For the record

I haven't forgotten about my blogs, but plans have changed. I'm trying to get back into drawing, so I'm planning to create a new blog. It will primarily serve as an art blog, but I also want to roll my current blogs into it as well. No sense juggling three. I hope to get that off the ground in about a month.

Crockpot cinnamon ginger poached pears

Ingredients:
3 cups water
1 cup sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
10 slices ginger
6 pears

Tools:
1 slow cooker
1 knife

Combine the water, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon in the slow cooker. Core and, if desired, peel the pears. If you want to leave the peel on, quarter the pears. Otherwise, there won't be enough surface area for the heated liquid to attack and the pears will be undercooked in the end. Cook on low for at least 4 hours (2 hours if using the high setting). After time is up, remove the pears. Turn the slow cooker on high and heat the liquid uncovered for 30 minutes. Save the resulting syrup and drizzle over the pears when you serve.

If all you have is ground cinnamon, roughly a tablespoon should be enough. The recipe works very well with apples too. The only thing to keep in mind is that apples will require more cooking time; 6-7 hours using the low setting.

Misadventures in Clearance Booze

A day late, I know. I was busy visiting the parents and helping them out with a few things.

Anyway, today's clearance acquisition is Johnny Love Aloha. Nearly the entire Johnny Love line of flavored vodkas was on the clearance endcap, so you may get to hear about another flavor at some point, but I digress. Aloha is a pineapple-flavored vodka, although calling it pineapple-flavored or even a vodka is a bit of a stretch. More on that later.

Johnny Love Aloha isn't entirely clear; the liquid has a slight yellowish tint to it. The scent actually favors coconut with just a hint of pineapple, and the label does mention coconut being in the mix. The taste, much like the scent, is more coconut than pineapple. I barely noticed the pineapple at all, really. The liquid goes down smooth without so much as a hint of harshness, but it has a kind of thick, syrupy viscosity I associate more with cordials/liqueurs than vodka. Hell, this stuff is so sweet it puts some of my favorite schnapps to shame. It overpowers the coconut and pineapple entirely unless you're drinking at room temperature.

The most I'll say for Johnny Love Aloha is that it is drinkable. It tastes like an overly-sweetened coconut rum, and I fear drinking too much of it at once could mean instant diabetes. I normally like the sweet things a great deal, but Johnny Love Aloha is too much for my sugar-loving taste buds.

Wish my oven cranked out food this good

Lately, I've been making an effort to get out more, which includes checking out restaurants in the area. I feel strange going to a restaurant solo, so I haven't eaten out much in the three years I've lived in my current location. Last night, I went with a friend to The Italian Oven, an Atlanta chain with three locations. The Stockbridge location is right across the street from my grocery store of choice.

Decor is what you'd expect of all but the more expensive Italian restaurants. Points for cleanliness though. They keep it so clean it almost seems sterile. Service was top-notch; we never had to wait long for anything, and the waitress didn't check on us so often it became an annoyance either. The time between ordering and food being put on the table was impressively short. Prices on food seemed more than reasonable, and drink prices were in line with the Atlanta norm.

And now to the food. The bread was to die for. Light and fluffy and encrusted with parmesan cheese on the outside. The bread is served alongside a little dish containing a layer of quality olive oil and more parmesan cheese. The house salad was excellent. Fresh and, more importantly, not drowning in dressing. Italian Oven uses a reasonable amount, which you don't see often anymore. My entree of choice last night: spicy shrimp and tomatoes over linguine. The linguine was a bit on the soft/overcooked side for my taste, but I like my pasta a bit firmer than the norm anyway. Let's say it was perfectly acceptable. The shrimp and crushed plum tomatoes were well-prepared, and the overall dish was spiced to perfection. Enough of a spicy kick to feel it, but not so much that it overwhelmed everything else. For dessert, my friend and I split an order of spumoni. My only quibble with the spumoni is that the nuts were all concentrated toward the bottom of the glass. Otherwise, it was fantastic. Tasty balls of pistachio ice cream adrift in some fine chocolate ice cream.

Short version: an above average restaurant I would eat at again. I may even check out their lunch fare tomorrow while I'm out running errands.

So, unfortunately, I think I've been spreading myself thin, as evidenced by my failure to consistently manage two entries a week here. The second blog and all the stuff going on in my life right now doesn't help. Since I'd rather over-deliver than under-deliver, I'll just promise one entry per week, favoring this blog. I'll throw up extras when I get some spare time.

