Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The Perils of “Free” Internet

There is the old adage of “you get what you pay for,” which seems to be doubly true for any sort of place offering “free” Internet access. For whatever reason, all of the coffee shops near me that advertise access, it’s really nothing but a cruel joke. Their sign should instead say, “We will tease you by seemingly offering an Internet connection but you will not actually be able to get anything done.” (That’s a lot of words for a sign, I know, but with The Economy the way it is right now, I’m sure you can get a deal.)

At first, I thought this was just because there was a bunch of people trying to get access to the Internet, like I am. But I’ve also been at these shops when no one else is there, because I’m a weird nomad that works at all hours of the day, and no dice. The popularity of the place seemed to have no effect on the Internet connection – Even when empty, Panera in Wakefield still has incredibly horrible access that works for, at most, about five minutes.

Making things worse is that many portions of South County also have shitty cell phone access. I have this nifty wireless aircard for work, which gives me web access via cell phone signals. As a result, I’m hoping acres and acres of farmland here is devoted to cell phone towers, because I’m getting annoyed that just checking my Facebook takes about five minutes at Brewed Awakenings.

On some completely random notes, I made some Shake and Bake chicken last night – it came out awesome. Just thought y’all would like to know. Also, poor Chris Jericho. Why couldn’t he have won the Royal Rumble? (Since this is a blog, I do feel the need to throw in these two completely random and intensely personal observations.)

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Steve Can Cook: Steak

So I've finally decided to start cooking at my house again. It's a bit of a chore, since I have a very tiny kitchen, and I don't really like using my oven – It's very close to the wall, so I don't have room to stand in front of it when the door is open. Plus, it is one of those ovens with a pilot light, and it's from roughly 1923.

Because of all of the preceding factors, I finally bought the bullet and got a Foreman grill. Well, to be more precise, I got a fancier, nicer version of a Foreman grill, a clone made by General Electric. You can see a picture of it to the right. Unlike the old Foremans, this has removable plates, which makes the clean-up about a million times easier. It would be about a billion times easier, actually, but I don't have a dishwasher at this place. (This also factors into my laziness when it comes to cooking.)

I got it on Friday night, so I tested it out Saturday after a thorough washing. It actually cooks pretty well! I had a thick cut of London broil, plus another smaller cut that I fileted. While it did really well with the fileted cut, it still did a passable job on the thicker cut. With the older Foreman, it would normally just char and burn the top and bottom layers, and leave the middle uncooked. Not so with this grill.

To the right is my dinner for Sunday night. In lieu of buying a bunch of BBQ and liquid marinades, I rely more on flavor packets, since they just require vegetable oil and vinegar. Saturday's delicious steak dinner was peppercorn, and Sunday is baja citrus. I think that implies a mix of tang and sweet, but the flavor is always somewhat ambiguous until it is cooked into the meat.

Normally, I wouldn't make steak two nights in a row. Unfortunately, I took advantage of a 2-for-1 sale on the steaks, and I didn't notice that the expiration date for them both was Sunday. Thus I find myself in my current dilemma, overdosing on steak.

… Well, I suppose there are worse fates. Bon appetite!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

All your cakes are belong to us

Tis the season for mouth-watering dishes.

So folks, I need your help. Not this weekend, but next, I'm going to a potluck Christmas dinner slash party, and as part of the festivities, I need to bring a dish. It will be mostly high school and college friends at the event, and mostly people that I know pretty well. As a result, I'm trying to avoid bringing, say, just a bag of chips or a 30-pack or store-mix brownies.

When it comes to my skill cooking, I think I'm an adequate chef. While I will say straight-up that I'm not looking to hand knead 50 pounds of day to individually make a big batch of cookies, I'm willing to put some effort into something I cook. My past "good" cooking moments are mostly with big cuts of meat (that's what she said). I've done well making things like a rosemary roast leg of lame and corned beef with potatoes, and I am good at following a recipe on the back of a box or off an online sheet of directions.

As a practical thing, ideally, I should be able to make it the night before, or the day of in a couple of hours. Because my hours are so weird from reporting a lot of the time, there isn't a guarantee that I'll have time the day of to make something piping hot, although that is what I'm shooting for. Also, because I imagine other people will be bringing mostly baked goods / desserts, something more savory would go over better, I believe. My spending range is between $20 and $60.

Anyway. If you have any good suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments to this post, or to e-mail me (sgre6768@gmail.com) or to IM me on AIM - ChemBros15. I must get back to watching television and napping, which is why this post is unfortunately about two hours late. It is a ridiculous television night, with the season finales of Top Chef and Glee tonight, and a new episode of Modern Family. Woohoo! I'm glad this is the one night this week that I don't have to work. Tomorrow is football picks day, but I will probably post some reflections on all three shows either Friday or Sunday night.

Prime rib picture from here.

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