#me-at-425-degrees

[lakesbian]

i'm going to preheat my oven to 425 degrees climb in and shut the door behind me. also very funny to me that she gave it lipstick. his gnc swag, even in death. yeah i'm good (in endless agony over the girl who only ever wanted to be seen having the people she loves most die & resigning herself to becoming a keeper of legacies, mysterious only in the sense that everyone who understood her is gone)

#[guy who already knew she had a regent doll] oh my god she has a regent doll #wormtime #scarf don't look

[bonefall]

LAMB STEW & BUTTERNUT SOUP RECIPES. GIVE

THE LAMB STEW RECIPE IS MINE. MINE ALL MINE

BUt I will actually teach you the butternut soup one, people don't realize how cheap butternuts are and how easy this recipe is. I had to teach my partner's family how to properly prepare butternut and they thanked me for it because it's ALWAYS on sale and SUPER easy to make.

You need a metal baking tray, a crockpot, and a blender. The blender is optional, but it makes the perfect creamy consistency

Other ingredients you're gonna need; Garlic, shallots, pepper, turmeric, curry and chicken stock

(though I remembered the recipe wrong when I was over there and used beef stock, fam still loved it though, soooo pick whatever stock you like best tbh. This is a super forgiving recipe, I promise if you're a beginner cook this is a great place to start)

ALSO FAIR WARNING: Idk how to measure anything. I do not actually have a written recipe.

Step 1: Cut the Nut

Cut it longways, like a canoe, and scoop the seeds out. Coat the fleshy-side with cooking oil and sprinkle some pepper on it if you like-- nothing needs to be done to the skin-side. Place it FLESH-DOWN on the baking tray and pop it in the oven, 425 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 - 50 mins

When it's done it looks like this (half-eaten babybel snack optional. bbq sauce not used, it was just there for emotional support)

You can actually eat it just like this.

Like if you're not looking to make soup, this compote can actually be made into all sorts of things. You can stick a spoon right in that and eat it. I've made like... fried butternut latke-things out of it, I have some compote in my freezer just for experimenting with.

If you're smart, you wait for it to cool down before you scoop the flesh out with a spoon. Im not 💗

Step 2: trust your heart to tell you how many fucking onions are in there

My partner is the one who's able to measure things, I simply put my faith in the claws of Velociraptor Jesus tell me what the ratio of garlic to butternut is. I am not allowed near baked goods. I do not cook by the book. I put too many ashes in my middle school volcano project and smoked out an entire classroom once.

This came out great though, and for it I used 2 white onions (about a cup), 4 cloves garlic, and some chopped shallots. All minced as much as possible.

Once that was all in I (think you're gonna see a theme here) kinda just eyeballed how much stock and spice was gonna go in, just doing taste tests until it was yummy... I think it was 2 cups stock water and 3-ish tablespoons of turmeric and curry? Next time I make it'll actually measure how much I use.

I really do just kinda taste-test things until it's good.

I would apologize that I don't have the family recipe actually written down for exact amounts but I don't think I will ✨Bless this mess ✨✨✨✨Welcome to living inside of my head✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Anyway through some magic later you get a mash that looks like this, I stirred it up real good.

Step 3: This is where the blender comes in

This is the most tedious part tbh, but it's worth it because you can't get it super creamy if you don't feed it through a blender.

At this point me and my partner grabbed the pot and poured it in because we had 4 hands between us and felt lazy, but if you're alone you should scoop it manually so you don't spill shit everywhere

And once you have that, portion out what you'd like, and add milk. When you first get the soup out of the blender, it's real thick. You add milk to get it to the consistency you want-- DO NOT ADD MILK TO THE WHOLE THING AT ONCE

IF YOU ADD MILK TO THE WHOLE THING AT ONCE, IT GOES BAD FASTER

This stuff can be frozen or fridged and it tastes just as good as it was when fresh, as long as you only add fresh milk when you're ready to eat it.

I usually eat it with a grilled cheese or some other kinda bread. And that's really it.

#bone babble #should I even tag this as recipe? #food #butternut #soup

[usafphantom2]

The SR-71 Was Close to Perfect

A member of the Blackbirds’ ground crew looks back on the airplane’s flight-test beginnings to the end of the Blackbirds

This first photograph was taken of the SR-71 #972 when it was in a hangar near Dullas airport, waiting for the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to be open. Photo Eric long. The other two photographs were taken at Palmdale California December 21, 1989.

After a 480-mile flight from Beale Air Force Base in California, the midnight-black airplane swooped down to about 300 feet above Burbank Tower, less than 30 seconds after its scheduled arrival time of 12 noon. It made an easy half-roll, then completed two more passes. The parking garage roof where I stood reverberated with cheers, but as the Blackbird came in for its final pass, a hundred feet off the runway, and then pulled up just beyond the tower, the crowd fell silent. was December 1989, and this flyby, a gift to Lockheed employees from Ben Rich, head of Advanced Development Projects (the Skunk Works), marked the beginning of the end of the SR-71. After much debate in Congress, the Blackbirds were about to be retired. The YF-12A, the earlier, single-seat version of the SR-71, first flew in August 1963 and the Blackbird in December 1964. It was still unsurpassed when it was retired in 1990, 24 years after it officially entered service.

