Feb232010

DIY French Press Cozy

By GW | 02/23/2010 | Posted in DIY, Foodie Tech, Kitchen, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

My favorite gift this Christmas was the French press coffee pot Howie gave me.

The reason is twofold. First, I’ve wanted a French press for years. They make a fantastic cup of coffee. Second, he got it for an insanely low price. I love a bargain, and he found this Bodum 12-cup model at the local Goodwill store for all of two bucks. TWO BUCKS!

They sell for almost $50 at Amazon, Target and other places I’ve looked, so this was a real bargain! As the cashier rang up the sale, she asked what the heck it was. He couldn’t wait to give it to me; to his credit, though, he made it all the way to Christmas Eve before letting me unwrap it. What a guy!

I use the French press almost every day. We’ve had to cut expenses and can’t make our beloved Caribou Coffee Obsidian Blend every day, but we find Eight O’Clock Coffee French Roast tastes pretty good when done in the French press. We still get Caribou, but just for special treats on the weekends.

He picked up a mini-me version of it at Meijer for $10, just to use at his office. Yeah, he’s gotten spoiled, too.

The one thing that’s bugged me is how quickly the coffee cools in the pot if it’s just me drinking it. At least French pressed coffee doesn’t develop the bitter edge that drip-brew does as it cools. It makes a nice iced coffee later on in the day if you make it stronger to begin with.

But still.

I saw some really cute French press wraps at this site, but couldn’t see spending the money on one right now. Besides, the pattern I really like — this sort of celestial pattern — is sold out in the 12-cup model we’d need.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands today.

I had hanging in my closet an old fleece jacket that was pilling pretty badly. I haven’t worn it for a couple of years. So, out came the pinking shears! I cut one of the sleeves off up near where it joined the body of the jacket.

Then, I slipped the sleeve over the French press, wide-end-first and held the sleeve upright. Snip! One more cut about two inches above the top of the pot and my sleeve was nearly done. I turned the sleeve around so the seam was lined up with the spout of the press (opposite the handle), then made a small cut in the fabric directly over the handle. I expanded that cut just enough so the handle could slip through the hole.

It might not be very pretty, nor lined with nifty Thinsulate, but it does the job for now and it’s nicer than wrapping a towel around the pot. If I get really adventurous, I could put some grommets around the top and add a drawstring. Nah!

By GW | Posted in DIY, Foodie Tech, Kitchen, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Feb152010

Pit bull terriers get a bad rap

By GW | 02/15/2010 | Posted in Call to Action, Current Events, Pets, YouTube, giving back | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comment (1)

This is a great video. The family’s pit bull bugged his owner frantically until he came with him to find out what was bothering him. The dog saved the baby’s life. This family has had their children saved by pit bulls not once, but twice.

There’s a reason Staffordshire bull terriers, a foundation for the American pit bull terrier, was called the nanny dog for years before the powers that be decided to make bully breeds the evil dogs of the decade. They’re extremely affectionate, loyal family dogs that are gentle with children and other animals when they’re trained to be.

There are many myths being spread about pit bulls, such as one that says their jaws lock. That’s just not true. You can read more about these erroneous claims at these links:

The media demonizes dog breeds, working people into a frenzy. Think about it. The media’s been shoving scary stories down our throats for decades. In the 80’s it was the doberman, then in the 90’s it was rottweilers. Now it’s the pit bull terrier and similar-looking breeds. Where will it end?

Dog Bites

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published a report on dog bites by breed in the US. You can read and download it here. Be sure to read through it, though, not just scan the tables. The authors explain how the figures were derived and point out the flaw in just looking at numbers alone.

You will find that rottweilers, German shepherds and pit bulls have high numbers of dog bite deaths. So do great Danes. There’s no doubting that a big dog with a big set of teeth can really hurt a person. But also consider this: the numerous nips and aggressive bites from vicious small dogs will not only inflict a lot less damage, but will often go unreported. People tend to report large dogs because they perceive them to be more vicious.

You can read the American Veterinary Medicine Association’s paper, A Community Approach to Dog Bite Prevention.

Temperament Testing

Additionally, temperament tests done by the American Temperament Test Society (ATTS) show pit bulls to rank very highly on their temperament tests. The higher the percentage of dogs that passed the test, the better the overall temperament of that breed. Here’s a sampling of some popular breeds in America:

  • Pug: 90.5%
  • American Pit Bull Terrier: 85.3%
  • Golden Retriever: 84.6%
  • German Shepherd: 83.7
  • Rottweiler: 83%
  • Beagle 81%
  • Doberman Pinscher: 77.4%
  • Chihuahua: 71%
You can view the test results of all breeds at this link.


