Bleu cheese dressing and one of my favorite things on which to put it

I've been perfecting this dressing for months now. I LOVE bleu cheese and its dressing. You'll find all manner of people posting on recipe hack forums trying to find the Chris' & Pitt's BBQ bleu cheese recipe, that's the standard with which I grew up. I feel like my standards are pretty high, and my expectations are rarely met. I like a dressing to be thick but creamy, chunky but not with massive chunks, fresh tasting, and not too heavily seasoned so that I can still add fresh pepper to my salad, or use peppered bacon in the recipe below the dressing.

Since the Greek yogurt craze is in full swing and doesn't look to be going anywhere any time soon, I'm hoping to keep making my dressing this way, so that I always have a kind of dressing I can eat. Lots of dressings contain corn products in some form or another, including distilled white vinegar, corn starch, HFCS, and corn syrup, so it's hard for me to find a reliable brand that meets my standards and doesn't cost a million dollars a bottle. I made this mostly with things I already keep on hand, the buttermilk is the only thing I had to actually go out and buy.

Amazeballs Bleu Cheese Dressing

1/2 c low fat buttermilk
1 c nonfat greek yogurt
3 tbsp regular sour cream
1 5oz pkg bleu cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp ground kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
fresh ground black pepper - start with 1/2 tsp, add to taste

Make sure the bleu cheese is crumbled small enough for your taste. Put everything, buttermilk first, into a jar, and shake well. Add a little more buttermilk if you like it a little runnier.

Putting buttermilk in first makes the shaking go faster, because you don't have the thick yogurt sticking to the bottom. I also put the salt, pepper, and herbs in the middle of the jar, so they don't get all stuck to the top or bottom.

Notes on the months it took me to get here:

- You could substitute minced garlic, but it gives the dressing a much sharper taste, even with minced roasted garlic, it was just way too sharp to be pleasurable.
- Fresh tarragon would be delicious but I'd probably have used a little less than dried, and our local groceries don't stock it frequently enough.
- PLEASE use full fat sour cream. It's not that bad, and the light gives a weird texture to the finished product.
- This lasts about a week in the fridge; I didn't try freezing it so I've no idea whether it'd thaw well.



I could be boring and put this on a salad, but here's what I plan to put it on tomorrow (Thanksgiving, my second favorite holiday):

Brussels, Bacon, and Shrooms

3 parts brussels sprouts
2 parts baby portabella mushrooms
1 part bacon (I use pepper bacon and use less fresh ground pepper)
garlic cloves to taste
parsley
salt and pepper

Clean the sprouts, they can either be whole or halved for this recipe. Halve or quarter the mushrooms so they're roughly the same size or slightly larger than the sprouts. I like to cut the bacon strips into 1" pieces, but you do whatever your heart desires.

I start the bacon in a pan, just long enough to render a little of the grease, about halfway to edible. While that's going, put the sprouts, garlic cloves, shrooms, parsley and salt and pepper into a lightly oiled baking dish and mix together. I use a 9 x 13 Pyrex rather than the cookie sheet I usually roast veggies on, because the mushrooms tend to give off a lot of liquid.

Put the bacon evenly over top of the sprouts and shrooms, and pour the grease evenly over the whole pan. Keeping the bacon on top allows the grease to drip down into the veg and make them taste awesome.

Roast in a 425° oven roughly 25-30 minutes, it may take up to 45 minutes if you leave the sprouts whole.

Serve hot with slotted spoon to prevent mushroom juice sloshing, spoon bleu cheese dressing over top.

Natural Disasters and the Claims of Christian Fundamentalists

A pact with the devil caused the earthquake in Haiti.

Hurricane Isaac was god's proof he could take out any fire related desert hippie fest, no matter the size.

God targeted Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists of Asia with his tsunami.

I've been hearing it all my life. Immoral behavior, turning away from god, homosexuality, pornography, Hollywood, the liberals; all of these things incur god's wrath in the form of natural disasters.

In the Bible, there are several ties between morality and natural disasters. In the story most frequently told (not to mention, used as as children's room decor theme) the world had become so wicked that a flood was sent to cover the whole of it. Pharaoh's heart-hardening in Exodus was the cause of plagues, nine of which were some form of natural disaster (the tenth was probably ninjas). There was an earthquake that released the chains of everyone imprisoned with Paul and Silas that may or may not have been accompanied by Paul hearing the voice of an angel telling him to leave.

There are also a few examples of death directly due to immoral behavior. Ananias and Sapphira in the new testament died after lying about the dollar figure of their tithe. The first child of David and Bathsheeba died because of its father's sin.

Those were precise, targeted punishments for sin. If Hurricane Isaac was supposed to punish whatever crazy things that preacher believes happens at Burning Man, why didn't the hurricane show up during and in the region wherein Burning Man took place?

