So up until very recently I had a blender. It was a blender my Father bought me at a time when he obviously thought I needed one. When I asked him why he bought me a blender (it was no special occasion) he responded, "Most people would just be grateful." I take that to mean that he had no reason at all -- he just did.
Anyway, this blender my Dad bought me is of the brand "Toastess" I suppose that it might be good or bad, I don't really know anything about small appliance brands. (Unless your microwave says 'Sony' on it... but that's another story...)
So this blender actually was a bit of a pain in the butt. You see, it had vertical grooves in the side of the conical glass part. This is fine and quite an aesthetic attempt, unfortunately the thickness of the glass didn't vary, for the result of there being flanges on the interior. Now, a blender has a blade which spins and creates a vortex. The vortex makes the stuff inside swirl like a whirlpool and takes the stuff from the top, spins it to the bottom and through the blades. That means everything gets blended evenly. Unfortunately these flanges slowed everything down and made manual help necessary. Of course, manually assisting your blender is a VERY BAD IDEA. I mean, a GOD DAMNED bad idea. (And I never say that!)
Regardless, all my fingers and toes remain intact, happily. Just 5 minutes ago my glass blender piece dropped off the counter and shattered on my carpeted kitchen floor. Unbelievable. And don't tell me it was my negative thinking.
Anyway, I designed a better blender. It has flanges on the sides, but instead of being vertical they are not quite horizontal and they spiral to assist in the matter inside getting spun around. Furthermore, the cylinder could be made of metal, instead of glass. Metal is nice and shiny and easy to clean, whereas glass is cheaper looking, easy to clean, and transparent. Transparency is a nice quality but so is style. What I hate is having a spout on your blender -- it's impossible to clean out thoroughly. Furthermore, spouts should work. They should be wide and also deep. My blender had a spout which was essentially a lip at the top. It is important to extend the spout deeply so that tipping the blender at a lesser angle still results in pouring. Otherwise if you tip the blender at the greatest angle, the width of the stuff coming out is wide enough to spill beyond any glass. Furthermore, blenders should not have blades, but should have blunt metal flanges. This beats and breaks matter up instead of cutting it. This is a huge difference in regards to organic and biochemical processes. Actually if the blades could be made non-metallic, such as cubic boron nitride, I'd be alot happier. However that's quite expensive. Another thing I'd like is to have the blades driven by electromagnets as opposed to a standard electric motor, so that no matter how much resistance is encountered, no melting or burning out of a motor results.
That's my better blender. Cheers!
Showing posts with label Recipe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recipe. Show all posts
March 29, 2007
December 14, 2006
Eating (and Cooking) Habits
So as I was sitting in the kitchen, eating some of the soup I made last week, I began thinking about why I cook the way I do, and why I eat the way I do. So this post is mostly a reflective exercise on my part. The first thing I actually did was examine how I cook and eat. I realized that the two are combined and form a fundamental part of my life, and I think that this is true for many people. I firmly believe diet is fundamental to who a person is, and it is remarkably malleable, at that. But I'll get to defending that later.
How do I eat?
Well, first of all, I eat a lot. I reached an all time low in bodyweight in Aug 05 and for the last year and a bit have been trying to put weight back on, something I wasn't really successful with until the last month or so. For most of my life, when I have been doing hard physical work, I have eaten enormous amounts. For one period in particular, I would start the day with a pound of bacon and 6 eggs. Actually, when I eat eggs I typically eat half a dozen anyway. I never skip breakfast, and if I do, or even delay it, I feel awful and am absolutely wretched to those around me.
How do I cook?
My cooking style is pretty dependent on the other aspects of my life. My schedule is pretty busy. Spending time with my family has been important to me since I was about 5, and it remains a powerful motivator for me. Like most people, I have friends and like to spend time with them too, of course that is a little different from when I was 5, as I now have a car, a cell phone, and credit cards. And finally, there's school/work. Between spending time slaving, studying, or socializing, how do I find the time to cook? Well, mostly I cook in large homogenous batches. I cook stew or soup in a crockpot and eat it throughout the week. I like chili and pasta and will cook a very large pot. I keep the pasta sauce in the fridge and cook noodles every other day or so until it's gone. These "homogenous" dishes are easy to transport, and if you avoid plasticware and use a glass dish with a lid, you can microwave it anywhere too.
So why is all that important, and why did I say it was fundamental to who someone is?
