Hello, Fluffsters!

I am happy to announce that starting today, there is another blog that is a part of this website! The blog is devoted to a grad-student’s struggle for survival, in the realm of cooking. So, cooking on a budget. The website is currently called “Grad Grants and Great Grub“, and is found at cooking.totalfluff.com. Because this is a new website in the TotalFluff domain, when there are interesting updates on that blog (which probably won’t be every day), I’ll be using those as the fluff of the day. (Tough. Live with it. 🙂 )

I hope you enjoy! (And if you do, share it with your friends! The author would like to get word out about the blog.)

Happy Wednesday!

The Webmaster’s response to Fluffy McGiggles’s Disclaimer: I don’t care.

Hello, Fluffsters!

Can you believe it’s once again Wednesday? Wow, time sure does fly, doesn’t it?

Anywho.

Recently, I’ve been having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

And I discovered a way to make them even better. And this trick works on other sandwiches, too. Instead of plain wheat or white bread, use lightly toasted sourdough bread. It’s, like, one of the best things ever.

One of the other best things ever is using the lightly toasted sourdough for a chicken-and-avacado sandwich. Those are also amazingness in a lunch sized container.

I hope you find these tips useful! Enjoy the rest of your week!

Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Tuesday!

So, last night, I made dinner for like the first time! And it turned out well!

…Even if it didn’t turn out all at the same time.

Oh. That does call for a bit more explanation, doesn’t it.

Ok. Well, at about 3:00, I decided that I wanted to cook dinner tonight, instead of having my family do it like normal. This was inspired, in part, by my having been looking at recipes for chicken and bread and other yummy stuffs. So, I found a recipe, found a bread recipe I wanted to try, checked the ingredients, and started making dinner!

What I didn’t realize was that the bread needed three hours to rise… And I didn’t get to the part where it needed to rise until about 3:30. And that didn’t include time it takes to knead dough, or do other necessary things to it… Or baking time. So, we did not have that bread with dinner. Fortunately, from my perspective, my mother was able to go to the store and get some crescent rolls we were able to have with.

So I made pasta-

No. As in, I made pasta. Flower, water, oil, egg, mix it in a machine, and extrude spaghetti (in this case.)

And I also made Chicken Scampi.

No, that one’s exactly the way it sounds. Or reads.

I can never tell exactly how to describe it…

Anywho. So, my mother bought bread, and cooked green beans. And it turned out really well!

And then, about two-and-a-half-hours later, the dinner rolls I was making came out of the oven, and they also turned out pretty well!

So, overall, it was a success. I need to work on my timing, but everything turned out well, so I’m happy.

Anywho, have a good day!

Hello, Fluffsters!

Happy Wednesday!

A couple of days ago, I tried an experiment. Yesterday, I tried the results of the experiment. And I am now going to share it with you.

Now, you might be wondering what the experiment was. And I’m going to tell you! It was…

Inexpensive Refreshing Summer Snacks: Coffee Ice Pops

Doesn’t that sound good? They’re fairly easy, too, if you have a k-cup machine and the tupperware popsicle makers.

As I said, I decided to experiment, and so I made six: 3 of two types.

The first type was plain iced coffee with milk. I made a 4-oz k-cup, and put in 2ozs of milk. (the popsicle makers hold 2 ozs each.)

Iced Coffee!!! And Popsicle maker.

I poured that into three of the popsicle makers.

I then made 6 ounces of Vanilla Cappuccino k-cup stuffs, and poured it into the other three makers, and put the lids on them.

They’re ready to go in the freezer!

Finally, I stuck them in the freezer, and let them sit for a while. As in, overnight. I probably didn’t need to let them sit that long, but I didn’t want one before then.

I had one of the plain iced coffee ones yesterday morning:

Dark roast! Yum!

The first one I tried was unsweetened, mostly. It had milk in it, which is kinda sweet, but I didn’t put anything else in. So, it was nice. It was basically like an iced-coffee ice-cube. Or a cup of coffee in ice form. Cold, and coffee-ish. Not the traditional popsicle, but still fun.

I may or may not make more of those.

The other kind, which I just tried before writing this post, were pretty fantastic.

VANILLA!!! SUGAR!!!

This one tasted far more like a traditional ice cream bar popsicle thingy. It had the consistency of an ice cube, of course, but it tasted really good. It was sweet, and vanilla-y, and basically like a vanilla cappuccino.

The frozen-ness of it, though really smoothed out the flavor. It was quite nice!

So, there you have it. For the price of two ounces of milk, a coffee k-cup, and a cappuccino k-cup, there are six popsicle summer fun snack thingamabops.

Enjoy!

Hi, Fluffsters! Happy Friday!

So. Friday. That means that it’s basically the WEEKEND! And that means you’ll (in theory) have TIME for stuffs!

To help you fill that time, I have searched the webs, and found an interesting looking tutorial for you to look at.

(Ok, so, actually, a friend shared this on her facebook wall and I decided it would make good fluff material. That’s kinda beside the point.)

But yeah. It’s a tutorial for “cute yummy dog sandwiches.”

And to be fair, they are cute.

However, the tutorial has me a bit baffled… So, the writer mentions the recipe for the bread. But that’s it.

There’s no mention of what to use to make the eyes. Or what, besides a hotdog of some sort, goes into the sandwich part. Or even how to tell “when the dough is ready.”

So, fluffsters, this is my challenge for you this week. What do you think the missing ingredients are? Clearly this is a fairly, um, sparse tutorial. What are the hidden elements? Do you think the eyes and nose are made from chocolate? If not, do you think it would be better if they were?

I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Hi, Fluffsters! Happy Saturday!

The weather where I am has been a bit chilly recently. And snowy. It’s lovely.

Part of this week’s weather…

But it’s also good for making you want warmer foods.

Fortunately, I came to the realization that when the place I frequently eat serves little crusty French rolls and soup, you can MAKE YOUR OWN BREADBOWLS!

So, here’s my week in Bread Bowls!

Making a bread bowl! Yay!

Yay soup in a BREADBOWL!!

So this was an actual bread bowl, provided by the food service. It had chili.

This was the one where I first made my own breadbowl. It was tasty!

Breadbowl from February 20th. Some sort of tomato-based lentil soup.

New form: Peanut Butter and Jelly in a bread bowl! It works, right?

And then, alas, they ran out of the mini French loaves. So I needed to try to use a normal dinner roll. Which really didn’t work as well, but oh well. At least this post was saved!

Clam Chowder in a dinner bun breadbowl thingy

So, that was fun. I highly recommend trying it sometime. There’s something really fun about “beating the system”, and having fancier (or at least tastier) food than the provider expects.

Have a great weekend!

Hello, Fluffsters! Last night, I saw the cutest idea for an Easter meal.

Or any meal where there might be a little child.

It’s Easter Bunny themed rolls. Aren’t they adorable?

I know Easter isn’t for a while yet, but I guess this gives you time to practice!

Have a great Tuesday!

Hello, Fluffsters!

Yesterday, I made a PIE! Ok, I had some help. I went to a friend’s house to get some practice making pie crust. She made the filling, but I made the crust and spread out the filling and stuff.

It was a brownie-cheesecake pie, and it turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself.

And the crust (which I basically did myself, but with a bit of supervision) was a lot better than I was expecting!

The entire pie. So my crust decorations need work…

And the inside also looked (and tasted!) really good. (Again, if I do say so myself…)

Slice of Brownie Pie

Anywho, happy Friday! I hope you have a great weekend!