Breed Specific Laws (BSL)

Punish the deed, not the breed. Aside from penalizing responsible dog owner, BSL’s just don’t work for the purposes for which they’re written. People who fight dogs breed for aggression and abuse their dogs; they also use their dogs as weapons. The pit bull naturally wants to please and protect its owner, and unscrupulous individuals exploit this.  People like that are going to produce dogs that bite because they encourage it.

It’s not the responsible, law-abiding dog owners who should be punished. The website Stop BSL’s (Breed specific laws) has detailed information regarding BSL and provides an excellent list of resources.

Some pit bull resources on the web:


Pitbull411: “…Here you can find everything pit bull including a history of the pitbull, the breed profile, pit bull photos, pit bull rescue and adoption organizations, as well as pit bull breeders.”

Pit Bulls on the Web: The site owner’s objectives: (1) Help dogs in need and the people who care about them, (2) educate Pit Bull owners so that unpleasant accidents are avoided, but Pit Bull ownership enjoyed, (3) promote responsible Pit Bull ownership and positive leadership, (4) continue to learn about the breed and stay true to my conjunctions, and (5) raise a loud voice against those who promote, support, or participate in the abuse and cruelty of animals.

Find the pit bull: Only one of the 25 pictures features a pit bull terrier. All the dogs pictured are purebred representations of their breeds.
It may not be as easy as you think. Can you spot the lone pit bull? Can your friends and family? It’s a real eye-opener!

Pit Bull Rescue Central:  “Pit Bull Rescue Central envisions a compassionate world where pit bulls and pit bull mixes reside in responsible, loving homes and where their honor and positive image is restored and preserved.”

I have one more video before I close. Please prepare yourself for images of a vicious pit bull, scary Siamese mix cat, and chicks. Get ready to rumble!

I hope that this entry, along with the links I’ve provided, will encourage people to challenge stereotypes. If you’re a pit bull lover and have additional resources, please drop me a comment or an e-mail and let me know. I can expand this list of resources. I know this is a controversial topic, but I will not tolerate rude or offensive posts in the comments; expect any such comments to be deleted.

By GW | Posted in Call to Action, Current Events, Pets, YouTube, giving back | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comment (1)
Feb132010

How to cut onions without tears

By GW | 02/13/2010 | Posted in Cooking, Gardening, Kitchen, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Through the years, I’ve read all kinds of suggestions for making the process of cutting onions less tearful. People suggest everything from running the onion under cold water while you cut it (Hello! Awkward!)  to freezing it first. Some suggest slicing it only in a certain direction.

None of those methods worked for me. I really can’t stand cutting raw onions. Even when my husband’s cutting them in the kitchen while I’m in the living room, the pungent odor gives me fits. I cry, my eyes burn, and my nose hurts. I’m a wimp!

This method, though, really works! Honest and for true, pinky swear.

I first learned of it from this video. I was skeptical. But my recipe called for caramelized onions and I knew I had a lot of onions to chop. It was the perfect time to test out his claims. These were cheap, strong, yellow cooking onions…The real stinkers.

It worked!

Tonight I planned on making homemade pizza for my folks and us, this very pizza as a matter of fact:

We like onions on it, so it was to be another fun-filled, onion-intensive session in the kitchen. I didn’t want to use my old standby the food processor because it would cut them too finely. At the last minute, I grabbed my camera and set out to document the process for my blog.

To begin with, you need to work with the root end of the onion. In the center of an onion, coming up from the root end, is a bulb. It’s this bulb which contains that strong-smelling onion gas.

You want to cut the root end of the onion.

The trick is to cut the root end out, and with it, the bulb inside.

To do this, you should cut around the root end, about 1/3 of the way out from the center of the onion. Cut in at an angle so you’re making kind of a cone shape. Think of how you angle the knife when you cut a top off a Halloween pumpkin.

Cut about 1/3 of the way out from the center, slightly angled in to form a cone.

Ideally, you’ll end up with this. See that center part, joined to the roots? Throw this away. Yes, it feels wasteful. But do it, because this is one nasty, stinky little bulb in your hand. This is the cause of all that misery.  Don’t put it down your disposal, either! I’m telling you, you’ll rue the day you were born.

Ideally, you should end up with something that looks like this!

But what happens if that bulb doesn’t come out neatly in one piece? What if you chopped right into it? For the love of all things holy, what will you do? What if it looks like this one I did?

Oops, sometimes you don’t get the bulb out like you hoped.

No worries! Look deep into that rogue onion. See the little whorls that look different from the rest of the rings? Those are the parts you need to remove. Sometimes a developing bulb will split into two or three separate points. That’s what happened here. Sneaky little suckers.

No worries! See those little guys in there?

Just take the tip of your knife and gentle pry each of those little guys out of its hole. See? They come right out!

