Harvest 2009, days 4 & 5

Time to rest and relax and recharge. We got a 1/2 inch of rain yesterday morning, and it’s been relatively cool since then. So everything is still too wet to cut.
Of course, as my brother pointed out, that means when it warms up and dries out (probably by tomorrow or Monday) then all the winterwheat [...]

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Last night’s dinner (fourth week of Feb 2008)

Also cross-posted on my MySpace blog.
Yesterday was my sister’s birthday, so I made her a dish that has become one of her favorites. It’s similar to a dish I had at a pasta restaurant last time I was in Portland, I think the dish was called “carbonara”. Simply put, it’s pasta with peas, bacon and [...]

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Upside-Down Apple Cake

This is adapted from the “upside-down toffee apple brownies” recipe in the book Blissful Brownies, ISBN 978-1-4054-9127-3.
Bake time: 35-40 minutes at 350 C, 9-inch square or similar sized pan
Ingredients:

Topping

generous 1/3 c dark brown sugar
1/2 stick or 1/4 c unsalted butter
1 apple, cored and thinly sliced (I’ve had good luck with Braeburns and Fujis, but you [...]

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Butterscotch sauce recipe

The butterscotch sauce comes from a recipe I saw on Food Network from the show Throwdown with Bobby Flay.
For the Butterscotch Sauce:

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter
1/2 vanilla bean, split [I used vanilla extract]
2 to 4 tablespoons good quality Scotch (depending on your taste)
1 teaspoon salt [...]

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Last night’s menu, Third Thursday of February 2008

NOTE: Also crossposted to the Nightowl Camille blog on Myspace.
So, I’ve decided I’m going to try posting more regularly on this blog. No guarantees that I’ll stick with it, but I do feel like I need to back to writing more often.
That said, I’m also going to start posting more about the Thursday night dinners. [...]

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Intense chocolate cookies

Adapted from “Chocolate Almond Sparkles” in A Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies by Dede Wilson, ISBN 1-55832-295-7.

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, 70-80% chocolate
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, 70-80% chocolate, finely chopped
3 Tbsp softened unsalted butter
2-3 large eggs
1/2 cup demerara sugar
1 Tbsp light-colored honey
1/3 cup ground almonds
1 Tbsp Dutch processed unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbsp amaretto
2-3 Tbsp [...]

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Grapefruit cake

This recipe is the “Citrus Surprise Cake” in the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book by The King Arthur Flour Company, Inc.; ISBN-13 978-0-88150-719-5; ISBN-10 0-88150-719-9.
I have just been making this as a flat rectangular cake and using 1/2 the frosting called for in the recipe, and it’s GREAT!! I am curious to see [...]

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Food recipes — Cooking beans

I found some good recipes for cooking dry beans!!! These are both off of Albertson’s brand 1 lb dry bean packages.
Chalupa (Pink Beans):

1 lb Albertson’s pink beans, rinsed and soaked
3 lb pork roast
7 cups water
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp salt (which I omitted)
2 Tbsp Chili powder
1 Tbsp cumin
1 tsp oregano (which I [...]

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Browsing on Salon.com part I

While browsing on Salon.com recently, I came across a really interesting (and well-written) piece by Michael Scherer, titled ‘What you missed while watching “Project Runway” ‘ (article dated Nov 16, 2007, site accessed Nov 16, 2007).
Scherer’s article is a minute-by-minute review of the moderated debate among Democratic presidential candidates that took place that same day. (The debate [...]

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Baking sweets: how to know if you’ve got a good batter

If the batter for a cake or cookies tastes so good that after the first taste test you can’t resist taking another 3 or 4, then you know you have a good batter and it will come out with good cookies or a cake.
Same for the sauce for ribs.

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Simple potato salad

Wash and trim some red potatoes, then cool. (You can decide whether you want to cut them all into a uniform size before you boil, or if you have baby spuds all about the same size you can just boil them whole.)
Finely chop some celery and red onion. The onion can be regular if you [...]

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Notes on modifying recipes

I am famous within my family for being very picky about food. However, it’s not that I don’t like any food you can taste (as I have been accused by my family), I just don’t like foods where the dominant flavors are sugar (most store-bought cookies and a lot of prepared foods), salt (almost all [...]

