Chickpeas, Shortbread, & One Bigass Turtle

Holy shit, six months? I am ashamed of myself; I won’t even try to explain. Well, I’ve got three recipes for you at least. I will probably continue with part two tomorrow or another day.

Let us start with Chickpea and Date Tagine!

I had to look this one up because Vegetarian Times didn’t really give much background on it, so for those like me who were not aware, a tagine (or tajine) is actually a type of earthenware pot used to cook these types of dishes in North Africa. I still do not know how to pronounce it. Anyone?

Ingredients:

1 Tbs olive oil

1 large onion, diced (I used red)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1. tsp each of ground cumin, coriander and ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 15 oz. can crushed tomatoes

3 cups cooked chickpeas or 2 15 oz. cans, rinsed and drained

1 cup whole wheat couscous

1 cup pitted dates, halved

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Steps:

1. Heat oil in saucepan, medium heat. Add onion, cook 10 minutes or until starting to brown. Stir in garlic, cumin, coriander, ginger and cinnamon; saute 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, chickpeas, and 1/4 cup water; simmer 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, toast couscous in small saucepan over medium heat 5 min, or until fragrant. Add 1 3/4 cups water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand 5 minutes.

3. Stir dates and lemon juice into tagine, and season with salt and pepper if desired. Serve over couscous, sprinkled with cilantro.

Foglio variations? Well, I used extra garlic. Shocker, eh? Also, since my last blog I got a food chopper thingy. I used it to chop up the onion and garlic. Is it faster? Sure. Do I get to cry onion tears and smell the lovely garlic aroma on my fingers for days? No. Failure. No complaints about using it for carrots, though.

Everything actually went really well with this dish. The only thing that turned out mediocre was the couscous, which I’ve never made before. I didn’t cook it long enough initially and letting it sit longer helped but didn’t totally fix it. It could have been a bit softer.

I really dug this, though! A great mix of the sweet and savory and all that. The dates are a really nice touch (something I’ve never cooked with before or even thought of cooking with). The texture is great (I love chickpeas) and it’s very filling. The leftovers lasted me a couple of days. Would highly recommend this one!

Pics or it didn’t happen, right?

The choppa

The chopped

Garlic, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, ginger

In progress...

dry couscous

Cockroaches?

Final product!

😀

This is my sexy face

Now, what I didn’t tell you is that while this was all happening, something else was brewing… or chilling, actually. Before making the tagine, I made myself some cookie dough:

Scottish Shortbread and Mexican Wedding Cookies!

Apparently the two recipes are so similar you can make ’em together, so why the hell not?

Ingredients:

1 cup/2 sticks butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar (plus more for Mexican Wedding cookies later)

1 vanilla bean, split (optional)

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts

sugar for dipping Scottish Shortbread

Steps:

1. Cream butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar in large bowl with electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean, if using, into butter mixture, and beat until combined. Beat in flour and salt.

2. Divide dough in half. Transfer half to large sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper. Pat or roll into 1/2 inch thick 5 inch square. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill 2 hours, overnight, or up to a week.

3. Stir walnuts into remaining dough half. Use plastic wrap to shape dough into 12-inch long x 1.5 inch wide log that is rounded on top and flat on bottom. Wrap tightly and chill 2 hours, overnight, or up to a week.

4. Preheat oven to 350. Coat two baking sheets with cooking spray or line with silicone mats/parchment paper.

5. Scottish Shortbread: Cut dough square in half. Slice each remaining rectangle into 3/8-inch wide fingers. Dip sclied side of fingersin sugar, place sugar-side-up on prepared baking sheet. Prick each finger with fork to male small holes. Bake 8-10 min. Cool 5 min on baking sheet, transfer to wire rack.

6. Mexican Wedding: Slice dough log into 1/2 inch-wide slices, and transfer to prepared baking sheet. Bake 10-13 min or until light golden brown. Cool 5 min on baking sheets.

7. Place powdered sugar in shallow bowl. Roll cookies in sugar while still warm. Cool completely on rack.

Okay, first of all you know I did not use the vanilla bean. Also, somehow I completely missed the last line of ingredients (sugar) and was very confused when I got to the part about dipping the shortbread in sugar since I thought I was only using the powdered stuff. So I ended up using that and it was fine, but not right.

These came out pretty good, but the major issue was that there was a bit too much flour and not enough butter. I had to add a tiny bit of water and then milk to the batter to make it easier to shape, since it was about to fall apart without. I don’t have a lot of mile-high baking experience and probably should have researched that before. I plan on making these again to see how much better they can be. VERY easy, though! Definitely worth a try. I just love shortbread…

EDIT: Totally forgot to mention that I do NOT have a mixer, so the mixing was done by hand (and was a pain in the ass). Fun stuff.

Pics:

LIKE BUTTA

MMMM

I have always been geometrically challenged.

Slightly more square... and moist

Everyone wants a log

Cookie dough= major weakness

Oh hi

There was a bit of waiting time, which consisted of rocking the fuck out to Porcupine Tree’s Out Absentia:

THE CREATOR HAD A MASTERTAPE

But he left it in the fridge

Dat funky Wedding Nails shit

THIS MACHINE

And then, after the tagine was made a few hours later:

More cut up than you

Powdered and ready to go

omnomnom

Tada! Overall a success! I am definitely becoming more confident with this shit.

Okay, I am going to be as brief as possible in my movie review because… well, how much can you really say about MOTHERFUCKING GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE?! 

Oh yeah.

If you haven’t seen this gem, let me summarize it for you: Some dumbass American military folks shoot down a UFO that happens to be loaded with hydrogen bombs (of course the Russians are to blame). The resulting explosion awakens Gammera (a giant fucking turtle, the “great granddaddy of all turtles”) from some ice and he proceeds to turn into a flying saucer and wreak havoc on Japan once he lands. He encounters a small boy who is obsessed with turtles  (to the point where his family fears for his future) and thinks humans can train Gammera to be peaceful… or whatever. The “nations of the world” (a few dudes from like three of them) get together to try and stop Gammera from causing further destruction.

...

Of course this film is full of badly overdubbed dialogue, zero-budget sets that often look like they belong in a fifth-grade stage production, classic sixties barely veiled sexism and racism, sudden flamenco guitar and hippie dancing (separate incidents), and what can only be the sounds of an angry elephant.

I found myself wondering aloud to my lovely wife/roommate Kim while watching this: Does Gammera have any sort of existential crisis about this whole thing? Does he wonder how long he’s been trapped in that ice and what his purpose is now that he’s back? Who is he? What is the world like now, millions of years later? What is the point of all this? Why is he here? I’ll bet these questions are even more glaring when he is half-frozen by the military, flailing his arms as if swimming in place, wondering if he’ll ever get anywhere. But do we ever get a glimpse into the mind and heart of Gammera? Oh no, of course not. He’s just a big dumb turtle, right? Even the kid who claims to be on his side never actually asks him how he feels. Poor dude.

I don’t really have much else to add after that depressing rant. A few quotes?

“I understand your love for your pet turtle, but we need to talk to you about it.”

“Yes, this was a mistake.”

“He actually ingested the fire?”

“The destructive power of Gammera is beyond comprehension.” (followed by a line about how if the big bad USA can’t stop him the whole world is going to have to work together)

“Gentlemen, we better order some lunch.” (turns out it takes longer than a morning to save the world sometimes)

“…it’s not even an idea, just a thought that occured to me.”

“Do you mean it literally eats fire?”

“Yes, the beast actually eats fire.”  (thanks for the clarification)

“He doesn’t mean to be dangerous; he’s just so big and clumsy, that’s all.”

“It’s a trap!”

“This blasted typhoon!”

Kim: “This movie is neverending.”

In the end, this can all be summarized best by one particular (extremely relevant) line I enjoyed:

“Well there’s not much need for lighthouses during the day, is there?”

No, I guess there isn’t.

.

Bad Head, Good Pizza

Okay, sorry for the long-ass delay, people. Finals and life in general got in the way. After graduating with my MSW and a kick-ass trip to Portland for lots of beer and BLACKFIELD, I am back!

