chili lime corn on the cob
Posted: September 19, 2018 Filed under: Cooking, Recipes Leave a comment
Terry and I have started kicking our corn on the cob up a notch. I have collected a handful of recipes and I often pull one out when we have corn.
Recently we used a chili lime corn recipe. It was in Sunset but was by Guy Fieri, which is interesting as you usually don’t see recipes by Food Network personalities in Time, Inc. magazines.
In any case it included lime zest, chili powder, granulated garlic, and black pepper. Since I had the lime for lime zest I threw in some lime juice as well. It was excellent.
And the burger. Everyone says to use 80/20 for burgers, but Terry and I like 93/7. It gives us a nice lean burger with minimal fat.
bargain books
Posted: September 18, 2018 Filed under: Books Leave a commentI read most of my books on my iPad Kindle app these days, but I was thinking recently about how much I have enjoyed bargain books in the past. Then what should show up in the mail but a catalog from Daedalus Books: one of the leading mail order sellers of bargain books.
Bargain books come in three categories:
- Remainders: where the publisher sells its stock of a title, usually but not always hardcover, to a distributor that gets the book out to retailers at a deeply discounted price.
- Reprints: books, generally out of copyright, that are reprinted and sold in less expensive editions.
- Imports: books imported from elsewhere and sold at a low price.
The catalog was just too tempting. I ordered three books, two for me and one for Terry: one remainder and two imports.
I love my Kindle books, but here’s to books on paper. And to bargain books.
Sunday dinner
Posted: September 17, 2018 Filed under: Cooking, Recipes Leave a comment
When I was growing up we would usually have Sunday dinner mid-afternoon. Dinner was, frequently, roast beef. It was a central part of my growing up.
Recently I got a bee under my bonnet and thought Terry and I should have our own Sunday dinner. Terry agreed. I put a spice rub on a chuck roast and cooked it in our Cuisinart CPC-6000 pressure cooker: 70 minutes plus ten minutes for natural pressure release with water and cooking port up to the level of the trivet. I boiled potatoes for mashed potatoes and Terry made the gravy.
Simple. Easy. Very tasty. Terry loved it.
Sacred Music Friday: Day by Day
Posted: September 14, 2018 Filed under: Music Leave a comment“Day by Day” is something I need to keep at the top of my mind these days:
“See the more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by day.”
I’ve shared this one before, but I really love this version from the Godspell revival earlier this decade.
Northland
Posted: September 13, 2018 Filed under: Books Leave a comment
Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border
Porter Fox
W. W. Norton & Company (July 3, 2018), 272 pages
Kindle edition $12.99, Amazon hardcover $19.86
I haven’t read a travel book in a while, so it was a pleasure to delve into this one.
The book focuses on the border between the United States and Canada. Fox writes of his own travel along the border, moving east to west. He also includes a substantial amount of history, and even current events.
He describes how long it took for the border to be agreed upon and about how errors in mapping and surveying put the border in the wrong place at various locations for extended periods of time. Political considerations played a role as well. He goes into considerable detail about his visit to the Standing Rock protest of the Dakota Access pipeline.
Fox also writes about how the events of 9/11 and how the current administration’s attitude towards immigration have made border crossings much less pleasant than they were in previous years.
Porter Fox is a skilled writer and as travel books go Northland is one of the better ones.
using rojo taco seasoning
Posted: September 12, 2018 Filed under: Cooking, Recipes Leave a comment
Some time back the folks at Penzeys Spices were promoting their Rojo Taco Seasoning. I ordered a jar and it sat on the shelf for a long time. I decided to use it recently and put half the bottle in my tostada beans in the pressure cooker. I totally, completely botched that meal. Seems the seasoning completely altered the composition of the beans and I failed to respond to the signals my nose was getting to turn the damned heat off under the cooker. Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake.
I used the remainder of the seasoning in a far more foolproof manner. I marinated cut-up flap meat for tacos. I let the meat marinate for a good seven plus hours and then cooked it in a cast iron skillet. Terry and I did our tortilla production line.
Really marvelous! The taste is hard to characterize, but I would call it a sort of chili and citrus combination. A different flavor than we’ve had on our tacos previously.
It worked out well.
Just Play
Posted: September 11, 2018 Filed under: Movies, Television Leave a commentI am not immune to the current streaming phenomenon. We subscribe to both Netflix and Hulu and we can get movies via Amazon Prime as well. (In addition we’ll re-subscribe to CBS All Access when Star Trek: Discovery returns in January.)
The problem is that it’s not easy to find out what is available where. I have had to check each service individually to see where a given movie is available. I was looking for a better solution and found one. It’s called Just Play. When I set it up I specified the services to which I subscribe. Now I can search for a movie and it will tell me which services have it available for streaming.
How cool is that?
It’s available for iOS. Google couldn’t find the app, so I don’t know if there’s an Android version.
