Tried the Snickers "Adventure Bar". Disappointed to discover coconut flavor. The wrapper includes "Limited Edition" and picture of Indiana Jones aka Harrison Ford, but no mention of coconut. Probably no room for it.

takhisis' Sims are much more entertaining. I'm not sure if it's more surreal than listening to Heather Alexander and Alexander James Adams sing "The Holly & The Ivy" though...

This cartoon, however, is wonderfully accurate :)

The pan I baked tonight turned out very well, so notes. Of course if you want to do a variant you can change / subtract as needed. ( Read more... )

What's a drawer lunch? It's lunch ingredients that can live in a drawer at work, no refrigeration needed, for when you don't have time for anything else.

In this case:
Trader Ming's Pad Thai Noodles & Sauce
1 small can chicken
1 small can mixed veggies (carrots, corn, celery, potatoes)

Mix the noodles & sauce as directed. Add the chicken & veggies and mix a little. Nuke the 2 minutes Trader Joe's instructs.

(Yes, such is the lack of choices in walking distance at work that this is my fallback. I like Newport Bay & The Keg, but they're expensive for everyday, and Burgermaster isn't something I want every day either. Mostly I eat leftovers or frozen dinners. I miss working on 16th & East John...)

After all the food issues in my circle of friends, this article on food & relationships naturally caught my eye:

“I went out with one guy who said I seemed really great but he liked bread too much to date me,” said Ms. James, 41, a writer in Seattle who cannot eat gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye.
[...]
Jennifer Esposito, 28, an image consultant who lives in Rye Brook, N.Y., lived for four years with a man who ate only pizza, noodles with butter and the occasional baked potato.

“It was really frustrating because he refused to try anything I made,” she said. They broke up. “Food is a huge part of life,” she said. “It’s something I want to be able to share.”
[...]
Food has a strong subconscious link to love, said Kathryn Zerbe, a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. That is why refusing a partner’s food “can feel like rejection,” she said.

As with other differences couples face, tolerance and compromise are essential at the dinner table, marital therapists said. “If you can’t allow your partner to have latitude in what he or she eats, then maybe your problem isn’t about food,” said Susan Jaffe, a psychiatrist in Manhattan.

The article also notes that commentary on sites like chowhound.com and slashfood.com favor medical and religious dietary restrictions over the "picky eaters".

The Ferrett has some interesting musings on evaluating news content by signal-to-noise ratio - and on how it's affected by an individual's reading vs listening capacity.

NY Times' buzzwords list, including "lolcat", "e-mail bankruptcy", "FTW" and "walkshed".

Also from the Times, 101 appetizers in 20 minutes or less and a review of a book on how discredited treatments may work for individuals anyway.

[P]lacebos have as venerable and honorable a history as just about any medication, and are better studied than most.

Dr. Bausell explores the science behind placebos in detail: the pain relief they afford is reliable and reproducible, and for some reason tends to linger in memory as even stronger than it really is.

But is that placebo-generated pain relief real or imaginary? Patients generally roll their eyes when the argument gets to this stage, for as Dr. Bausell points out, one perfectly reasonable response to the question would be, “Who cares?”

And from The Onion: Web-Browser History A Chronicle Of Couple's Unspoken Desires :)

Joining exercise as a alternative depression treatment: having a friend to talk to. Also being studied: meditation.

On a lighter note:

British construction company specializes in treehouses. For instance: Ewok-style.

The cell number you don't want to get. :)

Scary recipe: "Semi-Homemade" PB&J Dino Bites. First, talk about gratuitous product placement. Second, chocolate chip eyes are not going to be visible after you've painted the cookies with melted chocolate chips. Third, the chocolate is going to melt right off the cookies onto the hands of everyone eating them, which is probably going to be kids, which is going to be messy, especially once the sugar hits their bloodstream. Fourth, "semi-homemade"?

from JunkFoodScience:

Many Americans don’t remember that during World War II, when Dublin went to 100% whole grain bread, it resulted in an epidemic of rickets, with half of the children suffering from it. It’s why you’ll see commercial wholegrain breads supplemented with calcium carbonate today. “Food additives” aren’t there to poison you, but to offer some benefit.

