S'bin a while. . . . . The rest goes here

So my mum's birthday just came by and I told here that I would make her anything that she would like from my cook books.  She opted for spanakopita, a Greek dish.




Think of it as a Greek play on the lasagna...kinda.  It's a casarole traditionally of spinach, onions, garlic, dill and feta, and is set between two layers of philo.  It takes about 1 hour to prepare (including wait time for some magic to happen with the chicken) and assemble, and then another 50 to 60 minutes to bake.  Being fairly easy to make, the only challenge comes with the handling of the philo dough as it is paper thin and dries out extremely fast at which point it because brittle, fragile and generally unusable.  Because it has most of the food groups within, it can be served alone and doesn't really require a side dish; however, it would go well with rice or couscous, or, as I did, just start it with a salad.  Adding some shrimp and lemon zest might "kick it up another knoch," if you will. Makes 6 servings.  Tastes like summer.

For desert, there was a creme brulee infused with white chocolate and accented with raspberries.  I was disappointed in the proportions that the book gave as it only turned out three skant ramikans and was overly sweet.  I think doubling all of the ingredients except for the white chocolate will not only produce enough to go around but also eliminate the overpowering presence of the white chocolate.  A dab of raspberry jam is placed at the bottom of the ramikans before the creme is poured in and set to bake.  As this desert is more than decedant, I suggest going for a finer brand for both the chocolate and especially the jam.  Also, make sure the jam is seedless because, while possibly novel, any seeds would smash the creme's traditionally velvety smooth texture.  I do have to say, though, that white chocolate and raspberries go together like "peas and carrots."  It's damn good.

So I don't normally do this type of thing because, frankly, this is not what the Internet was intended for.  It's the information super highway for God's sake.  It's meant for porn; porn and wow.  And don't let the web developer facade fool you, it's just a means to an end: more wow. Right.  Anyway.

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the 7 weird things about themselves. People who get tagged need to write a BLOG of their own 7 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 7 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

1.  I have an inappropriate amount of love for Feta and all fashions of stinky cheese.  And bread (minus the stinky . . . well, not necessarily).
2.  I will not eat anything that has been near any sort of mold or has even the slightest signs that it may have been.  For example:  Tomato A looks good, is ripe, firm, etc but tomato D has a small molding spot and tomatos B and C are between itself and A.  The whole thing is in the trash.  Penicillin my ass.
3.  I am pioneering a new form of dancing that one can do to the radio or what have you whilst driving.  It involves lots of accidents and vehicular manslaughter.
4.  I sing along to the record scratching/DJ parts of songs but no one knows about it.  It's for private time.
5.  I seriously think that being a vigilante is a legitimate and increasingly necessary career path.  Kung Fu wiretap for teh win.
6.  I like to shop for furniture (IKEA ftw suckas!)
7.  While standing with my legs closed (heels and knees touching) and straight I can create an obtuse angle with my feet.

So we've reached the part of the show were I am to name seven people that must do the same as I and potentially set themselves up for massive embarassment the next time they see any of their friends.  With that in mind, this is suddenly more pleasurable:

Andrew, Cynthia, Bryan, Chrstine, Sarah, Mike and Mike (there's only two fo you, figure it out).

First of all if you call me Susie, Betty or anything other Flip Mastah J you will never get any of this ever again--or until I forget.  That said, three things:

1. Sheppard's Pie:  Really, a glorified pot pie, family size, with mashed potatoes on top instead of the normal pie crust.  In fact, no crust at all.  Looks amazingly like none of these; however, the lady with all the carrots looks a bit nutty. . . . upon saying that I checked out the picture a bit further and it appears there may be a more politically correct and/or technical term beside "nutty" but we'll let it stand as it is.  Hell it's a google search link anyway, that image could be at the bottom of the pile by tomorrow.  At any rate: comfort food to say the least, warming.  Could do with a little less milk in the mash'ed po-tats next time and needs to bake slightly higher in the oven next to the burner to get a little more golden goodness on top.  Could use the kick of some more, and better (and mo betta) mushrooms too: I think Italians.  Also, some corn, olives ( . . . y que mas) might give it that extra boost, as well as more worcestershire sauce than the recipe actually called for.  I should be making these notes in the book but there's no handy text box and spell checker there.  This was last night's (Tuesday's) dinner.

