Thursday, May 07, 2015
Sunday, April 05, 2015
A Mouthfull of (about) Cotton
I'm sure a great many people have heard about what went down in Indiana with their "Religious Freedom" law - and the subsequent fall out. I'm not going to talk about that.
What's bugging me at the moment are the comments make by Sen. Tom Cotton a few days ago (you can read about it here). The long and short of it is he feels that people should be thankful that we in the US do not treat members of the LGBT community the same way they're treated in places like Iran - in other words, they should be glad they're not killed.
Abhorrent as this idea is (and it really is), I'm troubled by an underlying concept here. He is effectively saying that because we're better than other places, we shouldn't feel the need to try and be better than we are now.
And this is a very dangerous notion.
There is always room for improvement, for us to do better. As we grow and develop and progress, we learn more about both ourselves and the world around us. We develop new perspectives and come to new understandings. We are constantly reevaluating our ideas, notions, and opinions in light of these new perspectives and understandings.
To say that we're doing things is "good enough" is not good enough. Not killing people because of their sexual orientation is good, but it's not good enough. You know what would be really good? Actually treating people like people, and giving them the same respect and rights that you enjoy, Mr. Cotton. That would be "good enough."
Oh Yeah, I Have a Blog
I know, I know. They're kind of out of date at this point, but sometimes Twitter's 140 characters aren't enough and I'm just not a Facebook person. So here I am again. I'm thinking I'll not be posting very often, but what the hell - let's see what happens!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Current Recipe Favorite
Doing something a little different tonight - I'm not going off on a rant!
It's not that I don't have anything to rant about . . . I do, plenty of things . . . so much rage. But, they're all pretty much directly work related, and wouldn't make much sense without my providing a shit-ton of back-story. And that would mean a greatly increased chance of someone around here coming across it and figuring out who wrote it. That would be bad. So, it's give out all that information and risk getting busted, give a cleaned up version which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or write something else.
So, I'm going for the something else tonight. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have more rants which can be published here soon.
So anyway, tonight's topic is cooking.
I'm the one who cooks in our house. My wife freely admits that she can prepare dinner, but that's different from cooking. I cook. Not every night, but often enough.
Tonight's recipe was a baked chicken cordon bleu.
Start by taking two chicken breasts, trim them and use a good sharp knife to open a pocket inside the breast (I find it's best to work from the thick end of the chicken breast). You want to get within about a 1/4 inch of the edge of the chicken breast so you'll have plenty of room to stuff in the ham and cheese. You'll want to do this slowly and carefully; it's really easy to end up cutting yourself in the process (I haven't, but I know plenty of people who have). Once you finished opening the chicken breasts, pat them dry with some paper towels. I know the traditional way of doing this is to pound the chicken flat and then roll the whole thing up; unless you really know what you're doing and have the right kind of mallet, you're more apt to just shred the chicken, so I like my way more.
Now is a good time to turn on the oven to 350F.
To stuff the chicken breasts, use about a 1/4 lb of deli ham, sliced very thin; use just a simple, off-the-bone or black forest ham - you don't want to use a honey backed ham because it'll taste weird. You'll need about 4 ham slices per chicken breast (this is why you want them very thin). Place a slice of cheese between the ham slices, so it's 2 slices of ham, 1 slice of cheese, and 2 more slices of ham. Traditionally, you would use swiss cheese for cordon bleu, but I've actually found that we prefer provolone. Fold the stack in half, length-wise, and carefully slide it into the pocket you cut in the chicken breasts. Make sure to get it as far in the chicken as possible; it'll cut down on cheese leakage during baking.
For the breading, I use a gluten-free bread crumb from Schar, but that's because the wife has a gluten sensitivity and these are the best bread crumbs I've found (really, they are very good, even if you're not a gluten-free person, you'll probably like these). Sprinkle out a bunch of bread crumbs on a plate and then add garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, some dried parsley, and a little bit of grated parmesan cheese. Mix it together really well. (You may notice here, I'm not giving any specific measurements for these ingredients; there's a reason for this - I don't measure, I just kind of go with whatever looks good.)
