Monday, June 15, 2009
posting dates
ok, that's weird. I just published a saved draft of something I started writing up a while ago but just published. But it has the date of when I first started typing it. Hmm. Blogger strangeness.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
tags in blogger
oops, I think I messed up they way I was using tags (labels) in blogger. Wasn't using them enough to make a difference, so no real loss, but still...
Broccoli quiche
FOODBLOGGING!
I made this for lunch several weeks ago, and just finally finished writing it up:
(and I lost the pictures I took of it, too)
Eggless Broccoli Quiche
Not really a quiche, more of a vegetable pie.
Family recipe, based on recipes from The Age of Enlightenment Cookbook by Miriam Kasin (hereafter AoE Cookbook). Long out of print, but used copies aren't that hard to find.
First, the crust. I use a quick biscuit dough (a variant of the rolled biscuit recipe in the AoE Cookbook) for this:
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white flout
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder*
2 tsp. sugar or honey (actually, I used 1 1/2 tsp. agave nectar this time)
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup milk**
1/3 cup water**
Sift and mix the dry ingredients and the agave. Work butter in with hands or pastry cutter. (you let it soften first, right? I didn't and had trouble as a result.) Add liquid, mix, knead a few times to make it smooth.
Butter a 9.5" or 10" pie plate (We only use glass here, so your mileage may vary at the baking stage if you use metal). Spread biscuit dough evenly across bottom and sides in your preferred manner. Use all the dough. Bake at 435 to 450 degrees (Farenheit. I've never cooked with Metric measurements) for about 7 minutes (as appropriate to your baking apparatus. But the crust should be just barely browned.)
Next, the filling. You'll want to have some feeling for steaming broccoli, as it makes the timing easier.
The filling is two parts: the broccoli (I guess other vegetables can substitute as per taste), and the sauce. This is a cream sauce with cheese melted in it.
It's possible to do both the broccoli and the sauce at the same time, or they can be separately prepared beforehand and set them aside. If you do that, steam the broccoli less and do the sauce while the crust is baking.
In this case, one rather large head of broccoli ended up being just right. (didn't think to take pictures until it was done, so can't provide a size reference. Sorry.) Chop the broccoli to medium-small pieces and steam it.
The sauce:
1/3 cup butter (ghee or olive oil work also)
1/2 cup flour (about)#
2 cups milk (can substitute cream for up to a third of this)
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch nutmeg, if desired (I didn't this time)
grated cheese (I use sharp white cheddar) to taste (about a half cup this time, plus a bit more for on top)
Melt the butter. Add about 2/3 of the flour and cook for a minute. Stir constantly with a wisk. Make sure there are no lumps. Either reduce heat (if on gas stove) or remove from heat (if on electric) and add milk. Slowly bring heat back up. Stir more or less constantly (higher heat=more important that stirring is constant. If at low heat, it's possible to step away for long enough to, say, take the crust out of the oven or chop and steam the broccoli.) Add remainder of flower and cheese (slowly, in both cases. I add the cheese a bit [say 1/3] at a time and allow to melt. Not sure if this makes any difference at all.)
Take it off the heat as soon as it starts to thicken (you ARE stirring constantly, right? Because this is kind of key.)
Actually, bring the heat down low once it starts to thicken and keep it warm for a little bit longer but not too long. Experience and experimentation help a bit with that. You want the sauce thicker than a normal cream sauce but not too thick. Think pudding. Also, it will thicken a LOT more once it cools, so don't overcook.
Drain the broccoli (important! excess water will screw with the thickness of the sauce) and mix the sauce and the broccoli. Pour mixture into crust. It should be even with the top of the crust but not overflowing unless you want a hard-to-clean mess. Sprinkle grated cheese on top, if you want.
Put the whole thing back in the oven at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes, or until the cheese on top is just starting to brown. Remove and let cool a bit before serving (again, so that the sauce will thicken a bit.)
The first piece served will be a messy disaster. Seriously. Always. I have not yet found a way to avoid this. But after that, if you've gotten the sauce thickness right, it should hold together reasonably.
Failure modes (all have happened to me):
The sauce isn't thick enough due to either not enough flour, too short cook time, or too much moisture from the broccoli. As a result, you get something resembling more of a thick soup.
