I got the hint!

When I woke up this morning, I got a slight hint as to something that I was being, well, told to do (it wasn't on my to-do list, but I am getting the stuff that is on there done, so it's not impacting my time too badly).

Here is the hint that I had -

That's a pretty blatant way to get the message across, I have to say. The hint, of course, was to make chocolate chip cookies, and I've obliged by making them. The only difference between the recipe I was suggested to make and the one I did wind up making was that I used a different brand of chips to the one that is in the picture. The recipe on the package I used is the exact same one as on the other one.

I don't know about you, but I think that Toll House should consider suing Hershey's for stealing their recipe. ;)

Anyway, it went together in the usual fashion - cream 2 sticks of butter with 3/4 cup each of white and brown sugars and 1 teaspoon of vanilla, then adding 2 eggs and mixing that until it's combined. Next is beating in 2¼ cups of flour, ½ teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of baking soda (mixed together in a separate bowl), then adding in the package of chocolate chips.

Here's what the bowl looked like when I was mixing it all together -

One thing that we've always done when making chocolate chip cookies is to mix the chips in using a wooden spoon, and it always comes out good. Here are the cookies before they went into the 375°F oven for 10-11 minutes -

Just a note about this pan, it is one of those "air cushion" pans - we've used it for many, many years now, and we have not burnt a single thing on it. They're relatively inexpensive and I heartily recommend you using it. :)

It took a little over an hour to get all the cookies done; even after having some of the dough (bad, I know! ;)), the final yield was 49 cookies, because there were four batches of 9 and a batch of 13; here they all are on the cooling rack -

So, I got the hint and came through with it, and there won't be any complaints about not doing what I wasn't asked to do, just what I was hinted at doing. ;)

Zucchini Files, part 2

After making the Zucchini Bread last week, there was still an appreciable amount of shredded zucchini left. In fact, it almost completely filled up this container in the fridge -

That means only one thing - I have to find more things to do with the zucchini, other than just putting it into a shape that looks like bread. As it also happened, my mother took one of the loaves of bread into her work, and on Monday I received a thank you card from the person who's in charge of the office she works at.

The best thing about the card is that the reason it was sent was that they liked the bread and were apparently sending a message of "More, please" for me to make some more stuff to be brought in.

My latest experiment was to make the same recipe that I used for the bread, but I made the decision to halve the recipe because I wasn't totally sure on how it would work to use the bread recipe for muffins. Fortunately, almost everything converted neatly for halving - the only "oddball" measurement was the milk - 1/6th cup; no half eggs needed either. ;)

The batter all came together quickly this time, and I had some fun with the bowl while waiting for the oven to heat up - manually taking the spatula and creating a bit of centrifugal force causing the batter to go up the sides of the bowl.


Then I put the batter into a couple of muffin tins, chucked it into the oven for about 15 minutes, after which time it was all done. The half-recipe yielded 12 larger muffins and 9 mini muffins which made a nice pile when it was all done. Amazingly, we still have most of the muffins - one is enough for a nice snack. :)

Here are a couple more pictures -

The mini muffins ready for the oven

All the muffins made, piled up and ready to eat.

Zucchini Bread, Yay!

Over the last couple of years, we've been changing up what we grow in our garden here. It used to be that we'd grow the staples - potatoes, onions, radishes, lettuce, tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli and a couple of rows of sweetcorn.

Then, we decided to have a go with starting our own seeds, along with planting some different vegetables. One of the vegies that we planted were zucchini. Prior to growing our own zucchinis, I hadn't tried it, and thought the idea of zucchini bread was bizarre - I mean, vegetable-based bread? You can't be serious.

However, we planted a couple of them, and they came up. We then got one recipe for bread with chocolate chips - that turned out really good and we've already made two loaves this year of that (the recipe makes 2 loaves). Even after that, we still have loads more shredded zucchini. Since it was up to me to shred it up, I wasn't totally sure on how to shred it, so I did some searching and came across this recipe which was a result of the person having fifteen cups of shredded zucchini.

As you can see, it does call for some interesting ingredients, including lemon or orange zest (which I did skip since we don't have any oranges or lemons around), and an interesting quartet of spices - cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. I knew that we didn't have allspice, and wasn't totally sure about the ginger, yet the whole thing worked thanks to a miracle product: Pumpkin pie spice!

Yep, pumpkin pie spice has cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice (along with an anti-caking agent). As the recipe calls for a variety of amounts of the individual spices, I decided to go on my own with the measuring and went with 1 teaspoon of pie spice, along with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon (since it was 2 tsp. of cinnamon for the recipe). I also skipped the raisins and only put in about a half cup of walnuts.

By far the coolest thing was making oat flour by putting a cup of Quaker Rolled Oats and processing it in the food processor for a couple of minutes.

