Fill up on this week’s Word-Fuel, the (near) weekly post here to fuel your words, mind, and body. 😉 🙂
This week from Word-Fuel:
Coming in hot from Healthy Eats, Sweets & Treats: beer-battered fish and chips recipe, with a pan-made gravy and old-fashioned tartar sauce. Yum-yum!
Under Do.It.Your Self-care: The Facial Mousse of Eternal Youth. Yes, you read that right! I’ve uncovered the secrets to everlasting youth and bottled them into an easy-to-prepare facial mousse that’s light as air.
From The Book Nook: A review of Orfeia by Joanne Harris. This modern fairytale touched my heart and was quite a joy to read, not to mention fast.
Lastly, at The Writing Corner: part one of my new short story series.
The truth is: I write a lot. Recently I flipped through my portfolio and recognized just how much-unused material I am racking up. It inspired this short story series.
Each week I’ll release a page of a story, continuing until it’s finished, whereafter I’ll move on to the next. As much as I believe that artists should get paid for their work, there’s another part of me that thinks art should be free to enjoy. This series is me compromising. 🙂
This week I was feeling a bit down and in need of a pick-me-up, which guided me toward making this recipe. There’s something about fish and chips that I find SO comforting! With a few simple swaps in the preparation, you don’t have to sacrifice healthiness for comfort.
Despite being fried, this meal is dense in Omega 3 fatty acids, thanks to the fish. Omega 3’s can improve brain function, which can aid you in battling away those foul moods when they take over. Moreover, it’s an acid that the body cannot produce on its own. So it’s vital to supplement your diet with omegas either in their natural form, by eating things such as fish and nuts, or by consuming vitamins.
Directions:
Pour a canola oil liberally into a frying pan and heat at medium temperature.
Reserve a few tablespoons of flour and pour the rest into a bowl.
Place the reserved tablespoons of flour onto the plate, and add salt and pepper. Mix with fork.
To the bowl of flour: add a few sprinkles of onion powder, garlic powder, and paprika, as well as a baking powder. Mix well with a fork.
Add in pilsner to bowled flour mixture a few glugs at a time, mixing with a fork until it forms a batter. Make sure it doesn’t look like a paste.
Cover fish in plated flour mixture and set aside.
Cut fingerling potatoes with fry-maker, toss in canola oil, onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, salt, and pepper.
Place in the oven, second rack from the bottom on 375 degrees.
Once fries have cooked for 20 minutes, dip lightly floured fish into bowled flour batter and gently place into heated canola oil.
Fry for 4 minutes on each side or until fully golden brown.
Remove fries from oven, drain on paper towel.
Remove fish from oil, drain on paper towel.
Enjoy! 🙂
For the tartar sauce:
One heaping tablespoon of mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard
1 tsp green pickle relish
Directions:
Mix all ingredients in a small bowl or cup and place them in the fridge to allow flavors to marry.
For the pan gravy:
1/4 cup of Bovril
One heaping tablespoon of salted butter
One heaping tablespoon of corn starch
Salt&Pepper to taste
One cup of water
Directions:
Place: Bovril, butter, salt & pepper, and corn starch in the pan.
Mixture cornstarch with one cup of cold water and pour into pan.
Heat on high heat until the mixture boils, stirring constantly.
Once it starts to boil: reduce heat to a simmer and stir until thickened.
Your gravy is ready to enjoy! 🙂
Are fine lines plaguing your once smooth and supple skin? Are you looking more tired than usual as stress and demands pile up and your sleep fritters away?
Well, do I have a solution for you! This recipe is the ultimate skincare mousse! Each ingredient boasts a bevy of anti-aging, youth-enhancing benefits. Once you try it, you’ll wish you had always made your skincare products.
I’ve only been using this product for a week, and I can already see a difference in my skin. It’s dewier, moisturized, and glowy–almost as if I’ve had a facial every day. And anybody can make this–it’s so easy–but the best part is? It’s shelf-stable! No refrigerating this product. It’ll keep for months, if not years. Now that’s budget-friendly!
Rosehip Oil:
Hydrating
Moisturizing
Exfoliating and brightening
Firming
Anti-inflammatory
Sun protection
Color-correcting
Skin regenerating
Rosewater:
It balances skin’s natural oils.
It can help reduce the look of temporary redness.
It hydrates.
It has antioxidant properties that nourish and protect the skin.
It can help prevent fine lines and wrinkles and diminish the look of existing ones.
Helichrysum Oil:
Repairs Skin
Increases collagen production
Reduces the appearance of wrinkles
Neroli Oil:
Regenerative
Improves Skin Elasticity
Antiseptic
Antibacterial
Anti-Inflammatory
All of which makes it perfect for treating acne and reducing redness.
Sweet Orange Oil:
It reduces dark spots and blemishes.
Fights off free radicals to prevent premature skin aging.
Antibacterial properties help fight acne.
