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Oat Cakes

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So these oat cakes are a little less "chunky" than other recipes, but still have a bit of soft tiny pebble texture in them when they are done. If you prefer even less pebble texture, you can try to grind the oats into a dry powder before starting. You may need to increase the amount of oats of you do that, I'd start with another 20g. Ingredients: 80g rolled oats 1/8 teaspoon baking powder (about 0.5g) 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (about 0.5g) Pinch of salt 60ml unsweetened applesauce ( or a 4oz by weight container) 30ml milk (dairy or non-dairy) 15ml lemon juice (about 1 tablespoon) 15 ml melted honey (about 1 tablespoon) 1 egg oil for frying Instructions: Combine Ingredients: In a tall blending container, add all the ingredients. Blend: Using an immersion blender, blend all ingredients until smooth. You might pulse a few times for a slightly chunkier texture. (Food processor or beverage blender also works)  Cook: Heat a pan over medium heat until you can pass the water t
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Glazed Carrots

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1 lb baby carrots 2 Clementine oranges 3 tbsp dark rum 3 tbsp honey  1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp butter 1 tsp ground cinnamon  2 tbsp olive oil Handful of wineberries (sub with raspberries) Salt and pepper to taste Parsley In a skillet, heat the oil and butter to medium high heat. Add the carrots. You'll cook these for and 7-10 minutes. While they are cooking, make your glaze. You'll zest and juice the clementines into a bowl. Add the honey and dark rum, mix very well to incorporate the honey into the mix. Add this to your skillet after the initial 7-10 minutes. Cover, then cook for another 10 minutes. Then, take cover off before adding in your wineberries to finish it off - your want the glass to thicken. You can season at this step as well with salt and pepper. For the wineberries, leave them in for about 3 minutes. Double that if they are frozen. Put them in your serving dish and top with some fiber chopped parsley (I used dried parsley).
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Isekai Realms, live play!

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Maybe you've heard of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe you've heard of an author or two that has written novels and game materials. MAYBE you'd think it's fun to watch these authors and their real life friends transported into the Forgotten Realms and encountering some of the very characters and situations they wrote about. Now needing to worry: will I work to make my stories stay on cannon or do what I feel is right - the thin fine edge? Enter: Isekai Realms at the Dungeon Scrawlers. This particular gameplay has a special place in my heart. I've been playing the DM's home game since he relaunched in July 2010. We've been going strong about twice a month for nigh on 13 years now, with some "mega sessions" peppered in there.  He tends to run everything within his own verse, so even when he does one shots or adventures outside the home group, they are related and do threaten to, at times, overlap. Back
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Magic Con - Will He Make the Pro Tour?

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So I'm heading to my first Magic Con Philly 2023 - I've played Magic the Gathering at cons (like 2022 GenCon) but this will be my first Magic-focused con.  And oh boy, did I decide to just dive down the rabbit hole.  The first thing that struck me about the available events were...  the staight out number of formats available to compete in and play at this con.  What even is Grand Melee?  Did you say Pioneer Sealed - I can get one booster from each legal set to make a 60 card deck?!  Wow, some formats I never knew I'd ever see, or even thought existed. I don't think I have enough money to try absolutely every format they have competitions for.  So I'm saving the cash I have on hand to go for attempting to qualify for the pro tour!  There are 2 opportunities with Sealed format Phyrexia, All Will Be One.  I think I have a shot at prizing, just not so sure I have a shot at the top 4 to get the invitation.  But I'm going to give it a couple goes and see how well I d
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Drafting MTG Online

 One of the biggest issues I have with drafting online is the experience.  In MTGO, it's just the entire client.  There are a lot of cool features I'm just never going to get into because I'm just never going to use that software in it's current state. In MTG Arena, there are no features to just draft with a pod you put together and then play in that pod for prizes.  The matching algorithms are horrible for a player like me.  There's also no interaction across the table, I like chatter.  Frankly, the Gathering part of the game us just as fun for me.  Also, you can't just simulate a Sealed Draft by opening 6 packs in the client and sharing those results, they aren't equivalent. So there are a lot of ways you can draft cards outside of Wizard's of the Coast-provided games.  You can draft in websites and then bring those draft results into MTG Arena - provided you have the cards in your collection already.  Some of htese require you to install software that
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I almost died to play this game...

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Before I go into the Return to Dark Tower  (by @RestorationGames), I'd like to return to my childhood, when I played the original game with my sister and cousins ...  back to the early 1980's Yeah, there's the box I remember!  So this was my favorite game in the early 80s, from when I was 7 through 8 years old.  I showed so much affinity for the game that my grandmother, who bought the game for all her grandchildren to play at her house, let me take it home (I'm sure I likely asked/begged multiple times - and tried not to fidget in church so I could cash that goodwill in).  Some kids in the neighborhood also had it, so I played a LOT. Well, my sister also enjoyed it and I was the luckiest brother at 8 years old when she and I scrounged up enough money to get some new batteries to play the game.  All we had to do was pick up the batteries - can DO.  We lived less than a mile from a CVS pharmacy and I had a bicycle.  EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY, KID! so excite! let's goo
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Today, I went to WAR!

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 I played a little Pioneer today for a Degen Supporter Event.  I had a good time, got completely lost with renting a deck from cardhoarder.  But I got that completed, sadly they didn't have 4 cards I needed for the list I chose, so I made a last minute replacement and it didn't go so well: 0-3 so I dropped out after match 3.   I ended the night, after getting frustrated with a Bant Angels deck (not a lot of interaction with), I thought what the heck, I might be able to make an Explorer deck... I'm going to WAR! The deck kind of came to me as I recall reading some article about how Opt was a good mechanic in Explorer/Pioneer so I started there.  Then thought, What kind of cheaper CMC planeswalkers could I try?  Enter: Wizard's Aren't Reasonable (or WAR). This should have in no way grant me any sort of wins - so I'm not gonna be upset if I just lose 3, but I did really well in Standard Unranked matches.  So I thought, what the heck, I'll take it into the Exp
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