‘The Lab’ Articles
Check out Pineknot experiments in science, music, art, and food
Written by Pineknot on 01 September 2010
To start off September’s easy dinner meals, let me introduce you to the first casserole. Guaranteed tasty, a hit with kids and teenagers and it’s a no-fail recipe!
First you need these ingredients:
I used Ziti pasta, but you can use anything. Make it curly or shells if you want to entice a picky eater.
Get your pasta started. REMEMBER salt that H20! See how much I have in my hand, and I added a bit more!
Make sure you stir that pasta, to keep it from sticking, both to the pan and to each other. I like my pasta a little bit chewy, al dente, if you want to sound I-talian…
Meanwhile cut up one small onion. Do not be afraid.
Cut up one small (or more if you like) clove of garlic. If you don’t have fresh, use 1/2 tsp of garlic powder. But, hey, be brave, buy some fresh, and see how good it is! (Good for you too!)
Put the ground meant, onions, and garlic into a skillet and start cooking. I used very lean meat. If you use something with a bit more fat or water, you may want to drain a bit of that off once you get the meat and onions and garlic nice and done.
Now it’s time… to put it all together… Add the can of Rotel Tomatoes. Keep all that juice and watery goodness, don’t drain those babies. If you are cooking for little ones, go ahead and get the not so spicy ones. But if your mainly feeding adults, give em a little capasin in their diet. It’s good for the digestion!
(Capasin is the compound in peppers that makes them hot. It’s also what you find at the health food stores in pain relief patches. And while we’re at it, research shows you get a little happy feeling just out of that spicy compound!)
Spoon in the pasta. If a little water comes with them, all the better. This dish is good when it’s juicy.
Now because we’re in the South and we are all about flavor, keep this a secret, but besides adding your standard S&P, go ahead a sprinkle liberally some Montreal Steak Seasoning… I wish I had a stake in Montreal Steak Seasoning.. its that good.
Now, one final touch, some good cheese. The harder the cheese, the better it is for you, but if you are a sucker for pasteurized and sure that your little chillin’s would like it better, shoot, go with Velveta, otherwise, I used a nice sharp cheddar.
And after 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven, voilà…
Add an easy salad and enjoy. Good leftover, late at night, or for sharing with others.
Here’s the particulars!
8 oz bag of pasta
8 oz of ground beef
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 can of Rotel Tomatoes
Salt and Pepper (Montreal Steak Seasoning, optional)
3/4 cup of shredded cheese
Tags: Food, Food Experiments
Posted in Food, The Lab | No Comments »
Written by Josh S on 04 August 2010
Inspired by his uncles, Soldier Josh creates a healthy, delicious salad, that you too can make in your own home. Step by step directions and instructions for a cool, summer recipe guaranteed to make your Mother wish she had been there when you made it… I’m just sayin’.
This stuff you might want.
Flatten the chicken breast. (Flatter is better… a roller would likely work better than say… a frying pan, serving spoon, or dead blow hammer from the garage)
Fill one side of the chicken with spinach, feta, and capers…. use more of what you like less of what you don’t.
Now the tricky part… fold the chicken and keep folding edges and pushing the filler back in repeatedly and inserting toothpicks to hold gaps closed until complete (or frustrated whichever comes first).
Grill Stuffed Chicken with high heat to sear the outside. (Helps keep them from falling apart.
Once the chicken is done grilling, wrap it really tight in aluminum foil and let it sit for 10-20 minutes depending on how patient (hungry) you are. (This is known as the Neil Huddle Wrap)
(Not pictured: Take arugula lettuce and season with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar.) After the chicken sits unwrap the foil and admire your handiwork. After a few min of this, cut the chicken in to slices.
Plate the sliced chicken on top of the arugula salad. Make it pretty or don’t… makes no difference.
Would Gordon Ramsay approve…. well no probably not.
But I do.
(Tip: Use paper plates, towels, and aluminum foil as much as possible to minimize dishes you have to wash later.)