The perfect condiment

I'm of course talking about hummus. Never really tried it until roughly two years ago, but now I eat it on everything calling for any kind of dressing or sauce. I even use hummus in place of mayo on sandwiches. It is normally used as a dip, but hummus can be more versatile than that. Nutritionally, it's pretty awesome. Vitamins, protein, and what fat it does contain is mostly unsaturated. Overall calorie count is low compared to most other dip options.

At some later date, I'm sure I'll have a recipe for you. As it stands now, my current blender isn't very good for making hummus; the texture usually comes out wrong. Sabra, if you have access to it, is the ultimate store-bought hummus. The texture is smooth without being excessively creamy, and the flavor is closer to homemade than any other brand I've tried. Better than homemade, compared to my own feeble attempts. I'm particularly fond of the roasted red pepper, supremely spicy, and roasted garlic versions. The only variant I don't particularly care for is spinach and artichoke. The day I tried it was the day I discovered I do not care for artichoke. Not one bit. Sabra also gets points for having fewer preservative ingredients than other big brands. I've also had good luck with some store brands, although Target's Archer Farms brand is the only one that leaps to mind at the moment.

A decent option when time is short

I've always liked QuikTrip's coffee and cold drink options, but their food is surprisingly not bad in a pinch. Tasty, cheap, and not any worse for you than comparable fast food.

First, the hot food. The hot dogs aren't particularly impressive. The over-sized taquitos hit the spot every once in a while, especially the chicken taquitos. The breakfast items are acceptable. The biscuits tend to be a little too hard and dry for my tastes, but I love the hot ham and cheddar on pretzel bread as well as both kinds of breakfast burrito. Grabbing a chorizo breakfast burrito after refilling my gas tank has become an almost weekly thing for me.

The fare from QT Kitchens has genuinely surprised me in a couple of ways. The salads are great; not quite as fresh or crisp as salads from a grocery store deli, but significantly better than any fast food salad I've tried. Same for the fruit cups. They tend to use too much mayo/sauce on their sandwiches and wraps, unfortunately. Everything else seems to more or less match the quality of the salads and fruit, but I cannot get past all that sauce drowning my taste buds. Most fast food joints seems to understand less is more when it comes that stuff. Hopefully QT Kitchens will grasp it someday.

So, yeah, trying to get back on the two-posts-a-week wagon. I don't foresee anything getting in the way. In the near future, at least. My plate may get a little full come late August/early September.

Crockpot chicken chili

You may notice that a fair number of my recipes involve the slow cooker. Honestly, if it weren't for my slow cooker, I'd probably never cook. Cooking for a group is an enjoyable activity, but cooking for one person feels more like a tedious chore. With a slow cooker, I simply dump a bunch of ingredients in the pot before work, and it morphs into delicious food by the time I get home. Some slow cooker recipes are more involved than that, but I don't use such recipes very often.

Ingredients:
3 15 oz. cans cannellini beans
3 chicken breasts
2 onions
3 red bell peppers
3 cloves garlic
1 4 oz. can diced green chiles
4 cups chicken broth
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano

Tools:
1 slow cooker
1 knife

Chop up the chicken breasts; doing so is significantly easier if you partially freeze the chicken (or only partially thaw if using frozen chicken breasts). Drain the liquid from the cans of beans. Seed and chop the bell peppers, chop the onions, and mince the garlic. Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker, and set to cook on low for at least 8 hours. Done.

The recipe mine evolved from calls for salt, but I find additional salt to be completely unnecessary. The chicken broth supplies more than enough, unless you use low sodium broth. And the one time I did use low sodium broth, I found I didn't particularly miss the presence of the salt.

Spicy chicken round-up

By now, most people are aware Chik-Fil-A finally added a spicy chicken sandwich to the menu. I tried it myself recently, so I figured I'd compare and contrast Chik-Fil-A's offering with my current (former?) favorite, the spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy's.

Chicken patty - The chicken itself is about the same. I like the crunchy texture of the Wendy's breading, but the Chik-Fil-A breading has more of a spicy kick to it. This category is a bit of a toss-up for me.

Bun - Chik-Fil-A's buns have always seemed soggy, flabby, and a little greasy to me. Wendy's buns maintain some degree of firmness, so they take this category.

