9/26/08

And one more thing.

I would really like to do this.

No time left for you!

I have no time to blog! No time! Well, not at the moment. Well, not really.

But in the meantime, aren't these charming?

The Cake Pan Lady

And since I'm feeling especially generous,

Eliza Skinner. The phrase 'sticky man-trash' is somehow quite beguiling.

And finally, a truly fine piece of improv geekery.

9/16/08

Probably the best Mac/PC ad parody I've seen.



By the funny (and black) Elon James White. Get all your black news at This Week in Blackness!

9/11/08

Tribute.

This is hardly original; I've seen it around lots of places today. But it's worth watching.

9/4/08

I liked the cutoff sweatshirts too.

One of my adolescent heroes:

]

Update: I can buy that shirt! Whoo!

Unconvincing

Dear Sir,

I am not believing your "Killer Death Ride" sticker as affixed to your shiny white Vespa.

Sincerely,
a Dick

9/3/08

Recipes!

I am not a food blogger (kind of a food blogger addict, though). However, I am emerging from an "everything I cook sucks" phase (everyone hits that patch every once in a while) to becoming a functioning home cook again. That phase is diabolical - it started weeks ago, with a lentil dish I'd made a hundred or more times, which ended up tasting odd and worsening with every attempted fix. Several other failed dishes followed, inexplicable and frustrating. Even my local falafel takeout - my go-to after a failed cooking venture requires cheap quick takeout to dispel - has changed hands and acquired a certain irredeemable dinginess.

I seem to be emerging, though, and have whipped up some delicious dishes lately I thought I'd share.

Imprecisely yours, the Lazy Gourmet.

Veggie Shepherd's Pie - convenience food heaven with the imprimateur of healthy.

1 bag Morningstar Farm veggie crumbles (frozen)
1/2 box or so of mixed vegetables (frozen) (I used peas and carrots)
about 1 cup pearl onions (frozen)
about 1/2 a large bottle of tomato juice or V-8 (trust me. Ever buy a bottle of V-8, have a few glasses, and realize you don't like it much?)
Worcestershire Sauce (dust it off, it's crucial)
Black pepper
2 cups prepared instant mashed potatoes (I use some brand in a small blue box - one envelope makes 2 cups - you don't even need milk even if the box tells you that you do.)
grated cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 375.

Spray with nonstick spray a 9 inch square pan. Dump in the frozen goods. Pour in the juice. Season with black pepper. Stir. Shake in (I'd guesstimate about 6 good shakes) Worcestershire Sauce - the sauce should go brownish red at this point in the pan. Stir well to distribute sauce and veggies.

Spread mashed taters over the top. (Leftover would be fine, I'm sure). Aim for complete coverage. Sprinkle with cheese, or not.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the top browns slightly and the sauce gets bubbly and pokes out around the edges.

Inelegant but tasty. Freezes and transports to work well!

Broccoli Ricotta Pesto Pasta

3 Cups steamed broccoli, more or less. (Ziploc steamer bags are a freaking miracle, trust me. Worth the price of admission, cause you won't cook those well-intentioned veggies otherwise)
1/3 c grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 c toasted walnuts
1 clove garlic
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
Black pepper and salt
1 small container part-skim ricotta cheese
Your favorite pasta

Dump the steamed broccoli (cooked in bag or you can just boil it up until it's bright green but not soggy), cheese, nuts, garlic, lemon juice and zest into a food processor. Pulse until chopped fine. Turn on the processor and drizzle in the olive oil until you get a smoother paste (pesto - paste - get it?). You may need a little more oil. Season with black pepper and a little salt.

Cook up as much (I guess a box or less - I use very little) pasta as you like - but be sure to pull out 1 cup or so of cooking water before you drain it.

Now, you can be flexible in the assembly. Add some or all of your pesto to a big serving bowl. Stir in some hot pasta water, a little at a time, until the sauce is smooth. You may not need all of it. Now, add the ricotta cheese and the drained cooked pasta. Mix well. Add some pepper or lemon to taste. Enjoy! Also packs off to work and freezes well.

My Weird Comfort Food Soup

I make this an awful lot.

Lipton Ring o Noodle Soup
2 Eggs
Handful grated Parmesan, Romano or Asiago cheese

Cook up soup according to package directions. Beat the eggs with the cheese. Stir it into the boiling soup. Stir a bit until the egg is shredded and cooked.

Sunny day, chasing the clouds away....

Sorry, but the Sesame Street theme just came up in my party shuffle. Party, indeed!

Janet told me this weekend, upon much caressing of her hot new iPod Touch, that she wasn't a "shuffle girl." That she liked whole albums, instead. That's OK. For me, it depends on my mood. Sometimes it's party shuffle, sometimes it's ten repetitions of Mitch Hedberg.

Joe Powers is in the hospital. If you don't know him, he's a sweet young comic who was in a terrible accident. Pray to whatever g-ds you do or don't believe in that he pulls through good and strong.

Can you tell me how to get? How to get to Sesame Street.

I had a lovely, lovely weekend in Chicago, for real. It wasn't just the getting away (which may have been nuts of me, given the short "whirlwind" trip and the fact that I leave for California this weekend). It was the complete and total dissolution of a sense of responsibility and decision making. And I can thank my lovely friends Janet and Ken for that, from picking me up at the el to gently depositing me at O'Hare full of pork omelette and giggles. We did tons of stuff, interspersed with some serious lumping around. I even slept better. I really needed to get the hell out of Dodge. Saw a benefit at the Old Town school (and ate free skordalia till I emanated garlic); hit the Taste of Polonia festival (an amazing fest of all things Polish. Sto lat!); went to a fantastic dance performance by the Breakbone Dance Company (perhaps inspiring me to get off my butt); and the traditional pre-airport Sunday brunch at Java Thai. And lots of nice, hard dozing and music-listening and cheese-snacking. I really needed that.

I don't have the speakers hooked up to my new mac mini, but the built in invisible ones don't really suck for my purposes. Nice!

I'm not tired anymore. Not much. A bit bouncier than I was an hour ago, perhaps. But otherwise OK.