--- /dev/null
+#title Sometimes I Get Bored
+
+* Bread
+
+** Slavery
+
+Rather than buy yeast I decided to be hardcore and enslave wild yeast
+in a jar. It is actually [[http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm][pretty damn easy]]. I used the method mentioned
+in the former link, but added a bit of *science* (or--I've kept a beer
+yeast starter before). I used my giant bottle of Iodophor to sanitize
+the jar in which the yeast were to live (just to kill any natives; I
+rinsed the jar afterward with tap water and didn't sanitize any
+utensils), made sure the water used for feeding was at about 90°F, and
+fed the starter a tablespoon of dry malt extract (maltose being to
+yeast what fast food is to a fat American) and a quarter teaspoon of
+lemon juice (just to slightly acidify the initial mix and make the
+yeasties new home a bit more hospitable to only them at first) for the
+first two days. This resulted in a bubbly and happy starter on the
+third day, made interesting bread on the fourth, and was successfully
+cloned for someone else on the fifth!
+
+Just remember to measure the volume of the original mixture and write
+that down so you can easily substitute it into recipes (mine worked
+out to ⅔ cup of starter from ½ cup of flour and water, but flour
+varies in absorbency rabble blah moo etc.).
+
+** Pita
+
+ - [[Pita]] (the base for all of the others)
+ - [[Olive Pita]]
+ - [[Sun Dried Tomato Pita]]
+
+* Rice and Whatnot
+
+ - [[http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook/pilaf_chelou.html][Chelou]] (I usually add barberries)
+ - [[http://www.turkishcookbook.com/2005/08/bulgur-pilaf.php][Bulgar Pilaf]]
+
+* Things Into Which Other Things Are Dipped
+
+ - [[Maast-o Khiar]]
+ - [[Hummus]]
+
+* Light Fare
+
+ - [[http://www.superluminal.com/cookbook/small_dolmas.html][Dolmas]]
--- /dev/null
+* Ingredients
+
+ - 1 cup dried chick peas
+ - 1/4 cup liquid from chick peas
+ - 6 cloves of [[Roasted Garlic]]
+ - 2 sun dried tomatoes (dry; not stored in oil)
+ - 2 tsp smoked paprika
+ - 5 tbsp lemon juice (fresh if possible)
+ - 2 tbsp olive oil (middle eastern if possible; the cultivars taste
+ different!)
+ - 4 tbsp tahini
+ - 1/2 tsp kosher salt
+
+* Directions
+
+** Preparing the Beans
+
+Just soak a cup of dried beans at least overnight in a couple of cups
+of water. Drain them and throw them into a pot with a dash of salt and
+enough water to just more than cover them (an extra half an inch or so
+seems to be good). Bring everything to a boil uncovered, and then cut
+the heat back to simmer for about an hour or an hour and a half (when
+the skins split easily they have a good texture).
+
+When you drain them save the liquid and use that when blending the
+hummus.
+
+** Tomatoes
+
+Boil the sun dried tomatoes in one cup of water with a dash of salt
+for ten minutes, drain, and cut into a few pieces to make it blend
+more easily. It adds an interesting flavor if you use a bit of the
+leftover water instead of chickpea water (I just do a 50/50 split
+usually).
+
+** And Now for the Actual Hummus
+
+ 1. Prepare the beans (or be lame and use canned beans)
+ 2. Throw everything together in a blender or food processor and blend
+ until it is smooth
+ 3. Put whatever frilly garnish to make it look better on it if you must
+ 4. Take to a gathering of some sort
+ 5. Goodbye hummus
+
+* Notes
+
+One time I decided to make hummus for folks and alas! I forgot to soak
+beans the night before. My strange friend came to the rescue with the
+equivalent amount of home prepared white beans and it was a good
+substitute (slightly different flavor, but the spices here really
+dominate). I used the water from boiling the dried tomatoes as there
+was no fresh chickpea water on hand and it was delightful.
+
+I just use a blender to mix everything (use what you have eh). There's
+no real need to use a fancy food processor if you don't have one;
+anyone who thinks the texture is better from that is dumb and probably
+just sucks at cooking the beans or is a pretentious jerk. Obviously if
+you have a food processor you may as well use it because it's a bit
+less annoying I'm told.