If god's aim has gotten that imprecise, is it laziness? Who wants to worship a lazy god?

Would a perfect being flex their muscles at a bunch of hippies by beating up the poor?

Why do fundamentalists always go back to the lamest reasons for things, instead of taking action to help those affected? What is their fetish for victim blaming all about? Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Care for the widowed and orphaned.

Christianity, I am disappoint.

Tomato Pie made easy

I started with the Kerbey Lane recipe that I found all over the internet, and modified it because I really don't like crust. By don't like, I mean I can't eat store bought ones due to the corn intolerance, and I don't enjoy making them because I'm lazy. I don't keep mayo around the house, so I just left it out. Also, I'm going to start formatting my recipes so they're easy enough for someone who takes cooking directions very literally can make whatever.

Ingredients:
2 lb tomatoes
2 tbsp (to taste) sliced olives (I used a Greek mix, kalamata work)
1/2 c plain greek yogurt
1/2 c feta crumbles
2 tbsp separate feta or gruyere cheese
4 big leaves fresh basil, chopped
1 tsp lime juice
1 tube premade butter flavored biscuits (not jumbo sized)
salt

Give the tomatoes a good rough dice (small enough for bite size, but perfectly diced tomatoes are for pico), lightly salt, and drain tomatoes for 10 minutes. Mix olives into tomatoes and spread evenly over the bottom of a lightly greased 9" glass pie plate.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Mix basil, yogurt, feta, and lime juice together. Spread yogurt mixture over tomatoes and olives, keeping 1/2" away from the sides. spread feta or gruyere over top. Take the biscuits and place them around the edge, putting the last one for the middle. You could also cut them into quarters and spread them over the whole top if you like them more well done. Bake for 30 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown.

If you want to make a double recipe, a 9x13 would be a nice deeper dish.

My experience with Reddit so far

I've read reddit for years, but I got sick of just looking at the regular front page and whatever people linked me, and finally signed up for an account so I could collect all my favorite subreddit topics and stop going directly to the links.

Week one, I felt like I was in livejournal land all over again. I loved the anonymity, and I felt like I was returning to a place where I belonged. I was semi-doxxed and chased away from Slashdot, someone replied with links to all of my online presence and the university I was attending on every single comment I posted.

Week two, I was still finding subreddits to add to my subscriptions, the level of specificity was excellent, while not surprising. I commented a little, and posted an actual personal response I thought might actually help someone, which they messaged me after and said it was helpful.

Week three was more of the same. I commented a few times, played grammar police on some heavily down voted posts.

Week four, I finally decided to post my first thing. I've been trying to build clientele, and I was trying to legitimately ask a question. I was trying to downplay the self promotion while also explaining what I do and what I've already done. Right now I'm sitting at three up and five down votes, and I'm really bummed out about it. What did I do wrong? Nothing.

I don't know why I'm disappointed, I shouldn't have felt like I belonged and somehow had found somewhere that would embrace me just... 'cause.

It's just people on the internet, like everywhere else.

Lightness (RANT warning)

Weight loss. Every fat girl thinks about it. No one can stop reminding us. Ads, magazines, tv, commercials, mothers, girlfriends, spam email. And now, as I'm preparing to have a wedding, of course it's intensified exponentially. Everything is "get fit now" this and "have the best shoulders ever" that. I'm sick of it. Oh god, this could get ranty.

The really hard part? I'm also really sick of being overweight and unhealthy. I love my body, don't get me wrong. I make great food choices but add too much sugar. I maintain my weight very easily, especially considering the levels of stress hormone pumping through my veins my entire adult life.

The hardest part, for me, is finding motivation to do something I despise. I love swimming and water aerobics, but the pool I have access to is surrounded by oak trees, to which I'm severely allergic. It's also in direct sunlight and I can't afford that much sunblock. I LOVE doing bikram yoga more than any other exercise I've ever done, but it's ungodly expensive. I hate the feeling of working out. I hate feeling the pain of scoliosis, I hate being uncomfortable on bike seats made for already tight asses, I hate being sweaty and feeling like I'll never cool back down. I hate it all. I hate having to wipe down machinery. I hate having to peel off lycra clothing. I hate crappy sports bras, the bound breast feeling is awful.

I hate diets. I always make them into some kind of mindfuck game. I tried Weight Watchers for a couple of months in my early 20s, I was eating five one point items a day, two pieces of fruit, and two cups of black coffee. I wish I could hug that me. I was panicked about whether I would get up in the middle of the night and need a beer or a glass of wine, or worse, a spoonful of ice cream, and not remember it the next morning. I tried writing down what I eat, because that is supposed to automatically make you eat less, since writing it down makes you feel more accountable. That was even worse than the Weight Watchers incident.

