Requiescat in Pace

Since tomorrow is his memorial service is tomorrow I figure I'll do a little memorial on my blog here. John T Hall, Jack, and I had met in improv I want to say in Spring 2009, but I'm not too sure. Jack was the old guy of the group, but that was only in appearance, he was one of us through and through no matter how old he truly was. The longer I knew him the more he worked his way into my heart. He was nice, fun, funny, smart and had many great stories to tell. Life was going well, he was pursuing something he loved, theater. I worked with him in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, me being part of the production team/usher/house manager and him being one of the Caiaphas the Elder, seeing as it was double cast. Shortly after the end of the play I learned that he was battling with cancer, but it didn't seem to dampen his spirits, at least outwardly. He would commonly make cancer jokes and laugh about it. July 18th (possibly the night of the 17th) he had lost his battle with cancer and had passed on. Jack is loved by everyone who he has come into contact with, I say is because we will never stop loving him no matter what. I will refrain from crying and try my best to not cry tomorrow, instead I will try to smile and laugh for all of the good times we had, I'm sure that's how you wish to be remembered. So my good friend Jack Hall, requiscat in pace.

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Ok, now that I've brought the mood down I guess it's a perfect time to talk about the rest of my doings. I'm trying out the biscuit mix recipe scones, I've got to say, it ended up being a small ball of dough after I mixed everything in, so in an effort to maximize the number of scones I made them smaller. This whole thing is experimental, new scone recipe, candied oranges, orange glaze... let's hope that it turns out well. I plan to upload videos of my how to Anivia guide some point in the future but it's unclear seeing as my software is the trial version.

Foodz Revisited

So I have yet to make them, but I'm looking at making scones once again, last time I made Blueberry Scones, this time I'm looking at making White Chocolate and Orange Scones, I'm even looking at an Orange Icing to go on top of the scones. I'm also looking at a marshmallow fondant recipe to try out so I can see if it's worth doing in times where I would need fondant. I can't stand how fondant tastes in almost every case that I've tried it in so I'm hoping that this homemade version will taste better to me. Also, I want to make my lasagna again, I haven't cooked a lasagna in almost a year and I kinda want to try to alter my recipe some. I should write up my recipe since I use one I found as a base and then changed it to my liking. There may be something to this whole quitting school and opening a restaurant with Matt, The Kaptain Mandog. I swear, if it weren't for the exorbitant cost I would go to culinary arts school just to learn how to cook better.

Since I'm talking about recipes I guess I can give you my (well I found it online somewhere and changed the amount of butter and garlic salt [maybe orgeno and not garlic salt] because I didn't think it was the right amounts) recipe for a copy cat of Red Lobster's Cheesy Garlic Biscuits. Mind you, this is from memory since I left my copy at Stanley's house... so if it's incorrect I apologize.

4 cups biscuit mix
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/3 cups of milk
6 tablespoons butter (melted)
2 teaspoons dried or fresh oregano
3 teaspoons garlic salt (the last two amounts might not be correct, but it's close)

Preheat oven to 400° and prepare a (usually 2) cookie sheet(s)

Mix the biscuit mix, garlic powder and cheddar cheese in a large bowl, pour in mix and stir (I knead) until a biscuit consistency. Using a two spoon method (scoop with one spoon and then even it out with the other and scrape it onto the cookie sheet) set small lumps onto the prepared sheet, they will bake larger than they are prepared so make it smaller than you think they should be. Cook for 10 minutes.

While the biscuits are cooking melt the butter in the oven. Mix the oregano and garlic salt with the melted butter until homogeneous (evenly distributed).

Pull the biscuits out after the 10 minutes, brush with the garlic oregano butter and put them back into the oven for 5 minutes. Once they're finished cooking I like to give them a final brushing of the butter mixture. Enjoy, but try to let them cool a little first.

Foodz

Back in BEDApril I posted an eclectic blog in which a topic covered was my love for food, specifically in the cooking of food. I just would like to reiterate that cooking food is amazing. Today I, with the help of my mother who prepared the slaw by julienning the radishes and tossing it with the broccoli slaw and seasoning, made some delicious Blackened Tilapia Tacos. This dish was quite simple actually, and fairly inexpensive, we're feeding the five of us with plenty of fish and slaw left over for more while spending less than $12.