As I watched the SR-71 that December day, I thought back to the airplane’s flight-test beginnings in the early 1960s. I thought of Ben Rich, Ray Passon, Keith Beswick, and so many others whose lives were forever touched by this aircraft. I too was part of the Blackbird team, setting up housing, transportation, and communications—special measures due to the secrecy necessary. And above all of us was designer Kelly Johnson, who had a gift for sharing his ability to innovate and his drive to succeed. The unity of commitment we felt under leadership from Larry Bohanan in engineering and Dorsey Kammerer in production reached new intensity whenever Kelly arrived in the field. Sometimes he would good-naturedly arm-wrestle with people working there. His team members were hand-picked and fiercely loyal to him. He once offered $50 to anybody who could find an easy job to do. He got no takers. When it came to their specialties, the people working on the Blackbird were the best in the company, perhaps in the country or even the world. The last word in reconnaissance airplanes, the SR-71 was capable of flying faster than Mach 3 and above 85,000 feet. In fact, the SR-71 flew so fast that even in the cold of those rarefied heights, the friction of the air heated its titanium skin to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.

On the day the Blackbird took to the air for the first time, many of the ground crews showed up. I had worked all night, but sleep in those days seemed like nothing but a waste of time so I stayed to watch. The weather was perfect for a December day: clear and cold, with snow on the surrounding mountains. Somewhere around 8 a.m. the desert silence was shattered by the sound of the twin Buick V-8 engines used for the starters. Later, when the Blackbirds operated at their base at Beale, they had permanent start facilities in their hangars, but in the early days two highly modified 425-cubic-inch Buick Wildcats, an estimated 500 horsepower each, were used to turn a massive starter shaft that was inverted into the first one, then the other of the SR-71’s J-58 engines. One sound I shall never forgot is that of those unmuffled Buicks holding steady at better than 6,000 rpm in excess of 15 seconds at a time, all hours of the day and night. Starting the engines was no easy job.

Kelly Johnson stood by in his familiar dark blue suit and tie, smiling as he had a final word for the pilots.

Veteran crew chief standing next to me could only murmur, “Her enemies will never be natural.”( that was true. It was jealous people that were her enemy.)

Written by Jim Norris

@Habubrats71 via X

[desertdollranch]

Sunday, February 25th, was National Muffin Day!

Grace is at La Grande Patisserie whipping up a few batches of blueberry muffins. Normally, her shop mostly sells French and French-inspired pastries, but this is a special occasion and Grace knows her customers will be delighted.

At the end of the post, Grace will share her muffin recipe, but first she's going to show you how they're made!

Here's the kitchen in La Grande Patisserie. She's got all of her ingredients and equipment set out on the prep table.

First she cracks an egg into the bowl of her stand mixer.

After adding the butter to the eggs, she pours in the milk.

Here's an animation of how Grace's stand mixer works!

After mixing together the dry ingredients, she adds them to the liquid ingredients, then adds a container of blueberries.

All mixed!

She fills the muffin cups halfway....

Puts them in the oven....

And gives them 20 minutes to bake.

After pulling them out and letting them cool, she tops the muffins with a mixture of butter, lemon juice, and sugar.

Perfect!

After the cut is Grace's recipe for blueberry muffins. I gave her the recipe; it comes from my mom's family recipe book, which is at least 50 years old. Trust me when I say these muffins will be the best you've ever had, in addition to being easy to make. The surprise ingredient is lemon zest and lemon juice, and they have a crunchy lemon-sugar topping.

Muffin ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt Zest of one lemon 1 egg 1 cup buttermilk 1/2 cup butter 1 cup blueberries

Topping ingredients: 1/2 cup melted butter 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1/2 cup sugar

Beat the egg, butter and milk together. In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. Add to the egg mixture and stir just until mixed (batter will be lumpy). Gently stir in the blueberries. Fill the muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes (12 minutes for mini muffins like Grace has). Let them cool while you prepare the topping:

Combine melted butter and lemon juice in a small bowl. Measure the sugar into another bowl. Dip the tops of the muffins first in the melted butter mixture, and then into the sugar.

#grace thomas #recipes #la grande patisserie #doll food

[chamerionwrites]

in the world of baffling recipe blogs and even more baffling comments left thereon, the one that always gets me is the small but loud minority of people who react with absolute revulsion to videos of people touching food with their hands. Ma’am. Sir. #1 This is not an Arby’s but their home kitchen, #2 I’m going to assume they washed their hands (and even if they didn’t, I’m not eating it and nor are you!), and #3 it’s about to go into a 425 degree oven for an hour

#tell me you put on nitrile gloves to make YOUR dinner and i’ll tell you you are either a germaphobe a masochist or a liar who doesn’t cook #like i’m all for practicing good food prep hygiene but come on now #culinary adventures #my posts

[briarpatch-kids]

You often talk about enjoying vegetables, so I hope you might be able to help me with something. I'm trying to add more veggies into my diet, but I'm not a big fan of raw vegetables so I was wondering if you had suggestions of how to prepare vegetables/dishes that are veggie heavy? So far I've been enjoying roasting broccoli and cauliflower in the oven with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Also you genuinely seem like a cool, down to earth person. I hope you have a good day/night!

