oneguyinportland

Excerpt – Life, love, and cooking

Enjoy!

March 10th – Bacon fat

Today’s society has brought a new font of knowledge on the topics of saturated fats. While looking back in the era of our grandparents cooking some of us may remember the old tin can or glass jar where the drippings of the breakfast bacon would go. As a fat it holds itself much to a use like butter, solid at room temperature.

Cook your bacon in the pan on medium heat making sure to drain the fat after every other batch. Before you get the third batch going take your wire mesh strainer and pour the fat from the pan in to the strainer with the can waiting underneath. The strainer will remove the extra shards of bacon still left in the fat.

Due to the amount of salt in the bacon you will have a lot of salt in the drippings. This was the reason why some people would have the can out because so much salt can act as a preservative. Even if this is the case I keep mine in the fridge so that way there is less chance of accidental spills. Even though it is technically a solid at room temperature that does not mean it is a rigid solid. It will be a little softer then room temperature butter if you need something to associate it to.

Collecting, straining, and storing fat aside what would be some things you would want to use it with. The answer stands anywhere you want a savory fat to be heated. It can be added to warm sauces, used in replacement for oil in sautes as well as stir fry’s.

Wash some potatoes and cut them in to rings a half inch thick dry them off before warming your bacon fat in a pan to medium heat. Drop your slices of potato in to the fat and let them cook until they get a good coloration before flipping. As soon as the second side is finished let dry on a paper towel before sprinkling with old bay seasoning for a tasty snack.

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Excerpt – Life, love, and cooking

So before we go in to the excerpt let me tell you something about this project. It originally started as something that someone read one page per day that would take them from the basics as I had learned them, skills and stories having that all build in to the end of the year. So things like basic sauce making, stocks and doughs in January while in December their would be actual full meal breakdowns.

The problem I found out with that is that makes a lot of writing. Starting off on the editing process I found out that everything ended up just under 125k words. For those who write the National Novel Writing Month has the goal of 50k so in short I wrote a lot for one book. After some thinking about what would be the best way to handle this I may have found an answer. If anyone would like to comment their two cents on it, I would appreciate it.

Options are either release it as one massive book or in two portions. If It gets split in to two portions it won’t be over the year obviously, but it will be easier to handle I would think. Also, I will have one excerpt from each month of the book on this blog. So twelve different excerpts to let you see how it is so far. One down eleven to go and with this, ten to go.

February 20th –A million starbucks yet

Knowing how popular coffee is in this country; tea has suffered the fate of falling in its shadow. Consisting of so many different flavors from all around the world some exist for taste while some take double duty for a sleeping aid or a caffeinated drink of choice. Since the amount any times is lower then your coffee or soda you can get a small boost without worrying about the crash.

At any house absolutely anywhere one good pot of tea just needs a couple pieces of information and some water. The info you will want will be how much you are steeping, what temp the water needs to be at for best flavor as well, as well how long.

For one 8 ounce cup of tea start with 1.5 tsp of whatever leaves you need except in the case of green and black which can be dropped to 1 tsp. Green is often sold in powders so you will need less of it. Reason is of how much surface area with the powder versus regular leaves. Black tea is often very strong so start off with one tsp just to see if you like that.

Green and white teas are good when steeped at 175 for between two to four minutes. Oolong and black go twenty degrees higher for 3 to 4 minutes. Herbals do best just under boiling at 205 for 5 minutes. Of course other teas are out there and they will have special preparation such as Chai for example. Learn how to maximize the flavor and invite your friends for a cup and a game. When making iced teas double the amount of leaves or powder.

You can have a tea pot, however you do not need one for good tea. If you want one there are many models and styles to choose from. Extra care needs to be taken though as with iron teapots you do not want to over heat a pot to blacken the paint or leave your leaves inside it for a period has that may invite rust or a loss of finish.

 

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Excerpt – Life, Love and Cooking

Here is something from one of the book projects I currently have in the starting round of editing. Something for every day of the year going over kitchen wisdom, recipes, tips, tricks and my own experiences working in various kitchens.

