December 2008 Archives
Mmm, puffalicious
I can safely say this thing is the best $20 I’ve spent on a kitchen doodad in a long time. Mostly I got it to make takoyaki–or, well, ebiyaki or some other kind of yaki, ’cause I ain’t eating no tentacles–and while the resulting puff is bigger than the standard takoyaki ball, it seems to work just fine. My ebiyaki were delicious. I used it tonight and made one batch of “breakfast takoyaki” which were regular pancake batter balls with chunks of veggie sausage in the middle, and one batch of plain pancake balls with the batter left over from that. I really want to try some corn fritters or some such.
It’s cast iron, and some of the Amazon commenters seem to be baww’ing about the stuff sticking (haven’t seen it–if it’s sticking, chances are it’s not ready to flip yet) and it being too hard to flip the puffs with skewers (it’s not that hard, really), but I have seen neither of those problems.
Also I got a steam cleaner for my carpet and immediately used it to attack that spot in the hall where Mini-Me likes to pee. It worked very well.
MOAR PIE
Pie #2 is made for tomorrow, with one major improvement–instead of attempting to pour the melted chocolate on top and spread it over the filling, I put it in a Ziploc bag with a corner snipped off and squeezed it on. Much prettier.
And now I’m watchin’ me some Blue Man Group before I go hose off and dress up and put my face on.
The making of the pies
I just made the peanut butter pie for tomorrow’s Christmas Eve festivities at Aunt Boss’s house; tomorrow I’ll make the one for Christmas proper.
It’s very easy. An idiot could make it.
You need:
- 1 package Neufchatel cream cheese
- 1 tub Cool Whip (I used the fat-free kind and nobody will ever know)
- about 1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used the Smart Balance Omega-3 kind and nobody will ever know; you could probably use crunchy but I don’t know how a hand mixer would react to that, I just have visions of machine-gun peanut chunk fire all over the kitchen)
- About 1/4 – 1/2 cup powdered sugar to stiffen it up and make it nice and sweet
- 1 graham cracker crust (homemade or prefab)
- 1/2 bag chocolate chips, melted
- 1/2 bag peanut butter chips
Leave the cream cheese out on the counter until it’s room temperature and soft. Throw the cream cheese, Cool Whip, and peanut butter into a bowl. Beat until smooth. You can do this by hand but even with properly softened cream cheese it will kill your arms; you really want mechanical assistance. And I don’t recommend stick blenders for this, either–I tried it once and it was almost worse than doing it by hand. Use a hand or stand mixer or a food processor.
When it’s all nice and smooth, add some powdered sugar. Beat that in really well and taste. If it’s not sweet enough, add a little more sugar. When it tastes good, spread it out in a graham cracker crust.
Melt the chocolate chips and pour on top; try to cover cover the whole top of the pie if you can. Then sprinkle on peanut butter chips.
Put it in the fridge to chill–a couple of hours should do it, leave it overnight if you can.
Also I read my new TV’s instructions and figured out how to make it pick up UHF channels. Also the DTV channels. Hot damn, DTV looks good. Is it can be February 17 nao plees?
tee vee, I has
YESTERDAY:
- Get up.
- Go over to Mom’s house to do laundry.
- Cook Mom and Stepdad dinner of delicious salmon and mashed potatoes and Indian corn and yogurt salad (thanks, DS and Personal Trainer: Cooking)
- Finish laundry around 10ish, shove laundry in car, head towards home.
- Hear Mom, out of the blue, ask: “so do you want a decent TV for Christmas?”
- Go “well, sure!” on account of my current TV being a) teeny and b) in need of a converter box
- Hear Mom go “Okay! …let’s go get it now! :D”
- Go “UM WAIT WAT WELL OKAY I GUESS SURE :D”
- Arrive at Wal-Mart.
- Purchase largest TV I have ever owned (27″)
- Wrestle 27″ TV up stairs.
- Realize there is no fucking way I can get this TV out of the box and onto a table by myself .
- Have brilliant idea.
- Wrestle 27″ TV, still in box, onto coffee table.
- Cut box off TV one side at a time, carefully wiggle box and styrofoam and other packing shit out from under TV.
- Hook up PS2, play Fatal Frame in 27″ glory.
I had to go buy a good antenna for it today, but it still doesn’t seem to pick up UHF stations worth shit. Which won’t matter once the DTV switcheroo happens, but oh well.
My point is: TV. \o/
Who’s surprised? Yeah, me neither
Prop. 8 supporters, before the election: Oh no, we’re not going to mess with existing marriages, they can stay married, it’s cool.
After the election: Ahahahah no j/k, screw you, we’re going to scream and cry like two-year-olds until all your marriages get annulled.
This just in:
This clip does funny things to me. Yes, that is a young Stephen Colbert on the right.
(warning for those who don’t want to see guys kissing: clip contains guys kissing)
(warning for those who do want to see guys kissing: clip does not contain nearly enough of it)
Sim post!
The flailing blue gentleman above is Mr. Kandec Zeketo of Regulus-3. A couple better pictures of him behind the cut, because he is just too damn cute:
ABOUT TIME
So this morning after I got out of the shower, I began to hear an ungodly thudding and ripping above my head. This would be roofers stomping around, tearing the twelve layers of tarp off the roof in preparation to actually, y’know, FIX IT.
\o/
fuck ur packet of salt-flavored MSG
For dinner tonight, I made ramen with green onions, avocado and boiled egg slices, and broth that did not come from that sodium bomb disguised as a flavor packet.
Fuzzy measurements as always; this is for one big bowl.
- Oil and mirin for sauteing onion and garlic
- A handful of sliced onion (fairly thin)
- About 1/2 tsp minced ginger (pickled is fine, that’s what I used)
- Minced garlic, up to a clove or so
- About 1 1/2 cups water
- Memmi soup base (or dashi if you have it), about 3-4 tbsp (more or less to taste)
- About 1/2 tbsp. miso
- 1 tsp sweet Thai chili sauce if you have some, if not just leave it out
- Half a sheet or so of nori
- 1 egg
- 1 package GOOD ramen (not the 10-for-$1 shit, look in the Asian food section and get the Sapporo Ichiban–it’s all of half a dollar more, good grief, you can splurge), throw the flavor packet away (or use it on something else later, whatever, you won’t be needing it here)
- 1/2 avocado
- Green onion, chopped
Heat up some oil in a pot and throw in your onion, garlic, and ginger; add a splash of mirin and saute until the onion goes a little brownish around the edges. Pour in water, scrape good brown residue off bottom of pot and mix it in. Add memmi/dashi, miso, and Thai chili sauce if you have it, stir well, bring to a boil. Put the whole, unbroken egg in the pot, throw some nori in (leave it in big pieces, you’re going to fish it out later) cover, reduce heat, and simmer gently for twenty minutes or so. Check on it once in a while to make sure there’s still plenty of liquid and roll the egg around a little.
After the twenty minutes or so, take out the nori, take out the egg and peel it (don’t cut it up yet), and return the whole naked boiled egg to the pot to soak up flavor. Go ahead and put in your ramen noodles now. While they’re cooking, slice up the avocado and chop up the green onion.
When the noodles are as done as you like, dump the soup into a bowl, slice up the egg and lay it and the avocado slices on top, and sprinkle green onion over it all. IT IS DELICIOUS.
