Handy tricks
- If you’re unsure of an egg’s freshness, see how it behaves in a cup of water: Fresh eggs sink; bad ones float.
- Don’t throw away sparkling wine or champagne that’s gone flat. Restore the bubble by dropping a raisin or two into the bottle. The natural sugars will work magic.
- Line the bottom of your refrigerator’s crisper drawer with paper towels. They’ll absorb the excess moisture that causes veggies to rot.
- A bay leaf slipped into a container of flour, pasta, or rice will help repel bugs.
- Stop cheese from drying out by spreading butter or margarine on the cut sides to seal in moisture. This is most effective with hard cheeses sealed in wax.
- When radishes, celery, or carrots have lost their crunch, simply pop them in a bowl of iced water along with a slice of raw potato and watch the limp vegetables freshen up right before your eyes.
- Believe it or not, honey is the only nonperishable food substance, so don’t get rid of the stuff if it crystallizes or becomes cloudy. Microwave on medium heat, in 30-second increment, to make honey clear again.
- In order to make cottage cheese or sour cream last longer, place the container upside down in the fridge. Inverting the tub creates a vacuum that inhibits the growth of bacteria that causes food to spoil.
- Prevent extra cooked pasta from hardening by stashing it in a sealed plastic bag and refrigerating. When you’re ready to serve, throw the pasta in boiling water for a few seconds to heat and restore moisture.
- You can freeze cheese! After serving, put leftovers back in the original package, wrap tightly in plastic, and freeze. Defrost in the fridge a day before serving. This trick works best for soft cheeses with a high fat content.
- Prevent mushrooms from getting slimy by wrapping them in paper towels before refrigerating.
- To revive day-old muffins, sprinkle them with water, place in a paper bag, and pop in a hot oven for five to 10 minutes. The steam created by the water will restore moisture.
- Keeping brown sugar in the freezer will stop it from hardening. But if you already have hardened sugar on your shelf, soften it by sealing in a bag with a slice of fresh bread or an apple — or by microwaving on high for 30 seconds.
- Stock up on butter when it’s on sale — you can store it in the freezer for up to six months. Pack the butter in an airtight container, so it doesn’t take on the flavor of whatever else you’re freezing.
- Avoid separating bananas until you plan to eat them — they spoil less quickly in a bunch.
(Source: Yahoo!, via lickypickystickyfree)
Thai-Inspired Chickpea & Cashew Salad
2 green onions
1 teaspoon mellow white miso
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon tamarind concentrate (or omit and add extra lime juice)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
3 cups cooked chickpeas (or canned, drained and rinsed)
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 small jalapeno chile, stemmed, seeded and finely diced
1/2 cup peeled and diced cucumber
1 rib celery, diced
1/2 cup fresh pineapple, cubed
salt to taste
toasted cashewsIn a dry skillet, toast the coconut just until it becomes fragrant and starts to turn off-white. Stir constantly and be careful not to burn. Set aside to cool. Once the coconut is cool, put it into the blender along with the ginger, the white parts of the green onions (roots removed!), miso, vegetable broth, sugar, tamarind concentrate, and soy sauce. Blend until well-combined. Pour into a saucepan and add the drained chickpeas. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, add the lime juice, and refrigerate to cool completely. Thinly slice the green onion tops and add them, the other vegetables, and the pineapple to the chickpeas and toss well to combine. Add salt and additional lime juice to taste. Refrigerate to chill thoroughly (tastes best if allowed to chill for at least 4 hours). Serve atop greens garnished with toasted cashews.
Afghanistan is America’s longest war. Longer than Vietnam, both World Wars. Interestingly enough in the past few weeks a sudden influx of information has come in, seemingly out of nowhere. Perhaps in part to Wikileaks, but personally I think to someone like Brad Manning - a guy now in U.S custody on U.S soil who I’d imagine is getting the shit kicked out of him right about now for exposing the truth about the war in Afghanistan. So now, some 9 years after the war began, we finally get to see what’s been going on behind the curtain.
It’s not a curtain that you or I had a chance to place, choose, or enact. None of us sat down and asked for it - although many Americans, once faced with the stark and glaring reality of what “war” actually is - seem to prefer the curtain was shut again. It’s a lot easier to make decisions when the decisions are being made for you.
War is not a bumper sticker, a sign in the yard, or a lapel pin. War is not a finger pointing liberal angry at the way things have turned out, nor an irate republican who sees his values slipping. It’s men and women like you and me dying. Being shot at. Being blown up. Being scarred. Being scared. We’re running around with guns and money like we’re big boys but we’re still as scared as we were when we were fully convinced that there was a monster underneath the bed. Some of the men fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan now were 9 years old when the planes hit the WTC. They’ve grown up - spent their formative years - in a country - world - at war.