Since 1943, white flours in the United States have been fortified, enriched with five nutrients added back at higher levels than naturally occur in whole grains. Before that, in the 1930s, beri-beri, pellagra, riboflavin deficiency and iron deficiency anemia were widespread in the United States. Pellagra and beri-beri were virtually eliminated within the first five year of enriched flours. We’ve also seen how the folic acid added to enriched grain products was followed by marked decline in babies born with birth defects, such as spina bifida and anencephaly. Enriched white flour is nothing to fear amd can be part of a perfectly healthful diet.

An updated version of this. ( Uses 2 ripe bananas... )

From Psychology Today

[A]nthropologist Jane Kauer interviewed nearly 500 adult Americans about their attitudes toward foods, food variety and eating habits.[...] It may not be surprising to learn that 60 percent of us like to leave our plates clean or that close to half of us eat just about the same thing for breakfast nearly every day. [...]

Questioning the pickiest third further, Kauer identified a master list of foods that are almost universally accepted: fried chicken, French fries, chocolate chip cookies, and above all else, Kraft macaroni and cheese. ("People seem to respond to the orange color," she says. "Maybe it's a signal that it's really fake and therefore really safe.") Obviously, these are all classic comfort foods, but more important for the picky person, they are unlikely to have weird or surprising ingredients. "We all know what's in fried chicken, for example, even if we get it from some place we've never been before," she says.

Suddenly KFC's menu makes sense.

1 C flour
1 C whole-wheat flour
.66 C brown sugar
1 T baking powder
1 C milk
1 ripe banana, mashed
.33 C canola oil
1 egg

-o-

Preheat oven to 400F and grease a 12-muffin pan (or 2 6-muffin pans).

Stir dry ingredients together. Mash banana. Add some of the milk and mix. Add the rest of the milk, the egg, and the oil and mix. Pour wet ingredients into dry and combine; don't try to get all the lumps out. Scoop batter into pan and bake about 20 minutes.

Ideas for next time: add a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg.

jw1776 and skydancer can tell you that the thing I order most at Canyons is the thai peanut chicken wrap. Depending on how I feel, I either

• Eat half and take the other half home for breakfast
  or
  
• Eat half, then pick out the remaining chicken and pea pods
  or
  
• Eat a few bites, then disassemble the whole thing, shove the rice to one side, and reassemble with tortilla, chicken and pea pods

So tonight I tried making a version with more chicken and pea pods and less (well, okay, how about no) rice.

( recipe )

I could also have added the greens to the chicken and served it as-is, or (Jesse's suggestion) over rice. Or, now that I think of it, rice noodles. I think a hint of cilantro and chili powder would also work well.

Today, for the first time ever, ( I made lasagna and ) I ran out of sauce, cheese, and noodles all at the SAME TIME. Usually I run out of one of the three, or two of the three. No, for once, I came out EVEN.

In retrospect, I think the fact that I deliberately prepped the cheese and noodles in small amounts helped a lot. I primarily did it that way to make each task smaller. But it also helped me to manage my ingredients :)

In other news, I feel rather stiff. Apparently I'm not used to standing for 2 hours at a time...

From an article on The Gospel of Food (comments mine):

• Despite public concerns over meat safety, eight out of 10 cases of food poisoning come from fruits, vegetables, seafood and cheese.
  Seafood does not surprise me. Actually, if they're including cases related to lack of safe handling, meat is more likely to be cooked than fruit.
  
  
• Frozen and canned fruits and vegetables often are as nutritious as fresh produce; they preserve micronutrients that can be lost when fresh produce is packed and shipped.
  
  
• Churchgoers tend to be more overweight than other people.
  How about a little fellowship?
  
  
• Three out of four American families with children under 18 eat dinner together at least five nights a week -- about the same number as in the 1950s.
  There are just fewer families with children now.
  
  
• Studies show we get more nutritional value from foods we enjoy.
  
  
• Contrary to popular belief, obesity rates are about the same among adults who were bottle-fed as they are among infants who were breast-fed.
  
  
• Chocolate raises "good" cholesterol, elevates mood and supplies protein, calcium and antioxidants, leading one Harvard researcher to equate its health benefit to green tea and red wine. (Alas, no one claims it'll make you skinny.)

I think the last time I woke up to white stuff on the ground 3 days in a row I was in Colorado. Some years ago I did two days of on-campus interviews in Fort Collins (north of Denver) and I discovered a few things. One was that driving in snow and ice is something you do get used to. It just takes practice. Which I had, since I flew into Denver & drove to drove to Fort Collins on day one, drove around Fort Collins for 2 days, then back to Denver on day 4. Another thing I discovered was that it's really easy to tell the points of the compass on I-25. The mountains are west. Everything else is flat.