+
+When using a blender you have to use a spoon to mix it manually
+occasionally whenever an air pocket forms over the blades. At least in
+my blender getting everything into the initial paste requires blending
+for a second, mixing the solid beans into the bean paste below it, and
+repeating until it is all paste. Then I just blend it on a fairly low
+speed stopping and popping air pockets whenever they form until
+everything is consistent, and then throwing the blender up to full
+throttle for a little bit to blend out the chunks.
--- /dev/null
+#title Maast-O Khiar (Or, Less Pretentiously, Cucumber Yogurt)
+
+* Ingredients
+
+ - 1 cup plain yogurt
+ - 1 small seedless cucumber (peeled)
+ - 1/4 white onion
+ - 1 clove garlic (or two if you so choose)
+ - 1/2 tsp black pepper
+ - 1/2 tsp salt
+ - 2 tsp finely chopped mint
+
+* Directions
+
+Grate or dice cucumber, onion, and garlic (depending on your
+preference). Mix everything together. Chill.
+
+* Notes
+
+I like to dice my vegetables; this results in a bit of a different
+texture as the water and pulp from the grated vegetables mixes with
+the Yogurt. If you dice the vegetables instead the texture is a bit
+more yogurty, **and** you need to refrigerate it for a bit longer before
+eating. Make it both ways and see; it only takes ten minutes to throw
+together a batch.
+
+A good yogurt with cream makes for a very nice base texture.
--- /dev/null
+Everything is the same as the basic [[Pita]] with the following additions.
+
+* Ingredients
+
+ - ~1/3 cup unpitted black olives (oil cured or fresh! Do not use
+ canned olives)
+
+* Directions
+
+ 1. Unpit and dice olives
+ 2. Mix up the dry ingredients as in the [[Pita]] recipe
+ 3. Blend the olives in with the wet ingredients
+ 4. Resume the normal [[Pita]] recipe
+
+* Notes
+
+The first time I made this a few friends said there should be more
+olives, and so the second time I made this I tried using a half cup of
+olives instead of a quarter cup. This was a horrible mistake because
+olives are very salty; more than a third of a cup is a bit much for my
+taste.
+
+I highly recommend using [[http://palestineoliveoil.com][Holy Land Olive Oil]] in the bread (but cheap
+stuff works to coat the rising bowl, naturally), or some other very
+high quality olive oil. If you can buy it at a supermarket in the US
+(even somewhere faux-fancy like Whole Foods) then it isn't high
+quality. A proper olive oil imparts a delicious olive flavor
+throughout the bread with the occasional chunk of olive enhancing the
+flavor. I made a batch with grocery-store-expensive olive oil once and
+it was very bland comparatively. It is amazing how two tablespoons
+(ostensibly thrown in to control the yeast) of properly made olive oil
+can impart such a nice flavor.
--- /dev/null
+* Ingredients
+
+ - 1 1/2 cups white wheat flour
+ - 1 1/2 cups red or spring wheat flour
+ - 1 tsp salt
+ - 1 tbsp honey
+ - 2 tbsp olive oil
+ - 1 1/2 cups water
+ - Yeast
+
+* Directions
+
+** Yeast Starter
+
+If you are using a sourdough starter make a sponge containing one cup
+of water and 1 1/4 cups flour (including the stuff in the bit of the
+mother you used). Rising times will, as per usual, be variable.
+
+If you use commercial yeast subtract the amount of water you use when
+proofing the yeast from the water used in the recipe.
+
+** Bread
+
+ 2. Mix salt, flour, and, yeast if using dry breadmachine yeast
+ 3. Blend in olive oil, water, and yeast if using sourdough or a
+ proofed starter; stir into a ball
+ 4. Knead for tenish minutes
+ 5. Lightly coat a bowl with olive oil and drop the dough into it;
+ cover and let the dough rise in it for about 90 minutes (usual
+ bubble / punch deal)
+ 6. Split into 6-8 balls and let it rest for 20 minutes;
+ simultaneously preheat the oven to 400°F with a baking sheet or
+ stone or whatever you bake bread on (whee, parallelism)
+ 7. Throw some flour onto a work surface and the tops of the dough
+ balls; flatten into 1/4 inch thick pita shaped blobs
+ 8. Put a bowl of water into the oven on the bottom rack and bake for
+ about 10 minutes
+
+* Notes
+
+With a 1:1 *white wheat:red wheat* ratio the bread is a tad bit
+heavy--try using a 2:1 *white wheat:red wheat* ratio to make it a bit
+lighter if you'd like.
