Overheard from some poolside speakers on my walk back home:
You’re listening to Kxxx, your home for the best in soft rock.
… Coming up: Amy Grant and Wilson Phillips!
Me: you keep using that word. I do no think it think what you think it mean.
(their widget sucks, so you’ll just have to go there by clicking)
I can go to 11. Best location was 13 8 4 3 km from the target (St. Petersburg) The map needs to be bigger (in terms of pixels), for sure.
Update: Finally made it to level 12 (traveler IQ of 130, 553,000 points). Hooray for me!
Texas has wildly variable weather and highly accurate forecasts.
Washington has highly consistent weather and wildly inaccurate forecasts.
Discuss
Dayam this week’s product placement slash “challenge” was paaaaaainfully bad. Just awful.
(for posterity: they went to Times Square aaaaaand… had to make something from the products they found in the H*rsh*y’s store. So… clothes made from candy wrappers. Whee.)
If you watch the show, there are two bits of honesty that kind of make it worthwhile – Christian VO’ing “So I was thinking ‘Great, we’re going to make shit out of chocolate’” and Victorya’s bitchface while they’re standing in the store lining up to hear the bullshit they’re supposed to act excited about. There’s no joy in Hong-ville. Good times, good times.
The rest of the episode suuuucked, though.
The H*rsh*y’s lady was straight out of central casting as well… if you’re casting for stunningly craptacular corporate marketing shill slash Stepford slash Seussian mom. Also, she had no lips. Creepy spokesperson, poor-quality chocolatier company! I’ll never eat one of your poor choco pieces again! Except for the peanut butter cups. And the extra creamy toffee nuggets. And whatever else I eat.
Actual quote from the show (Chris, I think):
Real food is… not … practical
Now that’s good quote!
Unfortunately one of the tiny number of interesting personalities got auf’d. Boo!
This season sucks. Cast is uninspiring and the product placement is worse than an Adam Sandler movie. I need ghostfinger here in order to make this show enjoyable again.
I see others have noticed this disturbing trend…
A “surge” of overused words and phrases formed a “perfect storm” of “post-9/11″ cliches in 2007, according to a U.S. university’s annual list of words and phrases that deserve to be banned.
…
In the same vein, decorators offering to add “pop” with a touch of color need new words, the list-makers said.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched HGTV in the past six months. The lady on Spice Up My Kitchen, in addition to being an uninspiring designer addicted to faux stone laminate and tin panel ceilings, uses the phrase at least three times every 22 minutes (I swear to FSM that if she hasn’t already said “grey would make that countertop really POP!” already, she’s planning to do so soon). The Color Correction lady uses the phrase nearly as much in between joker-esque self-hating failed-actress-yoga-n-anorexia colonics. It’s even crossed over to Designed to Sell as I’ve Lisa LaPorta utter the phrase at least once (say it with me: NOOooOoOoOooooOooo!). At least Candice Olsen and Sabrina Soto are still clean (and teh awesome).
Sure, there are other phrases in there (“webinar,” “organic”), but “pop” is my hobby horse and I’m gonna ride this sucker. See also: woot
It’s a new year, welcome to my latest obsession… cooking!
For the inaugural voyage of my slow cooker, I decided to make a beef stew dish. Something flavorful, a bit spicy, and altogether yummy. Given my current location and predisposition, I chose a recipe with a little Mexican twist, including salsa verde, jalapenos, and a green pepper. Here’s the recipe:
1.5lbs extra lean stew beef, in 1 inch pieces
4 medium unpeeled potatoes, cut in 1 inch pieces
1 large onion chopped
1 green pepper, cut in 1/2 inch pieces
3 jalapenos, chopped
2headscloves of garlic, minced
14.5 oz, stewed tomatoes
15-16 oz pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup salsa verde
1 tsp ground cumin
Pre-cooking, post-prep ingredients:
In the cooker:
Prep time is supposed to be 30 minutes. It took me a bit over an hour. I suppose if you are a garlic peeling maniac you could make it in 30, but I’m not at that level yet. (see also: update 1 below to explain my laggardly prep time)
Directions:
1. Brown the meat, on medium heat in hot oil. Drain the fat and remaining oil.
2. Dump the ingredients in the slow cooker.
3. Cook! (8-9 hours on slow, 5-6 on high)
This should produce six servings. I recommend warmed tortillas or bread to go along with the dish (I went with a sourdough bowl loaf).
Total food cost: $18.00 ($21.00 with bread/tortillas).
Cost per serving: $3.00 – $3.50
If you don’t have a slow cooker, here’s a great one: Rival 4-qt 3040TCC
Update: it turns out that a clove of garlic is not the same as a head of garlic. Who knew? I share this with you because I’m an idiot I want to increase the level of knowledge around the world and one of those bits of knowledge is that the clove is one of the pods of a whole garlic thingy, not the whole thingy.
If you re-examine the first picture above… those yellow-white things? That’s more than two cloves. Just so you know.
Update 2: (pre-tasting, given update 1, above) I’m renaming tonight’s concoction Garlic Stew … with some other bits!!!!!!! (alternate title “The Garlic Steamer”)
Update 3: (post-tasting) Not too garlicky actually (and surprisingly; the salsa verde and tomatoes color the flavor more). 2 heads o’ garlic may be the new norm (we may need to wait for the work/sweat test tomorrow to verify, though).
Taste Test: Woooo! Flavorful, spicy, yum-may (note: I like my dishes quite spicy. That I didn’t feel the need to add any form of hot sauce or pepper flakes probably means the garlic was too strong for mere mortals those who aren’t so into teh hawt). The salsa verde adds a great tang and makes the stew. It still needs some salt and touch of pepper, though, and I’ll probably add some wine next time, but overall… it’s a 3-star or 4-star dish (out of 5).
Update 4: peel the potatoes. I’ve also been upping it to 2 lbs of beef, 2 cans of beans, and a can of tomatoes and one can of tomato paste. Plus more seasoning