Well, if you hate cooking because it's a lot of work for little reward, I would agree with you. I don't cook things so that they taste good... because then you eat them and they're gone, and that sucks. Of course I try to make the things I cook taste good, but that's not the primary reason I cook. I see food as having two effects: there is a short term effect of taste, while it is being eaten. Then there is a long term effect of what it does to you after you've eaten it. So if you think in the latter fashion, then you might like cooking because it's a lot of work for a lot of reward. For me, the reward of cooking is being healthy and feeling good. I like being full of energy and spunk. The taste-good part of eating is not enough to motivate me... when I know I'm going to get a headache or feel like crap later because I ate 3 cakes and tray of brownies, it's not worth it. On the other hand, I can eat raw broccoli for breakfast because I know I'm going to be doing backflips off my coffee table later.
How do I eat?
Well, first of all, I eat a lot. I reached an all time low in bodyweight in Aug 05 and for the last year and a bit have been trying to put weight back on, something I wasn't really successful with until the last month or so. For most of my life, when I have been doing hard physical work, I have eaten enormous amounts. For one period in particular, I would start the day with a pound of bacon and 6 eggs. Actually, when I eat eggs I typically eat half a dozen anyway. I never skip breakfast, and if I do, or even delay it, I feel awful and am absolutely wretched to those around me.
How do I cook?
My cooking style is pretty dependent on the other aspects of my life. My schedule is pretty busy. Spending time with my family has been important to me since I was about 5, and it remains a powerful motivator for me. Like most people, I have friends and like to spend time with them too, of course that is a little different from when I was 5, as I now have a car, a cell phone, and credit cards. And finally, there's school/work. Between spending time slaving, studying, or socializing, how do I find the time to cook? Well, mostly I cook in large homogenous batches. I cook stew or soup in a crockpot and eat it throughout the week. I like chili and pasta and will cook a very large pot. I keep the pasta sauce in the fridge and cook noodles every other day or so until it's gone. These "homogenous" dishes are easy to transport, and if you avoid plasticware and use a glass dish with a lid, you can microwave it anywhere too.
So why is all that important, and why did I say it was fundamental to who someone is?
Well, if you hate cooking because it's a lot of work for little reward, I would agree with you. I don't cook things so that they taste good... because then you eat them and they're gone, and that sucks. Of course I try to make the things I cook taste good, but that's not the primary reason I cook. I see food as having two effects: there is a short term effect of taste, while it is being eaten. Then there is a long term effect of what it does to you after you've eaten it. So if you think in the latter fashion, then you might like cooking because it's a lot of work for a lot of reward. For me, the reward of cooking is being healthy and feeling good. I like being full of energy and spunk. The taste-good part of eating is not enough to motivate me... when I know I'm going to get a headache or feel like crap later because I ate 3 cakes and tray of brownies, it's not worth it. On the other hand, I can eat raw broccoli for breakfast because I know I'm going to be doing backflips off my coffee table later.
Chili (and Sodexho's Sucks!)
Ingredients:
2 cans Hunt's Tomato Sauce
1 can Scarpone's Red Kidney Beans
1 can Scarpone's Black Beans
1 can Scarpone's Mixed Beans (Red Kidney, Chickpeas, Blackeye)
1 Green Bell Pepper*
1 Onion*
3-4 stalks Celery*
1 kg Cooked Ground Beef
0.5-1.0 jar Salsa*
Seasoning (Chili Powder et al) to taste!
Directions:
1. Fry the beef until thoroughly cooked. Cook it into small pieces for a homogenous chili. Rinse under very hot water to remove most of the fat. Add to the Pot.
2. Finely slice and dice celery and onion and add to the Pot. I prefer to do these two first because they are very crunchy and they take the longest to soften.
3. Add two cans of tomato sauce, any amount of salsa, at least a tablespoon of chili powder, and turn to low heat.
4. Open and drain the cans of beans, and add to the Pot.
5. Finely chop bell pepper and add at any time after this. Most of the fibre in bell peppers is soluble, so they become very soft quite quickly. Beans are mostly insoluble fibre, so they do not change consistency much once added. I prefer to add peppers once the crunchy bits like onion and celery are cooked to the degree I like them, or just before.
6. Let the chili simmer for at least 1.5 hours and then taste it. Adjust flavour with seasoning. If you taste it or add seasoning while the ingredients are still raw, it won't come out quite right, unless you've done it similarly before and you know how much to add.
