Hopes and Dreams - Stuck on AutoDrive

The Power of Powers
Exponential Climate Change
May 11, 2019

Polar ice melt messes with ocean currents.

Oceans move in oval conveyor belts that are up and down and around and around. Cold fresh water on top of warmer salt water in vast amounts will halt current currents.

Ever hear of El Niño and La Niña? The effects of polar ice melt are similar but far worse with polar waters becoming colder and equatorial waters becoming warmer without the circulation. Think energy without a release valve. Think superstorms.

Read more about the impact of polar ice melt in “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms” by James Hansen & Makiko Sato, et. al. in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal 16, 1-52.

Music Association: Ratt - Round and Round

The Power of Powers
Exponential Growth
May 1, 2019

If I could have any superpower, it would be the power of powers, exponentiation. In a fight, villains won't get an ordinary pounding, they will get a compounding to the n-th power.

Compounding and exponentiation make good things better and bad things worse.

Savings interest and stock dividends compounded lead to financial growth. Credit interest and penalties compounded lead to financial trouble. Diseases infect and spread to infect more and more. Seeds grow to produce more seeds.

And that's where my superpower steps in. I want kernza.

Kernza (thinopyrum intermedium) is a small grained wheat, meaning it probably has extra gluten. It tastes like wheat generally, I think, but I don't know because I haven't had it. Not enough farmers are growing it because there aren't enough seeds yet. Exponential growth of kernza takes time and fields.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, “How do you know that you want kernza when you haven't even tried it?”

Uh.

I'll eat it. It doesn't matter what it tastes like. What matters is that it is a perennial grain with deep roots that can be harvested with the same harvesters as common wheat (which has to be replanted every year). Kernza is easier on the farmers and easier on the environment. No more annual tilling of the soil.

Kernza cereal, kernza bread, kernza crackers, kernza pizza, kernza pasta, kernza donuts, and even kernza cakes are the foods I want to eat.

Music Association: Bread - It Don't Matter To Me

Hopes and Dreams

Ruins
April 15, 2019

The Notre Dame Cathedral fire.

Music Association: Carl Boberg - How Great Thou Art

Hopes and Dreams

Playing With Food
Fish in Water
March 27, 2019

One of the joys of restaurant food is figuring out the recipe behind the dish.

I stopped in a non-chain restaurant while traveling years ago, the special of the night sounded just special enough that I took to it like a fish to water.

The mixture was slightly crispy salmon with tomato, on a bed of angel hair pasta, lightly oiled and fried, with simple Mediterranean spices.

I've done a brazilian variations on the meal, but here are the basics.

Angel Salmon Pasta

Ingredients:

salmon fillet
angel hair pasta (2-4 servings)
can of whole tomatoes
olive oil
basil
oregano

Instructions:

Heat oven to 375°.
Bring about a quart of water to boil.
Put salmon fillet skin side down in baking dish and add a centimeter of water around it. Put it in the oven. Set timer for 25 minutes.
Add angel hair pasta to boiling water. Cook for 8-10 minutes.
Open can of tomatoes and cut into halves or quarters. Put into frying pan. Add a teaspoon of olive oil. Add the cooked angel hair pasta. Stir. Add a few pinches of basil and oregano. Heat on low, stirring frequently, otherwise keep covered.
When the frying pan mixture is thoroughly heated and slightly fried, it's ready. When the salmon is slightly tan (the top is just starting to be crispy), it's ready.
Take the salmon off the skin and put on top of a bed of the angel hair pasta and tomato.

Feeds two to four.

Music Association: Heart - Barracuda

Playing With Food
Half-Baked, Part 2
March 16, 2019

Several times when I was growing up I innocently or naïvely asked adults for certain recipes.

People were very defensive of their recipes.

State secrets were nothing compared to family recipes.

I don't guard recipes and cooking details like others did to me, but then I also find it hilarious when people say, “It's just this and this and this, right?!?” They are never absolutely right or absolutely wrong. So I'll say, “Kind of,” and I hope I will never have to eat that kind of because it'll be kind of wrong.

One of the things people accuse me of is following other people's recipes. I never follow other people's recipes. I interpret recipes. I improve upon ingredients. I improve upon consistencies and flavors.

For example, the second time I made the orange coconut muffin recipe below, I chopped up a Dove Dark Chocolate and split the pieces between two muffins. To be clear, I made sugar and oil free muffins and then slipped in some sugary and oily Dove Dark Chocolate into the mix for two specific muffins.

Music Association: Big Head Todd - Bittersweet

Playing With Food
Half-Baked
March 2, 2019

Cooking is educational. It can involve reading comprehension, math, chemistry, some physics, and art.

Earlier this winter, before the Minnesota winter was an actual Minnesota winter of years past, I thought I'd try to make some healthy muffins.

If you've spent some time reading ingredients lists and nutritional panels, you've probably realized healthy muffins is an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, or President Trump. The two words just don't seem to go together.

I blended a few Internet recipes together, experimented, and came up with a few recipes for healthy muffins -- with no oils and no refined sugar.

Corn Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinammon
1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs (deshelled & mixed)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup honey (genuine)
1 cup milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Put six large paper muffin cups in a large muffin cup pan and two or three regular-sized paper muffin cups in a regular muffin pan.

In a two-quart mixing bowl, mix the dry ingredients (the first 5 items listed above). Next, add the eggs, applesauce, honey, and milk to the dry ingredients.
Fill each muffin cup a little over half full. Place the muffin pans in the middle of the oven and bake 15 minutes for regular-sized muffins and 20 minutes for large muffins.

Remove the muffins from the pan and place upright on a wire rack to cool for five or six minutes.

Fresh out of the oven, the result is kind of chewy and difficult to remove neatly from the paper cups. After a day, the muffins are a little less chewy and a little easier to remove from the paper cups.

Substituting oat flour for the corn meal makes a less chewy, more basic muffin. Plus, increasing natural flavorings doesn't hurt either.

Orange Coconut Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup oat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinammon
1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs (deshelled & mixed)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup honey (genuine)
1 cup milk

1/4 cup grated orange peel (orange zest)
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Put six large paper muffin cups in a large muffin cup pan and two or three regular-sized paper muffin cups in a regular muffin pan.

In a two-quart mixing bowl, mix the dry ingredients (the first 5 items listed above). Next, add the eggs, applesauce, honey, and milk to the dry ingredients.
Then add the grated orange peel and the coconut, adding some to the tops of each muffin. Fill each muffin cup a little over half full.
Place the muffin pans in the middle of the oven and bake 15 minutes for regular-sized muffins and 20 minutes for large muffins.

Remove the muffins from the pan and place upright on a wire rack to cool for five or six minutes.

Music Association: Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street