2.  Sunday Night Lab:  Took inspiration from one of my favorite Italian dishes, Veal Frances (Fran-chez) (which is a spin on a French dish obviously), and mixed that with some bastard and flavorless concoction that Olive Garden use to peddle as a vegetarian option at the time known as Pasta della Rocca but, as I understand, is no longer served.  Gods be braised (ha, ha: cooking pun!), my mix and, I humbly think, improvement on the two turned out quite the opposite of flavorless and/or bastard-like.

Veal Frances is served (as I know it) in two dishes.  Dish one is pasta with a marinara--very standard.  Dish two is the veal which is egg battered and pan fried in wine heavy with lemon juice and large pieces of garlic and served  the same (sorta, kinda, almost swimming in the lemon juice/wine mixture with the pieces garlic strewn about).  The garlic which one would expect to be over powering in such large pieces is actually not as it is subdued by the cooking.

Pasta della Rocca (or maybe it was called something else) is spaghetti served with an assortment of vegetables having the typical marinara substituted with a light extra-virgin olive oil drizzle.

Basically, I sauted bell peppers (green and red) until tender and then added unions and sauted until the peppers had blackened slightly and the onions tender and then set them aside in a bowl.  I used chicken breasts (much cheaper than veal), rubbed with garlic, dipped in flour/garlic mixture, then eggs, and then pan fried in a sherry, olive oil, red vinegar mixture.  It may sound a little garlic heavy put as it was garlic powder, the flavor was actually quite subdued and almost hard to trace.  Toss the onion and bell peppers with some linguini (which, regetably, was a little over done), top with the chicken, add a scant drizzle of olive oil and away you go.  Comments included "nice and light" and "where's the garlic?"  Both of which I agree to.

3.  Creme brulee:  I think I've gotten the art down to a science in the sense that I've said bollucks to the recipe book for this one and have gotten the consistency of the custard down to restaurant quality as well as nearly mastering (or at least being really damn good at) carmelizing the top and eliminating the "oh christ this is a lot of sugar" plate armor type of sugar topping.  As of this moment there are still 3 left.  First come, first serve unless there are bribes placed in advance.

J. Out.  Ryan Seacrest is so damn gay.



[Edit:  forgot the picture of the Creme Brulee.  Actually, this was made back in October, but it's all the same.]

This is the best thing since Bono pulled that little boy up on stage and seranaded him with that very gay look and then got all retard strong and sex crazed on him:  UC Berkeley has released 59 free, FREE courses via PodCasts and can be subscribed to  here in the iTunes store (this link will open iTunes, if installed).  And mind you, these are full courses with multiple lectures in each class.  Also, here's a webpage with a list of most of the courses.

I'm subscribing to physics, bitches.

Now we can all take real college university classes . . .

That's levitation homes, or how about the power to kill a yak, from 2 billion miles away with a giant, freakin meteor!? That's extinction Kyle. How 'bout the power to move you? . . or spit on others--as a family.

[Check back as this post will be updated regularly]
[No it wont]


Bicycle crashes <- at least watch to the middle, the dogs are great
inventing swear words
On Palidin, One Dungeon, One Purpose (WoW cinematic'ish)
Family guy

With the exception of the Yoda acrobatics, this is better than the actual Episode III or at least the acting skill is on par:




Episode III parody

But they do have über cloaking technology BUT so do we....now....kinda.  This is a follow up article from a blog (OMGWTFCLOAKING) that I posted back in May.

Now, mind you, it's only microwave cloaking, which means that it's invisible to radar but it's still fascinating and a large step in the direction of light invisibility.

!!