I’m gonna try and keep this as short as I can because I’m exhausted and hungry (I cooked and watched a few days ago).

This week’s meal is a variation on another Vegetarian Times pizza recipe: Zucchini-Goat Cheese Pizza!

For the actual recipe see above, but this was what I did:

Rather than use refrigerated dough, I took the idea from the last pizzas I made and used pitas because they’re quick, easy, and light (and also Safeway doesn’t seem to sell refrigerated dough). Rather than goat cheese, I used blue.

To make the sauce, I mixed the 6 oz. of tomato paste, a shitload of chopped-up onion (they ask for 2 Tbs but I went over that fo sho), maybe 4-5 cloves of garlic instead of 2, a bunch of oregano (didn’t measure, just shook it on), a bunch of olive oil (same deal), and some red cooking wine crap from Safeway (also did not measure). Then I spread this onto four pitas, which I did not split and just used whole, which turned out to be a good thing considering the weight of the pizzas. Then I sprinkled on some cheese, arranged slices of zucchini and pepper, and sprinkled on some more cheese. Drizzled on a bit of oil, threw in the oven on about 375 for 15 minutes, and voila!

I obsessively checked on them because I wanted to make sure the cheese was perfectly melted without the pitas burning, and that’s pretty much what happened.

Photos:

Mountain of goodness

Looks like death, tastes like yum

Gahlic

sawce

Pre-oven

Post-oven

😦

Shit was very yummy. Kim agreed. We finished with some leftover tiramisu cake courtesy of my bro and sister-in-law. Then last night I came home at midnight after 6-7 hours on call and devoured the last two cold. Still delicious.

oh hi again pizza

Another success… but then again, a pretty simple recipe. Next week I hope to do something a little crazier with my dawta Jessica in town 😀

Now onto the good stuff… or not.

This week’s film selection was inspired by a Wednesday night Hobo with a Shotgun viewing session in Oregon with my friends Nate and Alex from the DTF. (One sentence review of that one: Ridiculous, gory, entertaining but probably would not go out of my way to watch again.) Anyway, while looking through my collection, I noticed I had a Rutger Hauer double feature that I bought at Safeway a while back and forgot about: Blind Fury and Omega Doom.

Magic.

Keeping with the sort of sci-fi theme here, I went with the latter (it also had a lower rating on imdb).

This movie is basically about a world that has seen a human-robot war and has been destroyed. The robots that remain are paranoid because they’ve heard the humans are organizing to take shit over again, and they’re looking for a stash of guns (although this site asks a very good question- why the hell do they need guns with all of their fancy robot technology?!). There are rival robot gangs… and then there’s Rutger Hauer’s character, who comes along to this junkyard and starts trying to get on the good side of both gangs… or something. I don’t know. In the beginning they say he was shot “in the program” and now he has a hidden agenda… but I don’t want to give too much away because I want you to suffer like I did.

Ugh, just watch the three-minute intro and you’ll get it. Try not to fall asleep like I almost just did, though.

wut

Oh man. How I stayed awake I can’t even tell you. I did pass out on the couch immediately afterwards. Goddamn. First of all, the budget is very obvious here. The effects are just hilarious, be it the red sky or the supposedly disembodied head getting kicked around like a soccer ball. Also, the whole thing is filmed in one small area, apparently in a junkyard somewhere in Eastern Europe. There is a lot filled with trash and a few rooms and that is pretty much it. Some films do this sort of thing very well, but I felt claustrophobic and bored. Whoever made the movie is a Dylan Thomas fan, because it starts and ends with some dude dryly reciting one of his poems. There is also a very helpful opening monologue (post-poem) giving us some vital background information that begins with “Once upon a time.” Seriously.

He's a robot, yet he's still a stereotypical black guy. Nice job, people.

Some notes:

-The music is incredible. Lots of very eighties-sounding stuff with some random flamenco guitar thrown in every once in a while.
-Two actors listed one after the other: Cynthia Ireland and Simon Poland
-There is a character called “The Head” who is called “The Head” by everyone. He is supposed to be the comic relief and keeps getting and losing bodies. He ends up with boobs. This is worth the price of the DVD.
-The robots are just people walking around with electronic sound effects thrown in to make them sound robotic.

-There is lots of awkward robot sexual tension where all the women want this guy and are so impressed by how fast he is (I thought that was supposed to be a bad thing). He pretty much brings one of them to orgasm by killing her. WTF?

Matrix and shit

The obligatory quote list:

“I always pace when I think and right now all I can do is roll.” (The Head)

“Now that really pisses me off, him fixin’ up our soccer ball like that.” (in reference to The Head)

“I’m gonna take care of that head like I should’ve a long time ago.”
“Don’t do anything you might regret later; you enjoyed kickin’ the head around.”
“Think I found me a new head to play with.”

(wait WHAAAT)

“I’ll have a water… on ice.”
“Get real.”
“Okay… no ice”

“Cut it out Marco, leave The Head alone.”

“You scumsucking slimebag you”

“Oh yeah, Head?”

“I think you should apologize to The Head.”

“Stop whining. Just morph.”

“Just morph. IT’S EASIER SAID THAN DONE!”

“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”

“I’m Zeke. What should I call you?”

“Guardian Angel will do.” (CUE EPIC EIGHTIES MUSIC)

“A sneak attack… it could work.” (loud robot steps)

“He hasn’t told me anything. he likes water… on ice!”

“LIAR!”

“Well Ironface, I must admit: you are a helluva piece of hardware.”

“You know you could just go, move on and go about your business.”

“I am the business.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you just yet- I need to probe your memory.”

“Holy Toledo, a gun!”

“Maybe I can save him with this…”

“You are a teacher, figure something out.”

“She’s gonna kill us.”

“It’s not in her program.”

“Hope is a thing with feathers. It flies.”

“Don’t move” (to head)

“I’m not goin anywhere”

“There’ll be a war. We’ll all lose a lot of megabytes and nobody gets the guns.”

“All I can do is follow my program.”

“Your program stinks.”

“I’m gonna kill The Head but first I’m gonna kill you.”

“Who died and made you god?”

“You did.”

Seriously WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON in this movie? And why am I supposed to care about it? And why are there so many head references? And how is the head moving by itself without limbs or anything, anyway? Ahhhhh!

The Head trying to get his shit together

This short clip I took with my camera sums it up, I think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yvhPAqCiKg

I’m done. Somehow I am still awake writing about this.

Here’s a birthday shout-out to Jessica! Can’t wait to see you and cook with you next week!

:(

I’m so sorry, people. It’s been really hard to get one of these up. Believe it or not, I have made my recipe and watched my movie. It’s just been midterms and now I’m in NJ visiting without internet on my laptop and FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

I can’t upload my photos here at my mom’s but I will tell you briefly about my recipe:

My cousin Antoinette and I used to make the long trek up to Batavia, NY for my (other) cousin’s birthday every year. Uncle Junior (the real one, not the one from the Sopranos) would make us these kick-ass pepper and egg sandwiches wrapped in foil for the ride. I could’ve eaten a million of them… but then we both got gastric bypass and the amount of sandwich we were able to consume significantly declined.

Anyway, a week or two ago I decided to make my own P&E sandwiches.

Pretty simple here. Start with some eggs (I used two), scrambled or whatever, then throw some peppers into the pan. Uncle Junior used green but all I had was yellow and that was just fine. He used rolls (torpedo or maybe something smaller), but all I had were these sandwich thins of Kims that worked out, just made a bit more of a mess because there was space on all sides for the egg to spill out.

Delicious, though! And very simple. They also taste very good hot and cold. Ate one in the morning and then brought one to work (wrapped in foil, of course) for  lunch: mmmm.

A random photo from a Google search:

So this recipe is in memory of the late Uncle Junior, who kicked ass.

The movie was a special treat, sent from my Jersey bootleg connection (I won’t mention any names but I’m sure most of you know who this BAMF is):

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES

Unfortunately my notebook with all of my serious business film notes is in Denver, but I will go from memory.

