How To Make A Traditional Irish Dinner

We all know how this will end. With that in mind, let's get to it.


Step 1: Find corned beef.
Step 2: Boil corned beef.

Step 3: Wash potatoes.
Step 4: Prep cabbage. If potatoes take an hour to boil, cabbage takes 10 minutes. It cooks very fast. I like to cut it like thus:

...leaving about half an inch of connective tissue near the root. Then just before I'm ready to boil it I cut it the rest of the way. That 1) looks cool, 2) makes you look cool, and 3) takes less space. I like to cut my cabbage a couple hours before I'll be cooking it, so storage is an issue. Maybe that's just me.

Or, you can leave it connected with the connective tissue and boil it "whole." That makes you look great, but you need a rather large cutting board to put the cooked cabbage head on to finish cutting it. And you need a big pan. I use the 4-gallon pot, works fine.


Boil beef, potatoes, and cabbage until done.

Serve with 6-pack of beer per person. Alternatively, just boil a potato and serve with the beer. And that's your traditional Irish dinner.


I bet it's hard being Irish. Seriously, though- look at the Patricks ads. You'll see some green stuff, then a WHOLE SECTION dedicated to beer. It's about a 1:2 ratio of food-to-beer in Patricks Day ads. Kind of lends credence to the whole joke, y'know.

Time to make the Taffy

Remember when I first mentioned making taffy in passing in this post? That was actually one of the first times I'd ever made taffy. And I haven't made much since. I'm by far no pro. That sounds grammatically choppy, but I'll go with it.


Regardless. For some reason, I decided it was time to make some again. Maybe it's because tomorrow is the first day of Fall (according to the ever-authoritative Spiderman 3 calender my mom uses), or maybe it's because in two days it's time again for my Metroid Prime 2: Echoes birthday run. Yeah, that's definitely it. It's the...it's the brooding instincts.


OK, get your liquid glycerin. This stuff is...sigh...yes, it's the bomb. There, I said it, I hope you're just giggling yourself into a coma.

Now get your vodka. I mean vanilla. I totally meant vanilla.


Yeah...do I use the new stuff...or the old stuff? How many batches were made? I forget. But I'll use the old stuff. I guess it's so old that it didn't need a year designation. Which means it's really old...and I call this Vanillae Taffy. Vanilla just won't describe it. It's almost poisonous. I don't give this to humans, only to animals that I want to die. Oh...I might need to qualify that for legal reasons. Ahahahaha, I'm joking.

There. Boy, I'm feeling dry tonight.


Now add your water, corn syrup, sugar (I got the specialized C&H out), and salt.

One of my worst recurring waking nightmares- I hope that describes them sufficiently- is to accidentally set the thermometer to Celsius and boil it until it's, um, dead. So, cook it until it's done. Then pour it onto a pan to cool a bit before stretching.

There. It's cool enough. I suggest wearing gloves for a few reasons. That I don't need to go into. Let's just go with one reason: They totally keep your hands from burning too badly. Not that they'll help. But I don't want to go into the other reasons. Not this close to Midnight, at least. Now get to stretching.


Hey! We're done! That was quick.


Muahahaha...now is our time, Taffy Army...yes, follow me, your beloved, fearless general-leader...heh heh heh heh heh heh.





Nobody tell them.

Water water water and Beef beef beef

I had a rather busy day today. I had to get water; we were down to around 650 gallons. I got four loads in the "hottest part of the day." My dad has it all figured out: 9-11 AM is the hottest part of the day, except 4-5 PM, which is the hottest part of the day. So...you figure out when the hottest part of the day is.



Water. It does a body- and a brain- good. After that, I cleaned my brother's room. He wasn't too mad about that. He did threaten to kill me, though. I know, I know!...but I can't kill him, he's too strong! he breathed in Gollum-like fashion.



Also, yesterday, I got a wild idea that I'd make beef jerky. I always use Alton Brown's recipe...it can be varied easily enough. However, his box-fan idea is not good at all. It might work, but it fails miserably for me.


So I use a store-bought dehydrator. They're all that and a bag of chips. The problem I encounter is that if the jerky is dried at a high temperature, the end product is low quality; it gets all oily and dried up (but in a bad, crispy, sharp way).

I happily found a workaround for this. I dry it at the lowest setting for the majority of the drying time, then finish it off by drying/cooking it at 160+ degrees for 20-40 minutes. That way you can claim that it's "cooked," but it's not dried out and oily. Here is the same thing the next morning:



It's great stuff. I am fairly certain you can reuse the marinade a few times, so it's extremely economical compared to the $20/lb package of preservatives you can buy. If you make it, don't cut the meat too thick- else the outside will get dry but the inside will be...uh...less dry than that.

Just make sure you cut it with the grain. By that I mean that you want the strands of meat intact or the jerky will crumble and be no good. You can use any cut of meat. Tenderloin, brisket, london broil...the tougher the better. They don't serve beef jerky at tea parties.

A Good, Rotten, Good, Rotten, Good Day (And It's Only 5 PM)

Good

It started like any other day.

It was actually great until I ventured out of my room. No one was around. Ahh, a perfect day, I thought to myself. Then I got to wondering just what on Earth my dad was doing outside.


Rotten

Turns out, he had begun work on Mick Lock's Chevy Maxima. Yeah..."Chevy." So I went to help him. That's when my day turned rotten.

I'll detail that later. My dad drove the car to the shop (we couldn't do one of the three things we were contracted to). I was alone.


Good

Life began having purpose again. I began pondering. I washed dishes. The lights in the kitchen were bright and beautiful. I sanitized the counter. Life was good.

I fried up the hamburger for tonight's dinner, Hamburger Burros. They're good. I'll detail that sometime. [Here's the recipe in short: cream cheese, tortillas, 2 pounds hamburger, 2-4 cloves garlic sliced in rounds, 1-2 cans tomato sauce, 1 4-oz can green chilies; brown and cook hamburger, add rest of ingredients, stir until garlic is barely tender, then put in tortilla with cream cheese.]

Then there was a lull in the action, so I decided I should take a shower.


Oh, how my fortunes would turn.


Rotten

I emerged from the bathroom to a darkened kitchen. My dad always turns the kitchen lights off. He claims they make it so hot his eyes cook like poached eggs. I turned the lights on...and a light was blown out. I replaced it, cursing all the way. My parents were home.


I cut up the garlic (6 cloves), and opened the green chilies (sp?); they weren't very good. God be thanked that my aunty Sissy gave me four 8-oz cans of green chilies (sp?) in exchange for the bagels I made her (spoilers!). Those are probably the greatest green chilies (sp?) ever. We've used three so far.

