mDuo13

Today I was left to fend for myself for dinner (usually I either eat out with friends, eat at work, or eat my mom's cooking) and had planned on getting a delicious, spicy, and relatively healthy falafel sandwich at the famous Falafel Drive-In, but when I got there around 6:45, I found that on Sundays it closes at 6. That being the case, my Plan B was to visit Safeway (which is directly on the way back from Falafel Drive-In) and pick up something to make. I wandered around the store for a while, eventually deciding to boldly cook without a recipe. I picked some ingredients I liked, popped in the CD Re:MIKUS by livetune ft. Hatsune Miku, and set to work. The result, while not perfect by any means, fit my criteria nicely: spicy, not horribly unhealthy, and tasty.

The result was pretty tasty, if I do say so myself, but the process of making it was not as smooth as described above. For one, I tried to make the bacon in the same (wok-like) pan as the rest of the toppings above, which was not the best plan. It saved on dishes but the bacon cooked somewhat unevenly, and I burnt the back of my finger a little bit while dealing with it. Another mistake I made is waiting too long to boil the water for the pasta. I didn't want the pasta to get soggy but I ended up delaying it so long that everything was ready and getting cold by the time the pasta was done. As for the ingredients, I think it could have served to add a little salt. I was worried that an entire habanero would make it too hot for a single person, but since I ended up making enough for two people anyway I could definitely have added more, probably the whole pepper. Your mileage will vary depending on how spicy you like things. As it was, it was mildly to moderately spicy. Might've been more if I'd not had the sauce sitting there for so long waiting on the pasta. And I am quite full. For something I made without anything resembling a recipe on-hand, I think the result was pretty good, although it's quite simple when you think about it - the only thing I did differently from pasta dishes I've seen made a hundred times is throw extra green onions in and use a habanero.

On an unrelated note, the August 31 deadline for the kanji practice Spiritsnare and I started a while back is approaching. We're just a little bit behind our (ambitious) goal, but I think we'll definitely make it. I'm going to go ahead and cover all the remaining kanji we marked as either unknown or requiring more study, but thankfully most of these are ones we already knew to an extent. Tomorrow, we just need to retread the full extent of our studies to make sure we've actually learned all the kanji we supposedly learned this month and we will have attained our goal. So here we go:

• 読 - yo, doku, - "read" as in 読む (to read), 音読み (Chinese pronunciation of kanji). Mostly used by itself.
• 茶 - cha - "tea" as in お茶 (tea), 茶色 (brown), 緑茶 (green tea), 抹茶　（green tea powder), 喫茶店 (cafe).
• 口 - kou, ku, kuchi - "mouth" as in 口 (mouth), 入り口 (entrance), 人口 (population), 口紅 (lipstick). The radical can also be used to mean "boxes" ¬_¬...
• 万 - man - "10,000" as in 百万 (1 million), 万引き (shoplift), 万が一 (just in case). Not to be confused with 方 (direction).
• 土 - do, tsuchi - "earth" as in 土 (the ground), 土曜日 (Saturday), お土産 (souvenir).　Not to be confused with 士 (samura), which has longer arms and shorter legs.
• 年 - nen, toshi - "year" as in 来年 (next year), 年をとる (to grow older), or as a suffix denoting a specific year (e.g. ２００９年).
• 百 - hyaku - "100" as in 百円 (100 yen), の百景 (the 100 sights to see of something).
• 千 - sen - "1000". Not to be confused with 干 (dry out), which has a straight top instead of a tilted one.
• 牛 - gyuu, ushi - "cow" as in 牛 (cow), 牛乳 (milk), 牛丼 (gyuudon). Not to be confused with 午 (noon), 年 (year), or 生 (life).
• 明 - mei, aka, etc. - "bright" as in 明るい (sunny), 明日 (tomorrow), 明らかな (clear difference), 明る (to become clear), 説明 (explanation), 不明 (unclear).
• 肉 - niku - "meat" as in 筋肉 (muscle), 皮肉 (irony)
• 石 - ishi, seki - "rock" as in 石 (rock), 宝石 (jewel), 石鹸 (soap). Not to be confused with 右 (right-hand-side).
• 買 - ka - "buy" as in 買う (to buy), 買い物 (shopping).
• 話 - wa, hana - "conversation" as in 話/話し (story), 話す (to converse), 電話 (telephone), 話題 (topic), 世話 (looking after).
• 来 - ku, rai - "come" as in 来る (to come), 出来る (possible), 未来 (future), 本来 (essentially), 来月 (next month).
• 鳥 - tori, chou - "bird" as in 鳥 (bird), 鳥肌 (goosebumps), 焼き鳥 (roast chicken), 七面鳥 (turkey).
• 森 - mori, shin - "forest" as in 森 (forest), 森林 (woods in general). Also commonly used in proper names.