Mixing it in pasta and noodles are awesome!! I like to heat up a big deep frying pan to about a 6 on my range top dial with a little grapeseed oil, then sear some cut up meat and add vegetables to it. Start with the tough veggies first, carrots, celery... summer squash isn't tough, but it has a lot of moisture to release to keep it from being slimy. After a minute or two I add a spoonful or two of Lao Gan Ma chili bean or chili crunch oil I try and use enough that you get the umami flavor without making it spicy.

If I'm making pasta, I've started a pot of water boiling at the same time as I start frying my meat and chopping my vegetables. I add paprika, cumin, whatever herbs I have laying around, worchestershire sauce, and either whatever beer cider or wine we have laying around, or broth. Add the noodles to the water when it boils and start a timer for them. Generally, once the timer has about 3-5 minutes left, I throw a handful of flour I'm and mix it, then whatever delicate vegetables we have laying around, usually tomatoes and peppers, nasturtium leaf, kale... that kind of thing. Drain the pasta when the timer goes off and mix the noodles with the contents of the frying pan. Food time!

If you don't want to do pasta, you can also leave out the broth and crack like 5 or 6 eggs into the pan instead and make a sort of frittata or scramble.

If I'm making noodles, I usually add ginger and garlic to the pan, then the tough vegetables. Then I turn on my kettle and pour it over a bunch of bean threads and let them soften while I add soy sauce, rice wine, and broth to the pan, then add the delicate vegetables, I use baby bok choi here along with the other delicate vegetables I added to pasta. Now I toss the half soft noodles into the pan with the veggies and cook it till the bean threads soak up all the liquid.

Sometimes I serve veggies cooked like this over rice instead of bean threads, then put tofu cooked with a Teriyaki glaze, fried pork belly, or fried eggs on top.

I also put sweet corn in the oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, shucked and wrapped in foil with nondairy butter and salt. Sweet potatoes can also be wrapped in foil and cooked at 425 for an hour, I don't like the texture but my husband eats them a lot dipped in sweet chili sauce.

I kind of base my regular weeknight dinners off of whatever veggies we have kicking around the fridge or garden and whatever protein we have. Sometimes it's tofu, sometimes it's polish sausage.

[ineffablecooking]

Ineffable Cooking Presents:

An Obscenely Historically Accurate Apple "Turnover" (An inaccurate recipe) 🍎🥧

From Temple of the Muses

By @ajconstantine

Obscenely accurate? Yes. This is a historical fiction AU set in the Victorian era and every minute detail has been researched incredibly thoroughly...that apple detail in the intro? The author and I spoke. She did the research. Apples were not in season in the month of April in England in 1841. So she wrote apple preserves into the story.

And we stan.

"Turnover" Filling Ingredients:

3 pounds (about 7-9 apples) baking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced thinly

1 tablespoon lemon juice

½ cup (100 grams) packed light brown sugar

¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar

1–½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

Pinch salt

2 tablespoons (14 g) cornstarch

¾ cup + 2 tablespoon fresh apple cider, divided 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

(This pampered chef product has followed me since the early 2000's and I plan to be buried with it)

Direrctions

1. Add apples, lemon juice, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt to a heavy bottom pot. Stir together and let macerate at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Add ¾ cup of apple cider to the pot, and stir the apples one more time. 

2. Turn the heat to medium and begin to cook the apples, stirring occasionally to make sure the apples cook evenly. Cook until the apples have softened, about 10 minutes, making sure not to cook off all of the liquid. If the liquid does cook off quickly, add ⅓ cup more apple cider to the pot.

3. Create a slurry by whisking together the cornstarch and remaining 2 tablespoons apple cider together in a small seperate bowl.

(I put that last part in bold because mistakes were made. The blur is me frantically whisking cornstarch)

4. Pour the cornstarch slurry into apples and stir together until dissolved. Continue cooking until the mixture is thickened, about 2-3 minutes. 

5. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and butter.

Often turnovers are made with puff pastry. But for what I wanted ro do to achieve the heart shape I used pie crust.

(Pillsbury is standard)

Also why is "Turnover" in quotes? Because:

"turnover, individual pie formed by folding a piece of pastry in half over a filling. The open edges are pressed or crimped together to enclose the filling during cooking and eating. Turnovers may be baked or fried."

-Google

And because of the process involved, we can't legally call these turnovers:

6. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line another baking sheet with parchment paper (Or cooking spray. Or not. You do you.)

7. Cut several heart shapes out and spread on a baking sheet

7. Take your filling and spoon very very small amounts onto half of the hearts on the sheet

I cant emphasise how messy and it was trying to seal the hearts close. If you think you didn't put enough filling onto your spoon, you're wrong. Trust me it's plenty.

8. Seal the hearts by pinching the edges together as best you can (a fork wouldn't work because I wanted to keep the hearts small and the amount of filling kept pushing it out the other side of the pocket)

9. Cross your hearts!!

10. Do an egg wash and top with some sugar.

11. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden

These "turnovers" were amazing and I believe I ate the majority of the ones pictured in this photo. I didn't even want to attempt to do a foldover tenchnique, hence the cookie cutter, but honestly I doubt I could've made something remotely this cute, this successfully, this quickly.