First off, is/was this movie seriously playing in theatres?? This is pure SyFy material and I’m not really sure where the disconnect was with those who made it.

Anyway, good god the cheesy dialogue, Marines making jabs at each other that are supposed to show you how close and cool they are but are just utterly unconvincing and painful.

The aliens were pretty lame and I felt like a lot of this shit was just stolen from other movies (coughID4cough). And JESUS CHRIST THE CAMERAWORK. I was nauseous. I do like the idea of aliens trying to wipe us out so they can have our water for fuel, but it obviously wasn’t executed in any sort of creative way.

Oh, Aaron. What were you thinking?

 

Wookiee Stir-Fry

I suck, sorry. Two weeks without a post. The food was made and the movies watched, but I’ve been busy!

Tony was visiting from NJ and lucky enough to be present for this experience. He’s sort of a picky eater, especially if it doesn’t have meat in it, so I pretty much just made what he was interested in. And sorry, but there was more peanut action.

We decided to just do a stir-fry with rice pasta and peanut sauce, so I used the second peanut sauce recipe (from the last blog) minus the okra and we picked up some other veggies (broccoli, carrots, asparagus). I have never made rice pasta before and wasn’t watching it closely enough, so it got pretty mushy, blah. The sauce came out good, as did the veggies. Also threw in a good amount of garlic, of course. Mixed ’em all together once everything was cooked and I liked it. Really the only complaint was the texture of the pasta and I was okay with that. You can’t really screw up stir-fry too badly.

Greeeen

ze sauce

Eww, mushy pasta

We also made pita pizzas, the idea stolen from a Vegetarian Times recipe (for roasted red pepper pizzas) but our own variation. Used some leftover mozzarella and asiago from my fridge, a bunch of garlic, and some pesto made from a mix from the store. I used soy milk for this because I don’t really do regular milk, but maybe not the best idea. However, the idea of cutting a pita in half for a light, thin, quick pizza is awesome and I plan on doing this again in the future. All you do is throw your ingredients on and throw it in the oven (and prepare the sauce first if you’re not using ready-made stuff). I just put it on 350 and they weren’t in there very long, maybe ten minutes (hard to remember since we were still working on other stuff at the time). Somehow everything came perfectly together and finished at the same time so we didn’t have to wait to eat/worry about stuff getting cold.

Mediocre Pesto

Pesto pita pizza: say that five times fast

Not the best presentation I've done...

Now, onto the important stuff. This week was a double feature of epic proportions.

First we watched KONG ISLAND (1968)

Look at that creepy mofo...

 

I’m not going to say too much about this, but I love how the descriptions they give you on the DVD case are just so… irrelevant to what actually happens in this movie. This one says “A diabolical team of scientists land on Kong Island determined to implant devices in the brains of the gorilla population that will transform them into an unstoppable army. Their plan for world domination runs amok when a descendant of King Kong (lol I just typed “King Long”) arrives and the mayhem begins.”

:eyebrows:

Except most of this movie is about a bunch of sixties white people dancing and having shitty relationships. And there’s a “sacred monkey” who is a beautiful darker-skinned (of course) woman who walks around naked and shit. And wholesome pretty white girl gets kidnapped and put in a cage and blahblahblah. The “descendant of King Kong” who shows up gives no indication as to who he is, so how these people would know I’m not sure. Of course there’s all kinds of racism and sexism, but it’s a little more covert than some of the older movies.

likeomgwe'reinafrica!

Eva 😀

I just accidentally typed “Long Island” instead of “Kong Island” and am wondering if it was really an accident.

Anyway, some random commentary:

-The music, holy shit. In the beginning there is some kind of screeching sound that is supposed to be singing, I think. And then there is the ultra-sixties dance party music. And the three dramatic guitar notes. And the “ethnic” drums.

-Stock footage of wildlife clearly shot on a different type of film: very nice

-If you’re trying to protect yourself in the jungle with all these tall-ass plants and shit, why would you wear knee-high socks AND SHORT SHORTS?

Anyway…

Quotes:

Tony, a good chunk into the movie: “Quick question… what is this movie about?”

“There’s supposed to be some kind of sacred wild monkey somewhere out there.”

“You were right. It’s the men–not the animals–that are the real danger.”

“I can hardly wait to find out if there is a sacred monkey!”

“Look, a pair of lions!”

“They didn’t even condescend to look at us.” (Because THEY COULDN’T SEE YOU FROM THE STOCK FOOTAGE)

“It was… I dunno… human, almost.”

Of course she's the slut

Tony, after a gorilla, controlled by men, kidnaps a woman: “The only thing the kidnappers didn’t foresee was that the ransom was for a hundred thousand bananas.”

“Watch your step. You may find that it’s actually dangerous to violate ancient taboos.”

“It was the gorillas that ruined the plan.” (but the people that ruined the movie)

“I’m simply bored with this dirty rotten life. For years you’ve promised to get me out of this hellhole.” (followed by a woman beating)

“You know it’s only because I love you I’m jealous.” (never heard that one before)

“Are you the sacred monkey? What’s your name? You don’t know how to talk.” (orly)

“I’ve managed to eliminate their savage ways. Now you have to learn to obey me like them. I can take control of all humanity with this invention. I’ll be rich and famous. All of you will do as I say.”

Tony at the end: “A lot of these movies wait til the last five minutes to give you some crazy plot twist, but this one waits til the last five minutes to give you the plot.”

Okay, that’s enough. But apparently you can get it here if you’re curious.

Hey, I don't remember this scene...

You may or may not want to do that.

Now, you might not call our second film science fiction. You might call it something like space fantasy. Although I would probably just call it crap.

By accident (searching for a black version of Star Wars, which sort of exists), Tony and I came across…

THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL

.......

 

Holy shit, what a trainwreck. Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Chewy’s family waiting for him to come home for “Life Day,” Han trying to get him there, and a bunch of random shit in-between that has nothing at all to do with the plot. And SINGING.

No comment.

What got the cast through this movie? Copious amounts of psilocybin.

But I have to say, the first ten minutes of subtitle-free wookiee-only dialogue (sorry, Shyriiwook) are absolutely brilliant. Chewy’s family… well, I want to be adopted by them. His father’s name is Itchy and his son is Lumpy… or maybe the other way around. Either way, you have a punkass little kid and a dirty old man (yes, there’s even very softcore space porn) and… hey, I guess wookiees aren’t so different from humans after all! Don’t you feel all warm and fuzzy inside now? Oh, I guess that’s the wookiee c… never mind.

 

"Why the long hairy faces?"

Good god, the musical numbers. FUCKING BEA ARTHUR singing in the cantina. HOW DO YOU BEAT THAT? I suppose the Pythonesque cross-dressing cooking show with a three or four-armed “lady” is close. Or Jefferson Starship. Yes, Jefferson Starship.

Bea ❤

I’m not really going to go much into this because I have homework and honestly, if you haven’t already seen it, you need to watch it.

And you can. Right here. You will not regret it.

Okay, you might. In fact you probably will, but it’s still incredible.

Do it for me.

rooohu cscwoanan.

Arachnids on Okra

Okay, I promise this will be the last peanut recipe for a while.

Wait, no I don’t. I LOVES THE PEANUTS!

Anyway, I got my newest edition of Vegetarian Times recently but nothing was speaking to me, so I went into my emails and found a few that sounded good. I wrote down three different sets of ingredients before I went to the store and just picked whatever I was feelin’ once I got there, which was:

Baked Tofu with Peanut Sauce!

This is not the same peanut sauce I’ve been making, though. This was from the Black History Month email so apparently this is the black person’s peanut sauce. This peanut sauce has onion, tomatoes, tomato paste, chili-garlic sauce, thyme, and okra. Oh, and peanut butter. Yeahhhh.

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 13- x 9-inch baking dish with cooking spray, and place tofu slices on bottom.

Shitload of tofu,

2. Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Sauté onion in oil 5 to 7 minutes, or until translucent.

I cried.

