Ben Benner’s Blog

… of cabbage to turn into a delicious bowl of soup.

Gina made a ham for x-mas dinner and when we bought that precious piece of fully cooked hog, I said ‘I want to make cabbage soup, with ham.’

Earlier this year (feels like longer though), back in February I made some cabbage soup. I remember that the soup was good, but that a little bit of ham or bacon would have made it a little better.

Well, we have a decent amount of ham left and last night I procured a nice looking cabbage. This morning I have been busy, cleaned the kitchen, cooked the beans, chopped the onion and garlic. I had to look up the recipe (again) as it would appear that I neglected to bookmark it (or post a link in my blog). This recipe is pretty close to what I remember doing back in February. (Maybe it is the same one, maybe it isn’t).

I am hoping to have the soup done here in about an hour, I also hope to sneak in baking the last loaf of my garlic & herb bread, which I think will go very well with the soup.

I wanted to get a quick post in about this, as a means to get back into the habit of writing on a regular basis. Too often I put it off and either watch TV or play video games. I hope to moderate my recreational activities a bit more as I expect to have a very busy January and February, to which I still want to keep up with baking regularly and making dinner.

In an effort of help with that kind of thing, I have re-arranged my home office (as Gina says that I have been doing that steadily over the last 6 years). With the help of some of my x-mas loot, I have been able to ditch my bulky 27 inch TV that took up a HUGE portion of the entertainment center that was in my office. I have also ditched the entertainment center, in favor of the EXPEDIT bookcase. (Same one I have at the work office.)

The TV was replaced with a 23 inch HP monitor (widescreen). Seems like a downgrade right?

In terms of straight up number of inches, yes a downgrade. But the increase in resolution and the widescreen effect has proven to outweigh the fact that it is smaller than the TV. If I am looking to watch something on a BIG screen, I will walk my lazy ass over to the living room. What I am looking for is something that can be in the background of the computer monitors, allowing me to passively watch TV while working.

I had a similar setup many years ago, what feels like a lifetime ago. But I remember that back then I felt like I was able to get more done and still satisfy my addiction to having something like the TV going in the background. Music helps, but I am definitely an addict to the TV.

I thought long and hard about asking for the HP monitor vs asking for a LCD TV. And in the end for the size that I was looking for the monitor seemed like the better deal. I did think that after having to buy a special cable for my xbox and some other miscellaneous items, that the LCD TV might have been an overall better cost savings. But I think the monitor will still be more useful in the long run.

The monitor has both an HDMI and VGA plug. This allows me to plug in the U-Verse set-top box and the 360 at the same time. I bought some speakers that have dual inputs allowing me to run both the 360 and the U-Verse through some nice little Logitech (favorite brand of computer accessories) speakers.

The difference in the quality of the graphics for the 360 is amazing, particularly for one game where the resolution requirements were just TOO much for the old CRT TV. I mean words that were too fuzzy to read are now clear on the screen.

In regards to the bookcase, I love the one that I have at the office. It holds many books (tall and small) and you can get these ‘boxes’ to put stuff in. I think I might be able to fit two of them against the wall, which honestly I think would provide me the needed cubby holes to finish putting stuff away in my home office.

The other bit that is helping me with my six year mission, is purging stuff that I just do not utilize anymore. I have trashed a lot of old papers that don’t need to be kept, I have sold books to Half-Price books, gotten rid of games I don’t play anymore, donated gadgetry to Goodwill. (Still have a few that I would like to try to sell on Craigslist or eBay.)

I also started removing the carpet from my home office as it is the last room in the house with carpet. I am not sure when we will install the pergo like flooring, maybe in February.

I should probably go and start putting the soup together as I think all the ingredients are ready to go.

Laterz

bdbenner Cooking, Personal

My winter vacation is coming to a close. That is not the saddest part (warning, I am going to whine just a little bit right here) I was sick for a good part of my vacation. Gina was sick around Christmas day, I got sick on like Sunday night.

I felt almost normal on Thursday, still a little off. But Friday, except for some coughing I was OK.

And it was on Thursday whilst still recooperating that I saw my favorite culinary master, Alton Brown pay homage to an American Classic, the Spinach Salad.

We are going to be heading out to the Farmer’s Market (something we haven’t done since last Spring and procure some ingrediants for me to attempt to make this salad for a late lunch.

I need to get ready to go. I will post pics of what it all turns out like. I will be suprises if we fine some smoked bacon at the market, the last time I bought bacon there it was not at all what you would traditionally think of as bacon (it was more like fatty pork).

Later today I will do a reflection post on 2008 and what I believe 2009 will hold.

Laterz.

bdbenner Cooking alton brown, farmers market, popeye, salad, spinach

I have been wanting to make sugar cookies for a few weeks now. But for one reason or another, it just hasn’t worked out.

That is until say about now.

Well, I haven’t made them yet, but I will be making them tonight. I am going to use a recipe from the Thespian Cookbook.

“THESPIAN COOKBOOK: A treasury of favorite on stage and off stage recipes of Troupe 3911”

The cookbook I have is probably from 1994, give or take a year. If memory serves it was $10 and one of the ever ongoing fundraisers that we held for the Troupe 3911.

The book has seen better days and as such I have on several occasions said I should transcribe it. Well, I started doing that today. I have 6 pages done, which doesn’t sound like much, but it is a good start.

I am going to try to finish the cookies before I pop out to the store, though I might need to cut that short. I have had a few flashbacks whilst typing away, reminiscing over a few items that I haven’t had in a decade (Russian Tea) and some that Gina made for me the other day (Meringue Surprises).

Given that I don’t have an official hobby at the moment (video games don’t really count, neither does work). I was thinking that I should try making every item in the Thespian cookbook, take pictures and then compile the pictures into a book. I have looked at doing a book, using Lulu.com a few times now. But I lead a relatively boring life (no one wants to read about how I managed to guided the Russians to victory in Civilization Revolution, or do you?) and I just haven’t had a real creative streak lately. So I figure, why not a cookbook.

I don’t think this will count as plagiarism, being that I am not going to claim to have created the recipes. I am thinking I will add a couple of recipes to the mix, possibly my recipe for Chili and my recipe for pulled pork. I will also make the digital data available to whomever is currently running Troupe 3911. (Pretty sure Troupe 3911 is still around.)

Well, I need to get to the store before it gets too late.

I can’t wait to have some Russian Tea.

Laterz

bdbenner Cooking, Thespian Chef Thespian Chef, thespian cookbook, troupe 3911