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I'm trying my hand at slow cooker pulled pork. This is the first time I've done this so we'll have to see how it goes. First off, I referenced these two pulled pork recipes: Shutterbean's slow cooker pulled pork and the easy oven pulled pork. I pulled the slow cooker style from shutter bean but went with the flavoring found at serious eats.

It's cooking right now on low. I'm going to check on it in 4 hours, then flip it over and maybe cook it for another 4... overnight.

I made a rub for it. Cumin, garlic powder, paprika, white sugar, fresh ground pepper, kosher salt. I rubbed this on a 2 pound pork shoulder/butte. I bought this cut of meat in a 5 pound version with the bone in it. That was the original size, but it doesn't fit in my slow cooker. So I butchered it down to 2 pounds without the bone. I did that this morning and rubbed it down also with salt and pepper before refrigerating for the afternoon.

So, after I applied the light rub, I decided to sear it just like the serious eats version. I did this on my stovetop in my trusty dutch oven. I only took it to 2-3 minutes a side until they developed some cover.

I prepped the slow cooker. I chopped up an 1 1/2 onions and laid some in the slow cooker. My slow cooker is taller than it is wide. I also chopped up some garlic. I threw it in the slow cooker like the onions and turned the cooker on high to begin the slow, slow heating up.

When the meat was slightly seared, I transferred it to the slow cooker. I poured in about 16 oz of store bought, low sodium chicken broth enough to cover half the meat. I then poured a little more into my dutch oven to deglaze whatever was burnt onto it. I poured this liquid onto the meat in the slow cooker. I then added 1/2 teaspoon of some liquid smoke and 3 bay leaves. The bay leaves I put in because if bay leaves are good enough for pork adobo it should be good enough for pulled pork. I finally covered the rest of the meat with a little more onions and garlic.

Cross your fingers that this turns out edible.

Labels: cooking, step-by-step

With winter coming, I turn to making a traditional Filipino dish: Arroz Caldo. I've asked my brother and mom about their recipe for it and they give it to me without actual measurements or time. My brother makes a chicken stock first, then makes the soup. My mom just gives me the steps: cook chicken with ginger, add water, add rice, cook until done. Not very many ingredients and not many steps. What can go wrong?

My mom left out let the chicken simmer into a stock!

SO YOU HAVE TO HAVE A CHICKEN STOCK.

And now my version doesn't taste too well. Here's how I worked my version.

I did use some of the chicken stock I made two weeks ago here. I also used 2 cups.

I take 3 chicken thighs and fry it with ginger, salt, and pepper. Cut the ginger into little slivers so that when you eat the soup, you'll spend your time spitting out the ginger stalks.

When the chicken looks to be cooked through, add your chicken stock and enough water to cover. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for twenty minutes. This is were my mom should've said to let it simmer for another 2 hours. Next time simmer for 2 hours.

Here add the rice which you should rinse until the water is clear. Bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for another 2 hours.

Take the chicken out and shred. Add it back into the soup along with a heaping dose of patis.

Serve with scallions, fried garlic and more patis.

Labels: cooking, step-by-step

I haven't cooked anything in a while. It seems like years, but it's getting to be colder again and that makes me want to have something good. Soup? No this time chili!

My mom lent me her slow cooker so it will be my first time using it and my first time making chili.

But how hard can chili be? You need some meat, tomato sauce, chili spices, and some chilis. Throw it all in the slow cooker and wait for it to all come together tomorrow morning. I just did that so I'm writing this blog post to remind me how I did it, because when tastes terrible tomorrow, I'll know what I did wrong.

Let's start with the ingredients.

First comes ground beef. I chose the 80% lean so that the fat will give it some flavor. Brown the ground beef in a tablespoon of oil with 2 pinches of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.

Next (actually before browning the meat), I roast a jalapeño pepper on my stove top. I used my vegetable steamer over the bare flame as the roaster. I rub the pepper in some olive oil and blacken it all around. Place it in a container to steam so that the skin is easy to peel. It took about 5 minutes for it to steam. Let it take longer and the burnt skin should come off easy. Remove the seeds and chop it. Throw it into the browning beef.

One diced yellow onion and a handful of minced garlic cloves go in as well. Let that all cook together for a few minutes. I didn't look at the time I just threw it all in the pan and watched the meat brown.

Then I added the spices. I have no idea how much to add so I measure out about a tablespoon each of ground cumin, paprika, and chili spices followed by half a tablespoon of ground black pepper. Throw it all into the pan and stir it good.