Tags: Food, The Lab
Posted in Food, The Lab | No Comments »
Written by Pineknot on 12 July 2010
Take a guess.. how old was that old pine we cut down? Leave your best guess. Winner(s) will be rewarded!
Tags: Science
Posted in Science | No Comments »
Written by Pineknot on 28 June 2010
I remember the first time I heard Willie. He was singing Stardust. Unusual cadence in the way he sung the words, I liked it. Since he’s gotten older, I haven’t listened to him much, just looked at pictures of his face.
I’m a bit partial to brown eyed men, but there is something about Willie’s that make me sad. I think its because they look just like my Aunt Dovie who had the life most of those old drinking songs Willie has sung and made his living are about. Her life was a bad one.
Can’t say I ever thought Willie was handsome, can’t say I ever thought too much about his life philosophy, followed his politics a little, and although I might not agree with everything, he seemed to me to follow his beliefs.
He’s been in the news lately. It’s July the 4th, and Willie’s own brand of Woodstock is around the corner down in Austin. He’s got a new alblum out, Country Music. I heartell its hauntingly beautiful. I am going to give it a try.
But I guess the thing I am thinking about today, is that Willie and I have something in common. He’s getting old. He lost a son. And he has had to come to terms with what’s after this.
“Death is not the ending of anything. I believe all of us are only energy that becomes matter. When the matter goes away, the energy still exists. You can’t destroy it. It never dies. We are never alone. Death is just a door opening to somehwere else. Someday we’ll know what that door opens to. I believe that. I really do,” said Willie, the other day to the Parade Magazine.
For me, he didn’t use the right word, but it
s there all the same.
Love never ends. ~Corinthians 13:8
Tags: Music
Posted in Music | No Comments »
Written by Pineknot on 16 May 2010
I’m not one of those people good at discovering music.
I want to be. But I’m not.
I collect people that can help me.
First there was Tracey, my best friend in high school. While I was still trying out the Beetles and worrying whether or not they might or might not be on drugs, and if it mattered whether they were or not or whether I listened or not, she introduced me to a whole other world, where the voices of Temptations and Commodores and Four Tops spun out of the record player. Soul music, yeah, that’s what it was. I wondered how she, people, discovered such things.
Then there was Jake, my oldest. Eclectic in tastes, by the time he got to college, I’d half way come around to country and he took me the rest of the way. “Janet (Yeah, he called me that when he wanted me to know he loved me), listen to this…”.
He was the first to introduce me to an all girl Texas band, the Dixie Chicks.
I pretty much liked everything about them. He and I marveled at the virtuosity of those two sisters and Jake having followed them early on, knew it was clear that the new lead singer made them what they were going to be.
Jake hadn’t went to Heaven yet, when the “Incident” happened and I don’t remember him or his brothers ever playing another Chicks song after it did. A lot of people never played another chicks song. A lot of people will never play another chicks song.
So you have to wonder. Was all that worth it, to them I mean, the Chicks? All that obvious talent, all that ability, was the loss to share that worth what the ‘Incident’ and everything cost them? If you’re the Dixie Chicks what scales do you weigh the pros and cons on if your God given talent is to make beautiful music?
I figured I had gotten my answer, when on an insomnia filled night some weeks back, I happened to run across the documentary, “Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing”.
The Dixie Chicks were always about strong women. They were always about extremely talented women. They obviously were about loyalty, although we could debate on whose side the loyalty fell on for each of those three strong women. But there was no doubt, those two really talented sisters, they were heartbroken. Mostly, all they had ever wanted to do was make music. And it was abundantly clear, they could never do it again as the Dixie Chicks.
Loyal to the one that brought ‘em, the sisters never entertained replacing the reason they would never make music as the Chicks again.
But they couldn’t quiet their musical souls.
I have looked long and hard at the Court Yard Hounds. I can’t detect a bit of sarcasm, enmity or strife in the name. Only a bit of sadness, longing, and perhaps a touch of irony.
