TwitchCon tickets are NOW ON SALE!

TwitchCon. The convention for the greatest gamers in the world. This is the SECOND annual TwitchCon and it's just A LITTLE LESS THAN 5 MONTHS AWAY! Now, I can't speak from experience because I didn't get to make it to the TwitchCon first meeting last year, but I can tell you from sheer knowledge, it is an AMAZING event and worth every penny to go! So many of your favorite Twitch Partnered streamers will be there and you'll get to chat with them up close and personal if you run into them!

And, I know what you're going to ask, I WILL BE THERE THIS YEAR! Yep, good ol' Jane-the-Lifecaster will be in the flesh! I'll be strolling about, giving high-fives to all who ask and chilling with my favorite internet buds!

What does that mean for you? Well, obviously that means you should go too! It's an amazing three-day convention filled with gaming peeps, tons of vendors and activities, and just hanging out in California with the best of the best! I mean, come on. Gamers are the absolute most interesting people in the world (Not an opinion. It's a fact.) This year, though, Twitch Creative is blowing up on the site. I wouldn't be surprised to see some great Creative streamers making their way around the show floor!

Want to go? How do you sign up? Buy your tickets through me! If you buy your tickets through my link below, it directly supports me! You're buying your tickets anyway, why not use this link and support one of your (I hope) favorite broadcasters on Twitch? I would love you so much!

So, reserve your tickets soon and let's all make our way to TwitchCon 2016! You can read up more about it on the website here!

Amazing Hype-Yourself-Up-For Breakfast Healthy Bran Muffins!

Ahh...bran muffins. The “brussel sprout” of the muffin variety. On a normal day if someone gives you the choice between a blueberry, banana chocolate, or bran muffin you would definitely go for the former two before you settle with the latter. 

Well be prepared to GET FLOORED! (No, I'm not a floor-tile salesman, sorry.) These delicious muffins are jam packed with nutrition and taste just like Heaven dropped a bit of gold-brick-road dust into your mouth. Just make a huge batch of these, try to not eat 4 or 5 of these immediately out of the oven, and stick them in the freezer for an amazing heat-and-go breakfast muffin! 

I originally found the recipe here but tweaked it up a bit to get more tastiness in each bite. Yes, there are vegetables in this muffin but trust me...you are going to love my muffin. The first time I put these together I made 3 batches for a freezer meal party since we had 3 families we were making these for. Everyone was upset when their batch of bran muffins ran out! I don't gloat over food I made but these are dang tasty and I NEED to share these with you.

So here they are, I'm making these on my Twitch feed today. Hopefully you're able to make it!

Jane's Breakfast Bran Muffins

Yield: 24 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour
• ¾ cup flaxseed meal
•  ¾ cup oat bran
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup Splenda (or regular sugar, if you prefer)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ¾ cup grated or finely chopped carrots (about 1 good-sized carrot)
• ¾ cup grated or finely chopped zucchini (about 1 good-sized zucchini, without the seed innards)
• 2 whole apples, peeled, cored and chopped
• 1/8 cup raisins
• 1/8 cup dried cranberries
• ¾ cups nuts (I used chopped walnuts)
• ¼ cup agave nectar
• ½ cup milk
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 F. 

In a large bowl, mix the flour, flaxseed, oat bran, brown sugar, Splenda (or regular sugar), baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Use a wire whisk to mix until brown sugar clumps are smoothed out.

Mix in carrots, zucchini, and apples. (Note: A julienne peeler or a spiralizer works great for the carrots and zucchini. Just chop up the sliced pieces so they’re about ¼ to ½ inches long.)

Mix in raisins, cranberries and nuts.

In a small bowl, mix remaining ingredients together – agave nectar, milk, eggs and vanilla – and then pour everything in the large bowl and mix well. Honestly, you can get away with not mixing the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl but for those of you who like to, you have the option either way.

Grease or line 24 muffin cups. (Since these muffins don't have any oil in them, I highly suggest not going with the liners and greasing the muffin tins. These stick to the paper liners pretty good.) Since these don’t really rise it's okay if it looks like there is too much in one cup. This recipe splits pretty evenly into 24 cups.

Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 F.