At this point, I plug in the slow cooker and start her up at high. For the liquid base, I throw in a can of beer. Yes beer because this Deadspin article says so. I'm apprehensive, but hope that it turns out well. Maybe using Sam Adams summer ale may not be the same as Corona.

I scrape the meat and vegetables into the slow cooker. Maybe I should've waited longer so that the spices mix up well. In also goes a small can of green chili and then comes the tomato paste. I also have some diced tomatoes but everything in the pot already looks good. I hold off on the diced potatoes. This could be my undoing.

I'm going to let it simmer on high for a couple hours then turn it down to low to cook overnight with fingers crossed.

Labels: cooking, step-by-step

I figured that instead of frying bacon in a pan I would try baking it in the oven.

I used a large cookie sheet which I was only able to arrange six slices of bacon on. The recipes I read online say to line it with aluminum foil. I pulled out of my drawer the aluminum foil I had. There was only a small sliver! So I forgo the aluminum foil and put the bacon on the cookie sheet. Maybe I should've applied a little something so that the bacon doesn't stick. Why? Won't the bacon oil keep it from doing that?

I set the oven to 375 and plan to bake the bacon for about 20 minutes. The bacon I had (Smithfield brown sugar cured) was rather thin as I stretched it across the pan. I bet thicker cut bacon would work better. As it baked, I watched it and took it out when the bacon looked brown and crispy around the 15 minute mark.

The bacon had stuck to the cookie sheet. I had to "scrape" it out. Although it was still crispy it was in several slivers of bacon. Note to self: get aluminum foil as the clean up was one of bacon grease all over the place.

Labels: cooking, mmm, step-by-step

I read about these small portion lasagnas the cooking for two issue of the Cooks Illustrated magazine. They baked the lasagna in a small loaf pan rather than a traditional pan. Since, I only cook for myself, that recipe looked interesting. I wanted to make a mini lasagna. The recipe was for a spinach white lasagna, and it had some béchamel as a sauce. That's starting to get complicated. My recipe is going to be an eggplant lasagna.

I started with the sauce. I diced up some green, peppers, onions, and carrots which I sautéed in olive oil with some garlic. Once that was nice and tender, I added some chopped whole tomatoes and some tomato sauce. I let this simmer down. Adding some salt for taste.

I had some ricotta which I mixed with an egg, dried basil, and oregano. This is the cheese layer. Maybe I should've mixed some parmesan in here.

Once all this was done. I started to build my mini loaf pans with a lasagna. Easy bake lasagna noodles, the ricotta mixture, eggplant, then the tomato sauce. I was able to only put 2 of these layers in one mini loaf pan. I topped it off with some more tomato sauce; perhaps I should've put some cheese here, too.

I bake it in my oven pre-heated to 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Actually, it's baking right now so I'll let you know how it goes.

Labels: cooking, step-by-step

This soup looks interesting to make. Scratch that. The stock, dashi, looks interesting to make, because if that's all there is to it. Well, I'm gonna go get some konbu and bonito flakes.

Labels: step-by-step

Making normal fluffy cookies. If you must.

Labels: mmm, step-by-step

Let's make chocolate chip cookies! Let's make them crunchy. No more of these soft chewy ones. Someone get Ness on the line...

Labels: mmm, step-by-step

This week I started eating salad for lunch trying to lose some weight. I bought too much vegetables so that by the weekend I had left over onions and peppers. I needed to use them before they go old. Somehow I thought that I should make a Spanish tortilla, an omlet. I can cook scrambled eggs so how hard can it be?

First, I prepped the onions and peppers. Just fry them up like normal in a bit of oil. They recommend olive oil, but all I have is canola. Then comes the potatoes. I used white potatoes because of their size. Slice them up. If I was a better knife handler, they would all be the same thickness, but they weren't. Cook these up as well. When done remove the excess oil from the pan. Lower the heat on it and get ready to put everything pack into the pan. I was worried that they would stick to the pan so I put a little bit of butter before arranging the potatoes on the bottom. Then I put the fried peppers, onions and tomatoes on top. Took four eggs and scrambled them then poured over the vegetables. I finished it off with some feta cheese. Let sit for about 1 minute before I slid the pan into a pre-heated the oven at 325F. Cooked for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven. Let sit for a few minutes. With a spatula, free up the edges, put a plate over the pan and flip. Enjoy!



Things to note, because I may forget.