Load-out - Wendy's likes to ruin perfectly good sandwiches with mayo. You can obviously order without, but I have to remember to order it that way AND the food preparer has to remember to deviate from standard procedure. The minuscule amount of veggie matter on a Wendy's sandwich is more or less unnoticeable, even as a textural component. Chik-Fil-A only uses a few pickle slices, but you can actually taste those. Chik-Fil-A gets the win.

Combo factor - Why would I want limp, bland fries from Wendy's when I could have waffle fries? Chik-Fil-A, hands down.

Overall - Chik-Fil-A wins. Fatality.

If anyone reads this blog, I guess I have some explaining to do.

Clearly, I have failed at making my Wednesday updates lately. Apologies. The summer blitz at my job has started, and it is interfering with my ability to make updates during the week. From here on out, I will endeavor to continue making two updates a week, but I can make no promises regarding when the not-Sunday update will be.

Guac-a-mole

 Might have used too much lime juice in this batch. Still delicious.

I used to think I hated guacamole, but it turns out my problem with it was largely one of texture. Thanks to a Mexican restaurant near where my parents live, I discovered a form of the stuff I love. It should be noted that aside from the handling of the avocados, this is basically Alton Brown's recipe from Good Eats. A good, basic recipe that can easily be modified to suit different tastes.

Ingredients:
3 Haas avocados
1 lime
2 Roma tomatoes
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Tools:
1 knife
1 spoon

Time:
20 minutes

First step is to seed and dice the Roma tomatoes. If Romas are out of season or otherwise unavailable, half a can petite diced tomato will do in a pinch. Dice the onion half, and dump everything so far into whatever container you intend to use for storage. Juice the lime. If you're using a bottle of lime juice, about 2-3 ounces should do the trick. Add the juice to the tomato and onion mixture.

Now on to the avocados. Cut into an avocado and pivot the knife around the pit in the center. Split the avocado, remove the pit, and take off the peel. If the peel doesn't want to release from the flesh, work the spoon around the edge. Dice the two avocado halves. Immediately transfer the bits into the container, and gently mix everything together before moving on to the next avocado. The acidity of the tomato and lime should prevent unpleasant looking changes in the avocado's color from contact with the air.

Mince your garlic (or grab a 1/2 teaspoon from a jar of pre-minced) and add to the mix. Then add the salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper. Mix everything together. Again, gently. I like to hand mix, but that can get plenty messy, so one could always use the spoon. The guacamole is ready to eat at this point, but it gets even better if you cover and leave it in the refrigerator for about an hour before consuming.

If possible, use the guacamole within 2 to 3 days. It'll remain edible for a few days beyond that, but it tends to pick up some off flavors in those last days. Plus the avocado bits start to break down and get soft. Well, softer.

Save the Schwartzhog

Schwartzhog is a relatively new liqueur on the US scene, but I already think it is one of the best. I was saddened to discover that I'm one of the few people buying it at the one liquor store nearby that carries it. Although, I must admit I only bought it the first time because the store put the 750mL bottles on sale.

Doesn't take a genius to see how similar the packaging is to that of Jagermeister. Both are krauter (herbal/spiced) liqueurs, and the two are more or less the same shade of dark brown. The base flavors, however, are very different. While Jagermeister is anise/licorice-based, Schwartzhog tastes like cola. Specifically, Schwartzhog tastes a great deal like an herb-infused Red Bull Cola. I hate Red Bull the energy drink with every fiber of my being, but I consider Red Bull the cola to be one of the finest beverages on the planet. Naturally, I fell in love with Schwartzhog right away.

It tastes good at room temperature, but it tastes exceptional when chilled in the freezer. The taste is pleasing enough that I almost consider mixing with it to be a crime, but it does go well with most forms of carbonated beverage if you are so inclined. If cola is your bag, you'll probably like Schwartzhog. If not, I pity you.

Smoothie Criminal

I once found the prospect of making smoothies somewhat intimidating, and for the life of me, I can't remember why. Smoothies are ridiculously easy to make. If I'm feeling too lazy to cook, I throw some ingredients in the blender and blend away. Takes two minutes. Maybe.