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Gingerbread – Original and modified

Gingerbread – Original recipe from jar of Grandma’s Robust (Unsulphured) Molasses

8 Tbsp (1 stick) butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup Grandma’s Molasses

1 egg

2 – 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1 cup boiling water

optional: 1 tsp grated orange zest

optional: 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Heat oven [...]

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Chocolate Banana Cookies – Original and modified

Chocolate Banana Cookies – Original recipe from Doris M. Good

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 average bananas, ripe or overripe

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 – 1/4 cups flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

6 rounded Tblsp cocoa

1/4 (or more) boiling water

1 cup chopped nuts

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix on low speed. In [...]

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Cooking Ribs

Since moving home to live with my parents, I have been doing a lot more cooking. Which makes me really happy, as I do enjoy it. However, I’ve also realized that I enjoy cooking for myself and other people far more than I enjoy just cooking for myself, and I hate the cleanup. So, I [...]

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Macaroni Salad

1 lb elbow macaroni

1 small red onion, minced

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley or 2-4 tsp dill mix

1 celery rib, minced

1 Tbl lemon juice

1 Tbl Dijon mustard

1/8 tsp garlic powder

pinch of cayenne or 2 shots of Tobasco

1-1/2 cups mayonnaise

salt and pepper

Bring 4 quarts water to boil. Salt and add macaroni. Cook until nearly tender, approx. 5 [...]

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Well, that’s rather alarming to hear about Firefox . . .

(Note: posted from an e-mail, so no xhtml encoding yet)
I’ve been flipping back and forth between Firefox & Internet Explorer for a while now. They both have their strengths and weaknesses on different sites and uses.
However, I do like to know who is trying to set cookies on my machine, and I am NOT [...]

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Comparison of photo sharing sites

(Note: This is posted from an e-mail, html/xhtml encoding has not been done.)
 
While looking at photo-hosting sites, I did a search for a comparison, and found this article: http://digital.reprintarticlesonline.com/Read_WriteWeb/2006/09/06/The_Web_Photo_Sharing_Site_Faceoff
 
It was very useful, and mentioned a number of sites I had never even heard of!
 
From the article:
Conclusion
Firstly, we do not have single online photo market. [...]

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Update to my test post.

It worked!!!!
 
Yay me!!!

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This post is a test of Blogger’s e-mail posting

Checking on Blogger’s settings, I found a place where I can set an e-mail address for this blog such that when I send an e-mail to that address, it will post the contents to this blog.
 
I think.
 
This post is a test to see if it actually works that way.

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Time to catch up on RoHS & WEEE

Apologies to any who read this about my long silence regarding RoHS. For the record, I still hate it. But during the
last five weeks, I have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to read all
the posts on the technical forums I subscribe to. After spending the
last couple days reading through a few hundred [...]

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Literary analysis of murder mysteries.

The Straight Dope recently republished one of Cecil’s classic columns. This was dated September 26, 2003 and the topic was the murder mystery cliche “the butler did it”.
Cecil’s answer was pretty interesting. To summarize: the ending of “the butler did it” was used a little bit, but was generally frowned upon. As a trusted servant [...]

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Magazine Reviews – Reading my brother’s copy of "Builder Magazine" while visiting home

While visiting my family in Montana for Easter, I read my brother William’s April 2006 copy of Builder Magazine. It was a very interesting read, and had some of the best articles and commentary about property rights that I’ve seen in quite some time. Here are some of the highlights.
pg. 37-38:
“One Man’s Blight . . [...]

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Civilization’s Fragility V – We’re now back to Hitler’s V-bomb

Note from November 2007: This was originally posted on a blog of mine that was hosted on Blogger. I’ve since imported that blog over here to C Good’s Things on WordPress.
I was originally going to write a post on some articles I’d seen in the local newspaper. But then I read Friday’s OpinionJournal entries, [...]

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Some recipes I’ve been looking for – Lemon Butter Sauce, Chocolate Cake, Zucchini Chocolate Cake (if I can find it)

Finally! Here is the lemon butter sauce I’ve been looking for!!!
Well, I actually haven’t been looking that hard . . . but I have been keeping my eyes open ever since I’ve had the Cajun salmon at Red Lobster with that divine lemon butter sauce.
This recipe is from Emeril Live on the Food Network.

Lemon Butter [...]

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