Yup. More foodblogging. (WhatcanIsay, I know what I like. :> )

If your looking for authentic, or gourmet, this aint it. What it is is tasty, and easy to make.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups rice (I use jasmine rice)
• 1 can (6.5 oz)  minced clams (with juice)
• 1 can (5 oz) tuna
• 1 can (3 oz) smoked oysters
• 1/2 to 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp turmeric
• If you want to be exotic 1/4 tsp Lemongrass

Combine all ingredients in bowl of a rice cooker, and cook as normal for 2c of rice.

OR if you don’t have a rice cooker,  add an additional 1/2 cup of stock, and simmer on stovetop until liquid is absorbed.

Simple, and except for the optional lemongrass (which you can get at any asian market) the ingredients are easy to find.

From here.

Yup, more foodblogging. This one turned out fairly well.  This is some really good slow-cooked shredded pork, good for pulled pork sandwiches and such.

Ingredients:

• 1 pork shoulder (aka shoulder butt, or Boston butt)  about  6 to 9 pounds.  bone-in or boneless, it dosen’t really matter (the bone just falls out after cooking so it’s not hard to remove)
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1/4 lb of Dundee Orange Marmalade
• 1/4 lb Dundee ginger preserves
• 2 -3 tbsp coarse-ground mustard (whole grain German brown mustard, or coarse-grain Dijon are good )
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• salt and pepper to  taste

This is best made in a crock-pot.  I used a 6 qt crock-pot and a 7 lb pork shoulder. It just *barely* fit.  You can also use something like a Dutch  oven. The trick is this needs to be cooked  s-l-o-w-l-y for a long, long time.   I use Dundee brand marmalade for this (it comes in a pretty recognizable white crock) as it’s much better than most brands (it’s made with real bitter oranges) .  The ginger preserves are less critical. I don’t like my meat too sweet (some people put alot of sugar on pork), so the marmalade is good, as it’s more balanced.  If you like it a bit sweeter, you can add more marmalade/preserves.

Instructions:

Slice the onions and arrange on the bottom of the crock-pot. Put the pork shoulder in the crock, ontop of the onions, with the fat layer on top.  in a measuring cup, mix the stock, marmalade, preserves and mustard. Stir it well to dissolve the marmalade and preserves.  Pour the mix slowly over the top of the meat, and cover the crock-pot.  Turn it on “High” for 1-2 hours,  then turn it to “Low”  and cook for at least 8-10 hours, (I leave it on overnight and while I’m at work the next day.) You really can’t overcook this stuff. After it’s cooked,  don’t even bother trying to lift the meat out of the crock, it’ll just fall apart.  Just pull out the bone if there is one, and shred with two forks. Add salt and pepper to taste.

If you are using a dutch oven, you can put it on the stove on med-low for an hour, then  on low-as-it-goes for the rest (or if your dutch oven is oven-ready (i.e. a cast-iron one) you can put it in a 200-degree oven for the slow-cook.)

No, I’m not being vulgar, that is actually the language’s name.  bf, or brainf*ck if you are really sensitive.  I’m going to suspect someone created it on a bet. Basically, the idea was to create the most minimalistic computer language possible that you could still write programs in.  If you’ve ever actually tried writing anything in it, you will find it’s aptly named.

How did I wind up inspired to mess with something like this? Er, well, a few days ago, some bf code was embedded in a webcomic I read, and, in the grand tradition of doing things the hard way, I was inspired to write my own bf interpreter in python to see what the code did. (I found out. It prints “Beep!”. )  anyway, here is my interpreter:

import sys 

class BFInterp(object):
    INST = { '>' :  'incp',
                   '<' : 'decp',
                   '+' : 'inc',
                   '-' : 'dec',
                   '.' : 'output',
                   ',':'input',
                   '[' :'bra',
                   ']': 'ket' }
    def __init__(self, stack_size = 30000, max_val = 256 ):
        self.stacksize = stack_size
        self.maxval = max_val
        self.stack = [0] *  stack_size
        self.debug = False
        self.code = ''

