Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

This whole crazy journey began almost two years ago when I chased off someone from stealing a pride flag from a local business.

Today it feels like the end of that chapter. But the book has taken an interesting turn.

So it turns out the missing ingredients were in the dipping sauce and not the nuggets, so I just added them proportionally and...

THIS WEEK'S FANCY PANTS MEAL: Karaage

Japanese chicken nuggets are the best chicken nuggets. And frankly, if I ever want to make chickie nuggies, this is the recipe I'm going to. Despite all the sauces going into the marinade, the nuggets have a very mild flavor, and the potato starch with double fry makes for a super crispy chickie nuggie.

The dipping sauce is...hoo boy. I'd probably pull back on the amount of wasabi unless you enjoy having your sinuses flushed out. I do, but this is even a bit much for me.

Absolutely a make-again meal. Maybe try a different dipping sauce if wasabi isn't your thing.

# Karaage
Street Fighter: The Official Street Food Cookbook

0.25 cup Japanese mayonnaise
2.0 tbsp prepared wasabi
1.0 tsp black pepper [wasabi mayo sauce]
1.0 tbsp tonkatsu sauce
2.0 tsp rice vinegar
0.3333333333333333 cup soy sauce
3.0 tbsp sake
8.0 cloves garlic (grated)
8.0 grams ginger (peeled) (grated)
1.0 tsp sugar
0.5 tsp salt
1.0 tsp black pepper [karaage]
2.0 pounds chicken thigh (boneless) (skinless) (cut into bite sized pieces)
1.0 cup potato starch
1.0 tsp ground ginger
peanut oil
1.0 lemon slice

Dipping Sauce:
1 - Combine the mayonnaise, wasabi, black pepper, tonkatsu sauce and rice vinegar in an airtight container. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Karaage:
1 - Combine the soy sauce, sake, garlic, ginger, sugar, salt and pepper in a large sealable bag.
2 - Toss in the chicken thighs and mix together until fully coated. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or up to 8 hours.
3 - After the chicken has marinated, combine the potato starch and ground ginger in a small bowl.
4 - Fill a deep heavy pot with 1 1/2 inches of peanut oil, and heat to 325°F (165°C) over medium-high heat.
5 - Transfer the marinated chicken into a large bowl.
6 - Drain as much excess liquid as you can, at leasttfo the point that it isn't soaking.
7 - Add the potatoe starch mixture, and mix until all the chicken is covered. It will become pasty and look a bit patchy.
8 - Once the oil has reached the desired temperature, carefully place a few pieces of chicken in the oil, making sure to not overcrowd the pot.
9 - Fry for the 90 seconds.
10 - Transfer to a plate covered with paper towels. Repeat in batches with the remaining chicken.
11 - After all the pieces have been cooked once, increase the oil temperature to 350°F (180°C).
12 - Refry all the pieces of chicken in batches for 60 seconds.
13 - Transfer to a plate covered with paper towels. The second T extra crispy! Serve with lemon slices and the dipping sauce on the side.

Yields 4 servings at 37.5g carbs per serving.
Calories 670
Total Fat 37g
Total Carbohydrate 33g
Protein 41g

#thisweeksmeals #cooking

This Week's Bread: Japanese Milk Bread

When it comes from a bakery, I love this bread. SUPER soft, mildly sweet.

This version is not as soft, but still super soft, and that may be because I might have overcooked the tangzhong, which is a kind of "dough conditioner." Still, it softened the bread wonderfully. I was also surprised to see there was cinnamon and cardamom in this, which gives a nice flavor on top of the sweetness.

# Japanese Milk Bread

Street Fighter: The Official Street Food Cookbook

2.0 tbsp bread flour [tangzhong]
0.5 cup milk [tangzhong]
1.0 tbsp active dry yeast
0.75 cup milk (warm) [dough]
1.0 tsp salt
1.0 tsp ground cardamom
0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
0.3333333333333333 cup sugar
1.0 whole egg (room temperature) [dough]
0.25 cup unsalted butter (softened)
nonstick spray
1.0 whole egg [eggwash]
2.0 tbsp milk [eggwash]
2.75 cup bread flour [dough]

Tangzhong:
1 - Combine bread flour and milk in a small saucepan over medium-high heat.
2 - Whisk until it comes together, about 1 minute. Set aside to cool.