Store in the refrigerator, OR…

If you are freezing, let them cool completely. Use a gallon-sized freezer bag and fill so the muffins are sitting flat, or stick them all on a baking sheet and cover them. Freeze them flat for a few hours and then you can break them up and stick them in a more convenient freezer place. If you’re like me, you have a tiny freezer so giving one item so much space is not ideal. The bags work great for me but do what you have room for!

The Brand New "Do-It-With-A-Book" Contest!

I know I have some book lovers in the house. I know lives are busy and we aren't able to read as much as we used to, or would like to, but you book lovers still love the thought of books, the sight of them, the smell. Even now, seeing your Audible app on your phone or your Nook sitting on your desk gives you a giddiness that makes you crave a new story. Before I even get to the contest, I need you in my book club! I totally understand that jobs, kids, and busyness are real things but reading is something we just can't shake off! 

I would absolutely love to be your motivation to read a new book each month! The cool thing about my book club is that you don't need a ride to get to my place. You don't have to be in the same state or country. You just need a computer! That's right! We meet virtually! Every first Tuesday of each month we meet at 9:00pm CST on my broadcast. I lead the club with my video and all the members are free to chat in the box provided! It's just an hour out of your evening. It's totally doable! I know, I know. Take some time. Think about it. It's a great decision though. The books are usually max. 350 pages and it's always something everyone votes on during the book club meeting. Come check it out on Facebook. You can see our community here. 

Now...to the fun stuff! 

Jane's Coffee Table Book Club's "Do-It-With-A-Book" Contest

This is another picture contest, so get your Polaroids ready! For this contest I want you to take the theme of the book and have you doing whatever the theme is with the book! Make sense? No? Okay, take a look at the pic below.

See how I’m eating a cook book? Take a book (let’s say Moby Dick) and apply the theme of the book (in this case nautical hunting) to the picture. Your picture could be you on a boat hunting the Moby Dick book. Or if you used Harry Potter you could dress the book as Harry and you as Ron or Hermione and try and perform spells at random people.

The Rules:
Photoshop – allowed, but there has to be some reality to the picture. Don’t go crazy overboard. I still want to see your creativity in the real world!
Nudity – none, please. Even if your book is “50 Shades of Grey”, you can do weird stuff, just no nudity or overly sexual themes.
Submitting multiple pictures – do it! Feel free to submit as many as you’d like, just know that only one of your pictures can win a prize.
How to submit - Pictures must be submitted through Facebook (by tagging the book club "Jane's Coffee Table Book Club" – you must be in the book club in order to tag it) or through Twitter by using the hashtag #JanesCoffeeTableBookClub

Prizes:                                                                 
There will be two winners this contest!
1^st place - $20 Amazon card
2^nd place – 1 credit toward an upcoming book club book

Pictures need to be submitted by April 3, 2016 April 4, 2015 11:59pm CST (extended the date because I just love you guys). Winners will be announced April 5, 2016 during book club (which starts at 9:00pm CST) Good luck! Can't what to see what you have!

Enough time to throw in a quickie.

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I'm still alive. It's the end of the school year so I've been bogged down with finals and projects. Tomorrow I have 2 presentations and next week I have to do finals in all four classes. Craziness but I've almost made it!

So obviously I haven't been broadcasting as much as I'd like to but I still think about you guys! Stay strong and keep up with me on Twitter! I'll see you once summer hits!

JBOC Numba Fough.

In 6 days, April 25th will mark the 2 1/2 year anniversary that I joined and started broadcasting as a lifecaster on JustinTV. Coincidentally enough, today and tomorrow are the birthdays of two important people that introduced me to lifecasting, Dennis and Atticus Jackson. Happy birthday guys!

Alright, well if you don't know already, I like to celebrate important events in my life by holding a JBOC contest. It's a little gesture to reach out to my fans and friends but also a way for me to clean my room out.

If you do not know where I got the "Box of Crap" (otherwise known as a "BOC") idea, check out Woot. They thought of it first. I'm just a fan-girl...and a copycat.


RULES!

1. Each entry is $1 USD
2. Up to 10 entries per person, please. If you WANT to give $100, by all means, feel free! You will only be given 10 entries though.
3. To enter, email me at jane.ds.tv[at]gmail.com telling me your screenname from where I know you, PayPal email address and how much you are entering. Entries due by April 24th, 11:59pm MY TIME.
4. PayPal payments only accepted.
5. Once payment has been received, I will assign numbers for each entry. This is why it is important you let me know your email address! These numbers will be put into a drawing.
6. Winner will be randomly selected live on JustinTV on April 25.
7. Need not to be present to win. Just make sure I have your email address!
8. Everyone is invited to win!