While they fight across the fucking globe there’s a Silent Civil War going on here - a country so damn fucking divided it can’t even make up its mind if it wants to give every citizen the right to healthcare, or have it be up to the woman to decide whether or not she wants an abortion, or whether two gay men can walk down the aisle. It’s not a question of “Good vs Bad”. It’s Moderates vs Extremists; ironically, the same word - “extremists” - that we’ve been conditioned to be told we’re at war with. Are we fighting? What are we doing? There’s women and children there. They laugh like you and I. I shouldn’t even be having to explain this - it should be apparent that we’re all born from the same soup the fish crawled out of in the first place. Or Adams rib. Or whatever the fuck you believe in. Fuck off. We’re not children anymore and shouldn’t have a dick-swinging competition by the sandbox. We’re too old for that. At least, I think we are.
It’s a war on language. “Terror” and “Threat” instantly make the hairs on the back of your neck go on end - when the real ‘threat’ is not knowing what we are fighting for, or who we are fighting. You are being conditioned further and further not to trust your neighbor for the sole reason that he’s different than you. Look at the zoning laws in every major city in the U.S and tell me that that’s not legalized segregation. Why do you think the freeways are placed that way in Los Angeles? Why do you think that Chicago is divided North (rich) and South (poor)? Look it up - ‘White Flight’ - the post WW2 move from the city to the suburbs, which led to rapid urban decay - creating a “Them” culture in America that’s been simmering for years now, both sides throwing rocks at eachother for years. You’ve been conditioned to think that way your whole life, it’s not your fault, and as quickly as a lightswitch you can change it, reach across the aisle, and stop the fucking silent civil war…
… and call me crazy, but the huge leak of information regarding the War in Afghanistan might open up a lot of eyes to the reality of the situation, the bickering, the bullshit. The media hasn’t reported it because the media plays what we want it to. Otherwise we wouldn’t watch it.
Have you ever wondered why there isn’t a moderate American news source; how everything in the last ten years has to be EITHER Fox News OR MSNBC? How on the day that LeBron announced “his decision” it was reported that there was a major advancement the battle against AIDS. So, why is there such a disparagement? Why no moderation? It’s because they don’t feel they can trust us with the truth. Demand the truth. Demand the right to not just free speech but the sheer ability to see things as they are, not with a veil of insensibility and ignorance. You should be able to shake the hand of your neighbor no matter what is in his beliefs. There’s too much hate. You should demand equality, and the only path to that is the unfiltered, unabridged, unconditioned truth.
Thanks to the actions of Bradley Manning, now we have it. And thanks to him it might change a few things. Fuck, it might just change everything.
And I hope it does.
Watermelonade
Serves 10
½ cup sugar
4 cups cubed watermelon
3½ cups water
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice1. Bring sugar and 1/2 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring sugar to dissolve. Set aside.
2. Put the cubed watermelon in a blender and puree until smooth, about 20 seconds. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. You should have about 2 cups of strained watermelon juice.
3. Mix the sugar syrup with 3 cups cold water and the lemon juice. Stir well.
4. Fill glasses with ice, add about 3 tablespoons of watermelon juice and then top off with lemonade. Stir gently before serving.
(via)
Also, you guys
I posted the recipe for my homemade rub once before, and you guys should really try it.
I’m just looking out for your best interests.
- 1 part cumin
- 1 part ancho chili powder
- 1 part onion powder
- 1 part garlic powder
- 1 part ground black pepper
- 1 part paprika
- 1 part brown sugar
- 1/2 part salt
Android App Loves
Over the past few days, several of my followers have gotten new Android phones and asked for app recommendations. Here are mine with my reasons for preferring them:
Lookout: It’s an anti-virus. Yes, there are already virii for Android lurking attached to app downloads in the marketplace. As I have yet to encounter any myself and I play around a lot in the marketplace, I have a suspicion it mimics the real internet and they are probably mostly attached to the porny apps. But you never know. And removal tools are scarce so far, so infection means wiping your phone: install Lookout for protection. It can do scheduled phone scans and it scans everything you download before you open it. It runs fast and quietly which is exactly what an AV is supposed to do.
Advanced Task Killer: It can kill all apps running in the background to free up memory and save you battery life. It has an Ignore list for things you don’t ever want ended (email won’t check until you re-launch it if it’s killed, etc), and you can change its security level to even show you some of the Android engines that run unseen and are able to stop them. For instance, the Voice Search. I never use Voice Search. EVER. And yet on occasion when I open up ATK, there are four or five entries running that are Voice Search based.
Financisto: It’s a money management app, IMO the best on the market for free. Unlimited account creation, transfer between accounts. Category and project creation and selection on transactions. Budgets based on project and category entries (IE monthly gas budget is tied to Grocery category, so when you take 5 seconds to tap in what you just spent on groceries and tag it with the category, it automatically deducts that amount from your budget on the budget screen). I use it to track all of my money and this is one I really can’t live without any more. In a couple of seconds I can know how much money I have and if I can spend it safely on this or that… and it’s awesome. Comes with a tappable widget for the home screen displaying account balances & transaction / transfer shortcuts for home as well. (Do I sound like a fangirl over this app? I totally am!)
