Monthly Update - February 2014

Comics I Read And Liked:
Alex + Ada #4
Chew #40
Daredevil #36
Deadly Class #2
Fatale #20
Five Weapons #7
Fuse #1
Hawkeye #15
Injustice Year Two #2
Lazarus #6
New Warriors #1
Punisher #1-2
Rat Queens #5
She-Hulk #1
Winter Soldier Bitter March #1

Resolutions Update:
1. Don't die - 2 months in, still accomplished. In fact, with cancer in remission, this one's looking pretty good.

3. Learn Spanish. Still working on the Duolingo, still on track and reaching level 8 according to my animated owl coach. And I can say "The elephant walks across the strawberries" in Spanish. In case I ever need to.

4. Read at least 12 books. Looking real good. Got in three this month: Nick Pizzolato's Galveston, Elmore Leonard's Pagan Babies and Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree. Plus started reading King in Yellow, and made some progress on Sherlock Holmes and the Elmore Leonard Complete Westerns. Total right now: 4.

5. Be 10% less of an asshole. Again, at least 5%. Some days 10.

6. Spend time with as many of my friends as possible, as much as possible. Managed this as well, especially in the last couple weeks when my cancer was pronounced in remission. In addition to podcasting, I managed a few dinner and lunch outings (including some new places with new people, like Gus's Fried Chicken, Uchiko, Titaya Thai Cuisine and Stuffed Cajun Meat Market), a movie night to watch Midnight Run, another round of Karaoke Apocalypse, had a Rock Band get together and attended a few birthday bashes.

7. Play at least 12 new board/card games this year. I got the expansions for King of Tokyo, but other than that, no boardgaming this month. Also discovered via the iPad that I may just be too dumb to play Agricola. I'm slowly getting better at it, though. And my plans already include Battlestar Galactica in March. Right now I'm holding at 2 new games.

8. Stay under 200 lbs. Still holding in the 190s. Slacked off on exercise a bit this month, now that chemo is done for a while it's time to get serious again. In the last week, I started doing push-ups, situps and then elliptical. Not a lot right now, but building up each day.


9. Go bike riding with my kids. Funny story. Did this once, and found out my old (college days) bike is just not up to the task. I need either a new bike or a serious overhaul of this one.

10. Travel. Considered Chicago's C2E2 or Wondercon, but ultimately decided I'd rather spend the money on a birthday party or something local. Thinking about where to go in May for our anniversary, if anywhere. Considering L.A. in the summer so I can visit a friend and see one of Jason Reitman's live readings. Considering a summer beach trip for Suzanne and the kids. Started doing a little research on Spain trips... turns out they're super-expensive.

11. Cook More - Still perfecting my Brussels Sprouts recipes, learned how to cook a good steak on the cast iron skillet, but nothing new added to the repertoire this month.

Where I Ate This Month:
1. Curly's BBQ
2. Torchy's Tacos
3. Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken
4. Stuffed Cajun Meat Market
5. Uchiko
6. Opal Divine's
7. Black Star Co-Op
8. Kobe Japanese Steakhouse
9. Lucy's Fried Chicken
10. Titaya's Thai Cuisine

Stuff I Wrote:
1. Veronica Mars Season One Part One Rewatch


Stuff I Podcasted:
1. Roguecasts Episode 20-23 - Comic news, Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, Image #1s, Marvel Now, Frozen, Firefly, Star Wars and lots more
2. TV Dudes - True Detective, Black Mirror, Lost Watch With Us, Top Chef, Rick and Morty, The Walking Dead, Agents of SHIELD, Almost Human, Mind Games, Enlisted & Community

Monthly Update - January 2014

Comics I Read And Liked:
Afterlife with Archie #3
Alex + Ada #3
Chew #39
Daredevil #35
Deadly Class #1
Disney Kingdoms Seekers of Weird #1
Fatale #19
Five Weapons #6
Hawkeye #16
Injustice Year Two #1
Minimum Wage #1
Rat Queens #4
Revival #17
Saga #18
Sex Criminals #4
Superior Foes of Spider-Man #7
Velvet #3

Resolutions Update:
1. Don't die - Check. Easy one first.

2. Learn Spanish. According to Duolingo, I'm level 6. Which mostly means I can tell you that The penguin does not drink milk. But, y'know, baby steps.

4. Read at least 12 books. Off to a good start. I finally got around to Greg Rucka's The Walking Dead, the latest Atticus Kodiak novel.

5. Be 10% less of an asshole. Uh... let's call it 5%. Still working on it.

6. Spend time with as many of my friends as possible, as much as possible. Did plenty of this, even had lunch with Jamie, which given how busy she is is a rarity. Tried out some new restaurants (Kome, Curly's Carolina, TX BBQ, Haymaker, Hi-Hat Public House), ate at a couple favorites (Michi Ramen, Torchy's Tacos more than once), went out to Karaoke Apocalypse, played the Pathfinder card game, South Seas Carcassonne, Machine of Death and more with friends. Took my wife to Perry's Steakhouse, went with friends to Hoover's and Archer Live... I didn't see everybody in my social circle this month, but I saw a lot of friends.

7. Play at least 12 new board/card games this year. Two new games this month. Unspeakable Words and Machine of Death.

8. Stay under 200 lbs. Technically? Yes. 195 or so. Still working out on the elliptical, hoping to lose weight instead of just maintaining.

9. Go bike riding with my kids. It's been cold? This one I haven't done yet.

10. Travel. Nothing yet, but this isn't until later anyway.

New Resolutions:

1. Cook More - This month, I added a few recipes to my repertoire, notably goat cheese & bacon stuffed chicken breasts, roasted mushrooms (with garlic, butter and capers) and roasted Brussels sprouts (with bacon). I also managed to throw together a scampi-esque pasta with butter, garlic, onions, frozen shrimp and some Italian seasoning. I'm hoping to add one or two new dishes a month.

