Almost Good Eats

Almost Good Eats

If you are one of my many (4) faithful blog readers then I’m sure you have noticed a large number of food related blogs, and if you know me at all you know I am a little (lot) obsessed with Good Eats on Food Network. If you have never seen it, you don’t know what you have been missing out on. The shows focus on a single food item and consist of 50% science, 50% history, and 50% cooking (it is a power packed 30 min). If you have seen the show then you have probably realized that most of my cooking blogs are either loosely or directly based on good eats episodes.

Recently I have decided that there are enough of these that they probably deserve their own blog with just the food, and without all of this baby jibber jabber. On this new blog hopefully you will join me for my delicious triumphs, and horrible disasters.
So please enjoy…

Almost Good Eats

Sausagefest

Sausagefest

Several years ago when we got our mixer and some of the attachments I convinced Cara to let me spend the couple of extra bucks to get the sausage stuffer tubes. It has been a long time and I have taken a fair amount of flack for the unused sausage tubes. A couple of weekends ago I finally had the extra venison and time to finally make my first batch of sausage. warning may not be suitable for vegetarians.

1) Cleaning Cleaning Cleaning
You want good sausage you need to clean everything. Counters, mixer, bowls, utensils, clean it all. Got it all squeaky clean? Good, now you're ready for the next step.2) Sanitize Sanitize Sanitize
Really these are good starting steps for any cooking project. a 10% bleach soln should do nicely, and as an added bonus you can just spray on and let it dry, you do not even need to wipe it down.

3) Get your ingredients

Now if you are making sausage you are going to need some fat. My recipe called for pork back fat, but to my dismay no one seemed to stock it, though the Schnucks butcher said he could save me some. I figured bacon would work just as well.

4) Set up the equipment

from left to right: 600W mixer w/ meat grinder attachment, clean plates for transfer, large sanitized cutting board, large knife extra sharp, 2 large bowls for catching ground meat.

5) Cut the meat

For my meat grinder this meant rectangular prisms about 1" x 1" x 6"

6) Into the grinder

Nice and easy let the grinder do the work. This does add some heat to the meat so the colder is starts the better, I usually pop mine in the freeze for at least and hour or 2 before cutting.

Multiple batches, different meats, have to step out for a bit...

you know it:

clean clean clean

sanitize sanitize sanitize

I suggest running a couple of pieces of bread through the grinder to force out the majority of the meat.

I like to make mine w/ venison, hence the need for the extra fat. As delicious as it is venison really does not have a lot going on in the fat dept.

That's a lot of meat

7) Weigh and measure all of the ingredients.

I used a couple of recipes I found on line, one good eats, and one random.

8) Mix it up

I started this with the paddle and quickly realized that was going to make a ginormous mess. The dough hook did much better kneading the spices into the meat, and don't forget the secret ingredient, morton tender quick adds the real sausage taste... ummmmm sausage.

9a) ♫ Pack it up nice ♫

Now here you have a couple of options patties or links. I chose about 2/3 patties, mostly because it was a lot of meat and the patties were easier. spread a 24" piece of foodservice film (saran) out on the counter. Get a 1lb handful of sausage, form it into a cylinder, and TIGHTLY wrap it up into the film folding in the ends as you go. Pop it in the freezer and you've got sausage suitable for patties.

9b) Stuff it

The links get a bit more complicated. First the stuffer tubes need to be fitted onto the good ole grinder. Slide your collagen casings (no intestines for me) onto the tubes, and clip off the end.

hold it tight and twist off the links as you go

Enjoy!

Paper or Plastic

Paper or Plastic

It’s yet another one of life’s great decisions. The plastic bag that is worse for the environment (not true), or the paper bag made from our nations forests (also not true). This is the age old question that many struggle with at the checkout line, if you have not switched to the trendy reusable bag, which still may not be any better for the environment, espicially, if it sits in the garage like our 4 or 5 do.

My personal preference is for the cheap plastic bags. They are stronger, more moisture resistant and easier to hold onto than those ridiculous paper bags. In fact if they start bagging my groceries w/ paper I will usually make them redo it with plastic. Just for the fact that I like to pick up all 4 or 5 bags at the same time, which you simply cannot do with the paper bags. People should probably get the reusable bags and make a point to take them to the store, but that is not really what this blog is about.

We do make every effort to conserve. We reuse as many of the bags as possible as trashcan liners or numerous other misc uses, and what we don’t reuse we usually recycle at the bin in the super market. So we have the reuse and recycle going, but what really pisses me off is trying to reduce the number we end up with.