Add tomatoes, tomato paste, chile-garlic sauce, and thyme, and sauté 1 to 2 minutes, or until tomato paste begins to darken. Stir in peanut butter, okra, and 1 cup water, and bring to a simmer.

Blur.

Tastes better than it looks...

3. Pour peanut sauce over sliced tofu, cover with foil, and bake 5 to 7 minutes. Remove foil, and bake 5 minutes more, or until heated through.

Hawt

Variations: I used a whole teaspoon of thyme and a whole cup of okra slices. I also did not see the kind of sauce the recipe called for, but I found a chili sauce with garlic in it, so I picked that. I later found a sauce closer to the one described in the link, but it was $2 more so fuck that.

So this was a pretty easy recipe, just weird for me because I don’t think I’ve ever used any of the ingredients other than peanut butter, onions and tofu before. I was an okra-cookin’ virgin until I found this recipe!

Look at that texture, baby.

I cut up the tofu, fried up the onions, mixed in all the other ingredients (this was interesting- lots of smoke), and threw some rice in the microwave while the rest baked (I swear one of these days I will make rice the proper way, but I always seem to forget about it and not have time).

I friggin' love brown rice.

The only problem:

Well, the recipe should probably call for more of the sauce ingredients, because it wasn’t quite enough to cover all of the tofu (if I had known this I would have used less tofu/not covered as much of the pan). So this meant some bites were more tofu than anything and there really should have been more sauce. But the sauce was fucking awesome! I savored the bites where there was a lot. The water from the tofu also came out while it baked, so it was floating around in the dish, but this didn’t seem to affect the flavor.

Looks sorta like a pizza. Instead of grease: tofu water. mmm.

I tried to drain it, but the tofu slid around the pan and probably would have fallen out. It all stayed together as it moved, though, a big blob.

TADA!

Okra is awesome.

Altogether a success and I will probably make this again, just with more sauce or less tofu.

Aside: I didn’t make this, but had to share a photo of my dessert. Ben & Jerry’s red velvet cake ice cream. Holy shit.

OH gawd

Diabetes!

Okay, on to the film…

Holy shit, is this magical.

HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND!

Or Body in the Web. Or Ein Toter hing im Netz. Depends who you ask, I guess. This movie was made when there were still two Germanys.

Plot: Man runs dance troupe, holds auditions. Women are stupid and/or slutty, of course. Dance troupe heads to Singapore on plane, plane catches fire (the scream scenes are incredible), dance troupe ends up on raft in middle of Pacific Ocean, sees land, makes it to land, finds fresh water, finds cabin, finds out there are GIANT SPIDERS that are going to fuck ’em up. Giant spider turns the lone man (in case you don’t hear them say it a million times, his name is GARY) into some sort of creature who begins stalking the women, but of course two other men show up for them to fight over because these ladies can’t live without the cock.

I’m not really sure if this movie could get more sexist, to be honest. I was thinking about the bathroom scene in Dazed and Confused where that girl is talking about how Gilligan’s Island is a male pornographic fantasy. Well, this takes it to the next level. One guy (Gary! Gary! Gary!) and several women (who wear as little clothing as possible) stranded on an island together.

The obligatory wet scene

Gary is the only one who keeps himself together, only one who is able to remain standing after days in a raft with barely any water or food, the only one who has control over his emotions, and so on. He has to keep all of these crazy women in line, of course (including but not limited to smacking them up when they try to sneak extra water and talking to them like dogs- “come on girls, let’s go!”)… which means they all want him, and catfights ensue because of it. And also because of clothes, since that’s really all women care about.

What in the hell kind of bra...

Christ, just slap a corset on me and take me back to the 19th century. Not one woman is portrayed as a decent character except maybe Georgia, Gary’s assistant… but she is of course in love with him and submissive as hell.

Does whatever a spider can. Except spin webs. And look like a spider.

Of course there are plenty of girlfights, and then at the end the other two guys argue about the women and go into the cabin to fight quietly so the women can’t hear. They start throwing furniture at each other, then laugh. Nothing wrong with the women rolling around on the floor pulling hair, legs exposed, but the men are mature enough to see how silly they’re being.

Paragon of masculinity.

ANYWAY,

If you try to ignore all that and take the parts where there is a giant creepy spider and a dude who is supposed to be some kind of spider man but looks more like a werewolf/wookiee, this movie is hilarious.

Leprosy, fuck yeah.

And I have to hand it to the filmmakers for putting action in there as early as 20-30 minutes (out of 75) and actually keeping my attention for a while. The initial spider attack scene is INCREDIBLE, as is the scene where they find a cabin and inside of it a dead dude in a giant spider web which looks more like it’s made of paper.

HOLY SHIT YES

hahahaha

It gets kind of boring when the two new men come to the island to work and there’s all this romantic drama. I just kept wondering where the fuck the spider was and could it please come now and start killing these annoying people.

Finally towards the end the action starts again, but it’s impossible to tell who’s who… and why Gary the spider dude is so afraid of a bunch of sparklers, and why the women are just shining them towards him and then running away. Conveniently, there is quicksand that the other dude Joe is aware of (Bob gets killed by a spider), and the rest of them stop as spiderwolfwookieeman Gary runs and eventually sinks into it and Joe the philosopher says “better dead than continue living…” THE END. So deep.

The music is surprisingly good for such a movie. Jazzy. Sexy. The stripper has her own little song, which we even get when she’s lying dead in a pond after being spidey-strangled.

Dead stripper? Check.

Full of great (and not-so-great) quotes (some of these are from memory so not 100% accurate):

“Are you a dancer?”

“No, but I learn quickly.”

“Sorry, we’re looking for dancers.”

“What’s that got to do with Singapore?”

“You’re a stripper.”

“At times.”

“Didn’t I see you at the Sapphire Club last month?”

“How observant of you.”

Yep.

“Gary! Look what I found!”

“A hammer. There must be someone on this island. A hammer… with a long handle. It must be for the purpose of excavating some sort of metal. Most probably uranium.” (how the fuck…)

“Can you eat that?” (laughter)

“He’s dead… in a huge web. Oh, Gary!”

omgz

“Oh Gary, I’m terribly scared. I’m so afraid.”

“Don’t worry Georgia. As long as I’m around nothing will happen to you, I promise.” (*gag*)

“Stop it or I’ll take care of both of you. Now give me something to drink.” (Gary to women, of course)

“Gary!” (Georgia, after catching him messing with one of the dancers)

“This damned heat. I dunno what I’m doing anymore.” (Really?)

“Those were shots! I heard them clearly!”

“Oh, I hope nothing’s happened to Gary!”

*GASPS*

Natural poses

“I heard a scream. I heard it plainly. The scream came from there!” (thanks for all the detail)

“How awful. She’s been strangled. The spider.”

Better off.

“Oh it’s horrible. Oh, Georgia. The professor’s been killed, Gary’s disappeared, and now we just buried Linda. Which one of us is going to be next? I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die I don’t wanna die. Not me, not me.” (all said while shaking Georgia- AND THEY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THE PROFESSOR, THEY FOUND HIM DEAD, WHY IS SHE TALKING LIKE THEY LOST A FRIEND? IS THIS REALLY GILLIGAN’S ISLAND AFTER ALL? BUT WITH SPIDERS?!)

“Don’t talk to me about women on the island.”

“You should’ve taken one along as part of your rations.”

“A researching researcher.” (WHAT?)

“Hands up.” (woman points gun at dude)

“Hey, hello baby.” (puts arms around waist and grabs her, because she couldn’t possibly be serious about using it)

“I was nearly shot. That is if the revolver had been loaded.” (those women are just so silly and dumb)

“Are you always so quiet?”

“You know, when you’ve lived on islands for a long time you forget how to say nice things to girls.”

“Well try it once.”

“Hmm, well I’m really glad that your airplane crashed.” (wut)

“You might become a world famous troupe.” (THEY’VE NEVER DANCED TOGETHER)

“Is she elegant?…” (girl asking guy about the girl he’s interested in-her)

“She’s…dissheveled, neglected…”

“That’s one of the nicest things that’s ever been said to me.” (WUT)

“Hey, that’s not bad either.” (in reference to a woman-object, one of the many competing for the guy’s attention who has no problem completely demeaning herself)

“Do you have to turn all the girl’s heads?”