    def reset(self):
        self.cp = 0
        self.pointer = 0 

    def framesweep(self):
        self.bramap = {}
        self.ketmap = {}
        last = []
        for i in range(len(self._code)):
            op = self._code[i]
            if op == '[':
                last.append(i)
            if op == ']':
                self.bramap[last.pop()] = i
        if last:
            raise IndexError("Unbalanced []'s ")
        for k, v in self.bramap.items():
            self.ketmap[v] = k 

    def get_code(self):
        return self._code

    def set_code(self, val):
        self._code = val
        self.reset()
        self.framesweep()

    code = property(get_code, set_code) 

    def get_val(self):
        return self.stack[self.pointer]

    def set_val(self, value):
        self.stack[self.pointer] = value % self.maxval

    value = property(get_val, set_val)

    def incp(self):
        if (self.pointer+1) >= self.stacksize:
            raise ValueError("Pointer Overflow Error!")
        self.pointer += 1

    def decp(self):
        if self.pointer < 1:
            raise ValueError("Pointer Underflow Error!")
        self.pointer -= 1

    def inc(self):
        self.value = self.value + 1

    def dec(self):
        self.value = self.value - 1

    def output(self):
        sys.stdout.write(chr(self.value))

    def input(self):
        self.value = ord(sys.stdin.read(1))

    def bra(self):
        if not self.value:
            self.cp = self.bramap[self.cp]

    def ket(self):
        if self.value:
            self.cp = self.ketmap[self.cp]

    def execute(self, code):
        self.code = code
        self.run()

    def run(self):
        while self.step():
            pass

    def step(self):
        if self.code[self.cp] in self.INST:
            getattr(self, self.INST[self.code[self.cp]])()
        self.cp += 1
        if self.debug:
            sys.stderr.write(str(self) + "\n")
        return self.cp < len(self.code)

    def __str__(self):
        return  "BFInterp state: Inst #%s[%s] p = %s, val = %s" % (self.cp, self.code[self.cp], self.pointer, self.value)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    b = BFInterp()
    b.code = '+++++++++++[>+++[>++>+++>+<<<-]<-]>>.>++..+++++++++++.>.'
    b.run()

And yes, it’s quite intelligible for a bf interpreter. There is one in assembly that is 240 bytes long.

Tis’ the season, and so forth. Thanksgiving is just past, Christmas is ahead .   I shared Thanksgiving with a friend’s family this year, but I couldn’t resist doing some cooking as well, so I did a little feast for myself and a few friends on the weekend.  Instead of Yet Another Turkey, I did a roast Goose fer a bit of a change.  As usual I did a bit of experimenting and came up with this stuffing recipe:

Italian Sausage stuffing:

• 1-1/4 lb hot Italian sausage
• 2 cups celery, chopped
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 green bell peppers, cored and chopped
• 3 cups cooked brown rice
• 1 sliced roma tomato
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 tsp majoram
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 2 tsp basil
• salt (to taste)
• 2 tbsp butter

Melt butter in a large sauté pan, add onions and celery.  Sauté  on high heat until the onions start to turn translucent. Add peppers, and cover, letting the vegetables cook down a bit, stirring periodically.

While that is cooking,  in another pan, brown the italian sausage, then let it cook through. When the sausage is done,  slice it crosswise into thin slices (~ 1/4  or so).

When the bell peppers have cooked though, uncover the vegtable mix, and add 4 cloves crushed, choppped garlic. Add spices to vegtables, stir, and remove from heat.

In a large mixing bowl,  combine sliced sausage, vegetable mix, walnuts and rice. Stir the mixture, mixing it up thoroughly, and adding a pinch or two of salt if needed.   Start stuffing your bird. Just before you’ve filled it entirely, put some slices of fresh roma tomato inside the bird, ontop of the stuffing mix.  Before you close up the opening in the bird, cover stuffing with tomato slice, and put in a whole garlic clove.

This recipe made a little more than I needed for my 9 lb goose, but would be just right for a larger goose, or a small turkey.

Yup I’m back to blogging :>

I’ve been cooking more often lately in an effort to not eat out so much, both for health and money reasons. Consequently I’ve been experimenting. When I cook, I experiment. Part of this involves picking up random things at the supermarket, or the various odd little mexican/asian/hippy-food groceries I like to wander thru on occasion. On this occasion, the oddity of the week was some baccalà. Baccalà is salt-cod, dried, salted codfish.  It keeps well, as it will last basically forever as long as you keep it cool and dry.  To use it you soak it in a bowl of water overnight in the refridgerator, changing the water 2-3 times.

