Kicking it old school.

The balcony is furnished and ready. One day until the laziest party on the planet. Do not be alarmed, the noise you here is just a pack of wild reverends getting their preach on.

Hello, Pussycat.

VNC. Sounds like an old wartime enemy. Well, I’ve got orange pajamas, and I don’t want to get up to fuss with my media player in between episodes of Stargate. Sure, if I had a real media center setup, I could zap the remote and select stuff from the comfort of my armchair. In time, I’ll get a server to stream stuff to my xbox, and use the fancy remote for it.

Since I’m not there yet (and I’m looking at you, ubuntu, we’ll talk later) I’ve got a Windows 7 RC machine doing some video mirroring to my television. The controls for it are a mere few feet away, but I’ll be buggered if I’m going to get up every time I want to alter the playlist. This is America, and I have my rights.

I want to control it from my laptop running MacOS 10.5. Solution? VNC. Not perfect, but it’ll do. TightVNC server installed on the media lodge. Went with my old favorite, Chicken of the VNC for the laptop. Point of trouble: either I’m dense (likely) or I couldn’t get CotV to scale the picture. Not great performance anyhow.

RonDiaz points me to something he had forgotten about, but timely remembered:

Connect to Server (Apple-K) and load up vnc://hostname

Bask in glory and simplicity

MacOS has a VNC client built-in, and it’s pretty decent to boot. Also, screen scaled by default. Win. While I’m not exactly concerned with the speediest of screen updates, it’s not bad. I just want to hit the controls, since I can see what I’m doing on the telly.

I did get as far as downloading JollysFastVNC, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it yet. This’ll do.

Art of the Waffle?

Breakfast calls to me. Screams to me. I’m not satisfied in the morning with a bowl of raisin bran and some orange juice. I demand satisfaction.

I like a nice stack of waffles. I don’t care if they’re funny shapes, nationalities, or colors. I just like some waffles. Cooked up with some vanilla (the Lord made vanilla for waffles and pancakes) and drenched in maple syrup… heaven.

Sky's the limit. I'll stick to three.

Easy to make in small quantities, too. While stacks upon stacks of waffley wonderment would be a sight, I’m cooking for one. A one cup of flour batch of batter makes about four waffles for me. (The extra is for snacking while the others are in the iron.) I could make more, but the stuff doesn’t keep well, since I work with baking powder.

Yeasted waffles would be another matter entirely (and are also delicious. For another day.)

Hello, stranger.

Yes, the burger odyssey tapped out. My physician breathed a sigh of relief, so at least its a win for somebody. To bring it, and surlyman (I hope this sticks in your craw and you choke), a little closure, I’m tossing aside the frozen meat and bringing out patty making.

In the past, I always considered burger making to be carefully forming patties, never pressing on them, etc etc. Making mini meatloafs. To put upon loafs. Hello, carbs. Meet my friend diabetes. Kidding.

A friend of a friend of a friend told me about this wonderful piece of burger exposition: the smash.

Easy peasy.

Smashing!

Things I did wrong:

• Not thin enough. I needed to smash them more. More. MORE. A different spatula would have helped. My usual has long holes in it that leaked burger when I pressed down.
• Prepare fixins beforehand. These suckers cook fast. Greased lightning ahoy. While I was worrying over the camera and pictures, I had forgotten to slice up some onions and cheeses. Woopsie.
• Bought way too big of buns. Seriously. These things are mammoth. (Technically, they were labeled sandwich rolls, but they looked far tastier than the other stuff on the shelf. Same price. Whatever.)
• Not making enough. Six? Who was I kidding?

Nevermind that I ended up taking a bite of the burger before bothering to photograph it. You’ll have to excuse me. I was hungry.

Hot mama!

Fairy tales and unicorns put me up to this one. Lawdy. Let me lay down what went into this here bowl of joy.

• 1 lb chicken (dark meat, because it makes my world go ’round)
• 1 medium sweet onion (diced)
• 3 russet potatoes (diced)
• 2 poblano peppers
• 2 jalapeno peppers
• 2 serrano peppers
• 3 cloves garlic
• 14oz can whole peeled tomato
• salt, pepper, cumin, coriander
• white wine

I roasted those lovely peppers in the oven (tomato too, separate pan.) While that was going on, the stove top was rocking it out with browning the chicken and onions. When they looked browned with caramelized goodness, they were punched in the back of the face with the white wine. Let that cook down a bit. Added two-ish cups of water and some (forgive me) chicken boullion, the diced potato, and let it simmer under lid.