January 5th– Ratios vs. recipes (quick pie crust)

Things do not need to be difficult to be good. Some times I will crack a cook book to find a recipe with too many ingredients, and many of which serving no purpose to the final dish. Pie crust is an ingredient that is a great example of this. Dozens of possible combinations between fats, flours, and flavorings may make things confusing. You will need a pastry cutter for this. Otherwise a pie crust is always within a three step countdown. Ratios you will find to be much more useful then complicated recipes. I will try to give ratios whenever possible in the future.

So three parts all purpose flour with two parts fat either shortening or butter and one part ice cold water. Pinch some salt in with the flour and give it a light stir with the hand. So which fat do you use? Shortening would be useful if you’re new to the crust game for the simple fact that it will not melt as easily so you have more time. Butter will bring better flavor and richer texture just realize that you will need to chill the butter even freezing it may be suggested. If you want to go halvsies on the fats I have found that will give you the best of both worlds.

Put your fat in the flour and using your pastry knife cut the fat in to the flour. This will take some time if you’re not used to it that’s ok. Now how much you cut it to depends on what you are using it for if you need a flaky crust such as the top cover to a double crust pie then you want to cut the fat to the size of frozen peas. Cutting to rice size fat granules will create a mealy crust. Reason for this is that when you roll the dough the fat flattens and the larger size lends itself to creating layers while the mealy crust will be structurally sound. Next add the water do so slowly stopping at the last tenth before kneading together if it seems a little dry then continue with the last tenth until amalgamated. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap before putting it in the fridge to chill before rolling out to whatever you need.

3 parts all purpose flour 2 parts cold fat 1 part ice cold water 1/8 tsp salt for 8 oz of dough.

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Why can’t I social media?

So obviously as part of the millennials I should be very proficient handling myself on all the little social sites. When in truth I have the skill on these sites equivalent to a stack of pancakes. I barely update status, tweeting is absurd to me and Instagram is still just a very fast measure of weight.

I know how to use it and apply it towards businesses and how to advertise. Studied that and really learned how to get the hooks in in any possibly imagined. I just do not feel like using all of it for this blog. Doing advertising for this blog like I would a hardcore business position would just make it feel hollow. Over time I kinda learned I do not need people on here ever day I just want people to grow and I want to keep myself honest on my projects. Maybe, I can even do an opinion piece or tell a story.

It has been slow as of late and as much as I say I would do more, and I do to keep myself honest. It seems that whenever I do that seems to invite all the gremlins to have a convention on my bed. Things go haywire, like the kind that makes you wonder if you got cursed or that you are due for some negative karma ever since taking that last cookie.

Whomever reading this can give me their opinion how they like their blogs advertised. Maybe, I will do more or maybe I will just put it on the back end of the list of things I should get around to. Thanks for your input and good luck.

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Black Lives Do Not Matter

I wanted to do a game post again, but that will be the next one. If you were expecting some half baked goof ball then my suggestion would be to wait a a few days, and I will do my best to have it up for you. It seems there has been something else sitting forefront on my thoughts, and doing so in a way that will not allow much else to be done until it has been expressed. I know some of my other posts may have had some badly thought out puns or a quip, but I think here I will not use such things. First, let me go over something that some people are angry about and let me give you my opinion.

Black lives do not matter.

Black lives do not matter because one group of people cannot have their lives try to matter more then anyone else’s. To have people chanting it, making it a hashtag, blowing up social media with it makes me a little depressed for the sake of our culture. Personally I can’t care less about what skin tone someone has on whatever particular day, because it is not something that really is important. Their culture is important, their background, context, political views, loves, hates, targets of affection and disdain are all important while skin tone simply is not. Unless you are trying to dress up to the best of your own aesthetic creating ability and aesthetic calculation aside color does not make something matter any more or less in my eyes, and for the eyes of many others.

