Miscellaneous Ramblings

So tonight, adventures in vermouth continued with the 007 Vesper, which was ok and a ‘Perfect Manhattan’. Sadly the only bourbon around the house is Elijah Craig which is a bit strong for a Manhattan, also I was out of maraschino cherry’s so the garnish was missing. I’ve come to realize that especially with traditional cocktails the garnish is probably the most important ingredient. It makes the drink in a way the ingredients do not. I didn’t love the Vesper but I’m glad I tried it. Gin just offends my palate in a way no other liquor does.

I also found this today. Led Zeppelin and STP would be an awesome show, one that I would certainly attend if it was remotely close. T would love it as well as she’s bigger into Zep than I ever am or was. We’ll see if it ever comes true. It would be amazing to see them live.

Ramblings

At the recent nuptials of the Lovely Miss Molly and Sir John, I had the opportunity to rediscover one of my old favorites. Vodka Martini, sweet, with a twist. Since that weekend I’ve been craving them like mad. So today after a long and especially frustrating day of work, I made a quick stop at the liquor store and picked up some Grey Goose (my vodka of choice) and vermouth. After a couple of tries (isn’t experimenting with liquor enjoyable) I’ve recreated the mix to perfection.

2 shots Grey Goose Vodka
2 shots Sweet Vermouth
long thin twist of lemon

pour liquids over ice… shake vigorously… pour into a chilled martini glass.
Rub the lemon peel around the edge of the glass (very important) twist and drop in.

Since I’m going magnanimously claim that I invented this variation (which I probably didn’t) and because I drank many of them at Molly’s Father’s expense. I’m going to name it The Haining in his honor.

Ramblings

So as you’ve probably noticed miscellaneous.net has undergone some changes. For a very long time I was running this site (and my mail, etc) off of an old pc under my desk in my office using dyndns (and the fact that Time Warner almost never changes your lease). Well that old compaq (yes I know) finally died and rather than buy something new or salvage slightly newer hardware from work or some other place I decided (upon recommendation from john) to buy a VPS from slicehost.com. I’ve been pretty impressed so far. It took about 10 minutes to request, pay and setup my VPS. It’s Centos 5.1, which is fine I guess. I feel a little dirty using centos given my employment but fedora is too much of a moving target for me right now.

So I have a nice new server and I’ve migrated most everything as well. I updated to the latest wordpress and decided to find a new theme. I’m pretty happy with things as they are now, though I’d like to figure out why I have 2 meta blocks at the bottom of the page. Not sure where the second one is coming from.

Ramblings

So I’ve really let miscnet linger without much of an update for way too long. Alot of it has been that I’ve been busy. Really busy. The month of March had me traveling every single weekend except Easter. Florida for John’s bachelor party, Toronto with Dad for an all hockey weekend, then Kentucky for the Bowling Green Amateur Championships (which were a huge letdown this year). Plus there’s this whole Dad thing that I’m doing now that is really cool, but takes a lot of time.
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Ramblings

Rico’s Red Beans and Rice

OK - here’s a stab at the recipe. I usually use a big crock pot, or the
big green pot

5-6 cans of red beans 15-16oz? (or a few of the big ones)
1-2 cans 15oz of diced tomatoes (can get them with garlic and onion)
1 medium vidalia (or other sweet yellow) onion, chopped up
1 green pepper
1 red pepper (chop both up good)
a few cloves of garlic, crushed
Salt & pepper
Thyme (wish I could give a measure, but I usually do it to taste)
couple of Bay leaves
I usually throw in some Tony Chacharies (sp?) spices as well.

Put all the onion, pepper, and garlic in a pan with a little oil, cook
it till the onion starts to turn clear.

Toss that in a pot with the beans. A crock-pot will have to cook a
couple hours longer than just on the stove in a big pot. Basically cook
it till the beans start to soften up.

A couple pounds of good sausage. There is a brand name (that I can’t
recall at the moment) that Winn-Dixie carries here that is cajun spiced.
If you can find Andoullie (sp?) sausage, it’s good stuff. Otherwise, I
just get regular smoked sausuage. I usually cut medallions and pan fry
them till they’re browned on both sides. Drop them in the beans when the
beans are getting soft, cook another 30 min.

If you start with dried beans, you’ll have to follow the directions.
Wash, soak overnight, etc. Canned beans are much easier.

Cook up enough rice for however many people you want to serve. For 6
cans of beans, I think I usually do about 6 cups of rice.

You want to keep the beans somewhat bland, then have Lousiana hot sauce,
Tony Chacharies, etc for people to spice it up to their tastes.

Good luck!

Ramblings