Friday Fotos: 2/26

So that's what happened...

courtesy of... lolpix.com




Must be a bank...

courtesy of... failblog.org




This is SO true...

courtesy of... icanhascheezburger.com

A Muse Takes a Holiday

Well, I've been trying like crazy to come up with something to write about, but I just can't think of anything. I thought about writing an article about my weight loss, but I've already written so many articles on that topic, it would just be beating a very dead horse (just don't hold me to this, because I may just end up pulling a Doctor Frankenstein on that poor horse). I also thought about posting some cute pictures of our cats playing and sleeping together, but I think I may leave that for the next time I can't think of anything to say (which, by all calculations, should be fairly soon). I would just like to find out what is causing this writing-drought?

Could it be that since I am rewriting my novel, that I'm using all my creative prowess on that? Could it be that this all-elusive creative prowess is just a figment of my imagination? Could it be that my muse has left on an extended holiday and just forgot to let me know? Whatever it is that may be causing this drought, I must say that it's not fun to have to stare at a white screen and see a stupid cursor blinking back at me.

When I look around the room for any hint of inspiration, the first thing that catches my eye is kitchen counter top. It seems as if the gnomes have been very busy, because everything seems to be stacked on it, except food. I look over and notice that the cats are sleeping...well, there's a shocker. So, I can only think of one thing I can do: coffee! Yup, I think that's the ticket.

My First Pizza

Several weeks ago I made a new sourdough starter that I want to use for pizza dough. Well, last week, I decided to give it a test run and see how it tasted. Even though we didn't have the ingredients available for the type of pizza I wanted to make; even though we don't have a pizza stone; even though we don't have a pizza peel (fancy name for a spatula on steroids), my impatience won the battle and I went ahead and made one anyway.

As you can see from the picture, I won't have to worry about Domino's begging me to come work for them any time soon, but even though it looks like an extra from the 1950's classic The Blob, I'm told it still tasted good. Now, since this was the first time I used this starter, there was not going to be a lot of extra dough to play with, so I went ahead and made two smaller ones. The one on the right was for my daughters and the one on the left was for my wife.

My daughters' pizza was just a simple cheese pizza. I took their crust and brushed it with olive oil and then layered-on the cheese. For my wife's pizza, I went to the freezer and defrosted some of the tomato sauce I made last year and spooned that on the crust. I then took some vegetarian sausage that she got (we had a free coupon for it) and put that on the pizza. Then a slice of American cheese torn-up and placed around the top. Any exposed crust was then brushed with olive oil.

These little beauties were then covered and stored in the refrigerator until about one hour before cooking time. At cooking time, I set the oven to 450° and cooked them about 15 minutes. I then served the pizza and went into the next room and did our taxes (fun times, huh?). Anyway, when I came out an hour later, I expected to find leftover crusts, because my daughters NEVER eat the crust; they always pawn them off on my wife, but this time they ate them...go figure.

Taking another quick look at the picture, you can see that I need to do a lot of work on my dough rolling and shaping, but I guess that will come with practice...and I intend to practice a lot.

Friday Fotos: 2/19

The sad part is, you know someone actually did this...

courtesy of... failblog.org




I hate to admit it, but this is SO me...

courtesy of... graphjam.com





courtesy of... icanhascheezburger.com

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup

Last summer, we had several huge batches of tomatoes from our garden and when the first batch landed in the kitchen, I did what I normally do with our tomatoes: make a batch of salsa. Well, that first batch gave us twelve quarts and with the next harvest we gained an additional fourteen quarts. So, with the thought of yet another harvest coming and finding ourselves chin deep in salsa (yup, shameless plug), my wife and I decided that we should think about doing something else. Putting our heads together, we came up with a brilliant plan: what about soup?

With this new idea floating in the recesses of my empty brain, I decided that just plain tomato soup would be pretty boring, so to borrow a phrase from Emeril Lagasse, I decided to "kick it up a notch." The following is a recipe for Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup. Now, I did not measure the amount of herbs or spices that I added; it was all done to taste. This means that you will need to taste your soup many times throughout the process, to get it to the way YOU want. The sugar is added to cut the acidity of the soup, so you will also need to adjust that to suit your taste. In this recipe, I used 60 tomatoes, but you can use any amount, just adjust the amount of the other veggies you use. Feel free to add your favorite vegetables and have fun. This recipe is a guideline to help you with the cooking and processing procedure. If this was a baking recipe, I would have given exact measurements, but cooking is more of an art, rather than a science. Have fun with it and make this recipe your own.


What you need...
Tomatoes (there's a shocker)... 60
Garlic... 3 bulbs (Yes, but we LOVE garlic!!)
Onions... 4-large
Carrots... 10
Bell peppers... 4
Tomato paste... 12 oz
Salt.. either Kosher or sea salt (for this amount of soup, I started with 1-Tablespoon and adjusted from there)
Pepper
Italian Seasoning
Basil
Bay Leaves (Turkish)... 3
Brown sugar
Olive oil
Large Stock pot
Blender
Potato Peeler
Food mill
Baking sheet
Foil
Mason jars w/ lids (for freezer storage)
Grilled cheese sandwich (to enjoy with your soup)
Lots of time


What to do...

