So these, my … [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Memes, Thanksgiving, Thursday Thirteen Meme

Cry havoc, and unleash the dogs of war!

Ah Giada. To some she’s the Food Network’s beauty queen.  Others think she is a time traveling chef from the distant future. (You can’t make up stuff like this!) Neither matters to me.  Whether she’s just a beauty queen or a future chef who is not familiar with our language, she should not be writing recipes.

Why? You ask.  Because if you follow her recipes, you will accomplish one of the following feats.  You will:

1. Make something terrible
2. Cause damage to appliances or cutlery
3. Do yourself bodily harm
4. Feel stupid following this recipe

Granted, common sense may save you from one of the above scenarios, but let’s face facts.  Giada is a celebrity chef.  Some people are going to assume that they need to follow “her” instructions to the leter.  The results could be devastating.

I’ll be honest.  Everyone who writes recipes makes mistakes.  I’ve done it. I’ve been called on it. I correct it. But in the case of any food network celebrity, there should be proof readers, ya know? In a network that employs its very own food librarian and is owned by one of the largest media powerhouses in the country, you would think someone would check to see if something … foolish … managed to slip past the chef, or her writers, or the web guys, or something.  But they’re not, and Miss de Laurentiis is the worst case that they have.

So here we go.  I’ll list the recipe snippets, then tell you why one of the above bad things might happen.  FAir enough?  OK, let’s move on.

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Thursday Thirteen Meme

With my wedding anniversary coming up this Friday, there really was only one logical choice for this week’s Thursday Thirteen, The lovely and incredibly talented Mrs. seat of her Pants, a person whom I could not be more proud of or in love with.

Truthfully, thirteen things does not begin to cover everything I could say about my wife, there’s a lot more to her than that.  She is exceptional at being so many different things; a wife, a mother, my best friend, an instructor and mentor for Department of Defense students, an author and editor, and more. She gives 120% of herself to each and every one of these things, sometimes to more than one of them at the same time.  Unfortunately, the nature of the Thursday Thirteen is that I only have room for thirteen things.

And for those of you who aren’t fans of washed out Nagel-esque photos, here’s another shot of the reason I wake up every morning wishing I could just lie there all day.

Please note that these are not in any order whatsoever:

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Thursday Thirteen Meme

I ran into this problem last week when I realized I was out of black peppercorns. (or thought I was…  They had fallen over behind a huge container of chili powder and I didn’t see them.) It took me a full five minutes to realize that I actually do have preground pepper in the pantry and it’s fresh, because I never-ever use it.

So here we go. These are some of the things that I would be lost without in my pantry or my refrigerator.

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Thursday Thirteen Meme

So instead of that list, which I will endeavor to complete by the Next Thursday Thirteen, I give you

Thirteen reasons I don’t have a better Thirteen:

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Thursday Thirteen Meme

As a professional web developer for over 16 years, I have acquired a large collection of terms and phrases that most people in their right minds have absolutely no desire to understand.  The following list contains some of those terms. (And alterneately, the terms I use to describe the issue to the client when necessary.)

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 21 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Thursday Thirteen Meme

For me each day is usually a combination of all three of these things.  As a Work At Home Dad, it sometimes means that the workday either lasts well into the morning hours, or that no work gets done at all because, and let’s face it, a toddler doesn’t really give a rat’s behind what Dad has contracted out today.  He’s interested in his life, not mine.  And then there’s always the other little things…

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Thursday Thirteen Meme

I thought I’d take a break from my usual adoration/bashing of all things TV Chef related and simply dish up a list of helpful tips for your day-to-day kitchen life. These tips are in no particular order or by any degree of usefulness, I just grabbed thirteen that I thought would be helpful.

If you like the idea, I’ll add a once per week kitchen tip to the regular lineup here, so let me know!

Now on with the tips! … [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 28 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Thursday Thirteen Meme

(I’m combining this post with my weekly Thursday Thirteen, if you were just here to see the TT, scroll to the bottom of the post.)

As foodies we are sometimes driven to try the most recent trend in foods. To go after more exotic ingredients and preparation methods. To push our cooking skills and palate’s further than they have ever gone before. All of these are good things and make for a very interesting culinary life. Food should never be boring, after all.

While I subscribe to the concepts mentioned above, there are still times I when just want a really good French Fry, and yesterday was one of those days.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t liked fast food french fries in a very long time. Most are nothing more than overcooked, greasy little processed things that don’t do anything at all for me, other than perhaps cause a case of indigestion later. On the other hand, I rarely turn down the opportunity to indulge in a homemade fry, whether I’m the one making it or not, making fries one of the things I almost never order in a restaurant. I’ll take mine my way, thank you.

I prefer to make fries in a cast iron skillet rather than in a deep pan or heavy dutch oven for several reasons. One, the oil heats much more quickly in a heavy shallow pan. Two, it cools more quickly when the heat is lowered because of greater surface/air ratios. Three, It’s a lot harder to crowd the pan, which allows me to see each and every item that I’m frying while keeping my temperatures constant. Taking out the guess work is a good thing, as it means that you won’t end up with greasy food.

(Read the bottom of the post to see the thirteen things I will almost never order out)

… [visit site to read more]

© Jerry D. Russell and Cooking... by the seat of my Pants!.com, 2008. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: fries, Garlic, Parmesan, Potatoes, Recipes, Thursday Thirteen Meme