My dad entered the kitchen to get the dog a bone. He gets them frozen sometimes, and he has to break them apart using a cleaver and "hammer"...let's just say that we are no longer possessors of a beautiful young $7 meat mallet. I will put it in cryopreservation until I can bury it. If not for Romans 12:17 ("Rom 12:17 KJV Recompense to no man evil for evil...") he would...well, he'd have one less favored tool, let's say that.



To make matters worse, the can of green chilies were gone. I can only assume that that Corinthian fool of a rotten baser jerk of a brother of mine took and violently slaughtered the beloved green chilies. His ways of death, menace and cruelty are terrible to behold.


Good

...but boy, when he says "Here we go again..." sarcastically when my parents start conversing about finances...priceless! I FORGIVE him! There, there's your happy ending to an organ recital! *tearing up*

Dad Gets Pulled Over, and I Make a Pecan Pie

I was up pretty late last night. I described it as "early," y'know. So I didn't get much sleep. So I don't want to make a long post right now. Get it?

First off, my dad got pulled over today. Remember when I got pulled over? See the post, Kev Gets Pulled Over By Five Police Cars and Trucks; Police Grip Guns Warily.

He was driving along- drive, drive, drive- when all of a sudden, a police car came out of nowhere and turned its lights on. I think. It pulled him over on the freeway, and the officer a-walked up.

I'm unsure of the rest, except that the registration/insurance is not in there! The exact thing happened to me. (See the above post.) Except that the five police cars worth of officers didn't give me a ticket...my dad has to go to COURT! Hahaha sucker!

Greatest part? Remember when I shook the officer's hand (see above post)? Well, my dad said I was an weirdo fool to do that. Guess whose hand he shook today...yep. The officer's, much to the raucous laughter of me and my mom, and, over the din, repeated cries of "HYPOCRITE OF THE YEAR, LOL!" and "SHOOK HIS HAND! WHAT A GIRL, LOL!"



We're very unforgiving out here in the country. I had forgotten to put the registration in the holder, so...it should still be in the truck. But he might have thrown it out, or it may have fallen out/gotten lost through similar means. So it's partially my fault, but also partially and ultimately my dad's. Sorry, pops. He said he was nervous. "Maybe there was old information in the computer, or, maybe my prints matched something!" he said.

The reason they pulled him over was the windshield that's cracked vertically, diagonally and horizontally, and probably a few more directional terms, all ending with "ally." There's supposed to be 18 feet of blood vessels per square inch of human skin. So I think there must have been at least 800 feet worth of cracks in the windshield.


Also, I made a pecan pie! See the recipe, here. That was the highest point of the civilization known as Pecan Pie. Now it's deteriorating. But I will solve that in my wrath soon enough.


Um, I guess that's it. I try to always have a slice of pecan pie- chilled, of course- when I finish a Metroid title, usually when I watch the credits. Unless it's like, after Thanksgiving, and I've already had pecan pie. But since I've almost got Metroid Prime finished...well, I need to get the pie prepared! They last for weeks, after all.


Did I mention I shelled the pecans myself? Yeah! One cup of really old pecans. A year or more. They were hard to shell and I had to crack them by putting them in my eye (like an eyeglass?) and frowning really hard.

Then I had to rip them apart with the miraculous things we call fingers. My arms are sorer than a Yankees fan that lifted more than three pounds! At least my left arm is. And my right thumbnail is really stressed.

TTFN.

4th of July Cake and Vampire Crackers

Yeah, today was a day that was a day. And it isn't over. And I only got five and a half hours of sleep. And I think I did something a while back that I must have been really, really drunk to actually do, and even more drunk to not remember doing, but the problem is, I've never been drunk. So I must not have remembered that, either...so I must have been really drunk.


I wonder what happened.

Regardless, look what I made!

Don't it just make you want to sing? God Bless the USA (preferably a half-decent version) is the Battle Hymn for This Flag Cake. Recipe courtesy Pioneer Woman, courtesy Barefoot Contessa. Link to recipe here. Note: Requiring four half-pints of raspberries and a half pint of blueberries, this cake is not cheap. But the 4th comes only once a year. And I think we lost our checkbook...oh well, no donation this month!
Note: The cake will get torn apart and pillaged. Don't expect it to live long. (You can use half strawberries if you like, but only the very tips! And the rest have to be raspberries- these add a mild flavor that makes the cake very memorable.)

It got lots of "Wows" and "Oh my gosh's" and "That's too pretty to eat" and "Is it safe to eat's." Here is a closeup of the stars.


Aren't they dandy? Yeah, they are! I count the cake simple to make. There's no folding egg whites or slapping egg yolks.


The other thing I made were these Vampire Crackers.


The sign was my mom's idea. "Warn them, warn them, wah-wah." If I were sent to warn them, I'd be eating locusts and wild honey, man. [That loosely fits, right? Right.] I've been making these for a long time, years probably, but apparently my family didn't know about them. I forget how I discovered the combination...I just did. Here's how you make it:

Step one, peel one and a half heads of garlic. Yes, the things that are the size of your fist. That's like, 800 cloves or something. Then heat 8 oz of cream cheese to room temperature (or leave it out for a while). Press or mince the garlic. Put it in the bowl with the cream cheese:


Beautiful. Now, mix it all around. And you have a great, wonderful treat that's good for you! (Sure it is!) And it lets you know who the vampires are. Even people who hate hot things will eat them for some weird reason- or at least try them. I just discovered all of this today. And I'd say it goes really well on French bread in place of garlic butter then toasted. Ignore my grammar right now.

Ah. Delicious. My dad says "What?!?! You watch too many movies! This is real life- everyone LOVES garlic breath in real life!" Sure. When you witness somebody step away from their dad when he's reading a Bible to them after eating one of these, I think that garlic breath isn't the best.

It does let you know how far their processed oxygen travels. That's interesting. If you can avoid that, you can be sure that you're not breathing any of their air. That is theirs. Just like garbage is the garbage man's when it's in the trash. Back away from what does not belong to you. That is a snare.

Time to go. No Metroid Prime tonight.

Amazingly good Chocolate (Sheet) Cake recipe. And I try to write like a man.

Do you know who The Pioneer Woman is? She's a lady who lives on a cattle ranch, and she's pretty cool- if crude at times. She has several blogs (the link goes to her main page, so you can see the individual blogs there), but I enjoy most her food blog, directly linked here. The index system is a little wacky right now, so don't hold that against her.


I had actually started to get sick of chocolate cake. I think it's the only cake we ever make. I do surely have fond memories of making chocolate cakes...most of them have to do with Metroid Prime 2. I think it may have well been the first time I played it.

[erased] My dad says I need to stop writing like a girl. If anyone has any tips, let me know. Let me begin by erasing that last sentence, particularly the word 'awakening'. That's much better. Anyways, those were [erased]

How to not sound like a girl...let's see...I'll erase that sentence, that'll surely help, the words 'yore' and 'golden' together never did any man good...otherwise...

