MessyMissy's Place

Merry Christmas

Messy — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 13:00:50 +0000

I hope everyone is having a great holiday! I know this is one of the greatest.

something I just found again

Messy — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:38:51 +0000

Silence enters
Magic unfurling
Glittering pale
What matters surrounds them
What casts them out
They care not for the utterances of others
Their peace
Their solace
Within them
The magic surrounds them
Filling the with life’s light
Movement no longer a torment
They come together
Flesh to flesh
Slowly building passion
What more to want
What more to desire
Everything exists in what they have

Snow snow snow

Messy — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:11:42 +0000

Well here we are close to Christmas and it looks like there might actually be snow! I know I know you’re saying, “WHAT!?!?! Are you crazy?”. I like snow though. Please be aware that I said I liked SNOW. I didn’t say I liked the cold, I said I liked snow. i know they go had in hand, but it doesn’t have to be -18°F for there to be snow. As a matter of fact…

Is it ever too cold to snow?

No, it can snow even at incredibly cold temperatures as long as there is some source of moisture and some way to lift or cool the air. It is true, however, that most heavy snowfalls occur with relatively warm air temperatures near the ground - typically 15°F or warmer since air can hold more water vapor at warmer temperatures.

When is it too warm to snow? How does snow form if the ground temperature is above freezing?

Snow forms when the atmospheric temperature is at or below freezing (0 Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit) and there is a minimum amount of moisture in the air. If the ground temperature is at or below freezing, of course the snow will reach the ground.

However, the snow can still reach the ground when the ground temperature is above freezing if the conditions are just right. In this case, snowflakes will begin to melt as they reach this warmer temperature layer; the melting creates evaporative cooling which cools the air immediately around the snow flake.This cooling retards melting. As a general rule, though, snow will not form if the groud temperature is 5 degrees Celsius (41 deg Fahrenheit).

I love the internet…
Those little facts are from FAQ at The National Snow and Ice Data Center: http://www.nsidc.org/snow/faq.html

I didn’t even know there was such a thing… I love new things!

Costa Rican Peaberry coffee

Messy — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:48:28 +0000

I think I’ve finally found my favorite coffee. I tend to float around and drink whatever coffee is at hand. I’ve had really bad coffee and really good coffee, but there was never a coffee that stood out and said, ” Hey you, yeah you! You want to drink me!”. That is until I had Costa Rican Peaberry. Me likey. It’s mellow and drinkable, almost chugable. Thinking about it, in my head I just compared it to mass market beer and that’s unfair. It has a LOT more flavor! Instead I’m think of it as a breakfast stout. It’s smooth and rich, there is a little bit of sweet and a little bit of floral lightness to it. It’s just really really good! The other thing I like about it is the lack of the acidic ’smack you in the face’ bite. It’s good to wake up with in the morning. (Really good with a blueberry coffee cake too! )

Root beer?

Messy — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 14:21:11 +0000

So if you remember recently I made root beer.

And I just realized it’s still outside! Crap I hope it doesn’t make the bottles explode.

Anyway, the recipe for the brew called for 20 inches of pencil thick sarsaparilla root. Well I didn’t have whole root, but I did have shredded and sifted root, so we went for it and figured hey lets make a double batch. Needless to say, while it is drinkable I don’t think that it turned out the greatest. Way to heavy on the sarsaparilla and I don’t know.. it’s just really really sarsaparilla-ie. Now I like sarsaparilla, don’t get me wrong, but this is just waaaaaaay over the top. Add in the sediment from the fact that I used shredded and sifted sasparilla and well. It isn’t my favorite. I’ll try again, but this first trip into root beer world while successful overall just didn’t do it for me.

Next time less sarsaparilla and cheese cloth… maybe even doing the cheese cloth like we do for the beer brewing. Hmmmmm… I wonder if I can use a grain bag.

More as I revamp the recipe!

Spinach-tomato-cheese curd soup

Messy — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:08:45 +0000

I know it probably doesn’t sounds the greatest, but damn it’s pretty good!

I was going to have tomato soup for lunch today, but then thought ‘hey, I’ll throw in some cheese curds and it’ll be even better’. Then something unexpected happened. The Spinach I had had in the fridge thawing called out to me…

“Add me to your soup!”, the spinach exclaimed.

“I don’t know…”, I replied. “You might make it kindda weird.”

