Jenn Boo-lari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

"Alright, boys, get your guns ready. The pumpkin heist is GO!"

I love Halloween. All the wierd candies come out of hiding.

Too big to be a slider. Too small to be a burger. Yeast roll as the bun!

Well, if I'm going to be out more, I should, well, be out more.

It's the Yellow Card fairy! She gives Yellow Cards to naughty soccer players.

Scientific notation like this actually confuses the hell out of my mathematically incapable brain. At least in long form, I have coping strategies.

I have no idea what 6.8x10^9 translates to. But 6,800,000,000 I know as 6 billion 800 million cause I can count the commas.

While I wished we could have moved from Jodie directly into Ncuti (or, frankly, just stayed with Jodie), I am glad to see Donna back with David Tennant. She's my fave companion of the new series, and those two were just amazing.

Thoughts Before Bed

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal: Lime Marinated Shrimp

Can't really recommend this one. It tastes really good, sure. But so much of the food ends up dumped out that it feels super wasteful. But still, if you want to make it, here's the recipe:

# Lime Marinated Shrimp

Celebrity Chefs Across America

1.0 whole shallot (minced)
2.0 cloves garlic (minced)
2.0 whole serrano chiles (stemmed) (seeded) (finely chopped)
4.0 whole scallions (thinly sliced)
0.5 cup cilantro (chopped)
0.5 cup parsley (chopped)
2.0 tbsp honey
0.5 cup water
0.25 teaspoon pepper
1.0 cup lime juice
0.25 tsp salt
0.5 cup olive oil
1.0 pound shrimp (peeled) (deveined)

1 - Place shrimp in a small bowl and refrigerate.
2 - Combine shallot, garlic, chiles, scallions, cilantro, parsley, honey, water and pepper in a medium mixing bowl.
3 - In a medium bowl, combine the lime juice and salt.
4 - Slowly whisk the olive oil into the lime juice/salt mixture.
5 - Add the lime mixture to the other ingredients.
6 - Pour marinade over shrimp and refrigerate for 1 hour before grilling.
7 - Light the grill.
8 - Remove the shrimp from the refridgerator and drain for five minutes before grilling.
9 - Thread 5 to 6 shrimp on wooden or metal kebab sticks.
10 - Make sure the grill is clean and hot.
11 - Place shrimp on the grill and cook approximately 2 to 3 minutes on each side.
12 - Serve immediately.

#cooking #thisweeksmeals

This Week's Bread: School Cafeteria Yeast Rolls (Third Try's the Charm)

I finally nailed down what I was getting wrong and it was a lot:

Scaling down to 15g carbs per roll was too small, and left me with yeast pebbles.

I've been activating my yeast in 95 degree water. That's great for some yeast, but I'm using Active Dry Yeast. I didn't realize there was a difference and that active dry yeast needed to be activated at 105 degrees. And boy did it activate. Hopefully this will translate to my constantly dense struan bread.

Finally, I let the dough rise in a warm oven each time and oh, boy, did it rise.

But finally, school cafeteria rolls like I remember!

# School Cafeteria Yeast Rolls

Plain Chicken
24 rolls

2.5 Tbsp yeast
0.75 cup warm water
6.5 cups bread flour
11.0 Tbsp instant non-fat dry milk powder
6.5 Tbsp sugar
1.0 Tbsp salt
6.5 Tbsp vegetable oil
1.25 cups water

1 - In a small bowl, combine yeast and warm water. Set aside.
2 - In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, combine flour, sugar, salt, and dry milk powder.
3 - Add vegetable oil and water. Mix on low for 3 minutes.
4 - Add yeast mixture and knead on medium speed for 8 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
5 - Loosely cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm spot until double in size, about 45 minutes.
6 - Punch dough down.
7 - Lightly spray a 9×13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
8 - Divide the dough into balls and place in the prepared baking dish.
9 - Loosely cover the dish and let the dough rise in a warm spot until double in size, about 30 minutes.
10 - Preheat oven to 400ºF.
11 - Bake rolls for 15 to 20 minutes.
12 - Brush baked rolls with melted butter and enjoy!