“They turn mine.”  (in other words “I can’t be blamed for my penis’s reaction”)

Or my chest hair...

“She’s always been shy of men.”

“I’ve always longed for a girl like this…” (so I can turn her into a slut)

“You haven’t fallen for that little broad by any chance… I feel sorry for you… What are dancers- hot goods for cold nights.”

It's true...

“I found Bob. He’s dead.”

“Was he strangled?”

“Where are the bullets?” (don’t try to follow that line too hard)

Oh, what a confused mess. And I swear, if I hear someone say Gary one more time I’m going to puke. All the women screaming his name all the time because they couldn’t do anything on their own. I think I’m going to have to rewatch this movie and make it a drinking game: chug when someone says Gary! Trashed in 20 minutes.

Anyway, I’ve gone on for too long. You should probably watch this.

And guess what? YOU CAN! ON YOUTUBE!  The whole thing is right here, so get some popcorn and beer and give this movie 75 precious minutes of your life:

Not convinced? A couple of clips from my personal collection for you noncommittal types:

 

 

 

 

Peanut-Drenched Pterodactyls

 

Hi.

Can’t get rid of this box, sorry…

 

First of all, my deepest apologies again for the delay. It’s been two weeks since my last post; school has been quite crazy but is ALMOST DONE.

So I wasn’t even planning to do this yesterday because I forgot to pick up ingredients at the store, but when I boiled some water to make some regular-ass pasta, I decided at the very last minute that I was going to improvise something a little different. So, I give you Jackie’s Peanut Fettucini with Some Other Shit.

I wanted to put some veggies in there and was originally thinking I’d do it primavera-style and just throw them in fresh, but then I decided I wanted to bring back the famous peanut sauce! So I threw some onion, garlic (two of the biggest cloves I’ve ever seen), mushrooms and tofu into a pan with some olive oil and then came back to look for that peanut sauce recipe to make sure I had all the ingredients. Did not have the cilantro, which was kind of disappointing, but everything else was there. So, when the pasta and veggies were almost done, I took all the smooth peanut butter I could find (not quite a cup), whisked it with a full cup of water (this made it a little more watery than the last time, which I was going for to make it easier to spread, and threw in the 2 tbsp. soy sauce, 2 tbsp cider vinegar, garlic and a little more than a pinch of cayenne pepper (no sugar or salt). Drained the pasta, threw it in with the veggies, and poured most of the sauce on top (there was a little much, saved the rest for dipping later). I was actually pretty impressed with how it came out! I wish I’d had more veggies to throw in but those tasted good and the sauce came out the way I wanted it. Wooo!

Pics:

Two Giant Cloves!

Dirty/Yummy

😀

Hot mess

Num nums.

What do you call a spotted onion?

And now, our classic film of the week(s).

VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1968)!

EPIC.

 

Wow. Just wow. I’m glad I looked this one up afterwards, because it’s not as simple as it looks. This is a re-edit of a Russian film, overdubbed with English dialogue and with hot blonde “prehistoric” women spliced in. I say “prehistoric” because I had no idea prehistoric women had perfect sixties blonde hair and wore seashell bras and skin-tight bell-bottom-like pants. There are, however, “dinosaurs” in this film, which appear to be dudes in rubber suits jumping from place to place awkwardly.

Hello, ladies.

I need to get me one of these bras.

 

Like the underwater one, this movie also begins with a way-too-long educational film about space and mankind’s use of the wheel and shit. The narrator then informs us that the motion picture may be considered a “fantasy of the future” now but will hopefully be like watching footage of covered wagons later on.

I don’t know.

The narrator is talking to us from THE YEAR 2000! In the year 2000, we are doing all sorts of great space exploration and are able to visit wonderful places like Venus. Yes, of course Venus is the planet where the women are. Women who psychically communicate with each other (probably for money-saving purposes, not to advance the plot) and worship… wait for it…

A PTERODACTYL!

Yes, they worship a flying rubber toy represented with graphics probably better than the SyFy original staring Coolio. This might be the highlight of the film.

YES.

YESSS.

 

But let me tell you a little more about the plot. Some astronauts and their buddy ROBOT JOHN (best character ever) travel to Venus on an exploratory mission. But something goes wrong as they land (sounds like crashing pots and pans to me), so some other dudes go to look for them. The original crew is attacked by the aforementioned dudes in rubber dinosaur suits, who of course get their asses kicked.

The new guys come and get in their badass space car, where they encounter the mighty pterodactyl god and KILL IT. Some of the hot Venus women find it and the leader says the demons who killed it must die, so they call upon the god and his elements to destroy the men. They make a volcano erupt, so we get to see the original two men riding atop Robot John like little children… except Robot John’s programming wants him to drop the extra weight in the lava (which looks more like mud to be honest), so they end up pulling on whatever they can to stop him from dropping them, therefore killing him and getting to watch him sink into the lava.

Free rides!

But of course the men are saved at the last second by the space car. Then the Venus women send rain, which really isn’t too threatening, and the men are able to get to their ship and away pretty easily.

Anticlimactic, really. But at the end, the women realize their pterogod kinda sucks if the men were able to defeat it, so they destroy their statue with rocks and raise up their new idol: none other than the legendary ROBOT JOHN! The way they touch and rub him when they first find him looks like the beginning of a very interesting erotic film, but no luck there.

:eyebrows:

Of course the “acting” (which is just voice acting since it’s just dubbed over another movie) is pathetically dull. No feeling in the voices of our mighty characters and really no reason to feel anything for any of them. The most convincing relationship is the one between one guy and Robot John, who probably delivers the most believable dialogue in the film. The effects are… well, special, if you know what I mean.

Other Thoughts:

-Narration over dialogue: why do people do this?

-If the whole movie was like the dinosaur fight in the beginning, it would be much better.

-Women catching and eating live fish with hands and sleeping on rocks: YES.

-Seeing a robot with giant “metal” hands try to pick up a pill: double YES

-Watching three women carry away the giant rubber pterodactyl bath toy was magical. I want to fill it with water and squirt at people.

Dinner!

-Chef hat. That’s all I have to say.

YES

-Jumping bearded octopus. Holy shit.

-Women from Venus play musical chairs around a rock, apparently.

-If you have triplets you should call them 1, 2 and 3 to avoid forgetting their names.

-Venus women chanting “Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!” in true Beavis fashion: one of the highlights

-This is a more modern shot of the main Venus lady:

Ookay.

Quotes:

“It became clear that there was only one thing left to do: take off for Venus ourselves.”

“I’m wondering if we should be here at all.”

“Why don’t you catch a bus and go home?”

“formations of weird rock” -is that a technical term?

“We’re landed. Voila!”

“Boy it sure feels strange to have weight.”

“You might check on the atmosphere, Hobbes.”

“It better be good.”

“Get it off me.” (unenthusiastically as he is being dragged away by a giant vagina/venus fly trap-type thing)

“John: stay with us, make sure they find us.” (wut)

“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” (Brady Bunch??)

“Sounds like a girl. Almost.. or a … monster.”

“There are no humans here.”

“Well, we’re humans”

Robot John quotes:

“Toomuchwaterneedprotection”

“Bringhimthiswaythereisnowater”

“Theydonotspeaktheydonotmove”

A few more:

Kim while watching: “Where are these prehistoric women?”

Me: “Yeah, this is a total sausagefest.”

“Listen, do what I say, listen, listen, obey my command” (we get it, asshole)

“I suppose they do look like lizards… couldn’t they be people?” (?!)

And last but not least…

“Maybe someday I’ll see her. Maybe I”ll die trying.”

I sure hope so.

HI.

Peace.

Mascarpone Menomena Mania

Okay, this one is going to be sort of long since I made two recipes, but deal with it!

Spectators: Mark this day on your calendar as probably the first and last day Jackie was inspired to cook by her mother.