I also hate living in a culture that marginalizes fatties like me. I feel like I shouldn't be taken less seriously or made fun of for my weight. Even my own family, when they were speaking to me, never failed to ask if I was losing weight. Everyone growing up seemed to be hoping to lose weight. Mom was on several drugs and diets, and after age 50, like most other people on her side of the family, she was finally able to shake most of the excess weight and drop out of plus sizes into a large at her smallest.

You know what else I hate? BMI. Who came up with this shit? I'm muscular. I know I'm fat too, but even at a size six in high school I was Popeye-arm-curvy and had calves too big for normal shaft width boots of any kind, and a full D cup. If you'd taken my BMI when I was 14 and had 17% body fat, I would've been labeled obese. I have broader set bones, a hell of a lot of mammary tissue, and muscles. I still have normal blood pressure and, despite having diabetic and hypoglycemic relatives, I don't appear to have issues related to blood sugar. My corn product intake is extremely low, due to my intolerance of it.

I'm tired of people trying to tell me all about their diets. I'm tired of people who are of equal or healthier weights telling me about their fat or their weight loss plans. I know the basics of most diets. I know how to proportion my food. I know how to exercise and count calories. Hell, I know how to calculate Weight Watchers points. I can tell you that excluding carbohydrates is a stupid and impossible idea, and that vegan diets aren't going to work for someone who craves dairy products. I go through one half gallon of 1% milk a week.

I don't know what my point is anymore. I want to lose weight because it'll make my life easier; but I'm not interested in making my entire life about only that. I want to be healthy, but not at the cost of my self esteem or confidence, or because I'm caving to some kind of social pressure. I don't want to be congratulated for losing weight, I wouldn't even know how to react to that. I can't stand to do exercise that doesn't consume my entire attention and leave me brain power enough to be able to think about doing anything else. My back problems limit what I'm able to do. Ugh, ugh to the whole thing!

Drunk Bacon Sweet Potatoes

My general philosophy on art, crafting, cooking, makeup, hair, etc. is that everything is optional. If you don't like pecans? Leave 'em out or use walnuts, pistachios, or macadamias. Don't like/can't have bacon? Leave it out or substitute turkey bacon or fakon. Don't like rum? Use a little more bourbon or leave it out. See? Problem solved.

That having been said, I was tired of not liking sweet potatoes prepared in a sweet way. I like them savory. But I had a similar recipe to this at Mr. Pirate Queen's work holiday party in 2010 that I actually liked, and I decided to try to replicate it. It's really not overly sweet, the alcohol flavor and the pecans help balance the sweetness.

I call these drunk because they contain a decent amount of alcohol. Also, just like any recipe, the amounts can be scaled up or down for smaller or larger batches.

3 lb sweet potato

1/2 c bourbon

1/4 c rum (I used Captain Morgan silver, it's what I have on hand, plus I like spiced rum in this)

1/4 c maple syrup (real, 100% maple syrup)

1/2 stick butter (room temperature makes it easier)

6 strips bacon, cooked but not crispy, and sliced (optional, you could also use more or less)

2 tbsp cinnamon

2 tbsp kosher salt

2 tbsp pecan pieces (optional, also, chunk your own, or buy them halved or pieced, doesn't matter)

for the streusel topping:

1 c brown sugar

1 c flour

1 stick room temperature butter

cinnamon to taste

Parboil and then peel the sweets, depending on their weight this could be anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. Parboiling is just boiling something before you cook it another way, to bring down the cooking time and/or, in this case, to make the skin easier to peel off. Once they're peeled, chunk them into relatively even sized chunks. I think this all fit in a 9 x 13 for me, with one serving leftover to go into one of my glass bake and store dishes. I put all the other ingredients into a bowl except bacon and pecans and mixed them, then mashed it into the sweets with a potato masher. I fold the bacon and pecans in separate, just to prevent them from getting mashed up. Then, spread it around evenly into a greased pan.

This streusel topping I use for everything from muffins to pies to really anything baked and sweet. All you do is cream together a cup of some kind of sugar, a cup of flour, and a stick of butter. Easiest recipe in the world. It'll keep in a fridge as long as butter keeps, so I like to sprinkle it on some of whatever I'm cooking. I spread it all over the top of the sweet potato mixture in the pan. All you do at this point is bake in a 350° oven for 20-40 minutes, depending on how long you parboiled. It should be tender and hot through the middle, but if you overcook it, the starch will break down and they'll turn to mush.

Note: I've used uncooked bacon in this and it cooked through, but it also shrank and left pits in the surrounding potato which was weird. Honestly, for time and sanity's sake, I use precooked bacon from Costco because I can freeze it and thaw as needed more easily than most bacon.