Coat the stuffed chicken breasts in egg. I use egg-beaters-type eggs, but you can also use real eggs beaten with a little water. Some people will tell you to use milk for this kind of thing. It certainly works, but you really need at least 2% milk, otherwise the bread crumbs won't really stick. So, get a good coating of egg on the chicken and then gently roll it in the bread crumbs, and I really do mean gently. If you try to really pack the bread crumbs on, the end results are kind of gummy and not real appetizing. You want just enough bread crumbs to cover the chicken, so go easy and gently shake off any extra.
Place the breaded chicken on a broiler pan with the grill piece, which has been lightly sprayed with non-stick spray. A lot of people want to do baked chicken in a shallow pan or baking dish. I don't like do that. When you use a pan or dish, all of the fluid which comes out in the cooking process just sits in the bottom of the pan and soaks the bread crumbs on the bottom of the chicken, and when you take it out of the pan, they just fall off - kind of defeats the purpose, huh? By going with a broiler pan, those fluids drain off and the bread crumbs stay a lot drier and crispier.
Bake at 350F for 30-45 minutes depending on how big and/or thick the chicken breasts are. When the chicken is cooked all the way, take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes. The juices will redistribute in the chicken and the cheese will cool just enough that it doesn't flow all over the plate like white molten lava when cut in.
All in all, it's a pretty easy recipe with some very tasty results. One of the best things about this recipe is that it can be easily modified for other things. Want to do a simple crunchy baked chicken? Same process except without the slicing, rolling, and stuffing. Add a lot more pepper and a healthy dose of cayenne to the bread crumbs, use a sandwich size piece of chicken, and again skip the slicing, rolling, and stuffing, and you've got a home-make, gluten-free version of Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich. Use chicken tenders or slice the chicken breasts into long, thin strips, and you've got chicken fingers. We end up doing one these on a regular basis, and always enjoy it!
It's not that I don't have anything to rant about . . . I do, plenty of things . . . so much rage. But, they're all pretty much directly work related, and wouldn't make much sense without my providing a shit-ton of back-story. And that would mean a greatly increased chance of someone around here coming across it and figuring out who wrote it. That would be bad. So, it's give out all that information and risk getting busted, give a cleaned up version which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or write something else.
So, I'm going for the something else tonight. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have more rants which can be published here soon.
So anyway, tonight's topic is cooking.
I'm the one who cooks in our house. My wife freely admits that she can prepare dinner, but that's different from cooking. I cook. Not every night, but often enough.
Tonight's recipe was a baked chicken cordon bleu.
Start by taking two chicken breasts, trim them and use a good sharp knife to open a pocket inside the breast (I find it's best to work from the thick end of the chicken breast). You want to get within about a 1/4 inch of the edge of the chicken breast so you'll have plenty of room to stuff in the ham and cheese. You'll want to do this slowly and carefully; it's really easy to end up cutting yourself in the process (I haven't, but I know plenty of people who have). Once you finished opening the chicken breasts, pat them dry with some paper towels. I know the traditional way of doing this is to pound the chicken flat and then roll the whole thing up; unless you really know what you're doing and have the right kind of mallet, you're more apt to just shred the chicken, so I like my way more.
Now is a good time to turn on the oven to 350F.
To stuff the chicken breasts, use about a 1/4 lb of deli ham, sliced very thin; use just a simple, off-the-bone or black forest ham - you don't want to use a honey backed ham because it'll taste weird. You'll need about 4 ham slices per chicken breast (this is why you want them very thin). Place a slice of cheese between the ham slices, so it's 2 slices of ham, 1 slice of cheese, and 2 more slices of ham. Traditionally, you would use swiss cheese for cordon bleu, but I've actually found that we prefer provolone. Fold the stack in half, length-wise, and carefully slide it into the pocket you cut in the chicken breasts. Make sure to get it as far in the chicken as possible; it'll cut down on cheese leakage during baking.
