Whiskey and Lillet, Round 2

 For a second attempt, I've just changed the ratios to see what happens.

• 2 oz Tullamore Dew
• 1 oz Lillet Blanc
• 2 dashes orange bitters

Properly stirred with ice this time before putting in a chilled cocktail glass.

As expected, this version features the whiskey more, which is good, but it's still mild ingredients. I think I'll try a different bitters next time to see what that does. Failing that, it might be time to try some real citrus.

Whiskey and Lillet

I suppose this will need a name once I finish tinkering with it.

I decided to do something simple with ingredients I had on hand, so I mixed Tullamore Dew with Lillet Blanc in equal proportions. It's not exciting, but it's certainly not bad. There's somewhere to go with this, but I haven't figured it all out yet.

A couple of dashes of orange bitters helped, but it needs something else. Might try some citrus next time.

Leftover Pilaf

I made a venison stew for Thanksgiving, and it went over quite well, but after it was over, I had a lot of broth leftover. Inspired by Wilderness Cooking, I figured it would make a good pilaf.

Making this required one cup of rice and two cups of venison broth (which happens to be how much I had). These went into the Instant Pot and got stirred together. Just to give it some meatiness, I added some frozen meatballs and little smokies.

From there, all I had to do was set the pot for rice and wait for it to be done. I wouldn't call this a fancy meal by any stretch, but it made a very nice lunch.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

 This went rather well, so it should be shared. This is another Instant Pot recipe.

The ingredients aren't too complicated:

• 2 chicken thighs, well coated in salt and pepper.
• 2 celery ribs, chopped into thin bits
• 2 green bell peppers, diced (no cores)
• 1 onion, diced
• Salt & pepper to taste
• ~1/4 cup green salsa
• Chicken stock
• ~1 tbsp corn starch

Started with the celery, peppers, and onions in the pot on sauté with some salt and pepper until softened.

As they were going, I also put the chicken thighs in skin-side down to brown that up a bit.

As the veggies were soft, I put the corn starch on them and stirred them around.

When a fond was forming from the veggies and chicken, I added enough chicken stock to deglaze the pot. After that, I added the salsa and the rest of the chicken stock (enough to just cover the chicken) and stirred everything together.

I then put the lid on the pot, made sure the pressure valve was "closed", and set for Soup.

When all was done, I just ladled it into bowls and crushed some tortilla chips on top.

And I think this one was a winner.

Sous Vide Barbecue Ribs

Had some pork ribs, so I tried to make some sous vide barbecue. Not my best work, but lessons were learned.

The dry rub went into the bag with the ribs and got sealed a few days before the cook. Nice thing about sous vide cooking is that you can take a vacuum-sealed bag out of the freezer and put it straight into the water bath.

These cooked at 151 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours. I have no complaints about that.

I did not pay enough attention to the rub, though. Too much salt, not enough sugar. I'll need to properly measure next time.

Woodland Heights Sour

I was thinking of making some New York Sours to enjoy while prepping the Thanksgiving dinner, but I don't have any rye or bourbon on hand. I do have Irish whiskey (Tullamore Dew). Can't call it a New York Sour if you're changing the base spirit, so Nena looked up the name of the Irish neighborhood in New York. The internet says that Woodland Heights is "Little Ireland", so that's what we're going with until someone of Irish descent corrects us.

• 2 oz Irish whiskey
• 1 oz Lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• 3/4 oz Simple syrup
• 1 Egg white
• 1/2 oz Red wine

Going to go with adding the whiskey, lemon juice, syrup, and egg white to the shaker and doing a dry shake. Then we'll add ice for a second shake. We'll pour into tumblers and top with red wine (Yellowtail Pinot Noir -- it's what I have open for cooking).

Slow-cooked Lamb Shanks

I had an urge to make lamb shanks. 

About 2pm I did the preparation.

• 2 lamb shanks
• 2 carrots
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 onion
• Konriko Greek seasoning (to taste, should have used more)
• 1 cup beef broth

The vegetables got a very rough chop, everything got coated in seasoning and it went into the Instant Pot with a cup of beef broth on Slow Cook for 4 hours.

After the slow cook, I removed the lamb shanks and added:

• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 cup rice

I put the beef shanks back in so they'd be on top, then closed up the pot and set for Rice.

I feel like this is a good approach, which gives a sort of East European pilaf result. That said, it could probably have benefited from even more Greek seasoning, or at least more salt.

Vividora Cocktail

 After watching an Anders Erickson video on the Boulevardier, I was intrigued enough to want to make something like it myself. I do not have bourbon or Campari in the house at the moment, but I do have Aperol, and I do have an Italian vermouth: Carpano Antica; it's old, but Wine Saver seems to have kept it good, so here we go.