Weather: I like WeatherBug for its home screen widget and alerts (still can’t believe it’s IMO the best weather Android app while their desktop software is such shit); I use Rainy Days for animated radar maps— Rainy Days overlays the radar feeds on top of the Google Map, and it loads fast.
Calendar Pad: Extends the Google calendar in a few ways, like creating different sized widgets that when tapped launch different views of your calendar. I love the 1x1 widget because it just displays today’s date like a tiny disposable calendar, and tapping it opens up their link to your calendar— its Weekly View is WAY better than the one built into the calendar, it actually displays the entire days as squares so you can see your appointments instead of that awkward column view.
WiFi, Silent, and GPS OnOff Switches: Each one appears as an individual app in the market. Just a widget to drop on the home screen that in one or two taps turns on or off exactly what it’s named for. Handy as hell if you do that often.
Moon Widget: Displays the rise & set times of the moon as well as a graphic & percentile display of how full it is, all in a 1x1 widget on the home screen that can be set on a single lat-long location you choose or track your location and update itself. There are a lot of moon apps on the market and this is the only one I’ve found to reliably do what it says it does. I know, I’m a nerd.
Honorary Mentions: Days Until (Widget displays days until set date on home screen; 89 days till Vacation!), ColorNote (sticky note reminder app, best one IMO) GDocs (lets you download and locally view your Google docs), Urbanspoon (noms locater), Shazam (music indentifier), Tumblroid (view Tumblr dash & make new posts; can’t reblog until you buy paid version but this is the best Tumblr view app I have found so I still use it), and… I play a little Pocket Empires. My city can kick your city’s ass.
Photo: Jennifer Davicks
Recipe: myrecipes.com
Lemon Cheesecake Bars
Ingredients
- BUTTER CRUST
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground mace or nutmeg
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Vegetable cooking spray
- LEMON FILLING
- 8oz cream cheese, room temperature (or 1 cup 1% low-fat cottage cheese)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 3 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg white
- GARNISH
- Lemon rind curl
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare Crust: Beat first 4 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Add 1 cup flour, beating at low speed until well blended. Press mixture on bottom of an 8-inch square pan coated with cooking spray.
2. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, prepare filling: Beat cream cheese in standing mixer until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides as needed. Add granulated sugar and next 6 ingredients, and process 30 seconds or until well blended. Pour filling over prepared crust.
4. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until set. (Edges will be lightly browned.) Cool 30 minutes. Cover and chill 8 hours. Cut into bars. Garnish with a curl of lemon rind.
thelos: paisleydarts: reinsangeki: justinrampage:
Start the Memorial Day weekend off right with a relaxing alcoholic beverage from @DrunkenMoogle. I’m ready to warp my mind down the pipe!
Warp Pipe (Super Mario Bros. Cocktail)
1/2 shot Bols Melon
1/2 Lime (cut into wedges)
3/4 shot Blue Curacao
1/2 bottle Mike’s Hard Limeade
Directions: Cut your half a lime into four wedges. Squeeze the lime juice into a highball glass and then drop them in the bottom. Add some ice overtop the limes, then pour in the Blue Curacao. Add the Mike’s Hard Limeade until the glass is almost full, then top with your Bols Melon. Stir a bit with a straw and enjoy. Tip: make sure you don’t add too much Bols Melon, or the melon flavor will overpower the lime. This is a great summer drink!
(Drink created and photographed by The Drunken Moogle)
Ok, how delicious do these “puffed pancakes” look?
Recipe:
1 Tablespoon butter
1/2 C Milk
1/2 C Flour
2 Eggs
1/2 tsp Vanilla
dash of Salt
dash of Cinnamon
1. Melt butter in pan in oven while it is preheating.
2. Whisk all ingredients together in bowl, pour into pan w/ melted butter and move to oven.
3. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes or until the pancake has risen and is firm.
Serve right away (it will start to puff down, that’s ok) with fruit, syrup, powdered sugar… whatever you want!Recipe and photo via The Rockstar Diaries.
Life Lessons from My Therapy Clients
(By LISA BROOKES KIFT, MFT)
People can be incredibly brave. It is hard for some to even get through the door of a therapist’s office let alone open up their most wounded parts to another soul. I am touched by the strength of people to be able to present themselves in the ways that they do.
People can be incredibly insightful. It amazes me how wise and intuitive some are. It’s a joy to observe and participate in this with people committed to figuring it all out and making the changes they want in their lives and relationships.
People can be incredibly resilient.The fact that people figure out strategies to survive in the ways that they do to overcome the most horrendous situations is humbling. When everything “should” point to a life of chaos after a traumatic childhood but doesn’t – one explanation is they just “came out of the gate” that way and had tools from the onset that others don’t necessarily have. This has been one of the most awe-inspiring lessons of all.
People all primarily want to feel accepted, connected and okay. At the end of the day, if you filter through all of the presenting issues, relationship cycles and the “process vs. content,” people really all yearn for a sense of emotional safety.