I could have gotten three slightly-smaller loaves out of the recipe, but I decided to make two larger loaves. Fifty-five minutes later, it was done; so I let it cool for about an hour or so before taking it out of the pans. Before I took a picture, I had sampled a piece of the bread and it was fantastic. ;)

And, of course, here's the bread, minus a smallish sample ;) :

Grilled Salmon & Veggies

Last week, we heard of a sale of salmon at one of the local grocery stores - they were selling whole fish at $1.99 per pound. These weren't your farm-raised Alaskan or Chilean salmon, but came in fresh from Lake Michigan in the back of a truck.

The only processing that was done before they came to the store was that they were gutted and had the scales removed. The folks they had there gave everyone the option of having fillets, steaks or a combination of both. We opted to go for the half-and-half option of steaks and fillets.

When we got home, we cut the fillets down further to cuts of about 1-inch or so, perfect for a single serve of fish. We also packaged each of the five steaks separately, freezing everything but two of the steaks. It was then my time to go in search of a recipe to make.

The one that I found - Grilled Salmon Steak - is a recipe that is easy to make; the only change that we made was substituting black pepper for white (after seeing that the white pepper was $3.59 for a small container). I went along with the instructions; one orange, and two limes and lemons were all that was needed to get the 1/4 cup amounts. I wasn't sure if they meant to cut the actual rind out from the flesh of the fruit, so I just put little slices of each item in there in place.

On the side, we had gotten some asparagus (also on sale $2.99 per pound), so I made that, along with a small zucchini picked fresh from the garden, using olive oil, lime juice, kosher salt, black pepper, thyme and garlic as the marinade for that.

As you may already know, we've switched from charcoal to gas for our grill, and I have to say that I'm now getting accustomed to the different flavor that you get from a gas grill. It's also so much easier to use compared to the charcoal - no need to worry about getting the paper lit for the coals, and there's hardly any waiting necessary for the grill to either heat up or cool down. I can totally understand now why gas is preferred to charcoal now. ;)

So, it was a quick 10-minute warmup for the grill, after which I put the salmon on to the grates, and put the vegies on a piece of aluminum foil over the other side of the grill.

After about 12 minutes or so of grilling, it was all done, and the salmon was nice and flaky. It was interesting trying to take the steaks off the grill with a pair of tongs - they fell apart, but luckily nothing fell between the grates. The vegies were also nice and tender, with some charring on them, but not a lot.

It all tasted excellent, though in hindsight, I would have just left the lime juice out of the asparagus and zucchini; we've always had it without, and it added a bit of unusual flavor to them, though it wasn't that bad.

Of course, here are the pictures, clicking on them will make them bigger -

The salmon, sitting in its marinade after an hour in the fridge.

The vegies in their marinade.

The salmon, just after putting it onto the grill; the white specks you see are the "grated" onions.

Just after flipping the salmon, you can see the wonderful grill marks on the fish ;)

Here's everything, just before being taken off of the grill and into the house.

A time at the mall...

Even though I am fairly close to the city, it's not often that I have the opportunity to get to the malls in the area. It used to be somewhat convenient to get to one of the malls here, but then constant problems with tenants not staying, along with being in an area of somewhat higher crime (though the mall itself was relatively safe), led to that mall being closed down. In its place now are a grocery store and a home improvement chain store. Another mall that we used to frequent was closed down in order to convert the property to an outdoor strip mall; so far that has proven to be a success.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that we aren't spoiled for choice, when you consider that there are still at least four of these "traditional" malls left in the area. It's just that all of them are at least a 30 minute drive from where I am now, so we just don't get there that often anymore. However, today, we had something else going on in the immediate vicinity of one of our major malls in the area. Arguably, it's the most important mall in the area as it has most of the major chains around, including Macy's, Boston Store and JC Penney, along with all of your mall favorites.

My trip to the mall started with a little adventure called waiting for the light to change at the intersection where the city can't be bothered to put a crosswalk. Fortunately, I choose to cross at the side where there is hardly ever any traffic coming out of the mall, so it's just the waiting for the main street's light to change before I can proceed. ;)

Then, it's a walk through the parking lot, and into one of the major anchors of the mall - Barnes & Noble. I usually peruse the selection of books they have; I might even pick up one or two, but I don't buy (you'll notice that this is a pattern here, I just look but don't buy - most of the time I can find what I'm looking for on the Internet cheaper than I can in the mall ;)). It's always nice to go by the little Starbucks nook that is there as they always have some good baked goods being made fresh throughout the day. Then I proceeded up the escalator to the second level of the store to check out some more of the books that were there, and to get into the main mall (I could have just gone straight through the first floor, but I felt like exploring a bit today).

