Tidbits

I don't have much to say about any one thing today, but I do have little things to say about a few things.

First of all, my buddy Paul took off to Seattle for a new job, and his old house in Sandy, UT is for sale. I've been to said house before, and it is nice. I kind of wish I could afford it myself. If you're interested, check out the website that he's set up for it.

Do you remember a couple of years ago when I first posted about absorption pasta? I've been playing with it off an on lately. Last night I made some with spaghetti (in a very wide pan, obviously) and chicken stock spiked with a little Worcestershire sauce, black pepper and Italian seasonings. Towards the end I added a handful of mirepoix (they sell it in the frozen veggie section now, at my local grocery store). When the pasta was pretty much al dente but there was still a little hot liquid, I added some marinara sauce. I served it with shredded cheddar on top, and it was my favorite thing to have eaten all week. My wife, who normally hates red sauce, even liked it.

Lately I've been working on clearing shows off of the DVR to make room for more shows. This has involved converting my wife's hairdressing shows to DVD format. In fact, I have not been allowed to remove Shear Genius without first making sure she has a copy on a DVD, whether Bravo ever decides to release it (preferred) or I have to do it myself. Last week I failed to bring any suitable reading material for the flights to and from Maryland, so I pulled out my laptop and slammed out a tutorial for command line DVD authoring in Linux, based on my recent experience. I now have a five-part series almost ready for public consumption. I even managed to get Linux video guru Steve Dibb to take a look at it and give me some thoughts. I plan to post it next week, one part per day.

Last but not least, I've been playing with what is basically a copy-cat recipe of Valdosta pecans. It's not done yet, but I can give you the ingredient list for my first batch. I might have tweaked with it a little bit, in an attempt to add depth to the flavors.

1 cup pecans pieces and halves, toasted
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup Jack Daniels
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 tsp dried orange zest
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
pinch Kosher salt

Initial observations: sweetness is decent, but I wish I'd had brown sugar on hand. I didn't taste the JD at all. The orange flavor was a little strong, but that may have been because I only had orange-flavored Craisins on hand. I think the black pepper was just about dead on. When I get a chance to pick up more dried cranberries, I'll try it again and post instructions.