24 Hour Blog Day! 2/5/11

Some friends and I decided that, instead of trying to slog through another 24 hour comic book day, we should have 24 hour blog day!  So we all got together and got blogging.  Basically, every hour we drew another topic, and then everyone blogged about it.  Day of fun.
All of the participants' blogs have been mirrored over at Killer Tofu to preserve their former (possibly former) glory.  Go check them out!
Here are all my blogs from 24 hour blog day.  Super cool list format go!

1. Best of 2010
2. Funniest Moments
3. Defining Childhood Memory
4. Methods of Destroying Traffic
5. Alter Egos
6. Friends
7. A Movie Review
8. Theme Songs
9. Utopias
10. Travel Desires
11. 12 Rhyming Couplets
12. Christmas
13. Irrational Fears
14. Dogs vs. Cats
15. Cleveland
16. Mundane Talents or Skills
17. Something I Always Wished I Was
18. Superpowers
19. My Biggest Fault
20. Most Influential Year In School
21. Pet Peeves
22. Awkward Moments
23. 80s Movies
24. Cartoons

Guest Blogging and Ad Liberation

A not-much-more-than-an-acquaintance of mine, Amanda, has a blog called Seize The Week.  In it, she writes about taking advantage of the time that is given to us in our lives which is both precious little and largely wasted.  In quite an inspiring way, she takes each week as an opportunity to explore something to its fullest – or at least, to the amount that she cares to. 

This week, she has decided to focus on her “creative heroes” – her words, not mine.  Apparently (and flatteringly so) I fit into this category, although thinking of myself as someone’s hero is not something I normally do.  In any case, she asked several of us to write about “seizing the week”, and what it means for us.  I decided to write about a recent accomplishment that I think is probably one of the coolest and potentially life-changing-iest things I have ever done – help found a new improv group in Lafayette, Ad Liberation. 

You can catch my guest post here, on Seize the Week.  I am sure I will have more to say about that particular topic in the days, months, and years to come (our first show is this Friday, at Jurassic Park.  Be there.).  Let me know what you think, and be sure to dig around through her posts to see what else she’s been up to. 

Stuffed Chicken Breasts: A Video Recipe

I’ve been running the idea of a video recipe around in my head ever since my good friend Matt filmed himself cooking for his week in video.  I thought about filming the recent chowder recipe, but decided that maybe it would be kind of boring to watch, since most of it is just adding things to a pot.  There is some chopping involved, but that would mainly be it.

So stuffed chicken it is!  I might eventually post the steps in a more detailed word form, but for now I’ll let the video stand alone.  That way I know you have to watch it.  I also made garlic & parsley mashed potatoes (pictured in the background), but that’s something for another day.

Let me know if you like it!  Also feel free to tell me to never make a video again, or if my hands are too fat, or if you hate what I’ve done with my canisters.

 

Enough stalling for space to clear the title picture.  Here’s the video!

Chowdah

My dad recently gave me some cast iron cookware, and I’ve been dying to cook something in them since.  I made a grilled cheese sandwich in one of the skillets, but, though satisfying, it did not quench my cast-iron thirst.
So I thought:  I’ll make chowder!  I’ve never made chowder before, but I didn’t think it would be too much of a challenge.  I’ve always kind of thought many mysterious processes went into chowder.  How was it so creamy?  How does it taste like that?  I’ve carried these questions around with me without really thinking about them since I was little.  Once I sat down and thought about it, it seemed pretty simple.   Creamy = cream.  Flavor = seafood.  Duh.
So here’s a chowder.  Get cookin’!
YOU WILL NEED:

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 2 onions (about 2.5-3 cups), diced
• 4 ~7 inch carrots, chopped
• 4 stalks of celery, chopped
• 3-4 russet potatoes, diced
• 1 cup mushrooms, chopped
• 2 cups white wine
• 3 cans (6.5 oz) chopped clams
• 1 can (8 oz) oysters
• 1 lb mussels, pre-cooked in-shell
• 2 cups shrimp, shelled and chopped
• thyme
• fresh parsley
• 2 cups heavy cream
• salt & pepper

YOU WILL NEED TO:

1. Pre-dice the veggies before you start cooking (will save you stress later).  In a largish cast-iron Dutch oven, melt the butter.  No, you don't have to use a Dutch oven.  But I did.
    
2. Add onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes when the butter is fully melted and beginning to bubble a bit.  Stir well, so that the vegetables are nicely coated in butter.  Cover the pot.
    
3. While these are cooking (for 10-15 minutes – stir occasionally), chop the parsley (if fresh) and mushrooms (if not already done), and open the bottle of wine.  Drink some.  You deserve it.
   
4. After the 10-15 minutes are up (onions will start to be translucent), add the parsley, mushrooms, thyme, and wine.
5. Open the cans of clams and oysters, and drain their juices into the pot as well.
   
6. Bring this to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for around 15-20 minutes.
   
7. Add the seafood (clams, oysters, mussels, and shrimp).
    
8. Cook for another 15-20 minutes.
9. Add heavy cream, and salt & pepper (to taste).  Let simmer for another ten minutes.
10. Serve it up!  Really good with saltines.
    

2011

Today, we got back from Louisville, where we spent New Year’s Eve celebrating with friends we do not see very often.  The idea of spending New Year’s Eve in Louisville was originally brought up by Mike, and we pounced on it with an appropriate amount of enthusiasm.

I would like to hit some of the highlights of the trip, and not go into too much detail about anything else, if you don’t mind.  I’m not feeling very bloggy right now.  It will probably end up being a long one, anyway, so prepare yourself.

We all rode down together:  Mike drove his minivan, and upon his arrival in Lafayette he had already in his possession (for at least an hour) Joe, Matt, Lauren, and Katie.  We loaded up and pressed on. 