It boosts circulation in the skin.
It promotes cell growth and collagen synthesis.
It shrinks large pores and firm skin (astringent).
Shea Butter:
It boosts skin moisture.
Its anti-inflammatory properties soothe skin problems.
It helps fight breakouts.
It boasts anti-aging properties.
Coconut Oil:
It helps bolster your skin’s protective barrier layer, trapping moisture inside and keeping skin supple and hydrated.
It reduces inflammation.
It has anti-inflammatory properties, making it beneficial for irritated, chafed skin.
It increases collagen production.
Directions:
Over a double boiler: melt shea butter and coconut oil together.
Pour into the container and place in the fridge to cool for ten minutes.
Once cooled, add in remaining ingredients, stir gently, and place in the fridge for an additional hour to set up completely.
There you have it, the facial mousse of eternal youth. Even Ponce de Leon would be jealous 😉
Welcome to the first part of the very first short story I’ll be sharing, titled: The Unicorn Bounty.
It was a stormy eve, the night we rode in horse and buggy through the evergreen breech. A miserable hum cut through the rain as it buffeted my window, making my skin prickle with each tap.
The company I kept did nothing to calm my increasingly frayed nerves.
Jarvis and Mikhale: unsavory hunters. Two seedy blokes sitting taciturn in our cabin, their wormy faces pitted and gruesome.
Until now, I had always wriggled out of their poorly conceived manipulations—guess my luck had to run out sometime.
It was a matter of chance, really. A case of: wrong place, wrong time. Not to mention me opening my big mouth when I shouldn’t have.
Good job, Tansley. I still felt the urge to kick myself.
“Oi, Tansley, ya sleeping ova there? We’re almost to Crystalline Forest. Time to make good on your claim and bring us that unicorn horn!” Jarvis’s face shifts into a pious sneer, nodding at Mikhale for affirmation.
Mikhale returned the nod but said nothing, instead jeering in a silent show of camaraderie.
His disfigured face sent chills down my spine.
These are men of murder, hired guns, brutal creatures well known for their lack of moral fibre and quick work.
I was sitting mere feet from them, being so close, I could already feel my courage, what little bravery I had, disintegrating.
Still, we rode on, the bumpy ride jostling me, my stomach uneasy.
Trying to appear less rattled than I was, I sat up straight, puffed out my chest, “Who could sleep at a time like this?” I said, casting a hand to the roof acting the part of the stalwart warrior I wished I was, “Of course, I’ll get that horn for ya boys—you can count on me!”
I assumed my ill-gained travel companions were silenced and slumped back into my seat, my ears and eyes focused the wind humming along with the pattering rain.
If only this ride through the downpour was it.
I could have dealt with that, stomached it, but not this.
Not this forced invasion of the forest.
Not this ringing death knell with every thud of the wheels, bringing me closer and closer to my impending doom.
Uninterested in questioning me further, Mikhale and Jarvis conversed.
“Yeah, it’ll be a mighty rich day when I ‘old that unicorn horn in me hand, been eyeing that bounty for a wee spell ‘aven’t we Mik?” Jarvis descended into mocking guffaws, each one a barb to my heart.
“I can’t believe this little runt is our ticket to collect!” His bony elbow knocked into his companion suggestively, as though a secret lay between them.
One protected by its fierce keepers.
“Ah, no need to torment our meal ticket, Jarvis,” Mikhale reciprocated Jarvis’s laughter with a low chuckle.
“Let him sulk. It serves the bloke right after talking big down at the tavern. Your tough talk didn’t fool us then, and it sure doesn’t fool us now.” Mikhale gave me a pointed stare, his green eyes glowing with hate.
“We know you’re shaking in your boots.” He snickered again, shrugging carelessly, “no matter, it works out for us just the same. Let him sulk, Jarvis.” He repeated, turning a daring glare toward me, a look that beckoned challenge, aggression.
I did not rise to it, rebounding into silence, rebuffed.
Safe, safe for now, I told myself, so long as I don’t set their tempers on edge.
I couldn’t say anything. Mikhale was right.
Despite my half-baked attempt at heroism, the truth was: I had been shaking in my boots.
Not just now, but for weeks.
People were dying, and tensions had mounted in Eastwick. The stories started as idle gossip before spreading to full-blown rumors, catching like wildfire across the countryside as body after body started turning up, impaled.
Men, women, and children were all speared to death where they stood. So many unfortunate souls ladened and holey like fresh swiss cheese. All succumbing to a galloping tyranny, to luminous horns glinting with blood.
Horns that caught the moonlight as they roamed through Crystalline Forest, a goring nightmare lit by the night sky.
The unicorns.
The unicorns had turned on us.
Thanks for joining in and filling up on this week’s Word Fuel. Come back next week for a special Valentine’s Day edition, as well as part two of The Unicorn Bounty. In the meantime, stay safe and keep spreading the love!
- K.Thompson
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