Some of you may or may not know that Kathi was recently diagnosed "Insulin resistant". She was told to eat healthier and exercise. So in an attempt at expanding our diet and to eat "healthier" we have been experimenting with Asparagus.
Mind you this was not something we were looking forward to as we both had experiences with this so called vegetable when we were younger and neither of us has really touched it since. In my case my mother made me eat it when I was very young and I nearly barfed. Several months ago while at Karen's house she served Asparagus, and taking a "no thank you" serving I tried it and pronounced it "edible" (this had nothing to do with Karen or her recipe).
To ease us into this I looked up some recipes that we might possibly be able to tolerate.
First up was Rachel Ray's Bacon Wrapped Asparagus (what can go wrong with a recipe that includes BACON).
This is pretty simple, coat several sprigs of asparagus with extra virgin olive oil and pepper, wrap with bacon and bake or grill.
First impression:
There was practically no flavor from the asparagus. The asparagus did not taste like bacon, and the bacon did not taste like asparagus. Asparagus taste like.... asparagus. The closest thing to it would be a mixture of grass and very, very, very...... very mild broccoli.
Next up Alton Browns asparagus and mushroom risotto.
I never had risotto before, it takes a rather long time to make.
First Impression:
Once again "is there asparagus in this?" The risotto was pretty good but next time I will leave out the white wine, asparagus, and lemon zest. The portobello mushrooms were extremely good.
and finally pasta salad with portobello mushrooms, grape tomatoes, and asparagus. This is a Paula Dean recipe.
First impression:
What's the point of putting asparagus in this? The recipe as written was pretty bland. I had to spice it up with some zesty Italian dressing and extra red wine vinegar. The salad otherwise was very good, next time I will add some red bell peppers, cucumber and feta cheese (leaving out the asparagus).
Conclusions:
If asparagus is put in front of me in the future I will eat it, but I won't go out of my way to use it. It's relatively expensive and brings nothing to the recipes it is put in. Asparagus is boring and bland. How my mother made it taste terrible I will never know. Like zucchini recipes, asparagus recipes were invented to dispose of the offending item with out actually throwing it away.
It does have one interesting side effect....
9/08/2008
9/04/2008
Time to Photoshop
I'm bored....
Eric's Shop of Horrors.Hey... What do you want for 20 minutes of work.
Eric and the holy Grail!Yeah... Yeah... Another 20 minutes.
American Pie anyone?OK, I'll stop now.
8/29/2008
THE GREAT STORM OF 2008
Queue ominous music....
Last night here in Phoenix at about 21:30 a couple of huge storm rolled through the valley. Winds were measured at 85 to 90 miles per hour (officially) and at 100 mph (unofficially). The first storm passed just barely to the south of us and dropped 1/2 inch hail. It also knocked several branches off of our pine tree in the front yard.
Our power went out for about a half an hour. When power came back on I checked out the Weather channel and found that another storm was heading right for us. We went to bed and the second storm hit some time after I went to sleep. It knocked out power again at some point. I got up arround 00:00 and called SRP they were aware of the outage. I went back to bed. I had a 700 watt inverter connected to a truck battery to power a fan so I could sleep. At around 05:00 I woke up again and power was still out. I called SRP again and they said power would be out until about noon. I got up and deployed my 3000 watt Coleman generator (you do have one as well, right???). I used it to keep our Refrigerator and freezer working. I also broke out the new 1200 watt 2 stroke camping generator and used that to power our TV so I could see what was going on in the world.
I drove around to see some of the damage. I found trees down everywhere.
7th street between Oak and Camelback was hit the hardest with multiple poles down in the street.
Plus all the signs over the suicide lane were blown at a 45 degree angle.
Some time around 9:30 the power came back on.
Kill ominous music...
Last night here in Phoenix at about 21:30 a couple of huge storm rolled through the valley. Winds were measured at 85 to 90 miles per hour (officially) and at 100 mph (unofficially). The first storm passed just barely to the south of us and dropped 1/2 inch hail. It also knocked several branches off of our pine tree in the front yard.
Our power went out for about a half an hour. When power came back on I checked out the Weather channel and found that another storm was heading right for us. We went to bed and the second storm hit some time after I went to sleep. It knocked out power again at some point. I got up arround 00:00 and called SRP they were aware of the outage. I went back to bed. I had a 700 watt inverter connected to a truck battery to power a fan so I could sleep. At around 05:00 I woke up again and power was still out. I called SRP again and they said power would be out until about noon. I got up and deployed my 3000 watt Coleman generator (you do have one as well, right???). I used it to keep our Refrigerator and freezer working. I also broke out the new 1200 watt 2 stroke camping generator and used that to power our TV so I could see what was going on in the world.I drove around to see some of the damage. I found trees down everywhere.