The crust isn't baked enough in the first baking and the sauce soaks into it too much, turning it to mush.
The broccoli doesn't cook enough or too much.
The whole thing flips over while you take it out of the oven and makes close acquaintance with your floor.
It's too close to the top heating element and the oven runs too hot and lights it on fire.
The sauce is lumpy because it wasn't stirred in with the butter or oil enough.
You follow the biscuit recipe in the AoE Cookbook too literally and the crust ends up tasting like baking powder.
Other than that, it's pretty easy once you've done it once or twice. I wouldn't count on the first time turning out well enough to serve to friends, myself, but that's based on my personal cooking quirks. :)
Enjoy!
*the AoE Cookbook has a typo in the recipe in that it calls for a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon here. This results in disaster.
**the original calls for all the liquid to be milk.
# Ordinarily, you'd use 1/4 cup flour for this sauce, but in this case you want the sauce thicker.
I made this for lunch several weeks ago, and just finally finished writing it up:
(and I lost the pictures I took of it, too)
Eggless Broccoli Quiche
Not really a quiche, more of a vegetable pie.
Family recipe, based on recipes from The Age of Enlightenment Cookbook by Miriam Kasin (hereafter AoE Cookbook). Long out of print, but used copies aren't that hard to find.
First, the crust. I use a quick biscuit dough (a variant of the rolled biscuit recipe in the AoE Cookbook) for this:
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup unbleached white flout
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder*
2 tsp. sugar or honey (actually, I used 1 1/2 tsp. agave nectar this time)
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup milk**
1/3 cup water**
Sift and mix the dry ingredients and the agave. Work butter in with hands or pastry cutter. (you let it soften first, right? I didn't and had trouble as a result.) Add liquid, mix, knead a few times to make it smooth.
Butter a 9.5" or 10" pie plate (We only use glass here, so your mileage may vary at the baking stage if you use metal). Spread biscuit dough evenly across bottom and sides in your preferred manner. Use all the dough. Bake at 435 to 450 degrees (Farenheit. I've never cooked with Metric measurements) for about 7 minutes (as appropriate to your baking apparatus. But the crust should be just barely browned.)
Next, the filling. You'll want to have some feeling for steaming broccoli, as it makes the timing easier.
The filling is two parts: the broccoli (I guess other vegetables can substitute as per taste), and the sauce. This is a cream sauce with cheese melted in it.
It's possible to do both the broccoli and the sauce at the same time, or they can be separately prepared beforehand and set them aside. If you do that, steam the broccoli less and do the sauce while the crust is baking.
In this case, one rather large head of broccoli ended up being just right. (didn't think to take pictures until it was done, so can't provide a size reference. Sorry.) Chop the broccoli to medium-small pieces and steam it.
The sauce:
1/3 cup butter (ghee or olive oil work also)
1/2 cup flour (about)#
2 cups milk (can substitute cream for up to a third of this)
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch nutmeg, if desired (I didn't this time)
grated cheese (I use sharp white cheddar) to taste (about a half cup this time, plus a bit more for on top)
Melt the butter. Add about 2/3 of the flour and cook for a minute. Stir constantly with a wisk. Make sure there are no lumps. Either reduce heat (if on gas stove) or remove from heat (if on electric) and add milk. Slowly bring heat back up. Stir more or less constantly (higher heat=more important that stirring is constant. If at low heat, it's possible to step away for long enough to, say, take the crust out of the oven or chop and steam the broccoli.) Add remainder of flower and cheese (slowly, in both cases. I add the cheese a bit [say 1/3] at a time and allow to melt. Not sure if this makes any difference at all.)
Take it off the heat as soon as it starts to thicken (you ARE stirring constantly, right? Because this is kind of key.)
Actually, bring the heat down low once it starts to thicken and keep it warm for a little bit longer but not too long. Experience and experimentation help a bit with that. You want the sauce thicker than a normal cream sauce but not too thick. Think pudding. Also, it will thicken a LOT more once it cools, so don't overcook.