FAQ's

* By "crap" you mean.... - Well, its not literal crap. This box is filled with tons of things that I just didn't have room for in my room anymore. A lot of times I'll buy things specifically for the box so not all the time will everything be used. It is also not limited on things inside. This thing is filled.
* Where does the entry money go? It goes toward shipping the box out. Depending on how many entries I get is how fast I can get the box to the winner! If I raise $10 it might be 5-7 days. If I get $500 million I can afford a time machine and give it to the winner yesterday.
* Can you put [insert desired item from my room] in the box? Not unless I decide to put it in. I don't take requests. I am a firm believer in the element of surprise.


Any more questions? Ask them below! Happy JBOC'ing!

Also! Follow me on Twitter, add me on Facebook, my YouTube vids, and my website!

Early Morning, we meet again.

Woo! Another crazy early morning for me today!

I finally bought OK Go's new album "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky". I love it! It had been too long since I heard anything new from them! Here's a couple of their new music videos.



And here's the 2nd one (embedding disabled).

Like I said, it's way early. 3:48am for me. My schedule's been changing around a lot so I've been broadcasting at different times. Counting down the days till Spring Break! I'm thinking there's going to be at least one game of HangMan during that week.

Oh man, I need to make Snickerdoodles again!

Doritos Casserolly-polly

This weekend was our Partner Appreciation weekend at work. Rules changed starting this month though and we are no longer allowed to wear jeans during this (as opposed to our black or tan pants we ALWAYS wear). This weekend we decided on having an ongoing potluck meal. Each day I chose a theme and we made food based on that theme. Yesterday was Mexico, today was Italy and tomorrow is America.

So I was in a predicament. I didn't want to spend so so so much time on a meal for yesterday. I wanted something quick, simple-ish, and big enough for everyone to share. That's when I turned to y'all. I asked my chatroom to give me suggestions of delicious dishes and that's when "Doritos Casserole" was thrown at me.

I had never really heard of a Doritos Casserole before but knowing that I love casseroles and you can't ever go wrong with Doritos, I knew it was a perfect choice for the potluck. I started my research.

I'm extremely picky when it comes to recipes. I Googled "Doritos Casserole" and tons of recipes popped up. I didn't want to deal with chicken bones so I chose beef. I didn't want a recipe too short because I know they left way too much room to "play around" with flavors. I finally found a good recipe.

Now, I'm not saying I perfected the recipe after the first try, but I believe with my little modifications, the casserole turned out tremendous. Everyone at work loved it, that is, everyone that eats meat. I even shared some with a couple customers who said they loved it. I was pretty impressed by how the flavors complimented themselves.

So here it is, make it, tweak it, share it, give some feedback!

Jane's Doritos Casserole
Feeds: 1,000,000 (or 6-ish humans, depending on who or what you are feeding)
Prep + Cook: about 1 hour, depending on how multitask-ready you are

Ingredients
[ ] 2 - 10.5oz cans Cream of Mushroom soup
[ ] 1.5 cups water
[ ] 1 - 10oz can Rotel tomatoes, diced
[ ] 1 - 12oz bag Nacho Cheese Doritos
[ ] 1.5 cups chopped onions
[ ] 1 lb ground beef
[ ] 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
[ ] 1 - 15.5oz can pinto beans
[ ] 1 box Spanish style Rice-a-Roni

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook rice according to recipe (will take about 20 minutes) but do NOT add tomatoes to rice. Set aside.
3. Cook beans according to recipe. Set aside.
2. Bring soup, water, and tomatoes to a boil in a separate pan.
3. Brown the beef with the onion.
4. Layer the bottom of a casserole dish with slightly crushed Doritos. You can just crush it while the bag is sealed. Easy.
5. Add a layer of ground beef, a layer of rice, a layer of soup mixture, a layer of beans, and a layer of Doritos.
6. Continue until all ingredients are used.
7. Top with all the delicious cheese.
8. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes on the middle rack.
9. Eat!

The recipe originally said this dish serves 2. I don't see that at all. It's huuuuge and perfect to share with family and friends!

So enjoy and let me know how you like it! Link me to pics and give comments below when you make it!