Pry those pieces out with the tip of your knife.

Ta-da! There are the troublemakers. And here they thought they could get away! This onion was way past its prime, by the way. The green you see is sprouts forming within the onion. This is not a good thing in garlic; it makes the garlic take on a bitter taste. I haven’t noticed this with onions so much, but the outer layers were beginning to go a little soft.

Those would have been troublemakers.

But I digress.

Once you’ve removed the bulb and any sneaky sidekicks that tried to hide, you’re ready to peel the outer layers off your onion and slice it up however you choose. You will be shocked at how little you smell that pungent onions smell — maybe not at all. If you do start tearing up, it means you didn’t quite get all the bulb out.

Flexible cutting mat with chopped onions

Were it not for this technique, I could not have done this without much discomfort!

But what happens if it doesn’t come out in one piece? What if you chopped right into it (like I did on this one)??picsYes, you will “waste” some onion. But if you’re like me, highly sensitive to the gas from raw onions, it’s more than a fair trade off!

I want to give a shoutout to Jack and his site The Best Sauces. He has a YouTube channel, Cooking with Jack: A Cooking Show for the Average Joe with lots of good videos about cooking!

By GW | Posted in Cooking, Gardening, Kitchen, Photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)
Feb122010

Easy comfort food dinner: Paprikash & noodles

By GW | 02/12/2010 | Posted in Bread Machine, Foodie Tech, Kitchen, Moblog, Photography, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Last night, I tried a recipe I clipped from the label on a can of Giant Eagle condensed cream of chicken soup. When you want quick and simple, those cream soups are terrific! Recipes and more info are below the gallery.

Busy Day Paprikash

Taken from label of Giant Eagle Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup.
Makes four servings (about 5 cups)

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1″ chunks
1 medium onion, halved then sliced
2 teaspoons vegetable or olive oil
2 teaspoons paprika
1 can (10.5oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup lowfat sour cream
Hot cooked noodles
Directions:

Pat chicken chunks dry with paper towel. In large skillet, sautee chicken and onion in oil until chicken is browned. Sprinkle paprika over chicken and onions, then stir in soup and water. Simmer this mixture for five minutes. Stir in sour cream. Heat, but do not let boil. Serve over hot noodles.
I made homemade noodles to go with this. The bread machine did a great job of kneading the dough to the right consistency while I worked on other things. Granted, they’re not as easy to make as a box of noodles from the store, but they’re not difficult to make, especially with a bread machine.  I used the following recipe from my Oster 5838 breadmaker’s user manual:

Basic Pasta Recipe for ABM

Ingredients:

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup semolina flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water

I also added the following:

1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Instructions:

1. Measure all ingredients into bread pan.

2. Select Dough setting

3. Press Start/Stop button and allow machine to mix 8-10 minutes. You may need to add a little water or flour if the dough is too dry or too wet. You may need to scrape the sides of the pan with a rubber spatula if ingredients aren’t mixing well. The dough should be cohesive, not crumbly, but shouldn’t be too sticky, either.

4. After dough forms a ball, remove dough from pan and roll out on lightly floured surface. Roll to 1/8″ thickness. Dust dough with flour if it’s sticky.

5. Cut into 1/8″ strips for narrow noodles or 1/4″ strips for medium noodles.

6. Cook noodles in a large pot of boiling, salted water for 5-6 minutes. Drain in colander.

The machine’s recipe book says to boil the noodles for 10-15 minutes. They would have been mush had I left them in that long! I don’t think I had them in for even five minutes before they were a perfect al dente. Obviously, the thinner your pasta, the more quickly it will cook. Just stir it occasionally while it boils and lift out a noodle to taste every so often. When they’re just barely chewy still, they’re done (at least how we like them).

By GW | Posted in Bread Machine, Foodie Tech, Kitchen, Moblog, Photography, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Feb112010

Countdown to Spring!

By GW | 02/11/2010 | Posted in Current Events, Domestic stuff, Photography, Social Media, Techie | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

This winter has been a bear. So much for global warming. I think all the recent snow is beautiful, but I am so glad we haven’t experienced a raging albino crapfest, as James Lileks dubbed such snowstorms on Twitter back in December. Our friends in Frederick, MD are buried after the week’s snowfall and much of the east coast is pretty much shut down.

I think the snow’s pretty, but I don’t want that much. Here’s what it looked like in my neck of the woods after the snowstorm we got last week. These were taken Saturday. Drifts came to above my knees when I walked over the hill in our back yard and took Stella for a walk in the snow. She loves the snow!

I love the pretty white snow, but I sure dread the mud that comes with its melt. That translates to twelve muddy dog feet, four times a day. There’s no way to avoid it, and it’s a mess. We keep a beach towel inside the back door, but that doesn’t get all of it. Sigh.

