Chemical Cake

Sally Reed’s Best Vegetarian Chili

tim — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 22:30:00 +0000

This best vegetarian chili recipe was passed from someone to my Mom, Sally Reed, who passed it on to me. The vegetarian chili recipe has a meat option which you can cook in the pot or on the side, which is what I do. The secret of the recipe is to always add an ingredient when you get it; my addition was the corn. If you use it, please tell me what you add. It’s mild-to-spicy, depending on how much chili powder and hot sauce you throw in, and very easy to prepare. At parties, I serve the meat in a separate bowl. Sally Reed’s vegetarian chili recipe serves about 10, though it’s best on the second day.

1 package ground beef (optional)
2 cans whole stewed tomatoes
3-4 cans red kidney beans (half-drained)
2-3 chopped onions
2 chopped green peppers
2 chopped jalapeño peppers (optional)
3-5 tablespoons chili powder
2 shakes dry hot pepper
1 can whole kernel corn
4 bay leaves
Salt and pepper
Hot sauce (to taste)
2 tablespoons water
White rice

Brown meat at high heat, lower heat and cook for 5 minutes and set aside.

In stew pot, cook peppers, jalapeño peppers and onions until onions are transparent (about 5 minutes).

Mix chili powder with water to make chili paste.

Add stewed tomatoes, hot sauce, chili powder paste, remaining spices and cover and cook at low heat for 1 hour.

Add kidney beans, uncover and cook for 30 minutes.

Add corn and cook for 30 minutes.

Serve in bowls over rice with optional meat.

Difficulty: easy.

Time: 2 hours of intermittent attention.

Precision: approximate measurement OK.

Awful Awful Milkshake Recipe

tim — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 08:07:07 +0000

I remember visiting Newport Creamery as a kid in Barrington, Rhode Island and drinking their Awful Awfuls. They were called that because they were “awful big, awful delicious”, or something like that. If you drank 3, you’d get a fourth one free.

The original recipe from the 1950s calls for:

6 oz of Grade A Homogenized Milk
2 oz of syrup
3 scoops of ice cream (~8-9 oz)
Mix and serve with a jumbo straw

(from Time Capsule)

Pepperoni Pizza Sweatshirt

tim — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:53:33 +0000

This pepperoni pizza sweatshirt looks like it’ll be hot inside and out! As seen on Craphound.

Jellyfish Make the Perfect Pet

tim — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 06:32:17 +0000

If you’re looking for a pet, but find that dogs to require too much effort and sea monkeys don’t have enough of an edge, then jellyfish may make the perfect pet. Jellyfish Arts created a specialized tank that maintains water flow to keep jellyfish in the middle, and an air diffuser that shields jellyfish from lethal bubbles.

The desktop package includes the aquarium, filtration system and air diffuser, rocks, multicolor LED with remote (!), and live, non-stinging moon jellyfish and food packets, and costs $500. Jellyfish will live for about a year.

The desktop jellyfish tank started as a successful Kickstarter project, collecting over $150K over their original funding goal.

(via Jellyfish Tanks from Jellyfish Art)

Whiskey Blender: Create Your Own Custom Blended Whiskey

tim — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:26:44 +0000

Whisky Blender is an online store based in Scotland that provides a simple way for you to craft your own custom whisky blend using up to seven different single malts. Once you’ve finalized your blend, you can name it so that it’s easy to reorder or, if necessary, tweak.

Whisky Blender creates their own single malts and provides detailed, if subjective, tasting notes for each. You can create your blend in 10 ml increments to fill a 700 ml bottle. Single malts are separately priced, so the total cost of your custom blend depends on your recipe; typical per bottle price averages around $75-100.

(Photo: Courtesy Whiskey Blender)

Weegee’s Night Walks: Walking Tours of Weegee’s New York City

tim — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:58:18 +0000

One of my favorite museums, The International Center of Photography, is offering walking tours of Weegee’s gritty New York City, called Weegee’s Night Walks, every Friday night in March from 8PM to midnight. Weegee is the great photojournalist who is best known for groundbreaking, graphic photos of murder scenes in the 1930s.

Each tour is led by great street-scene photographers, including Nelson Bakerman, Edward Keating, Andrew Lichtenstein, Richard Sandler and Lynn Saville, and explores Weegee’s ‘subterranean world’ of alleys, back streets and night spots.

Tours are being held in conjunction with an impressive show of his work, called Weegee: Murder is My Business, currently at the museum until Sept 2, 2012. The photographer’s estate left the bulk of his work to the museum.

“Weegee’s Night Walks” tour admission is $75. Each tour starts in a different New York City neighborhood and ends in an appropriate bar or restaurant.

The Most Common Cooking Mistakes Explained

tim — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:31:02 +0000

This list of 10 common cooking mistakes is a great summary of simple errors we all make when cooking or baking. Cooking Tips and Cooking Questions Answered – Cooking Light.

Create Your Own Giant Head Sign with Build-A-Head

tim — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:21:08 +0000

For 12 bucks, Build-A-Head will print and ship an oversized 12″x17″ face sign using your photo. They suggest that this could be used for team fundraising, political campaigns, parties, and marathons.

The real winner is the Huge Big Face Cutout. Dig deep for this 3-foot monster: the Huge Face will cost you $60 plus $5 shipping.

Blast Radius Calculator

tim — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:51:42 +0000

Calculate the effect of a nuclear blast by setting the detonation point and blast yield in this Google Maps application. The fun is in figuring out where to drop a large enough bomb to take out your enemies while keeping you and yours safe and radiation free. You can calculate your own blast yield, or pick a previously used or popular one (crude dirty bomb, “Little Boy“, “Ivy Mike“).

Of course, this application actually illustrates the futile destructive stupidity of the nuclear arms race.

How To Make a Proper Old Fashioned

tim — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:37:08 +0000

Fascinating and opinionated web site focused on one thing: how to make a proper Old Fashioned. Author Martin Doudoroff believes that a lot of “bad ideas” have corrupted the modern drink.

Old Fashioned Recipe

Follow the easy original recipe to make an Old Fashioned. In a glass, put:

A little simple syrup or other mild sweetening syrup
A dash of aromatic bitters (Angostura bitters to start)
A measure (2 oz) of bourbon, straight rye or Canadian whisky
If necessary, a little water to taste and/or ice
A twist of lemon or orange rind

There is no soda, fruit pieces or juice in or shaking of an Old Fashioned.
This is an Old Fashioned:

This is not an Old Fashioned:

(via Kottke)

Photos: Old Fashioned – A Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from John Rodenbiker’s photostream; Not Old Fashioned – A Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Rochelle Hartman’s photostream)