Once in the mall, it's your usual layout, with two aisles that go between large openings that let you see down into the first level. As you walk by some of the stores (particularly the young-adult-geared clothing stores like American Eagle and Aéropostale), you hear the music blaring from the speakers, and you get a chance to do some people watching. They also have couches and chairs in the connecting bridges between the sides of the mall - almost all of them were in use by patrons of the mall to relax, talk, or, in the case of one person, let her child cry and do a bit of pouting almost at the top of its lungs.

As I passed through the center court area (which isn't all that busy I might mention), I picked up the scent of coffee. At first I thought it was one coffee purveyor (Gloria Jean's), but as it turns out it was one of our more locally-based coffee houses, Alterra Coffee:

After walking a little further, I happened upon one of the most interesting kiosks in the whole mall, Nueske's, whose main products are ham and sausage products. In fact, they're somewhat known for their selection of bacon. I don't know of many malls (other than the Mall of America [Rybicki's Cheese]) where you can pick up this kind of product in. It just so happened that they also had some samples of beef sticks out for folks to try. I tried one, and it was pretty good. Here are a couple of pictures, clockwise from top left are: general overview of the kiosk, some of the meats, some more of the meats, and the sampling area.

I then went to look for what I had come to the mall to look for - aromatherapy products - peppermint oil in particular. After striking out last time (though I had found one place that sold it for $12 for a small bottle), I decided to not go by the guide and just go on instinct. The first place I went to didn't seem to have any essential oils, though I hadn't asked them if they did (and what's really bad is that I can't remember the name of that store now!). The second shop I went into, L'Occitane en Provence, had some essential oils, but they only had lavender for pure oils, everything else were combinations. After that, realizing that I didn't have a lot of time left to explore, I decided to stop in a place I had seen last time but didn't have a chance to go into then. However, there was a slight delay in that plan.

You see, how this mall is set up, they placed Lindt Chocolate right next to this store. I wouldn't have gone into Lindt if it hadn't been for a sign in their window which read - "Come in for a free sample". Although I know I shouldn't have, I did anyway, because who can resist a free sample? ;)

I went ahead and got the extra dark chocolate, and it was amazing. The taste just sticks in your mouth for so long, and it's so pleasurable. I really should have gotten a packet of them, but I chose not to - it's available at most stores anyway if I remember correctly.

So, anyway, after that nice diversion, I was back to "man on a mission" mode, and went into the next shop, called Soaps and Scents. Something about the folks in these stores, the ones where you find the body and health stuff, is that they're all so nice. They don't care who you are, what matters is that you're there; unlike the cellphone people who just yell at you, which is a step up from the rumors of them throwing pens at people walking by a couple of years ago. So, I went in and asked the lady behind the counter if they had essential oils, and in particular the peppermint. As it turns out, they did! However, the price had something to be lacking - $8.95 for what appeared to be about 1/2 fluid ounce - I didn't look at the bottle up close to see how much was in there, but the vial was relatively small. I decided that I wouldn't get it today, since the prices online are more favorable (and for bigger quantities as well)

Normally, I would have just walked along and on my way, but I mentioned to her that they were only the second (or third, or possibly 4th, if you consider one that sells only combinations, and L'Occitane along with The Body Shop) store that I found in the mall that sold aromatherapy products. I then mentioned that in Australia, aromatherapy products are available at the supermarket. She was quite surprised by this, and asked what they did with it, to which I replied, a couple of drops in the shower. I then rambled on about maybe it's just that it's a country vs. city thing and that the supermarkets in the capitals mightn't have aromatherapy products. I then mentioned that I hadn't been able to find anything out where I am, which led to a discussion of how to get around some major construction that is going on in a nearby town.

All in all, it was a very pleasurable experience. I then went up the escalator to the general moshpit of societies - the food court. Here, you have just about anything from standard fast food fare (though McDonald's was strangely missing from the mix) to the mall-only places such as Little Tokyo and Sbarro. At Little Tokyo, there was a bloke standing out front with some samples of chicken teriyaki, the $3.99 special. Even though I had the Lindt still resonating in my mouth, I decided to have a small sample (it was two little pieces of chicken on a toothpick, if you're wondering), and it tasted great as well. I was seriously tempted to suggest that we get some for dinner, but then thought that the trip back out here would be too long and then it'd be cold. I snapped some more photos of the food court, clockwise are - Chinese Gourmet Express, Little Tokyo (you can see the sample guy at the left of the photo, in the red apron), the left side of the food court ({Cinnabon}, Steak Escape, sbarro, Subway, Cajun Big Easy), and the right side of the court (Cajun Big Easy again, Taco Bell, Little Tokyo, Burger King, {Arby's - behind the column}, Rocky Rococo (regional pizza-by-the-slice chain)).