This is what I ended up coming home with the other day while I was not watching the bagger. When I got home I was very upset as I started putting stuff away, and realized that not only did numerous bags only have 1 item in them, but some of them were even double bagged. For the 30 some grocery items we had 20 some bags. Granted the bagger may not have been the brightest crayon in the box, but come on. This is why I prefer the self checkout.

Items that received their own individual bag (from top, left): single pack of flour tortillas, pre bagged oranges, half gallon of OJ, 12 eggs, half gallon of milk, half gallon of icecream, single pack of corn tortillas, quart of margerine, prebagged apples.

In future outings I will try to be more proactive to reduce the number of bags we end up with. If I would have noticed this before they started I would have consolidated some of these myself. I guess I will reuse one of the plastic bags to bring its 50 friends back to be recycled.

Oh and one more bright spot for plastic bags, if you get a bag that feels a little rougher than the normal bag it is probably made of bioplastic, which is made from corn or soybeans. These are much more biodegradable and use substantially less hydrocarbons to produce and deliver. And if the shipping peanuts that came with your latest online purchase are tan and crush between your fingers those are bioplastic as well.

other info:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bag
• http://www.durobag.com/news/permalink/2007/6/26/104028.html
• http://www.plasticsindustry.org/files/about/fbf/myths+facts_grocerybags.pdf
• http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/105486/10-Things-to-Scratch-From-Your-Worry-List
• http://www.reason.org/commentaries/smithheisters_20080417.shtml
• http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/reusable-bag-or.php

Blago-Cake

Blago-Cake

I was very excited to hear on the news today that Blagojevich got arrested yesterday, and to celebrate I decided to make a cake for Cara and the teachers whose pensions are no longer in danger of being stolen. Clearly I went with an AB Classic (Yellow Cake), which was slightly more difficult than it should have been.

First weigh all of the ingredients.

Cream together and weigh batter into each pan.
Top the layers.Make the icing w/ a ridiculous amount of sugarApply to the layersTada

Now you have your very own Blago-Cake.

The hardest part was clearly making the hamburgler-esque Blagojevich.

Here is the full recipe if you want to try your own.

5^1 Things I have learned over the last 2^5 years

5^1 Things I have learned over the last 2^5 years

(and things you shouldn't say)

So over 32 long years you pick up a thing or 2 that will inevitably help you out in life. Most of these are things that you already know. Lord knows I am making the list, but still miss some occasionally. So read carefully even if the benefits are not immediately evident sooner or later you will thank me, or have some horrible story about how you should have paid better attention.
0000000. Never say anything to any woman about being pregnant.

Even if you know for a fact that she is pregnant or are really sure she is pregnant. You never know something could have happened and now she is not any more, or maybe she has gotten some news about the pregnancy and really does not want to talk about it. Even if you are OK 95%of the time there is that 1/20 chance that you will have a woman who is totally pissed off at you, or worse she could cry. Either way, why chance it especially when she is chocked full of hormones.

Here is an idea you can ask her Some innocuous idle conversation question. "so how have things been with you?" Now if she wants to talk about being pregnant or tell you how things are going with the pregnancy she can. If she does not she won't, but best of all she is not pissed off at you... or if she is, it is for a different reason. If it helps just ask all of the questions that you really want to ask, but take out the words pregnant and baby.

"Have you been updating your house?"
"How has your health been?"
"Has your Husband been helpful lately?"
"Are you interested in finding out about sex?"... (strike that one)

"Man what was up with John and the weird questions."

The obvious exception is your siblings are open game for wild speculation and accusations. Especially if they turned down a glass of wine at dinner... Ah Ha!

0000001. Don't give people relationship advice

This one is really hard because you have so many opinions you would like to express. I know I do, but please keep them to your self. First of all never offer unsolicited advice. However, sometimes your friends come to you asking for advice about a troubled relationship. You really have only one move here. Quietly listen and offer your sympathy and support. Sure you
have seen how horrible their significant other is, and you know they should really not be together, but voicing that opinion will only lead to down one of 2 horrible paths. If they do not break up now you are the person who hates their soul mate, Now you have to wait for the relationship to end before you can be friends again. Or the best you can hope for is that they break up and you are the one who broke them up.

Either way, congratulations you are a horrible friend.

