Salmon with sauteed veggies!

I was showing a friend a picture of this dish I whipped up the other morning, " Wow, wish I had time in the morning to make stuff like that! ".  I don't want to sound like one of those annoying health nutritionists or tv show cooks, but it only takes about 15 minutes to make this. It can be even faster if you prep the night before.

Here's what you're gonna need: 

• 4 oz piece of salmon, skin on
• 1/2 zucchini
• 1/2 of an onion
• 1/4 of a bell pepper
•  dried crushed rosemary
• dried crushed thyme
• salt/pepper to taste
• wedge of lemon

Here's what you need to do with what you have:

Get two cast iron pans ripping on the stove top over medium-high heat. While they heat, remove the salmon from the fridge, and pat dry. When I say dry, I mean dry. Not like it's dryer than it was, I mean DRY. If you don't, it won't cook right. Don't say I didn't warn you. Put that aside for now.  

We need to slice up some veggies. I like to use zucchini, onions and peppers, but there's not hard fast rule about this. First, cut the onion in half, then into about 8 wedges. Cut as if it were a lemon and you wanted wedges. I know this seems weird, but I've actually experimented with cutting onions different ways, and for some reason this way gives you the best of everything, wicked onion flavor, nice crunch, sweetness and some char on the tips to round it out. Anyway, slice off about a quarter of the pepper, then slice into long thin strips.  

By now the pans should be getting hot, so go ahead and put some butter or oil in one of them and swirl the pan around to spread evenly. It should just about be smoking, add the cut veggies and give a good toss. Hey , we're sauteing here so don't be shy. Head back to the cutting board and cut the zucchini in half crosswise. Next slice in half down the length, keeping the two halves together. Slice across the two halves to create 1/4" thick pieces. Head back over to the veggies and give another toss. Throw in some crushed dried rosemary and give a few tosses. This will toast the rosemary and release the aromatics and help to soften up that dried stuff. 

Check on the other pan. It should be really hot by now, put a tablespoon of oil or butter in the pan, and swirl around. It should just about be smoking, if it is, don't worry. ( My smoke detector is disconnected, how about yours? ) Give the veggies another toss, and grab the fish. Put the fish skin side down in the pan, and using the towel you used to dry it off, apply firm even pressure down to keep the skin in contact with the pan. It should be sizzling at this point. This is the important part, nice dry fish , hot pan = won't stick and crispy skin. Go back and give the veggies a few more tosses. Check to make sure skin is still in contact with pan.If not you know what to do with that towel. Once the skin starts to brown on the edges,(about 5 min)  carefully flip the fish over, and cook on the flesh side. Toss veggies. Keep an eye on the fish, if you start seeing white stuff (albumen) forming, remove fish from heat, it's done(probably 2-3 min tops). Actually over done. I like my salmon just cooked, so when it just starts to change color I remove it from the pan. Toss the veggies again. Add thyme to veggies and toss again. Plate up the fish and veggies squirt some lemon juice on top and enjoy!  Obviously, you could prep the veggies the night before and that makes things way easier.

Why your coffee sucks

Alright so pardon the title, but I have a lot of friends ask me why they can't seem to make a decent cup of coffee. The reason is, it's not that simple actually. There are many variables involved, and most must be controlled withing certain limits. I'm not a coffee expert, but I've hung around enough coffee shops and made enough pour-overs to at least know when I'm making it right or wrong.
The first thing one has to realize is that making coffee is a lot like baking. Have you ever tried baking and just eye-balling the ingredient amounts? So let me guess your cake turned out more like a pancake , or maybe those chocolate chip cookies ran right off the cookie sheet and then were as hard a rock? Yeah, well, making coffee is kinda like baking.
The BEANS
So most people hit up the grocery store, or if you're a friend of mine, the farmers market or local coffee shop/roaster to get some quality beans. It's OK if you get them ground there, it's a pain to grind them at home correctly. I would know, I have a bur hand grinder that I use every morning because I'm that picky about my coffee. But just don't get more ground than you can use in about 2 weeks, and don't dare put that brown ground gold in the refrigerator. Keep it in a kitchen cabinet in the dark in an airtight container.
Next off, we need to know how much beans to use. A good rule of thumb is about 1oz of beans per 8 oz of water. This will make a strong cup, if you want you can do 0.75 oz per 8 oz of water. I wouldn't go much less than that, or it's going to start to taste bitter. Using 10oz  of water for 1oz of beans isn't a bad idea. I typically do this for my everyday coffee, but if I want to really taste it, cut it down to 6-8 oz. It will blow your mind if you try this experiment.