--- /dev/null
+* Ingredients
+
+ - 1 or 2 heads of garlic
+ - A tablespoon or so of olive oil
+
+* Directions
+
+ 1. Separate the cloves of the garlic heads; leave the skin on the
+ individual cloves (only removing lose bits of skin).
+ 2. Put onto a piece of aluminum foil and throw a tablesoon of olive
+ oil on top of the cloves.
+ 3. Rub the olive oil over the cloves
+ 4. Turn the foil into a pouch and throw in the oven at 250°F for an hour
+
+* Notes
+
+The roasted garlic bits seem to keep tolerably in the fridge for a day
+or two so there isn't really any reason to roast less than a full head
+of garlic. Obviously you can throw some spices in if you want, but I
+usually just roast the garlic because I use it in heavily spiced
+things anyway. Don't try to roast more than two heads worth of cloves
+in a bunch, but naturally you can throw a bunch of pouches into the
+oven if you have a need for an absurd amount of roasted garlic.
--- /dev/null
+Everything is the same as the basic [[Pita]] with the following additions.
+
+* Ingredients
+
+ - 6 sun dried tomatoes (dry and not oil packed)
+ - 3/4 cup water from boiling tomatoes and 3/4 cup water instead of 1
+ 1/2 cups of water
+ - About 1 tbsp fresh romemary (chopped a bit)
+ - 2 decent sized leaves of basil (chopped)
+
+* Directions
+
+ 1. Boil the sun dried tomatoes in one cup of water with a dash of
+ salt for ten minutes. Save 3/4 cups of the water after boiling.
+ 2. Chop the sun dried tomatoes into fairly small chunks
+ 3. Chop the basil leave fairly finely; cut the rosemary leaves into
+ thirds (approximate, naturally--a few whole leaves are entirely
+ ok).
+ 4. Blend in the basil and rosemary with the dry ingredients
+ 5. Blend in the tomato chunks with the wet ingredients
+ 7. Return to the good old [[Pita]] recipe
+
+* Notes
+
+Sometimes I grate some parmesian or another hard cheese and mix it
+with a bit of rosemary and garlic into a small amount of olive oil
+(just enough to make things sticky) and spread it onto the tops of the
+pita when baking. It is, naturally, delicious.
:fiction 10
"Perhaps the best comic book series of all time; I would say *The
Sandman* as a whole ranks higher than anything even Alan Moore has
-written."))
+written.")
+ ("Good Omens"
+ :fiction 8
+ "A friend of a friend decided one evening that I needed to read
+so-called *normal people books*, and so she lent me *Good Omens*. It
+was an enjoyable read and unearthed vague memories of comic book
+magazines I read when I was small and the name *Sandman*; thus through
+one book I found something far greater."))
((|William| |Blake|)
"Blake is my [[William Blake][favorite]] of the English poets. His
unique use of relief etching and watercoloring makes for very
("On the Geneaology of Morals"
:nonfiction 9
"*On the Geneaology of Morals* is a wonderful book of three
-polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethic valuations, and the
+polemical essays on the origin of moral/ethical valuations, and the
blindness of modern philosphers whose very thinking is tainted by
these valuations unknowingly.")
("Ecce Homo"
utterly worthless.")
("Heaven and Hell"
:nonfiction 0
- "Blah blah LSD blah blah Mushrooms blah blah Peytoe blah blah I'm
+ "Blah blah LSD blah blah Mushrooms blah blah Peyote blah blah I'm
Aldous Huxley I'm a pretentious jerk. Don't bother."))
((|Douglas| |Adams|)
nil
* Sections
- - [[Bicycle]]
- - [[Kilt]]
- - [[Maytag][Cat]]
+** Boring Technical Stuff (I Know I Know, You're Probably Here for This)
+
+ - [[Code]]
+ - [[Lisp][Lisp Stuff]]
+
+** Perhaps Interesting
+
+ - [[Cooking]]
- [[Homebrewing]]
- [[Book List][Things I Have Read]]
- - [[Code]]
- - [[Lisp]]
+
+** *Et cetera*
+
- [[Imagery]]
- [[Politics][Political and Social Views]]
- [[Music]]
+** Unabashed Navel Gazing
+
+ - [[Bicycle]]
+ - [[Kilt]]
+ - [[Maytag][Cat]]
+
* Journal
I keep a [[http://journal.unknownlamer.org/][journal]] where I used to send ideas out into the Ether before
HCoop / clinton / website / src / unknownlamer.org.git / commitdiff