So what can you do? You can sway opinion just by actively listening, and impressing your body language upon your friend. You can say volumes by how supportive you are. After all if you are close enough friends that they are coming to you for relationship advice, they probably know you well enough that they already know what your opinions are. Now all you have to do is say "I understand your difficulties" instead of "You need to drop that loser and get yourself a real man (snap)". Also points off for "I've never really liked them" or "I've never thought this was a good relationship".

Exceptions will be granted for "abusive" relationships, after you complete the "losing friend : getting them out of the relationship" cost benefit analysis form.

00000010. Don't tell anyone a anything that you don't want everyone to know

So these last 3 all tie together so stick with me...these are not getting any easier, but this one is important because everyone regardless of gender sucks at keeping secrets. Look at it this way at some time everyone will have a failure to keep a secret. Sometimes it is intentional sometimes it just slips, but eventually everyone says something they shouldn't have. The MTBF (meant time between failures) will determine greatly how safe your secret is, but consider this. When that failure does occur now what ever group was around knows as well, so now instead of 1 close confidant, you have 5 (non-gender specific) gossips who also know. It should be a matter of seconds before whoever REALLY should not know finds out.

Screwed = (Pn * Gn * Gj)/(MBTF * Dg)
Pn = # People you told
Gn = # People in average group setting
Gj = Juiciness of gossip
MBTF = Average Mean Time Between Failures of the Pn
Dg = Graph distance from the Pn to the person who is going to screw you.
So as you can plainly see it is only a matter of time before you end up getting screwed, but to minimize your probability only tell your unpopular, trustworthy friends.

Unfortunately, YOU are included in the people who know, and are you really willing to trust yourself with that secret. It helps if you are forgetful, but whether it is only a matter of an hour until your life altering secret gets out, or it is 2 years till something that doesn't really matter anymore gets out, sooner or later all your friends will find out that you had peed your pants when you were 14. Crap I guess I should not have trusted myself with that one.

00000011. Don't Talk about other People

Yeah we all do it, but we really shouldn't. I don't think that statement will really come as a shocker to anyone. It is just so tempting to discuss the problems of our friends basic human nature really, and unfortunately that is the reason I can't ever tell you anything private (see above). The unfortunate part is that there is a decent chance whatever you said about the person will get back to them (they may or may not care). The problem is that by discussing and disseminating information about the woes of others it makes us feel relatively better about our own problems.

Einsteins theory of special relativity states that "The happiness of your own life is only as great as the crapyness of the lives of your friends (when viewed from a neutral plane)". That means that you could be having the worst day of your life, but it would not really matter as long as someone you knew was having a worse day. Conversely, any happiness you feel will only be muted by the happiness of your friends (see also Schadenfreude).

Jane "I don't feel good today, but @ least I don't have a huge zit like Mary"
Mary "I have this huge zit but @ least I am not grounded like Sara"
Sara "I am grounded, but @ least I am not mired in an abusive relationship with a man that I never really loved like Anna"
Anna "I may have problems but @ least I am not starving in Africa"
Africans "We may be starving, but at least we are not Gary Coleman"

So we all know that we should stop gossiping, but what can we do. I could just let it go and be mired in my own self pity for the rest of my life, but that does not seem very fun... does it. What advice can you offer oh wise 32 year old?

00000100. Accept everyone for who they are.

Wait wait, sit back down. Lets make an important distinctions. I did not say love everyone for who they are, or even like everyone for who they are. You are still allowed to dislike whoever you want. There is no universal personality who everyone will like, and you cannot really expect there to be. So that guy in the desk next to you who talks excessively, you do not have to be friends w/ him, in fact you don't even have to talk to him. All you have to do is acknowledge that, is who he is. It should be much easier to accept our friends since we already know most of their faults and can acknowledge them and either move on or find new friends. The point here is they are not going to change. Your friends, your enemies, your significant other, they are who they are and that is how they will stay.

But wait it gets better/harder. Note that accepting everyone includes yourself, and again I am not saying that you have to like your self, though hopefully you will, but you should get to know yourself (γνωθι σεαυτόν), and then accept yourself for who you are. Hopefully after spending some time with yourself you have come to like your self as well. Now you can be happy in who you are and do not have to depend on the misery of others. Although it is always there to fall back on.

An unfortunate side effect of this secret free, gosip free society I have single handedly created is that now conversation is somewhat lacking. Seriously what are we supposed to talk about. Well that is where being nerdy comes in incredibly handy. You have never met a nerd who didn't have some nerdy thing to talk about, how diesel engines work, the physics of earthquakes, insights about fuel economy. It is just like watching the history channel except in conversation form...