Now, before someone goes down some fairly used set of responses pertaining to their own tragedy let me tell you something about myself, just so you understand who I am. I have tragedy befall me as so many others have had, and some would say even more so. I have had to cry myself asleep in junior high while someone close to me was raped and murdered. I have had to stop friends from murdering their entire family, bled buckets for people who thought that no one would defend them, cried for all the times the pain was too much, when one parent went to jail and once while the other was on the floor turning blue due to the effects of a stroke. I have seen people I have had so much hope for fall to the bottom, and I even tried to take my own life once to a painkiller cocktail that no one would take on accident and couldn’t sink under the rim of a large martini glass. I have seen so much idiocy in this world that it makes my skin crawl and my head ache. Every day because of all the fights I got in just to keep my sanity had some pain in it. Some days waking up is so much a challenge that I wish for some long reprieve.

There was no group for them or hashtag for us nor was their a group saying how they were a group whose lives mattered while seemingly forgetting the rest because creating such a thing would be disrespectful. The latina girl who knew I did my best as her friend, the black friend who was ostracized because he just liked acting like a hip hop styled gangster, the marine who came from the kid that tried bullying me in my youth, the christian who just wanted to feel respected by his parents. Their lives were not encapsulated in some news bit story or made light by a sixteen letter slogan. Hearing what kind of lives matter is such a foreign concept to me because it is so simple. It is like looking up and seeing the answer boldly written on the wall in marker. so simple that the questioning of it makes me wonder if we are becoming some side step on Mr. Darwin’s theory. We all have had to deal with horrible things, and some more then others. If you want me to think that those raped and murdered are not worth it, that those dying of hunger are not worth it, or even those who worked so hard to make the world better and died horribly are not worth it, but your little group of people does then please be prepared to either punch me or shut the hell up because you could not be any further from the point if you tried.

Black lives do not matter nor do white, nor yellow or red, blue or green or any shade on our spectrum.

We all matter because we all are the same when we start as a blank slate. We create the definitions of our world, and we grow within them. So how about we drop what we can say about who matters and who doesn’t, and start showing it through who you are. Make the world a canvas for all of the actions colored by who we are completely, and not what we just so happen to be on that day. A world colored so vivaciously that fantasy could become reality. That would be the world we all would be happy of.

Some black people are not the only ones that seem to have an ax to grind. Just because you think that getting people to act differently towards black people will make them act way towards everyone. It doesn’t work well that way, and that is why it such a celebration when it happens when homosexual marriage was legalized and women could vote. Because you have taken something and tried to push it through a process where spin doctors, headlines, and damage control is concerned instead of just doing it. If I said that the minimum age of presidency should be lowered by a half decade in the time frame of three years or that after four years of service as a representative or senator combined then you no longer able to work either one in the time frame of four years, or if every police department should not be so militarized then in a matter of months it would happen numbers can beat the painfully slow processes of law. Do not make something that needs to be an action i.e(wishing for police to be more transparent in reports and action) in to a reaction(#blacklivesmatter and #alllivesmatter by degree) otherwise the meaning behind it rings hollow.

We all matter, and we should act like it.

So there is what I think, some points to fight popular counter arguments, multiple points as to why this is a bad idea and my thoughts how I got there in case anyone was confused. I’m going to hope we can all treat each other better, and I know I will at least try to, thank you for reading and I am going to go have a talk with a whiskey bottle about how some actions are just so utterly disappointing.

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Final Fantasy 7: Memories

Final Fantasy 7 may actually be remade. The last time people get this hyped for it was when it was being ported to the ps4 play store only for it to be a near copy of the pc port. If you love this game then you have got to be just as happy, but if you also look around is tempered with the same fear this will be just a quick grab. For many people though there is the chance to bring back some of the passion that made gaming of the past so much fun.

From the playstation era of RPG games this sat on the throne over them all with its popularity, cast of colorful characters, and despite the graphics not aging so well it is a wonderful experience. This was one of those things that you did multiple times in different ways just to see if you could. Sitting down with all the windows open, cold winter breeze blowing in to keep me awake. Hours of calculation to figure out exactly how I could best destroy whatever boss or side quest was giving me a problem. Until a character came in to my party named Cid Highwind.

