Lighting Project

So what do you get when you combine a lazy Friday, a sketchbook and 40$ in lumber?









I think it's pretty cool looking.

On the Menu: Week 4

I didn't skip week 3 but the recipe turned out so well that I'm keeping it a secret until I have a chance to perfect it.

On to week 4!

This week I put together a meal of tomato sauce and Italian style turkey sausage over penne pasta with garlic bread. The sauce was put together from scratch or at least a bunch of cans. The turkey sausage went well with the mixture and while I feared my first attempt at home made pasta sauce would be too plain it turned out very close to what I wanted. I'm going to continue to work on this recipe but it basically goes like this:

Ingredients:

20 oz Jennie-O Italian Style Turkey Sausage

1 can Contadina Tomato Paste

1 can Contadina Tomato Sauce

1 can Safeway Sliced Tomato

3 Large Cloves of Garlic

Oregano

Basil

Preparation:

Start by browning the turkey while you chop the garlic into fine pieces. About half way through browning the turkey add the garlic and finish browning. Add the three cans of tomato product to the meat and bring to a simmer. Add the oregano and basil to taste. Spoon over pasta (I used penne pasta) and enjoy.

Notes:

I served this with garlic bread. My recipe is very simple and is 4 cloves minced garlic mixed with 4 tbsp salted butter spread over 10 slices of French bread which I then place into the oven on broil till the edges brown and the crust becomes crispy. This sauce is very heavy on the meat. I imagine that if I were to cut back on the meat and add another can of tomato paste I could get a smoother sauce. If I were to go vegetarian I think maybe doubling the canned tomato products and adding mushrooms or eggplant might do well but that's just a thought at this point.

The Me I Want to Be

Upon some reflection I've decided that there are some goals I want to set in order to live the life I envision as being best for me. Mostly, these goals are either creative in nature or relate directly to my health. As it is I feel like a personable young man overflowing with creative potential but I want to feel like an attractive young man surrounded by creative accomplishments.

First and foremost I want to look better. There's no more appropriate way to put it and I won't bother trying to make it sound like all I'm interested in my health. The health benefits are considerable to be sure but my primary interest is to lose fat and gain muscle to look more attractive.

My second goal is to exercise my creativity more frequently. It's rare that a week or even a couple of days pass without an idea for some sort of creation coming to mind. Most of the time my ideas are for handcrafts such as furniture and sewn items but sometimes extend to stories, games and art. I want to more reliably take action on these impulses and thoughts.

My goals are aggressive. In the next year I will work vigorously towards a leaner, thinner and more attractive body. In the immediate future I will resume my workouts and begin aggressive but reasonable dieting. At the same time I will make it my goal to act upon my creative impulses at least once a week. I expect this to be the beginning of something great; a turning point in my life.

Wish me luck.

On the Menu: Week 2

This week on the menu I threw together some curry, chicken, onion, bell peppers and "Chinese noodles". It was alright but the peppers were more bitter then I was used to. The next time I'll try it with a sweeter variety; red, yellow or orange.

If it works out well then I'll put up a recipe.

Incredible Amazing Turkey Burger

So I put it all together and it was pretty damn good if I say so myself. Here's the final recipe I used and an actual picture of the result.

Ingredients:

2.5 lbs Ground Turkey

1/2 Cup Bread Crumbs
1 tbsp Onion Powder

2 Egg Whites
1 tbsp Minced Garlic
2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tbsp Soy Sauce

Preparation:

Mix all ingredients together until uniform in color and texture. Form the mixture into 7 balls. Place the balls on the grill and cook till well done. Lightly butter a bun of your choice and toast it on a frying pan. Top the finished burger with your choice of toppings. I topped mine with aged swiss, red onion and a leaf of romaine lettuce and was very pleased.

Notes:

The consistency of the meat after mixing won't be as firm as ground beef or at least it wasn't when I put this together. As a result the balls will flatten out a little bit just by being set down on a flat surface. This was fine for cooking on the Foreman grill but it could mean that the ball deforms a bit on a more spread out cooking grid. Also, I found that when cooking these patties on the foreman grill I got a better result by cooking them on medium-high heat with the top up instead of down. Cooking took significantly longer but it worked out much better then with the top down.

On the Menu: Week 1

So my room mate has gotten a little nutty lately over "growing up" and eating "real food" or something to that effect. This is a good thing regardless of how much sarcasm I can pour into it; the guy didn't know how to scramble an egg until I encouraged him to learn how.

For the last few months his diet has consisted mostly of fast food burritos, bagged and frozen chicken nuggets and the weekly frozen pizza. As someone who loves to cook I proposed a solution. Three nights a week, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, my room mate and I will prepare a home made meal that we share. The rules are simple enough; no take out, no fast food and no meals prepared in advance.

Here's what I'm planning to put on the menu for tomorrow/today:

Ground Turkey
Bread Crumbs
Diced Onion
Egg White
Minced Garlic
Worcestershire Sauce
Soy Sauce

Mix it all together and form into patties, grill it up on the foreman and top with lettuce, onion, maybe a slice of swiss or sharp cheddar cheese and chuck it between a couple of toasted buns with whatever spread sounds good at the time.

This will be epic.

Strange...

I had a dream last night that I can remember in some strange detail. The basic setting was that I was on a home movie date with a popular girl from way back in high school. I recall that I wasn't nervous or anxious or anything and we would talk about video games while we cuddled under a blanket. Overall it seems like a pleasant dream if not for how it ended.

The last thing I can remember is thinking "She's totally into you but you didn't notice and now it's too late". Huh.

I don't think this has anything to do with the actual person in my dreams. She was likely just an avatar for something else but the message I took from this is one that has haunted me for some time; in love and in life I often allow opportunities to pass me by as I fail to recognize them.

When I woke up I had my iPhone in hand. I checked to see if I had sent a text message to anyone in my sleep and was a little disappointed to find that I hadn't.