All in all, it was a good time, and a nice walk as well in the air conditioning. However, the trip back to the car was a little adventure, as a missed signal meant that I had to start back across the street after noticing that the car had not seen my signal and went towards the mall anyway. I'm sure the cars had fun watching that. ;)

How much is too much?

The topic for this week's Hump Day Hmm... is a pretty wide topic - Too much of a good thing.

For me, the thing I've always had too much of has been food. While I was in college, I had access to the dining hall, and almost always would fill two or three plates of food. I can remember having a plate filled with chicken nuggets, and eating them all. If it was breakfast, I'd have two eggs, and a whole bunch of sausage links and bacon. Generally, if it was there, I'd take it. Some days, I'd have a salad, but that was in addition to the full lunch or dinner I'd have. Along with that, I'd have a glass or three of soda, and they'd also get finished. I would also bring my own cup along so that I could fill up with soda before going either back to my dorm room or out to classes.

In my dorm room, the situation wasn't improved - I'd have candy and snacks of all kinds available for myself, and the vending machines weren't far away, so that I could get myself a candy bar (though it was usually two or three at a time) and take it back to my room.

Of course, my overeating goes to before college. I've always thought that I needed to have two of everything - two steaks, two pork chops, two hamburgers, two chicken breasts - for it to be a meal. We would have fruits and vegetables here, but it wasn't a constant supply and I would regularly ignore them in preference to having the junk food.

All in all, it is too much food. On top of all that is the fact that I would drink way too much soda. There would be days where I'd drink four cans in a day - or more. I'd have soda with breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then have one at night.

However, there is good news in all of this - the first thing that I've done is weaned myself from drinking soda. First, it was two cans a day - lunch and dinner. However, I was still drinking diet soda. One day in May, I was given a couple of links that showed the effects of aspartame (the sweetener in diet soda) - Health effects and Dorway. Interestingly, one of the effects seen in people who consume aspartame is depression. Another thing that I learnt is that if it's let to sit for long enough, Diet Coke disintegrates partly into turpentine.

From that day until about two weeks ago, I was having one can of regular Coke a day. The first couple of days of not having Diet Coke, I was a bear - almost as if I were quitting smoking after doing it for years. However, that passed within a couple of days and I was feeling better. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was given a link to 9 great reasons to drink water, which led to me drinking more water, and now I've gone over two weeks drinking pretty much only water - the only other liquid I have is milk with a bowl of cereal in the morning. To think that I've gone from two sodas a day to none in such a short time is amazing, considering that I've had soda around me all my life. In fact, not 10 feet from me sits six 12-packs of Coke, purchased when it was on sale on the thought that I'd have a supply to last about two months or so; honestly, I'd now rather walk to the kitchen, fill my glass (or my bottles when I'm walking) with tap water than grab a can of soda.

Now, with the eating, I've started to cut back on that as well - the basic thought being that when you go to a restaurant, you don't order two steaks or two chicken meals, and yet you leave there feeling pretty full. For a while now, I've had a lunch of a chicken breast with either just an avocado or a salad. Alternatively, I will have a Lean Cuisine meal. For dinner, I've just started cutting back on the quantity of food I eat, and so far I've done quite well - tonight, I had almost a whole pork chop before I started feeling full - a little while ago, it would have been two full ones, no matter how full I felt.

It's just another step in my changes, and stepping away from too much of a good thing - changing it to good things, just in moderation.

Meet the New(ish) Grill

A few weeks ago I was asked if I would be interested in the possibility of getting a free grill. Of course, not being one to miss the opportunity to receive free stuff, I said sure. Last Monday comes around and I get a call that we're supposed to pick up the grill.

Of course, it didn't fit in the car pre-assembled, so it was taken almost all the way apart (as in taking the legs off, but keeping the actual grill together), and then brought home for me to reassemble. Amazingly, I almost got it all the way right - I managed to put the cross piece for the left side on the right, and the one that's supposed to be on the right isn't on the grill at all (and if you ask me, I'm not sure how the piece on the left is supposed to fit with the tank there). Nevertheless, it does stand on its own and is fairly stable, though it is susceptible to some back-to-front motion.

Last week's rain had an effect on the grill, as for almost two full days after it stopped, I couldn't get the thing started up, and then on Sunday, it started up with no hassles at all.

The first meal cooked on the grill was chicken breasts with potatoes (and a couple of mushrooms). The chicken breasts were marinated for a short time in a combination of olive oil, lime juice and lemon juice - plus some garlic powder. Can you tell I've fallen in love with this way of making chicken? I'm prone to do it somewhat often now. :)

The potatoes were washed, sliced and coated with olive oil, sea salt and ground black pepper. In the process of cooking the food, I only lost two slices of potato to the grates because I was a dork and was grabbing the slices on the sides instead of coming in from the front. The end result wasn't terribly bad, though it tasted like something that I made on the stove instead of on a grill - but that's just because I'm used to charcoal grilling and haven't readjusted to gas grilling yet.

