Utilitarian dining

[Lusst]

The wife and I take turns making breakfast in the morning so one of us gets breakfasst in bed every morning

Would be nice in the Lusst household, only when it's my turn to be served breakfast, I'd get a plate of Pop-Tarts.

 

[bacon]

Yeah... it doesn't really work if only one of you is into it. We've been doing it for about 6 months and aside from random crumbs in the bed, it's awesome.

 

[bacon]

I like beer and I've always wanted to learn to cook with it. Saw this article on NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR

Here's the only part worth reading:

Cooking with Beer

Beer brings three things to food. The hops add bitterness, which is offset with the sweetness of the malted grain and complemented by the flavor of the yeast. Dark beers also provide a distinct roasted flavor.

The effervescence in beer makes it an excellent addition to batters used for frying, producing a lighter crust. And some of the lightest biscuits I've ever eaten were made using beer. Because of the hops, reducing beer too much can result in an unpleasantly bitter dish. So if you're using beer in a slow-cooking braise, use a milder beer and dilute it with stock or water if necessary. Pale ales and nut brown ales are a good choice, but in general, avoid India pale ales, as they tend to have a high hops content.

Because of the bitterness, beer pairs well with sweet vegetables such as carrots, corn and caramelized onions. And just as wine is often found in marinades, beer, too, is a great choice. I think it's a particularly good addition to marinades for game such as venison. And as the recipe for Guinness Stout Cake shows, beer even has a place in desserts.

Must find that recipe.

EDIT: Goddammit, I'm a tool sometimes. I searched for Guiness cake and it took me back to NPR.org. The same exact page as the article. All I had to do was scroll down. *raises hand* Champion.

Guinness Chocolate Cake

I've been hearing and reading about Guinness chocolate cake for years. Beer and chocolate may strike you as an odd combination, but this isn't just any beer, it's Guinness stout, a thick beverage made from roasted barley that adds a smoky note that just happens to complement chocolate perfectly. There are lots of very similar recipes for this deservedly popular cake. I adapted one published by King Arthur Flour, but substituted Nigella Lawson's cream cheese icing, which I got from her Web site.

Enlarge Kevin D. Weeks for NPR
Kevin D. Weeks for NPR
Cake

1 cup Guinness (or other stout)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder*

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda (make sure it's less than 6 months old for maximum leavening power)

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

Icing

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan, place a round of parchment paper on the bottom and butter it, then flour the pan.

Cake

Place the stout and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Whisk in cocoa powder until mixture is smooth.

Thoroughly combine flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in large bowl. In another bowl, beat together the eggs and sour cream until well-blended. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed.

Finish mixing by folding batter with a spatula until completely combined. Pour batter in the springform pan and bake cake until a toothpick inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Place cake on a rack and cool for 10 minutes, then remove the sides of the pan and cool completely.

Icing

Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. Add cream and vanilla and mix. Spread icing on top of cake to echo the appearance of a glass of Guinness and its head of foam.

*Dutch-process cocoa is acid neutral. If you use something like Hershey's cocoa (which is acid) the cake may not rise properly.

If anyone reading this has a beer recipe worth passing on, post it.

 

[mschatz]

That one chick is hot in the "Fast and Furious" movies. Fuck. What's her name? She was in "Lost." She always plays the tough girl... God DAMNIT.

...Michelle Rodriguez!

Some people don't think she is, but I've always had a thing for her. Like her attitude.

 

[bacon]

She's like a young Rosie Perez.

 

[mschatz]

GOOD comparison. I thought Rosie Perez was hot in "White Men Can't Jump." 15 minutes of listening to that voice would make me strangle her though.

 

[bacon]

Most women's voices annoy me. Put me in a room with two women gossiping and somebody is going to die.

Some people feel sorry for the deaf. Not me. I can't wait to lose my hearing.

 

[mschatz]

It's all about content and pitch with me. Gossiping sets my teeth on edge. So does any conversation about reality TV, fashion or the like. If said conversation is taking place between two individuals with high-pitched or shrieking voices, it's a double whammy.