HIGHLY recommend the filling recipe, and you know what I recommend make all food heart shaped, because Aziraphale's right, that is darling!

#ineffable cooking #good omens #recipes #apple turnover #but not really #aj constantine #temple of the muses

[unhingedkitchen]

Herbed butter roast chicken

Today, in a bout of yearning for domestic bliss, we’re roasting a chicken. It feels like a roast chicken sits exactly at that junction of cosy homeliness, effortless housewife perfection and nutritious food that you actually want to eat. Just a disclaimer that the above pic is a stock pic because I'm shite at photography. But the end result looks like this.

If you’re looking for the full experience, at this point you’ll cue up the song Mall Rat from the Sims 1 soundtrack to achieve full perfect perky housewife vibes. And no, I won’t be taking questions on why I know the individual track names on the game. If you know, you know. 

Ingredients:

1x roasting chicken - free range if you can swing it, otherwise no biggie. Size is going to be up to you, as so few things in life are. 

1x Lemon

1x head of garlic

2 medium onions or one large one

Poultry rub (if you want a recipe for home-made DM me, it’s super simple to make at home) 

6-8 sprigs of thyme and rosemary

Three generous Tablespoons of butter, or a stick, depending on where in the world you live or regret living as the case may be. 

Two big handfuls of baby potatoes

Oven: Set to 200 degrees celsius / 425 Fahrenheit. Roasting time is 20 mins per 400g or little under a pound. 

Let’s go.

Method:

Place the chicken on the counter to come up to room temperature. Some chicks just have no chill and roast all the better for it.  Remove chicken from packaging and give that as well as the fresh produce a rinse under cool, running water. You thought I was going to say Cool Runnings, didn’t you? It’s okay, so did I. 

Washing the chicken is important to get all the butchery gunk off - even if you don’t see it, it’s there. Then pat it dry gently with a kitchen towel. Dry skin crisps up better. Realise that bits of kitchen towel are now stuck on chicken skin. Reevaluate life choices that lead you here.  

At this point Mall Rat would have skipped over to a track called Groceries. This is fine. Let it play. 

Grab a lemon and your herbs. Slice lemon in half, and stick that along with the thyme, rosemary and garlic into the chicken’s cavity. Marvel at how the chicken is as hollow as your soul but that no amount of herbs and citrus can heal you. Feel sad for a moment until you listen to the music again.

It’s aggressively cheery. 

Melt half of the butter in the microwave, or if you shun modern conveniences, the pan. If you’re feeling fancy, chuck a minced clove of garlic in there to subtly flavour the butter. Brush generously over chicken and get so engrossed in the task that you don’t notice that you have not turned the oven on yet. This will be a disappointing discovery once you realise it. Add some of the poultry rub into the remaining butter and mix.

Next bit is a little tricky - stick a sharp knife between the chicken breast and the skin to separate the two. Get under that skin the same way Geoff from Accounting gets under yours. Work spiced butter in there until it covers whole breast area. Might need some massaging.

Take your onions, give it a rough chop. Have a little cry and pretend the onions made you do it. Slice the leftover half lemon into wedges.

Place the onions in the roasting pan along with a halved head of garlic, sprigs of your herbs and those leftover lemon wedges. 

Wonder for a moment whether you should have saved one of those wedges for a bit of tequila. Realise it has touched onions so it’s probably too far gone, but make a mental note to do that next time. 

Take some twine (or regular non-minty dental floss, don’t judge me) and tie the chicken’s legs together. The official explanation for this is that it will stop the legs from burning while the meat is undercooked. I won’t go into the non-official explanation here but it involves Interpol and the patriarchy. 

Take the chicken and gently lay it down on top of the veg and herbs in the roasting tray, breast side up. Check that the oven is the correct temperature. Because you were a numpty and forgot to put it on until way too late, drink some water while you wait.  Also, halve those baby potatoes, salt ‘em, and toss it in the pan so it can roast in that delicious chicken fat. They will take around 30 mins max, so if you have a bigger bird, throw them in 30 mins before done. 

Finally, slide the roasting pan into the oven. Take out your oven mitts and this point and put them on the counter so you don’t try to touch the pan with bare hands like a certain author once did. 

Now leave it alone for an hour, go write some fanfic, come back to check on how things are going. Rudely, it won’t ask how things are going with you but no one’s perfect.

If the skin on the breasts are browning too quickly like a middle-aged, pale English lady on a beach in Ibiza, chuck a little square of foil on it to shield it from the hot rays of the oven. 

Take the oven mitts and remove the pan from the oven. Make a lil’ foil tent for it, and let it rest for 20 mins. Take a rest yourself, you deserved it. Decide to disregard this advice and refresh Tumblr again. 

Remove chicken from pan once it's rested and place on cutting board. 

Take the veggies out of the pan, squeeze the now sodden lemon until the juice drips into the pan too. Mix with whisk to incorporate. 

Add a sprinkling of cornflour or potato starch to thicken into gravy. Strain pan juices through a sieve, cheesecloth or your sanity, whichever is thinner at this point. Press down to squish any remaining bits of veg through to maximise flavour. 

Dish up, pour a lil gravy on the chicken slices and enjoy. Congratulate self on how awesome you are. You did it!