Drain the broccoli (important! excess water will screw with the thickness of the sauce) and mix the sauce and the broccoli. Pour mixture into crust. It should be even with the top of the crust but not overflowing unless you want a hard-to-clean mess. Sprinkle grated cheese on top, if you want.
Put the whole thing back in the oven at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes, or until the cheese on top is just starting to brown. Remove and let cool a bit before serving (again, so that the sauce will thicken a bit.)
The first piece served will be a messy disaster. Seriously. Always. I have not yet found a way to avoid this. But after that, if you've gotten the sauce thickness right, it should hold together reasonably.
Failure modes (all have happened to me):
The sauce isn't thick enough due to either not enough flour, too short cook time, or too much moisture from the broccoli. As a result, you get something resembling more of a thick soup.
The crust isn't baked enough in the first baking and the sauce soaks into it too much, turning it to mush.
The broccoli doesn't cook enough or too much.
The whole thing flips over while you take it out of the oven and makes close acquaintance with your floor.
It's too close to the top heating element and the oven runs too hot and lights it on fire.
The sauce is lumpy because it wasn't stirred in with the butter or oil enough.
You follow the biscuit recipe in the AoE Cookbook too literally and the crust ends up tasting like baking powder.
Other than that, it's pretty easy once you've done it once or twice. I wouldn't count on the first time turning out well enough to serve to friends, myself, but that's based on my personal cooking quirks. :)
Enjoy!
*the AoE Cookbook has a typo in the recipe in that it calls for a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon here. This results in disaster.
**the original calls for all the liquid to be milk.
# Ordinarily, you'd use 1/4 cup flour for this sauce, but in this case you want the sauce thicker.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Spring project goals
Or, rather, goals for projects. Or projects that I intend to work on this spring.
This was posted somewhere else but I'm putting it here to make it harder to forget about. :)
Start writing (as opposed to just outlining) some stuff about creativity. (more on this later)
Finish converting a short story to a screenplay for my brother. (Oh, and write up some comments about the process of making said story for here.)
In addition, at least two more pieces of flash-SF.
Maybe do some reporting on multimedia/new media art.
Also, write and record a song. Even if it's just an instrumental jam.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Inauguration
So, we're watching the inauguration, and I feel like I really ought to write something about it. What it means to me, what I think it means to the nation, and so forth. But I really don't have much to say at the moment. Just glad this is happening and looking forward to seeing how things will go under the new administration.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Place and the Creative Class
Well, I'm in a coffee shop, so I guess I ought to write a blog post. It's been almost a month since the last one, so it's time. Have some work-related news, but that won't really be finalized for another couple weeks, so I'm going to hold off on that for now.
It's an interesting dichotomy. Since I'm still in the middle of both (actually, I haven't read Hot, Flat, and Crowded yet, but I have some idea where it goes from Friedman's other work and recent writings in the NYT), and work is involved, I don't really have an opinion of which I agree on more, but it does lead me to an interesting train of thought which I haven't really developed into a coherent concept yet, but basically centers on an application of network analysis to stuff like The Tipping Point and using that to explain some of the stuff that both Friedman and Florida talk about. Problem is, when I try to distill it down to a few sentences, I keep coming up with additional layers to explore that seem essential to fully explaining my point. Like, for example, hierarchies of authority (which is, really, what The Tipping Point is mostly about) and channels of communication for those hierarchies (basically, that different modes of communication are good for different types of argument).
In the end, though, it's all about people. People talking to other people and interacting with each other in the pursuit of their continued survival.
Which, surprisingly, brings me to the other book I've been reading: Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America by Brian Francis Slattery. Go find a copy of this book and read it. Now. It's fantastic.
Imagine the flat-out worst possible outcome of last year's economic troubles, culminating in the total collapse of the government, the dollar, and pretty much everything else. That's one of the precipitating events of Liberation. Riots destroy large parts of major cities. Mexico declares war on Texas. People take to selling themselves into slavery because it's better than starving. Bands of freewheeling hippies crisscross the country in a caravan of diesel-and-solar powered busses. Trains have machine gun nests and howitzers for self defense.
And into all this come the Slick Six, a gang of unstoppable international criminal, one of whom, Marco, has been in prison the last few years, since before the collapse. Marco has returned to reunite the Six and try to do some good in this new world.