Why he was so awesome was simply because, a character like him seemed never to show up in that kind of a game. While your white bread emo hero, his two female love triangle partners, a straight man, a buzz kill, a nerd, and a girl who couldn’t be happier with a lifetime supply of Lexapro were normal fare for such games, Cid was not. He had no special powers, and he wasn’t specially trained in all the flavors of murder with a weapon. Highwind was the every man that had a dream and worked over his entire life to make it happen. It also happens that he had a penchant for tea, and swore like the things in game was actually registering. Limit breaks, were attacks that often the character did as their last resort when the meter filled. For some it was a super secret sword technique, ninja magic, or even transformation. In the case of the pilot his ranged from a stick of dynamite, variations of a high jump with a spear, and just railing the enemies for a fair amount of damage. One of his techniques is called big brawl, and that should tell you the kind of guy this is.. Someone who takes anything they can do to help, and really becomes someone that can be a powerhouse. The final limit break often times is the most outlandish of the lot, and that’s the case with all the characters in game. The final limit break of Cid Highwind is just called Highwind.

Highwind – the flying battleship he had created fires missiles at your enemies until all that remains is the smell of gunpowder and whatever unfortunate splatter happened. It was a simple technique from his work that was adapted for a more up front attack. Harking back to his personality and character overall.

The best part for me was that he also had some problems. Not like cookie cutter RPG’s where everyone had a part to act, he also had some personality flaws. Drinking, chain smoking, and hard on his assistant Shera despite caring so much for her. Overall, he was a great character, and if it wasn’t for him I doubt that I would harp on this game even a quarter as much as I do now.

It is the kind of game that turned me from a weekend gamer to a full fledged game lover.

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If I Could Be Serious For a Moment….

Five points if you are any sort of a Lance Storm fan.

So if you have read any of these posts they may seem like there is something I am not saying. Something, that maybe would make sense if I did explain it a little better. My head does work best when it multitasks, as sated before. That is not the only reason. I guess, with all the projects as well as the things I am trying to do I have had to make sure when I do something it ticks off multiple boxes between all possible projects. I originally started this to keep myself honest so further progress can be reached. On that aspect it has been very useful, and despite sometimes stepping back to deal with what life has thrown at me. Coming back to see where I left off is actually nice.

The problem stands on my pride. To say that most cases it could be a little more apparent is an understatement. Most times my pride only shows in an over representation smacking of the comedy of the idiotic. Some people can say they are supremely proud of who they are, what they have done, and the body of their life’s work. I cannot say anywhere close to that. There have been moments where I thought to myself that I can enjoy the overdose of ego, and as long as I do not insult anyone with it I find it okay.

Mind you, that does not also mean I am not unhappy of what I have done either. I don’t actually lie on my back and wait for clouds to go by unless I am being paid for it. Looking around I have seen many people use their pride as their shield to defend them from anyone in a competitive matter. I know I am good in a lot of things I also completely realize that for everything I have done their is most likely at least one person who has studied their entire life for the one single skill set. Knowing that I really cannot be too proud of it because their is always room to grow.

So I guess, what I am trying to say is I will never toot my own horn calling myself an ace. If I do you had better know that I am joking just to sound like a kingly bell end. (note: not British, but their terms sound a little bit more dignified then American terms.) I wouldn’t be wrong calling myself a bit of a jack of trades. Now, I can look at myself and know that is not a bad thing. Jacks are useful in many things and jobs could use a couple more jacks in the deck. I can be a little happier of that fact now.

Right now, I understand people have left, but there are still more then a hundred people still with this. Posts have not been to the schedule I wish. I am looking for a job so that I can continue making stuff with my projects, and stuff that although not related that you, my readers will like. To all of you, may the winds be in your sails and hopefully I don’t find myself on the rocks much longer.

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Writing as of late

So as of late I have had a couple writing projects coming to an end including three stories. All of them have 2-3 thousand words. Two of them are for the Newgrounds writers guild and the last one is a writing exercise me and a friend online were doing for practice with the subject of romance. I will not have the full things on here, because three stories of that length could be a little bit daunting for some. So instead I will have just the starting paragraph to all three and if you like them then their will either be a place you can read them in full or I could just put it up later depending.

