Oh, and to the Onion A.V. Club Taste Testers: How does it feel to get scooped?!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Bacon Jam ... Take a whiff
What comes in a jar that sweats bacon, looks like cat food, and smells like the moistest beef jerky ever? Bacon Jam! Some friends came over to Nate's Plate HQ last night and sampled Bacon Jam AND Baconnaise using a new interpretation of the BLT. Part one of our analysis goes live tonight, so be sure to keep your eyes on the hot social networking sites and RSS feeds for when dinner is served.
Oh, and to the Onion A.V. Club Taste Testers: How does it feel to get scooped?!
Oh, and to the Onion A.V. Club Taste Testers: How does it feel to get scooped?!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Homebrewing adventures: Pale chocolatey stout part three -- Bottling day!
I have to confess something. Last week, when I wrote that I was never going to write about homebrewing on a Tuesday, I was lying. I have a bunch of really good excuses too! Plus, I got an email yesterday saying something sure to stimulate the arteries was shipped to my house and it will definitely make up for this.
But what's more important is that 49 bottles of pale kinda chocolatey stout are now carbonating in bottles in a basement in Redford, Michigan. The best part is that the beer smells like Count Chocula. A non-carbonated room-temperature taste test indicates a mild chocolatey, sort of creamy flavor with very little hop bitterness. If our calculations are right, it's around 6% alcohol. Oh and we're probably going to call it Count Chocustout.
Sanitize your bottles (no twist-offs!), bottling bucket, racking cane, bottling wand, etc. Properly sanitizing everythingis a huge pain in the ass and wastes tons of our precious time takes patience and is a very important step!
Syphon the beer from the carboy into the bottling bucket, which in our case is the "deluxe" fermenter. See how much beer you can spill on the floor.
Here's the bottling wand. It has a flimsy valve in the bottom that likes to stick, giving you more opportunities to spill beer on the floor. It's also nice because your hands will smell like beer for about 12 hours after you use this.
The bottling wand in action. Pretty exciting. Leave 1.5 inches or so of air at the top of the bottle when filling it.
Cap your bottles with this device that looks sort of like a Snood character with long arms. Make sure that you've sanitized your caps and you have more caps available than bottles in case some of them get messed up.
Take a little sample while you're at it.
Look for a review of my own beer in the coming weeks.
But what's more important is that 49 bottles of pale kinda chocolatey stout are now carbonating in bottles in a basement in Redford, Michigan. The best part is that the beer smells like Count Chocula. A non-carbonated room-temperature taste test indicates a mild chocolatey, sort of creamy flavor with very little hop bitterness. If our calculations are right, it's around 6% alcohol. Oh and we're probably going to call it Count Chocustout.
Sanitize your bottles (no twist-offs!), bottling bucket, racking cane, bottling wand, etc. Properly sanitizing everything
Syphon the beer from the carboy into the bottling bucket, which in our case is the "deluxe" fermenter. See how much beer you can spill on the floor.
Here's the bottling wand. It has a flimsy valve in the bottom that likes to stick, giving you more opportunities to spill beer on the floor. It's also nice because your hands will smell like beer for about 12 hours after you use this.
The bottling wand in action. Pretty exciting. Leave 1.5 inches or so of air at the top of the bottle when filling it.
Cap your bottles with this device that looks sort of like a Snood character with long arms. Make sure that you've sanitized your caps and you have more caps available than bottles in case some of them get messed up.
Take a little sample while you're at it.
Look for a review of my own beer in the coming weeks.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
True breakfast fans only
If you love the Eggwave (or Egg McMuffins) and you're hip to the cool internet sites, you should probably become an Eggwave fan on Facebook.
Cheers to Amber, proprietor of the wasting-away skinny dudes blog, for making the page!
Cheers to Amber, proprietor of the wasting-away skinny dudes blog, for making the page!
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Super Broker Shuffle
Here's another chart-topping rap about food. These aisles of rhymes about hot deals are truly infectious. Thanks to Jimmy Ohio for the tip!
Mung Crunch! (Fried Mung Beans: Colleague's Cookin' Special Edition PART 2)
You may recall that I reviewed a colleague's fried mung beans a while back. Here's his long-awaited write-up and recipe. And by "long awaited," I mean it has been sitting on my computer for months waiting for me to post it. Here's what Russ has to say.
