I've been doing a ton of 30 minute meals lately. Aside from what I've seen on TV, there's a million past episodes, with recipes, logged on the Food Network website.
I made her spaghetti sauce and it was amazing. My mom lets hers cook for hours and this was nearly as good after only 30 minutes. The one thing to be careful of if you make it is when you saute the onions, garlic, and hot red pepper flakes. It really releases the hot in the pepper flakes and made the sauce very spicey.
I made the breakfast meal for dinner last night. The home fries come out great and they are so simple. You chop everything up and put it in a baking pan. You add EVOO (extra virgin olive oil if you don't watch the show), spices, mix everything up and toss it into an oven pre-heated to 500 degrees and forget about it until the rest of the meal is finished being prepared.
Youngest Daughter isn't a big veggie fan. She ate some peppers and onions that were crispy after dipping them in ketchup because she thought that they were pieces of potato. It was one of those priceless moments to see her face after telling her what she had just finished eating.
My sensei told me that me and Son passed the physical portion of our black belt certification test but that she hasn't graded the written test yet. We're both pretty confident we did well on that too.
We already started working on the tasks we'll need to do for the Blackbelt Extravaganza in June. The extravaganza is a 3 hour show where we showcase all that we learned by doing all those things in different formations and to music. It is a lot of work and the first part of it is making sure we are synchronized when we do our katas. Since you change directions, spin, and do multiple hand and feet techniques it can be a bit challenging.
My body still aches in some parts but on the whole I'm pretty much recovered from the testing.
On Friday night we had the written test and then played some team building games. The written test is long and it is timed too. It is mostly short answers but some of them are longer than that and there were a few essay type questions at the end. I wrote at a decent pace and finished about 15 minutes early. I think we had about 15 pages that had to be done in an hour.
The next day was the physical part of the exam. We started off by warming up with 25 jumping jacks, 15 pushups, and 20 crunches. We stretched a little and then things started.
This is what I did after we were done the warmup:
100 jumping jacks
40 pushups
70 crunches
5 minutes of non-stop jump rope
15 punching/blocking basics (2 full power on each side)
15 kicking basics (four full power with each leg)
four 3-minute sparring rounds
self defense with 3 different partners
break for snack
1.5 mile run
8 empty hand katas
3 weapons katas
applications for 4 of the katas with advanced applications for one of them
two 3-minute rounds of shadow sparring
two 3-minute rounds of punching/kicking the heavy bag
It started at 1pm and we got done at 9pm. Son and I made our way home, showered and tumbled into our respective beds. I was up fairly early the next day but had a bit of difficulty getting my legs to bend so I could get out of bed.
I pretty much laid low yesterday and caught up on watching tv. I took a nap in the later afternoon and then went to bed fairly early. I'm up this morning and I'm still pretty sore.
This soreness comes from doing each task like it was the only task I'd done so far and that I didn't have anything left to do after I was done.
My only consolation is that Son, who's in great shape and 23 years younger, was pretty sore yesterday too!
I still have to write the 3 page paper that is due tomorrow night before I take the timed written test. I'm ok with the paper and the test. The next day is the physical part of the whole thing.
I'm very confident in my ability to do the katas and weapons at a black belt level. I'm confident in my ability to spar and perform self defense at a black belt level. I'm not feeling too good about some of the physical fitness stuff. I made a decision to take it easier and slower on some of those things because of the number of injuries I suffered when I prepared for the last test that I took. I won't give up, and I'll give it my best, will it be enough?
We went with Good Friends to see his Pretty Young Sister play the violin in a community orchestra. Many excuses were made about what we could expect but we enjoyed the show despite dire predictions about quality and acoustics. In an effort to allay the fears of Pretty Young Sister I mentioned the fact that anything would be an improvement over listening to middle school bands. Unfortunately, Youngest Daughter heard that remark (made in jest) and took it to heart. Daddy had to do a lot of explaining and apologizing to make that one right!
We all went out to eat after and then Good Friends came up to our house for dessert. I made Rachael Ray's, of 30MM (Minute Meals) fame, Mexican Caramel Sundaes. They paired well with Robert Mondavi's 1994 Botrytis dessert wine. The wine is very much so on the sweet side but the Spanish peanuts and the cayenne pepper in the caramel sauce help it from becoming too much.
Youngest Daughter had a band concert last night and had to be at the school at 6:30. This made it impossible to cook dinner first because I had to stop at the store on the way home for some key ingredients.
The concert started at 7pm with the 5th grade band. They played three pieces together and then allowed multiple solos, duets, and trios to take place. It lasted nearly an hour when I had expected to be out of there in an hour. The 6th grade band, that youngest daughter is part of, played three songs and also had their share of "special" numbers.
By this time I'm squirming and ready to be on my way. I know that it isn't considered polite to leave in the middle of a concert, or arrive late for that matter. However, when it is a school night and the family hasn't eaten dinner yet I don't think it is fair to expect them to stay. Many parents must feel the same way because there's a definite loss of audience members in between the grades while new faces appear too.
Anyway, the 7th/8th grade band was up last and many parents were getting ready to leave. The conductor, a different one performed for each band, jumped up and asked everyone to stay because it was only 2 songs which would take 8 minutes. He was true to his word and on top of that the songs were entertaining.