Stuff I Wrote:

1. Simpsons Season 3 Overview
2. Simpsons Season 4 Overview
3. What's On My DVR

Stuff I Podcasted:
1. Roguecast Episode 17
2. Roguecast Episode 18
3. Roguecast Episode 19
4. Loose Canon Comics Episode 401
5. TV Dudes - Too much to mention, just check out the podcasts and Watch With Us sections

Cooking: Chicken Soft Tacos Onions & Apples and Chicken w/Lime Sauce

Since my last cooking post, I've cooked three new recipes. Two were very good, one was a dismal failure. I'll talk about that one first. It was Slow Cooker Red Beans & Rice, and it was pretty much my fault. The recipe said "Combine first 12 ingredients," which I read as "combine all ingredients" and so the rice, which wasn't supposed to go into the mix, was in the slow cooker all day. The result? Bland, flavorless awful mash that I couldn't even eat. Might try it again and cook the rice separate, like you're supposed to.

My favorite recipe of the bunch so far is Chicken with Lime Sauce.

Ingredients

4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons olive oil
Cooking spray
3/4 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons lime juice, divided
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon butter

Preparation
Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound to 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet or small heavy skillet. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook 4 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove from pan; keep warm.

Add chicken broth, sugar, 2 tablespoons juice, and mustard to pan; cook over medium heat, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.

Combine water and cornstarch in a small bowl. Add cornstarch mixture to pan; stir well with a whisk. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; cook 1 minute or until sauce thickens slightly. Whisk in remaining 1 tablespoon lime juice and butter, stirring until butter melts. Return chicken to pan; simmer 2 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly heated.

I have only minor adjustments to make on this one. It would have been nice to have a little more sauce, as most of it evaporated or coated the chicken, so next time I think I'll reserve some of the sauce before returning the chicken to the pan, and then drizzle it on after I'm done. There was also a very, very slight lime flavor, so I'll probably add 2 tablespoons of lime juice instead of 1 with the butter, and keep adding a tablespoon here or there until the lime flavor gets a little bit stronger.

I also need to come up with a good side dish for this one. I'm really bad about cooking just an entree and not spending any time putting a side dish together.

Tonight I made Chicken Soft Tacos with Sauteed Onions & Apples:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups thinly sliced onion
2 cups thinly sliced peeled Granny Smith apple (about 2 apples)
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 (6-inch) flour tortillas

Preparation
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the chicken evenly with salt, nutmeg, and pepper. Add chicken to pan; sauté 7 minutes or until golden. Remove the chicken from pan; keep warm.

Melt butter in pan over medium heat. Add onion; cook 4 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Add apple; cook 6 minutes or until golden, stirring frequently. Add garlic; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Return chicken to pan; cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated, stirring frequently.

Heat tortillas according to package directions. Arrange 1/2 cup chicken mixture evenly over each tortilla.

Since this came from Cooking Light, I thought it might be a little flavor light, and I bumped up the salt and nutmeg to 3/4 teaspoons instead of 1/2. I also don't really measure fresh ground pepper, I just grind it on until it looks like enough to me. The result was pretty good.

Half of the secret of this one is having fresh tortillas... fortunately, in Austin it's really easy to get fresh tortillas, and they're good enough to eat on their own, so that makes them really good for fajitas and soft tacos.

I also recommend having a large skillet... my medium sized nonstick was very full when the onions and apples were cooking, and I tossed a few of them over the side while I was stirring, no matter how carefully I tried to stir.

Cooking: Sausage & Mushroom Soup

In an attempt to broaden our dinner options a bit beyond my limited repertoire of grilled steaks, burgers & chicken, spaghetti and the occasional meatloaf, I've decided to start trying out some new recipes. Right now, I'm mostly getting them from myrecipes.com, which is a site from Cooking Light, Southern Cooking, etc. Tonight we tried the first one, and it was pretty good, so I figured I'd share it. It makes a ton... my guess is that you could feed about six people with it using it as a main dish, especially if you add some bread. Or you could serve small cups of it as part of an Italian meal with pasta or chicken parmigiana or something along those lines, and probably have enough for 8-12 people.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4 pounds mild Italian sausages (I used sweet instead)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
7 cups canned low-sodium chicken broth or homemade stock
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried red-pepper flakes
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 pound angel hair
1/8 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

Preparation
1. In a large pot, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over moderate heat. Add the sausages and cook, turning occasionally, until browned and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Remove. When cool enough to handle, cut the sausages into 1/8-inch slices.

2. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon oil in the pot over moderately low heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until golden, 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Add the broth, thyme, red-pepper flakes, 2 tablespoons of the parsley, and the salt to the pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 15 minutes. Stir in the sausages and bring back to a boil. Add the pasta, reduce the heat, and simmer until just done, about 3 minutes. Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons parsley and the black pepper.

For my modifications, I left out the parsley, since I assumed it was more garnish than flavor, I only used a 1/2 lb. of mushrooms (which seemed like plenty to me... your mileage may vary) and I couldn't find low sodium chicken broth, so I used regular. In retrospect, if you wind up going this route, you can probably skip adding the additional salt, although it certainly didn't kill the taste. But I think it might have been on the border of doing so for Suzanne.

Also, if you want to make the soup easier to eat, crack the angel hair in half before dropping it in. We wound up using both spoons and forks to eat the meal.

Anyway, now that I know I like the taste, it's time to figure out what I can do to cut down on prep time. I'm also thinking I might try halving the recipe next time I make it, so that we don't have quite so much left over.