Mydree Vox

I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking

In the last month or so I have gotten my hands on two new kitchen toys. First is Alton Brown's book on baking, I'm Just Here for More Food. Alton defines six baking methods, details the master mix method of each and then provides a number of variations and recipes for them. Since Alton insists that flour should be weighed I also bought myself a digital kitchen scale. Weighing the ingredients, especially the flour, really seems to be easier. The amount of flour in a cup can vary greatly depending on how tightly packed it is into the measuring cup.

I sort of backed into baking. I started because I didn't want to buy store bought bread anymore. Alton's book makes it easy to bake other things besides basic bread. I've already made muffins and cheesecake. I'll write about my bake-goods in the future . I'm planning another cheesecake for the Super Bowl.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these cookies for New Year's Eve
and some friends seemed to like them
(who doesn't like chocolate chip cookies?).

Software
Dry Team
2 1/4 cups Flour, all-purpose
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Salt

Cream Team
1 cup Butter, softened (2 sticks)
3/4 cup Sugar
3/4 cup Light Brown Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
2 lg. Eggs

Chips
2 cups Chocolate Chips, semi-sweet
1 cup Nuts, chopped (optional)

Hardware
Potato masher, very sturdy
or Electric mixer

Milk and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Procedure
1. Pre-heat Oven to 375 F.
2. Sift the Dry Team together and set aside.
3. In a big mixing bowl mash together the Cream Team. I use a potato masher, feel free to use an electric mixer.
4. Add in the Dry Team and mash / mix some more.
5. Fold in the Chips when it starts to look and feel like cookie dough.
6. Sit the cookie dough in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. (You did pre-heat the oven, didn't you? 375 F)
7. With your hands roll dough into little balls about an inch in diameter; place 6 or 8 of them on a baking sheet (I use parchment paper too).
8. Bake at 375 F until they are golden brown and delicious (about 9 to 11 minutes).
9. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before moving the cookies to a cooling rack, where they should rest until cool (about 10 minutes).
10. Repeat steps 7 through 9 until cookie dough is all used up. Makes about 36 cookies.
11. Eat your cookies (try not to eat all of them at once).

Play With Your Food
It may take you a few times until you get the size and spacing of the cookies right. Don't panic if some cookies expand into each other. If this does happen then use a metal spatula or knife to cut them apart while they cool on the baking sheet. Otherwise they will cool into one, big blob of a cookie.

Try replacing some or all of the Light Brown Sugar with Dark Brown Sugar. I usually leave nuts out but if I were to use Chopped Nuts then I would opt for walnuts.

No parchment paper? I have used aluminum foil instead without a problem.

I'm going to start using Vox more. I will use it to write about a few of my hobbies: cooking, chess and learning French.

Cooking
I'll post an occasional recipe that I play with and any other food observations that I have. Some of these will also be posted on my Newsvine Column.

Chess
I play on-line at a few web sites if anyone wants to play a game. You can find me at GameKnot and Red Hot Pawn, my nickname is 'mydree.' I also want to play some real time games and I'm on the Free Internet Chess Server.

French
Why learn French? It sounds cool, French food is tasty, and it may be useful if I find myself wandering around Southeast Asia again. I'd like to visit Laos sometime. Wow Lao baw?

Next Update: tomorrow a Chocolate Cookie recipe.

WIP's Suicide Pool

I'm playing in WIP's NFL Suicide Pool again this season. Last season I made it the entire season picking a winner each week. I lost the pool because I incorrectly picked the score of the Eagles last game. I'm back this season and I correctly picked the Patriots to win last week.

My pick for this week is: Baltimore Ravens to win at home over the Oakland Raiders.

PECO Workers to the Rescue

Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend a big storm (the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto) knocked a tree limb onto our power line and knocked out our electricity. Power was out less than nine hours.

More pictures at Flickr.

Invincible movie poster

Invincible is a well done underdog movie. It doesn't break any new cinematic ground and probably won't earn any Oscar nominations but it's worth the price of admission. It's the feel-good movie of late summer and early fall.

Mark Wahlberg plays an out of work teacher whose wife has left him. His friends persuade him to try out for the Philadelphia Eagles, who are having open try-outs to generate interest in the slumping team.

Does he make the team? Does he struggle along the way? Does he find a new wife? Does fame go to his head? Does he make a big play in a real NFL game? I think you know the answers to these questions, but the acting is good enough and the directing is decent enough that you want to see how it all turns out.

Invincible at IMDB, user rating 7.1/10 (1,787 votes).

Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin was a larrikin - not that there's anything wrong with that.

As an American I was not aware of larrikinism before Steve's tragic death. Larrikins seem to be a uniquely Australian phenomenon. Other larrikins that Americans may be familiar with are Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) and the late Bon Scott (AC/DC).

So what is this larrikinism? And more importantly is it communicable?

Wikipedia defines Larrikinism as: Larrikinism is the name given to the Australian folk tradition of irreverence, mockery of authority and disregard for rigid norms of propriety. Larrikinism can also be associated with self-deprecating humour.

Now I should note that not all Australians are proud of their national larrikins (yes, that includes Steve). I mean would Americans be happy if the rest of the world thought that all Americans were like Larry the Cable Guy?

For discussion:
Do red necks in the US mock authority enough to be considered American larrikins?

For further research:
Larrikinism, Larry the Cable Guy, Red neck.

Note: this first appeared on my Newsvine column - link.

Setanta Sports

Just a quick note to say I have received and hooked up ITVN (TV over broadband) to my TV.

Setanta Sports is brilliant!

I'll post more this weekend after I have had about a week's experience with it.

Television over Broadband.

Setanta Sports

Just testing Vox's Video Feature
Why can't I search for You Tube videos in the Vox compose window by the ID of the submitter? Or enter my You Tube account info to have easy access to my own videos on YouTube? I like how Vox allows access to Flickr photos hopefully in the near future videos are just as easy.

About the Video
In 2005 the South Sydney Rabbitohs finally beat their crosstown rivals the Sydney Roosters in the National Rugby League. It had been eleven years of losses for the Bunnies. The video highlights are set to a rock song.