Moroccan Spiced Chickpea Soup
From Good Deal with Dave Lieberman
This is delicious, cheap and gluten-free.
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
6-8 cloves of garlic, pressed
1 t cinnamon
1 t cumin
1/8 t cayenne
1 t sweet paprika
14.5 oz diced tomatoes
3 x 15 oz chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 L veg or chicken broth
1 t sugar
salt & pepper
5 oz fresh spinach
1. Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil.
2. Add spices (I usually use more of everything except the cayenne.)
3. Add tomatoes, chickpeas, broth and sugar.
4. Add a couple of pinches of salt and a good amount of pepper.
5. Add water to cover chickpeas.
6. Bring to a simmer and then lower heat, cooking for 45 min.
7. (Optional) Remove from heat and mash slightly. Or use a hand-blender and blend up a third of the soup or to the consistency you like.
8. Add spinach.
9. Add more salt and pepper to taste.
10. Drizzle a bit more olive oil and serve
Bootstraps
FADE IN: EXT. DOWNTOWN STREET AND PARK – NIGHT
Cliff and Donna are slowly walking through the park, talking.
DONNA
Why are you a Republican?
CLIFF
I’m sorry?
DONNA
Why are you a Republican?
CLIFF
Because I hate poor people. I hate them, Donna. They’re all so…poor. And many of them
talk funny, and don’t have proper table manners. My father slaved away at the Fortune
500 company he inherited so I could go to Choate, Brown, and Harvard, and see that this
country isn’t overrun by poor people and lesbians.
happy
Let me be very, very clear. From now on, when we interact it might look like I’m participating – smiling, nodding, speaking, laughing, listening – but in actuality the majority of my brain cells are here and you do not exist:
Le Nez
 |
stimms I’m starting to become more and more aware of my nose in my peripheral vision. Is it possible my nose is growing gigantic? 11-12-15 12:35 PM |
In the small town of Ahtchu, Wisconsin, there lived a small boy. He was a happy child, no doubt due to growing up with a thoughtful mother and a thinking father. His mom taught him not to throw stones at the red-haired boy in his class and his dad lecturing him nightly on good grammar and punctuation. He ate his vegetables and the crusts on his toast and grew up tall and strong just as his mother said he would. One day he was looking in the mirror and was taken aback to see that his nose appeared to be bigger. He examined it closely from multiple angles and then decided that maybe it was just one too many late nights trying to comprehend the proper use of a semi-colon, his mortal enemy. He smiled at his ridiculousness and went off to bed.
The next morning he brushed teeth after a delicious bowl of Cheerios(tm) and recalled his suspicions from last night. He peered again into the mirror and sure enough, his nose was even bigger than the night before! Wildly confused, he opted for another round of denial, thinking it was most likely just the onset of craziness - shame that gene didn’t skip two generations, poor ol’ crazy Uncle Bartholomew. With a sigh, he walked away from the mirror and prepared
for another day at school.
He continued to ignore the growth of his nose as day after day it grew and grew.
He stopped looking in mirrors and shiny surfaces.
He ignored his new ability to smell the delicious cooking from Home Economics classes at the other end of the school as well as the bewildered looks of his classmates.
He left the lights off in the bathroom while he brushed his teeth in the evening.
Until he just couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening.
That night he stared up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell was going on. Worried. Why hadn’t his loving mother said anything? Sure she was tactful but the extra 4″ of nose wasn’t really, you know, reasonable. What was wrong with him??
11pm.
Midnight.
1am.
2am.
Sadly, sleep just wasn’t going to waltz blissfully in.
2:14am and he heard a little taptaptap at his window.
He sat up with a start. What was that?!? Quickly he walked over to the window and peeked out between the blinds. He gasped as outside his window a little fairy waved and smiled brightly. He stared and the fairy, paused, and then made a motion for his to open the window. I must be dreaming, he thought, sliding the window up the casing.
“Hey, how’s it going?” the fairy greeted him, casually breezing in on fluttering wings.
“Um, I’m ok” he replied blinking rapidly, trying to either awake or get his brain to function properly. Did Uncle Bart ever talk about fairies???