Several of the interesting places in this world are where people have settled into a New Normal, where things are not so bad, or perhaps even better than Before. They grow their own food, barter for what they can't make, and generally get by. Maybe utopian, maybe not. The point is, despite a fantastic disaster, they're still alive.
It's something that was on my mind a lot while Lehman was failing and they were debating the bailout. A lot of people were (and still are) losing their shirts, and were certainly looking at a more difficult future, but they weren't dying. That's my new yardstick for bad news: Did/will anyone die from it? If not, no problem. We'll get through it.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
December 2008
Well then. Sitting in a coffee shop at moment, so I guess it's time for my monthly blog post. heh. I guess it's not so realistic to say that I really do mean to right more here, because, really, it doesn't seem to happen. So why say otherwise? I mean, really.
Anyways. Nice weather here in Delray. Which is a mixed blessing. When the weather in Florida is good and the weather everywhere else is not so good, it gets crowded here. I ran down to the grocery store the other day and couldn't get into the parking lot because it was so full of cars driven by very marginal drivers. It's the time of year to stay off the sidewalks again, and drive really defensively. Which is ok, actually, I do that anyways.
Just talked to my brother for almost an hour about a film project he's working for. He's a production assistant, and probably will be for a few years on this kind of production until he's accumulated a lot more Guild hours. Which is ok with him, it seems. He likes the kind of work involved, even though it sometimes means rather long and stressful hours. Some of the crew he's working with is really pro and gets stuff done, which is great, but the director/writer is a little scattered and, well, not so pro. Which results in delays, rewrites, and underplanned stuff. One of the lead actors started shouting at them the other day when they kept shooting him running down the same flight of stairs from different angles. Plus the other night they were on set until midnight trying to wrap some actors before they break for Christmas/New Year's. And after that my bro had a two hour drive home. Yay for him. But, amusingly, he's taken to talking on his cell in radio-speak: answers it by saying, "Go for AK" and acknowledges stuff with "Roger that" and so on. I guess after a 70-hour week things get like that. Anyways.
Going to Chicago for Christmas in a few days, then on to New York for NYE on Times Square with friends at ABC!! both of which are going to be awesome.
Trying to convert a short story I wrote for 365tomorrows (which I haven't heard back about yet) into a screenplay for my brother and a friend to shoot a short film of in February. The screenplay formatting is kind of a pain to work with if you're not used to it. I can see why there's dedicated programs for it like Final Draft. Being cheap, I'm using a set of macros and templates for Word for it at the moment. But it's kind of fun, so we'll see how it goes in the future. It would be a lot of fun to write and produce a medium-length short film. Maybe I'll see if time, money, ideas, and talent can intersect for that sometime in the future. Just sort of in the back of my mind, you know. I'd have to come up with a business model for it, because that's how my mind is working these days, and that might be the hard part, but we'll see how that goes.
We're signed up to test for our insurance licenses a few days after we get back from NY, I'll do an update about that (including what it's all about) after that happens.
Also: probably going to get a macbook sometime in the future. But not for another several weeks to a month at least. So I'm not sure why I'm even talking about it yet. But that's what I do, I guess.
Ok, back to work on indexing. Later.
Anyways. Nice weather here in Delray. Which is a mixed blessing. When the weather in Florida is good and the weather everywhere else is not so good, it gets crowded here. I ran down to the grocery store the other day and couldn't get into the parking lot because it was so full of cars driven by very marginal drivers. It's the time of year to stay off the sidewalks again, and drive really defensively. Which is ok, actually, I do that anyways.
Just talked to my brother for almost an hour about a film project he's working for. He's a production assistant, and probably will be for a few years on this kind of production until he's accumulated a lot more Guild hours. Which is ok with him, it seems. He likes the kind of work involved, even though it sometimes means rather long and stressful hours. Some of the crew he's working with is really pro and gets stuff done, which is great, but the director/writer is a little scattered and, well, not so pro. Which results in delays, rewrites, and underplanned stuff. One of the lead actors started shouting at them the other day when they kept shooting him running down the same flight of stairs from different angles. Plus the other night they were on set until midnight trying to wrap some actors before they break for Christmas/New Year's. And after that my bro had a two hour drive home. Yay for him. But, amusingly, he's taken to talking on his cell in radio-speak: answers it by saying, "Go for AK" and acknowledges stuff with "Roger that" and so on. I guess after a 70-hour week things get like that. Anyways.