I’ll listen to you, Court Yard Hounds. Best of luck. I’m glad you found a way around the situation. Sometimes the right thing to do IS shut up and sing.
Tags: Music, women
Posted in Music | No Comments »
Written by Pineknot on 16 May 2010
On a recent hill country jaunt, graciously organized by Pineknot’s fabulous friends, while talking and not paying attention, we managed to make a big broad Uie right into the “Sculpture Ranch”. Down a country road, amidst the huisache and mesquite, installations of modern sculpture exist!
Something was just so… darned sophisticated about it all.. that and well, some of the pieces .. I wished I’d made them.. or I wished I owned them. Or maybe Ill just go back again.
They are worth a ride out..
I told you… check it out…
The Sculpture Ranch,
http://sculptureranch.com/index.htm
Tags: Art, sculpture, The Lab
Posted in Art | No Comments »
Written by Pineknot on 28 February 2010
All over the prairies of Texas the lupines buds are swelling about ready to bust forth in indigo blue. I love Texas in the spring when the Indian Paintbrush and Mexican Pinwheels and winecups give only small relief from those fields of blue. I am sure Heaven’s going to have a bit of this…
So … here’s the skinny.. all you new mothers and fathers and old aunts and granny’s and gigi’s and paw paws and whoever else.. you’re all going to be compelled to go out and take a pic..
See.. been there, done that..glad I did.. would do it again…happy I did…
So I’m here to tell you the three best places to eat, if you find yourself around Hempstead in Waller County. I’m talking real good places to eat. Like out of the ordinary.
I promise.. no kidding.. these three restaurants will make your picture taking adventure and spring family outing… well, delightful, scrumptious, satisfying… and you get your pick! What I am offering here is an unbiased, tried and tasted, smorgasbord of delight for any palate.
1. In the mood for BarBQ? Try Hill Country. This is some amazing barbq…it’s always good. The chopped beef is real, the ribs are fall of the bone, and if you want, you can have ‘em pack it up for you! Kid friendly (they might even be serenaded by the owner), open Tuesday – Saturday! On Hwy 6 between Hempstead and Navasota.
2. Interested in the best fried, panko battered shrimp you have EVER had? Try T&C Seafood in the Field Store Community. (I LOVE french fries but here they got good fried rice.. fries… fried rice.. fries.. sometimes I just order both). Open every day, all day… at least I haven’t ever seen them closed.. well except that one time their propane went out. When you see the two blue water towers that say ‘Field Store’ on them, look for the little strip shopping center in the middle of nowhere. On Hwy 1488
3. When is a tea room not a tea room? When it’s in the back of a nursery next to a Hometown Ace Hardware Store in Hempstead, Texas. The Garden Cafe at the Blue Bonnet Herb Farm. This fare is hearty, homemade, scrumtous come-to-supper food. Baked Spaghetti, homemade dressing on fresh salad greens, and homemade beer batter bread… your mouth watering? If Ms. Mary Helen is serving Apple Crisp… GET IT! Only one word of explanation. OMG. Open for lunch Tuesday through Saturday. Kids would have fun on the patio.
Happy Bluebonnet hunting ya’ll.
Tags: Food
Posted in Food | No Comments »
Written by Pineknot on 28 December 2009
Did you know, that with really good eyes and a really good place and an even better, amazingly wonderful amateur telescope you can the rings of Saturn?
No kidding.
The rings of Saturn.
But if you don’t have good eyes and you don’t have a telescope, and you would still really like to see the rings of Saturn…have I got an option for you.
In 1996, us Americans, Europe and the Italians sent a robotic spacecraft barreling towards Saturn, 932 million miles away. You can call it Cassini for short. It got there in 2004. And since then it’s been sending pictures of everything from Saturn’s moons (there are 61 moon and some assorted moon-lets) to the rings of Saturn, with a few pics of Jupiter on its way.