2 oz of Dark and Light roast same size vessel. 

As you've probably noticed, I've been referring to the amount of beans by weight. There's a good reason for this.Whole beans have a different density depending on how they are roasted. So if you're scooping out whole beans and measure lets say by the tablespoon, you're going to get less than if you were scooping out light roasted beans. If the coffee is already ground the difference isn't as much because all the bits are ground about the same size, but you're still missing out on a dark roast, because it's still less dense.  You can see from the picture that 2oz of coffee isn't always the same volume. The best example would be to use the EXACT same coffee roasted dark and light, but I don't have that luxury ( most of the time nobody does actually, cause some coffees aren't good if they are roasted dark or vice-versa).
Another important part of the beans is the grind. For a drip or pour over the coffee grounds should be kinda like a semi-fine beach sand. The stuff you'd want to put your naked feet into. If you're a press kinda person, you can use this same grind, but some prefer slightly coarser, kinda like kosher salt, for less "mud" in their cofee. 
The WATER
I actually read some article from somewhere.. I can find it right now, about how water was actually one of the most important parts of making good coffee. So get out your Brita, charcoal filter, or spring water and use that. Don't use crappy tasting water, because it will make your coffee, well, crappy.
Also the water has to be the correct temperature. Most of the time we just let our coffee maker take care of this for us, but if you're like me, and you're using a press or pour-over, you want your water between 195-205 deg F.  So this is just about off the boil if you don't have a thermometer ( or don't care to use one).
The METHOD
This is such a broad topic, I'm sure you were wondering what a pour-over is, or press by now, if you didn't already know? So if you don't know, and you just have a basic drip coffee maker, hopefully it's one that drips into a carafe and not into a glass pot that sits on a coffee ruiner, oops, I mean a warmer. That will ruin any perfect cup of coffee before you even drink it. So maybe just put your mouth under the opening to get fresh coffee and use the pot part to water your plants.Seriously. A pour over is basically a fancy funnel that has a flat base that fits over your coffee cup. You put a paper filter in it, and pour the water over. A press, as the name implies, lets you press the filter through the water containing the grounds, pushing them to the bottom.  There are many schools of the thought on all the different methods. My best advice would be to follow the instructions that came with the "maker" you have.  Except for follow the weight recommendations above. The reason I say this is that I have a Hario pour-over. If you made coffee with it based on the amount that the instructions tell you to use, you'd have coffee flavored water.  Same goes for the Chemex. I'm not sure where these guys get their amounts from, but it's certainly not from a commendable source.
Take this home
If you've made it this far, good. The basics I'm trying to impart is that you should discard the mass ideas of what coffee should taste like. Get yourself some good coffee and experiment. I'm not saying that you need to use exact amounts and ratios. It's fun to experiment, you will convince yourself what does and doesn't work. Here's a few non-intuitive coffee making practices though.  

• Bitter coffee? - Not enough coffee grounds or too much water.
• Too Strong? - You probably made it correctly, just add some hot water. Next time you can try using a little more water for brewing, but be carefull, the line between bitter and drinkable is very thin.
• Too thick? - Use a coarser grind (this gets into mouthfeel which is an important part of tasting coffee)  

If you like to put cream and sugar in your coffee, that's ok. If you like it like that, then make it that way. I just encourage people to taste it black before they add stuff so that they have an idea what it tastes like beforehand. Kinda like tasting the ingredients of a cocktail before they are mixed together. You'll hardly ever see anyone taste the sugar or the cream before they add it to their coffee.

Hopefully you found this little writing informative. If you have any questions shoot a comment and I'll be glad to help out!

Cauli-Flour Pizza

Here is my n+1 attempt at making cauliflower pizza crust. This one actually worked. It's a combination of several recipes I've found on the internet, but with the bugs worked out. This will give you a nice light crust, that doesn't taste too much like cauliflower, but will also be crispy on the edges with some bite to it so it's similar to real pizza dough, minus the carbs and gluten.
 Here's what you're going to need.