...


Drawing a blank, here. Damn. Wait, that's good, a curse! Ignoring admonitions from Paul is surely a way to write like a man. Hah! Curse not? Bah! Now, how much more heinous do I have to become before my writing is entirely transformed?

Hmm...if I could gaze on her condemned, rotten visage long enough (may the truth of her womb festering the deathly Worm one day see light), I would probably post pictures of TWWMNBN. That should certainly make me seem more like a man...but that would be folly to the highest degree, and I would not sell out in that manner for a mere increasing of opinion of me by a man who claims to be my father.

Hey! That's it! Rebellion! That's certainly a manly occupation. Wait, no...those are hippies.

I think I need to accept my fate as "that lyrical guy who everyone thinks is a girl when they read his blog- you know, the guy who looks like he'd really like to be writing in loopy pink font." Sigh.



Anyways...yes, I was getting sick of chocolate cake, then we found this recipe, and I'm nowhere near sick of chocolate cake anymore. It's reminiscent of fudge (because of the icing), but not too much so. It's great...really. Here is the recipe. The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. by The Pioneer Woman.


Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go frost it (I made three cake pans out of it), and then I've got to work my way, in a very disquiet manner, through the Phazon mines. No sermons to help me this time...only bare, tunnel-vision-like concentration. Every tool in Samus Aran's arsenal must be put to cunning use to make it in- and out- alive.

Bagels

Hi Mrs. dataDyne!



Homemade bagels. I don't know if they're better than Baglesky's Deli's bagels, but they beat normal bagels. They're very hard to make, if you need to know.

So are donuts. I think any bread with holes is difficult to make, though why this difficulty exists I am unsure...however...donuts are much easier to form than bagels. You cut donuts out with a cookie cutter then prance around in a circle singing about love, joy, and peace, but bagels are formed in futility and frustration, and afterward, you feel like you've just left flowers at a loved one's grave site. The only difference is that, with bagels, you get to slice the "loved one" in half and eat the "loved one," so it's a little more palliating.


Onto the recipe.



Bagels (summary of instructions at bottom of post)
Oven 375°

4¼ to 4¾ cups all-purpose flour (adding half whole wheat adds some flavor)
2 packages active dry yeast (or 4½ teaspoons)
1½ cups warm water (110° to 115°)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar



Well, first things first. Alton Brown once made waffles (waffles by Alton: basic and chocolate) out of half white flour and half wheat flour. Turns out, this adds some flavor, without adding too much "flavor." I agree. So, head on over to your wheat berry drawer...

And get yourself some wheat berries. I usually grind four cups at a time. You get 50% more than the wheat berry measure by volume...so you need to grind about a cup and a half.




I love the sound of the grinder. It sounds like a jet aircraft taking off. And when it shuts its engines off you turn it off, the engine motor dies down like a helicopter's but without the thwop. FWEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeyoouuuuurrrrrr...gergehergeeehrhhh.

And there's your flour. Remember, using half whole wheat is optional. White flour doesn't need to be ground, so it's faster that way.

Now, add 1½ cups of it (I actually prefer to use white flour for this part) to your mixing bowl, whatever that may be. I'm lucky enough to possess a Kichenaid stand mixer. They are like the Master Sword...they're the things of legend, very powerful, make sounds when you pick them up, and once you acquire one, you can stay Ganondorf and slay Ganon with it, and you'll never need another. They're something you'd find near a caravan, buried under the desert...but I digress.

OK, so you've added your 1½ cups of flour. Add 4½ teaspoons (or two packages) active dry yeast, and mix it all about. Note I'm using my Unofficial (homemade) Samus Aran Measuring Spoons. They're really losing their bind-ring luster. But they're still peculiar.



Next, combine your cup and a half of warm water, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 1 tablespoon salt. Do NOT combine them if they're someone else's. In that case, go give them back and either ask to use them or use your own...you know, that's why the "borrow a cup of sugar" line exists, because people actually do that. You...thief.


Pour this into the yeast and flour.


And mix it all about at high speed for two minutes, with the typical introductory slow mixing period so that the flour doesn't fly up and successfully murder you. (That's what it's trying to do, by the way. No ifs, ands, or buts, its goal is to choke you to death.) There is not any yeast-in-warm-water process...you just add the water/sugar/salt to the flour/yeast. I'm unsure why it's done this way. Don't overbeat.



Yuck. It looks like flour and wa...oh, never mind. Now add about 2½ more cups flour (½ white, 2 cups wheat, if you're going 50/50); if you're kneading by hand, mix in as much as you can with a spoon, then knead the rest in. If you'll be kneading with a machine, go ahead and add the entire amount- and switch to your kneading attachment/beater/hook(s). I seriously doubt 2½ cups will be too much.


You'll most likely need more, so continue to add flour past the 2½ cups until it's moderately stiff (the bagels have to keep their shape), then knead until it's good and kneaded up. The book says 6-8 minutes, and mixers can take more or less time, so do what you do, you human, you, and adapt. And compensate, you inherently anthropomorphic being, you.


Now let that very not-bagel-looking lump rest, covered, for 10 minutes. This lets the gluten relax. Or...that's what the experts (and my fingers) tell me.

Hey! It's variation time! I love that word because the first part is "Varia." There are a lot of varia-tions for this recipe, but they all suck. You can cover them with salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or lightly salted and sautéed finely-diced onions...but my favorite is a way the book excluded but my granny suggested and which does not suck: cinnamon raisin!

Here, I take half of the dough and make it cinnamon raisin. I am working with half of the batch, so I use a half of a ¾ cup of raisins and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. So, if you're going to make the whole batch cinnamon raisin, go ahead and add the full ¾ cups of raisins and 2 tablespoons cinnamon. If you dislike cinnamon raisin bagels, you may still like these. I dislike cinnamon raisin bagels, and I actually prefer these; I'm living proof.

Now for the forming. Divide the dough into 10 (large bagels) or 12 (medium bagels) pieces. You'll knead (bread humor, you wouldn't understand) to form them. They have to be round; they'll hold the shape you form them in for the entire process.

Develop your own method; I haven't even perfected mine yet, except that it's best to poke a hole in a ball than to make a rope then join it together. But, you can see my method in the following picture I took with my camera in my mouth. Yes.

Ain't it(sic) so pretty?

Now, bring some water (with 1 tablespoon sugar) to a boil. I used the 12" Lodge (our widest- uh, beside the 4-gallon stock pot, but that doesn't count) for this.