OMG NO WAY

My mother called and told me (among other things) that my brother Jim had sent her a message about mascarpone cheese and how much he liked it. I remembered how yummy it was (I haven’t had it in too many things, but as a tiramisu lover I am quite a fan) and thought it might be something fun to cook with, despite knowing it would probably cost me a lot of money. So I scoured the internet and found about 50 recipes that sounded amazing but narrowed it down to a few… and decided to make both a dinner and dessert using the creamy sweet stuff. So I ending up spending $17 on cheese alone ($5 for an 8 oz. container at Whole Foods, got two of those plus shredded fontina/asiago/parmesean and an extra asiago just in case) and left Whole Foods a total of $64 poorer (when you factor in the olive oil, pasta, milk, cream, bread crumbs, berries and most importantly four different kinds of beer)… but it was totally worth it.

For those not familiar, mascarpone is an extremely rich and creamy cheese, similar in texture to cream cheese but even more delicious. You’ve probably had it in tiramisu or some kind of cheesecake. It’s (obviously) Italian. I forgot to take a pic of mine by itself but here’s a random internet photo:

Okay, enough blabbing and on to the recipes:

For dinner: Fontina and Mascarpone Baked Pasta!

Straight from the website-

Ingredients:

• 1  pound  uncooked penne
• 1/4  cup  all-purpose flour (about 1 ounce)
• 3  cups  fat-free milk
• 2  cups  (8 ounces) shredded fontina cheese
• 1/4  cup  (2 ounces) mascarpone cheese
• 3/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• Cooking spray
• 3  (1-ounce) slices white bread
• 1  tablespoon  butter
• 1  small garlic clove, minced
• 1 1/2  tablespoons  chopped fresh parsley

Prep:

Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain; keep warm.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour and milk in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring with a whisk. Cook 10 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly with a whisk. Remove from heat; add cheeses, stirring with a whisk until smooth. Stir in salt and black pepper. Add cooked pasta, stirring to coat. Spoon pasta mixture into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

Tear bread into several pieces. Place bread in a food processor; process until fine crumbs measure 1 1/2 cups.

Melt butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic; cook 30 seconds. Remove from heat. Stir in breadcrumbs until well combined. Sprinkle breadcrumb mixture evenly over pasta mixture. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until bubbly. Sprinkle with parsley.

 

Of course there were a few variations: I sure as hell did not make my own bread crumbs, I used whole milk (fuck that skim shit), no salt or pepper, a lot more garlic (durr), and parsley from the shaker instead of fresh.

Now, the dessert recipe… well, my plan was to just use this cream recipe and then put it on angel food cake, but I ended up completely forgetting about the cake, which now sits untouched on the kitchen counter.

So the original recipe is here:

Blackberries in Mascarpone Cream

Ingredients:

• 2 cups blackberries, rinsed
• 8 ounces chilled mascarpone
• 1/2 cup chilled heavy cream
• 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon cassis liqueur

Directions:

Have ready 4 glass goblets. Set aside 1/4 cup of the blackberries.

In a large bowl, whisk the mascarpone, heavy cream, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract and cassis liqueur until smoothly blended.

Using half of the mascarpone cream, divide it evenly among the 4 goblets. Dividing the blackberries evenly, spoon the remaining 1 3/4 cups over the cream. Spoon the remaining cream over the blackberries. Top each serving with the reserved blackberries. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour or as long as overnight. Serve cold.

Variations? Well, first of all I used raspberries instead. Also, no liqueur and I only divided it into two servings (for me and Kim). It’s very rich but if you divided it by four it would look like you were giving people nothing. I mean, if you’re serving it for a Weight Watchers/recovering anorexic party or something that’s probably better, but I want  a decent amount, dammit.

Since both recipes involve a lot of waiting, I kind of did both at the same time. While I was boiling the water for the pasta, I made the cream, put it all together and put it in the fridge to chill for about an hour.

Waiting Phase I

Waiting Phase II

ANYWAY:

This recipe was extremely easy. You just mix shit up and whisk and then you’re done.

The unbearable whiteness of being

Whiskin' away

My crazy face

Delicioso

So I mixed everything up and then tried to find the best containers to present it in because I didn’t have the “goblets” mentioned in the recipe.

TA DA!

OM NOM NOM

 

I also decided to do three layers of berries instead of two since the glasses were so small. The bottom one is hiding in the photo.

After I threw those in the fridge, I cooked the pasta and got the other dinner ingredients ready. This recipe was kind of all over the place and involved a lot of pots and pans (and ADD). Thankfully the 25 minute cooking time gave me plenty of dish-washing time.

The big pot again

whoaflour

Bubbly stuff

The ten miserable minutes of whisking were the worst part, but then throwing the cheese in and seeing that creamy wonderful shit develop was pretty awesome. I love cheese, and it was very satisfying to use so much of it in a recipe (despite the impending clogged-ness Kim reported).

Whisking Pt. II

Creamy as fuck.

Gahlic

Breadcrumb encounter #1

So I threw the cheesy pasta in the pan and sprinkled the top with the breadcrumbs, parsley, and a bit of oregano (another variation I forgot to mention). It baked for about 25 minutes like the recipe said, and it came out looking pretty awesome (getting hungry again just thinking about it).

Pre-oven

Post-oven. Perfect.

I got a plate for each of us, twisted open Kim’s beer, and we basked in wonderful cheesiness. It was pretty awesome. Surprisingly, though, all of that extra garlic I threw in (one huge clove plus a little more) didn’t have much of an impact and I wanted a little more flavor. Kim loved it, though. She praised me multiple times and gave me a high five at the dinner table.

We both got full as hell but still managed to scarf down about half of our berries and cream, which was fucking AWESOME.

In case you forgot how pretty that was:

Post-fridge

So, tonight was definitely a success. And I am definitely getting more confident with cooking!

 

On to tonight’s fine film!

MOON OF THE WOLF

Thrilling.

 

Not to be confused with:

::shudder::

 

This movie was based on a book, which was apparently mediocre enough to try and find out if a movie would make the story more interesting.

Failure.

 

So I’m glad I just looked this up on IMDb. The whole time I was thinking, especially between scenes with the awkward cutting, “This is edited like some cheesy 70’s TV movie.” Well, it is some cheesy 70’s TV movie, as it turns out. It’s also IN COLOR, unlike most of the others I’ve watched so far. There are huge time-jumps going on in these DVD sets.

IMDb’s description simply says “After several locals are viciously murdered, a Louisiana sheriff starts to suspect he may be dealing with a werewolf.”

...

But this is bullshit. Dude has no idea it’s a werewolf until the very end. This is another one where nothing exciting really happens until the end. The last 8 minutes or so are filled with all the action. The other 64 are full of bad acting and pretty dull buildup (and of course a budding romance).

Since this takes place in Louisiana, the locals aren’t portrayed too favorably  (when you can actually make out what they’re saying over the barking dogs):

“Oh sweet jeepers”

“Anything deader be stinkin’ by now”

You get the idea.

Basically we follow the sheriff around while he tries to figure out who murdered this girl. A relationship between her and the town doctor is uncovered, as well as an (GASP) illegitimate pregnancy (never heard this story before), which makes for some interesting dynamics. The victim’s brother is also killed, along with a deputy, by an unseen creature (we later get the obligatory heavy breathing shot- WOLFCAM). Meanwhile, the sheriff is building up a relationship with Louise, a woman from a rich local family who just reappeared out of nowhere after five years in New York (living scandalously with some dude, we later find out). Then some other stuff happens. Not too exciting. TV movie. after all. Yawn.

Some more memorable quotes:

“We’re lucky you don’t have a whole pocketful of dimes, aren’t we?”

Sheriff: “What can you tell me, doc?”

Doctor: “Right now only that it’s not considered good medical practice to perform autopsies in the middle of swamps surrounded by howling dogs and scratching rustics (?)”

…

Doctor: “You’ve got a murder, sheriff”

Sheriff: “That’s just what I need”

“I could read her face like a newspaper.”

