Yeah, Zen can cook. Zen can cook very well.

Thursday February 22, 2007 - 07:26pm

I made all that food completely from scratch, minus the raising of chickens and grinding of flour of course. The egg-roll, wrapper and all, is homemade as well. I intend to take this one step further this year when my vegetable garden is in full swing. As is, all the ingredients were purchased at a local Farmer's Market. These small storage containers of food are what I send my wife to work with everyday. Do you really wonder why she keeps me home cooking? And yes, these recipes are mine completely. I didn't get them from anyone else and if you think it's close to yours, then great minds think alike and don't steal my recipes.

Ginger Chicken:
My own variety of precooked stir-fry chicken. This makes things alot easier if you eat stir-fry alot and don't want to have to cook everything all at once every time.

Ingredients:
3lbs. Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (sliced against the grain into thin strips)
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 Tbl sp. Seasoning Salt
1 Tbl sp. Garlic powder
3Tbl sp. Ginger powder
1 1/2 Tbl sp. Cinnamon powder
1/4 cup Sugar

Directions:
Heat a large seasoned wok (you can use a saucepan, but it will burn quickly) over high heat. Add Vegetable Oil and allow to warm up. Carefully add Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts. Add spices evenly across Chicken quickly in the order they are listed above and stir. Allow Chicken to reach an internal temperature of at least 190° and then quickly add Sugar, turn off heat and stir. When Chicken cools enough to be handled, place in storage container for freezing or refrigerating. Use in your stir-fry straight from the bag with your vegetables or reheat and pour Sweet and Sour Sauce (see below) over top. Best served over warm Jasmine rice.

Sweet and Sour Sauce:
I looked high and low to find a decent "Sweet and Sour" sauce that didn't rely on ketchup or food coloring to give it the proper color. I tried packaged mixes, pre-made bottles and various recipes online and offline. Nothing worked. So I experimented until I found something that turned out perfect. Itadakimasu! :)

Ingredients:
2 cups Chicken Stock (water may be substituted)
2/3 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1 15 ounce can of Tomato Sauce
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
3 Bell Peppers, cut into thin slices and then cut in half (32 slices)
1 Whole Pineapple, cut into chunks
2 Firm Tomatoes, cut into slices (16 slices)
1/4 to 1/2 cup Cornstarch mixed with equal amounts of water

Directions:
In a large wok (or saucepan) over medium-high heat, mix Chicken Stock, Apple Cider Vinegar, Tomato Sauce and Sugar. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly until Sugar dissolves. Do not allow to burn or vigorously boil! Add Bell Peppers, Pineapple Chunks and Tomatoes. Return to light boil, stirring occasionally. Stir in Cornstarch and water mixture slowly until desired consistency is attained.

[Poll copied from original blog, non-functioning here]

Did you like this recipe?

3 votes for: Hai!

0 votes for: Sumimasen...

0 votes for: What?

Why do I blog at OMG in the AM?

Sunday February 18, 2007 - 03:07am

Well, I finally got around to updating. I posted two public and one "friends only" photo albums. I'll be adding to the Ren Fest album as soon as I find all the blasted pictures. The Samhain album is for everyone who wanted to come to my Samhain dinner last year, but could not attend for various reasons. I have updated pictures of the kids, which I'll post when I get around to uploading the Vivitar. I'm trying to find more examples of our costume designs, and I will when my brain isn't fogged with lack of sleep.

Starting Monday this week I'll be going to the fitness room in our local community center in an attempt to lose weight and improve my health and physical appearance. Azalia and I bought a digital bathroom scale to help guilt ourselves into actually attending two to three times a week. The kids like the pool and they have free daycare for members. Bonus, eh?

I've a small window-sill garden sprouting right now in anticipation of spring. Mainly cooking and tea herbs, it's a good start towards saving a few bucks here and there. I threw a couple of potatoes that started sprouting in the bag in a dish of water and so far they've grown more than anything. I'd like to plant PennyRoyal around the house along with a few other choice pest reducing plants, but I've yet to find the seeds at any local stores.

I bought a slingshot a while back to reduce the amount of squirrels throwing under-ripe fruit out of our two pear trees. If I shoot enough of them, maybe we won't have the swarms of wasps and bees outside our back deck like last year. I've yet to be able to hit one of the bloody tree-rats with my trusty bag of marbles, but they have learned to stay well out of sight when I'm around.

I'm making haphazard progress in my eclectic studies lately, with languages coming out on top. I need to do my computer class work, period. I've little enough to put on my resume as is, an A+ Certification would at least give me some credibility in the PC Repair field. Doesn't it suck how no one will believe you are qualified to do anything unless you've a piece of paper to back up your claim? *shrugs* Well, we shall see...