And here are some photos ;)

The chicken has just been put on the grill, and I'm experimenting with placing the potatoes on different racks.

The chicken's almost done now, and most of the potatoes have been taken off of the grill.

And here's the dinner platter - the leftover chicken made a nice salad on Monday. :)

Allow extra time...

I don't know about anyone else, but I have always been taught to use things until they can't be used anymore. I have had the TV in my bedroom since 1994. There's a computer here that, while it isn't used anymore, still works fine some 12 years after it was built.

Heck, I've had the same frames for my glasses since the fifth grade. At least that's how it was until last week when I finally got my eyes checked for the first time in a long time and got some new frames - ones that don't make me look like I'm 70 years old or just stuck in an older time.

I don't know why things last so long here, but they just do, and I don't mind one bit because that way we're not buying things constantly to replace broken items. However, our microwave stopped working a couple of weeks ago, so we had to buy a new one.

While looking through ads, we spotted one for $39 at a store that was very close to my home, so we go down there and ask about it. The salesman says that it was a scratch-and-dent model which they ran out of on the Thursday. We then checked out one of the big-box stores, but I didn't like the looks of the microwaves - they looked cheap. As it was getting kind of warm that day, we decided to stop looking and wait for the circulars to come in the Sunday paper.

When they came, it was a mad dash to look through all the sales slips to see what microwaves were out there. It just so happened that another store in the area had the exact same oven that we had been denied earlier on sale for $37. So, we decide to make the trip down to that store, and they were completely out of them until later in the week. Apparently, that is something that happens regularly at this store with sale items. At this point, we didn't care and paid for the microwave so that it would be ready for pick up on that Friday.

On Friday, we get home and I make a Lean Cuisine pizza. It didn't turn out bad, but it could have been done some more. The problem, if you can call it that, is that the microwave we bought is a 700-watt model (perfect for any location), while we had been used to having a 1100-watt model. Before it broke, you could just look at the directions and put in the time on the box. Well, that didn't work with the 700-watt edition. A couple of times, I'd put in a Lean Cuisine and cook it for the recommended time, only for it to be lukewarm.

Luckily, there are Conversion charts for pretty much any microwave out there - from 400 to 1250, and even up to 3000 watts. However, there's no need to convert for popcorn - since there's a button for that which won't make it burn like it always would do in the old oven. :)

Adventures in Seafood

Or: How I learnt to make pesto in 3 minutes ;)

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted about my cooking adventures; it's time to open another chapter. A chapter which contains food other than chicken. Yeah, I love chicken, but you know, it never hurts to have other foods as well. Especially when it's Salmon, rich in omega-3 fatty acid...ok, that's not gonna work. Let's just get into the cooking ;)

About a week ago, i was looking through some coupons that we had printed out from a website. Some of them had recipes attached, including one attached to a coupon for Morton Kosher Salt. You can check out the full recipe at the Morton Salt site. It's pretty good, and I think you'll enjoy it :)

So, we had to go to the store to get some of the ingredients, only to find out that they were completely out of the salt. They didn't even have any in the back, so that was the first substitution I had to make - fortunately, we happen to have some sea salt that we got from the local organic store, and that seemed to fit in fine with the salmon. Admittedly, it would have been better if the fish had been a bit fresher; we had gotten it on Sunday, but hadn't gotten around to dealing with it until tonight, and I think that kind of took away from the main flavors of the marinade.

Now, here's the really interesting part, to me at least. One of the ingredients for the Focaccia is prepared basil pesto. I would assume that you should be able to go to the store and buy premade pesto, but by the time that I had seen this ingredient on the list, I made the choice to just say bugger it and go without the pesto. That was, until I got the bruschetta mixed up and had some basil left.

At that point, I came out to the computer, loaded RecipeZaar and found this simple recipe for pesto. Now, I didn't have the pine nuts or fresh Parmesan cheese for it, but I think it came out well. And it came together in about 5 minutes, while the fish was still in the oven. It wasn't bad at all.

The bruschetta mixture tasted really good, and I learnt another lesson from last time I used the red wine vinegar - don't go overboard! That way, it didn't dominate the flavor of the dish, and gave it a nice hint in the background.