The fairy landed with a tiny thud on his pillow. ”So about your schnoz…” the fairy began.
“Did you do this??” the boy accused.
“What? No, jerkface! But I know who did” she replied. What is with these kids? Didn’t Disney teach them anything about fairies being good and not evil…
“Who?” he demanded.
“Seriously kid, isn’t it obvious? It was the Corporation, that’s who” she explained with an eye roll the size of Big Sky National Park, which is definitely not to be strip mined fyi.
He paused, “Which corporation?”
The fairy glanced around, suddenly feeling exposed,
“the…the…Kleenex Corporation.”
More blinking.
“The Kleenex Corporation?”
“Shh, keep it down will ya?” she scolded, “I just recently got that Charmin bitch off my back, I don’t need the Kleenex guys trailing me too.”
He sat there dumbfounded. This must be a dream. Did he have cheese before bed??
WIth a deep breath and sigh, the fairy explained, “Every few years some environmental group gets all up in arms about how wasteful Kleenex is and they go on a huge PR kick about how everyone should buy hankies instead yada yada. Two months ago, a new campaign kicked off and of course Kleenex sales are waaay down. The stockholders are flipping the f out. So they hired Sheila to put a spell on you to make your nose grow. They figure if they can get one person to have a nose 100′ long then that should cover the losses to the treehuggers b.s.”
“Sheila? Who’s Sheila?” he asked, because of course that was most pressing part of what the fairy just said.
“My evil twin, duh.”
“I see.”
He thought and he thought and he thought some more. Late night comprehension and understanding just don’t come easily to anyone. He started pacing around his room.
Choosing to just go with it, he moved onto the obvious question, “So how do I undo the spell?”
“Oh, that part is easy! All you have to do is track down this girl named Sarah and bake her cookies.”
“Who the hell is Sarah??”
Another eye roll, “she’s the one who loves cookies. I don’t understand, were you dropped on your head? Your mom must be clumsy.”
“Hey, back off my mom!”
“Yah whatever, anyhoo, I need to go, pedicure appointment in an hour. Good luck with the cookies!” and with that the fairy flew away.
The next day, eager to try anything to reduce his nose, he asked his mom for her chocolate chip cookie recipe. It was his favourite so maybe this Sarah person would like them too. A little while later, the whole house was filled with the smell of deliciousness as the freshly baked cookies cooled on a wire rack.
dingdong! said the doorbell.
He opened the door to a smiling girl and said, “Lemme guess, you’re Sarah?”
“Hells yah! Now where my cookies be?” she exclaimed.
“Right this way” and he escorted her to the kitchen table.
“Milk too! Stat!” she demanded grabbing two cookies at a time and cramming them into her mouth.
In no time at all the cookies where gone with only a few crumbs and and empty glass remaining. ”Not bad, not bad. Definitely better than the ones last time round,” she burped contentedly. She stood up and walked back to the door, letting herself out, slamming the door behind her.
All of a sudden he felt this sharp pain in his face and heard two loud cracks. Just as the he thought the pain couldn’t get any worse it subsided and then disappeared completely. His nose! Could it be?!? It felt smaller! He bolted for the bathroom and sure enough his nose was back to normal!! He danced around the house, cheering and laughing. Such a pain when there’s no one around to high five you.
He lived out the rest of his days happy with his correctly-sized nose, which he nicknamed Terry.
The End.
Ode to the Glorious Freedom Fliers
They were brothers – that much was obvious as no strangers could share such red colouring. George, Bert, and Peter where only separated by a year and the best of friends. Their father was brutally killed just after the youngest had been born but it was well known that their mother had kept his memory alive. The rotund invaders were a disease that had infected them personally. They grew up hating the portly king with his upturned nose.
Travelling home from the market one day, two soldiers noticed the widow, quickly and quietly passing by, trying to remain unnoticed. She failed. She was known to them. What began as a simple demonstration of their sick power to control ended up in her murder.
The brothers were devastated. The conversation began after her funeral.
“How can this have happened?” cried Bert.
“Why weren’t we there with her?” lamented George, who always took his responsibility as the oldest so seriously.
“Why did that sick bastard ever come here?” Peter added.
