Monday, May 13, 2013

New recipe: Chicken, Quinoa, and Sweet Potato Stew

I made dinner last night. And now I have enough leftovers to feed us for at least a week, assuming we eat nothing else. But it tasted good, so I am recording what I ought to do next time so I can eat delicious food but not have 5 containers of leftovers. (Yes, it's true; I usually only post recipes so that I can find them easily and not have to remember what I modified last time.) 

Please note I didn't actually make the recipe below as written this time - I made twice as much and it completely filled my large crockpot and cooked fully in 6 hours on high. So this theoretically should be a more manageable amount.

Chicken, Quinoa, and Sweet Potato Stew
Probably serves around 4-5.

1/2 T dried minced onion
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 T chili powder
1/8-1/4 tsp red pepper flakes 
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2-3 c. chicken broth (depending on how liquidy you want it)
1 very large chicken breast, cooked and shredded (use a hand mixer)
1/4 c quinoa (uncooked)
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1-2 medium red potatoes, peeled (if desired) and chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
1 can of beans (red kidney or black, or another kind of your preference)

Mix everything in a crockpot and cook on high 4 hours or low 6-8 hours (or until potatoes are tender). If you cook it too long, it still tastes fine but looks kind of mushy.

Modified from recipes found here and here.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Perler Beads: Smorgasbord Sprites

I totally intended to post these pictures weeks and weeks ago. Whoops. Well, have some random sprites.

Final Fantasy (all from VI unless otherwise noted): Esper Terra, Interceptor and Shadow, Chocobo, Chocobo (FFIV), Magicite, Ultros

More Final Fantasy VI: Turtle, Dragon, Draco and Maria (from the opera), Ultros again with the 4t weight, Cactrot/Cactaur, Gogo

Bunny Link from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Link with a flock of Cuccos from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Hyrule Crest

Wiggler, Baby Yellow Yoshi, and Rex from Super Mario World

Sprites from Super Mario World and Mario 2

ExciteBike

Monday, May 6, 2013

Quick Update on the Perler Front

I just wanted to give a quick update: we finally opened an etsy shop! We are selling perler sprites there under the name of VGPerlers (which stands for video game perlers, if you're curious). We also have a Facebook page now, where we will post more pictures of completed projects. I'll still try to post them here too though, don't worry!

Speaking of new projects, here's what we did this past weekend:

BioShock: Infinite fan sprite, Hero from Lufia, Monty Mole and Pokey from Super Mario World, two Pokemon and several Pokeballs, and a set of awesome Pokemon coasters
The Pokemon coasters aren't quite done yet; I still need to attach cork backing to them. I already did that for Bidoof last night, and I'll finish the rest tonight (hopefully). I'm really pleased with how they turned out!

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Perler Beads: more Final Fantasy goodness

We've been busy making some pretty cool stuff. And by we I mean Nathan. He made all of these (occasionally asking my input on color choice), and then I ironed them. And let me tell you, ironing Terra was definitely not my favorite thing to do... the beads shrink when you iron them, and then when they cool they curl - so if you iron something really big, and don't iron it thoroughly as you go, then you get curling that knocks over unmelted beads and causes major headache. I am not the most patient person when it comes to ironing, so even my best efforts led to two spots that required reconstructive surgery.

Terra and Kefka (I think Terra's going to win) plus the Final Fantasy III/VI game cart and little Terra for scale. As you can see, big Terra took up 13 trays. 

Nathan holding Terra. Terra is based on a fan sprite created by AbyssWolf.

Terra compared to the Metroid, our previous record holder for largest sprite (also a pain to iron)

Sephiroth & Cloud (Final Fantasy VII) and Vivi (Final Fantasy IX). Again, AbyssWolf is the creator of these fan sprites. (view more of his sprites here)

After Terra, Sephiroth and Cloud seemed downright modest. But they're each pretty good sized too - I'd estimate at least a foot tall each.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Perler Beads: Zelda items and Ganon

Look what I've been doing for the last week!

Zelda: Link to the Past items 
I must admit I got a little obsessed and had to do as many as possible. But aren't those bottles AWESOME?And there are so many cool things we thought of to do with the keys...

Zelda: Link to the Past items (arrows, rupees, bombs)
Fun fact: these are actually the sprites you see in the world, not the menu screen. The menu sprites are significantly simplified and not as cool looking. So for example, the bug net (pictured below) is the bug net you see when Link finds it in the game and holds it above his head.

Zelda: Link to the Past items
I really like the flippers. And the net. And the ocarina....

Zelda: Link to the Past Ganon
As an added bonus, I decided to make Ganon. I felt my Zelda sprite collection was severely lacking in bosses. Maybe I'll make one of those worm bosses too... after I do the fat fairy!

The Legend Zelda items
Nathan made some Zelda 1 items too. I like making items; they're fast and relatively straightforward.

What are your favorites pictured above? 

Friday, March 29, 2013

Perler Beads: Final Fantasy V

I started making Final Fantasy V sprites several months ago, but for some reason I never got around to finishing the last guy... until last week. And then we had to make an enemy for them to fight to round it all out. We didn't want to do something huge though, so it took a while to decide on which one would be suitably cool and also not massive... And this is what we came up with. What do you think?


Final Fantasy V cast fighting a Tonberry

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Perler Beads: Jewelry Edition

A few weeks ago, when my brother was down visiting, the conversation turned (as it often does, given our decor) to perler beads. And that led to a burst of creativity resulting in...

Nathan made the controller sprites up, and I made them into earrings.

NES controllers
SNES controllers
We also did this one for the N64 controller, but it's a little large for earrings...

N64 controller

Not sure yet what we'll do with that one. Keychain, perhaps, or a pendant necklace?