[Poll copied from original blog, non-functioning here.]

What should I concentrate on right now?

• 1 vote for: Fitness Center: If you don't have your health, you don't have anything!
• 0 votes for: Learning Japanese: Being Bilingual is the key to America's Future.
• 2 votes for: A+ Certification: Stop procrastinating and hit the books! You know you want it. 2

This is why I don't draw...

Sunday February 5, 2006 - 10:50pm

Right, so I got this idea during the weekend that I could make up for our lack of photographs of costumes by drawing our designs. I considered buying a book, but figured I'd look online for a tutorial first to get an idea of where my skills lie.

Long story short, I suck at drawing. The hand-drawn version was even worse than the one I did in MS Paint. Azalia said it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't gonna win any prizes either. Well, maybe I'll stick with it for a little while. After all, I can't get worse.

In other news, we've just finished a Great Kilt and Nobleman's Tunic for a friend of ours, Josh. This tunic is probably the best one we've made so far, our at least Azalia's best work. My grommet work sucked ass. I put them too close together and they're crooked... but both sides of the collar and cuffs match. Odd, eh? He's happy with it, and it really looks great on him. $80 if we hadn't traded the costume for car repairs. Too bad the car got smashed a few months later.

Leslie, Josh's fiance, wants us to make her an outfit next. Get this: Shift, Corset, Dress and Floral Snood. Azalia's never used the Corset or Dress patterns that Leslie wants, so we have to make a couple of practice ones first. She'll have to crochet the entire snood and then make-up a wire headpiece to hold the flowers in place. We're gonna go through a whole bunch of boning for the practice and final corsets and then remeasure Leslie, because the corset will change her dress size, for the final fitting. A whole lotta work for this costume, normally about $750 at least to get us to even consider it. Leslie's a friend too, so we're cutting her a deal at about $575 not including the fitting corset and dress. She has odd measurements that exceed the pattern's specs, so we need to make probably two practice corsets and dresses before the final products.

Duane, aka Monkey, said he'd be back in town Friday, February 10th. We've been waiting on him to come back up here so that we can give him the rest of his costume and take pictures of him in it. Before Leslie, he held the record for expensive outfit at a whopping $350. Nobleman's Tunic and Vest, both in Satin; Velveteen and Satin Cloak; and a pair of Black (tweed?) indian pants. It's a nice costume. He'll definitely be commented on as he struts by the pub at the Michigan RenFest in Holly, or anywhere else for that matter. He gets around, he's a trucker after all.

*sighs* Well, my son is screaming so I'm done typing now.

Entry for January 30, 2006

Monday January 30, 2006 - 12:59am

What the hell am I missing? I'm so miserable and bored. I have two beautiful children, a daughter and a son, and a wonderful wife. I have a decent job working for my parents, while it's not fulfilling or rewarding, and I'm slowly but surely crawling back up out of debt. I don't really have a reason to feel like this, but I'm just so empty...

There, that's my EMO tribute.

I finished typing up those questions for my PC Repair course. I wish my printer worked, then I could print them out and start working on Lesson 5. I'd like to finish this course and get my A+ Certification as soon as possible, but I keep getting road-blocks thrown at me. Besides, unless I figure something out, the test is gonna cost me $100-$200! I heard there is a program at Mott Community College where I can take the test free of charge, I still need to check into that though.

Once I finish this I hope to start on another course, maybe Visual Basic or some networking course. It'd be nice to get my Cisco Networking Certification too. Azalia says she wants me to start back into college when we move down to Tennessee. I think I'll change my major from CIS to CET and concentrate more on the hardware aspect of computers and driver programming. That way, if all else fails, I can make something kickass if I know how to build PC cards for PCI or AGP slots. Most likely PCI, AGP video cards are pretty complex and I'd rather make something that uses RF to control an external mechanical component.

I have a shitload of other projects in the works: http://ep720.net for example; My new fighting staff still needs me to finish wrapping it; I need to figure out a system that will run like clockwork for our costuming business; I have to contact Lisa regarding RenFest this year; We need to really buckle down and potty train Kat; I need to finish the video on colors and fruits for Kat and Alex; I need to troubleshoot various things on my own PC; I have a list of shit I need to finish at work... *sighs* I just wish I could get SOMETHING done.

Entry for January 28, 2006

Saturday January 28, 2006 - 08:24pm

First blog entry: What I did today.

Today is my day off. I had intended to clean and do some school work, perhaps a few other miscellaneous projects. Didn't happen though, I got hit by the lazy bus. Spent the day watching Kat and Alex, didn't get anything accomplished. I used the little amount of spare time I acquired, through the use of arcane arts, to read at least five years worth of online comics.

Ha, I procrastinate better than you.