Author: Shane

Best. Broccoli. Ever.

/ Shane / Leave a comment

The first Friday of the month is reserved for recipes. You can see additional First Friday Food posts here.

The Reason:

I’m not sure how Sara happened on this recipe to begin with, but it’s definitely THE way to prepare broccoli. The first time we made it, it almost got eaten before even landing on the table. There are never any leftovers.

The Journey:

This has been a slowly evolving recipe.

The original recipe was just for the broccoli, which was amazing enough, and we couldn’t get enough of it. However, we don’t really eat a lot of side dishes on a regular basis. On an average night I’m willing to put some effort in on an amazing main dish, but I don’t have the energy left over to put work into sides as well. Maybe some reheated corn and that’s about it.

broccoli

However, one day Sara sort of smashed it into a pasta recipe and it really became one of our go-to meals. Just the broccoli as-is with pasta is awesome enough, but then you throw in some roasted walnuts and crushed red pepper (which kind of goes with everything, no?) and you’ve got something *amazing*. Plus the walnuts give it a little more staying power.

spicy broccoli

 

The broccoli is best when it has little blackened spots on it. It’s not burned, I promise! Also, go with the fresh shredded parmesan. For some reason, on this recipe in particular, it really makes a world of difference.

roasting broccoli

The Verdict:

Honestly, it’s hard to get something this delicious that is healthier than this. What more could you ask for? If you can manage to fend off the savages long enough, it’s great as a left-over as well.

healthy pasta

The Recipe:

As a meal:

Recipe inspired by Real Simple.

  • 1 package whole wheat pasta (we usually use spirals)
  • 2 bunches of broccoli
  • 2/3 cup walnuts
  • 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
  • 2 to 3 Tablespoons of butter (to taste)
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
  1. Preheat the oven to 400
  2. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the cooking liquid. Drain the pasta and return it to the pot.
  3. Meanwhile, on 2 rimmed baking sheets, toss the broccoli, walnuts, oil, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
  4. Roast until the broccoli is tender and slightly browned, 20 – 25 minutes
  5. Toss the pasta with the broccoli mixture, butter, and 1/2 cup of the reserved pasta water
  6. Sprinkle with the parmesan & lemon juice before serving

As a side dish:

Recipe from Farmish Mama.

  • 2 bunches of broccoli
  • 3 or 4 cloves of garlic
  • ~1 tablespoon of lemon juice (about half a lemon, lightly squeezed)
  • Freshly grated parmesan cheese
  1. Preheat the oven to 425
  2. Cut broccoli into bite-sized florets
  3. Slice garlic and toss in a bowl with the broccoli
  4. Toss the broccoli and sliced garlic with the olive oil and season with salt
  5. Spread it all out on a baking tray making sure they aren’t touching and let it roast 20 – 25 minutes or until you get lots of nice brown roasty spots
  6. Take it out of the oven and squeeze a lemon all over the broccoli and grate some good quality, fresh parmesan cheese all over it

Paralyzed by choice

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I recently was in the market for a new bluetooth headset, so I hit all the usual places: Amazon, CNET, google searches, blog reviews, etc. I was having a really difficult time finding one that I liked. I went through dozens of links, but no matter how many products I reviewed, there never seemed to be a clear-cut winner. This one has better sound quality, but this one fits better. This one is cheaper, but this one lasts longer. This one has poor customer service, is lacking in volume, and doesn’t even support in-app purchases. WHAT WILL I DO WITHOUT IN-APP PURCHASES??

I would see entries with 5000 reviews, 600 of them negative. Of course I discounted the stupid reviews, but even excluding those, there were hundreds of people who had experienced problems with these products. I am not exactly going to be a “power user” of this device, but who wants to drop money on a bluetooth headset only to discover that it’s a piece of junk? Who wants to buy the wrong thing, when a quick stroll through the reviews could have saved them the trouble?

So I hemmed and hawed, and ended up buying nothing. Nothing seemed worth buying. There were just too many negative reviews.

Once upon a time, I used to walk in to Best Buy, see what they had, pick one, and was happy. Without consulting the reviews, the vast majority of my purchases were by and large positive ones. I was ignorant, but happy.