I'll leave you with some pics, as usual :)

The bruschetta in the bowl, waiting to be put onto the bread
The "premade" basil pesto ;)
Toasted focaccia and the cooked salmon in the background
My plate, with a piece of fish and a piece of bread

If you have a recipe you'd like me to try out, I'm willing to take a shot, feel free to leave a comment. :)

This was the Week that Was, Vol. 1

Last Monday, I had mentioned that I was "gonna do a weekly update thing from now on". And that has now manifested itself into This was the Week that Was, TW3 for short. It's basically a round-up of blog posts that I found interesting, some new blogs that I've started reading, and a bit of an update on what's gone on here. There'll also be a mention of news from time to time. I hope y'all enjoy it :)

Some blog posts that I really liked -

• Duncan's TV Ad Land featured some great ads that have been blocked from reairing on British TV because back in the 50s, eggs and toast was seen to be a balanced breakfast. Now you have to have juice.
• Andrew G (formerly of Channel [V] and currently of Australian Idol) discussed a great insight that he got from emceeing an event featuring the Dalai Lama in Sydney
• One of my favorite blogs is The Food Pornographer, where tfp, as she is known, photographs many of the meals she has. This week, a couple of the posts caught my eye -
  
  • Tuesday night dinner with friends - featuring a picture of a version of an Aussie burger, using chicken instead of the regular hamburger. It looks really delicious!
  • Monday work food - guilty! - Obviously we *do* have KFC here, but it's always interesting to see how other countries serve the same kinds of food in the same restaurant. Of note are three things - 1) the soda in a can - here, it's served in a cup like any other fast food restaurant, and the last time I've seen a can with a narrow opening was maybe 10 years ago; 2) No coleslaw - if it were me, I'd have that instead of the chips (fries). ;) 3) The bun. I had a look on the Aussie KFC website, and they don't have the biscuits. Seriously, y'all are missing out on some goodness there.
• Sky High Cork City from inphotos.org, with a great picture of Cork City in Ireland from the top of a parking ramp/garage/structure/deck.
• Google held a Press Day in Paris this week, and released a bunch of facts and figures about their operations, highlighted at unofficial Google blog Google Operating System. The most interesting stat is that 20-25% of queries are brand new ones.
• Anaglyph mentioned a story about the Royal Australian Navy preventing a boarding of one of their ships by Iranian forces. How, you might ask did they do this? Simple - by using some colourful language ;)

Some of the new blogs I've started reading recently -

• Memoirs of a Gouda, who I mentioned the other day for being willing to embrace swearing.
• Alyndabear. She just bought herself a new domain, something that I am seriously considering doing at some time in the near future. She also received a bum blog review a couple weeks back, which is when I started reading - I have to say that their review was totally off-base.
• A Byootaful Life; I know it was mentioned in Snos' round up, but the post that got me was the one about the Digg Cake; specifically the words "boob cake". ;) Yeah, I'm a perv :p
• A Taste of Home. It was linked off of byootaful life, and is another foodie blog. You can't get enough of those :)

New blogs in the US Blogs Community:

• ourmonmouthblog
• TallFreak.com
• Everybody Loves Tana!
• Jericho Monster
• Nate Balcom..that is..NateBal.com....Come On In..The Web Is Fine..
• One Step Forward

I'll be honest, while I'd love to invite every single blog in the US personally, there are only so many hours in the day, and so many blogs that I can comment on before I go a bit, well, silly. My goal, as I said last Monday, is to double the number of blogs by the end of the month. Right now, we're at 46, so that means there's quite a way to go. If you know of some blogs that are in the US, feel free to invite them to the community, and if you're a blogger and haven't signed up yet, why not? It's free, easy, and you'll get yourself on the US Blogs Blogroll.

Speaking of the blogroll, I've found a way to make it scroll without losing the value of the links. I'm sure you can probably hide links using that method as well.

Don't Gotta Get It

First, apologies for the lousy grammar of the title, but it makes sense (kinda.)

There's a show on the Food Network called "Gotta Get It". The premise is that they show you all kinds of utter crap that you "Gotta Get". For example, an esky (cooler) on wheels that you can drive around. Yes, drive. I don't know anyone who would buy such a thing just to lose some storage space in their cooler, but I guess if they can move some of these contraptions, more power to them. The same really goes for the rest of the products they're selling tn TV. I've been watching for the better part of an hour and yet am to see something that would be particularly useful to me.

In other news, I've been busy cleaning my room in preparation for the delivery of a new bed; it's not like I don't *need* one necessarily, but my mattress has been around for something like 10 years or more, so I guess it's high time to just do it.

The joy of it all...

Recently, I was given a small task to do that involved a bit of work. I have to say that I really enjoyed it and the result turned out quite well, even if I was a little tired after doing it. Then again, the lawn does need to be cut every once in a while.

However, I'm not talking about lawn maintenance today. Rather, I'm going to produce the result of a small challenge that I was set the other day. Now, normally I wouldn't have done this so quickly, but it just so happened that we had some chicken in the fridge that was supposed to go to stir-fry, but that hadn't happened just yet. So, I made the decision to reroute the chicken to this recipe.