Once we got home I made the 30MM super nachos. I didn't get around to making the dessert because it was too late and I didn't feel like doing it. The kitchen looked like a hurricane had hit because I was in a hurry and didn't clean up as I went.
Everyone said they liked it though Son asked if it was beans or raisins in the meat on top of the nachos. I guess anything might wind up in a dish when daddy starts doing "gourmet" cooking.
Middle Daughter gave me a wine making kit for Christmas. The kit is going to yield four bottles of world-class, award winning, Chardonnay. I didn't start it right after Christmas because the first milestone happens 10 days after starting the process and I was going to be in Hawaii. I forgot about the kit until last night when I saw it on the shelf in the pantry.
Anyway, I used my lunch time while working from home to start the kit. I did all the mixing of the concentrate, putting it into the right container, adding nutrients for the yeast, and finally the yeast itself before putting on the air lock and putting it next to the baseboard heater in my office to keep it nice and warm.It would be warmer in the furnace room but since that's where the Litter Maid resides, I decided to pass on that idea.
The container is a tough, but flexible, plastic and I like the idea of an air lock that will let the carbon dioxide out so I don't have one of those "oh my God what was that" explosions in the middle of the night. Middle Daughter tried to make homemade rootbeer and it literally split a soda bottle open and flattened it when the pressure got too much.
We still like to tease her about her foray into making alcoholic beverages because the root beer had definitely fermented and was packing quite a kick. In fact you could probably call it Boot Rear, a popular beverage in the land of Xanth series written by Piers Anthony.
I'm definitely playing catch up in the 30-minute meal world with my Good Friend over at You Who. That's fine with me since we've been the lucky recipients of many of those meals.
I made another 30-minute meal for dinner last night, the Loose Meat Sandwiches. Youngest Daughter assisted once again by finishing the work on a box of macaroni and cheese. I served the dinner with an assortment of rolls purchased by Beautiful Wife and some bread & butter pickles.
The sandwiches were really good. I sprinkled some of the Italian cheeses over the top of mine and it tasted like a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. Everyone wolfed down their sandwiches so I think the meal was a success. It was a great tasting meal done in less than 30-minutes!
There were no wine pairings with this meal because shortly afterward I was on my way to the dojo.
Youngest Daughter and I prepared a 30-minute meal yesterday based on the TV show by that name. We made the Ravioli Vegetable Lasagna and it came out pretty well. The cream sauce for it uses vegetable stock so it is a perfect vegetarian dish and is definitely a keeper for when Good Friend over at Everyday News comes over for dinner.
Youngest Daughter helped with the preparations and her comments to me included many references to the fact that the ingredients added color to the dish and observations about the time and how little it was taking in order to make the meal. She sounded like a mini Rachael Ray.
My next karate test is in two weeks. I have to say that I'm not as tense as I was the last time but that doesn't mean I'm not putting in extra time getting ready. I was at the dojo Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday last week.
Only Monday and Wednesday are actual classes for me. The other days were spent working out on things I want to improve and helping others prepare for the test. My solo workout on Thursday consisted of the following:
200 skips of the jump rope at a fast pace
100 repetitions of a sai or bo basic
20 kicks, each leg, at the heavy bag
one of my katas (we have 8 empty hand and 2 weapon katas)
repeat until all 10 katas are done
The net result was 1.5 hours in the dojo, 2000 skips of the jump rope and all of my katas. I was tired, soaked with sweat, but felt good about what I accomplished. I drink lots of Gatorade when I'm working out but otherwise pretty much can't stand it.
My goal at the next workout is to do 250 each time and get up to 2500 skips. It seems daunting when I start out but I keep telling myself that I can do better than I think I can...and I'm right. One of the other things we say is "whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right". The mind is a powerful tool for success (play Kung Fu theme music).
Good Friends had been over recently and remarked about the case of TiVo abuse I had going on with new TiVo. I know it is really a hard drive in the background and I'd been practicing routine maintenance in the form of keeping things deleted and cleaned up. I also hadn't picked many shows to record.
Good Friend programmed a few different shows and 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray was one of them.
We've watched three of her shows and have decided that we want to eat everything she's made so far. I did go out this morning and buy the ingredients for Quick Pickles and made them once I returned home. They're easy to make and they tasted great. I can't wait to try some more recipes. It is a fun show to watch because she is so darn cute!
An article was writting about an ad that was banned by Britain's Advertising Standards Authority for being offensive. In part this article says that-
"The ad for model Elle Macpherson's range of lingerie, which appeared in Vogue fashion magazine, featured a woman seen through a keyhole with her thumbs inside her underpants. The woman's face cannot be seen."
How can you tell if she's masturbating without seeing her face? She could be sleeping, getting a root canal, or is simply staring blankly at the ceiling. I had no idea that thumbs in the underwear was an indication of seeking satisfaction.
We went over Good Friends With Two Kids house for the latest wine dinner which featured wines of Tuscany. The food was great and the company was awesome. We drove over with Good Friends With a Dog so we didn't have to worry about that whole drinking and driving thing.
If you've never had an Italian lemon liquor I would recommend that you go out and get one right away. Just be sure to put it in the freezer for a while because it is definitely better chilled.