This a very easy meal I’ve been making for myself lately. I’ll cook up a big batch on Sunday and have it for dinner most of the week. It’s awesome because it’s dirt cheap, easy, and you can eat a ton of it while feeling satisfied by never lethargic.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound lentils
• 1 can diced tomato
• 1 cup cooked white rice
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5 strips of bacon
• Sauce of choice to taste (I’ve used a number of different stir fry sauces with good success)

Method:

• Bring lentils and 5-8 cups of water to a boil.
• Simmer for about 15 minutes. However, I suggest checking for doneness starting around the 10 minute mark to make sure they don’t get mushy on you.
• Brown your bacon and then cut it up into small pieces.
• Sautee the chopped onion and cook until the onion softens and browns a bit.
• Drain the lentils and then stir in all the rest of the stuff including any sauce you want.

Last weekend I was looking for something Irish to eat for the holiday and I came across this recipe on Simply Recipies. I think it turned out very well, but I think my cup of flour wasn’t nearly the same amount of stuff as her cup of flour because my dough just didn’t want to become un-sticky or form up into a ball nicely at all. Because it was so wet, mine took an extra 15 minutes or so to cook. Never the less, I thoroughly enjoyed the bread, and would definitely make it again.

I consider something like this to be a dish reserved for special occasions. I’m a little late in posting this because I actually made this with Melanie for Valentine’s Day. The most time consuming part by far was reducing the wine sauce, but I think it was well worth it. I’m feeling a bit lazy tonight, but the recipe can be found here.

After watching the cube steak episode of ‘Good Eats’, I was inspired to try Alton’s recipe for country style steak. My method was exactly the same as his, but I changed the ingredient list a bit to suit my tastes and current pantry.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pound bottom round steak
• 1 bottle of ale (Red Hook ESB this time)
• 1 tsp. italian seasoning
• 1-2 Tbs flour

I just bought a new scanner today. I needed one because it was becoming very sad being reduced to taking digital photographs of my latest artwork and then using Photoshop to edit them sufficiently that they didn’t look like garbage. So, I broke down and bought this Cannon CanoScan LiDE25 from amazon. It was pretty cheap (about $50), and does its thing without fuss. I love it because its tiny, light, and runs entirely off the USB cable (no power cord required).

As with all new toys, it begged to be played with when it first arrived. Being the good person that I am, I obliged by paging through my sketchbook to see if there was anything left unscanned. There was… and this drawing is one that I found. I have very rarely tried to draw realistic people, but I thought this came out quite well. If you take a look, let me know what you think…

::Happy Thanksgiving::

Its been entirely too long since I seriously drew. This is mostly a remake of an older sketch I did a couple years ago. I’ve since learned what legs should mostly look like, that women look weird without proper hips, and that I still suck at drawing hands…

As usual, any feedback would be appreciated.

We had a little adventure last night in the Buffalo, NY area. Its October 13th, and we got 22 inches of snow last night. Even for Buffalo that’s a record. The most snow we’ve ever gotten in an October storm before was 6 inches in the early 1900’s. It was a very wet snow that clung to trees, often building up enough weight to snap branches and whole tree in half. That brought down many power lines, and now the area has 300,000 people without power at the moment. I was lucky enough to get my power back around 5:30PM today after loosing it as 11:20PM last night. Others aren’t so lucky…

I was inspired to make this dish when my Dad told me that he wanted to make some spare ribs. I thought nothing could go better with a hearty meal like that than some sweet and spicy baked beans. You can find Alton Brown’s origional recipie here.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound dried Great Northern beans
• 1/3 cup whiskey
• 1 pound bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• Hot sauce to taste
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• Chicken or vegetable broth
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Method:

• Soak beans overnight with the whiskey and enough water to cover the beans by an inch or so. I find that adding some whiskey to the soaking water adds an extra oaky/earthy flavor.
• The next morning, drain the soaking water in to a large measuring cup and place the beans in a slow cooker or large heavy pot. Top off the soaking liquid with the chicken/vegetable broth until it totals 4 cups.
• Cut up your bacon into half inch pieces and brown in a skillet.
• Add the chopped onion and cook until the onion softens and browns a bit.
• Stir in the tomato paste, brown sugar, and molasses.
• Add the entire contents of the skillet to your slow cooker and mix in well.
• Add the liquid, stir well, and then add a few dashes of hot sauce to taste.
• Season with salt and black pepper
• Simmer for about 6 hours. For the last hour of cooking, you may want to crack the lid of your slow cooker to allow some water to evaporate, thus thickening the liquid.

