You should eat this, it’s digdang delicious!
You need:
1 medium-ish butternut squash
1 bunch collard greens
1 pound bulk spicy italian sausage
1 orange
1 tbl sesame oil
1 pound rigatoni
parmesan cheese
Early in the day, like say 4 or 5 hours before you want to eat, take that butternut squash and stab it all over like you’re a crazy clown faced squash killer and pop it into the microwave for 8 minutes. Then just leave it alone. It’s a proven fact that the insides of squashes need only 1/3 more hydrogen atoms to become as hot as the sun once they are microwaved. Leave the damned squash alone for a few hours.
…Later in the day when your squash has cooled to manageable temperatures…
De-rib your collards and tear them up into bite sized pieces, rinse well and set aside.
Zest the hell out of that orange, then cut it open and squeeze all the juice out and mix it with the zest and then add the sesame oil. Set aside.
Grab that squash and slice it open, dig them seeds out from its belly. You will notice that the squash is not evenly cooked. The part around the bulb is cooked pretty well, but the rest of it is not quite done. This is exactly what you want (so, if your squash is somehow perfectly cooked all the way through you should 1. weep in shame and 2. contact NASA and offer to sell them the craziest microwave from Planet Awesome). Peel and chunk that squash up. Some of it will mush and the rest will become, I don’t know, thumb sized chunks (your thumb, not mine, my thumb is midgety and weird).
Put on some water to boil for your rigatoni, add when boiling.
While your noodles boil fry up your sausage over pretty high heat. Once the sausage is cooked through add your squash, toss it a bit with the sausage, add about 1/4 cup of water, cover and turn the heat down to medium low (this would also be an awesome time to add, say, a chopped up apple or pear or walnuts or all of those things).
2 minutes before your rigatoni is done toss the collard greens into the pot with the noodles and stir. When the noodles are ready, reserve one cup of the noodle water and strain the rest out. Give it a goodly shake and unceremoniously dump it into the sausage/squash mix. Turn turn toss toss, the overcooked squash with start coating things up (add a bit of the reserved water to loosen things up if things get too sticky) and the rest of the squash stays in delicious chunk form. Whisk your orange zest/juice/sesame oil together and drizzle over the pasta and give it another goodly toss.
Serve with some parmesan.
Monthly Archives: July 2011
Can you even believe it?
{Bubbo note – Chester was trying to help cheer up a friend and maybe other people who needed cheer ups might also be cheered}
Hi hi HI HIHI!! Hi! Hi lady! My name is Chester and I am the dog that knows the thing that is all of the stuff. This is true, right! Another thing that is true is that I tell jokes to the dogs at the dog park and they all do the thing that is laugh and sometimes they laugh a lot and sometimes the boxers try to jump on me and I HATE THAT SO MUCH!!! What is wrong with the things that are boxers? Don’t they know the thing that is not jumping on me? I know this thing!! I know this thing because I am the little dog that has all of the smarts!
This is a joke that I like to say to the nice dogs:
“What does the man do if you do poohibbity on the grass?”…”HE PICKS IT UP!!!”
ha hahahahahahahhahhah OH MY GOD!! DID you do the thing that is read all of that joke! Sometimes when I say that joke I laugh until my nose does sneezes!! Can you even believe that?
“If it isn’t you or the other dog that is doing piwis by the tree then who is it? …”A DIFFERENT DOG!!!”
{bubbo note: Chester just went to lay down for a second, he laughs a bit too much at his own jokes}
“How many barks does it take to do the thing that is chase away the mailman?” …”More than me (Chester) because I am very good at barkings!!!” Get it? “More than me!!”
Also, do you want to know a crazy thing that is not even a joke?? This is a thing that happened but you might think that it is made of unbelievables, but my name is Chester and I am a dog that only tells the true things and I am not Bick Stickerson of W-Peef-Poff-N Super News making up the lies and all of the distortions and trying to win a Blazing Biscuit Award by saying untruths about me (Chester 12Pound of the Puff Snuzzle Action News Network!) You are going to be so surprised that the inside of you head will feel like a bowl of the Cheerios!
Oh my god! Okay! Hihih hIHIHhihi! My name is Chester and that is me
But I already did the thing that is tell you that and if you do the thing that is check at the top of this post you will know that I already gave you the tellings of my name (Chester)!
Real thing!! This happened and you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BELIEVE THIS THING!
There was a day that was not Yesterday and was not a Monday but I know it was a day that we did the thing that was go to the dog park and I was there at the dog park and I was doing RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN! and I was doing piwis on everything and the man did the thing that was PICK UP THE POOHIBBITIES!!
{bubbo note: he’s laying down again, that’s his funniest joke}
CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT??
I was doing all my RUNRUNRUN and Maddie was doing the thing where we both do the runnings but Maddie does the running on to the thing that is me and makes me do the rollovers and that is so much fun and then I do the thing where I try to do jumpings on to her back and that is also a thing that is SO MUCH FUN!!
And then! Can you even guess? REALLY?!! I found a thing on the ground that smelled SO GOOD!! Oh my god you do not have a way of knowing how much goodness was smelling out of that thing! I wanted to make yellbarks about how good it had with smells but I am Chester and I know a thing and that thing is to do quietnesses about smellgoods or else the other dogs will try to do takings and then you won’t have the smellgood.
Do you know what I did? I bet you know what I did because everyone is smart to know that I did the rollings all over that smell and I looked like this SZSZSZSZSZSZSZSZSZS all back and forth like all of the goodsmell needs.
But then do you know what happened? I am going to tell you a thing that happened but a thing that is true is that it is SO CRAZY! that you might think that it is the thing that is a make up but it isn’t it is all true or I am not the thing that is Chester 12Pound, trusted journalist and reporter for The Puff Snuzzle Action News Network!!