“Well, I hit her”

“How hard?”

“Hard enough to ler her know what I thought about her letting the… quality… put their fat fingers all over her.”

“I’ve known you for ten years. I never knew you were left-handed.”

“You saying it wasn’t wild dogs?”

“There’s more than one kind”  (wut)

“Pregnancy didn’t cause her death”

“I didn’t kill her.. but I loved her.”

“I didn’t have the guts. I’m almost fifty. When do you start over again at fifty?”

“You might as well start thinking about him dying, Lawrence, if you aren’t already. He can’t last much longer.”   (slick)

“If I tell you something, Lawrence, will you promise to keep yo head on yo neck? Hmm?”  (hmm?)

“This time whoeever did it tore them both apart with his fingernails.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s had a fit.”

“Doctor, you were third in your class. I never went to college. I knoew he was having a fit when he started having it.”   (oh snap)

“And rememeber this: Andrew Rodanthe is out there and he’s turned into a wolf and we’ve gotta find him and shoot him down like a wolf.”

“Aaron, he tore iron bars of of cement.”

“Well he was born in this house; maybe he’ll have more respect.”

Other points of interest:

-A Troll 2-like realization when a dude is about to get killed (“They’re eating her…”)

-Wolf with an unexplained green nose at the end

-William and Thomas Tuttle, makeup artists. As I watched the credits (at the end, for once) I wondered: Married gay couple? Siamese twins?

No, regular brothers born six years apart. Boring.

That’s about all I have to say about that. I’m exhausted and kind of drunk (didn’t realize my beer was 9%).

Oh, in my photo search, I came across this:

Classics.

Snowbeast is another classic, also in this sci-fi collection (Tony and I watched it back in January or so). The amazing Mile High Sci-Fi will be showing Snowbeast this weekend. I can’t make it due to babysitting, but will have to be watching it again for this blog anyway so I think I will survive. However, if you’re in the Denver area I strongly recommend attending MHSF. Bad movies+live comedy+beer=a quality Friday or Saturday night. Trust me.

Anyway, have a wonderful night.

I would also like to thank the sponsors of the Foglio Variations. This blog would not be possible without you:

-Odell Brewing Co.

-Deschutes Brewery

-Menomena (I Am the Fun Blame Monster and Mines provided the cooking soundtrack)

-Tony’s light-up bottle opener necklace

-Garlic™

-Bad Television

2 Girls 1 Cave

Yeah, you know you want it. First of all, my apologies for being late as fuck with this. Midterms got in the way of real life, so I actually did cook stuff and take pictures and whatnot, but didn’t have time to watch the movies and write until now. So now I give you a double-post and will try to keep it short.

1. Broccoli and Peanut Sauce

This recipe was sent to me from a Veg Times email by my wonderful dawta Jessica, with the line “because I know you loves the peanuts!”

It’s true. I really do loves the peanuts. And this recipe is VERY easy.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs of broccoli

1 cup smooth peanut butter (believe it or not I had to buy this because I usually go chunky)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro (our first time working together)

3 tbs sugar

2 tbs low sodium soy sauce or tamari (I cannot fucking believe how much sodium is in this shit)

2 tsp cider vinegar

2 cloves garlic (minced)

pinch cayenne pepper

Instructions:

-Boil broccoli

-Whisk pb with one cup of hot water

-Stir the rest of the shit in

-Season with salt (are you fucking kidding me? soy sauce and salt?)

Foglio variation: I only used about two tbsp of sugar and no salt. Also, the recipe says to chop the stalks up but I just ate them like that.

And it came out AWESOME. This stuff is delicious and really easy. I recommend it. It also lasted me about a week (three sessions with the broccoli and then dipped some pretzels in it because I ran out of broccoli).

Photos:

Giant pot

All of this could be yours.

oh gawd

Dip baby, dip.

Interracial love.

On to the movie: I actually watched this one in the bathtub with a beer, which was appropriate because it took place mostly under water… sort of. And Englewood water apparently has algae in it, so I was taking an algae bath while watching an undersea movie. Sexy.

Not nearly as exciting as it looks

I’m not really sure how this got made, to be honest. Its badness isn’t the problem… it’s just so goddamn boring! It’s about these guys who make diving bells, but this one expedition, carrying two dudes, some woman and a reporter (also a woman), gets its cord snapped and the people are stuck a few miles undewater.. or something. They think they’re fucked, but it turns out there’s this underwater cave world with oxygen where they can hang out, and there’s some weird old man there who ends up trying to kill one of the women, except suddenly a volcano erupts and he gets taken out and then the party of travelers is magically above ground again talking about how much it sucked.

BeardGuy attack!

Seriously. I mean, there’s some other stuff in it, like a really boring montage where men are working and making shit, but nothing worth noting. Oh, and the movie starts out with a six-minute educational film about sea creatures and shit. I kid you not. At least you get to see a shark-octopus battle. How do you like that, Deborah Gibson?

Oh and there’s a love story or something in there too. Yawn.

I was praying for the end of the movie to be when they show falling rock and lava and fire and whatnot with the volcano eruption, but no such luck. They survived 😦

Some quotes:

“We are now prepared to invade this black wilderness.”

“As long as I’m gonna be a caveman I wanna be a comfortable one.”

“Dale and I found a crevice that’s fairly large inside.”

“I’ll probably dream about breaking an altitude record in a helium balloon.”

“There’s nothing friendly between two females” (who, btw, retain perfect hair throughout the film despite wearing wetsuits and whatnot)

“You don’t need help and neither do I. Not as long as we have two men around us.” (sigh)

“I’m no babysitter” (when asked to stay with the women rather than join on a dangerous expedition)

“He was killed in the avalanche.”

“I’ve always wanted our friendship.”

Yep.

John Carradine thanks you for not watching this.

On to dessert!

This is something I have had in a restaurant and wanted to try my own version: Nutella Pizza!

I have seen it on a few menus, but happened to have it at Ah’ Pizz in Montclair, NJ (recommended by my friend Bill when I was back in NJ). The damn thing nearly killed me with sugar, but it was worth it. So I made a completely different version, making this whole recipe kind of a Foglio Variation. The restaurant one was ultra-thin, round and in two layers with Nutella in between… but mine was one thicker, rectangular layer just smothered in Nutella and powdered sugar.

What I did:

-Took some frozen bread dough (Safeway didn’t have any of the pizza stuff) and thawed it in the oven for 1-2 hours

-Split it in half and beat it out til it filled up two cookie sheets

-Stuck it in the oven for a few with some oil on top

-Spread on lots of Nutella and powdered sugar… and then added banana slices to half of one just to see

-Shared it with Kim and Marisol, who thoroughly enjoyed it. We killed one of the pies and then I worked on the other for a while. Never finished all of it though (too friggin’ sweet) and have been meaning to throw it out because it can’t possibly taste good anymore.

Photos:

I shoulda been an old lady. Oh wait...

A bracelet my dawta gave me!

Mmmmm

This shit is bananas

A delicious Mess. Like my life.

I also feel the need to show off my ultra-heady cappuccino stout from that night:

Mmm

Okay, now on to this week’s masterpiece:

Queen of the Amazons!

Matt, Tony and Andrew will be disappointed to know that there are no little Amazonian ponies in this film, as it is not quite geographically/historically accurate.

There are, however, lions and tigers that fucking maul people! This is probably the highlight of the movie. Don’t worry, I’ve got video.

So this woman (Jean) and a couple of dudes are somewhere in India looking for Jean’s fiance, who went on a safari and never came back. There is some shady business, as well as racism towards the Indian people, and they are told the safari went to Africa. This information is receieved at the expense of some poor dude who is shot in a very badly executed (lol) scene where a random hand comes through hotel curtains with a gun. The editing in this movie is terrible, btw. Just terrible. It skips around like crazy.. some of that skipping I think is just bad quality but some is definitely bad editing.

