Monday, July 30, 2007

Happy Anniversary to Us

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Friday Fry-day

I'm still recovering from a pork hangover (note: it made A LOT of sandwiches) from the pork loin I smoked and I continue to await the arrival of the glorious Bacon Salt, but with an assist from our friends April and Jason, we fried up some corn dogs.

We used all-beef Hebrew National dogs (they answer to a higher authority), which is our favorite brand of hot dog. The principal concern with making corn dogs is getting the batter to stick to the hot dog. Below is our control for our batter-sticking experiment, only dipping the dog straight into the batter.



As you can see, the control had issues with sticking to the dog and not making a very thick coating.



And this was made by putting the hot dog in corn starch first, then putting it in the batter. This method is clearly superior, as there were no bare spots left on the dog and the batter was nice and thick.



Mmmm. . . fried crispy and doughy hot dogs.



Dee-lish.



Overall, although I'm not a big corn dog fan, the dogs turned out really well and were surprisingly easy to make.

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Sunday, July 15, 2007

Sunday Smoke-tacular, Take 2

I bought a 9 1/2-pound pork loin the other day, so after cutting off about 6 pork chops and a couple of pork cubes for simmering in pasta sauce, we were left with about a 6-pound beauty of a pork loin. I applied a new (to me) rub, consisting of the normal stuff (paprika, brown sugar, cayenne, etc.) and let it sit overnight, then smoked it over hickory chunks for about 3 hours. I also made an impromptu sweet barbecue sauce, made of loose amounts of dijon mustard, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, whiskey, and honey. The sweet sauce helped cut through the spicy and ultra-smoky pork loin.

I definitely recommend smoking a pork loin, if you get the chance, as the pork turned out really flavorful and moist, and I cut it up thin enough to eventually use for smoked pork sandwiches.



This is near the end of the smoking; check out the nice brown "crust."


Obligatory action shot.


Close-up of the slices; again, check out the crust and the smoke ring.


Cross-section view for a better display of the smoke ring.


This was Pan's meal of the smoked pork, baked cinnamon/sugar granny-smith apples, and freshly-picked green beans from our garden.

Lots o' left-overs. Relatives and friends who live nearby, come and get it.

P.S. Pan somehow bought a bunch of yarn for a ridiculous 80% off today. She is happy.

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CatNap


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Friday, July 13, 2007

Coffee Steaks and Yams

Happy National French Fries Day!

We had a little time today to make some nice rubs and get a little creative, so we decided to grill some coffee-crusted flat-iron steaks and bake some sweet potato fries.



This is the uncooked steak with only the rub, which consisted of a lot of paprika, espresso, brown sugar, and some other stuff.


Sliced sweet potatoes. (duh)


The finished product.

It was a pretty good meal, overall. The steaks were really moist and tender with a somewhat crispy crust and the sweet potato fries were seasoned really well by Pan. We also dipped some of the fries in mayo, which was a nice touch. The coffee rub was really good, and we made a lot of it, so I'm sure we'll be having other coffee-crusted beef items sometime soon.

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Friday, July 06, 2007

Jerm and Pan Do the KC Zoo, Part II

As promised, there will be a bunch of kangaroo action in this post. I wish I had some good pictures of the awesome koalas, black-footed cats that looked like Gizmo, or some of the cool monkeys that we saw, but none of the pictures really turned out.

This was the field that the kangaroos normally play in, apparently.

Regular old kangaroo pic.

I think this is my favorite picture, as it shows the kangaroos laying in the shade, avoiding the heat. They also look really lazy here. I wanted to box them, but they seemed too tired.

More kangaroos.


It may be difficult to see, but there is a baby joey, messing around with its mother. I think Pan wanted to take him home with us. I do think Gizmo would have liked him too.

This is a really bad picture of the big fountain at the Plaza, taken from our car window on our way back from the zoo. I probably wouldn't have taken it, and it probably doesn't really belong in this post, but I think this is the only picture I have of the fountain, it's on a clear day, and it gives a nice perspective of the Plaza area, so I'll put it on here, anyway.

I took this picture with my Go-Go-Gadget arms at the zoo, at the very end of our tour around the zoo. The KC Zoo requires lots of walking, especially in the Africa region, and it was pretty hot, so it's a wonder we didn't look far grosser than we did. Overall, it was a pretty good day. . . then we napped.

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Jerm and Pan Do the KC Zoo, Part I

Pan had the day off before a weekend of her rotation in the ER at KU Med, so we decided to use the day to go the KC Zoo, which we had been wanting to do for awhile. It probably wasn't a very good idea to go today, since it was awfully hot, but it's always fun seeing the animals, I suppose. The Zoo also has a koala exhibit right now, so we were able to check them out before they leave.

I had to split up the Zoo visit into two parts because I took so many pictures. Unfortunately, many of them did not turn out well, because the animals were all sitting in the shade. (Note: animals were smarter than us on this day)




Crikey! Let's get our journey started, eh, mate!!


This tiger was really awesome about posing for the camera. He walked around for a bit and then stopped right there and just stayed in that same pose for about a minute while everyone took pictures of him.


This is difficult to see, but this is the lake by which the giraffes and zebras sat. You may be able to see a little family of geese on the water, which is what I was attempting to photograph.


This camel was lazy.


It was cool to see the giraffe having lunch right in front of us; unfortunately, his lunch was in the shade, making the picture kind of crummy.


This hippo was huge; words really don't do the fatty its justice, when it comes to how huge it was.

That's it for Part I. Part II promises lots o'kangaroo action.

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Sunday, July 01, 2007

Garden Update!

Remember this?
Well, now it looks like this:

Slightly out of control, perhaps. The 4+ inches of rain in the past few days has made all the difference. The tomato plants are closing in on 5 feet tall!

Fresh green beans:I will probably pick some of these and eat them for dinner tonight!
The first cucumber to grow. The plant is taking over half the garden, so hopefully more cukes will sprout!

Big tomato! Bigger than my fist! Just waiting for it to turn red! We have 29 tomatoes growing!
The spice garden. Fresh basil:Chives:
Rosemary and miraculous parsley! The parsley all died for some reason, but a few sprigs have come back to life!

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