In these difficult economic times I feel the need to make the most of everything in our cabinets. This has involved making use of a variety of questionable purchases that have been lying around for months. Possibly the most perplexing was the 3 lb bag of mung beans I found underneath the Halloween candy. Much like the whole dried hot peppers and can of chopped clams this must have been a “seemed like a good idea at the time” purchase from the Indian grocery store.
My only previous experience with mung beans was a quote from The Office about said beans “smelling like death," as seen here.
The best part of this video is that it is as much about Crazy Train as it is mung beans. The quote is at 1:30 wait for it… wait for it…
As I found while frying them, they do indeed smell like death. My wife actually got sick to her stomach from the smell. As with just about any food once they are fried and salted they are delicious. My recipe is below.
Mung Crunch
250 g mung beans (8 oz.)
1 tb Vegetable oil
Salt to taste
1. Just soak the mung beans overnight. Drain them and dry thoroughly.
2. Fry in vegetable oil over a moderate heat, turning frequently, until they are browned and crisp - between 5 and 10 minutes.
3. Drain on kitchen paper towelling, sprinkle with salt, and cool. They store very successfully in airtight jars.
In these difficult economic times I feel the need to make the most of everything in our cabinets. This has involved making use of a variety of questionable purchases that have been lying around for months. Possibly the most perplexing was the 3 lb bag of mung beans I found underneath the Halloween candy. Much like the whole dried hot peppers and can of chopped clams this must have been a “seemed like a good idea at the time” purchase from the Indian grocery store.
My only previous experience with mung beans was a quote from The Office about said beans “smelling like death," as seen here.
The best part of this video is that it is as much about Crazy Train as it is mung beans. The quote is at 1:30 wait for it… wait for it…
As I found while frying them, they do indeed smell like death. My wife actually got sick to her stomach from the smell. As with just about any food once they are fried and salted they are delicious. My recipe is below.
Mung Crunch
250 g mung beans (8 oz.)
1 tb Vegetable oil
Salt to taste
1. Just soak the mung beans overnight. Drain them and dry thoroughly.
2. Fry in vegetable oil over a moderate heat, turning frequently, until they are browned and crisp - between 5 and 10 minutes.
3. Drain on kitchen paper towelling, sprinkle with salt, and cool. They store very successfully in airtight jars.
Homebrewing adventures: Pale chocolatey stout part two
Last weekend (the 25th), we decided to transfer the beer into the secondary fermenter. It definitely smells like alcohol now, so that's a fun surprise. As you can see in the last photo, it's quite pale for a stout. Note from the editor: The stats in my Google Analytics account tell me that you guys aren't really into these beer brewing tales, so they'll no longer be Tuesday features -- just a little something extra.
Siphon the beer from the primary fermenter into the "carboy" (secondary fermenter). This usually takes a few tries and you're guaranteed to get some partially fermented beer on the floor. Get a dog to lick it up.
Yeast sludge in the bottom of the "deluxe" primary fermenter. Perhaps we should have made some Vegemite with this.
The carboy all full and sealed up with the air lock. This lets the beer continue fermenting without sitting on a bunch of yeast sludge.
See Homebrewing adventures part one >
Siphon the beer from the primary fermenter into the "carboy" (secondary fermenter). This usually takes a few tries and you're guaranteed to get some partially fermented beer on the floor. Get a dog to lick it up.
Yeast sludge in the bottom of the "deluxe" primary fermenter. Perhaps we should have made some Vegemite with this.
The carboy all full and sealed up with the air lock. This lets the beer continue fermenting without sitting on a bunch of yeast sludge.
See Homebrewing adventures part one >
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Zipfizz, the miracle placebo hangover cure
I wrote this on a Sunday morning after being out until 4 a.m. so please disregard all time references.
Zipfizz engergy drink mix is an orange powder that comes in an orange tube (dubbed a test tube by its makers) that my friend Stacey got for free from a local liquor store. She got it for free because she inquired about what the hell it was. The cashier apparently told her he had no idea and that she should have some for free. Obviously, this mystery tube had to be consumed immediately, if not sooner.