My smoothies typically involve three ingredients: ice, liquid, and fruit. And by using frozen fruit, I don't even need the ice. If I'm not using frozen, my personal guideline is 2 parts fruit to 1 part ice. Frozen fruit or not, I like for the liquid level to come about 1/3 of the way up the pile of solids in the blender pitcher. Usually a favorite fruit juice, although I sometimes use flavored seltzer to cut the sweetness a bit. I've tried nearly every fruit I can find, since I often grab randomly at whatever I have in the kitchen. Not every combination achieves deliciousness, but even a bad smoothie tends to be at least drinkable because of the sweetness/sugar. They're like dessert wines in that respect. Tomato fits surprisingly well into a lot of combinations. Sweet (carrot, bell pepper) or relatively flavorless (celery, cucumber) vegetables can also work and offer interesting new textures.

Remember that breakfast recipe I put up a while back? Remember all my talk about experimenting being half the fun? Same idea here.

My perfect snack

Deep fried peanuts. I must admit, I thought the idea sounded terrible the first time I laid eyes on them a couple of years ago, and I was incredibly leery of eating the shells. I'm glad I got past all that and gave them a try.

Uncle Bud's Deep Fried Peanuts are crunchy and delicious. On the first bite, you get the crunch of the shell along with the flavor of the seasoning used on it. Continued chewing reveals the peanut-y goodness underneath. The shell is basically all fiber and indigestibles, so these peanuts will fill you up fast for not too many calories. You can remove the shell before eating, but after trying them whole, I fail to understand why anyone would do so. You have to take it easy on the shells though; too many at once and the fragments tend to cluster. You know, once they're inside. Leads to potential unpleasantness later. A risk I ultimately find myself more than willing to take.

The best flavors.

Live it, love it, Lose It!

Lose It! is, in my opinion, one of the finest free apps available for the iPhone/iPod Touch. It has been beyond helpful in my quest to lose weight, thanks to the simplicity of the interface and big database of food items.

At its heart, Lose It! is a calorie tracker. From a few pieces of information (age, weight, activity level, goals, etc.), it estimates the maximum number of calories you can eat in a day. After that, you simply punch in anything you eat along with portion sizes, and Lose It! does all the number crunching for you. If you ever eat something not in the database, Lose It! makes it easy to enter custom foods or create recipes from existing items. It also generates a 'My Foods' list, making it easier to find items you eat regularly. Lose It! can also be used to track calories burned through various physical activities, but I generally don't use that feature. Given that all the numbers are estimations, I prefer not to let myself believe I can eat a little more just because I walked for a couple of hours. Purely a personal preference though.

Over time, Lose It! has made me more aware of the number of calories in most foods. I can even manage to not break my diet on days when I forget to carry my iPod Touch. I'm not saying I couldn't have lost all that weight (55 pounds and counting) without Lose It!, but I believe the process would have been much slower without the assistance. In short, if you want to track what you shove in your food hole and have an appropriate device, there is no reason not to grab this app.

Budget Booze

Well, value booze would probably be a more accurate title, but it lacks that alliteration I love so much. Basically, I'm going to throw out names of a few items I think offer great bang for the buck. Today, I'll talk rum and vodka, since they tend to be alcoholic staples for me. Prices based on the big 1.75L bottles unless otherwise noted.

Cruzan Estate  - Quite possibly the best value in anything ever. I can usually find it for a mere $12, and what's in the bottle actually tastes good. Both the light and dark are smooth as can be.

Mount Gay Eclipse - Typically costs a Jackson, and tastes as good if not better than a fair number of rums I've tried at twice the price.

Luksusowa - A Polish import and one of the few readily available potato vodkas on the market. Also one of the smoothest vodkas I've ever had. I know of little that even comes close to matching it within $15 or more of the $20-24 price range where I usually find it.

Crockpot chicken tacos

Ingredients:
6 chicken breasts
2 onions, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped
1 jar salsa

Tools:
1 slow cooker
2 forks
1 knife

Time:
5-10 minutes prep
4-8 hours cooking time

Set the chicken breasts in the bottom of the crockpot. Roughly chop or dice the bell peppers and onions and place on top of the chicken breasts. Pour the jar of salsa over the other ingredients. Set the crockpot for at least 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.

Once cooking is done, shred the chicken with a couple of forks. Use the chicken/salsa mixture in your favorite tortillas or taco shells and top as desired.

The original recipe was e-mailed to me by a friend. I've slightly modified it since then, but the recipe is hard to screw up and easy to alter to suit individual tastes. I often add key lime juice to the mix myself.