Usually we buy boneless, skinless chicken breast (proof of that is the 6 pounds that are sitting in the freezer after buying three bags of it when it was on sale for $4.99 per 3-pound bag). However, the chicken that was supposed to go to the stir-fry still had the skin and bones on it. I'll spare the full details, but suffice it to say, in the process of boning it, I managed to cut through a latex glove and nicked my left index finger while trying to sharpen a knife. But a Band-Aid and a new glove later, I was back in business. Fortunately, I only had to do this to two of the breasts; I had a couple left from the first bag of chicken breasts we had gotten.

Here's a tip to y'all - if you don't have a juicer available (I could have sworn that we did have one, but I'll be buggered if I know where it is, either the manual or the electric one), save yourself some hassle and buy a bit of ReaLime juice or the generic equivalent. I certainly didn't mind having to squeeze all 8 halves of lime, but ya know, it does get tiring after a while. However, I'm not totally sure what the price of the juice is, but for the four limes, we paid a total of $3.16, so it wasn't too bad of a price (79¢ each) to pay. I also decided to pick up some ginger - that wound up being something like 68¢ or so (a couple of pieces, at $3.79 per pound).

After I had gotten done with the chicken, I had put it into the bag and intended to pour the marinade over it; well, actually, it's supposed to be the other way around, so I wound up using a bowl and fork anyways. :)

While the chicken was sitting in the fridge marinating, I started in on chopping up the vegies for the Greek salad that I had decided on making. Another very straightforward recipe, and one that you can add or subtract ingredients to at will, I would think. I had decided to use cucumbers, roma tomatoes, red onion, and celery in the main salad mix, and also chopped up an avocado (that's been sitting in the fridge for almost three weeks now, but as you'll see, is still good enough to eat - not a single brown spot on it) and got some feta cheese for myself because I'm the only one who likes those items here. (Interesting side story about the avocados - when we were stocking up on them 3 weeks back, the checker at the store we got them from said that she didn't get avocados; my response was that I tried it and liked it; she should consider doing the same, they were on sale for 98¢ each at the time.)

While the chicken was cooking in the frying pan, you could really smell the fresh ginger in it, and it was a great smell I must say. I put together the vinaigrette using red wine vinegar and the trusty extra virgin olive oil, and put it on the side so that it could be added at will.

Overall, I'd have to say that it was a great meal - dead simple to make too, even though it took me about an hour and a half to do it all (most of that was the prep for the chicken though, along with slicing and squeezing the limes). The only thing I wasn't totally keen on was how sharp of a taste the vinaigrette had. Then again, I'd never really had something like that before.

The good thing was that we had enough left over for me to have it again for lunch, just needing a bit of microwaving (that's why the post is timestamped 11:23 but not appearing until now; I took a break for lunch ;)). I also did some adjustment to the vinaigrette by adding a little bit more olive oil and using apple cider vinegar. I also added a bit of lemon juice and that really helped to make the taste less sharp.

Of course, what would it be if I didn't include pictures? ;)

First off, the marinade mixed up, along with the limes


Here are the vegies, cut up and ready to go.


The chicken, just about ready to be taken out of the pan


Here's the spread, ready to serve up (and yes, I did do some editing on the photo)


The salad, as I had it for lunch today


It's my lunchtime routine now. :)

Simple Recipes

The other day, I was at grocery store, and I spotted lemons on sale for 69¢ apiece (these were quite large lemons, the main store I go to had smaller ones on sale at 40¢); and I figured that it'd be interesting to try putting it in the inside of a chicken for flavoring. So, I did just that.

I had heard some months ago about this really good chicken recipe that involved creating a dough to cover the chicken; a recipe from Jamie Oliver. I even managed to find the episode that had this particular recipe. On the surface it sounds like it can be a bit daunting, what with making a dough and everything, but the reality is that it comes together quickly. Here's what you need -

2 lb (7-ish cups) of flour
2 cups (plus or minus) water

fresh sage
fresh thyme (I had to use dried as there was no fresh available)
a lemon
olive oil
garlic (about 6 cloves)

A tip that Jamie had on the episode was that you should put the lemon into boiling water for ten or so minutes, that allows it to be at temperature and reduce cooking time. When you have the water boiling, you can dip the sage into there and that will make it easy to bash around in a mortal-and-pestle (if you don't have that, you can make your own suitable substitute from a metal bowl and something to crush other things with; I used a "battering-ram" style thing that is used for pushing tomatoes into a squeezo machine (which is similar to a grinder, but specifically for tomatoes)).

