More lanterns

I've been busy crafting during this Xmas season and break from academic duties.  This year I've been giving out a lot of my can lanterns, and making a bunch more.  I've moved my can stamping rig inside, which consists of a sawhorse with a dowel clamped to it, and a desk light.  To improve my precision and save my fingers, I've taken to keeping the nail I stamp with in a vise-grip.

I really like using painted cans, from exotic foodstuffs like El Pato sauces, coconut milk and other Asian delicacies. 

Some tasty sauce in a beautiful little package

All lit up

I've also tried going back to working with stencils, starting with one of my favorite subjects, giant monsters. 

Godzilla and King Ghidorah battle at the Cafe du Monde

I have a couple of Cafe du Monde coffee and chicory cans laying around,  which seem to lend themselves to some monster mayhem, using stencils and the painting on the can.

Godzilla descends upon the French Quarter

PBLTASBMLM

I like to joke with my girls about our secret family recipe for ice. They say, "What is it, water?" And I say the secret ingredient is cold.

Today I decided to scratch an itch I've had for a week now,  

I made myself a BLT using my favorite Ingredients. 

Bacon:  I've found that the best bacon can be had from the deli case at my local Kroger. And it's less expensive than the packaged stuff. It's thick cut and I like the peppered variety though I get some of the regular as well for my daughter who has a narrow palate (she's a very picky eater). 

So peppered bacon, some choice tomatoes, I use the spring mix for my lettuce, ripe avocado, and spicy brown mustard and light mayo. Mmmmmmmm good!

Chicken teriyaki

I like to cook and eat.  One of my favorite things to cook and eat is chicken teriyaki.  I used to frequent a place in Corvallis when I was in school at Oregon State because it was right near my building and the chicken teriyaki bowl was delicious.  It was years before I figured out one of the secrets. 

I’m mostly self-taught as a cook, but I still feel a little dumb not realizing that the secret to the tasty rich chicken was using thighs instead of breast meat.  Perhaps they also used a little vitamin MSG as well. 

I like the chicken teriyaki bowl because it’s represents a one-bowl three-tiered food pyramid affair.  The rice makes up the grain, then the steamed vegetables, with the chicken and other savory bits on top.  Here’s what I do:

The rice.  I use a rice cooker, which I love though I feel like I couldn’t make rice without it.  Sometimes I use white rice, though more often I use brown rice.  In any event I use short-grained rice.  With brown rice I use a ratio of 2:1, and add a little salt and a little canola oil or sesame oil.  I wash my rice also.

For the teriyaki sauce, I usually start with this recipe, though I’ve only recently started buying mirin.  Sometimes I’ll substitute some rice vinegar, or beer, or white wine.  Sometimes I’ll just use soy sauce and water for the liquids.  I mix it up with the sugars a bit, using more brown sugar, or maybe molasses, or even honey.  But if you don’t have ginger or garlic on hand, try it another night. 

I cut the chicken into bite-sized bits, using about a pound –pound and a half. I’ll use either straight thighs or a mix of thigh and breast meat.  I usually don’t marinate it for long, as little as 15 minutes. 

Meanwhile I’ll chop the veggies for steaming, usually just carrots and cabbage.  I use red cabbage, which costs a little more than green cabbage and perhaps not in the Japanese tradition, but I like using the anthocyanin-rich purple water that develops as a bonus pH indicator.  I get a nice steam going, and add the cabbage first, and a couple of minutes later the carrots.  Depending on how soft you like your vegetables, you could leave them for 4-8 minutes or so. I usually just test them with a fork after a few minutes.  Don’t let your water boil off, like I do, only too often. 

Meanwhile, I start the tastiest bit.  I add some canola oil and sesame oil to a sauce or deep fry pan.  I usually mix the two oils because canola is less unhealthy but sesame oil has that wonderful flavor.  Sometimes I start with onion, other times no onion.  If so I add the onion once the oil is hot, and when they turn translucent I usually add chopped button mushrooms.  Once the mushrooms are mostly cooked I add the chicken with the marinade and cook until done, about 7-10 minutes. 

In the bowl you should have mostly rice, less veggies, and then the chicken and sauce on top.  Enjoy!

What to do with beach ball eyes? I'm sure to find many things

Here's one:  As you approach the front door, you see this. 

Follow the arrow, and you encounter this:

Here's lookin' at you!

OMG Cookies Yum!

If you haven't heard of the Yo Dawg meme, it's now officially old by now, but here's an example of a practical application. Yo Dawg, I heard you like cookies so I put cookies in your cookies.   Cookies and Cream Cookies.  This recipe was on Instructables, and holy snap these cookies are goo-ood.  Vi and I made up a batch after much procrastination and dang, what can I say, yum. 

Ermahgerd! Kerkies!

Tree eyeballs

This is another project I've been trying to get together for a while.  I saw the idea on Pinterest and wanted to do my own.  While at Partay Citay a few months ago, I saw they had an array of beach balls, but none that were solid white.  So I invested in some white spray paint, and some black spray paint. 

I spray-painted them white on the day that I got them, and gave them a few coats to ensure good coverage. The original beach ball was black and white, and I entertained the idea of masking the black part and using that for the iris but then got lazy and decided to paint the whole thing white, then paint the irises on, and follow with the white dot highlight.  As far as I can tell, that white dot highlight doesn't have a name, and is another way in which cartoons are not like reality.  If you have a white dot on your actual eye, see a physician.  I cut the circles for the eyeball stencils from an old pizza box, and sprayed them on last night. 

Now I just need to find the right tree to give the gift of sight, and figure out how to keep them from spinning around in the breeze.  

That's my daughter demonstrating the perils of loosely anchored irises

I also had an idea to try and make a mouth of some kind and make a tree into a giant puppet, but that will have to come later....

Labor of love lamp

I started on this lamp a long time ago. I can't remember much to say about the rye whiskey, I haven't had a drink in a while.  I did like the bottle, and I drilled a hole large enough for the wire with a glass-drilling bit near the base. I used a lamp fixture to complete the first version of the lamp, but it was unstable, and the brown cord running through was unaesthetic. 

So I had the idea to fill the bottle with glass bits, and decided to use some of the blue glass I'd been storing for such an occasion. At first I tried smashing it up and adding the shards, but it seemed like the sharp glass was too dangerous. Then I decided to try and rig up a rock tumbler. But then a friend of mine had one, so I borrowed it and set about the task of making artificial sea glass. About 12 hours was enough to round the sharp edges, but I had to make several batches to fill the bottle.