Fast food staples

Because of the whole 'trying to be less of a fattie' thing, I obviously can't eat fast food terribly often. Certain places/items break the diet far less than others though, so certain chains have been getting a lot more of my business over the last 1.5 years.

Wendy's - Even with the dressing, most of their salads aren't awful for you, and they taste pretty damn good. The various wraps also fill one up with tastiness for a not obscene number of calories. Other fast food restaurants naturally have similar items on the menu, but the salads and wraps and such I've tried at places not named Wendy's taste awful or don't fill me up particularly well. 

Panda Express - Panda Express and the many related chains get crazy points for using fresh vegetables. Well, fresher than any other fast food-type place. Many of their entrees are less than 300 calories per serving, and the mixed vegetable side option is low cal AND fairly low sodium. For the love of all that is holy, avoid the Beijing Beef though. Beijing Beef tastes wonderful, but has nearly twice as many calories as the next highest calorie entree.

Subway - Subway can be as healthy or unhealthy as you want it to be. Personally, I usually get a basic turkey or chicken sub loaded with most of the available vegetables. A loaded footlong will usually cover my food needs for both lunch and dinner.

Staple of staples

A minor addendum to the previous entry

Since I mentioned my love of other flavors in the Talenti and Ciao Bella lines, I figured I'd mention a few of the standouts among the many I've tried.

Talenti Roman Raspberry Sorbet: Tastes like real raspberry and not the usual fake artificial raspberry flavoring. Goes down smooth, crisp, and clean.

Talenti Double Dark Chocolate Gelato: I'm a chocoholic, and this gelato is everything I want in a straight-up chocolate-flavored frozen treat. Rich as hell, creamy as can be, and tastes like a fist of pure dark chocolate pounding on your tongue. The pieces of semisweet chocolate don't hurt either.

Ciao Bella Key Lime Graham Gelato: Key lime pie stuffed into a one pint ice cream container. It's a hair light for a gelato, and maybe even for ice cream as well, but not so much that it ruins my enjoyment of the fantastic flavor. The graham cracker has been rendered into powder, so the bits aren't noticeable beyond the flavor they bring into the equation. No gross texture anomalies here.

Ciao Bella Blood Orange Sorbet: A perfect balance of sweet and tart. I could eat this one all day, every day.

If you only ever try one thing I recommend, make it this.

Two great tastes, one grievous error

I'm going to talk about two coconut-flavored frozen treats: one is a gelato and one is a sorbet, but both have the same critical flaw. A flaw I now find to be common in foods utilizing coconut as an ingredient rather than a topping.

Talenti Caribbean Coconut Gelato and Ciao Bella Coconut Sorbet both taste like coconut, so your feelings on that score should match your personal feelings regarding coconut in general. I love coconut, so clearly the flavor isn't the flaw I speak of. The problem is actually one of texture. Texture is king for me. Good texture overcomes questionable flavor, but unpleasent texture sinks even the most delicious of foods.

Would you eat ice cream after it fell in the sand? Because that's exactly what both  products feel like in the mouth. The coconut in both cases has been broken up into particles just big enough to make everything seem gritty. It is bizarre and unsettling. Maybe I'm a tad oversensitive when it comes to certain textures, but I cannot fathom how either product made it to market in this form. I will say I am a fan of both Talenti and Ciao Bella in general and consider many of their other flavors to be worth trying, but the coconut should be given the widest berth.

If you want coconut flavor in a frozen dessert without the texture problem, the Purely Decadent brand of dairy free ice creams from Turtle Mountain may be more your speed. They produce five flavors using coconut milk as the dairy replacement, and the two I've tried are delicious. The coconut milk ice cream does feel a hair thin/less creamy compared to the normal stuff, but I'll take that over grit any day.

Misadventures in Clearance Booze

I was not starved for choice from the clearance endcap this time around. I apologize in advance for the picture quality; the internet barely seems to know this stuff exists, so I had to take my own picture.

I've never seen or heard of cactus-flavored vodka before, so I had zero idea of what to expect from Sahuaro. The smell reminds me of melon, and I swear I catch a whiff of something vaguely pear-like as well. The alcohol hits the nostrils pretty hard, implying it is not the smoothest of vodkas.