#recipes #cooking #roast chicken #humour #food #recipe

[ronniefein]

Roasted Lemon-Rosemary Potatoes

So here it is, the last day of February 2024. The last day of National Potato Lovers Month.

Really folks, I don’t need anyone to declare a month for loving potatoes. Anyone who knows me knows that potato is my favorite, #1, “last thing I want to eat before I die” food.

However, in honor of National Potato Lovers Month, here’s one of the zillion potato recipes I love: crispy roasted potatoes with some citrusy lemon tang and a sprinkle of rosemary.

Follow me on Instagram @RonnieVFein

ROASTED LEMON-ROSEMARY POTATOES  

2 pounds all-purpose potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the potato cubes in a bowl. Add the garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and rosemary and toss to distribute the ingredients evenly. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Place the potato mixture on the parchment lined sheet, spreading the cubes into a single layer. Roast for 15 minutes. Toss the potatoes and continue to roast for about another 15 minutes or until the potatoes are crispy and golden brown.

Makes 4 servings

#roasted potatoes #roasted lemon-rosemary potatoes #National Potato Lovers Month #potatoes #side dish

[spooniechef]

Baked Chicken with Potatoes and Carrots (1 spoon)

Today was a prime example of “completely out of spoons” and how it can affect cooking. The original plan for today was one-pan chicken chasseur - I had everything I needed for it, all was cool - but it was a particularly bad day pain-wise, with the added ‘fun’ of a hard day at work. (Even though I work from home, there’s not much that having to type not one but two fifteen minute-long dictations of medical reports as dictated by a gentleman with a slightly difficult accent, a tendency to speak too close to the microphone, and an annoying habit of skipping around in the dictation and going back and correcting something he dictated two paragraphs ago, this on top of the usual workload, will improve.)

What I really needed was an even simpler recipe - fewer ingredients, less fuss, nearly zero effort. Plus actually using the chicken leg quarters I bought for the chasseur. I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could throw a full set of meal components into the oven and just let it sit for awhile, and come away with dinner all ready for serving?” Which gave me an idea. I dug around for the best way to roast chicken leg quarters with potatoes and veg all at once. I found more or less what I wanted on a site called Eatfoodlicious, though I am going to recommend some changes to the recipe. Not for ease of cooking; no, that’s fine. More for flavour and so on. But I thought this one was worth sharing, so here we go.

Here’s what you’ll need

Four chicken leg quarters (though you could probably do breasts too)

1lb potatoes (I found three good-sized ones worked fine), chopped into 1″ pieces

3 large carrots, also chopped into 1″ pieces

OIl of your choosing (see recommendation notes later)

Spices to taste

Like I say, I have a few things I want to try next time, but they’ll go in the recommendation section because I don’t know how they’ll work yet and I try not to throw untested recipes out into the world.

Here’s what you do:

Heat oven to about 425 degrees F (215 degrees C, about 190 degrees C fan assist)

Put your chopped potatoes and carrots in a bowl; add about 2 tablespoons of oil and some salt and pepper, then mix until the vegetables are fully coated and place the vegetables in the bottom of a deep baking dish a layer deep.

Coat your chicken quarters with a bit more oil and season to taste (I recommend scoring the skin a bit so more of the flavour gets into the meat), then place on top of the vegetables

Put the whole thing into the oven and cook for about 45-60 minutes or until chicken is done (if you’ve got a meat thermometer, apparently you want an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees F)

Again, literally that simple. It’s more or less the epitome of “throw everything into a suitable vessel and cook for an extended period of time’. You get your veg, you get your potato, you get your meat, and you get lots of leftovers. Still, not quite perfect, and there are some things I’m going to try next time, as follows:

About the oil - I used sunflower because it’s what I had, but salt and pepper isn’t quite enough for me. Next time, I might spice it up with some of the same spices that went on the chicken, maybe some garlic puree or minced garlic. Roasted garlic is great on its own, so why not here? Alternatively, there’s an option of using melted butter or, if you have it available, goose fat. Goose fat is fantastic for using in roast vegetables.

For the spices on the chicken, I used garlic pepper, onion granules, a little bit of celery salt, some ground coriander, some paprika, and some salt. Next time, I think I’ll use garlic puree to give the skins the oil treatment, use regular pepper instead of garlic pepper, and maybe up the celery salt a little. But honestly, you do you; spices are a thing you measure with your heart.

Not much else to it, really, which is good because I don’t have the spoons to keep going much today anyway. But it just goes to prove how easy this one is, since I managed to get it cooked despite not having a whole lot left in the spoon budget and still managed to update. Of course, knowing I have another three days’ worth of meals in microwave-safe containers helps too. And I can use the little individual bottle of red wine for bolognaise sauce later. (Which I’ll probably provide the recipe for at some point, probably when I do a post about lasagne.)

#The Spoonie Chef #Recipes #meals

[thepioden]

Pumpkin Pie Cream Cheese Bars

It's fall and some people may have leftover cans of Libby's from last year that need used up. So!

