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alesbianwitch

I’m going to make my first spell bottle tonight. It’s scribbled into my book of shadows, but I figured I’d share it. Please note that I do this in addition to taking an anti-depressant and a mood stabilizer. Always seek professional help if you need it.

That being said, let’s get to the magic!

Note: This is probably best done during the waning moon. I’m making an exception since it’s Mabon.

Ingredients:
Sea salt (purification/cleansing/grounding)
Rosemary (healing)
Sandalwood (healing)
Bay Leaf (protection)
Rose (peace)
Cinnamon (purification)
Sunflower petals (sunlight/happiness)
Obsidian (grounding)
Amethyst (Happiness)
Fluorite (Ease depression)

You can probably leave a few of these out. Most important is fluorite for the depression-easing properties.

Steps
Anoint a blue or white candle with an oil charged/made for the intent of peace, healing, vitality, or similar.

Light the candle.

Assemble the bottle in the order listed (herbs first, stones second), focusing on the properties of each as you do. Pour your energy and intent into each ingredient as you add it. If you want to say words, do so. Otherwise, work purely with visualization.

Once it’s assembled, hold the bottle to the sky and charge the whole thing with your intent. Seal the bottle with wax, preferably blue or white. Leave near the candle and allow the candle to burn down.

Order 66

vignettedressing

It was a really weird website, in a language I didn’t recognize, and the most minimalist design imaginable while still being relatively functional; but it was also the only place on the entire internet (that I was able to find after countless hours of digging) that seemed to sell this particular brand of realistic-looking lightsaber merchandise. I was only really able to deduce that it was selling the thing at all because there were numbers next to a currency-esque symbol. I had no idea what the number converted to in American dollars, but I had a lot saved up and I really wanted to start my merch collection off on an impressive start.

It honestly took so long for the lightsaber to get to me that I legitimately forgot I had even truly placed the order at all. It felt like I had dreamed up the website and ordering process, helped by the fact that I didn’t much understand the site and that nothing had been taken out of my savings account. Imagine my surprise when I found the package at my house a full year later. Not only was it delivered, but it was inside my home sitting on the dining room table when I found it. I vaguely recognized the same sort of writing from the website, so I calmed down from the panic of thinking somebody broke into my place to drop off a bomb or something else deadly for me (hindsight is 20/20).

I am pretty much never going to get my deposit back if and when I move out of my apartment-home thanks to my lightsaber. It actually worked! It was not a toy. That was probably what the note inside the box had tried to warn me about, but I couldn’t read it so I learned about it the hard way. I am out a dining room table. I cut the couch, which came with the furnished apartment, in half. I created a sizable hole in one of the walls. I also lost an index finger, which I really only have myself to blame for that one due to my own curiosity. Oh, and my entire savings was wiped out along with a chunk from my checking account to cover the overdraw. I won’t say how much it was, but this thing was expensive.

It was simultaneously the best and worst thing I have ever purchased. I had to eat only ramen and sad lunchmeat sandwiches for a whole month until I had enough to get better food again. Nevermind all the damage I caused by testing out the thing. I never would have imagined that I would ever own a real working lightsaber. It is now collecting dust in my garage because I worried about ever using it for anything, and then I forgot where I had left it. I will never forget it exists, it caused too much damage for any of that, but I did forget where I had left it until recently after somebody new asked me about my finger.

animerecipes

Onigiri - Pokémon

So, for all of you who thought yesterday’s recipe was serious, joke’s on you (Happy 1st of April!). And for those of you who aren’t quite in on the joke, when 4Kids was dubbing Pokémon, they though little children wouldn’t understand what some of the foreign strange foods were, so they changed it in the script. Thus onigiri (a common food in the show) became everything from sandwiches to popcorn balls to, most commonly, jelly filled donuts. And, honestly, as a child, I knew something was up. Those weren’t no jelly filled donuts everyone was munching down on. Anyway, onigiri itself is a staple food in Japan, simple, portable, and filling, making it perfect to take on long adventures to duel gym leaders and Team Rocket. I hope you enjoy them almost as much a as a box full of donuts!

Ingredients

Rice (However much you want to make. I used 1 cup of uncooked rice for the onigiri in the picture above. As always, follow this recipe to cook the rice.)
Salt
Optional:
Nori - The thin, paper like seaweed used to wrap up sushi
Furikake - Also known as rice seasoning, it’s normally just bonito flakes, some nori, maybe some sesame seeds, and flavoring)
Peas
Soy sauce
Fillings - The most common filling for onigiri would probably be umeboshi, or sour pickled plums, however it is quite and acquired taste (my host mother laughed at the puckered face I made after eating my first one), so watch out. Other common fillings are canned tuna (mixed with mayo and sometimes wasabi), cooked tuna or other fish, fried chicken, a little cooked spam, or just about any kind of pickled vegetable.