Sahuaro tastes like melon, but the flavor seems subdued. It reminds me of hitting the rind while eating an actual melon; you still get some of the flavor, but without the sweetness of the sugar in the melon flesh proper. I approve of that aspect, actually. Feels crisp and refreshing. The alcohol hits the tongue and throat hard though. I've had plenty of harsher vodkas, but Sahuaro will never win any awards for smoothness. I tried chilling it to see if that dulled the alcoholic hit, but chilling somehow made it more harsh. I didn't think that was possible.

Mixing is where Sahuaro shines. It works exceptionally well with most substances containing any form of citrus. Mountain Dew Distortion (which I have gushed about before) works best out of the mixers I had access too at the time.

I could see myself buying Sahuaro occasionally, if I ever find it again. Not great, but far from awful. Hits the spot when I want something melon-flavored without the over-the-top sugar of a liqueur.

Great innovations in food

Frozen fruits and vegetables - Cheap, useful, and you don't have to worry about them going bad on you. That last one is especially important for a single individual such as myself. They can even taste better than fresh, since the fruits and vegetables are frozen right at their peak. In some cases, the freezing process does change the texture in unpleasant ways; I've had frozen bell peppers become a sad pile of multi-colored mush once thawed. You just have to try different brands until you hit one that gets it right. The big boys have it down at this point though, and even most store brands manage to get it right.

George Foreman Grill - Whether the design originated with the Foreman or was merely popularized by it, I can't imagine life without one anymore. Anything I'd want to do with an actual grill, I can pull off with the Foreman, and, much like a good skillet or griddle, the food made with this device only gets better as the grilling plates become seasoned by use.

Slow cooker/crockpot - With 10-15 of prep before work, I can have tasty food ready to eat by the time I get home. And once I came into possession of a decent crockpot cookbook, the potential versatility of the slow cooker surprised me. A lot more can be made with one of these babies than most people realize. My eating habits would probably be even worse than they currently are if not for my slow cooker.

Upside down condiment bottles - Jim Gaffigan was right; it really is embarrassing how long it took humanity to create the upside down bottle. I appreciate no longer needing to smack the bottom of a bottle for half an hour to get a little bit of mustard out. Or too damn much when the process inevitably goes wrong.

Everyday breakfast

Ingredients:
Sausage, any kind (amount roughly equal to 1/2 a frank or brat)
1/2 can diced tomato
Cheese, any kind (1/4 cup shredded, 1-inch cube block, or approximately 1.5 pieces pre-sliced)
2 eggs

Tools:
1 skillet
1 spatula

Time:
10-15 minutes

Dice the sausage and transfer it to the skillet. Set the stove for medium to medium-high. Once you hear the sizzling start, stir the sausage periodically. Open the can of diced tomato and pour off any excess liquid. When the sausage starts changing color, add half the can and save the rest for next time. Again, stir periodically. Once the tomato chunks warm up, crack the eggs directly into the skillet. Break the yolks and start stirring the mix continuously. If you are so inclined, add salt and pepper at this point. After all of the egg firms up, cut the stove off and place the cheese on top. Wait for most of the cheese to melt, then transfer the final product to a plate, let cool, and eat.

Unlike an omelet or scrambled eggs, the eggs here end up in firm, dense chunks. Which is fine by me, because I do not like light and fluffy eggs. I didn't specify particular kinds of sausage or cheese, because nearly anything you like will probably work, and it's kind of fun to experiment with different combinations. You could also add any additional items you'd like; I just prefer to keep it simple most of the time.

Turkey kielbasa + sliced pepper jack

Pepperoni + shredded mozzarella

Some combination suggestions: any kind of chicken sausage + pepper jack, pepperoni + mozzarella, and kielbasa + cheddar. A caveat: I recommend against using andouille sausage, unless you have access to something better than what you typically find in grocery stores. That andouille tends to be so spicy it overwhelms the flavor of every other ingredient. The spice even overwhelms the flavor of the sausage itself in some cases.

Depending on the sausage used, the dish should typically work out to be somewhere between 450 and 580 calories. This recipe is quick and easy, even when one happens to be half asleep, sick, or hungover. And the results are delicious.

I feel the urge.

The urge to splurge.

Goose to my Maverick.