At any rate, I’m ready for spring. How about you? Howie pointed me toward a nifty little widget for my sidebar, a Countdown to Spring. I just added it. If you have a website, spread the cheer and add it. If you don’t, stop by here every so often and be encouraged that this winter won’t last forever.

2/14/2010: I just removed the countdown widget because it took so long to load and slowed down other widgets. No thanks!

By GW | Posted in Current Events, Domestic stuff, Photography, Social Media, Techie | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Jan272010

Healthy oat bran muffins made with Amish friendship bread starter

By GW | 01/27/2010 | Posted in Baking, Health, Photography, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Amish friendship bread starter can overwhelm a household, especially when your friends and family start hiding when they know you’ve got some more to give away. And if you’re like me, you’re trying to lose weight and don’t want to have those calorie-dense quickbreads around to temp you (let alone be making more every ten days).

Well, there’s good news! You don’t have to make that sickly sweet friendship bread out of it. There are other recipes out there. I’ve adapted one I found at Recipezaar.com for muffins. It’s included below.

Additionally, you can freeze the starter. Yes, you heard that right. Despite what the flyer people pass along with their starter claims, you can freeze it. You can also use metal bowls and utensils with it. I won’t re-invent the wheel here, so if you want to read more on that, see the excellent write-ups at My Sister’s Kitchen (be sure to read the comments!):

Amish Friendship Bread (Sharing a Delicious Recipe and Debunking a Few Myths

and Amish Friendship Bread part 2

Okay, now on to the recipe!

Healthy Oat Bran Muffins made with Amish Friendship Bread Starter

Adapted from JanuaryBride’s recipe at Recipezaar.

Oven Temp: 375 degrees
Bake Time: Approximately 30 minutes
Yield: 36 muffins, maybe a few more (standard 2 1/2″ diameter muffins)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Amish friendship bread starter
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk*
1 cup unsweetened applesauce**
1 cup grated carrots, packed
1/2 cup natural oat bran
1/2 cup natural wheat bran
1 cup quick oats (not instant oats)
2 teaspoons salt
3 Tablespoons brown sugar***
3 cups King Arthur Flour white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

Optional:

1 cup nuts, dried cranberries, raisins, etc.

Directions

Beat together wet ingredients til just mixed.

Add remaining ingredients and stir until just mixed (batter should be a little lumpy).

Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full and bake about 30 minutes at 375 degrees, rotating muffin pan 180 degrees in oven about half way through. Cool in muffin tin on a rack for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack.

Notes:

* Powdered buttermilk can be used. Just mix 4 Tablespoons powdered buttermilk into 1 cup water.

** You can substitue pureed carrots or bananas for the applesauce.

*** Since Amish friendship bread starter already has sugar in it and both the carrots and the applesauce are naturally sweet, you may find you don’t need as much (or any) brown sugar. Before you add it, taste the raw batter and see what you think, then decide.

You can always use a little less flour and substitute more oats. I did this one time when I accidentally didn’t put in enough flour and they still turned out very nicely. Muffins are pretty forgiving!

As for greasing the muffin tin, I love Baker’s Joy spray. It is a non-stick cooking spray that contains flour. The muffins pop right out of the tins when I use this.

By GW | Posted in Baking, Health, Photography, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)
Jan242010

The irony of a blond’s password

By GW | 01/24/2010 | Posted in Humor, Social Media, Techie, jokes | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

My friend Larry sent me a funny story today.

During a recent password audit at a company, it was found that a blond receptionist was using the following password:

MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento

When asked why she had such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

Funny, huh? But seriously, that’s not a bad password! Throw in some random numbers and that would be a very secure one. Don’t make your passwords things like your dog’s name and your birthday or other things people can easily guess. And don’t make them standard dictionary words that brute force hackers can figure out by bombarding with lists of words.

Here’s some good tips from Lifehacker for safeguarding passwords:

  • Passwords should be longer than six characters and include a mix of uppercase, lowercase, and special characters.
  • Your password should never be a name, a slang word, or any word in the dictionary. It should never include part of your name or your email address.
  • Use passphrases instead of passwords. Even if you’re limited on the number of characters you can use, turn a long phrase into a jumbled short one. “I like bread and butter, especially at breakfast time.” can become “Ilbab$eabt!”.
  • Use a different password for every single site you access.

    • …If your password is compromised because of the stupidity of the people running the service you use, it doesn’t matter if you had an awesome password of enormous length and variety. If you use that awesome password on other services those services have now been compromised.

In all seriousness, I urge you to read the rest of the article, paying special attention to the additional links they include within it.

By GW | Posted in Humor, Social Media, Techie, jokes | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)