oh beets, you are so under appreciated. I came across this little bit of delicious one day at
The Kitchen!

What I love most about beets is how they stain your hands this great fuchsia, its wonderful, you should use it to color some of your food naturally....like one time I shredded beets (with a hint from Food In My Beard) and colored some dough to tie ribbons around my ravioli. It was yummy and pretty and all the girls and boys did flips for it....I did at least



want to know a secret -the real star of the show is barley-

recipe is that-a-way --------->>>>

Roasted Beet Salad with Barley, Feta, and Red Onion
Makes about 5 cups

1 cup dry pearl barley
4 medium beets, tops removed
1/2 large red onion (about 1 cup), minced and soaked in cold water for 1/2 hour
1/2 block of feta (about 4 ounces), cut into small squares or crumbled
4-5 scallions, sliced into fine rounds
1 1/2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
salt and pepper to taste
extra sliced scallions for garnish

Heat the oven to 450-degrees.

Loosely wrap the beets in tin foil and roast in the oven until they are just fork tender--30 - 45 minutes. Peel and dice the beets into small cubes.

Meanwhile, bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Add the barley and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until the barley is al dente, about 30 minutes. If there is extra liquid in the pot, drain the barley and return it to the pan. Cover with a clean dishtowel until ready to use.

Drain the red onion.

Combine barley, beets, red onion, feta, and scallions in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice and olive oil over the top and toss to coat.

Taste the mixture. As needed, add salt 1/4 teaspoon at a time (the feta is really salty!). Pepper to taste.

Serve family-style in a large bowl or in individual bowls. Garnish with extra scallions.

Tags: barley, beets, feta, food in my beard, the kitchn
Current Location: Chicago
Current Music: Bon Iver

just before Thanksgiving I decided to try and get all fancy

Gourmet Magazine and Bon Apetit mixed with some Ugly Betty influence transformed my kitchen table into something wonderful (a taste)



I had a bunch of these guys



these are Forest Nameko Mushrooms that I found at Whole Foods, they have a natural silky gelatin like coating that help thicken gravy, sauces, and so many other wonderful things. I like them just sauteed and in my belly. They are seasonal and disappear quickly.

I also had all kinds of extra wild mushrooms left over from a super fancy torte appetizer that took a dive and some extra black wild rice and made this awesome recipe I found on one of my favorite foodie blogs 101 Cookbooks.

Mine turned out like this:

I have not yet had the opportunity to use them, but preserved lemons are supposed to be pretty nice

I like things that last a long time

this is one of the best



Moroccan Preserve Lemons

and all it takes is

Take a nice 'ol jar, and take as many lemons as can be squished into it (three for me)

- clean those yellow fellows good and well
- pour a some salt in the bottom of the jar, about 1/2 cup
- cut four deep slits on opposite sides of the lemon
- stuff some coarse salt (kosher salt works great) into those slits
- pour a bit more salt on top of the last lemon
- close the jar and wait, they will become submerged and they can live like that for about a year refrigerated or not

then you can make lots of delicious stuff

good stuff

Middle Eastern stuff, Aorth African stuff, Mediterranean stuff, and so much more

Ill show you, keep watching

Tags: moroccan preserved lemon

In just one day the most incredible experiment the world has ever seen is going to take place.

If the experiment is successful the discoveries it makes could change the way we see the world, time, matter, space, the universe!



The CERN Project taking place on the French/Swiss border has emassed a 17-mile long large hadron collider (LHC). Shooting particle beams at speeds beyond light and at temperatures imitating the cold of deep space, the project hopes to reveal some of the building blocks of existence, what they term the "god particle."

The experiment is attempting to replicate the initial reactions after the Big Bang, which for all intents and purposes means we have no clue.

Debate stalled the project several months ago when some physicists argued that their is a possibility of microscopic black holes forming within the Earth. Concurrent experiments absorbing information on dark matter and anti-matter.

For us sci-fi geeks theories surrounding anti-matter suggest that technically the universe should not exists because for all matter their exists anti-matter, which should eliminate matter entirely, but perhaps an anonomoly or phenomena or maybe some goof off's miscalculations or god caused us to be.

Well that can play with all kinds of waxing of theory and philosophy, so instead I will just say:

On September 10th at 2:00PM Central Time the first beam will be fired and can be watched here: http://webcast.cern.ch/.

Tags: anti-matter, cern, dark matter, god particle, large hadron collider, particle accelerator

I was given a job

I work with these people again thanks to Melissa

I took a test

I got locked out of the house

I did not do the cha cha slide

and I taught someone chess

these things also happened

Jessica got this cute dog and he stole my plush bird one night
Mary and Melanie played music at the Gallery Cabaret and I drank too much beer

and it stormed like this:
alright

now leave me alone

Tags: people, pimps, puppies

the weekend was burly, wild, and wonderful

hail storms, cool breezes, and some of this on Sunday








then the octopus finally got out today:



I could find no particularly special recipe to make. Octopus just seems to be another substance to cook with. Very yummy though!


I now realized that I like radishes.

Tags: octopus, pride parade chicago, radish

Melissa said I could not take a picture inside so all you get is this:





pssst...but she totally did here.

Tags: henry darger

whenever a trip to the city occurs you remember to pick up this

Tags: the onion

Sunday night Doctor Who catch up




courtesy of the fun pack from people who love popcorn even more then I do Hagio and Deb

Tags: doctor who, popcorn

"OUR" computers hang out on a Saturday night:

Tags: data rock