• 24 oz raw cauliflower
• 2 oz asiago cheese; shredded
• 3  whole eggs
• approx 2.5 oz almond flour
• Toppings of choice
• Sauce of choice

 First, start off with making some "cauliflour" as I like to call it. Take the raw florets and pulse a few times in a food processor to get a sandy, couscous like consistency. You might have to do this in batches depending on the processor you have. Next, take a 12x18 sheet pan lined with parchment, and spread the processed cauliflower out. Bake this on the middle rack at 350 deg F until it's reduced to about 1/4 of the weight (6oz or so). It will start to brown, so give it a turn to get it all kinda brown. Also , it will start to get puffy and light, this is what you want.
Remove from the oven, leave it to cool on the sheet.  Set the oven to 450 deg F. After the cauliflower has  cooled off (stopped steaming and you can touch it without going "ouch!") , mix in a bowl with the cheese and eggs. Mix together; it should be wet and sticky at this point. Start adding in the almond flour while mixing to thicken. It should take the entire 2.5 oz, but I like to play it safe, as it's always easier to add more. Now you should have this nice clump of "dough" that sticks to itself and isn't interested in sticking to the bowl. 
Put a fresh sheet of parchment in your sheet pan. Spread the  mixture out so it fills the width of the pan; it will be about 1/4" thick. Put in the oven  and bake until it's golden brown/slightly darker. Remember we're going to bake it again with the toppings, so we want it just firm enough to handle the toppings.
After browning, remove from the oven, and carefully slide the parchment out. (it can't handle the heat for the next step) and put your toppings on it. Before you go crazy with toppings, turn the oven to 500 deg F and move the rack to the top position( I think I set it to 550 but I'm crazy like that). Use whatever your favorite toppings are(I used spicy Italian sausage, caramelized onions, mozzarella and homemade tomato sauce)

  If you're going to use a tomato based sauce, I'd recommend reducing it slightly to thicken it(keeps the pizza from getting soggy). After putting all that goodness on it, put it back in the oven on the top rack until the cheese is melted and brown. So about 5-8 min.

Remove from the oven and slide onto a cutting board.  Slice it up and enjoy.

Memory Reaper

So a few weeks ago, ok, March, my friend says to me "Dr. Dan, can you fix a broken USB stick?" ,  as he shows me the pieces. "Well, I can try to get the data" I skeptically reply.   First, I had to identify what was broken. At first glance it looks like a mess to the naked eye, but under a microscope it was much worse. There's actually a component or two missing, this lowered my hopes of being able to recover the data. At any rate, I was determined to at least give it the college try as they say. First, we had to identify the connections that would be necessary to fix. It was actualy pretty straightforward. On a USB connector, the outside contacts are the power, and the inside two are the com lines. The power connections were easy to spot on the board, but there were traces missing for the comm lines. Soldering straight to the  micro was the only hope of success.

My thumb isn't that big...

Next we soldered a couple more #30 wires to the power connections...

Power connections, easy.

Finally, we were ready for a try at getting the data off of it.. 

Hacked up an old USB cable I had laying around and just twisted the wires onto the flying leads from the USB stick. After plugging it in to my old computer(just in case something bad happened) it popped right up and I was able to get the data from it.

Disguises

Skewers undercover.

Stawblems

I drew this today.

Ban Everything

The tragedy that happened last Friday is difficult to ignore. My feelings go out to the families that lost loved ones. It is an incident that never should have happened.
Here's some things that really, really irk me about the whole thing though. Why does the government have to go after the things that happen the least? Is it somehow acceptable that it's OK to lose human life to other reasons than guns? I mean come on people, if the intent is really to preserve human life, lets not let the facts get in the way.
According the NVSS Volume 61, Number 6, we could have prevented 19,766 suicides committed by firearms if we banned all firearms. Also this would have prevented 11,101 deaths by assault with firearms. Now let me ask, maybe what we should ban is diabetes? with it's 73,282 lives taken in 2011. Or if you really want to do some saving, ban heart disease and you could save 596,339 lives. Hell, what we should do is start off small and get rid of alcohol, it created death-causing liver disease in 16,634 people last year. Alcohol is a bad start, lets really get to the root of the problem, people falling down and getting hurt; where 26,631 people accidentally fell and succumbed to injuries from hitting the ground. Fuck, lets ban gravity, then those people wouldn't have fallen down...