I got the idea for this pizza from a co-worker who said he’s done this in a conventional oven. If you’ve read the previous entry on grilled pizza much of this will look familiar…

Ingredients:

• 1 ball of frozen pizza dough
• Olive oil
• BBQ sauce
• Mozzerella cheese
• 2 Chicken breasts
• 2 bell peppers
• 1 large onion

Method:

• Leave frozen ball of dough in the fridge overnight to thaw
• Roll out the dough onto a platter or cookie sheet for easy transport to the grill. I usually just roll mine out to completely fill a cookie sheet, making a rectangular pizza.
• Dice the two peppers as well as the onion.
• Carmelize the onions in a pan with a little olive oil to bring out the onions sweetness.
• Add the peppers and cook this a couple of minutes to barely soften the peppers.
• Grill or otherwise cook the chicken breasts.
• Slice the breasts thin and toss with some hot sauce and paprika to taste.
• Preheat your grill and clean well with a wire brush.
• Apply a layer of olive oil to the dough with a basting brush.
• Put the dough oil side down onto the hot grill and let cook for about 5 minutes.
• When the underside of the dough is brown and crisp, flip the dough over.
• Spread a very thin layer of the BBQ sauce over the dough. You won’t need very much since the sauce has such a strong flavor.
• Apply a layer of the cheese and top with the peppers/onions and the chicken.
• Let this bake with the lid closed for 5 more minutes, or until the cheese is melted.
• Remove this and let it cool for 10 minues, and enjoy

My last college roommate, Dan, showed me a cooking show called ‘The Surreal Gourmet‘. Among other crazy things I saw this man cook salmon in a dishwasher. The host also grilled pizza in one episode… that’s right, grilled pizza. I thought he was crazy at first, but after trying it myself I have to say that that the idea is pure genius. The beauty of this method is that you can make it however you’d like, and the lighlty chared crust is crisp and very flavorful. I make this particular pizza very frequently because I love the carmelized onions so much… they’re like candy, I swear.

Ingredients:

• 1 ball of frozen pizza dough
• Olive oil
• 1 can of pizza sauce
• Mozzerella cheese
• 2 bell peppers
• 1 large onion
• Soy sauce

Method:

• Leave frozen ball of dough in the fridge overnight to thaw
• Roll out the dough onto a platter or cookie sheet for easy transport to the grill. I usually just roll mine out to completely fill a cookie sheet, making a rectangular pizza.
• Dice the two peppers as well as the onion.
• Saute the onions in a pan with a little olive oil until they start to brown slightly. By that point, a lot of the moisture will have cooked out of the onion. As a by-product of that, its sweetness will be intensified.
• Add the peppers and a few shakes of soy sauce. Cook this a couple of minutes to barely cook the peppers and let the soy sauce absorb into the vegetation.
• Preheat your grill and clean well with a wire brush.
• Apply a layer of olive oil to the dough with a basting brush.
• Put the dough oil side down onto the hot grill and let cook for about 5 minutes. (You’ll just have to trust me when I say that this will not stick to the grill if it is clean.)
• When the underside of the dough is brown and crisp, turn off one of the burners and flip the dough over. Position it over the burner that is off so its not on direct heat. We’ll do this so the ingredients have time to bake before the other side of the crust burns.
• Spread on a thin layer of sauce and 1 third of the peppers/onions.
• Apply a layer of the cheese and top with the rest of the peppers/onions.
• Let this bake with the lid closed for 5 more minutes, or until the cheese is melted.
• Turn the other burner back on and grill long enough to brown it slightly if it isn’t already.
• Remove this and let it cool for 10 minues, and enjoy