* Ingredients marked * are organic. I recommend getting everything organic that you can!
2 cans Hunt's Tomato Sauce
1 can Scarpone's Red Kidney Beans
1 can Scarpone's Black Beans
1 can Scarpone's Mixed Beans (Red Kidney, Chickpeas, Blackeye)
1 Green Bell Pepper*
1 Onion*
3-4 stalks Celery*
1 kg Cooked Ground Beef
0.5-1.0 jar Salsa*
Seasoning (Chili Powder et al) to taste!
Directions:
1. Fry the beef until thoroughly cooked. Cook it into small pieces for a homogenous chili. Rinse under very hot water to remove most of the fat. Add to the Pot.
2. Finely slice and dice celery and onion and add to the Pot. I prefer to do these two first because they are very crunchy and they take the longest to soften.
3. Add two cans of tomato sauce, any amount of salsa, at least a tablespoon of chili powder, and turn to low heat.
4. Open and drain the cans of beans, and add to the Pot.
5. Finely chop bell pepper and add at any time after this. Most of the fibre in bell peppers is soluble, so they become very soft quite quickly. Beans are mostly insoluble fibre, so they do not change consistency much once added. I prefer to add peppers once the crunchy bits like onion and celery are cooked to the degree I like them, or just before.
6. Let the chili simmer for at least 1.5 hours and then taste it. Adjust flavour with seasoning. If you taste it or add seasoning while the ingredients are still raw, it won't come out quite right, unless you've done it similarly before and you know how much to add.
* Ingredients marked * are organic. I recommend getting everything organic that you can!
December 10, 2006
Zoup
Vegetable Soup:
4 Stalks Celery*
1.5 cups Brown Jasmine Rice*
1 head Cauliflower*
1 head and stalk Broccoli*
3 handfuls mini-Carrots*
2 sweet yellow Onions*
1L Imagine Potato and Leek Soup*
1L Sweet Potato Soup*
2 cans Hunt's Tomato Sauce
1 can Garbanzo Beans
2.5 cups Green Peas*
2 tbsp Parsley
1 tbsp Seasoning Salt
Cut the larger ingredients into pieces approximately the size of sugar cubes or a bit smaller. Cut the onion a bit smaller yet, unless yu like crunchy onion. I peeled the broccoli stalk with a potato peeler and diced it. Throw it all in a crockpot and let it cook for ~4 hours. I throw the rice in uncooked and let it swell and thicken the soup while the other vegetables are softening.
Last time I made this I used different ratios, left out rice, celery and carrots, and had green onion and corn instead.
1) All ingredients marked * are organic.
2) All measurements are approximate. I don't measure when I cook.
3) I add a lot of black pepper by the bowl. I don't add it when cooking in case other people want to eat it too!
4 Stalks Celery*
1.5 cups Brown Jasmine Rice*
1 head Cauliflower*
1 head and stalk Broccoli*
3 handfuls mini-Carrots*
2 sweet yellow Onions*
1L Imagine Potato and Leek Soup*
1L Sweet Potato Soup*
2 cans Hunt's Tomato Sauce
1 can Garbanzo Beans
2.5 cups Green Peas*
2 tbsp Parsley
1 tbsp Seasoning Salt
Cut the larger ingredients into pieces approximately the size of sugar cubes or a bit smaller. Cut the onion a bit smaller yet, unless yu like crunchy onion. I peeled the broccoli stalk with a potato peeler and diced it. Throw it all in a crockpot and let it cook for ~4 hours. I throw the rice in uncooked and let it swell and thicken the soup while the other vegetables are softening.
Last time I made this I used different ratios, left out rice, celery and carrots, and had green onion and corn instead.
1) All ingredients marked * are organic.
2) All measurements are approximate. I don't measure when I cook.
3) I add a lot of black pepper by the bowl. I don't add it when cooking in case other people want to eat it too!
Mmmmn, Salad!
Try making a salad by:
In a bowl combine:
diced apple
diced leek
sliced bamboo shoots
diced bell pepper
1 can tuna (dolphin safe!)
Just enough of any creamy salad dressing
Stir it up, then mix in shredded Spinach, Romaine, or Greenleaf lettuce.
In a bowl combine:
diced apple
diced leek
sliced bamboo shoots
diced bell pepper
1 can tuna (dolphin safe!)
Just enough of any creamy salad dressing
Stir it up, then mix in shredded Spinach, Romaine, or Greenleaf lettuce.