This winter Cassini has been very busy…
From 20 degrees above the ring plane, Cassini’s wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing Saturn, its rings, and a few of its moons a day and a half after exact Saturn equinox, when the sun’s disk was exactly overhead at the planet’s equator. The images were taken on Aug. 12, 2009, at a distance of approximately 847,000 km (526,000 mi) from Saturn. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
Or how about this one…
This is a view of Saturn’s moon Tethys and its cratered surface, taken by Cassini on October 14, 2009. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
and this one…
Because Saturn’s rings are made up of gas (well Saturn is mostly gas, that’s why it’s a gas giant)…gas giant , heh, heh, funny.. okay really, back to the rings… they have some dust in them too but that moon there, that’s Prometheus. You can see how it disturbing Saturn’s F ring… how cool is that.
Where were you going in 1997? Did you ever even consider you what see Saturn’s moons here, at the end of 2009…
For more info, go here
Tags: Science
Posted in Science, The Lab | 1 Comment »
Written by Pineknot on 16 November 2009
We got big cockroaches here in Texas. I mean big ones, so big you can hear them walking along the floor in the middle of the night. In the heat of the summer I’ve seen them crawling out of the sewer. (Note that really nasty egg case in the picture.. I HATE those!)
- Credit USDA
The story I always heard was that they ate dead skin and toenail clippings.
Turns out they are after something a lot different.
They eat pee.
Yeah. That. And there’s way more to the story.
(Start thinking about Spiderman III Here, where that nasty black thing gets on his hand and turns him into… well lets just not go into what it turns him into, what you’ve got to remember, is that the black thing is a SYMBIONT! It needs Spidey and Spikey need it).
Well in order to get what it needs out of the pee, cockroaches have to team up with a certain kind of bacteria, that knows just what to do with it. And because EVERYTHING on the planet needs nitrogen and cockroaches sort of don’t have a lot of options for getting it in places other than sewers and the floor around your toilet, they and their bacteria symbiotic partners, make use of the nitrogen in …well.. you know.. yep, good ole pee. When you think about it, its pretty clever, cause if your a cockroach, you’re pretty much good to go anywhere there’s a puddle of the stuff.
Just goes to show, one man’s pee is another cockroaches.. yeah that.
This little moment of science brought to you through the efforts of scientists Nancy Moran and Zakee Sabree of the University of Arizona, and Srinivas Kambhampati of Kansas State University.
Just so you know, cockroaches look way grosser than they actually are… almost none of them are known to cause any human disease.
Tags: Science
Posted in Science | 1 Comment »
Written by Pineknot on 01 November 2009
It’s this time of year that I think about some of the most delicious things my Mother cooked…
Something warm from the oven, I would grab one, head out on my bike and resting on the seat, with the Arkansas fall wind blowing cold on my face, relish with childish happiness, the melty goodness of whatever homemade treat she had baked.
So do this.. it’s easy.
When you are at the store, get you a muffin tin if you don’t have one.
While you are there, pick up a small bag of self rising flour (don’t worry, if you are saying to yourself, “I will NEVER use this”, you can keep it in the freezer. BUT you might just find you use it up before the month is out! These things are THAT good.)
Go ahead and get some real butter (you are going to use 2 sticks) and a carton of sour cream (enough for a half pint. By the way, that’s 8 oz or 1 cup!). LLet the butter get real soft. (An excellent choice would be to use Smart Balance if you want to watch… well you know, fat and cholesterol, etc.)
Simple ingredients!
Get ready, get set and GO! Take those three ingredients and put them in a mixing bowl and give them a good stir. Don’t over stir, just enough till everything is mixed nicely
Spoon mixture into your muffin tins, filling about 1/2 to 2/3 full and bake them for 20 -30 minutes in your oven that you turned to 350 degrees before you started all this. (You don’t need to butter the muffin tin)
Delicous, melt in your mouth!
Sour Cream Muffins
2 cups self rising flour
2 sticks butter
1/2 pint sour cream
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all ingredients in a bowl and spoon about 1/2 into ungreased muffin tins. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes
Tags: Food Experiments
Posted in Food | No Comments »