These days I’m just overwhelmed by information. I am a researcher by nature, and when there is information out there for me to find, I hate to not know it. But now there’s so much information out there, I literally can’t know it all. Instead I find myself spending more and more time researching, and less and less time actually enjoying the item.

Forget about impulse buys; I think I can find it cheaper online. Don’t just walk into any old restaurant; it doesn’t have good reviews on Yelp. We have 10 minutes to kill, let me see what the local attractions are.

The thing is, it feels like a good thing. We have more choices, and more information, and that’s better right? Power to the consumer! But increasingly I’m finding that it also comes along with more stress. It used to be, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” I was happy with my purchase because I *didn’t* know I could get it cheaper across town and anyway alpha_dude_777 thought the workmanship was sub-standard. I just had a thing, and it was fine. Now I have to constantly second guess every decision. “Well now, hold on, let’s not be too hasty: let’s just see which option gets more likes on Facebook.”

I have to find a way to shut my brain off. Let sleeping dogs lie. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

Less information, less choice. Less stress. More happiness.

By God, They Hatched!

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Remember last summer, when Evie was obsessed with a couple of caterpillars she caught in the garden?

She had been catching butterflies all summer, but they mostly just fanned their wings a lot and then died. It wasn’t until she got the caterpillars when things really got interesting. Instead of just sitting there, they would crawl around and actually do things (by which I mean, poop. Oh boy, the hours that we’d while away, just watching those caterpillars poop!). Evie had to actually take care of them like pets; cleaning the cage, collecting fresh food for them to eat, etc.

Despite all of her hard work, I never expected them to form chrysalises. It was like a science project just magically appeared before our eyes. Totally rewarded all the work she put into it.

You can imagine our disappointment when we learned they wouldn’t emerge until next spring. It seemed impossible that we could keep these things healthy and hearty through an entire winter. Since they’re used to wintering outdoors, we had to keep them outdoors, which meant Evie’s little bug box has been sitting on our back porch this entire time. It’s been periodically buried in snow, kicked, flooded with rainwater, squeezed by a 3 year old, upended, kicked, frozen by -30 degree windchills, squeezed by a 4 year old, kicked, put back together upside down…just about anything that could happen to these chrysalises, did happen to them.

There was absolutely NO. WAY. any living thing could have survived it.

Eastern Black Swallowtail

We were so absolutely sure these things were dead 5 times over. After spring came and went, we had finally convinced Evie that it wasn’t happening. However, we just kind of left them sitting out there; they had been there so long, they are just part of the scenery these days.

9 months she cared for those things, shepherding them through their entire life cycle. And we were there to watch it take it’s first, tentative flight.

Be free, you beautiful Eastern Black Swallowtail! Be free and have babies of your own, so that generation upon generation of future Swallowtails can be captured and summarily starved to death and dumped on our back porch by the most vicious predator known to butterflies.

2014_05_31_9999_7

“Copy Machine” live at Flash Fiction Online

/ Shane / 4 Comments

My story “Copy Machine” is now available in the June issue of Flash Fiction Online.

And there’s art! I think that’s the first time someone has done art for one of my stories. Author achievement unlocked!

I’m quite happy with this story. I had just finished reading the excellent “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” (which has since won a Nebula) and I thought, “Why don’t stories like this ever have a happy ending?” So I sat down and wrote this in a sitting, and I’m very happy with how it came out. It doesn’t bear much resemblance to the inspiration, other than the 2nd person.

I encourage you to go take a look, however, be aware: in Flash Fiction Online land, stories look back at you!

 

Quote Monday is all about bodily functions

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Me: “You frowed up, or you throwed up?”
Ollie: “I puked.”

Ollie: “Cat poop looks like truffles.”

Me: “Why is Ollie so obsessed with the sewer?”
Sara: “It’s the perfect intersection of potty talk and how things work, so it’s perfect for him.”

Potty talk and construction are definitely his two favorite things in the world.

::The lights flickered for a minute::
Ollie, running into the room: “I did something!”

Luckily, it was neither mischief, nor manifesting superpowers, just shakey electricity.