Use less oil. I used too much for the pepper, onion, tomatoe mixture so that as the tortilla came out of the oven it was too oily. Use more salt. I'm watching my sodium, but more salt is needed to give the tortilla a kick. At least the feta cheese added to the saltiness. Slice potatoes better. Or even the peppers. I should've diced them. That pan handle is hot after it comes out of the oven. Yes I know, but not being in the kitchen very often.

Labels: cooking, mmm, picture, step-by-step

I'm putting the bike back together. Bought in 2006, ridden until 2010, I hadn't changed out the bar tape. It was ratty. So along with a new stem, I bought new bar tape.

Now I didn't want to do it myself because I am pretty anal about things. If I don't put it on right, I'm gonna be sad. But I can't always rely on the angry dude in the bike shop to do everything. So, here's a step-by-step.

First, remove old bar tape. You're gonna have to remove the shifter hood or just move it aside enough so that it isn't in the way. Then cut the old tape off. Usually there's some electrical tape holding it on the bar. Cut that. Unwind the tape off. There's also an extra piece of bar tape around the shifter. Take that off.

Next, clean the bar. I used some rubbing alcohol so that the tacky residue of the bar tape is no longer there.

After it's clean get ready to wrap the new bar tape. Set up some electrical tape for when you get to the end. That way it's ready to finish up the taping.

Start wrapping the tape around the bar. Start at the bar ends. Do one turn parallel to the end of the bar about 1/3 onto the bar. This will make it easier to put the bar plug over the tape to hold it down. Put the bar plug on. Start wrapping. As you can tell, do it from the bar end towards the stem. Pull as you wrap to make it tight. When you come to the shifter, put that extra tape on the backside then wrap around it. Make sure you give some space for the tape around the shifting mechanism. When you run out of bar tape. Get out the electrical tape to tape it down on the end.

So that's it. I put on the bar tape. I didn't leave too much space on the right shifter. There's some bubbling along the curves. One side is shorter than the other. I think I'll be fine with this for only one season. I'll return to this post next year.

Labels: cycling, step-by-step

How to get a ball
Originally uploaded by browsermetrics.

Came early to OPACY for batting to snag a ball. Stood in centerfield bleachers as Tigers' right handed batters hit it into the left field stands. Waited until Damon and the left handed hitters came up but the Tigers don't have any jackets so balls weren't falling into the stands. The fans were pleading with the players who were shagging flies for balls. Justin Verlander was generous tossing balls into he stands. I acted nonchalant so he wouldn't throw directly to me. His final toss into the crowd went slightly to my left. I reached up and snagged it from the guy behind me. I've got another ball to add to he collection.

Labels: baseball, Camden Yards, step-by-step

As you know, I've been riding my Kona PaddyWagon as my Gios is on the bike stand. I broke a spoke on my rear wheel. It was a Campagnolo Proton wheel so changing the spoke out is somewhat difficult because Campy uses some proprietary spokes when they build their own wheels. You can't just go down to your bike store to get new spokes. You have to get a set of replacements. I got my from Brandford Bikes out in Seattle. Somewhat pricey, but the shop was charging me $20.00 for the service, before they had to go an order a the set.

You'll also need a 5.5mm hex nut driver as it makes it easier to reach the nipple top. So to replace the spoke, remove the tire and the rim tape to expose the top of the nipple. The Protons have been discontinued but you can find the steps in the Neutron manual which are very similar wheels.

I broke the spoke on the cassette side. The spokes are straight pull at the hub that's why you need specialized spokes. I also broke the spoke that use to reside closer to the center of the hub. The spokes cross over each other so I had to loosen the spoke that the broken spoke shared the slot in the hub. You then replace the spoke as normal. Put the other spoke back. And start tightening things up. True the wheel before you start putting the rim tape and tire back on.

That's all you need to do. (I'm not done as I'm still trying to figure out how to true the wheel.

Good luck.

Labels: "blog as notepad", cycling, step-by-step

This is just for references, if anyone ever searches for compiling smalltalk on OS X in google. I was compiling the latest stable release, 2.1.9.

When compiling GNU smalltalk on Mac OS X, and you run into errors with poll.h, my suggestion is to comment the block of code which #includes sys/poll.h. You'll find that the compilation will go more smoothly with the definitions in poll.h (the fake out section) rather than the definitions in sys/poll.h. In fact if you read, sys/poll.h it recommends you not #including it. Perhaps this is a bug and should be submitted to the maintainer of GNU smalltalk.

Labels: Macs, software development, step-by-step