So, you bash the sage, thyme, and garlic, then add the olive oil along with salt (kosher or sea) and ground pepper. Mix that together and rub that on and inside the chicken and let it rest while you make the dough. Also, poke the lemon with a knife and insert it in the chicken. A tip - you should try to make sure that you get a smaller lemon so that it fits in the chicken on its own; otherwise you end up with a situation where some of the meat touches the lemon's skin and becomes a touch too lemony.

With the flour and water, mix that together; you can add in some herbs if you wish, but the intention is to not eat the dough. After mixing, roll it out to about 1/4 inch thick (or 1 cm). Wrap the chicken with the dough - another tip, put the bottom of the chicken onto the dough and place your "seams" on the top, it *will* be easier to open after it's baked. Trust me on that ;)

Also, Jamie did this idea of baking the chicken on some newspapers; you can do it, but since you're baking at 425°, the paper *will* singe and you might be able to smell it (remembering that the flashpoint for paper is 451°F). So anyway, bake the chicken and dough (and optional newspaper) at 425°F (~220°C) for about 2 hours. Serve with your choice of vegetables; I opted for baked potatoes and broccoli.

Oh, and since I had slightly buggered-up the dough by putting the "seams" at the bottom of the chicken, that was a source of both minor frustration and levity as I was struggling with slicing the crust open. Using a vegetable knife (finely serrated edge) did the trick, along with flipping the thing over and having a go :)

And finally some pix for y'all -

This is just after the lemon was stuck into the bird, just before the dough was being made.

After baking in the oven, you can see the singing on the papers.

After it's out of the shell, and partly carved. :)

The State of the Turkey

This is mostly a photo post, to commemorate Thanksgiving. I present: The States of a Turkey, 2006 edition.

State One: Thawing, still in its original packaging

State Two: In the roasting pan, ready for roasting at 375° for three hours or so

State Three: In the roasting pan, just under three hours later. Fresh from the oven, the temperature of the breat meat is at a safe 170°F, but the potatoes, peas and rolls still need to be made up, so two layers of tinfoil are added to the top. This also allows the juices to redistribute.

State Four: Half carved, ready to be served. It was suggested to use an electric knife, but I opted to use a carving knife.

State Five: Ready to be put into the refrigerator as leftovers. a 14-pound turkey leaves a lot left over. Some of this meat is to be used for a second thanksgiving dinner for one of my relatives who didn't roast a turkey on Thursday.

Grocery Shopping

We are somewhat lucky that we have at least five separate major grocery retailers in my general area. Three of them are based in my state, one is based in California, and the other is Wal-Mart. Most of these stores all have similar sales, but the prices can be different (or in some cases, the product)

So, as somewhat of a public service, I provide some sample prices for products on sale between today and Saturday (note that this is the only period where all five stores have these prices on offer concurrently)

For example, Stove-Top Stuffing. Three of the stores have it priced at 98¢, 99¢, and $1.00 respectively. The fourth store has it at $1.25 (advertised as 4/$5) and Wal-Mart has it priced at 88¢. Two stores have Clementines available - one at $4.98 and the other at $5.48. Something common in most stuffings made at this time of the year is Sage & Onion crutons produced by the Brownberry Baking company. One store (the same one with the $1.25 Stovetop) has it at $1.50. Another has had it at $2.00 for a while now, but they've put it on sale at $1.66 (or 3/$4.98). Yet another has it at $1.99 (or 2/$3.98). The other two don't have it listed, so one can assume that their regular prices of $2.25 and $2.00 are maintained.

So, what's the lesson here? I think it's that just because you think that your neighbourhood store has the lowest price *you've* seen, doesn't mean that it is the lowest price - a last example - most stores are having Dean's dips at something like $1.50 per package; but there's another store that has the same size on sale for 98¢.

Something a bit different

I admit that I'm kind of steady in my tastes of food, but I am willing to try different options. Take, for example, putting pickled beet on a hamburger. You'd think that it's disgusting (for those who haven't tried beet yet, I do recommend it - they don't taste as bad as their reputation might suggest; just make sure you have a good cleaning method), but in fact it tastes pretty good.

The latest experiment I've done is to put a piece of pineapple (warm, being cooked in the pan before making the hamburger) on the sandwich; and I have to say that I really didn't notice it except when having it apart from the burger, but it did add some nice sweetness to the meal. It's a slow process, but I'll work my way up to the full Aussie burger (a version of which can be seen here).

I've also been experimenting with some different veg combinations for Chinese food, the latest being Zucchini, green peppers, carrots, corn and broccoli. Not bad, but it isn't very colorful.

Lastly, in my search for recipes/pictures of the Aussie burger, I managed to find this site - The food pornographer. A very interesting read, and some just great photos of various foods. Yes, more proof that I am strange ;)