Oh, you are not intrested in dorky conversation...
Ok, sorry to bother you strangers in the middle of your lunch...
Please go back to your juicy gossip.

00000101. BONUS: John's Secret to making delicious sandwiches

Condiments, Condiments, Condiments.

Some people think the best part of the sandwich is the meat/soy, or the bread. Those people are wrong. All the possibilities, and potential lie in the thin layer just between the meat and bread. All the flavor, texture, aroma, all won or lost after the burger is grilled, or the chicken is Forman'ed

So what is the secret to condiment application? Simple, variety and quantity. Use as many different condiments as you can and don't start skimping. Use both sides of the bun there should be plenty of room. Spicy Mustard, mayo, relish, tarter, spice weasel, even ketchup, these are the flavor team, just a dab will give your sandwich some kick, so go ahead and use 2 dabs. Lettuce, onion, tomato, pickle, this is the texture team, they take what would normaly be a soft homogneous meal and give it crunch, jucieness, and bite. The tosted bun also plays for the texture team as well as an occasional Bo Jackson'esque appearence from potato chips.

Well there you have it, all that I have learned from 32 years of mistakes and foot biting. It has
had a few highlights and a lot of embaresing moments... and a lot of sandwiches. Perhaps there will be an update when I hit 2^6, until then you've just got more rants about zombies and 15 year old movies on this blog...
Sorry.

How Is McDonald's So Damn Fast

How Is McDonald's So Damn Fast

(Why is Ronald McDonald so damn creepy)

So this morning on my way into work I decided to grab a breakfast sandwich at McDonald's on my way into work. The light at the intersection had just turned red as I turned into McDs. Amazingly they took my order, took my money, gave me change and gave me my sandwich all before the light changed and I beat the cars waiting at the light (suckers). Upon relaying my amazing story to Cara she informed me that she had gone to McDs for lunch and despite having 5 cars in front of her and a special order sandwich, was in and out of the drive through in less than 60 seconds.

Now I don't think that anyone is under the impression that McDonalds is going to provide them with a gourmet meal or even a fresh sandwich, but seriously there are certain laws of time and space that must apply. So the real question is what the hell is going on back there in the mysterious McDonalds kitchen. Aside from them using beef fat in their french fries and kangaroo meat in their hamburgers, both of which I am fine with.

I would like to think the secret is some sort of cross time communication system allowing them to communicate with customers in the near future and have their order ready before they even knew they wanted it. And by using this technology only for fast food purposes and not to save lives or win the lottery the time space continuum remains safe and Michale J Fox can still go "camping" with his high school girlfriend. Upon investigation my hopes were dashed to realize that it is in fact much less exciting, but still slightly exciting. It is basically a big assembly line churning out all of the components that will make your order uniform and identical, then once you get to the line they are (in a matter of seconds) assembled and bagged probably while you are fiddling with your wallet and change. Some of the more popular items are already made waiting for you to eat, but that is not all that exciting.

What is really interesting it what is holding up the process from going even faster, and the answer is you. You think you are pretty fast you know what you want you have your wallet out when you get to the window, but you are still the hold up. That is why they have 2 ordering lanes now and only 1 food lane. That's right it takes you twice as long to order as it does to do everything else. As far as all that fiddling with cash goes McDs would actually prefer you pay w/ credit card. It is faster so they do not have to worry about you holding up you line looking for a quarter, and they do not have to worry about their employees dealing with as much cash. In fact if you have a card with an embedded RFID tag you do not really have to interact with them at all, and really isn't that what you are going for.

But wait, there is one more thing, and this may just blow your mind. In the not so distant future your order may be taken over seas. So when you talk to the box your order will be sent around the world through the magic of "the Internet" punched into a computer and sent back around for someone to make it. Here I am paying someone in the US with a loose grasp of the English language minimum wage to take orders, when I could be paying someone in Jakarta with a loose grasp of the English language (Jakarta) Minimum wage to take the same order. Plus now they can take the place where the order takers used to stand and expand the bacteria lake, I mean ball pit.

So that is it there is really not any more time to shave unless the users can sped along somehow, I think Jesse Spano may have a speed hookup. But do not be deceived, this is not limited to McDonalds, although they have been pioneers. All manner of businesses will be trying to speed you out the door, grocery stores, gas stations, sit down restaurants, even retail stores. Because in reality the less time you are there the more schmos they can churn through the doors, and the more money they can make.

Thank you come again.