Here’s the results of my experimenting w/ it:

Beer braised  Baccalà:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb baccalà/salt-cod (I used christobol brand), soaked (see above)
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 med onion,  finely chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and thin sliced
• olive oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• 4-5 tbsp tomato, spinach and cheese pasta sauce [1]
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup  beer (preferrably a good wheat beer, like a dark wheat bock. I used Sam Adams dark wheat bock/winter brew)

Note: [1] Use good pasta sauce, or make your own, it’s just crushed tomatoes, spinach, provolone, parmesan, garlic & oregeno

1. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil, an boil the fish for 15 min.  Drain, and break into bite-sized pieces.  Put aside.
2. in a sauté pan, melt 2 tbsp  butter,  and add olive oil.
3. sauté onions til tender and translucent , then add  bell pepper.  Let cook for 2-3 min covered.
4. Add chicken stock, and pasta sauce to onions and peppers, stir
5. Add in the baccalà, and the beer.  Stir to coat the fish. You want enough liquid to braise the fish in, but not enough to cover it.
6. Cover pan, simmer on low heat for 1 hr. Check periodically  to make sure sauce does not dry out. If it looks low, add a little hot water, or more beer, if you like.
7. Done! Serve as is, or over rice or vermicelli noodles.

Serves 2 - 4.

Seafood + Beer. It don’t get better than that.

Here’s a random meme that drifted by: Your own album cover.

1. Go to Wikipedia’s Random Article page. The title of the article is the name of your band.
2. Go to the Random Quotes page. The last four words of the last quote are your album title.
3. Go to Flickr’s Interesting Photos from the last 7 days page. The third image is your cover art.

There you go:

Hmm….. I haven’t written in awhile. I aught to correct that. I’ve been traveling, I drove from San Antonio to Chicago to see the family over Thanksgiving. This was good, it was nice to see them (I haven’t in awhile).

On the drive there (and back) I learned a few things:

1. The “Oklahoma Road Block” (vehicles in each lane traveling side-by-side at exactly the same speed, usually slowly) is named that for a reason.
2. At the right time in late fall, the countryside along I44 in Missouri is very pretty. On the way there, there were forests full of fire-engine-red leaves.
3. Somewhere in Missouri there is a steakhouse (and motel ?!) called Zeno’s. It’s very hard to get to. (First off, you have to get halfway there, but before that, you have to get half-way to there, and before *that* you have to get halfway to there… it seems like it’d take forever… )

Anyway, whilst there, many things happened that will be the subject of future posts, namely:

1. I received an heirloom
2. I learned some things about olives, and
3. I impressed my mother with some vegetarian cooking .

Ok, well, I have a project. It all started when, thanks to a fortunate encounter with the owners of a bar that was going out of business, I obtained one of those bar soda-guns (actually four of them) and an assortment of some (but not all) of the parts needed to make it work. My initial thought was to clean the stuff up and eBay it, which I will probably do with the spares, but I figured, why not try putting together at least one system, and have my own soda fountain? After all, having a faucet in your house that dispenses cold, running soda-pop is something just about everyone has dreamed of as a kid, and what’s the use of being an adult if ya don’t actually get one of those dreams ever now and then?

Ok, so, let’s start with how these things work: The soda-guns used in bars are mostly post-mix devices, that mean that they mix a concentrated soda syrup with carbonated water right in the nozzle of the gun when you press the button. Usually it’s mixed 5 parts soda-water to 1 part syrup. Here’s the soda-gun I’m going to use:

The gun itself is a passive device, it’s basically just a faucet. This one has six buttons on it for soda, pushing one just opens the valve for the soda-water and one of the valves for the syrup. (there’s also a button that just does soda-water) This gun actually has two water inputs, so if you want, you can dispense both soda and from-concentrate non-carbonated drinks like orange juice. I have both inputs hooked up for soda-water, tho. If you look closely, you can see the white valves on the base of the gun’s hose. Those are used to set the flow rate for the syrup, relative to the soda-water, so you can get the right ratio (a process called ‘brixing’).