I've attempted to lose weight several times in the past, and I've bounced between 220 and 260 pounds more times than I care to count. Much credit for my success this time around (205 pounds, still dropping, and almost effortlessly keeping to plan over a year later) probably goes to controlled indulgence. Lots of controlled indulgence. By making, say, a few spoonfuls of ice cream a frequent part of my diet, I'm less apt to eat an entire pint or even half-gallon given the chance. And ice cream no longer even tempts me to commit such fatrocities the way it once did.

Before, I tried to be so disciplined all the time, but I'd hit one of those inevitable little walls, get frustrated and discouraged, and turn to food of the junk variety for comfort. Soon I'd be a fat tub of goo again (still not exactly svelte, but one day) and have to start all over. Going nuts at a buffet or fast food joint when you're feeling down not only undoes the work of several previous days right away; it can make resisting a fall to temptation much harder in the immediate future. The whole concept of comfort food/restaurants flew out the window for me when I made them a common occurrence. They lost the 'comfort' aspect once I ceased approaching them as something to be resisted. Plus the change in attitude helped me to become smarter about my choices when getting freaky with the fat. As smart as you can be about such things, but that's another entry.

I just overcame a significant wall not a week ago. My weight refused to budge for months, but for once I did not feel compelled to run back to junk food's fatty embrace and eat my way out. I won't claim I never felt the discrete pull drawing me down that path, but a fast food run once a week reduced it to easily ignorable levels. Two days ago, watching the scale readout start edging downward again felt oddly liberating.

Dewmocracy is the worst form of government

AKA I don’t understand why Distortion is losing spectacularly. Unlike a lot of lime sodas, Distortion actually tastes like lime. Not artificial lime flavoring; real lime. And key lime at that. The best kind of lime excellently rendered in soda, and it gets voted into a distant third place.

It'd be nice if that middle one was at least in the race.

The other two flavors aren’t bad by any means, but they seem so thoroughly unremarkable. Typhoon? Indistinguishable from every other fruit punch-flavored soda on the market. White Out? Overly sweetened Fresca.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much, since my preferred flavor won last time around. Although last time I could actually see the appeal of the other flavors and wouldn’t have minded one bit if either of them had won instead of Voltage. The voting trends this time around leave me more than a little baffled. Not unlike my reaction to 2004, albeit without the dire consequences. I’ll be stocking up on Dewlicious Distortion while I can before Dewcision 2010 ends. Let this Dewtastrophe be on your own heads.

And maybe I should stop with the Dew-based wordplay. Dewpartee? No wait, that's terrible; I should definitely stop now.

Misadventures in Clearance Booze

I like trying new things, even when it seems like a bad idea. And I've developed an unfortunate fascination with the clearance end-cap at one of the nearby liquor stores. Once in a great while, I discover something good on that end-cap. This was not one of those times.

You're not imagining it; Tabasco Spicy Tequila is real. And disturbing. The smell reminds me of gasoline, and the taste more or less matches the aroma. When the fuel flavor fades, you're left with a feeling of heat on the tongue. Along with a new feeling of shame in the mind, because you were foolish enough to try Tabasco branded tequila.

Now I'm the kind of person who prefers to not throw away that which cost me money, no matter how awful. With that in mind, I tried it in several mixed drinks. Most mixers fail miserably when it comes to making this tequila palatable. Spicy Bloody Mary mix makes it drinkable, however. The double hit of heat masks the hideously cheap-tasting tequila, but the resulting Bloody Maria basically tastes like spicy tomato juice and nothing more.

In short, this is a bad product, and Tabasco should feel bad for creating it.

I also like alliteration and archaic language

I'm just going to lay it out simply: this blog is going to be about food and alcohol. I'm an engineer by trade with delusions of writing talent (I'm one of those oddball engineers with better verbal than math scores on standardized tests), and I happen to enjoy cooking, drinking, eating, and related activities. I suppose I could have chosen to do some form of tech or entertainment blog, but the world isn't exactly hurting for more of those.

Food and alcohol as the focus leapt to mind because my eating and drinking habits have been on my mind a lot lately. Twelve months ago, I was obese and borderline alcoholic. Now I'm merely overweight and manage to avoid drinking too much except for the odd special occasion. And who knows? Maybe the writing will help with motivation to drop the last vestiges of extra fat and avoid backsliding. Time will tell, but I've already learned once how quickly good habits revert to bad if you stop paying attention.

Expect recipes, reviews, and any food-related thoughts or rants that take hold in my brain. For now, I envision regular updates on Sundays and Wednesdays with the occasional wildcard post in between.