For the breading, I use a gluten-free bread crumb from Schar, but that's because the wife has a gluten sensitivity and these are the best bread crumbs I've found (really, they are very good, even if you're not a gluten-free person, you'll probably like these). Sprinkle out a bunch of bread crumbs on a plate and then add garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, some dried parsley, and a little bit of grated parmesan cheese. Mix it together really well. (You may notice here, I'm not giving any specific measurements for these ingredients; there's a reason for this - I don't measure, I just kind of go with whatever looks good.)
Coat the stuffed chicken breasts in egg. I use egg-beaters-type eggs, but you can also use real eggs beaten with a little water. Some people will tell you to use milk for this kind of thing. It certainly works, but you really need at least 2% milk, otherwise the bread crumbs won't really stick. So, get a good coating of egg on the chicken and then gently roll it in the bread crumbs, and I really do mean gently. If you try to really pack the bread crumbs on, the end results are kind of gummy and not real appetizing. You want just enough bread crumbs to cover the chicken, so go easy and gently shake off any extra.
Place the breaded chicken on a broiler pan with the grill piece, which has been lightly sprayed with non-stick spray. A lot of people want to do baked chicken in a shallow pan or baking dish. I don't like do that. When you use a pan or dish, all of the fluid which comes out in the cooking process just sits in the bottom of the pan and soaks the bread crumbs on the bottom of the chicken, and when you take it out of the pan, they just fall off - kind of defeats the purpose, huh? By going with a broiler pan, those fluids drain off and the bread crumbs stay a lot drier and crispier.
Bake at 350F for 30-45 minutes depending on how big and/or thick the chicken breasts are. When the chicken is cooked all the way, take it out of the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes. The juices will redistribute in the chicken and the cheese will cool just enough that it doesn't flow all over the plate like white molten lava when cut in.
All in all, it's a pretty easy recipe with some very tasty results. One of the best things about this recipe is that it can be easily modified for other things. Want to do a simple crunchy baked chicken? Same process except without the slicing, rolling, and stuffing. Add a lot more pepper and a healthy dose of cayenne to the bread crumbs, use a sandwich size piece of chicken, and again skip the slicing, rolling, and stuffing, and you've got a home-make, gluten-free version of Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich. Use chicken tenders or slice the chicken breasts into long, thin strips, and you've got chicken fingers. We end up doing one these on a regular basis, and always enjoy it!
Monday, July 25, 2011
An Open Letter to HOAs
Dear Home Owners' Associations,
First of all, I would like to say that I can respect a lot of what you do. When properly administered and run, HOAs can provide a wide range of benefits to a neighborhood: maintaining property values; making sure that everyone takes care of their property; providing amenities to residents (pools, parks, snow shoveling, etc). All of these are very good things.
But.
All too often, I see HOAs which go off on major power trips and just end up looking stupid and petty. Walking around with rulers, measuring people's grass length. Trying to dictate what kind/size of pets people can have. Telling military veterans how/when they can fly the American flag! Telling kids they can't have a lemonade stand - on their own property! (And, yes, these are in fact all real examples.)
It seems that some of you HOAs need to be reminded of the real purpose of HOAs. It's NOT to tell people how they should live. Rather, it's making a neighborhood someplace people want live.
Want to know what will happen if you keep being so draconian? People will move out, which means property values might decline and you don't want that.
So I ask, you, please, pull your collective heads out of your asses and go searching through your attic or basement to find you ability to use reason, logic, and compassion.
In other words, quit being dicks!
[And, no, I don't live in a HOA-controlled neighborhood, but I've certainly dealt with enough of them and there have been a rash of recent news stories about incidents like those I listed above - and I felt something needed to be said.]
First of all, I would like to say that I can respect a lot of what you do. When properly administered and run, HOAs can provide a wide range of benefits to a neighborhood: maintaining property values; making sure that everyone takes care of their property; providing amenities to residents (pools, parks, snow shoveling, etc). All of these are very good things.