Ready peppers. They went from oven to plastic-wrapped-bowl, to steam for a bit before cleaning. Stems, skids, and seeds went down the garbage disposal, with the lovely, mushy pepper tossed in the pot. Mashed up the roasted bell pepper shortly after, and into the pot it went. Seasoned up with some salt, pepper, cumin, and coriander, and let it all mellow out. The potato starch thickened up the pot very, very nicely.

Very nicely.

Time to nosh. Cheers, surlyman.

Mystery filling.

In this case, I filled it with a mixture of bell pepper, button mushroom, and artichoke heart. It’s got a good handful of ricotta and mozzarella cheese. It’s glued together with a nice little blender sauce built from a can of tomato puree, carrot, celery, onion, and garlic. Lots of black and cayenne pepper to give it some kick.

Did the dough up in the bread machine, since, well, I’m tired of doing all of that by hand. My usual Sunday pizza dough mixture translated nicely to the machine. I mixed in a bit of paprika for the hell of it. Why not.

• Pizza dough
• Random fillings
• Folded, sealed, and vented
• Baked 15-20 minutes on a hot stone at or around 425 until delicious

Results? Success. They always are. I haven’t eaten one yet, though. These poor boys get cut up and frozen for dinner at a later date. Each pie is two meals, and each batch ends up with four pies. The leftover veggies and sauce were perfect for a big bowl of pasta, which I had instead. Good combination, recommended.

That is, I might add, not enough.

The place didn’t come with an overhead mounted microwave unit. Want a microwave? It takes up one half of the available counter space. I tried that out for a month or so. I don’t think I cooked much of anything out of sheer frustration. Solution? Get rid of it.

Not entirely, that is. Fortunately, adjacent to the kitchen is another 7′x7′ room that isn’t filled with major appliances or plumbing. A set of shelves bolted to the wall and, hey’o, the microwave is no longer in the way of everything Jesus loves.

Coffee machine? Might as well make use of that otherwise useless ‘bar’ infront of the sink. Beverage central.

Blank wall rendered useless by the opening of the refrigerator door? There’s a few convenient wall studs in there. If I can get my hands on an appropriate piece of hardware, it looks like a great place to have a pot rack.

Still, freeing up the counter space in the kitchen… it’s just not a lot to begin with. I also had some trouble finding a place to fit my chest freezer (tiny fridge-freezers are never enough for me.) Fortunately…

…it makes a great work surface with some large cutting boards or sheets. Lots of room to roll out the pizza dough or pasta noodles.

More as it comes to me.

Here’s to hoping the sandwich doesn’t suck.

Steak Fries.

Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don’t work, I don’t get in a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t pick up the phone, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don’t fucking roll! Shomer shabbos! -Walter Sobchak

This is sure to turn surlyman’s gut. No burger again! Instead, a lovely plate o’ potato as a go with. What’dya’call’em… home fries? Steak fries? Big ol’ potato wedges. These were drowned in olive oil and smothered in my spice cabinet. Roasted them over the fires of heaven.

Good.

Stuff.

Come to think of it, these might be pretty good on a burger. Just imagine it. Do it.

On a related note, the burger train is petering out around here anyhow. I’ve got a few more in the planner, but I won’t have any daylight to cook and shoot ‘em until Sunday. You can expect some wonderment like:

• Greek – Will I buy a “greek” salad from the local cafe and put it on a burger? Maaaaybe.
• Plantain – These are just begging to be sliced, fried, and served atop a greasy meat.
• Pilgrim – …I’m thinking stuffing and cranberries. I’m thinking victory.
• Caprese – Fresh spinach, tomato, block of moz… should be a treat.
• Border alert – Jalapenos and BBQ sauce, on a meat, set between two pieces of cornbread. It’ll probably be murder, but I look forward to it.
• AZN – Tee-hee. Ginger slices, cabbage, “wasabi”… we’ll see.
• Egg salad – As the name implies.

Gonna go crawl in a hole and digest for awhile.