#thisweeksmeals #baking #cooking

They're perfect. I did it! Another childhood fave recreated! 😃

I THINK THIS IS IT, Y'ALL! The tops look perfectly brown, the sides are perfectly crumbly, and even the bottoms look perfectly toasted. We might have finally got the yeast rolls down!

I'm not even upset that I burned my fingers by grabbing the 190 degree glass sides of the pan with my bare fingers!

Oh. Oh my. They rose! THEY ROSE! We might have a winning set of yeast rolls, folks!

A little something for Star Trek day.

During the heyday of Star Trek Fan Productions, I considered doing a webcomic called "Star Trek: Redskirts."

The idea was that there were an elite team of women Starfleet Marines (based from the team sent down in the TAS episode, The Lorelei Signal), who had absolutely nothing to do because Starfleet missions tend to be peaceful. Idle hands are the devil's playthings.

It would also explain Chekov's absence in TAS as he joined to the group to get a start on his security career which is where we see him in ST:TMP. No gender change for Chekov (at least not past the first episode), but he was in the red minidress because the Redskirts were proud of...well...their red skirts.

I'd started work on the first episode, and since it was going to be a love letter to TAS, I'd started work on making some high resolution plates of Filmation backgrounds to use in the comic. Then Paramount came down on Fan Productions and given that I remember how Paramount came down on Star Trekker in the 90s I kind of abandonned it.

It wasn't all for naught, though. I recycled some ideas in the Lower Decks spec script I wrote a year or two back. Which was at least something nice to do on a weekend.

A little secret about Madison (the blonde on the left). She was originally going to be written as trans. Not in the closet, but not really outting herself. Why? Doesn't really matter in the future. The only clues that she would be trans is a certain amusement at Chekov being self-conscious of the uniform on the team.

I dunno what's going on with the local grocery store sushi (don't judge, it scratches the itch), but they're now PILING on the rice. Like triple the amount of rice as usual.
They haven't raised the price, or shrunk the fish....they just...put it on a wall of rice.

Silly Jenn Fact: I got an early copy of Half-Life back in the day as a gaming company I was afiliated with was asked to make some deathmatch levels for World Opponent Network ready for Day One.

Nothing I made was used in our levels, but I spent a LOT of time in 1998 in the game, testing Deathmatch levels, playing the main game, and dabbling in level creation (I was hired mostly to write documentation and make the occasional graphic).

To this day, if I want to relive the late 90s, I'll fire it up and play a few levels.

I rarely go into Redmond. Even rarer when I go into downtown Seattle. Gotta make the most of it.

Victory Before Bed: Got all my Steam games working in Linux! Even that pesky Mortal Kombat Kollection....

Taking the English soundtrack from an old bootleg episode of Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, and overlaying it on my French DVDs to get a nice looking if occasionally choppy English Dub.

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal: Honey Glazed Spareribs

This recipe is supposed to be from the Basque region, but I had to make a few substituions, so I don't know if that counts anymore. Try finding sherry vinegar and piment d'espolette out here in the valley....

Still good though. :9

# Honey-Glazed Spareribs

The Basque Kitchen
6.0 servings

4.0 pounds pork spareribs
kosher salt
0.75 cup honey
1.0 tsp smoked paprika (or piment d'espolette)
2.0 tsp rice wine vinegar (or sherry vinegar)
3.0 cloves garlic (minced)
1.0 tbsp black peppercorns (crushed)
1.0 tbsp corriander seed (crushed)

1 - Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F
2 - Line a large sheet pan with aluminum foil and lay the rack of ribs on top.
3 - Season both sides of the meat with salt.
4 - To prepare the glaze, combine the honey, smoked paprika, rice vinegar, garlic, peppercorns and corriander seeds in a small bowl. Mix together well.
5 - Slather the glaze over both sides of the meat and place the ribs into the oven to cook for 45 minutes, basting continuously.
6 - Turn the slab over and increase the heat to 425 degrees F.
7 - Cook for another 30 minutes, basting once or twice more, until the meat is cooked through and the glaze is dark brown.

#thisweeksmeals #cooking