Going to Chicago for Christmas in a few days, then on to New York for NYE on Times Square with friends at ABC!! both of which are going to be awesome.
Trying to convert a short story I wrote for 365tomorrows (which I haven't heard back about yet) into a screenplay for my brother and a friend to shoot a short film of in February. The screenplay formatting is kind of a pain to work with if you're not used to it. I can see why there's dedicated programs for it like Final Draft. Being cheap, I'm using a set of macros and templates for Word for it at the moment. But it's kind of fun, so we'll see how it goes in the future. It would be a lot of fun to write and produce a medium-length short film. Maybe I'll see if time, money, ideas, and talent can intersect for that sometime in the future. Just sort of in the back of my mind, you know. I'd have to come up with a business model for it, because that's how my mind is working these days, and that might be the hard part, but we'll see how that goes.
We're signed up to test for our insurance licenses a few days after we get back from NY, I'll do an update about that (including what it's all about) after that happens.
Also: probably going to get a macbook sometime in the future. But not for another several weeks to a month at least. So I'm not sure why I'm even talking about it yet. But that's what I do, I guess.
Ok, back to work on indexing. Later.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Gotta get back to blogging again.
So. Hi. Still here, still in Florida, still indexing, etc.
I've kind of started writing again lately. Or, rather, I've started writing for the sake of writing and not just for work or whatever. I guess it started with some sort of epic email rants during the election (such as this), but I've even done a bit of fiction and the like. I submitted a flash fiction (under 600 words) story to 365 tomorrows, and plan to finish and submit 2-3 more to that site (one of which is basically done, one outlined, and one just an idea). I also ought to compile a writeup based on some comments I've been leaving over at Heather's site about music and creativity, if only because I think doing so could reinforce some of what I said in my own thinking.
I've also got a big pile of photos to sort through and touch up to put on my Flickr stream, and I want to find a way to better integrate my tumblelog with this blog. In theory, headlines from this blog are supposed to show up over at the tumblelog, so that the latter is kind of a gateway to my internet presences, but I've been having some trouble getting that working properly (which is to say at all). I've been tinkering with it, we'll see if this post shows up there....
Also, I've discovered that Blogger lets you subscribe to comments on a blog, which I've added to my RSS reader, which I'm hoping will make managing that easier, since it was a problem in the past, with a previous blog.
Right, anyways, got to index some more Guidelines for Exercise Testing. I'll put up some snippets of recent writings later.
edit: hey,the Tumblr import from this blog worked!! w00hoo! So, headlines from here and uploads from my flickr will appear there now, as well as at their home sites.
I've kind of started writing again lately. Or, rather, I've started writing for the sake of writing and not just for work or whatever. I guess it started with some sort of epic email rants during the election (such as this), but I've even done a bit of fiction and the like. I submitted a flash fiction (under 600 words) story to 365 tomorrows, and plan to finish and submit 2-3 more to that site (one of which is basically done, one outlined, and one just an idea). I also ought to compile a writeup based on some comments I've been leaving over at Heather's site about music and creativity, if only because I think doing so could reinforce some of what I said in my own thinking.
I've also got a big pile of photos to sort through and touch up to put on my Flickr stream, and I want to find a way to better integrate my tumblelog with this blog. In theory, headlines from this blog are supposed to show up over at the tumblelog, so that the latter is kind of a gateway to my internet presences, but I've been having some trouble getting that working properly (which is to say at all). I've been tinkering with it, we'll see if this post shows up there....
Also, I've discovered that Blogger lets you subscribe to comments on a blog, which I've added to my RSS reader, which I'm hoping will make managing that easier, since it was a problem in the past, with a previous blog.
Right, anyways, got to index some more Guidelines for Exercise Testing. I'll put up some snippets of recent writings later.
edit: hey,the Tumblr import from this blog worked!! w00hoo! So, headlines from here and uploads from my flickr will appear there now, as well as at their home sites.
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