Hardware

Oven

9x13 glass baking dish

A stand mixer or electric eggbeater makes this easier but you can do it by hand

Software

8 oz. cream cheese

1 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree

4 large eggs

1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/4 c. brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (if you're me, you haphazardly whack cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice in with some rum)

1/4 c. flour (optional, makes a firmer filling)

1/2 c. butter, melted

1.5-ish cups graham cracker crumbs. I used two plastic packets crushed with quite a bit leftover.

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350 f

Combine melted butter and graham cracker crumbs and press into the bottom of your ungreased 9x13. You want a fairly thin layer; don't run it up the sides.

Blind bake your graham cracker crust ~10 minutes

Remove baked crust and set aside to cool. Set oven to 425 f.

Combine softened cream cheese and granulated sugar, mixing well to combine.

Add eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth between each addition.

Add the pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and flour, if using. Mix until smooth and no streaks remain. If using mechanical assitance, make sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to integrate errant cream cheese.

Pour into the graham cracker crust and spread into an even layer.

Bake covered ~45 minutes, or until the center is just barely wobbly. Cool completely (ideally in the fridge overnight) before serving. On the porch for a couple hours when it's 30 degrees out also works.

#recipe blogging with pi #pumpkin pie #pumpkin pie adjacent at least #DO i have a pumpkin pie recipe I wrote up years ago kicking around? yes #did I bother to consult it? no #you can do this with fresh squash but if you do DEFFO add the flour or it'll be GOOP #canned puree is drier than fresh

[the-good-spartan]

Food for Warriors.

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to break down the contributions to the mess in a way that would include more general information about the diet of Ancient Spartans, and by extension, the agriculture of the region. Yes, these are only details in a much bigger picture, but what is more important to we humans than the fuel that sustains us?

Cartledge, in his regional history of Lakonia (to which this post is heavily indebted), writes that Lakedaimon ‘…constitute[s] one of the most fertile and desirable pieces of land in all southern Greece. Soil, climate and man conspire to yield and garner sometimes two harvests of grain in a single year.’

To reiterate the contributions required, as listed by Plutarch:

‘Each member of the mess would contribute every month a medimnus of barley-meal, eight choes of wine, five minas of [goat or sheep] cheese, five half-minas of figs, and in addition a small sum of money for fish or meat. Besides, anyone who had made an offering of first fruits or had been hunting sent a share to the mess.’

So let’s break that down a little. 

Barley and Wheat:

“a mediminus of barley-meal…”

Until the fourth century BCE, Barley was widely preferred to wheat in Lakedaimon. This may have been due to technological disadvantages over other regions but was undoubtedly also basic taste. By the fourth century wheaten loaves were being contributed to the mess, though it was noted by Theophrastus (early fourth century BCE) that the Lakedaimonian wheat was particularly light.

A mediminus (73 or 74 litres) of barley per month was much greater than the living ration for a single male, at least if we base our workings on what was provided to the men on Sphakteria in 425 BCE. The expected contribution annually (82 medimini) might have fed up to 6 or 7 men. 

The surplus was either eaten by the citizen’s oikos (household) or put into a public store. I personally favour the theory of a public store, as the boys in the agoge were provided a small ration which had to come from somewhere.

There’s also the possibility that teachers might have required reimbursement, provided they came from outside Lakedaimon - a theory put forward by Ducat which I strongly disagree with. I see absolutely no reason why the tutors wouldn’t also be Spartans and part of the system - which seems logical for many reasons...

Anyway - I’m getting sidetracked. Ducat’s ideas do this to me. 😅

There is no information on how the grain made it from field to mess, but there may have been a central mill at Alesiai, called the Grindings. 

Grapes:

“…eight choes of wine…”

Both Lakonia and Messenia have the right conditions for viticulture, though Messenia is particularly suitable. They’re a labour intensive crop and require greater control of the conditions than other crops.

Five ancient vine growing districts names are known: Oinous, Dentheliatos, Karystos, Onoglos and Stathmis. These districts, where these can be located, are in perioekic territory though, rather than Spartan lands.

I have tried and failed to discover how much ‘eight choes’ is in modern measures.

 Goats and sheep:

“… five minas of cheese…”

Goats and sheep were grazed on the stubble following harvest or on the terrain between the arable land (which makes up ~ 20% of Lakedaimon), and the totally barren mountains.

It has been argued that Messenia was turned over from grain production to pasturage for goats and sheep after it was conquered, so we might imagine the Messenian helots as shepherds rather than strictly farmers. They did still have crops though, as attested from multiple instances of burning fields during raid by Athenians in Thucydides.

Besides the contribution of cheese, the goats and sheep would have provided skins, wool or mohair, animal fat, and to a minor degree, meat.

 Figs

“…five half-minas of figs…”

Figs in this part of the world have two harvests a year. The first crop in June-July is eaten fresh, while the second in August – October is dried.

They probably required irrigation of some kind, though Aristophanes refers to the small size of figs from Lakedaimon, so perhaps not.

 Foods not on the Contributions List:

The Lakedaimonians were the first people in Greece to anoint themselves in olive oil for exercise, which suggests an abundance of it from an early date. There is no question that olives were eaten throughout the Classical period. 

As far as vegetables go, Theophrastus mentions lettuce and cucumber. Legumes were the food of the common-man, and might be made into a porridge of mixed pulses - perhaps pea, lentil, lupine and vetch.