 

[Lusst]

I actually enjoy the sound of two women gossiping. It makes me smile.

The only sound I hate coming from a woman is: "Not tonight".

 

[bacon]

If you believe Wikipedia, the word "leisure" came into being around the fourteenth century and it means "a period of time spent outside of work or domestic activity." Prior to the fourteenth century, too few people had enough leisure time to bother giving it a name. In those days, survival was a full time job.

Let's assume you were lucky enough to have live stock (chickens, cows, pigs, maybe a horse). Not only do you have to take care of and feed yourself and your family, you have to take care of your live stock. Wake up, milk the cows so they don't burst or run dry. Gather eggs. Feed the cows, chickens, pigs, your family, yourself. Tend to crops. Fuck, the horse is pregnant. There are repairs to make and fences to mend, and by the way, you have to do all of this by hand; powertools and the combustion engine won't be invented for several life times. And when the sun went down, you were done unless you wanted to work by fire light. You worked all day and you were fortunate to eat more than twice a day. If you didn't have live stock, you had to hunt for meat. There were no dear tags or high powered rifles with big shiny scopes. You had to be a fucking ninja back then. If you killed something, you got to eat. If you didn't...

Last night I grilled eight chicken thighs. I want you to imagine catching and cleaning 4 chickens. If you could do it in an hour, I'd be impressed, but i'd also laugh at you for slaughtering half of your chickens for a single meal. It took me half an hour to shop for all the groceries I needed for an entire week. The chicken came in a nice neat package. All I had to do was open it, season the meat and throw it on the grill.

Look how far we've come as a species. Agriculture and the ability to store food for later use is the single biggest advancement we've ever made. It afforded us the time to invent all that other important shit like Legos and toaster ovens.

And yet, it isn't enough for some people. Preparing a meal, even with the conveniences we have today, is just too difficult. We have more leisure time at our disposal than anyone has ever had (with the exception of the French) but we can't carve out a half an hour to prepare a decent meal. For shame.

 

[Justin_Time]

some might say pizza delivery is the single biggest advancement we've ever made.

 

[bacon]

The first thing I did when I got home last night was lock my keys in my still-running truck. *waits for laughter to stop* And this isn't the first time I've done this. *waits again*

I have a ritual when exiting my truck:
I pull into the parking space
Shift into neutral with my right hand (manual transmission)
Set the parking brake with my left foot
Turn off the engine and remove the keys with my right hand
Pass the the keys to my left hand
Open the door with my right hand
Exit the truck
Lock the door as it closes

Every now and then, something happens that interupts this sequence and it throws me into a world of shit.

A year ago, I took my truck to a coin operated car wash. The kind where you grab the sprayer and do the work yourself. I interupted my vehicle exit strategy to search for quarters in my console. I found the quarters, but left my keys in the console... right where the quarters had been. My wife had to leave work and bring me the spare. I pretended to wash my truck for about an hour and a half.

Several months ago, I had a dentist appointment. This time, I interupted the exit procedure to remove my coat. I left my keys on the seat and locked the door. It sucked, but I figured my wife could come unlock the door while I was getting my teeth examined and no one would be the wiser. Wrong. My wife unlocked the door, grabbed the keys and brought them to the reception area with a big grin on her face. I heard the laughter from my dentist chair in the back of the building. "My idiot husband locked his keys in his car again. Can you please give him these *hands over keys* and ridicule him mercilessly? Thanks." It stung, but I would have done the same thing.

A few months ago I decided to lock myself out of our apartment while walking my dog. My wife was out of town for the week. It was after 5pm so the manager's office was closed. My phone was in the house, so I couldn't call anyone. It was hot outside and my dog is a fatass so he was in danger of overheating. Apartment security couldn't help because they're worthless pieces of shit who are far more likely to cause problems than prevent them. A tall man let me use his cell phone to call a locksmith. It would cost me $75 to open the house, but what else was I going to do? I waited for about 3 hours for the locksmith. While waiting, I got to know the tall man. He eventually asked me about my hobbies. I told him I was restoring a 1963 VW bus. He told me to make sure I get AAA when I get it running. I laughed but stopped abruptly. I asked, "Do you have AAA?!?" The tall man nodded. "My garage door opener is in my truck." I called the locksmith back and cancelled. He sounded pissed, but he also sounded like he was eating potato chips while talking so I didn't feel bad. The tall man called AAA and they unlocked my truck for free. I was locked out for about 4 hours and my dog (bacon) took a dump in the tall man's garage.