7th street between Oak and Camelback was hit the hardest with multiple poles down in the street.
Plus all the signs over the suicide lane were blown at a 45 degree angle.
Some time around 9:30 the power came back on.Kill ominous music...
8/19/2008
7/29/2008
SuperStars! (in HDR)
Last weekend was Karen's Birthday. She had her birthday up at Juniper Well Ranch near Prescott. Kathi and I went up Saturday morning and got there about 10:00. First thing we did was walk up and down the train tracks that run by the ranch.
We did not see any trains. It was very warm up there and for most of the day we did not do much. I went around and took some pictures of the horses.
Karen wanted me to take pictures of her and Alyssa, so I did, Here are some of the Cheesier ones:
SUPERSTARS!
Later that night Karen and her friend prepared a dinner of ribeye steaks, potatoes cooked with bell peppers, onions, and paprika, in butter, and kabobs. Some really expensive gasoline... I mean Tequila was served as well, of which I had about 4 shots.
The next morning I got up at 6am, The Tequila from the previous night was un-naturally devoid of hangover, so I went out and took some early morning pictures.
Kathi and I went into town and had breakfast, when we returned everyone had awoke from the dead. We fed carrots to the horses one last time, said goodbye to Karen and went home.
We did not see any trains. It was very warm up there and for most of the day we did not do much. I went around and took some pictures of the horses.
Karen wanted me to take pictures of her and Alyssa, so I did, Here are some of the Cheesier ones:
SUPERSTARS!Later that night Karen and her friend prepared a dinner of ribeye steaks, potatoes cooked with bell peppers, onions, and paprika, in butter, and kabobs. Some really expensive gasoline... I mean Tequila was served as well, of which I had about 4 shots.
The next morning I got up at 6am, The Tequila from the previous night was un-naturally devoid of hangover, so I went out and took some early morning pictures.
Kathi and I went into town and had breakfast, when we returned everyone had awoke from the dead. We fed carrots to the horses one last time, said goodbye to Karen and went home.
7/09/2008
Movie Review (WALL-E)
I don't go to the movies to be preached at. So as you can guess I was not happy with the "message" being preached by this movie. I know that most movie trailers do not accurately depict a movie but I would say that the WALL-E trailer straight up lies.
While there was some funny bits in this movie, they were all served up covered in a thick tasteless gravy of "save the planet", "Stop being a consumer junky", and "get off you ass and exercise". The "love story" also got lost in all the "save the planet" BS.
This is the first Pixar movie to feature live action people in it (why??? I don't know...), there were also CG people who all looked like overstuffed gummy bears. The juxtaposition of the real people and the CG people just kind of made me go WTF?
The only redeeming thing about going to see this movie is the short film "Presto" that plays before it, Presto was extremely funny and had no heavy handed "message".
This is the first Pixar movie that I will not be buying on DVD.
As a forewarning the next Shrek movie is supposed to have a "save the planet" message in it too, (yippee).
If you must insist on making a cereal (sic) "save the planet" movie, that's fine, But call it something like "the day after tomorrow", or "an inconvenient truth", then you can jabber all you want about proving the existence of man-bear-pig, while yelling EXCELSIOR! as you leap off the stage.
While there was some funny bits in this movie, they were all served up covered in a thick tasteless gravy of "save the planet", "Stop being a consumer junky", and "get off you ass and exercise". The "love story" also got lost in all the "save the planet" BS.
This is the first Pixar movie to feature live action people in it (why??? I don't know...), there were also CG people who all looked like overstuffed gummy bears. The juxtaposition of the real people and the CG people just kind of made me go WTF?
The only redeeming thing about going to see this movie is the short film "Presto" that plays before it, Presto was extremely funny and had no heavy handed "message".
This is the first Pixar movie that I will not be buying on DVD.
As a forewarning the next Shrek movie is supposed to have a "save the planet" message in it too, (yippee).
If you must insist on making a cereal (sic) "save the planet" movie, that's fine, But call it something like "the day after tomorrow", or "an inconvenient truth", then you can jabber all you want about proving the existence of man-bear-pig, while yelling EXCELSIOR! as you leap off the stage.
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