest on top, and sprinkled parmesan cheese, the bacon pieces, and almonds I pulsed the day before for garnish. The half pieces of bacon were laid to the side. As far as seasoning, the only seasoning needed were salt and better for the fried eggs, and salt for the noodles once pulled out of the pan, I also failed to mention that I added bacon grease I have been saving to the noodles once I added them bacon to the onion and spinach mix. And now I present to you, GREATNESS!

P.S. Yesterday my superhero dad came up to fix my car and I finally got to make him my adult grilled cheese I teased him with weeks ago. I made the almond and honey one, hence why I had pulsed almonds laying around. I then made him a buffalo chicken grilled cheese. He was more than a fan, he loved it :) 

The Best Thing I Ever Ate...

While in NY for my 25th birthday, the boo thang and I stayed in Times Square. For myself, it was my first time staying in a hotel in NY because I usually stay with friends, so it was nice being in the thick of it all. The hotel we stayed at was extremely beautiful and it's funny how even hotels in NY are holes in the wall, then you walk in like "OMG! THIS was inside of here?!" Haha! Me being me, I found the hotel on LivingSocial, because I don't pay full price for much of anything these days. The room came with a bottle of wine and chocolates. The remainder shall be shown in pictures...

Right outside of our door.

We took the subway on our own. Our was pretty proud. When leaving, we entered the wrong train entrance though. It's not like DC where you go in the say way whether you're going towards point A or B, nah u gotta walk up the block to head to A and around the corner for point B. Learned the hard way while carrying luggage through the snow.

Look how beautiful the entrance is. The restaurant/lounge was to the right and they had the best friggin margaritas I've ever had in my life. I had 2 and was good and tipsy and they were $5 all night. *faints* I also had a warm spinach salad with mushrooms, tomatoes I think, and a bacon vinaigrette dressing and it had baby potatoes on the side. 

I couldn't come without snacks for the road and room though :) Good healthy snacks too. I'm pretty sure I picked out the best tasting pistachios (sweet chili) and almond (rosemary & black pepper).

They had the room READY for the doll, u see this? LOL! We stayed in the Theatre District.

A portion of the menu from Red Rooster in Harlem, NY. I wanted to go here because I watch Food Network all the time especially the show Chopped and there's this judge named Marcus Samuelson who is always on point with his critiques and knowledge of the food he tastes. He was on an episode of Chopped All Stars with other world renowned chefs and swept them under the rug easily. I was hoping to meet him while there, but apparently he was there earlier in the day. The staff kept saying he would likely return, but he never did :( Also, this restaurant was ran like a tight ship. We sat near the kitchen and didn't hear a peep of noise or banter coming from the back. Service was excellent.

Oxtail Pappardelle. The oxtail is underneath the noodle with the red wine reduction. The bread on the side with the pickled mushrooms was an added noted of flavor to the already flavorful dish. This was my far, the best meal I've ever had in my life. Before this, we were served cornbread with a tomato salsa. The cornbread came out resembling pound but be ye not deceived. This tomato salsa was glorious. Then we ordered drinks, I can't remember what kind of drink I ordered, but it had tequila in it, then on top of the lemon slice in my drink sat some Ethiopian spices, once mixed with the drink it took it to a whole different level.

The next day it snowed, so we got a late start as we waited for the snow to stop falling, but it was worth the wait to find this place :) Straight off of TLC. We were secretly on a tour of everything on reality TV. We saw Black Ink while in the cab on the way to Harlem too. LOL!

I had the strawberry shortcake, it's my all time favorite dessert. They're strawberry cheecakes looked beautiful too, but I wanted something lighter. I wanted to try Junior's cheesecakes because I seen they had a strawberry shortcake cheesecake and it would have went with the reality TV tour. <---Diddy

3 Years a Natural...

DOMESTICATED/WOMANIST

Transformation of My Hair

Year 1

My last relaxer was 3 years ago this month, the only reason I remember is because I had gotten it before my 22nd birthday dinner. I was excited to have my roots touched up and my ends trimmed so it could flow down my shoulders and swing in the wind. I hated having oils in my hair and wouldn't dare put "grease" in it. My GOD, NO! It needed to be light like a feather blowing in the wind, so as I sashayed down my imaginary runway it flew like a cap behind me letting everyone to my rear know "watch out bish! I'm coming through!" After that relaxer, I realized I wanted to start wearing my hair in big curls, but there were some issues: 1) I hated sitting under the dryer, for about 2-3 years I wouldn't do any style that required the hooded dryer 2) My hair wasn't thick enough for the relaxed hair to form the volume that I wanted. So achieving the style I wanted was what led me to "going natural". I at first rejected the term natural because I hated seeing women say they were natural as if they were apart of some elitist society. My hair was just my hair, I didn't feel the need to put a label on it, so I didn't. For the first year so February-December 2011, I transitioned the bad way, by straightening my hair so the new natural growth would match the relaxed hair. Remember, I liked for my hair to blow in the wind. I kept this up and then finally began watching Youtubes of women with natural hair and educating myself. I learned about heat damage and styles.

January 2012

Year 2

So in January, I attempted my first natural hairstyle, a bantu knot out. It was horrible! It took 36 hours for my hair to dry because I did it on wet hair and was just awful if I didn't reiterate that enough. When I realized that ish won't working for my hair, I began twist out. I did this every week for a year. Every week because my scalp becomes awfully dry and itchy, so I have to wash it every week to keep it from becoming disgusting. Every other day, I would moisturize and retwist my hair, a very arduous process. I believe I straightened my hair maybe 3 times during this year and had my ends trimmed twice. Also, during the summer time, I became antsy and wanted more relaxer cut out of my hair, but when I would finally settle on doing it, the stylist would be booked, so I went and bought sheers and trimmed about 2 inches off myself. Britney much?

Notice that straight piece that just refuses to curl thanks to heat damage.

Year 3

January, again, I straighten my hair because I know it's time for a trim and it's long and beautiful. It was the most beautiful I've ever seen my hair at this point. It was full, thick, AND straightened, everything I had been hoping for. I go for a trim at the salon and she tells me I have a lot of breakage, makes no sense to me, but she shows me a piece that needs to be cut and I give her the okay. She's cutting my hair as I stare in the mirror misty eyed and before I knew it, my hair no longer flowed down my back. I'm left with hair that barely touches my shoulders. After that catastrophe, I was too ashamed to wear my hair in the styles I usually wore because it wouldn't have as much volume or length, so I wore protective styles the entire year. I was determined for my hair to grow back and to also retain the length. I wore it in a bun off of my shoulders up high or in twists with the ends tucked ALL YEAR. I would take the twists out on the weekend and wear a twist out when going out, but it would be right back in a bun Monday-Friday. THIS made my hair GROW because I was no longer manipulating the hair strand and it was no longer susceptible to breakage due to touching my clothing or getting caught on other things, or the curls being tangled. So here I am about to embark on...

Can you see the look of pissivity on my face in the pic on the right?

Wore my hair in buns and twists for 13 months.

Year 4

I'm going to get my hair highlighted and straightened. In high school, I had highlights and my hair broke off something terrible, but this time around I'm natural and I know what I'm doing, so I'm expecting (insert: hoping for) different results. It's my 25th, I have to do something drastic right?

Thanks to Audra at Creative Images salon in Fredericksburg for making me fabulous.

Happy Black History Month!