Directions

Once the rice is cooked and cooled down, all you have to do is shape them. I have a difficult time with this, so what I’ve learned to do is use some plastic wrap. Put a scoop of rice in the middle of the plastic wrap and wrap it up. Onigiri Variation #1: If you want to make pea onigiri, like in the picture above, or you want to mix in some furikake, you need to do this before you put the rice in the plastic wrap. Just take your scoop of rice, put it in a bowl, and mix in your ingredients with a utensil.
Now, the shaping. Hold the wrapped up rice in your hand. Cup your hand so it looks like a “U”, and then cup your other hand, perpendicularly, on top of it tightly. Gently squeeze the rice. If you’re doing it correctly, it should start to look kind of like a triangle. Then, rotate the rice ball in your hands, so a different point is pointing downward and repeat. Onigiri Variation #2: If you want to add a filling, sometime near the end of forming the onigiri, press a dent in the middle of rice with your thumb. Add your filling, and cover the hole with more rice, and continue forming.
Take the rice out of the plastic wrap and form it a few times with your bare hands. Then place it on a plate, and sprinkle some salt on them. Onigiri Variation #3: You can add nori to just about any type of onigiri. You’ll need to cut up the nori to fit, but you can cut it into any shape you want, be it a larger sheet to cover the entire onigiri, a small little rectangle for just on the bottom, or some cute shapes. Onigiri Variation #4: In addition to the salt, you can sprinkle some sesame seeds or furikake on top, and press it into the rice. Onigiri Variation #5: Finally, one of my favorite types of onigiri, yaki onigiri, or grilled onigiri. Now, I don’t have the appropriate small grill to make these, so I make them in the oven. Just heat your oven up to a low heat, brush some soy sauce onto one side of the onigiri, place it on a cookie sheet, and put it in the oven. In 10-20 minutes, flip the onigiri over, and brush some more soy sauce onto the other side, and cook it again. Just keep an eye on it, and cook it until it’s slightly crispy on both sides.

Hot Pot/Shabu-shabu - Ouran High School Host Club

Mmmmm, shabu-shabu. Named for the sound as you swish the meat in the broth with your chop sticks, shabu-shabu is probably the best friend-get-together-in-the-cold-winter-and-all-eat food I’ve ever encountered. And anime (especially shows like Ouran) really showcases how it is the friends who you’re eating with that are important. Either way, this is a dinner meant for a group of friends gathered around a table, laughing and goofing off, and enjoying fun, simple food. This recipe in particular is meant for 4 to 6 people, but you can easily adjust the proportions to accommodate more or fewer guests.

Ingredients

A hot pot or hot plate, with a wide, deep pan (this is rather important, because without it, you can’t really prepare and eat the food at the table. I used an electric wok, because that’s what I had, and while it was a bit too deep in the center, it worked well)

Thinly sliced beef, preferably well marbled (if there are any big Asian markets around where you live, just look for shabu-shabu beef. If not, then go to a butcher, or the meat department and see if they will slice some top sirloin to about 1/16 of an inch. If you can’t find anywhere that will do that, then just pick up some cheesesteak meat as a last resort)

3 packages of udon noodles

4 cups chopped napa cabbage

20 or so shiitaki mushrooms

1 14oz block of tofu

1 packet of dashi powder or 1 ½ liters of dashi stock

Soy sauce

Optional/Recommended Ingredients:

2 packages of enoki mushrooms, or oyster mushrooms

1 leek

½ pound jumbo shrimp

2 cups chopped bok choy

~~Shunguki chrysanthemum leaves~~

1 daikon radish

Ponzu sauce

Directions

Prepare all of the ingredients. Cut the base off of the mushrooms (so that the enoki or oyster mushrooms are just barely connected together, and the shiitake are only the caps), and cut X’s on the top of the shiitake, chop the tofu and the radish, shell the shrimp, and slice the leek on the diagonal. Place all the ingredients onto a plate, and move everything to the table you are eating at.

Mix the dashi powder with water as per the instructions to make dashi stock. If you can’t find any dashi, just use chicken stock. Pour the stock into the pan you are using, add some soy sauce to your taste, and let it just barely come to a boil.

Once it reaches a boil, you can start adding things into the pot. Let everything cook, then take it out, dip it in some sauce, and eat. Allow everyone around the table add in whatever it is they want to eat.

Party. (Entirely necessary).