Last night, a phone call interupted my exit plan. I answered it with my right hand and finished the phone call while still in the truck. Then, in my rear view mirror, I saw a fat man with no shirt on a scooter that was aputtering as it ran out of gas. The man made me think of a bear on a unicycle, which made me think of the Circus, which made me think of downtown Kansas City, Missouri where I had first seen the Circus as a kid. As I locked and closed the door of my still-running truck I was wondering if the parking situation in downtown Kansas City had gotten any better since the 1980s.

Luckily, my wife was right around the corner with the spare. She won't let me forget about this one for a long time.

Shit like this is slowly turning me into a "morning person". As dumb as I am at times, it's exciting to wake up in the morning and find out I"m still alive.

 

[bacon]

Last night I made burritos.

I grilled 8 chicken thighs. I marinated them overnight in Sazon poultry rub and lime juice.
I made my own peako de guyo(sp?) with cilantro, onion, tomato, salt and pepper.
I made my own guacamole with avacados, salt, pepper, garlic and lime juice.
Then I combined the pico de gayo with the guacamole because that's the way I like it.

I made THE best batch of black beans this mouth has ever tasted.
2 cans black beans (drained)
3/4 (ish) cup of chicken broth
1-2 tsp cumin
1-2 tsp oregano
2 tsp garlic (The garlic was fresh and I used a garlic press)
Salt and pepper to taste
Let simmer for 30 mins
Add Monterey Jack cheese

I used multi grain tortillas. Best burritos I've ever made by a mile. I made 6 large burritos. The wife and I ate 2 last night, we took two for lunches today and the other two will be lunch for tomorrow.

 

[bacon]

It was my turn to cook breakfast this morning.

I made oatmeal pancakes with dark chocolate chips and strawberry jelly.

Quaker has a new (to me anyways) pancake mix and it's pretty good. I added dark chocolate chips (ghirardelli) to the mix and topped the pancakes with strawberry jelly. I have no use for syrup. Don't like the taste. Normally I make peanut butter and jelly pancakes but I used the last of my peanut butter making my protein bars.

 

[Five by Five]

I made my own peako de guyo(sp?) with cilantro, onion, tomato, salt and pepper.

Pico de Gallo I think.

But mostly i'm just here to say that your diet log kicks ass.

 

[thethirddiaz]

GOOD comparison. I thought Rosie Perez was hot in "White Men Can't Jump." 15 minutes of listening to that voice would make me strangle her though.

Her real voice is significantly less annoying than the one she uses in movies. I found this out watching the extras for 25th hour.

The Film: French cuisine calls for a movie with style and class. Which is why I chose "Fast and Furious 3". Vin "This is my acting face" Diesel and Sara Michelle Gallar star in a street racing epic that combines fast cars with fast women and men who always look serious. EDIT: I just realized I mistook Paul Walker for Sara Michelle Gellar. Honest mistake.

You were actually watching Fast and Furious, which is the fourth installment in the series.

Obviously, the above picture is not the case, but how many of the others did you just have waiting to stick them into a story (the moose, for example).

Either way, your stories are always awesome. Subscribed.

 

[bacon]

4th?

The original

Tokyo Drift

The one I just watched

Who was in this mythical fourth F&F? Was it straight to VHS?

 

[bacon]

Sonofabitch.

The Fast and the Furious (2001)
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Fast & Furious (2009)
The Fast & Furious: Fifth Gear (TBA) (Pre-Production)

 

[mschatz]

Pwnd

 

[bacon]

I think it's the whole of humanity that's pwned in this case.