Dough:
3 - Combine yeast and milk in a small bowl, and let rest for 5 minutes, allowing the yeast to become active and frothy.
4 - In a large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough-hook attachment, combine the bread flour, salt, cardamom, cinnamon, and sugar.
5 - Add the tangzhong, yeast mixture, and egg to the bowl, and mix until it just comes together.
6 - While the dough begins to form, add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time.
7 - Knead the dough for 5 minutes. If the dough is too sticky, add 1 tablespoon (8 g) of flour at a time. If it is too dry, add 1 tablespoon of milk at a time.
8 - Lightly oil a large bowl with a neutral oil or nonstick spray. Transfer the dough to the oiled bowl, cover, and let rest in a warm location for 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.
9 - Punch down the dough, and knead for a few minutes.
10 - Divide the dough into 3 equal portions.
11 - Grease a deep loaf pan or other deep bread-baking pan.
12 - Take one of the portions and roll the dough out into a long rectangle. Make sure the width of the rolled-out portion is not wider than the baking dish you are using.
13 - Starting from a short end of the rectangle, carefully roll up the dough. Place in the prepared baking pan, seam-side down. Repeat with the other portions.
14 - Cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise again at room temperature for 30 minutes or until it doubles in size.
15 - Preheat an oven to 350°F

Egg Wash:
16 - In a small bowl, whisk the egg and milk to combine.
17 - Remove the plastic wrap from the baking pan, and brush the top of the bread with the egg wash.

Dough:
18 - Bake 30 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.

Makes 1 loaf of 10 slices at 37.5g per slice.

Calories 246
Total Fat 2g
Total Carbohydrates 37g
Protein 7g

#thisweeksmeals #baking #cooking

Usually on May the 4th I watch the original trilogy (de-specialized) and two of the prequels (in Machete order) but the last few days have been busy busy busy.

Let's fix that now....

It's May the 4th and you know what that means!

There's a saying in the LGBT community that "It gets better." Sometimes, you have to be one of the ones who makes it better. Get involved and things can change.

I FINALLY sat down and finished Transformers: Devastation after who knows how long. Admittedly I used the chapter restart to drop the difficulty, but I finished it!

Which game so I do next? SF5 I have for my PC, and I'd rather not play MKX until I play MK9. So this leaves Horizon: Zero Dawn as my next game or Final Fantasy 7.

Which should it be?

Gotta say, hearing the music AND seeing the game presented this way was very VERY nostalgic....

Thoughts Before Bed

I created this Second Life Avatar almost ten years ago. I felt lost in Second Life, very much a ghost of my former self, and to take back that world, I fed into it. If I felt like a ghost, I would BE a ghost.

I haven't put on that avatar in a long time, mainly because in the last few years, I've not felt lost, not felt like I was haunting, didn't feel like a shell of my former self. And in fact, the new brunette avvie you see feels more like me now than I felt then.

But today I put it on, not because I felt lost, but because I wanted to explore, and she was always the avatar I used to "haunt the grid" and explore. And for once...she felt...like a happy avatar. Not haunting, not sad, not lost. Just an explorer who happened to be a ghost.

Her original purpose is gone, but maybe there's new purpose for her now.

#secondlife

This Week's Meals: Pueblo Barbecued Pork Roast

I gotta admit, as I cooked this, I became more and more skeptical of what I was going to end up with. And what I ended up with wasn't bad at all! Why was I skeptical? One of the ingredients for this pork roast is...chocolate.

Native Americans used chocolate very differently from how the rest of us in that it was usually used as a bittering flavor instead of a candy, and as I was cooking this, I figured it may actually be TOO bitter.

In the end, it ended up pretty good. The chocolate-bitter taste is there...a little more than I'd like, but not unpleasant. A little salt cut that bitterness a little while bringing out the pork flavor.

It's a messy dish to cook, but a good one. I'd make it again.