Boil the bagels for about 3 minutes on each side at a medium boil, then dry them off somehow. I use a towel. Then, put them on a baking sheet. The baking sheet I used is as big as an entire oven rack (it really is- it's wide enough to sit in the rack grooves on the side of the oven), so if you're using a smaller one, I don't know how you'll manage. Mayhaps two pans. Here they are, boiled. I reformed a few of them since the last picture.


I'll tell you the truth. The recipe calls for you to broil the bagels after letting them rise for 20 minutes, then boil them, then bake them. When we broiled them first, they were horrible. By chance, I discovered that boiling them and skipping the broil stage did wonders. I went from "Eww, these are nasty" to "Hey! These are actual bagels!"

Maybe I'm wrong. Irregardless (doesn't that word annoy you?), skipping the broil stage works. I coat them in egg wash, but the recipe doesn't say to. What can I say, I like the egg wash finish. They're done, humble fools!

Yep, it's about a two hour process. But it's worth it.

Kind of. I mean, you can't get good cinnamon raisin bagels, and the level of customization is great. You can make really quite large bagels. Where can you buy THIS in a store?

Nowh Ere's Market, that's where. Now here's the recipe.





Bagels
Oven 375°

4¼ to 4¾ cups all-purpose flour (adding half whole wheat adds some flavor)
2 packages active dry yeast (or 4½ teaspoons)
1½ cups warm water (110° to 115°)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar


In a large bowl combine 1½ cups of the flour and the yeast; if using half whole wheat, this addition should be white. Combine warm water, the 3 tablespoons sugar, and salt. Pour over flour mixture. Beat at low speed of electric mixer 30 seconds, scraping bowl. Beat 2 minutes at high speed. Stir in as much remaining flour as you can mix with a spoon.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. (If you have a stand mixer or kneading beaters, skip this step but watch the kneading time.) Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Cover; let rest 10 minutes.

Cut into 10 or 12 portions; shape each into a smooth ball. Punch a hole in the center of each. Pull gently to make a 1 to 1½ inch hole. Place on a greased baking sheet. Cover; let rise 20 minutes. Broil 5 inches from heat 3-4 minutes, turning once (tops should not brown). Heat water and the 1 tablespoon sugar to boiling, and reduce heat. Cook 4 or 5 bagels at a time for 6 minutes, turning once; drain. Place on a greased baking sheet. Bake in a 375° oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

Um, makes 10 to 12.

VARIATION (which lots of people prefer to the normal bagels): Cinnamon Raisin: add ¾ of a cup of raisins and 2 tablespoons cinnamon. I don't like cinnamon raisin bagels, but I like this variation a lot.

Other variations: Poppy/Onion/Sesame Seed/Salt: Figure it out on your own. Really. It's simple. Salt is a neat variation, though...who would have thought? Anyway, I'm off, humble fools.

The Symphony of Annoyance and Yuck

Ah, listen to it. Creak.
CREEEAK.

HACKH, PTUH!

Tap tap, tap tap.

Flies are everywhere. My mom's newest idea for saving money: leave the doors open all day on cool days. Shamefully, the flies are in season, so before we knew it, they all rush in like they just found the barn of their dreams. I dread to think what it may be like in the actual barn outside. Let's put it this way: The rain, over the last few days, have made it worse.

HUURGH, PTU, HACHGKCK, FLAGHZPLUH! My brother spits and hacks and flaghzpluh's at a steady cadence. I think that, since my dad's going to start playing an instrument now, that my brother is going to play his mucous membranes. HIGGH, PLAGH! PTUH, PTUH. HAAAACK. HIGGH, PLAGH! PTHUH, PTHU!


AACGH, SPL!


Ting. Ting.

Flies are everywhere. The fly swatter is missing. I will soon use my guitar to fend the beasts off. It amazingly keeps them away from me with its vibrating, but only in a two foot radius.

He reemerges from his room. He sighs the sigh of the person who goes HACKSH PTHUH BLAGH! after every breath.

God, take me now, I think.

HAGH, FL-AAGHPLUH! Sidle. Sidle. "Brother? Are you alright?" NO, NO, NO! I shriek inwardly. "Oh yeah, I'm just fine" I say outwardly. The serenading continues. Crinkle, crinkle, CRINKLE, CRINKLE CRINKLE, CRINKLE...


I really can't say I don't deserve this.

HAGH, PLAGHUHTHUP!

I become conscious of ever [removed] I ponder if [removed for potential gross-out of the humble fools] Maybe it would be sentient by that time.


Well, I've got to go. I would include an audio clip, but...no. Just...just no, I wouldn't want to put you through that. Because, it's time to make shrimp gumbo and Manhattan Clam Chowder. Who likes Manhattan Clam Chowder? Well, we know this old humanist vet, and he requested it. I sent him some old split-pea stew (yes, stew) and he apparently loved it enough to request I make something I've never tasted.

My dad got the ingredients. He got the bell pepper. And the parsley. And the clam juice- 24 oz of it. And he got bay leaves.


He forgot the clams.



For the clam chowder. And he's home with them now, so I need to go get those.

Beef Bourgignon: Marinade in HOW much wine? For HOW long? Then bake for HOW LONG?!

With my new lease on life, today I decided to make a roast. Not so much that roast is fun to make, but more like "We have no chicken and no pork and we have had steak the last four nights in a row." The other day (probably five days ago), my mom made a roast and was jabbing it with the knife to insert garlic. I would go "OUCH" every time she would jab it. We were laughing by the end.

Speaking of knife...I need to order a new knife sharpening set. My stones will be worn down within four blade maintenances, and I also need a really good, extremely sharp filleting knife. We have 50 chickens to slaughter, and we have 30 more on the way. Sharp knife = good knife. Really sharp knife with really pointy two-edged tip well suited for cutting the oil sac out of a chicken's rear end = really good knife.


Regardless, since we'd had steak for the last four days, and roast for the five days before that (this is what happens when my dad gets sick of chicken), I decided I wanted something a little different. I took the only-been-thawing-for-an-hour roast and began what would have been, if it were recorded, a modest reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg, if it were carried out with axes and repeated cries of "THOU SWINE, BE SEVERED IN TWOETH!" I carried out the merciless battle with the bravery and purpose of Gandalf when he uttered "You shall not pass!"


The reason for this obviously unnecessary brutal savagery was a cookbook that said "Hey man, make Beef Bourgignon." It did not specifically state to commit what could figuratively be referred to as "pillaging" on the roast, only to cut it into 2" cubes, but winners can't be losers, and I obviously won that duel, as I now observe my hands, ten fingers intact.

Proudly I read the rest of the recipe. "Soak in two cups of wine." My heart dropped, wracked with indecision. If I use the wine, it will be proof to my parents that I am a closet drunk, I worried. Yes, but how can they accuse you of being a closet drunk when you choose to use the wine on a roast, not greedily drink it the moment they step outside? I reasoned. Also, I'm not a closet drunk, I reminded myself.