As for meat and animal products:

There was honey, of course, from as early as the eighth century onwards.

They were famously very fond of black broth, made from pigs' blood. This was a Spartan delicacy. 

Migratory quails were perhaps netted at the foot of the Tainaron and Malea peninsulas, while chickens provided meat and eggs.

Fish was probably caught by perioikoi then sold to the Spartans, who are attested eating it in the mess - though I have to say, I like the idea of Spartans having a day fishing on the banks of Eurotas with spears - even if there’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest this happened.

The below image is the interior of a Lakonian cup from the seventh century BCE showing a scene purportedly of Cyrene (modern Libya) but surely drawn from the world around the artist in Lakedaimon. Note the nets, presumably for fishing.

Finally - Boar, hare and dove were definitely hunted by Spartans - which brings us neatly to the final heading of this post.

Hunting

Cartledge suggests a very specific hunting ground for the Ancient Spartans: 

‘Central Taygetos seems to have been largely uninhabited in antiquity, when it was used by the Spartans as a hunting-ground.’ 

He goes on to explain that this was the region known as Therai, on the lower eastern slopes of the central Taygetos.

As per the above, they hunted hares and ringdoves, but the main prize was the boar, and it is fairly certain that this activity was at least sometimes considered religiously significant, perhaps as a coming-of-age activity related to Artemis Orthia.

I’m going to share this bowl yet again (but at least a different photo) because it shows a boar hunt in progress, with the younger man wearing a pelt stained with blood - suggesting this is a ceremonial activity. The boars are visible on the right. 

(I also like the idea that the fish at the bottom is a suggestion that fish might also be hunted - but that may just be me dreaming again.)

A few final notes around hunting that I find interesting:

They hunted with javelins, spears and perhaps nets. They were notoriously opposed to bows and arrows. 

They had a special breed of dog for hunting, the Lakonian hound, which were good scenters. 

Horses, dogs and provisions were made available on demand to all Spartans when they were going hunting, though horses were probably owned only by the rich.

Being back late from hunting was one of only three valid reasons to be absent from the evening mess meal.

Here’s a Lakonian Hound to see us out (c. depicted in 500 BCE by the Euergides painter.)

#spartans #ancient greece #ancient history #ancient greek #ancient sparta #spartan history #ancient greek history #ancient greek food #hunting #ancient hunting #history #long post

[creepyscritches]

Everytime I get a 'requires some first aid' injury I honestly get a little excited bc it's like a little science project while it heals. Currently watching a second degree forearm burn from a 425° glass dish heal and it's fascinating :Oc

I don't like seeing other people's injuries, but for some reason it doesn't bother me to get all banged up. It's neat to see conditions I only deal w in a professional way in-person. Burns are weird.

#Creepy chatter #I wrap it at night and when I go out but it's doing fine. Think I'll have another burn scar on this arm 🤦 #First one was when my partner and I had coals dropped on us while we were sleeping in a dog pile at a hookah bar #Oddly enough a live coal sitting on your wrist for several seconds does a fraction of the burn damage a glass dish can do

[usafphantom2]

The SR-71 Was Close to Perfect

A member of the Blackbirds’ ground crew looks back on the airplane’s flight-test beginnings to the end of the Blackbirds

This first photograph was taken of the SR-71 #972 when it was in a hangar near Dullas airport, waiting for the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to be open. Photo Eric long. The other two photographs were taken at Palmdale California December 21, 1989.

After a 480-mile flight from Beale Air Force Base in California, the midnight-black airplane swooped down to about 300 feet above Burbank Tower, less than 30 seconds after its scheduled arrival time of 12 noon. It made an easy half-roll, then completed two more passes. The parking garage roof where I stood reverberated with cheers, but as the Blackbird came in for its final pass, a hundred feet off the runway, and then pulled up just beyond the tower, the crowd fell silent. was December 1989, and this flyby, a gift to Lockheed employees from Ben Rich, head of Advanced Development Projects (the Skunk Works), marked the beginning of the end of the SR-71. After much debate in Congress, the Blackbirds were about to be retired. The YF-12A, the earlier, single-seat version of the SR-71, first flew in August 1963 and the Blackbird in December 1964. It was still unsurpassed when it was retired in 1990, 24 years after it officially entered service.

As I watched the SR-71 that December day, I thought back to the airplane’s flight-test beginnings in the early 1960s. I thought of Ben Rich, Ray Passon, Keith Beswick, and so many others whose lives were forever touched by this aircraft. I too was part of the Blackbird team, setting up housing, transportation, and communications—special measures due to the secrecy necessary. And above all of us was designer Kelly Johnson, who had a gift for sharing his ability to innovate and his drive to succeed. The unity of commitment we felt under leadership from Larry Bohanan in engineering and Dorsey Kammerer in production reached new intensity whenever Kelly arrived in the field. Sometimes he would good-naturedly arm-wrestle with people working there. His team members were hand-picked and fiercely loyal to him. He once offered $50 to anybody who could find an easy job to do. He got no takers. When it came to their specialties, the people working on the Blackbird were the best in the company, perhaps in the country or even the world. The last word in reconnaissance airplanes, the SR-71 was capable of flying faster than Mach 3 and above 85,000 feet. In fact, the SR-71 flew so fast that even in the cold of those rarefied heights, the friction of the air heated its titanium skin to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.