Meanwhile in Redmond, I keep surprising people by driving around in snow and ice. I did skid slightly today; took my foot off the gas, steered into the skid, all was well. I didn't even swerve. Of course, I'm also cautious enough to generally stay in the Redmond area, to warm up the car before leaving - including defrosting windows - and to make sure I don't need to be in a hurry.

A few things did happen today. skydancer installed the dishwasher that had flummoxed Home Depot's installers. He had a miracle device to create a path for the drain hose through the cabinet wall between the sink and the dishwasher. It's called a "drill", but don't tell anyone, apparently it's a secret super-weapon. We now have clean dishes, yay.

Dinner was spaghetti: I browned ground beef & garlic, added some zinfandel, cooked it down a bit, then put the hamburger mixture into the crock pot with diced tomatoes, a yellow bell pepper, an onion, mushrooms, olives, and tomato sauce. Why the crock pot? Because I was starting this before we dealt with the dishwasher. Crock pot meals tend not need much attention. They also do not have to be in the kitchen, which is a bonus when you're, oh, installing a dishwasher. After the dishwasher was done I served the sauce over bow-tie pasta. After dinner I added more tomato sauce and tomato paste to the sauce. Tomorrow I may add more veggies.

And Heather Alexander's last CD, Everafter, arrived today. I like it. :)

A co-worker's post on Cooking for Engineers led me to their site.

And yes, the summary ("recipe card view") makes total sense to me ... tho the normal view does have other helpful info ;)

I like this recipe because it doesn't make more cheesecake than we can eat before it goes bad.

( Read more... )

I dislike discovering the frozen veggies are somewhat freezer-burned after they're on the stove and the fish is already steaming. So I was pretty pleased at myself for this solution.

Veggies: 1lb bag of ice-encrusted corn, carrots, peas, green beans & lima bean mix, slightly freezer-burned.

To which I added:

• A cup of water to help melt the ice and re-hydrate the veggies.
• A small handful of dehydrated onion to add some flavor.
• Ditto a generous shake of dried minced garlic
• Break up the chunks to speed heating and
• Put the lid on.
• Anything else need doing? Ah yes, jw1776 sliced the rest of the garlic-chunk-and-cracked pepper bread. Add some butter-like stuff and stick under the broiler...
• Meanwhile, the veggies are starting to plump up. So...
• Add some rosemary-herb mix
• 3 slices of American cheese
• Stir til cheese is dissolved.
• Use a bit of corn starch (dissolved in cold water) to thicken the sauce (optional), and...

Tasty veggies to go with the steamed sea bass and garlic toast. Yum!

Jesse asked if I'd be okay with swimming rama for dinner. I agreed that would be tasty.

Driving home I spotted a long, empty curb in front of The Essential Bakery Cafe in Madison Park. Dessert! Since Jesse was making dinner, it's only fair that I get dessert, right?

I picked out two individual-size concoctions: a passionfruit tart and what looks like a small chocolate cake but is actually chocolate ganache wrapped around chocolate mousse hiding a layer of creme brulee.

And a few tea cookies.

The swimming rama is fab too.

"According to Sue Shephard in her book, "Pickled, Potted, and Canned," all the preserving methods found effective in keeping food safe have, at one time or another, been applied to the preservation of human remains. The art of mummification evolved directly from the art of food preservation." - an article on MREs

At least to my taste buds :)

Breakfast: Slice of quiche lorraine with Diet Pepsi, followed by leftover tiramisu.

Midmorning: cafe au lait

Lunch: Teriakyi chicken, egg roll, pot stickers. I would have welcomed a few other veggies in the iceberg lettuce-and-julienned carrot salad, but the veggies were crisp and the honey-mustard dressing wasn't bad. Plus, this was followed by a lemon bar & mocha.

Mmmm.

Jesse and I collaborated on dinner: Caribbean Lime Shrimp from costco, served with rice and a carrot-onion-green bean-corn-pea thing I threw together.

Then we moved into the library, where he'd drawn the curtains, put a sheet on the futon, plumped pillows, and set out candles & massage oil.

Some days it's better to be loved than good...