The final nail in the figurative hot air balloon of my indecision was that I needed to thaw the meat out. If it's soaking in wine, I can put it into hot water, and thus have a conductor for the heat to transfer to the meat.

I also need stock. I need to make stock. On top of that...uhh...it takes three hours to bake. And I have about four hours to do all of this in. So I ...well, I shouldn't be writing this post. I'll go tend to that whole process now, if you'll excuse me. Hopefully I can scrap together at least a few cups of broth.

OK, that didn't take too long. I have the "stock" going (though I found some stock, I'll need some in the future), and I'm pondering if I should make potatoes anna. I think I will. It shoulds i...it sounds interesting. Basically, if I have it right, beef bourgignon is beef with a wine gravy sauce and caramelized boiling onions and mushrooms. Best thing: it allows me to use my dutch oven, which I absolutely adore. And there's nothing wrong with caramelized onions, they are immaculate.

Potatoes Anna is thinly sliced potatoes layered in a pan with thyme and rosemary, weighted down with something, and cooked for about an hour making a sort of cake. That sounds great and easily ruined! I'll make a side of steamed carrots.


And I'll post in the comment field how it turns out. I'll post the recipe next time, but only if it turns out good.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Say that ten times twice. Punkin Choclate Chimuffins.


OK, first, the recipe can be found here, at Recipezaar: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. I made them before, and mentioned it in this post: Kev and Cupcakes. (The Wicked Cupcakes there are the bomber, as the kids say! Really, don't let the peanut butter fool you, I don't like peanut butter but they're awesome!)


The recipe is in the above link. Here is it again if you're too lazy to scroll up or move your mouse or your eyes up to see it. All you need- aside from the basics such as baking powder/soda, sugar and eggs, stuff you should already have- is pumpkin and chocolate chips. They're very easy to make, as well- wet ingredients, dry ingredients, mix, then add chocolate chips.

In fact, they're easier than pie. I hate making pie. It makes me sick. The flour, and the rolling, and the filling- then you have to bake prayer and wishes into it. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Muffins and cookies I like, except for cookies you have to cut out. Those grate my ginger, as I don't have many cookie cutters. Phooey. I always look stupid because I make the same shape 50 times.

Anyway, here's how I do it. First, the ingredients:


(Yes, those are potatoes in the background...I know it should be pictured with gourds or lettuce or something. Keyword: should)

Baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, brown sugar (WE HAD ONLY 2 CUPS OF WHITE SUGAR, A THOUSAND ILL-CONCEIVED CURSES!) and granulated sugar, 2 cans of pumpkin (16 ounce each), 8 eggs, some salt, a bunch of chocolate chips, homemade vanilla (but keep it away from us closet drunks, now), flour (in the ziptop bag), and oil. Coconut oil. That's the 1-gallon tub you see.

...what? Doesn't everyone buy their coconut oil in 1-gallon tubs?


First things first, melt the coconut oil. I doubled the recipe, so I melted 2 1/2 cups. It's liquid in the summertime, just so you know. The toaster oven works good for this, if you like. While that's melting, get out your Unofficial Samus Aran Measuring Spoons! Yes! Pictured below. Then, measure the spices and salt and stuff into the flour.


Need I remind you that dry ingredients tumble and mix really well in ziptop bags? It's awesome, and works especially well when you have to add ingredients in parts. It also works well to pipe the batter out of after the dry ingredients have been added. Yes, I am spoiled. Notice I am not using my normal camera? Well, it's been put on vacation for a tiny amount of time, because it recently took some pictures of banded goat testicles (warning: picture is of a kid goat with banded testicles!), and well, items handled after handling goat testicles aren't the most sanitary thing to have in the kitchen. I'll like, boil it in tar later, or something. Mix all the wet ingredients together, as per the recipe.


Notice all the eggs? Well, there are a lot of them, because I'm making a whole lot of muffins.

Then add the dry- and mix- and add your bunch of chocolate chips. Mini chocolate chips do work well, but bigger ones also work. I use 33% regular, 66% small, and 1% prayer. See pictures, below.

First, your 33% regular, and your 66% mini (remember, this is just what I do; I am a sucker for texture differences)...


Then add your 1% of prayer. Prayer measures differently than chocolate chips; typically, a prayer for guidance on how much prayer to pray into it is enough prayer, so I went ahead and prayed it twice because I doubled the recipe.


I had to do a one-handed prayer, because my mom's camera can't fit in my mouth. That ended up with half as much prayer, so I had to pray over how much prayer to pray into the batter four times. Like measuring 9 teaspoons instead of 3 tablespoons. Wait a minute...is that sacrilegious? Someone needs to alert me to things like that.

Actually, that's about it. Then you mix it all together and pour into your favorite muffin tins. And before you know it, they're done!


Now, what to do with your army of muffins?

Why not feed them to the local yokels at your local assembly?

Sounds like a great idea! Church, here I come! (The last time we brought food was on Snacks Sunday). Pastor is going to be so proud, he'll say, "Wow, Kev, that's a lot of muffins. Stop bringing so much stuff, OK, we don't need that much unless it's donuts."

"OK, Pastor...I'll bring some homemade donuts next time!"

"...Kev...you missed the point."

The name's Smoothie...Kefir Smoothie.

As you may know, we got a Magic Bullet for Christmas from my dearest Granny (thanks!). I guess it's time for me to start having "Kefir Smoothies" for breakfast again. My mom is pressuring me into it because "I like kefir and she hates it but she still drinks it so you should have a kefir smoothie so that you suffer too!"

Now, sorry for the language, but I don't give a DAMN if you know what kefir is or not.


I came up with this formula:

1. 6 oz strong kefir
2. 3 oz frozen fruits (strawberries give it that pink color; pastor this week told me to go pick some peaches, and I don't know if they're in season or not (according to mom, it's May)...yellow smoothies don't hold the same charm, but this is an ingredients list, how did I manage to start a line about what my pastor said in his sermon this week?!)
3. .5-1.5 oz sweetener, either honey or maple syrup (or some freak zero-calorie thing, preferably Stevia I guess?); adjust level accordingly, as kefir and fruits vary
4. 2 egg yolks (yes, raw; I couldn't suggest this if they were city eggs, so use your best discretion...or....judgment...or...do some research or something, 'kay?)
   
5. Vanilla to preference; I am not allowed to have vanilla in mine (we make our own vanilla with vanilla beans and vodka), because I am a closet drunk, and if I have a little, I have to have a lot, apparently.
6. Optional: 1 tsp. Cod Liver Oil. We have a special kind of Cod Liver Oil that doesn't taste like fish, and it's actually good (though the viscosity is still there; I swish it around in my mouth with water to remove the viscosity.) PLEASE read my mom's post on her blog: Cod Liver Oil. We order it in 12-packs. I wouldn't take it if it tasted like fish liver.
   