On the day the Blackbird took to the air for the first time, many of the ground crews showed up. I had worked all night, but sleep in those days seemed like nothing but a waste of time so I stayed to watch. The weather was perfect for a December day: clear and cold, with snow on the surrounding mountains. Somewhere around 8 a.m. the desert silence was shattered by the sound of the twin Buick V-8 engines used for the starters. Later, when the Blackbirds operated at their base at Beale, they had permanent start facilities in their hangars, but in the early days two highly modified 425-cubic-inch Buick Wildcats, an estimated 500 horsepower each, were used to turn a massive starter shaft that was inverted into the first one, then the other of the SR-71’s J-58 engines. One sound I shall never forgot is that of those unmuffled Buicks holding steady at better than 6,000 rpm in excess of 15 seconds at a time, all hours of the day and night. Starting the engines was no easy job.

Kelly Johnson stood by in his familiar dark blue suit and tie, smiling as he had a final word for the pilots.

Veteran crew chief standing next to me could only murmur, “Her enemies will never be natural.”( that was true. It was jealous people that were her enemy.)

Written by Jim Norris

@Habubrats71 via Twitter

[leiakenobi]

I humbly request 46: “i’ve had a terrible day at work so just kiss me” with either Santi or Michael - whatever flows 💕

This has been sitting in my drafts as a sorta half-conceptualized headcanon for ages, so finally I decided to just jot it down as a short little headcanon/drabble-y thing. Fairly heavy on the music references because this is me (and Michael Perry).

Clocks in at 425 words with a gender-neutral reader, mostly hurt/comfort because again, this is me.

——

It’s not uncommon for Michael to be blasting ‘80s dance music when you get home.

Disco, sometimes, too, to mix it up, or the occasional ditty from the boy band craze of the late ‘90s and early 2000s, but ‘80s dance music most of all. You get off a long day of work and there’s Michael in the kitchen, singing along to Madonna or Wham! or Talking Heads while he chops vegetables or preps meat or stirs whatever pasta or soup he’s preparing on a given night.

And you smile, then. You lean in and kiss his cheek and ask, “Did you have a good day?” even though you already know the answer.

Yeah, he did. He had a great day. Enough that he will hold a wooden spoon and sing “Material Girl” into it with the same degree of enthusiasm and commitment which Michael injects into everything, and by the end of the song you will be smiling and laughing and singing along with him.

He’s not listening to “Material Girl” tonight, or anything else comparably up-beat. Instead, you hear a subdued strumming of guitar and a relatively low vocal as you shed your coat, your shoes, and discard your work bag near the door. You hear him singing, too, when you meander into the kitchen; you stroll across the tile and hum along with him, but Michael doesn’t stop his chopping to turn around.

Instead, it’s not until you wind your arms around his waist and tuck your face into his back that he makes any indication of processing that you’re there. That’s when he’ll stop singing to inhale and say, “Hey.”

You don’t say hello. You just murmur, “A Radiohead kind of day?”

Michael hums.

“Wanna talk about it?”

And he laughs softly, his hand smoothing over yours at his stomach. “Honestly, I’ve had a terrible day at work, so would you just kiss me?”

Just kiss him?

Any time. Always. And softly, out loud, you say, “Of course.”

It may not be the same upbeat Michael that has you laughing and dancing to Madonna or Cher while your stomach is growling, but you like the way he kisses you while OK Computer is on. You like feeling his posture soften in your arms and his mouth grow more pliant against yours.

He kisses you where your neck meets your ear and murmurs, “Thank you,” and then he puts on Dolly Parton’s “Lovin’ You” with a shameless little grin.

You almost like Radiohead nights, because you know Dolly will come close behind.

#marvelousmermaid #michael perry x reader #michael perry x you #fanfic #my fic #created

[bravelittlescrib]

Sweet potato update!

After washing, poking holes in the skins to vent steam and baking at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour directly on the oven rack, I cut them open and rubbed some cinnamon, dill, chili flakes and black pepper on half. The others I used some South African barbecue rub I had. Then after topping them with the soy chorizo I sprinkled on some shredded aged cheddar and broiled them on high until the cheese was bubbly. The dill flavor disappeared, and the ones with the rub were too strong - personally I preferred the ones with the cinnamon. The other person I gave some to didn’t like them.

Lesson learned! Bake and eat at your own risk. But thanks for the suggestions! If I make them again I’ll use a sweeter spice mix to rub on the sweet potatoes. Maybe some brown sugar… and something not as heavily spiced as the soy chorizo… perhaps a canned chili.

Or I could boil them, maybe, and roast them with chili like a casserole. Though I don’t think the Dunmer would do that lol

I guess this deserves the old adage: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Cinnamon on sweet potatoes is an ancient delicacy :P

This gives me an idea, though. I wonder how much of Morrowind’s exports are food-based? Elsweyr and Blackmarsh are the obvious provinces for spice production, but Morrowind’s unique environment could definitely produce some interesting (and maybe expensive?) flavors. Is Telvanni bug musk edible??

#scrib asks #tes #shall we tag this as #the sweet potato experiment??