03 Jul 09 Cooking with Steve: Peppers, onions & mushrooms
Red bell peppers, white onions and mushrooms, pan fried and on an onion roll with vegan mayo and fresh roasted garlic.
- What it could have used:
- Some sort of cheese to hold it all together.
- Some chips or other crunchy thing on the side. Perhaps a salad for some green.
- What I learned:
- I need to slice the onions in strips like you’re supposed to.
- Mushrooms cook fast.
- Always keep some sort of cheese around, vegan or otherwise.
As you can tell, I’m starting out simple. As I continue to understand more about the produce I am cooking I’ll kick things up a notch. Bam! As they say.
Still, it was delicious and I put this in the “success” column along with the potatoes.
Related Links03 Jul 09 Cooking with Steve: Potatoes
Made some yellow potatoes, pan-fried with onions and garlic, for lunch. May have used a little too much oil and crowded the potatoes a bit. Also, I added the onions a little too early so they were too brown at serving time. Overall it was still delicious.
Related Links03 Jul 09 Work is tuff
So a colleague had a story that, though fine on its own, needed some extra visual oomph. So I went out and tried to shoot some night shots. I think this one turned out OK.
Life is hard, and stuff.
Oh, and I’m going up in a small airplane on Sunday. Wish me luck.
Related Links01 Jul 09 On the front lines
Today was a very fun day. I got to help be right in the middle of one of the bigger news stories of the day. Zipping from one side of town to the other to both Norm Coleman’s home and Al Franken’s home to take pictures.
Not to belabor the point, but I really dig my job, even when it is stressful. Grats Al.
Related Links27 Jun 09 Cooking with Steve: Getting the basics
So the first card in the great cooking adventure has been played. Well, technically I guess the cookbooks were the first cards. Regardless, today was the big one. I decided, what better place to go that was close to me than the Mall of America. You can live, die, see animals at an aquarium and have Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. all under one roof. Perfect!
After snooping around a bit I settled on a Calphalon 10-piece set from Macy’s. Most people recommended I pick and choose individual pieces, but that was too much to think about at this infancy of my cooking ability. So I went simple and got a hard-anodized set that had most all of the main pieces I would need. Bonus, they threw in a set of spoons and spatulas both wooden and metal. Cha-ching, next!
Next up were the knives. After battling several herds of Midwesterners, I found a le gourmet chef store. They pretty much had everything I would need at reasonable prices.
For the knives, I chose some sweet looking Oneida, forged-in-the-fires-of-Mount-Doom, shiny bastards. The woman asked if I wanted to open the box and “try them out,” and I wondered if there was some meat or a carcass in the back or something that people were stabbing to test knives. Though that would be fun, I told her I’d pass and just take her word for it.
The rest was just a bit of a Supermarket Sweep of the store. I grabbed most of the main stuff the cookbooks said I would need, plus some extra items. There’s probably something I missed that I won’t realize I need until I am knee-deep in chopped vegetables and simmering sauces. Oh well, that’s all part of figuring this stuff out.
As an aside, I was looking for a perfect salad bowl since I knew I would be making salads often. After looking over the sea of various bowls, one made my spidey sense tingle. To the untrained eye it looked like a simple, wooden bowl, like the Holy Grail in the third Indiana Jones movie. However, when I flipped it over, bam! Made in Thailand. Oh yeah, this was definitely the bowl perfect bowl.
Another swipe and I was on my way. I lugged all that stuff out quick before I saw something else I “needed” from there. One side trip to Target on the way home to get some new plates and cleaning products and I was done.
- Today’s damage:
- Calphalon 10-piece cookware set – $213.79
- Oneida knife set + various cooking gadgets – $250.06
- Plates, glasses and new dish-cleaning stuff – $41.45
- TOTAL: $505.30
- Knowing that I am going to make some delicious and hearty eats: Priceless
It’s a lot I know, but I feel it is a worthy investment.
Oh wait, there is one other thing I did buy. Because all good cooks need something to sip while they chop, slice and sizzle, I got myself a little something. The store in the Mall of America is one of the few to ever have this stuff, so I bought their last two bottles. It’s pretty much the greatest sipping vodka ever created by human hands. Don’t worry mom and dad, I’m only sipping. Huzzah!
26 Jun 09 Friday fusillade
What a week.
We launched our new site at work yesterday. It’s been exciting to be a part of something this big, and so far things are great.