• 1.5 oz Bumbu Reserve XO rum
• .75 oz Aperol
• .75 oz Carpano Antica

I just poured these into a tumbler over a big block of ice and stirred. An orange twist would be a good garnish, but I didn't have one or anything I would consider a suitable alternative, so no garnish.

I am pleased with the result. It needs a proper name.

Update: I'm going with Vividora, which seems to be a more-or-less equivalent Spanish term.

Chicken Paprikash Soup

Surely I am not the first to think of it, but the thought of Chicken Paprikash Soup occurred to me, and I decided to make it in the Instant Pot.

I used...

• 4 chicken thighs
• 3 carrots
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 onion
• about 3 tablespoons of sweet paprika
• plenty of salt and black pepper
• olive oil
• chicken stock
• pasta
• sour cream
• white wine (optional)

I first put the chicken thighs in a large mixing bowl with salt and pepper and tossed them until well coated. I covered the bowl and set them aside.

I then peeled the carrots and chopped all the vegetables into smallish chunks and put them in the Instant Pot with some olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked them on sauté until they were softened. It probably wouldn't hurt to add some mushrooms at this point, but I didn't have any on hand.

When the vegetables were ready, I added the paprika and stirred it all well. I then added the chicken thighs. I added enough chicken stock to almost cover the chicken, then I added wine to finish covering the chicken.

I put the lid on the Instant Pot and set for Meat/Stew. When that was done (default of 45 minutes), I removed the lid, added some pasta, put the lid back on, and set for Soup.

When done (default 30 minutes), I let it stay on Keep Warm until dinner time.

Stir in some sour cream at serving time. We also had some French bread with ours.

Grandpa Got Devoured by a Shoggoth

 To the tune of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"...

There was something in the forest,
Set the dogs to bark and bay,
Grandpa loaded up his shotgun,
And went to see himself what lay that way.

Grandpa got devoured by a Shoggoth
Trying to prevent catastrophe
People say there are no Elder Horrors
But as for me and Grandma... we believe

Grandpa came upon a clearing
Where some men had built a fire
They were dancing 'round a statue
Of something evil hideous and dire

The men's chant opened a portal
To a dark and awful place
Grandpa realized with horror
They had just betrayed the human race

chorus

Something started through the portal
A foul pseudopod that smelled
Grandpa fired with both his barrels
Hoping he would blow it straight to hell

His shots only made it angry
And it hastened through the gate
Grandpa knew he must act quickly
Else the world would meet an ugly fate

chorus

So he struck one of the chanters
With the butt end of his gun
As the cultist fell unconscious
All their evil magic came undone

But before the monster vanished
Grandpa felt its cold embrace
It engulfed his struggling body
Then it disappeared without a trace

chorus

Now you listeners may wonder
How I learned of Grandpa's end
I was chanting in that circle
Pity Grandpa didn't understand

Grandpa got devoured by a Shoggoth
Fighting to defend humanity
People say there are no Elder Horrors
But as for me and Grandma... WE BELIEVE

Instant Pot Lamb Stew

 I figured I might as well write down some of these recipes somewhere.

I was originally planning to make lamb shanks, but although I had seen them at the grocery store recently, they weren't available on the day I went shopping. Here's what I ended up using.

• 3 round-bone lamb shoulder chops
• 2 carrots (one was quite large)
• 3 celery stalks
• 1 medium onion
• 2-3 pinches of salt
• Several generous grinds of black pepper
• A pinch of dried thyme
• A pinch of dried rosemary
• Enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the Instant Pot
• Red wine
• Beef stock

Roughly chop and dice the vegetables into a bowl. Add salt, pepper, and herbs, and toss them around a bit.

Set the Instant Pot to sauté. When it's hot, add the oil and vegetables and cook until they've softened up bit.

While the vegetables are cooking, de-bone and cube the lamb into bite-sized pieces. I saved the bones to make stock later.

When the vegetables are ready, add the lamb. Put the cover on the Instant Pot, make sure the pressure valve is in the closed position, and set the pot to Stew. When the cycle is complete, it's ready to serve.

I served mine with some take-and-bake French bread, and I recommend putting the bread in your bowl first and ladling stew over it.

Bethesda Game Rant

This is nothing new, but I hope Bethesda gets its act together for future RPG releases, like Starfield, Elder Scrolls VI, and the ever so distant Fallout 5. I'm far from the first to say this, of course, but I'm going to rant anyway.