We spent the majority of the three hour drive from Lafayette to Louisville playing games, as most people are wont to do on road trips.  Maybe that would be a good topic for another blog post – games we play on road trips.  We will see.

When we arrived in Louisville, we headed straight for Andrew and Kyle’s apartment.  Andrew and Kyle are the very good friends of ours who we don’t get to see very often, so this was sort of a special occasion.  Also in attendance was Alex, who Mary and I haven’t really seen since we bumped into him at a mutual friend’s wedding.  He’s pretty great.  Also also in attendance were several of Kyle’s friends from Purdue, the names of whom I can not remember excepting someone possibly named Morgan.

Anyway, the first thing we did was to go eat KFC at Col. Sander’s grave.  I don’t really think I need to explain why.  It went well.

Having paid respects to a founder of widespread mainstream delicious fried food, we headed back to A&K’s place to put on our fancy clothes and work our way through an $80 bottle of beer.

Appropriately fancied, we headed off around 9:00.  Our destination was The Spirit of Jefferson, a river steamboat on which we would spend New Year’s Eve.  And we got there!  I did not take many pictures, since my phone does not have a flash, but we had a pretty good time. 

The view was great from the top of the boat, the food was delicious, and the weather was perfect – except for a bit of rain right around midnight.  But I can think of no other group of people who I would rather stand out in the rain to count down the new year with.

And in the morning we had mimosas with homemade macaroni & cheese.  Delicious.

 

*And to anyone who was with us that night who does not appear in this post, I am sorry for not taking a picture of you.  I’m sure you’re on Facebook somewhere.

Butternut Squash Soup

This year, we had Thanksgiving for my side of the family at my house – I’ll write a separate post about that (probably). 

I decided that in addition to the usual turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc., I wanted to make this soup.  I had some very good butternut squash soup at Wabash College a few weeks ago, and this was inspired by that.  I don’t think mine turned out as good, but I definitely still enjoyed it, and would recommend that anyone try it out – it’s really easy, and so tasty.  Perfect Fall dish.

Also, my mom surprised me with a stick blender, so I was itching to use it on something!

YOU WILL NEED:

• 1 butternut squash (2-3 lbs)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 onion (medium-large)
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, pepper

YOU WILL NEED TO":

1. Dice the onion.
2. In a large pot, melt the butter and cook the onion until it turns all soft and translucent.
3. While that’s going on, peel and de-seed the squash.  (Peel, then cut in half hot-dog style and scoop out the seeds with a spoon.)  Then, cut it into about 1-inch pieces.
4. Add the squash and the stock to the onions – cover and let simmer until the squash is soft (should be around 20 minutes).
   
5. Remove from heat, and use a stick blender to puree the squash and onion (you can use a regular blender, but it requires the extra step of straining the squash out of the broth, blending, then adding it back in).
   
   The soup should still be pretty thin – if you prefer a thicker soup, just use less stock. (or more squash!)
6. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste.  Serves about 10 (depending on portions).

Summer Projects… Finally Over (Part 2)

Last week I finished our backyard projects we had planned for summertime – 3 months late, yes, but better than never.

With what I like to classify as minimal help from others, I managed to build a deck and a shadowbox privacy fence “from scratch” (this is mostly a recipe blog, after all).  On that side note, here are some step by step instructions on how to build exactly what I did – FENCE EDITION:

HOW TO BUILD A SHADOWBOX STYLE PRIVACY FENCE
Way simpler than building a deck, but takes loads more time.
This is not very detailed.  Sorry.

Tools Needed/Recommended:

• Circular Saw
• Sawhorses
• Level
• Tape Measure
• Nail Gun
• Framing Hammer
• Post Hole Diggers
• String

1. Plan out where you want your fence, clear out any trees, bushes, etc.  We had a big old mulberry tree to dig out, which Phil (our neighbor) basically did by himself. 
2. Order all your lumber.  We chose not to use panels to build this fence, but it would have been much easier.
   
3. Stretch some string between two stakes on the line where you want the fence to be, and spray marks every eight feet so you know where to dig the holes. 
4. Dig the holes.  I recommend renting an auger if you have more than ten holes to dig.
5. Put in the end posts, or at least one end and maybe a middle post – make sure you dig down deep enough, and use plenty of concrete.  Stretch a string between the two posts, and mark the center of each hole.  This is so you can line up all the posts on the same point. 
   
   Getting the holes and all the posts lined up is honestly the hardest part, because it’s the most crucial part for having a straight fence.
6. Once the posts are in, you can start putting up the stringers that hold up the pickets. 
   
   We chose to use 5 2x4s per section – 2 up, 2 down, and one in the middle.  We decided to attach 2 “up and down” at the top and bottom so they would resist warping better over time. 
   
7. After the stringers are up, attach the pickets.  It helps to make a spacer – we had ours about 3” apart. 
   
   We tried 5”, but after I put some up, we decided to take them down and put them closer together. 
   
   I found it better to use the spacer on one side, and then sort of eyeball the other side – otherwise, the spacing tends to get out of alignment.
   
8. Once your fence is up, build any gates you need. 
   
   We have a large vehicle gate on one end of the yard, and a smaller people gate near the house. 
    
   We had to attach the large gate directly to the garage, and it worked out very well.  No sag at all!
   
9. Stain your new fence!  Looks super nice.
   

 

The whole thing took a long time, mainly because I did most of it myself.  Having a nailgun helped out loads. 

I had to work a few things out, like how to attach stringers by myself (I just tacked a small piece of 2x4 on one end, and rested the stringer on that while I nailed in the other end), and techniques for installing posts and whatnot will vary depending on who you talk to. 

It was pretty fun, though, and really nice to be able to say I did it myself.