But.
All too often, I see HOAs which go off on major power trips and just end up looking stupid and petty. Walking around with rulers, measuring people's grass length. Trying to dictate what kind/size of pets people can have. Telling military veterans how/when they can fly the American flag! Telling kids they can't have a lemonade stand - on their own property! (And, yes, these are in fact all real examples.)
It seems that some of you HOAs need to be reminded of the real purpose of HOAs. It's NOT to tell people how they should live. Rather, it's making a neighborhood someplace people want live.
Want to know what will happen if you keep being so draconian? People will move out, which means property values might decline and you don't want that.
So I ask, you, please, pull your collective heads out of your asses and go searching through your attic or basement to find you ability to use reason, logic, and compassion.
In other words, quit being dicks!
[And, no, I don't live in a HOA-controlled neighborhood, but I've certainly dealt with enough of them and there have been a rash of recent news stories about incidents like those I listed above - and I felt something needed to be said.]
Thursday, July 14, 2011
I've Got A Pledge For Ya
Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be a lot of political pledges recently? They are especially prominent on the political right. Groups hoping (and all too often, succeeding) to control and direct the politicians and the political process are using these pledges as basically preemptive blackmail. While the groups and the details may change, the pledges all boil down to politicians saying "I will promise to do what you want because I think you're going to help me get/stay in office." And, unfortunately, the politicians who sign such pledges seem to actually be keeping them.
With all of that in mind, I decided to begin my take over by creating my own pledge for politicians to sign.
Please feel free to send this to any and all of your politicians!
With all of that in mind, I decided to begin my take over by creating my own pledge for politicians to sign.
The state of American politics has devolved to little more than self-aggrandizing, mud-slinging and pointing fingers, meaning that important shit isn't getting done. In an effort to help get American politics back to a point of productivity and sanity, I, [insert your name here], do hereby pledge to the following:
1. I pledge to become educated on the things I vote on or sign; I will not vote on or sign something without actually having read it. That way I don't look like a jackass later when I have to try and unsign it.
2. I pledge to use reason and logic when considering pieces of legislation and policy, not just react to the emotions of those I think are (or someday might be) my constituents.
3. I pledge to actually focus on the issues while campaigning, and not simply resort to attacking my opponent.
4. I pledge to accept the fact that people will disagree with me, and I acknowledge that they have every right to do so.
5. I pledge to remember that just because someone disagrees with me does not mean that they are the enemy and are trying to "hijack the nation", despite what certain radio hosts and cable "news" programs might claim.
6. I pledge to accept the fact that sometimes I will be wrong; I'll admit when I am wrong and not try to spin it so I'm right(ish).
7. I pledge to actually listen to those who are experts on a particular subject and will give their views serious consideration even (and especially) if they differ from my own; I will not substitute editorials or opinion pieces for real research.
8. I pledge to own up to my fuck-ups and to try to fix them. And I mean right away, not only after it becomes clear that I'm not going to get away with it.
9. I pledge to remember that I work for ALL the people, not just the ones who have or maybe someday will vote for or donate money to me and/or my party.
10. I pledge to treat my fellow politicians with genuine respect; politicians are people too (or at least can be).
11. I pledge work WITH my fellow politicians and not AGAINST them, regardless of party affiliation. (But I promise to never say "Can't we all just get along?" - ever.)
12. I pledge to remember that things will very often require negotiation and compromise from ALL sides; compromise in not a four-letter word.
13. I pledge to do what is right, not what is simply politically convenient or advantageous.
14. I pledge to remove my head from my ass; that way I can hear better and less of what comes out of my mouth will be complete shit.
15. I pledge to quit signing asinine pledges which only make it harder to things done and result in political gridlock.
If I don't hold to these items, I deserve to have my ass tossed out of office.
Please feel free to send this to any and all of your politicians!
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