Then you blend it all up until it's blended and drink it. The important part is the blending, and the Magic Bullet does a bit better than a blender (and we've tried 3+ blenders), and it has 5 glasses so cleanup is tons easier.


Well, off I go. I'm making fried chicken tonight (chicken strips, not pieces) with a mayonnaise and chipotle sauce. Oh, and I'm sorry, I guess I really do care if you know what kefir is. Basically, it's kind of like yeast. But it makes milk into a type of watery yogurt (instead of rising wheat and water); you put milk in the "grains," and they make it into somewhat-thin, tart
"yogurt" that a lot of people hate and some people like. It's a different kind of yogurt I guess, I don't know.

You strain it, then put more milk, and the grains slowly grow. Maybe my mom has some links that explain it. (Mom, I linked to your blog twice in this post, you OWE me, so comment the information.) We have ample supplies of the grains, so if anyone wants to try it, contact my mom. Note: the stuff in the store isn't real kefir. That stuff is actually good; if it doesn't make your ears flatten, it isn't the real stuff.

Good Potato soup. I think.

This Sunday, we stopped by a Souper Salads. I like Souper Salads, and have ever since I was a kid. Even though I had a...I forget the term...but I had this thing where I always imagined the crunch from the salad coming from cockroach heads, or cockroach heads in my salad. The big cockroaches. We used to be infested with them when we lived in the city, but now we're out in the country, and I haven't seen a cockroach out here in...well, I don't know if I've ever seen one out here. Especially not a big one.


Anyway, when you have that bad of a problem with eating a certain food, you usually don't continue eating that food unless you love that food. So there's my love of salad on display, James 2 style, if you know what I mean. I like salad a whole lot if it has the right dressing (so salad is not always a foolproof dish to serve to me), and they have very good dressing. It tastes like the "homemade" salad dressing using the ranch packets. My mom also commented on the horror of store-bought ranch dressing in her post, Snacks Sunday.

I got some salad from Jack in the Box once...oogh. We got it on the way to Bess' wedding rehearsal. (She recently commented that she wants to see the footage, so I'll have to pwn some miniDV.) It was the kind made with vinegar and citric acid? Or in simpler terms, vinegar and lemon. Plus, the "bacon" they put on it was full of gristle...or rather, the gristle they put on it had some bacon clinging to it. Do NOT buy salad from Jack in the Box, or I'll have to say "I TOLD YOU LOL!" and stuff.


Anyway, Souper Salad is a very expensive place to go for lunch. We probably won't be going again. Plus, the Souper Salad we went to was probably the lamest Souper Salad I've ever seen. Regardless, I decided to try some of their potato soup. Twice-baked potato soup. It was delicious!

Rich and smooth, it was NOTHING like the potato soup I thought potato soup was. What I was led to believe potato soup was, was potatoes in milk with some onions, but this was fantastic! It was obviously made with baked potatoes (how many more times can I use the word "was"), as it had pieces of them still in it. God knows how they made it, but I attempted it Monday, and it was actually pretty good. But not as good as the soup they made.

I used the recipe Ultimate Potato Soup from Allrecipes.com. However, I found it rather bland. Actually, I found it very bland. Something was just missing, and I am unsure of what. For one, it has no spices in it, so...I mean, come on. Doesn't food need flavoring? Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, though. I will try another recipe next time.

My Shoes

I love my shoes. They keep my feet from getting stared at, and they never complain, even though I walk on them all the time. Now that's a servant's spirit. I got them especially so that I could have nice shoes to wear to church...but that didn't work out well.

You see, humble fool, they're such nice shoes, I just can't keep them clean! I have to wear them every time I choose shoes (I have one other pair of shoes to choose from.) Do I know anything about shoes? I must answer a very strong no. But I like these shoes, and that's all that counts for me.

They have several eyelets for the shoe string to run through, then at the top, there are some loops. These allows me to not have to tie my shoes every single time I wear them. I like not tying my shoes. I can hook the string around the loops; that's why they're called loops. I just love cheating the laws of physics. Einstein once said, "Brilliant is the man who denies the string gods their daily sacrifice of knot tying."




The shoes are Fitzwell Brice's. Brand Fitzwell, style Brice. Link to Zappos.com: Fitzwell Brice (Black). In case you don't know what Zappos.com is...like, wow. I've ordered two pairs of shoes from them (one pair are my dress shoes which turned out to be too big and a bit too dressy but I was too stupid to send back before the cats tore them up (the cats ignore shoes that don't need to stay perfect) and I also dug a 3' deep hole with them and I don't think they would want to take back dress shoes which someone wore when they dug a 3' deep hole to bury a goat that died from urinary calculi. [gasping for breath])

Whew...uh, anyway, I've ordered two pairs of shoes from them, and both pairs arrived very quickly with no shipping charge (I think one took an additional day because I ordered after 1 PM), but I still don't believe they don't charge for shipping. You can send them back with free shipping, as well. I still don't believe it. It's like Santa Claus; it's too fantastic to believe. Free shipping? Not only free shipping, but free overnight shipping? No. NOT POSSIBLE.



Yet it has worked. I will have to test this system, as it's getting to the point that I need another pair of shoes for non-messy-activities. Today, I spilled gasoline on my shoes (and glasses, and eyes, and pants, and shirt, and hands, and fingers, and eyebrows, and lips, and tongue, and teeth to a minor extent), and here is the picture below. Of my gasoline stained Fitzwell Brice's.


Notice the mud on them? That's fine. The yellow? That's the gasoline! My dad tells me that I shouldn't get water on leather shoes. I asked him how many cows shrivel up and die because they got caught in the rain and their skin shrunk and suffocated them, and he had nothing to say. But gasoline...I don't know if gasoline will come out. Besides, I've been wanting some of these in black since a few days after I got the brown shoes.

I'm really the kind of person who doesn't worry about not dirtying clothing unless it's dress clothing, so it's good that I have "good" shoes and "bad" shoes. Understand, I consider it a badge of honor to walk around with green on the knees of my pants from kneeling in the grass. Ever think of that word? Kneeling? Knee ling? Hatchling? Newborn? Samus Aran! Yes!



How about we put their system to a test, and order them at 12:30 PM PST on Thursday? According to their doctrinal statement delivery chart, that should assure delivery by Friday. If they do not arrive in time, I will protest bravely the iniquity dealt me. Or just deal with it and not be able to say, "Yes, they really do ship overnight for free."