Duty Of The Heart – Romance

Watching the sun fall over the village all was as it should have been from the outside. Peaceful and many of the soldiers back home with their loved ones. That did not make him feel any better as he stood watching from his place near the window. For as the moonlight began to glow the questions begin to come en masse. Why did everyone hate them? Why did they believe they would do them harm? It was only when they had mobilized from the village that the battle truly began and all of his power to stop it was useless at the charge of the masses.

Fact Or Fiction – Newgrounds Horror 1

You never know when creatures like me are watching. We all exist outside of your fears no matter how much things like the news try to tell you every few days with some new crime that would shock even the police officers. Some of you reading this may even be seeing me very soon all comfortable in your room or local library surrounded by people you would think are fine upstanding citizens.

Pale Rider – Newgrounds Horror 2

He ran over the stone path. Orange light painted everything abnormal shades making him further on edge then he could be. Snapping back there was no body, no form behind him that could be seen following him. It did not matter though, because he knew he was in it’s view. The uneasy weight baring down on his spirit made it all so clear. Clearing the gate with a vault the time was ticking down before he could get to the door. Home was in sight as he took bigger breaths for the final push. Willing his legs to go faster. Everyone who would be able to watch wouldn’t even say anything for their were the kind of people to not get in to someone else’s affairs no matter what they were. If it was illegal or even slightly suspicious people would rather just close their blinds before saying something and he might die because of it.

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Let’s play – Let’s not

For those who do not know I have a Youtube channel and for those who do know it is only been indie games. Games not released by big studios for people to have fun and not for the profit margins. Recently though I was going to begin a let’s play on Advance Wars a charming little real time strategy with a good style and overall pleasantness despite the subject of war. Then I realized after editing had been done and all the little things ironed out. Except Nintendo has this program that if you do not release videos under then it would count as a copyright strike. Three copyright strikes means the channel gets iced and I would like to keep it for a little bit.

So that means to scrap the whole thing and do another video. Which is not a problem to anything but to the clock. I am getting another video done. It just really is a buzzkill not because of the whole profitability issue. I am not making any money off my channel so it does not really matter. It sucks because how many other people do you think said things to themselves before deciding on doing a video. It can make one wonder how much free advertising Nintendo is removing from themselves.

Oh well. If that’s what they want they can have the consequences to boot.

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Spicy Pork in Lettuce Cups

So here is a dish that you can make and if you do not have the lettuce then you can use the pork mix as a topping for salads. This makes a great meal and really is simpler then one would expect. Once again this is for a big old pot of the stuff so if you think this is too much then chop the recipe in half or even to a quarter if needed. They also work well tossed with noodles warm in a bowl.

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Ingredients
3*1 lb package of Pork Chorizo
2 lbs small diced Pork
1 lb package Beef Chorizo
4 Bell Peppers of your choice
Mine was 1 orange, 2 red, and 1 yellow
1 bunch of Green Onions
1/2 can of Chipotle in Adobo
1/2 lb Honey Roasted Peanuts
1/2 clove of Elephant Garlic or 2 cloves Garlic
1 head Iceburg Lettuce

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Get your all your meat in the pot on medium heat first to cook up and their will be a fair amount of fat coming out we are going to use this to help flavor all the veggies. It will be the base of the sauce for everything to contribute to. While this is going on you can chop up your veggies. Roughly dice everything before tossing the green onions and garlic in when the meat seems to be almost cooked through. Continue to heat until warmed through before removing from the

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Toss your veggies on with the remnants of fat in the pot to help saute the all the beautiful colors. Toss your peanuts when you are ready to pull the trigger, and if you are worried about the sugar of the peanuts burning then a quick stir every so often will make sure to stop that. You want to cook everything until peppers begin to shimmer like little gems from sauteing.

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When you put the meat back in to heat together you can add your Chipotle in Adobo before mixing it all together and warming it up. If there happens to be a couple of caramelized things at the bottom of the pan then you can deglaze with a couple drops of Rice Wine Vinegar before continuing to finish it up

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Take your Iceberg Lettuce and get your filling in to the cup. I find a quarter cup of the filling per leaf is right about good for me before rolling up and chowing down. If you do not want the little amount of sauce to leak then you could always double up on your leaves with no problems.

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Delicious.

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