# Pueblo Barbecued Pork Roast

Spirit of the Harvest: North American Indian Cooking

0.25 cup lard
1.5 cups onions (chopped)
3.0 cloves garlic (minced)
4.0 whole dried juniper berries (crushed)
0.5 tsp corriander seed (crushed)
1.0 whole bay leaf
4.0 large tomatoes (quartered) (seeded)
1.25 cups water
0.6666666666666666 cups cider vinegar
0.3333333333333333 cup honey
1.0 tbsp ground chili
1.0 whole dried New Mexican red chili (crushed)
2.0 tsp salt
1.0 ounce unsweetened chocolate (grated)
5.0 pound pork rib roast

1 - Heat lard in a large heavy saucepan and saute onions over medium heat until soft.
2 - Add garlic, juniper berries, coriander seed, and bay leaf and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes longer.
3 - Add tomatoes, water, vinegar, honey, ground chili, crushed chili, and salt. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.
4 - Add chocolate and simmer, uncovered, for 20 to 30 minutes, until the sauce is fairly thick.
5 - Preheat the oven to 350° F.
6 - Place roast, fat side up, in a roasting pan and baste generously with sauce.
7 - Roast for about 3 hours, or until a meat thermometer inserted In the thickest part of roast (away from the bone) registers 175° F. Baste occasionally with sauce and pan drippings during roasting.
8 - Allow roast to sit for 10 minutes in a warm place before carving.
9 - Slice and spoon additional sauce over each serving.

14 servings at ~400 calories per serving.
Calories 391
Total Fat 20g
Total Carbohydrate 11g
Protien 33g

Normally serves 6 to 8

#cooking #thisweeksmeals

A nice big VR theater screen is quickly becoming my favorite way to watch TV and movies.

This Week's Fancy Pants Meal: West Virginia Pizza Rolls

How can something this easy be so tasty? I love it when something that isn't all that fancy pants cooks up into fancy pants.
I was expecting something like a savory jelly roll, but instead it's more of a really soft Hot Pocket. I'm sure this could be rearranged to make something like ham and cheese rolls or maybe full on pizza rolls.

The instructions call for frozen bread roll dough, but I wasn't able to find it at the two grocery stores in town. Instead I went with croissant sheets and re-kneaded them into rolls. Worked just as well.

Funny story: I made six scones and rolls, and really only needed five. Oh, darn. Guess I know what's for dinner.

# West Virginia Pepperoni Rolls
Southern Living
18.0 rolls

48.0 ounces frozen dinner rolls
4.0 ounces pepperoni slices
8.0 oz thinly sliced mozzerella
4.0 tbsp salted butter (melted)
0.5 tsp garlic powder
0.5 tsp dried oregano
0.125 tsp salt

1 - Preheat oven to 400°F.
2 - Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
3 - Working in batches as needed, pat or roll each dough ball on a large piece of wax or parchment paper into a 4 1/4- to 4 1/2-inch round. (Try not to flour dough surface; it could keep dough from sealing.)
4 - Place 2 pepperoni slices in middle of each dough round.
5 - Tear cheese into pieces, and arrange evenly over pepperoni.
6 - Roll up dough jellyroll style; pinch ends and seams well to seal.
7 - Arrange dough, seam side down, 1 to 1 1/2 inches apart on prepared baking sheet.
8 - Brush half of the butter evenly over rolls.
9 - Bake in preheated oven until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes.
10 - Stir together garlic powder, oregano, salt, and remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a small bowl until combined. Immediately brush butter mixture evenly over warm rolls.

Makes 18 rolls at 37.5g carbs per roll:
Calories 292
Total Fat 11g
Total Carbohydrate 37g
Protein 3g
Normally yields 12 rolls

#thisweeksmeals #baking #cooking

This Week's Bread: Authentic British Scones.

This time I used a cookie cutter and re-folded the dough to try and get six total. Next time I make these I'll use a smaller size for better consistency.

FINALLY all caught up on my To-Do-s since coming back from Texas. Friday is a chores day (mostly groceries), but I'm now ready to hit the ground running Saturday (which is the beginning of my "work week," thank you for that Nintendo).

Spent a lot of today installing a companion to "The Archive" with another similarly named drive. :)

That's a helluva breakfast.

Or maybe I just forgot to remove a joke entry from last night.

A lot of these Sensitive Content filters really look like aliens staring at you REAL close.

Ah, well, let's check the To-Do list now that I've spent some time away from home and...oh, wow....

St George, Mesquite and Las Vegas. Area 51 is out there beyond that.

One for the road. There was a minor panic as, after I went through security, I couldn't find my phone. Thankfully it was still in the bathroom when I checked again. WHEW.

Day Ten: I swear, one day, I'm going to find the right kind of hydroponics to grow a quality black diamond watermelon in Seattle.

Tis a dream I have.