Next up, we have the actual source of the soda-water, the carbonator :

Here’s the basics of carbonating water: CO2 will dissolve in water fairly easily. How much CO2 dissolves depends on two things, the temperature and the pressure. The colder the water, the more CO2 will dissolve in it. Also, the higher the pressure, the more CO2 will dissolve in the water. This carbonator uses high pressure to dissolve alot of CO2 in the water. If you take a look at the photo to the left, you will see a thinner hose going off to the right. That is hooked up to a CO2 tank and regulator like so:

This supplies CO2 gas at about 100psi to the carbonator, this supplies the pressure to carbonate the water (it helps to chill the water too, but we’ll get to that in a minute). The main part of the carbonator is that barrel-shaped silver tank. Water is pumped in by the pump on the side, which you can see better in this side-view below:

(The pump is the brass part on the side. It’s driven by the black electric motor) The water has to be pumped in because the carbonator tank is pressurized to 100psi by the CO2 gas. The pump will fill the tank about half-way then shut off. (it’s controlled by a float switch in the carbonator tank, the round black object on the top of the tank is the top of the float switch) The water is exposed to the high-pressure CO2 in the tank, absorbing some of it. When the soda-water valve is opened in the soda gun, pressure drives the soda-water out the outlets (the two hoses on the top of the carbonator tank) to the soda gun. Periodically, the pump will kick on to refill the tank. That’s basically it.

Now, in my case, the carbonator and gas related parts like the CO2 tank and regulator were the parts I was missing, so I had to buy those. I picked the carbonator up on eBay for $150 It’s a McCann’s E200097. The seller said it was a refurb, but it looks like brand new. I picked up the CO2 regulator here. Note that the regulator has to supply 100psi! There are a lot of regulators, used for pressurizing beer kegs, that won’t go much over 50psi, that’s not enough to run a carbonator off of. The CO2 tank I picked up at a local welding shop for $90, filled. It’s a standard-size 20lb tank and should last for years.

To connect it all together, I used braided-vinyl hose, which any hardware store will have, 1/4″ for the gas, 3/8″ for the water. Note: VERY IMPORTANT! Use braided vinyl tubing. It has extra reinforcement and will stand up to ~200psi. Both the gas hose, and the soda-water outlet hoses will be exposed to high pressures up to 100psi. Unreinforced vinyl tubing WILL burst at those pressures. Use braided hose, and good hose-clamps. And don’t use copper tubing. soda-water is corrosive, and can leach toxic amounts of copper from the tubing.

When hooking things up, a good trick to know is that the vinyl tubing will become much more flexible and rubbery if heated in boiling water. I needed to use that trick since the hose barb on the regulator was 5/16″ and the hose was 1/4″, after a minute of dipping the end of the hose in boiling water, it went on just fine.

So, this gets us flowing soda-water from the gun. In part II, we’ll chill out…

While shopping at Sun Harvest today, I picked up a really nice steak. Here’s a quick, simple recipe for a great steak dinner:

Portabella and Pepper Steak:

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized sirloin steak.
• 2 small red bell peppers, seeded, cut in 1/2″ strips
• 2 portabella mushroom caps, cut in 1/2″ strips
• black pepper (to taste)
• crushed red pepper (to taste)
• Seasoned salt (to taste)
• Butter (7 tbsp)
• olive oil (2-3 tbsp)

Take the tip of a sharp knife and pierce the steak every 1/4″ or so. Sprinkle with black pepper, crushed red pepper, and a pinch of seasoned salt. Flip and do the same to the other side.

Put about 5 pats of butter (~1 tbsp ea.) on the steak and put it under the broiler for 8-10 min, flipping it halfway through. (The reason for piercing the steak is to let the butter and spices soak in. Don’t omit that step. )

While that is broiling, put 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp olive oil in (hot) saucepan, and sauté the mushrooms and bell peppers on high heat. Once the peppers and mushrooms have softened a bit, add black pepper, crushed red pepper and a dash of seasoned salt. Cover and cook until you just begin to see the peppers blacken at the edges.

The steak and the veggies should be done just about the same time. Take out the steak, cut into 1/2″ strips, and place the peppers and mushrooms over the top.

Taa-daa:

Real simple. Reaallyy good.