They sat down at the kitchen table and clinked their glasses to their dear mother. A few more rounds went by and the irrationality of the drink began to kick in.
“It’s not right to live this way!” George strongly insisted.
“I don’t want us to live in fear!” demanded Peter.
“But what could we possibly do?” Bert said with defeat.
“We could end it…” and with that George set them along the path to their glory.
At first it was just the three of them but it quickly became clear that they would need help. Carefully, cautiously, they approached their closest friends – Alexander Canary, Marcus Raven and the twins, Shawn and Sheila Bluebird. They began training, egging each other on but supporting each other and building one another up. But for all their practice, it was clear that an advantage would be required. They were at a loss. What could they create to give them a victory over evil?
One night the eldest brother burst in on a training session.
“I have it! I know what we can do!” he exclaimed. He gestured to them to come closer and started pointing to a sketch. They nodded at his brilliance and a careful plot was hatched.
“Well, are we ready?”
“As ready as we will ever be”
“Is the weapon ready?”
“Yes, and at dawn we will raise it and begin our fight.”
Dawn. The golden sun lit the clear sky. With the weapon in position outside the king’s house, the fighters formed a circle around it.
“Together, we can do this!” Peter cheered.
“No, we will do this!!” George replied.
They lined up behind the weapon with the king’s palace before them. The fortress of stone, wood and ice loomed but they knew this was their destiny.
The first of them climbed up the weapon and prepared himself. Pulling back and taking careful aim, he shot himself towards their enemy. The explosion took out a corner of the king’s palace. One by one, they followed him, their bodies inflicting damage, until the king could be seen among the ruins, his soldiers lying dead around him. He had lost an eye and was already bruised and battered. The last of them, Alex, dressed in the finery of his family name and glowing as brightly golden as the morning sun, climbed into the weapon. He sent up a prayer above and launched himself. Approaching his victim, he felt a strange sensation along with body, almost like a tap, and with that, a burst of speed. He flew towards his target, exploding him into a thousand pieces.
With the king’s demise, the people were free. Life returned to what it once was and the people let their fear fall away. We never forget our Freedom Fliers and how they gave themselves for us.
Little did we know that in the lands of king’s relatives, plots of sweet revenge would continue to plague us. New heroes would have to step up to replay the battle for freedom over and over, across many different terrains if our new life were to continue. Fortunately we had the Tap of God on our side.
Chili con Carne – Jamie Oliver Cooks Summer
I mistakenly watched Mr. Oliver make some delicious things tonight. I am now hungry. Everything he made looked tasty but his chili con carne stood out. Here’s the recipe that I knocked out from the show:
Chili con Carne
Ingredients:
1.5kg piece of beef brisket
1T ground cumin
1T smoked paprika
1T dried oregano
olive oil
salt and pepper
2 x 14oz canned tomatoes
14oz beef stock
2 yellow peppers
2 red peppers
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
2 medium red onions
4 cloves of garlic
2-4 chilis
handful or so of fresh coriander, chopped
Take the brisket and do a 3/4″ score in both directions creating a grid effect.
Cover liberally with salt and pepper, and then sprinkle on the cumin, paprika, and oregano.
Rub in the spices on both sides of the brisket, making sure you get the spices into the scores as well.
Add olive oil to a frying pan and brown the meat.
Put any leftover spice into a pot.
Add the two tins of canned tomatoes and the beef stock.
Roughly dice the 2 yellow and 2 red peppers and add to the pot, along with the cinnamon and 2 bay leaves.
Add brisket to pot but keep the pan around.
Chop 2 med red onions, 4 cloves of garlic and the chilis.
Add all to frying pan you set aside earlier and cook til the onions are softened.
Add the onion mixture to the pot along with half of your fresh coriander and bring to a boil.
When the pot comes to a boil, put on the lid and turn down to low and simmer 4, 4.5 hrs.
After the 4 hours or so, pull apart the meat with a couple of forks.
Add salt and pepper to taste and the other half of the coriander.
Serve with guacamole and tortillas or some great cornbread.
Subtle Patterns
I stumbled onto these guys the other day http://subtlepatterns.com/ They have pretty images for backgrounds.
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