My wife Megan has been trying out many new recipes from the site Allrecipes.com lately, and pretty much all of them have been absolute hits. Megan's favorite is a pork chop recipe that cooks the chops in a raspberry honey sauce with diced up pecans. At first the combination sounded like it could be disastrous but it really does work out. There's just enough sweetness to offset the meaty pork flavor and the crunch of the pecans adds a little something to make it a stellar dish.
The previously mentioned rum cake was made last night for our weekly gaming session. Megan added nuts to the bottom of the bundt cake pan so that the cake would have a pretty and decorative top when it came out of the oven. The recipe said to not use Captain Morgan as it would be too strong, but we like our Captain Morgan Tatoo so we went with it anyway, and it was just the perfect amount of rum flavor. Although the alcohol gets cooked out of the cake, the glaze uses a lot of the rum and doesn't get cooked, so you could theoretically get a little buzzed if you ate enough of it.
Another recipe of note that sounded a bit odd to begin with was the turkey burgers that had chipotle peppers and adobe sauce added directly into the meat before forming them into patties. These are magnificent and you don't even think about the fact that it's turkey instead of beef because of how flavorful they are. The recipe called for only a single pepper and a small amount of the sauce, but we bought a whole can of them so Megan threw the whole thing in. It was pretty spicy, but nothing too out of control and adding mayo or mustard really calmed it down.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
June Musical Releases
I guess it's a little late as today is the first day of July, but there were a couple of notable June musical releases that I didn't want to skip over.
First and foremost was the new Opeth album "Watershed". Talk about unexpected! This is probably even more of a radical departure for them than their "Damnation" album which was entirely mellow with no growling. There is a much heavier emphasis on the prog rock feel than in previous albums, and the nature of the lyrics has changed pretty radically. The album also marks the first time Opeth has thrown in female vocals, although they only take place on the first song. Even though it's very different than the Opeth of old I'll still have to recommend it to everyone who likes any style of music. I wrote a full review of the album on Metalunderground.com if anyone is interested in reading it.
The other major release of the month was the new Moonspell album "Night Eternal". It's in the running for their best album ever, with plenty of heavy and oppressive stuff and a good deal of catchy material as well. Although Moonspell has utilized female vocals on several previous albums, this is the first time that vocalist Fernando has done a duet with a woman, and it sounds great! The duet areas sound a lot like Tristania, so anyone who liked that band will probably love this album.
Hopefully the "July Musical Releases" post will come in a more timely fashion!
First and foremost was the new Opeth album "Watershed". Talk about unexpected! This is probably even more of a radical departure for them than their "Damnation" album which was entirely mellow with no growling. There is a much heavier emphasis on the prog rock feel than in previous albums, and the nature of the lyrics has changed pretty radically. The album also marks the first time Opeth has thrown in female vocals, although they only take place on the first song. Even though it's very different than the Opeth of old I'll still have to recommend it to everyone who likes any style of music. I wrote a full review of the album on Metalunderground.com if anyone is interested in reading it.
The other major release of the month was the new Moonspell album "Night Eternal". It's in the running for their best album ever, with plenty of heavy and oppressive stuff and a good deal of catchy material as well. Although Moonspell has utilized female vocals on several previous albums, this is the first time that vocalist Fernando has done a duet with a woman, and it sounds great! The duet areas sound a lot like Tristania, so anyone who liked that band will probably love this album.
Hopefully the "July Musical Releases" post will come in a more timely fashion!
Early Futurama
I picked up the new full length Futurama movies "Bender's Big Score" and "The Beast With a Billion Backs" the other day, and as I sat down to watch them I discovered to my horror that my brother-in-law Matt knew next to nothing about the show and had only seen an episode or two. We decided this needed to be rectified so we went out and got the first season on DVD so he could watch the early episodes and get a good grasp of the various story lines and what was going on with the main characters.
While watching the first season I realized that the first few episodes really are like Simpson's clones. There are frequently characters, voices, and situations that look like they should have been occurring in any given episode of the Simpson's. There's a guy talking in a stereotypical Indian accent, a jerk who says things very similar to the Nelson character, and random storyline arcs that wouldn't at all be out of place in an episode of that long running show. I guess that prob ably shouldn't be such a surprise considering the show was created by Matt Groening, but I'm just glad it managed to distinguish itself apart from the Simpson's and even overtake them and become the funnier show.
The voice actor's really hadn't gotten their craft nailed down yet in the early episodes either, especially the voices of Bender and the Professor. They are both delivered in a rather lackluster manner with none of the emotion and grandiose that would become typical of those characters later on in the series.
Futurama really hits it's stride at the fourth episode, "Love's Labours Lost in Space". Even though the voices problem hadn't been entirely resolved yet, this episode is rife with the zany antics the show becomes famous for and Fry gets to deliver some of his best lines in the series. My favorite moment is when they are being held in a jail cell and Fry says "Why don't you open that steam pipe Bender so we can escape?", and then when it's opened and the room fills with hot steam he shouts "No good, it's full of steam!"
While watching the first season I realized that the first few episodes really are like Simpson's clones. There are frequently characters, voices, and situations that look like they should have been occurring in any given episode of the Simpson's. There's a guy talking in a stereotypical Indian accent, a jerk who says things very similar to the Nelson character, and random storyline arcs that wouldn't at all be out of place in an episode of that long running show. I guess that prob ably shouldn't be such a surprise considering the show was created by Matt Groening, but I'm just glad it managed to distinguish itself apart from the Simpson's and even overtake them and become the funnier show.
The voice actor's really hadn't gotten their craft nailed down yet in the early episodes either, especially the voices of Bender and the Professor. They are both delivered in a rather lackluster manner with none of the emotion and grandiose that would become typical of those characters later on in the series.
Futurama really hits it's stride at the fourth episode, "Love's Labours Lost in Space". Even though the voices problem hadn't been entirely resolved yet, this episode is rife with the zany antics the show becomes famous for and Fry gets to deliver some of his best lines in the series. My favorite moment is when they are being held in a jail cell and Fry says "Why don't you open that steam pipe Bender so we can escape?", and then when it's opened and the room fills with hot steam he shouts "No good, it's full of steam!"
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