The big issues are factions that you can choose to work with or join. In Fallout 4, the factions tend to become mutually exclusive after a point, and that's a good thing. Not so much in Skyrim. The Empire and the Stormcloaks are enemies and mutually exclusive, but that's about it.

There's the Companions, and they have the rival Silver Hand organization, but the Silver Hand are just bandits by another name who happen to have silver swords in their inventory. There is one named Silver Hand character, but he has a randomly generated appearance and no dialogue. You can't choose to side with the Silver Hand instead of the Companions, and there's no backstory to explain their rivalry. Many gamers have inferred something, but there's nothing official.

Siding with the Companions isn't much of a deal, either. There's a quest, but it has little to do with the stated purpose and goals of the Companions as an organization. Furthermore, the game fast-tracks you into it; you don't have to do anything special to join the "inner circle" and get involved in the Companions quest. Completing it and becoming the Harbinger doesn't really give you any authority, either; the Companions don't treat you any differently.

The College of Winterhold quest is likewise fast-tracked, not requiring any demonstrable mastery of spell-casting to start or complete. Completing it makes you the Arch Mage, but it's a title with no authority; none of the mages treat you any differently. All you really get out of it is a nice bedroom.

The Thieves' Guild has an extremely elaborate quest line, and starting it does actually require doing some thievish things, at least. Becoming the Master of the Thieves' Guild confers no authority, of course. Everything proceeds the same. Also, there's no option to oppose the Thieves' Guild as a quest, despite the fact that there's a character -- Mjoll the Lioness -- who sounds motivated to join such a quest.

The Dark Brotherhood is little better. As with the Thieves' Guild line, it's almost as if the developers want to reward evil behavior. As usual, becoming the leader of the Dark Brotherhood doesn't really confer any authority. There is an option to oppose and destroy them, but it's short and offers no substantial rewards, so why would anyone do that?

The Dawnguard offer a nice option to be good or evil, even if the paths are pretty similar and end exactly the same way. At least neither faction pretends to put you in charge without any meaningful authority.

Back in Fallout 4, there's the obvious example of the Minutemen. You can easily become the General, but it's a position with no authority; you don't assign people to missions, you just get them from Preston or the radio and do them yourself.

Neither the Railroad nor the Brotherhood of Steel ever pretends your in charge, although it would be nice to see characters like Rhys show more deference when you start out-ranking them (if you complete the main quest with the BoS, he apologizes once, then goes back to being a dick).

The Institute, on the other hand, DOES pretend to put you in charge, but that allows you to make one decision that has no significant effect on the game. The Institute's actions in the game don't even make much sense, given their stated motivation. They want to be left alone in their ivory bomb shelter to pursue their research, but they can't resist meddling in things happening on the surface. They occasionally need materials, but they could get those quietly instead of acting like raiders with clean clothes. They grow food, they make medicine, they have a variety of high-tech tools: they could easily trade for the things they need from the surface, and no one would know where they were hiding out. Nonetheless, they're dicks every step of the way, and even when you become the Director, there's nothing you can do about it.

In short, when I join an organization in the future, I want it to mean something. If I become the leader, clients should come to me with requests, which I can then do myself or assign to members of the organization.

Meme Time - The Frog of Judgment

Blogs aren't the thing they used to be, but I suppose it's a place to drop new memes.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

The Real Bad Side of Joss Whedon

Looking back through old posts, you can see that I defended Joss Whedon against allegations of being a wife-beating rapist based on the content of Firefly. I'd say those defenses are still sound.

It has, however, come out that -- at least on the set of Buffy and Angel -- Joss Whedon was quite the creepy asshat. These are allegations that I find credible. Joss may be decent at the creative writing stuff, but he seems to be a horrible person behind the scenes.

"Hungarian" Cabbage Roll Soup

I'll have to see about getting pictures to add to this later. This ended up being a soup because I was feeling too lazy to deal with steaming and wrapping cabbage leaves. Since I went with a soup instead of rolls, I also left out the rice, which also makes this low-carb.

You will need:

• 1/2 pound of ground beef
• 1 onion
• Garlic (3 cloves for me)
• 1 quarter of a head of cabbage
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• Bone broth
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika

I used Auntie Arwen's Smoked Paprika; it's the good stuff. You can also add some mushrooms if you feel like it; we'll get to that.

It went like this:

1. Heat a saucepan.
2. Dice the onion.
3. Add some olive oil to the pan and heat that.
4. Add the onions to the pan. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.
5. Chop up the cabbage. Save one leaf.
6. When the onions are translucent, add the garlic and let it cook until the raw smell goes away.
7. Add the ground beef and brown thoroughly.
8. Take out some of the mix and wrap it in the cabbage leaf for a snack.
9. Add diced tomatoes and cabbage to the pan.
10. Add enough broth to just cover everything.
11. Add additional seasonings to taste.
12. Simmer for an hour or so.