I had actually reviewed Zipfizz once before, and it was a damn good review. When it came time to publish, however, the draft had vanished from my computer. The folder it had been in even contained a file icon for it that became invisible when I clicked on it. Not being one to give up easily, I got my hands on another tube (AKA Stacey felt bad for me and gave me her second test tube of it). Then, that tube disappeared before I could review it. Lucky for me, one of my cat's treats slid under the oven this morning and when I went to extract it for him, I found the missing tube. I knew I had to review it soon, but I told myself I was too sleepy and hungover to do so today. Then I realized -- This was the perfect moment in which to put Zipfizz to the test!
After some hesitation, I once again mixed the tube of "healthy energy" orange soda flavored powder into 16 - 20 ounces of water, taking note that I should not consume more than three tubes today in case I somehow managed to get my hands on more.
The powder reacted in a couple minutes, leaving some stagnant nuclear orange liquid, topped wth some even brighter foam, in my drinking vessel (a mason jar some spaghetti sauce had come in). The liquid was not fizzy at all -- quite the disappointment. The taste was actually not that bad and it reminded me of either weak orange soda mixed with something creamy, or watery Sunny D.
The flavor, however, is but one piece of the puzzle here. The test tube promised me healthy energy and I would settle for nothing less. As I sipped away, I reacquainted myself with this special health powder.
I felt extra glad to not be a child, a pregnant woman, a person who is sensitive to caffeine or a person with a health problem, because if I was, Zipfizz would not be recommened to me. Things being as they were, however, I was able to enjoy the Zipfizz proprietary blend, which is as follows:
L-Arginine
Caffeine from guarana seed extract
L-Taurine
Alpha-Lipoic Acid
Grape seed extract
Green tea leaf extract
American Ginseng root extract
Ginger root
Ah, the good stuff. And it seemed to be working, though whether or not that was due to the famed placebo effect was unclear (this is what I had discovered during my last experiment with Zipfizz). I can't say I'd urge you to run out and get your hands on a tube, but Zipfizz was with me when my hangover subsided and that counts for something.
Zipfizz engergy drink mix is an orange powder that comes in an orange tube (dubbed a test tube by its makers) that my friend Stacey got for free from a local liquor store. She got it for free because she inquired about what the hell it was. The cashier apparently told her he had no idea and that she should have some for free. Obviously, this mystery tube had to be consumed immediately, if not sooner.
I had actually reviewed Zipfizz once before, and it was a damn good review. When it came time to publish, however, the draft had vanished from my computer. The folder it had been in even contained a file icon for it that became invisible when I clicked on it. Not being one to give up easily, I got my hands on another tube (AKA Stacey felt bad for me and gave me her second test tube of it). Then, that tube disappeared before I could review it. Lucky for me, one of my cat's treats slid under the oven this morning and when I went to extract it for him, I found the missing tube. I knew I had to review it soon, but I told myself I was too sleepy and hungover to do so today. Then I realized -- This was the perfect moment in which to put Zipfizz to the test!
After some hesitation, I once again mixed the tube of "healthy energy" orange soda flavored powder into 16 - 20 ounces of water, taking note that I should not consume more than three tubes today in case I somehow managed to get my hands on more.
The powder reacted in a couple minutes, leaving some stagnant nuclear orange liquid, topped wth some even brighter foam, in my drinking vessel (a mason jar some spaghetti sauce had come in). The liquid was not fizzy at all -- quite the disappointment. The taste was actually not that bad and it reminded me of either weak orange soda mixed with something creamy, or watery Sunny D.
The flavor, however, is but one piece of the puzzle here. The test tube promised me healthy energy and I would settle for nothing less. As I sipped away, I reacquainted myself with this special health powder.
I felt extra glad to not be a child, a pregnant woman, a person who is sensitive to caffeine or a person with a health problem, because if I was, Zipfizz would not be recommened to me. Things being as they were, however, I was able to enjoy the Zipfizz proprietary blend, which is as follows:
L-Arginine
Caffeine from guarana seed extract
L-Taurine
Alpha-Lipoic Acid
Grape seed extract
Green tea leaf extract
American Ginseng root extract
Ginger root
Ah, the good stuff. And it seemed to be working, though whether or not that was due to the famed placebo effect was unclear (this is what I had discovered during my last experiment with Zipfizz). I can't say I'd urge you to run out and get your hands on a tube, but Zipfizz was with me when my hangover subsided and that counts for something.
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