“You won’t know until you try…”, the spinach continued. “You like me almost all other ways, come on. All the other veggies are doing it. Just look at you and those sexy little green beans… They were good with tomatoes and cheese weren’t they. I bet I’ll be twice as good!”

Now normally when my food talks to me I don’t listen and it gets thrown out. It’s better that way. but this time… I just couldn’t help myself, I think it was the coffee, the next thing I knew I was sqeezing the daylights out of the spinach to get the exess water out and into the cooker it went. The cheese curds went on top and everything went into the microwave for about 3 minutes.

I’ll be a monkey’s aunt if it isn’t as good as the spinach told me it would be.

I guess I shouldn’t ignore all my talking food. I might miss something else good!

Deep fried bliss

Messy — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:07:26 +0000

We cleaned out the deep fryer for the chimis we wanted to make and that led to all sorts of fatty goodness. I love my deep fryer and now I feel bad for ignoring it. I made beignet, those littel french doughnuts you get a Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, and smothered them in powdered sugar. Let me just say that they are a little bit of heaven. Especially with the morning coffee and paper.

I think we’re going to have to keep thinking of things I can deep fry. I have a feeling it’s going to be like my neverending quest to cover things in chocolate. Did I mention that I made 11 different things covered in milk chocolate the other night…. I think the coconut almond clusters and the choclote covered rice noodles were my favorites!

Flour Tortillas…. mmmmmm…

Messy — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:03:48 +0000

Flour tortillas from scratch are fairly easy to make and they rawk hardcore! I made a batch, without consulting my Mexica friend, which proved to be less than optimal. I cooked them on the griddle for too long and they came out a bit … hmmmm… shall we say crispy. We’re going to try again wither this week or weekend. I think we’re going to go for corn tortillas and not the flour kind this time though. Then if I over cook them this time…. hey look, corn chips!

Hopefully they will turn out though, and if they do, look for a recipe here shortly after.

the cp command in linux

Messy — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:20:46 +0000

I like Linux and I like apple and I even like windows for the most part. Now in Windows you wouldn’t get a change to the base functionality of xcopy, but here in linux world I have exactly thatin the cp command. it’s always been easy to overwrite a whole slew of files at once if I was say updating a bunch of web sites to a new version of WordPress. All I had to do was use the –reply=”no|yes” and it would automatically respond to the interactive request to overwrite the files with a yes. I loved it. It made wading through all the updates to the umpteen different WordPress sites scriptable and fast. No longer. The –reply=”" command has been removed from cp. So now I get to find another way to do it and it’s going to be cumbersome and annoying. I wonder if I can find an older copy of cp that still has the –reply…. *sighs*

Root Beer… I hope

Messy — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:47:08 +0000

So I tried making root beer Friday. I’m still waiting for carbonation to finish in the bottles, then we’ll see if it’s any good. I’m hoping it is, but it seems a little heavy on the sarsaparilla. If I make it again, I think I’ll filter it through some cheese cloth. There seems to be quite a bit of debris that escaped my mesh sieve. Overall it should be pretty good though… I hope. It smells really good either way.

2c. shredded, sifted sarsaparilla
6″ vanilla bean
8 quarts of water
24 oz Dark brown sugar
Ale yeast (you can use bread yeast)

Add sarsaparilla, vanilla bean and water to an appropriate sized vessel. Bring to just before a boil and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes on low heat. The water should turn a dark orange color and have a strong sasparilla smell, if it doesn’t, add more sasparilla.

Cover and let sit off the heat for 30 minutes.

Continue cooling your brew to around 75°F. Either naturally or in a cold water/ice bath for the vessel. Be careful with glass vessels as they will shatter with temperature changes.

While cooling add 1/4 teaspoon of the yeast to 75°F water in a teacup to proof.

Once the brew is cooled, sanitize a vessel and strain the brew into it. I suggest a stainless steel mesh strainer and sanitized cheese cloth (to get the little bits).

Aerate the brew either with a pump aerator or with 3 - 5 minutes of virgorous shaking.

Add the yeast to your brew and agitate.

Let sit with the yeast added for 10 - 15 minutes covered, to avoid contamination.

You should have about 22 - 12oz bottles and caps sanitized and ready

Fill bottles and cap.

Wait 2 - 5 days for appropriate in bottle carbonation to occur, the refrigerate to halt yeast activity. I usually do about 3 small bottles as testers for carbonation.

Enjoy.