At this point I realized I had an open container of mushrooms in the fridge that I needed to use, so I sautéed them in olive oil with salt, pepper, and paprika and add them to the soup. If you're eating vegetarian, you could go with mushrooms instead of ground beef.

This is a tasty soup just as it is, but adding a spoon of sour cream when you serve it doesn't hurt at all.

The Rise of Skywalker (Review)

I managed to see Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker within the first week of release. That's pretty good by my standards.

I have mixed feelings about this movie. I suppose there's the usual excuse that it would be hard for any movie to live up to this kind of hype. I think this one worked so hard to top everything that had gone before that it went too far.

It's as if this story went through 100 exaggerated retellings via oral tradition before anything was written down and made into a script. That, and some aspects of the writing seem a bit lazy.

That said, the acting is great, the visuals are amazing, and there are some neat Force-related events that add interesting twists to the story.

I'm going to give it three stars and say it's worth seeing.

Spoilerish remarks below the fold (mostly focused on the things that annoy me and keep this movie from getting five stars).

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PS4 Disk Ejection Error

Are you a Playstation 4 user?

Have you ever gotten the disk ejection error? You put a game disk in the drive, you start up the game, things are going well. You're kicking monster ass or winning races or whatever. Without warning, the game crashes and the disk pops out of the drive.

Maybe you can put it back in. Maybe you can't. Sometimes it won't accept the disk. Even if it does, and you get started playing again, the disk just ejects again a few minutes later.

You can try restarting your PS4, but that doesn't work.

You can look for instructions on the internet, but I haven't had much luck with that. The Sony site will tell you to turn the PS4 off, disconnect all the cables, then hold down the power button until you hear two beeps (about 30 seconds). Leave it unplugged for five minutes. Then hook everything up and try it.

That solution is utter BS. The PS4 will never beep, because it's not getting any power. The problem isn't solved, either.

Last couple of times this happened to me, I figured out something that seems to work.

1. Turn the PS4 off using the power management menu.
2. Press and hold the power button until you hear a whole lot of beeps in rapid succession. It won't take long. The PS4 will not turn on.
3. That may be enough. I unplugged everything and let it sit for a while just in case.

When I reconnected and put a disk in the drive, it started up and everything works.

No telling how long until the disk ejection error returns (seems to like happening every few months), but this solution will actually get you back to gaming.

I hope this helps someone.

UPDATE: This did not work as well as hoped. It was a matter of hours before the disk started ejecting again. Annoying. Still looking for a better solution.

UPDATE: I finally resorted to taking it to a local electronics repair shop. They replaced a sensor module for about $35. No problems since.

Chicken Paprikash

This isn't difficult, and I really didn't use any precise measurements. The ingredients are:

• Six chicken tenderloins
• Two small-to-medium onions
• Mushrooms
• Salt and pepper
• Plenty of paprika
• Sour cream

The pasta is just egg noodles, and the sugar snap peas are steamed for about 5-10 minutes in a little salted water.

That Darned Budget

I don't know how much readers know about me. I actually think that the US Federal Debt is the greatest threat to US national security that exists. That said, let's look at it.

Those numbers are the US Federal Deficit, including projections into the "near" future.

Yes. I see the massive deficit spike in 2009 when Barack Obama was inaugurated.

I also see the yearly decline after he took office.

What I don't see is a projection of smaller deficits after Dumb-Ass Trump took office, since he signed a huge tax reduction bill that mostly benefited people who were already doing very well in an already booming economy.

When the economy is doing well, that's when the government should be trying to PAY DOWN the national debt.

Instead, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell passed a budget that cuts taxes for individuals and corporations that are already doing great, which increases the federal deficit during an economic boom.

I don't get it.

I realize that Bill Clinton is an asshole on many levels, but at least he had enough sense (from listening to economic advisors like Alan Greenspan) to use the boom economy he was experiencing to pay down the National Debt.

But the controlling Republican party in 2017 decided that a massive tax break for corporations and individuals who were already doing well was more important than reducing the national debt.

My mind boggles.

I generally think of  myself as politically central, but Republican politics seems to only care about the profits of big corporations.

How are we going to reduce the National Debt if we run BIGGER deficits when the economy is doing well?

Fortunately, I'm old. I may not live to see the consequences of the current administration. I grieve for those younger than me, though.

The Fallen Ones (2005)

Apparently three years ago I watched The Fallen Ones starring Caspar Van Dien and did a live commentary. Heaps of badness below the fold.

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