ION, I need more instant coffee...I've taken to making coffee shakes in the morning. I get up, make the shake, then drink it, regardless of how tired I am or if I got 3.5 hours of sleep. If I go to sleep after that, I've earned it. My pa also uses this method (his coffee machine takes a whole 5 minutes to brew, so he drinks instant during the 5 minutes), thus why we're running low.

Iced coffee mocha sunburst whoppo vanillin wallyfruit darkburst ice beam lalaland butterfree cream sunrise surprise mocha coffee iced drink:

• 1 cup milk (goat milk if you have it, and raw goat milk if you have that)
  
• Some Ovaltine (we need more of that, too!)
• 1/2 to 2 teaspoons instant coffee. Or more, depending on how much you can handle/need; I get the jitters easily
  
• And ice to the top of the container (a handful or two); I make it in the Magic Bullet my granny purchased for me for Christmas (thanks, granny!). Believe it or not, the thing crushes ice very well (it's like a blender with a lot of cups; that is so awesomely convenient).

It's worth it simply for that reason, as pulverized ice is a comfort food to me. Yeah...you heard me...how it forms into hard ice when you bite it...oh, I'm going to go have some pulverized ice right now! I hope I don't spoil my diet!



[what diet?]

Where's the Dead Animal Flesh?

In the freezer! Yes! Observe the photo below and weep bitterly!


Isn't it great? Of course it is! There's

• 2 dinners worth of pork
• 7 dinners worth of cow steak
• 1 dinner of chopped beef (1/4 inch cubes)
• 1 dinner of meat prepared as unto the Pioneer Woman's direction for Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich
• 1 dinner of meat prepared for chicken fried steak.

Feel the glow...scorched earth! Brighter than the sun! Did anybody call for a desolator? Nyehahahahaha! (I have no idea if I remembered all of their little loops, lol.)


Now, I've been craving chicken fried steak lately (we'll probably have it for dinner tonight), so I will teach you how to prepare chicken fried steak meat. You have to pound it really, really thin for some reason. I am unsure of why.

First, look on the "before" square, below. Then you'll see how much bigger of a steak you get when you flatten it. If you have morons in your household, it's simple to make them think they're getting a huge steak.



You must hit it really, really hard. If you hit it right, it should only take one hit. Note that I used the Deni meat tenderizer on it before I pounded it at all...why? I don't know, I like the thing. It makes me happy. See the below picture. This is what it should look like after one swing. If it doesn't, just hit it again, and that should do it.



Then you pepper it real good and hit it with some salt, then coat it with some flour, and bake it in a pan on the stovetop in some lard or something. It's real simple. I've used Alton Brown's Chicken Fried Steak recipe at FoodNetwork.com. I'm totally not sure if it's a good recipe or not (speaking in terms of better recipes), but come on, it's steak with pepper and flour. E plus Z equals E+Z.

----------------------------------


My mom informed me that she hates chicken fried steak. My parents' tastes frustrate me. Someday, I will understand them...perhaps it is their hormones. Until then, I will continue to have no remorse nor empathy for them in the matter of not liking perfectly good food.

Sorry guys.

Things to do, things to do

OK, first on my list is edit the wedding for Bess. The (editing) program arrived yesterday, and tomorrow will be my first free day. I will attempt to chronicle my experience with the program and with editing the wedding to the best of my abilities, as it is the duty of I, the Supreme Camcorder Bearer. In fact, I was the only Camcorder Bearer, and like Obi Wan to princess Leia, I am their only hope.

But tonight I have more pressing matters. First things first, I need to eat. I had a great breakfast (my mom made pancakes, and I had peanut butter on them for the first time in a long time, and they were good, despite my ill-conceived complaining!), but that was 14 hours ago, and now I'm hungry. I will heat up some enchiladas that she also made. My mom makes good enchiladas. How? I don't know. She just does. It's one of those things that moms do. Or, my mom at least.

Oh, that burned my tongue. Ouch. OW!

OK, time to let them cool. I use a "three ouch" method for determining if a dish is too hot. Darn. I know, I'll "surf the channels" to see what's on. Fine, I'll settle on an episode of "Cops." I'm sure that says something about me, like I enjoy basic brutality or realistic suffering, but right now it's the only thing on and I learn stuff I can use everyday (like "don't do drugs" and "don't carry illegal weapons").

OK, that's done. Now to read my mom's blog.

Done. Now I know what a..."crying poormouth" is.

Firefox does not recognize "poormouth."

Troubling.


OK, now to make a post about []. Away to the next blogger window!


At right! OK, you can't see. Now it is 11:08 PM.

OK, the TV is annoying me. Off it goes. OK, the lights are annoying me. Off they go. One light on. Me and my mom's favorite light. It's a dandy little dude with a light blue finish who sits aside from the couch and provides excellent ambient light. But this is not the window I should be in. It is 11:14 PM.

11:56 PM. I am still working on it.


I smell dog poop. Darn it. Agh. It's noxious. Eh.

It's 12:35. Buh. I am going to find the source of the horrid stench. It is driving me batty.

OK, so far I've determined that it is localized to my chair. There's two possible sources; the horrible, filthy garbage can next to me (a defiled "recycle" can that my brother throws other garbage in), or the cat box (though, the box is 6 feet from my chair).

Having removed the garbage can, I no longer smell the noxious odor. Praise God!

Darn brother sabotaging me with his garbage can antics. "I know, I'll do this on purpose to mess with Kev!", he said to himself. (Kev clenches fist).


It is now 1:14 PM, and I do not have the post even halfway finished. It's a hard post that I had to reword 3 times (the biggest problem is that the "Painless Guide to Writing" arrived, and its advice seemingly kills most sentences- they claim it'll help you to *not* sound mechanical! It must've been written by a human-hating robot, or I need to read it more).

Goodnight. I am going to go sleep like a man gone mad. Don't you hate (there's that overpowered word again, let's use "dread" next time) it when you have to combine two large subjects into one post (a backstory and story), and you have to whittle it all down until it's short enough to be a post? I dread it. There, I did it!

Non-rotten turkey, come here and let me give you a big hug. With my teeth.

Oh, boy. I am glad, that is for sure. THIS is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving: THE TURKEY WAS NOT ROTTEN. NOT THIS TIME. IT ACTUALLY WAS NOT ROTTEN.

YES! JOY! HAPPINESS! You know what? I CAN ACTUALLY HAVE LEFTOVERS! AMAZEMENT EBBS FROM MY BRAIN THROUGH MY SINUS CAVITIES AND EAR CANALS! I am a simple person, and most of the time simple things make me happy. Something simple can make me just as happy as something complex. Rotten turkeys? Those make me sad. Turkey that ACTUALLY TASTES GOOD ENOUGH TO WANT TO EAT?! YES, IT MAKES ME HAPPY!