I was doing all of the squirmy rolls on the good smell and then stupidface stinkleg Bick Stickerson of WPPN and he was making pictures of me!! He tried to pretend that I was doing a thing to tell on the news!! I know that a thing that is true is that all of the things that I do should be made to the news so that all of the people and dogs know about how Chester I am! But this was just rollings in smellgoods, not being the thing that is super awesome!! He did a video of my ZSZSZSZSZSZSZSZ and I got up and I ran at him and I did so many barkings at him and he did the runaways and I was the Chester!
But then another thing happened and I know that this is going to be SO CRAZY that you will think that I am doing fakeries at you, but this is everything that is true!
I was at the home and I was doing the thing that was hiding all my bones when Lester Big Easy {bubbo Note: that’s my dad’s cat} called to tell me to watch the thing that was WPPN news but why would I look at stupidnesses and dumberies and also! Lester! Why are you watching such doofusness?? But then I turned on WPPN and a thing that is true
you won’t believe this!
A thing that is true is that I was on the tv but not on PSANN!! I was on WPPN and it was a video of me doing ZSZSZSZSZ squirm arounds on the good smells but!! BUT!! They did the thing of blur pixels over my weenus and said I was doing NUDITY DANCES!! At the dog park!!
Can you even believe this thing??
Can you???
I was not doing nudity dances!!! I was doing rollarounds!!
Stupid Bick Stickerson!! He always does the untrues and all the people believe him and he has2 Flaming Biscuit awards and I only have one but I am going to do a thing that is win a Flaming Biscuit and then when I go to the place to get the thing that is my award I am going to tell everyone that I was not doing nudity dances.
But even another thing is that Maddie did laughings about it! She did laughings because she thought it was funny to pretend about me doing the nudity dances! I was SO MAD!! That I hid ALL OF MY BONES UNDER THE BED!! And I did not take them out for 3 hours! That is how MAD I was.
But a thing that is true is that I am not mad in the right nows because I did a thing that was do a video of Bick Stickerson doing buttdrags on his grass and I am going to show it on the PSANN!! And We will all do laughings!
This is a thing that happened!
Also
“What is fat but not smart?” …”A squirrel!!!”
This is a picture of me laughing
The one in which I blather on about frivolity
I have not seen my natural hair color in years. People ask me about my natural color and I can only describe as “dead mouse”, it’s that dull not quite brown, a bland and entirely feeble sort of color. Uninteresting to say the least.
Now my hair is a carnival of colors on my head and I absolutely love it. I see my hair in the mirror, a color of joy or celebration and it makes me smile. For a very long time, for most of my late teens and then my adult years, I could not smile at what I saw in the mirror. I would look in the mirror and see a crooked, fat face, a sagging mushroom of a body. I looked in the mirror and only shame looked out at me. I made things easier on my reflection, I bought clothes in the blandest of colors, khaki, beige, some black, off white. I wore these nondescript colors and I kept my hair long and I hid myself from view. If I kept myself hidden then I would not offend anyone with my fat and ugly body, no one would be compelled to think derisive thoughts since they couldn’t see me.
Eventually I was able to lose the weight and gain some confidence and I felt good about how I looked. I bought clothes in brighter colors, I bought fun shoes, I started dyeing my hair.
I started with your standard bottle blond (Feria 100 Pure Diamond). Mostly it lightened my hair, made it brighter, maybe not awesome but I was feeling better, like I might deserve to be worthy of looking at.
Then I met Owen. There is much to say about Owen, he is a magician, he is my hairdresser (really he’s a very good friend who also cuts my hair). He crafted beautiful hair styles for me, he still does. Eventually, he gently mentioned that the out-of-a-box blond was really not my most flattering decision and that he had a solution for this. He started coloring my hair for me.
We started slow, different shades of blond, sometimes a few different shades at once. I felt so good!
Then we stared experimenting with other colors, maybe mostly blond with a bit of red or pink mixed in. Then we got braver and bolder and we went to town on my head. Pinks, purples, blues, everything. We did color highlights or spikes or swirls, we would cover my head in the shiniest of pinks! I glowed! I could advertise my triumph over the bland me. Owen taught me how to do it myself, it became a part of me.
My depression came back. My soul hurt, it still does. My world sometimes feels like a monstrosity grey and shadows. I do not always feel so colorful. I considered ending the hair coloring, it was most definitely not reflecting who I was in my heart, it felt trite and forced. But also I stilled liked it. In fact, the idea of stopping had made me sad. That was a glimmer, a little bit of hope. So I continued with the colors.
When you are in a negative place in your head, when you are depressed or low, you tend to pick up on the depressing and low. You perseverate on the negative. You read the the horrid accounts of people being murdered and tortured and abused and it sticks in your brain. You don’t notice the heartwarming stories of someone beating the odds, you only see the crippling and the rending. That’s what I saw, a world as horrible as my own heart.
Then I’d go brush my teeth and see a blob of shiny pink on top of my head and I smiled, a little smile but it was a smile. In soothing myself after a panic attack I would go get a drink of water and there is was, spiky blue fun.
I’d go out and kids would stare and smile, they liked it. Could a world as terrible as the one I imagined also be a world with kids waving and smiling and loving my hair? But even adults liked my hair, people often complimented me on my hair color (sure, there were the ones with the snorts and snide asides, but I didn’t care!). The color of my hair made me happy on even the very terriblest days, anything that potent was worth hang on to.
This is why I do it. I color my hair the way that I do because in some small way it creates happiness for me and for others and that is some powerful magic
