And the world's like a science and I'm like a secret

I'm beginning to understand a small fraction of how people who work at restaurants or fast food chains feel like - always smelling like food. Right now I smell like corned beef brisket and I cannot wait to take a warm relaxing bubble bath so I can smell clean - like juicy pomegranate, mangoes, and green apples I suppose. Speaking of juicy apples, I have a Desperate Housewives poster to my right with all the DH ladies laying on top of apples, with a tagline that says "Tempting, isn't it?"

Today I tried some of Fresh & Easy's lemon saffron Israeli couscous. Fresh & Easy is basically a British owned version of Trader Joe's except there are fewer Fresh & Easy stores around here and they only have self check out lines inside of these stores. Fresh & Easy has an amazing roasted banana gelato. For the longest time I have been hoping for something else that tastes like Dreyer's Slow Churned banana ice cream (I think this flavor is discontinued... or I just have trouble finding it for the past few years), and Fresh & Easy's roasted banana gelato comes very close to that same yummy banana ice cream taste.

Anyways, back to the couscous... I really liked it. It's very flavorful with a tangy citrus-y taste. I even added some cashew halves in with the couscous. Lunch was good with couscous, a glass of organic soy milk, and Julie Andrews in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). If I were to screen a Julie Andrews double feature, I would screen Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and Victor Victoria (1982) back to back. Julie Andrews is amazing; too bad The Sound of Music (1965) and Mary Poppins (1964) overshadow some of her other work in films.

Guess what? I finally got to use the new slow cooker that has been sitting around the kitchen for who-knows-how-long. For about half of the day, I slow cooked this corned beef brisket I saw at Costco. The corned beef brisket smells fantastic, and even though the brisket broth itself is pretty salty and somewhat oily, it tastes great like mom's homemade soups (I should know... I burned my tongue trying to taste-test it :P).

I also made some Irish cream to celebrate St. Patty's Day tomorrow. Since not too many of us at home drink alcohol, I made 5 servings worth, and also since this particular recipe that I used doesn't ask for eggs, my Irish cream drink can last for about 2 months if I refrigerate it (woot!).

ingredients for the Irish cream I made

For once I wish I had Jameson so that way my Irish cream would be authentically "Irish" but instead I used a Scottish whiskey that I got from my sister called Chivas Regal because I don't normally drink and if I do drink, it's definitely not hard liquor on the rocks like Jameson. I was kind of repulsed by almond extract because ever since I was a kid, I hated almond jello, which both my siblings LOVE. I cringe at the smell of almond and what's worse is that once my aunt and uncle from Palo Alto brought over an overwhelmingly smelly almond scented soap; that thing itself made me shudder at the strong stench of almond.

Irish cream inside of a blender

I've had Irish cream before (and the whiskey taste is strong enough to cover the almond flavor anyways) so I'm not too worried about how this liqueur I made will turn out tomorrow. Alright, it's Cinderella-time (midnight!) ... and I gotta finish cleaning up the kitchen. *yawn* Maybe I'll take a little nip of some Irish cream before I go to sleep... that sounds really good right about now. Oh and this new song I'm obsessed with sounds great too.