Big news yesterday of course was Michael Jackson dying. I’m a little apathetic about it and hate the cliché reactions of “devastation” and “shock” that people inevitably trot out. Sure it’s sad when any popular person dies, but the truth is, the thing most people loved about Michael Jackson still lives on in his music, his videos and movies. Everything else being said is just filler noise.
Yesterday I went and took some pictures at one of the nation’s largest Hindu temples. Very cool stuff and super nice people.
Weekend plan: Buying cookware, knives, going to the Farmer’s Market, buying some shoes and some new cycling gear. It’s a weekend of mass consumerism. Gotta feed the machine.
Related Links24 Jun 09 Hump day
Fairly insignificant day today, and yet not. Breakfast, egg-in-a-basket. Delicious. Was supposed to go to Minnesota’s first and only Hindu temple today and snap some pictures, but weather looks drab for taking photos. Postponed until tomorrow. Tonight and tomorrow is a big day at work, we launch our new site. Never been a part of something like this and it’s very exciting.
I got nothing else right now, so I leave you with this:
23 Jun 09 Your ideas are as fresh and new as an agatized stromatolite*
There’s a heat advisory in the Twin Cities today, with temperatures in the 90s and the heat index (whatever the hell that means) in the 100s. I thought in moving from Minnesota to Florida I would be trading in my heat advisories for the winter weather warnings, a straight 1:1 swap. Not so much, apparently. However, it seems a heat-advised day here is like an average summer day in Florida, minus the love bugs. Looks like I may have to actually use the pathetic little window a/c unit.
- Things:
- Ed McMahon has died
- Flowcharting the gay marriage debate
- Iran elections: Guardian Council says there will be no rerun
- At least 7 killed in train collision in D.C.
- Monday in 100 seconds
*Post title courtesy of the Surrealist Compliment Generator
Related Links22 Jun 09 Case of the Mondays
OK, not really. I actually hate the term but just couldn’t think of another post title. Going to be a busy week, a lot of big things happening at work and in the world. Pretty sure Iran is going to explode, literally and figuratively. More than two dozen journalists have been detained, a young girl was killed in the streets and caught on video (WARNING: Graphic).
- Other Reads:
- Google Starts Including Wikipedia on Its News Site
- Iran Fears Drive Mid-East Arms Rush
- Extreme Life Thrives Where the Livin’ Ain’t Easy
- College sells naming rights to class courses
21 Jun 09 Embarking on a culinary adventure
So I’ve decided to learn to cook, and I mean really learn. Sure I can do up some pasta and other basics like most bachelors, but I really want to have more control over what is going into my food. One-too-many food documentaries and articles has me heading down the road to all local, all organic food stuffs.
The first step was the cookbooks. I went with Mark Bittman’s because they seemed like rather comprehensive tomes. These will probably get me started and I’m sure I’ll pick up more along the way. Suggestions welcomed.
Next step, the cookware, knives, etc. That will be next weekend, or possibly some Amazon.com browsing during the week. Again, suggestions for brands, types of cookware, etc. are extremely welcomed.
Once I have all of the essentials covered, my plan is to plan and cook one to two meals a week using the book (doesn’t include my normal rounds of pasta and salads) and keep track of the successes and failures.
Let it begin!
Related Links20 Jun 09 Back from the dead
I think I’m going to start posting here again. Though less journalism-type things and more me.
I need a new project.
05 Dec 08 The E&P feed paints a grim picture
Ouch.
Tags: journalism
22 Nov 08 How can it be called work when it is so much fun?
I had the chance to shoot some photos on the set of a short film the other day, and thought I’d share.
I also used the photos in an audio slideshow for work. Ignore that fact that I accidentally used the same photo twice, didn’t notice until just now for some reason. Plan on fixing that.
Oh, and we had our first viral feature at MPR this past week. It’s been linked at many of the heavyweight political blogs, including HuffingtonPost, DailyKos, Wonkette and Andrew Sullivan. Also got linked by Comedy Central, Kottke.org, WSJ.com and many others. Got to give props to my colleague Than, who put most of the clever presentation together.
We had a good week.
Related Links06 Nov 08 FOX News.com asks the important question
Does Obama look older than two years ago?
Um, yeah, about two years.
Related LinksTags: screens
04 Nov 08 Note to USA Today…
…if you wanted to avoid framing this election as ‘black vs. white’, you FAILED.
Tags: screenshots, usatoday
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