Friday, October 21, 2011

friday fixations


{sonya tayeh's geisha girl routine} I am unnaturally obsessed with this dance and song. I know, I know. So You Think You Can Dance ended ages ago, BUT I just finished watching the finale a couple weeks ago (2 hours is too long to watch back-to-back) and STILL this song will creep into my head. It's definitely one of my favourite routines of all time, along with this one (I think I've watched it, oh, about a 100 times).

{bacon and tzatziki} This came about completely by accident. An accidental, delicious pre-Thanksgiving snack. Mom was making bacon for breakfast and some extra for adding to roasted vegetables, and I was making tzatziki. (Because no Thanksgiving is complete without it, right?) I put the tzatziki back into the yogurt container (as I always do) and (as I always do) I had a little bit leftover. So we're eating crispy bacon... the tzatziki was right there... so we started dipping it, and OMG it was like eating a little bit of heaven. Now. This isn't something I'd go around eating every month. And (honestly) it's probably not going to happen again in a million years. BUT if I were to suddenly crave chips and dip, I think I would much rather have bacon and tzatziki instead. Just saying.

{apple tv} Another side-effect of Thanksgiving. Man, that holiday really brings out the worst in us, right? Well, we initially went to purchase a cable that would connect the iPad to the tv so we could all watch a nice movie on Netflix. That trip resulted in Apple TV because 1) Idle Husband overheard one of the blue shirts selling it to a customer and I guess it sounded pretty good; and 2) apparently, for not that much more than the price of a cable, we could have a lot more features and it's still super small and portable. It's been pretty great so far and it's made us realize that Netflix was only sucking because of the Playstation not the internet. (Also it's made mom want to get rid of her cable. Sorry, cable guys.)

{popcorn} After years of eating air-popped popcorn, something wrong started to happen. My popcorn wasn't popping. Half of it would be left inside the popper and the rest of the kernels would hide out in what little did pop posing serious tooth hazards. I figured something was wrong with the popper, so I got rid of it. I'd never popped corn on the stove top but I was willing to try, so I attempted Alton Brown's popcorn method. It seemed fairly easy and straightforward at first, but after popping one bowl, I thought there had to be a better way. It's surprisingly way too much work plus it burnt up my metal mixing bowl (those aren't designed to hang out on a high temperature burner and I have no idea how else to heat up the oil, Alton). A few days later, I was making pasta and it hit me. It was genius almost! The pasta pot was perfect for popcorn! This is the exact pot we have (Idle Husband came with it!). It's got high sides, it's nonstick, has a locking lid, and it even has steam holes (you know, the drainage holes)! And now I'm completely addicted to popcorn. I splash a bit of oil in the bottom (which heats up almost instantly), add in some salt, and Idle Husband does the popping (which takes less than 3 minutes). Then, magically, out comes light, fluffy, tasty, perfectly salted popcorn (it's so much tastier than air-popped, too. No more dry flavourless popcorn) and there's absolutely no need to add extra butter! Although, I do love shaking on some parmesan cheese (love love). I've been having it for dinner on Saturdays.

{paint it black} (almost) Everything is getting a coat of black paint in this house and I love it. (And I should be listening to this while doing it.)

2 comments:

Laeli said...

I loved that routine. Their strong dancer's legs are so appealing too.

I make my popcorn in my stock pot.
I like your idea of adding salt to the oil. I'm going to do that next time!

GALaxy said...

Lael: I know. I love their legs, too. I always stare at them during every dance.

The salt in the oil totally works, but don't try sugar! That one will definitely bite you. Also do not put lemon juice in there either. I'm working on stuff! :D