It seems I can't remember the last time a turkey actually tasted good! The dark, harrowing clouds of turkey-rottenness have ceded ground (or, metaphorically speaking, air) to rays of golden turkey-goodness! Hah! Satan, your reign of horrible turkey has come to an end! From now on, TURKEY IS A STAPLE IN OUR HOUSEHOLD, AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU CAN ROT IN THE EVERLASTING PITS OF DESPAIR! OH WAIT, YOU ALREADY WILL BE!


You might ask what all the caps are about. I am happy. That's what they're about! Turkey! Turkey! Turkey! Once more, turkey! Actual, non-rotten, non-spoiled, good-tasting turkey! No foul raw rotting fowl taste! GOOD TASTING TURKEY! Amazing! Such brilliance!

Not tough!

Not dried out!

Not raw!

Not rotten!

Not rotting!

Not that globe-trotting whore!

Damn that globe-trotting whore!

BUT ACTUAL, NOT ROTTEN, GOOD TASTING, DESIRABLE TURKEY FOR LEFTOVERING!

Now I can see why people seek to do things with the "leftover turkey!" It was a foolish statement before; it amounted to someone saying "My dog had an accident in the house, I might as well make the best of it; honey, get me some ah...eggs and stuff, we're making a quiche."


Oh, gobble gobble glory!

Pecan pie, my sweet -- Thanksgiving post #7

It is Thanksgiving! Rejoice, brethren! Accolades delivered on high to the Most High! Give thanks, stuff like that. Do good unto all men, yadda yada.


Today, I made two pecan pies. Recipe here (this is the first time I got to follow a recipe from my blog; I need recipe scribing classes, apparently; I did edit it a bit just now). Hahah! One is for my family, and the other is for me. Since they stay so long in the fridge- and taste so awesome chilled- I'll have pecan pie for weeks. My family doesn't really care for pecan pies. They're jerks.

One thing I do with pecan pies is cut slices (at random) in the crust before I add the filling. It lets the filling seep out and then caramelize. Below is a picture of how it looks. It becomes all chewy and good and adds a huge world of texture. Thanks to the Pyrex pie pan for...letting us see through it.



Note that the puddle of filling in the bottom was most likely caused by the very thin pie crust and NOT because I cut into it to cause the filling to crystallize. I fused together 3 pie crust rounds to form the shell; sometimes, I get a craving for "poptarts," but the ones you buy taste ...well, terrible, so I made up a batch of pie dough, rolled it into rounds, made myself a few "poptarts," then froze the rest of the dough (Alton Brown provided the inspiration with his recipe for "poptarts"). I fill them with apricot preserves or strawberries boiled with sugar or whatever.

Since it was so thin it (most likely) bubbled up and created a pocket of air during the blind-baking, which filled with filling. Also note that since it was old (at least 3 months) and frozen, it didn't seal properly. I would not make slices that big for the caramel crystallizing...stuff. It just didn't seal. So don't make ugly 3-inch slices in the crust. Please. Use a light touch and don't make the cuts too wide. 1/2 to 1 inch.




...well, that was exhaustive. Aside from make the pies, I cleaned the kitchen (including the oven! That thing was DIRTY! I've never cleaned a fireplace, but IT WAS LIKE CLEANING A FIREPLACE!), went shopping with my Mommy for Thanksgiving stuff (we went by a Fry's I know of that is typically abandoned, and I was right; despite it being the night before the big T, there were few people there).

Then we went home. We also visited a Waffle House and sampled their food. They have...well, their waffles need to be thicker, more golden, and crispier. They're very good in that they're airy, but they're not crispy enough. And the color is bad. Sorry, waffle house. Don't feel sad. You've still got good hamburgers. Or, patty melts, I think.

Happy Thanksgiving! As for me, I am going to go die for 10 hours. My Brother just let out a demonic growl from his room. Great. This should...I should get out of here.

The Test Turkey -- Thanksgiving post #6

My Dad, several days ago, saw an article in the paper discussing grill-roasted turkey. It's like fried turkey in the realm of ...y'know, moist type of turkey. I guess. My Mom asked me to make a test turkey cooked in this fashion a few days ago. Luckily, my Mom's job gave us a turkey. They are so kind. It is only a year and a half old. It is only a year and a half old. It's only a year and a half old. Year and a half old.


Year and a half old.



It is a 12-pounder, so it's perfect for these instructions (I suggest not trying to spice the meat under the skin- it's too weird!). It cooked it very well. The breast meat got to 165 as the leg meat got to 185; make sure to test each breast and each leg, as the heat may not be centered. Apparently, probe thermometers and grills do not go together. Don't do it.


Only problem is...the turkey smelled funny. The last time I remembered smelling that smell- old, old turkey- was when we slaughtered our own. Eeew. That meat was so terrible. I told you about it, right? It weighed like 40 pounds? A 1-gallon ziptop bag- completely stuffed full with nothing but white meat- went to waste? Yeah. It was too horrible to eat. Even my parents- ever the optimists- admitted it was, well, horrible. It took them over a year of licking their wounds to acknowledge it, though.

So...it turns out that I can't be sure how well the grill method worked out. With a rotting bird, I can't be sure if the utter lack of broth, horrible texture, and bad taste are due to the rotting bird or the method of cooking. I assume it is the rotting bird, so I cannot therefore comment on how well the grill method works. Did you know it takes like 3 minutes a pound to cook a turkey in oil?


According to a show on right now- American Eats, on the History Channel, DirecTV channel 269, episode "Holiday Foods"- my Dad was right that it isn't that sly chemical in turkey that makes you tired after eating Thanksgiving dinner. I thought he was right. Apparently, according to their little blurb, it is carbohydrate overload. What my Dad thought. I'll have to tell him tomorrow. Here is a link to an article I didn't have time to read but assume explains it anyways.

Below is a picture of the turkey, after finishing roasting. It took more or less the amount of time described, but I had to flip it one more time (the left side was done, the right side was not). I only had to cook it for a few minutes on this side.




I guess I, currently, rather dislike these paranoid different methods of cooking turkey. Maybe some day I will grow out of it, but I long for the days of Mom's good-old-fashioned "plastic bag" turkeys. Oh, those were the days, back before I had anything to do with Thanksgiving. Except eating at the table.


I do so hope that Mommy will pick up some type of turkey roasting rack, because we do not have anything to hold the turkey above the liquid which will gather in the pan below it and Thanksgiving will be effectively ruined without it. I need to bake four pies tomorrow, as well as clean out the oven, as well as everything else that has to be done in the world. I am feeling better, however...more energy, and my tonsils/back of mouth is no longer sore. I will probably let my Mom bake the pumpkin pies, actually.

1 day to Thanksgiving! I am getting completely sick of making these update posts!