1. Set your oven to 425° and grab a baking sheet and line with foil


2. Rinse your Tomatoes


3. Peel onions and quarter


4. Using a potato peeler, peel your carrots (this is an optional step, but I like to do it) and cut into sections


5. Cut the tops off the peppers and cut then length-wise


6. Remove the seeds and scrape smooth


7. Take the bulbs of garlic and cut the top off


8. Smear olive oil on the top


9. Place garlic in foil and cover


10. Place the whole tomatoes (the skin will be removed with the food mill at the end) and veggies on baking sheet and put into oven for about 35-40 minutes




• Unwrap the garlic and using a fork, you can easily separate the garlic from the skin


11. Once roasted, place veggies in stockpot and repeat until done




• This part took me about four hours to complete


12. Using potato masher, mash veggies as necessary


13. Once all your vegetables are roasted and put in the stockpot, turn the stove to medium heat and add the Tomato paste, bay leaves (3), salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and basil to the pot


14. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for one hour


15. Allow to cool partially


16. Mash those veggies, again


17. Taste and re-season, if necessary


18. Using a ladle, place veggies into the blender
    
    
    
    • CAUTION...Only fill to halfway or a little less. The mixture is hot and when you turn the blender on, it will expand and try to fly out of the top
    
    
    • Place a towel over the lid of the blender (this will help prevent the soup from redecorating your kitchen)
    
    
19. Pour blended mixture into a food mill and process


20. Pour milled soup into a big bowl


21. Repeat processing until done


22. Taste soup and season with brown sugar to reduce acidity


23. Place in mason jars


24. Once cooled, transfer to freezer


25. This recipe made ten quarts of soup

For Service...

1. Thaw your soup and place in microwave-safe bowl


2. Add a touch of cream or sour cream (what I add) to your soup and mix


3. Heat and enjoy with a grilled cheese sandwich

Friday Fotos: 2/12

Honesty: what a concept...

courtesy of... lolpix.com




I used to watch this with my daughter and I agree...

courtesy of... Funnyjunk.com




What I learned from watching Zombieland...

courtesy of... all-that-is-interesting.com





courtesy of... icanhascheezburger.com

The NeverEnding Story

You may remember that I mentioned a writing contest I was going to enter. The only problem was that I needed to rewrite my story, so it would sound somewhat decent. Well, I tried, but I missed the deadline by a mere six minutes. Yup, I would be able to work on it after the girls got done with school and I spent about ten hours a day over the weekend, but it just wasn't enough time. Even though I didn't make the deadline, I'm glad that I went through the story again. It was something I had been putting off for a while and this contest was just the motivation I needed to get it done.

Now that I've gone through and fixed the most glaring mistakes, I am currently in the process of going back through it again and trying to tighten-up the storyline. Since I will be working at a more leisurely pace, I'll be able to add some additional details and polish-up my transitions. One of the other things I am going to work on is the dialog. Before I wrote this thing last November, I had very little experience (try none) with writing dialog, so this is a huge learning curve for me. I need to be able to make the conversations flow much easier, so this is where a majority of my work will be centered.

Anyway, besides the old writing, I'm keeping busy by trying to learn Geometry. Yup, the battle rages on...Equations of Planes in Space. Although this sounds like a weird Science Fiction movie, it's actually working with 3-dimensional figures. So, instead of having just the X and Y coordinates, you now have X, Y, and Z coordinates. Here's a little sample of what I'm talking about...

Hope you have fun with it, I know I am...NOT!


photo courtesy of...wikipedia.org (Edited to remove dead link)

Friday Fotos: 2/5

courtesy of... lolpix.com




courtesy of... icanhascheezburger.com

Yet Another Writing Contest

I just received an Email today that informed me that there is a writing contest through Amazon. All I have to do is submit a novel and if I win, I get a publishing contract and a $15,000 advance. Yes, I know I don't stand a snowball's chance to win, but I figure that I might as well enter and see what happens. However, there's just a very small problem: you see, I haven't even looked at my novel since I finished it and the deadline to enter this contest is Sunday.

So, I opened the file and began the arduous task of trying to rewrite the thing. I'm currently on page 7 of 105 and I can't believe how many mistakes I made. So far, I've discovered one relationship error (a grandson instead of a nephew) and numerous other errors. I have already had to make a few serious revisions and I know that there will be many more down the road. Frankly, I think that I'll be lucky to get through one complete re-write before the deadline.

Anyway, I've bored you enough, so I guess the break is over and I need to get back to work.

Make Your Own Back2life Exercise Machine

I was bad and stayed up a little later than usual last night, but just when I was about to switch the TV off and go to bed, I saw this contraption being advertised. It was so ridiculous, I just had to stick around for a few minutes and watch it. From watching the infomercial, I noticed that all the person does is lay on their back, put their feet on this machine and gently push down. That's it! I actually started laughing when I saw this. However, when they announced the price for this miraculous contraption, I started to choke on my diet Pepsi. Do you want to take a guess as to how much they are asking for this thing? Did you guess $19.95? Well, if you did, you would be ever-so-wrong. How about 2 easy payments (I love that term) of $19.95? Nope, keep guessing.

Try FIVE easy payments of $19.95. Can you believe that there are people out there that will rush to their phones and order this piece of junk? I have one question: where are these people? I would love to find out how I can lead these people to my site. I have a very easy-to-use Amazon link they can use and once there, they could go hog-wild and buy the place out. I mean, if they can throw away over $200.00 (including processing and shipping) on this thing, they can surely part with a few hundred at Amazon.

Now for the kicker: does this thing actually work? I have no idea, but if you truly cannot live without this machine, I will share something with you that will allow you to save $200.00...

1. Grab a pillow


2. Lay down in front of your favorite sofa or chair


3. With your butt against the edge, place your feet on top of the cushion


4. using your legs, gently press downward


5. repeat for twelve minutes

There, I just saved you $200.00. Now, might I interest you in...