So of course they head to Africa, and they need someone to lead them on a safari to find Greg, the fiancee. Gary is the man to do it, but he hates women because “They always want things impossible to get in the jungle, they’re useless in emergencies” and “they’re just added responsibilities” and “a blasted nuisance.” But it doesn’t take much for our heroine to convince him otherwise with her shooting skills. And she’s also quite beautiful. That is something the movie has going for it.

"Aren't we just so interesting?"

Anyway, there is a lot of nauseating racism in this movie, laughing at the natives and having them wait on the white folk and stuff. I suppose I should have expected that, though.

So the finest native warrior guy and a bunch of “boys” accompany the white folks into the bush… except the “boys” are superstitious and are afraid of the evil white she-devil who lives in the jungle. Turns out there were some women who fell off a boat a long time ago and they set up shop in the jungle with their own little colony and they “keep the natives in line.” The next generation is now ruling the jungle. Oh, and they are told the Amazon queen, Zeta, is keeping Jean’s fiance hostage. Of course, this isn’t the case. She’s a sexy-ass amazon queen and he’s hittin’ that! Fortunately, Jean and Mr. Badass Gary have been developing all sorts of sexual tension, so by the end she doesn’t really give a shit about Greg anymore.

Zeta. Hey.

Oh, and here’s a good spoiler for you: the cook who talks to his monkey is the bad guy.

Fun things you will see in this movie:

-Guy examining bugs at the most inappropriate times

-Women standing by and doing nothing while men get mauled by lions and attacked by fat dudes who talk to monkeys

-Wicker chair fight!

-A double wedding ceremony in the jungle

-Once again, giant cat maulings! Watch it for this alone.

Quotes:

“That must be the village band come out to welcome us!”

“Gary’s fighting a lion!”

“There’s been a white man injured!”

“I’m leaving my wild jungle life behind me!” -The Amazon queen, who is no longer a savage since she’s been tamed by a real, civilized white man

I leave you THIS to satisfy your appetite for the blood of savage men.

Farewell.

Forgive me, Father…

It’s been 11 days since my last blog. It’s midterms and I’m a slacker. I promise the next one will be posted ASAP, maybe even tonight if I get a lot done. The food is done; just have to watch the movie.

Peace.

Sister Jaclyn Mary, at your service.

Butterfly Pasta and Invisible Men

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen (and everyone in between).

This venture was a last-minute one. I should have been doing homework, but I wanted to stick to it.

I had a bunch of tofu in the fridge that needed to go soon, but didn’t feel like making another sandwich. I didn’t have much in the way of ingredients around, so I took what was available and created…

FARFALLE DI FOGLIO!

I am a big fan of variety and, as you probably know by now, like to mix things that aren’t normally mixed. I enjoy a variety of textures in my meals, and when I’m out I tend to order things that include something like nuts to add a nice crunch. So I decided to make some Barilla mini farfalle (bowties) and then fry up (in lots of olive oil) some tofu, a shitload of garlic, some plain peanuts, and some pomegranate juice-infused craisins (thanks Mom!). Also threw in some onion bits, parsley and whatnot from the cabinet.

Killer tofu

Peanuts and garlic too

Craisins

I am starting to realize how wonderfully inexact cooking is, how free to improvise and mess around I really am.

Done

I am also getting a little more used to the timing/multi-tasking thing and knew exactly when to start up the tofu, etc. in relation to the pasta. It all worked out very nicely and was extremely easy.

Final product

But how did it taste, you ask? Well, my only complaint was that it was a bit dry and could have used some butter, which I used up when I made that damn soup and still haven’t replaced. I put a bit more oil on it, though. I’m not much of a sauce/gravy person, especially from the jar, so when I make pasta I usually just use oil. One day I’ll attempt to walk that road of creating stuff like marinara and puttanesca, but not today.

Forgot the cheeeeeese

So this was a quick, last-minute success… a combo that, in my eyes, works. You get a great mix of textures and tastes: the balanced soft firmness of the pasta and cooked tofu, the crunchy nuts, the sweet and mushy cranberries… and of course, the garlic and oil. Mmmm. Also loaded with protein and some good fat… and other stuff, I’m sure.

On a related note, I looked up “farfalle” because I wanted to know if I was pronouncing it correctly, and this word (well, the singular “farfalla”) actually translates to butterfly/moth in Italian… yet we call them bowties. Wtf? I guess people are weird about eating butterflies, of all things.

Butterfly in the... sink.

I also wanted to test out posting videos here, but the site only takes certain file types that don’t really make sense and I don’t have time to mess around, so here are my (very short) links:

Bouncing tofu

Steaming pasta

Anyway, I’m going to make this brief but on to the movie. Not to be confused with the masterpiece The Amazing Transplant (made sort-of-famous by Porcupine Tree), I watched THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN!

RRRRagh!

…starring Douglas Kennedy, who I am not familiar with but apparently was on a lot of TV shows like Perry Mason and Gunsmoke and shit. According to this site, it was filmed mostly on the Texas State Fairgrounds. Fascinating.

You're not foolin' anyone with that bowtie... except the cops.

This movie (also covered by MST3K, I discovered) is about a safecracker (named Joey Faust; interesting) who gets busted out of jail by some ex-military guy who is trying to make an invisible army. He’s got this old scientist guy Ulof (of course) trapped there by holding his daughter hostage. Ulof is all kinds of fucked up after accidentally killing his wife during WWII experiments he was forced to perform, but he’s a nice guy.

Sad, dying scientist

Ulof has been using radiation to make guinea pigs invisible, preparing for the radiation’s use on men.

omgz

Of course there’s a woman involved (who goes to “freshen up” while the big boys “discuss business”) and all kinds of double-crossing going on, but the invisibility thing does succeed and you get to see bags of money floating in mid-air, as well as a big security dude get his ass kicked by nobody, which is one of the highlights.

Some memorable quotes:

This’ll rip up your spine and roll it up like a ball of string.

As you can see, this is quite serious business.

(Ulof to Joey in reference to the room his daughter is locked in:)

You have indicated that you can open it.

(selfish-ass Joey:)

Knock it off; I got problems.

Lay off the vodka; I want you ready when I need you. (to woman, of course)

Lay off the gigglewater. (…)

Laura: You said we’d be together.

Joey: Honey, right now I need a car more than I need you.

(Not sure wtf is up with this quoting thing but too tired to fix it.)

As it turns out, this radiation isn’t as safe as they said (omg), and after shit goes wrong (like the invisibility wearing off mid bank-robbery and exposing the dude, pretty hilarious) the scientist tells our main character he is dying of radiation poisoning and has a month to live, tops. He may as well take out the evil general guy (Krenner) and die with him to prevent the continuation of these experiments.

So Ulof and his newly rescued daughter (who he is not at all happy to see when the door is unlocked, apparently), along with the other woman, flee the house while Joey goes back for the final showdown. There is a struggle (where Krenner pounds Joey’s back and screeches like an owl/five year old) that ends in a mushroom cloud and the area being closed off due to “too much fallout for safety” (although people are still standing within binoculars’ distance of it).

AAAAAAAAGH

Now we’re outside, and an unidentified man leans into a car and speculates to Ulof about how frickin’ sweet it would be to have an invisible army, but the scientist doesn’t quite agree.

He turns to the camera and asks “What would you do?”

?

Well, I’d probably turn the movie off if it continued after that. Luckily, it didn’t.

Nah, it actually wasn’t bad. I was expecting worse. It kept my attenion, the action was good, the music was interesting. And it’s only 57 minutes long! It kept me entertained for 55 minutes or so. Mission accomplished. Go watch it.

Before sleep, I have one more order of serious business. I would like to dedicate this blog and Farfalle di Foglio to my grandmother Donatella Foglio, who passed away two weeks ago and was the reason for my return to NJ. Without her cooking I probably never would have ventured this far into the land of pasta… because we all know my mother didn’t teach me shite!

However, my mother does say that when she sees a butterfly, it’s someone she loves who died. I’m not really into that stuff, but it still seems appropriate that I used this butterfly pasta in the recipe I dedicated to Grandma.

Peace, Grandma. We will miss you.

Buona notte, people.