Ingredients (I'm going to list off what we got)

- a pound and a half of defrosted tilapia fillets (previously frozen is nice and cheap)
- one 10 oz package of broccoli slaw mix
- one bunch of radishes
- 10 (you should go with more since we ran out) corn tortillas
- Cheddar-Jack cheese (I would suggest something like Quesa Fresca, the cheddar jack is good, and I am quite a fan of it, but I think quesa fresca would work much better)
- Blackened Seasoning
- 2 or 3 limes

For the preparation cut the tilapia fillets in half, this will make cooking and handling the fish a lot easier. Coat each half fillet in a fairly liberal amount of blackened seasoning (it all depends on how much you like blackened seasoning) and now your fish is ready to cook. For your slaw just julienne (slice really thin)the radishes, toss it with the broccoli slaw mix and some of the blackened seasoning with a little bit of water.

Cook your fish on a skillet over medium heat, flipping a few times, until the fish is nice a flaky. Put the fish in a bowl and shred it with a fork until you have bite-sized pieces. Cut a lime in half, squeeze it into your fish and your slaw. Heat your tortillas and melt your cheese on the top of it, fill with the fish and slaw, serve with a slice of lime on the side. With this you could also add a salsa of your choice, but keep the salsa's flavor simple, you don't want to hide the amazing flavors already in the dish.

Enjoy cooking fish tacos if you ever have the urge.

Eclectic Blog To End It All

So I've been running through as many ideas as I could think of for my final BEDApril blog, I can't seem to think of one that would be sufficient. I thought, "Talk about cooking, you enjoy that." or, "More about the tandem stories.", "BEDApril as a whole experience?", "Still no, what about ANYTHING ELSE?". Well I couldn't figure any one of those would be enough seeing as this is the last BEDApril 2010 blog I'm going to post, so I'll try to touch on all bases that I get to.

First subject was cooking, I've wanted to talk about it for a while now. I love food, the taste, the smell, the look, food is pleasing to the senses. I love it when people cook me food, or I go out and get something made by some mystery chef hiding in a kitchen that I've never seen. Seeing as I'm the youngest of five and I have an older brother that went to a culinary arts school I didn't grow up cooking very often. When Nate, said brother, moved out cooking fell on my mom or my dad almost always, so when my mom worked it was either a stew or out to eat. Don't get me wrong, my dad cooks a good stew, but I love diversity, I like having something different all the time, so it's easy to see that I would grow tired of my dad's stews. I decided that I would take on a few meals here and there. I started cooking basic stuff (I haven't gotten that much more complex with my cooking) and I started loving it. I don't know why, if it's that my food just tastes better, or if it's that things taste better when I know I've put an effort into it, but my god it was delicious. I just love making something and eating it. So yeah.... that's my section on cooking.

Next was the tandem stories. Now I don't really have all that much to talk about with the tandem stories, though I may want to continue my story out some other time. The other thing I wanted to talk about with tandem stories a little was my thought process for them. My story I was sitting there trying to come up with a good opening to my story, because I try to make the beginning and the end as good as I can. I figured out the whole "Life isn't fair, but you don't have to be alive to be screwed over." line and went from there. Marlon's story was as follows, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! GAH! I'll come back to it in ten minutes." Ten minutes later, "I STILL DON'T GET IT! I'll do it when I come home." I come home, "Ok, this will do." For Danielle's it felt a little natural for me, no major struggle there. Dave's took a bit for me to figure out where I was going but once I settled on the loss of friendship I wrote it out fairly simply. As for my final paragraph I just needed to find a way for my main character to end up screwed over and progress it five years, so I did. Last thing about tandem stories, MARLON FINISH YOURS!

BEDApril as a whole was enjoyable, I have a few blogs of significant size, I only missed one day, I did the tandem stories. I call BEDApril 2010 a success and I look forward to BEDAugust 2010 (BEDAutumn anyone?).

That's about all I have to write about, I feel that suffices. I most likely won't be seeing you tomorrow, unless I have the compulsion to blog out of habit that I have formed. Take care Bloggosphere and I look forward to our next meeting.

Successfully (well, mostly),
The Mandog