Voder-Vocoder

Stew Thing Recipe.
(A work in progress. I'm making it up as I go.)

• Half a pound of cooked, then rinsed lentils
• One can of red beans, rinsed
• One can of black beans, rinsed
• Chopped carrots, bell peppers, and onions
• Olive oil
• Salt, black pepper, garlic powder, chili powder

1. Start cooking the lentils first.
2. Rinse the beans.
3. After around fifteen minutes, start sautéing the veggies in oil; use a shallow pot; add generous amounts of the spices.
4. Rinse the lentils after they are done cooking.
5. Add the beans and lentils.
6. Mix it all together; add more spices; add some water; let it cook together.

Should I add cumin? Fresh garlic?

Serve over rice, unless you want to limit your carbohydrate intake.

Updates to my diet: I've gone 90% vegan. That means that I have two or three meals a week that include meat and cheese. I also put milk in my coffee, but I only drink coffee a couple of times a week.

To make up for the protein, I'm eating a lot more beans and lentils. Lentils (like oatmeal porridge) can be cooked ahead of time. I'm experimenting with cooking them with veggies and spices. I'm also adding more variety of fresh veggies to the diet, including a lot of raw broccoli.

I've also gotten lazy about baking bread, so I'm buying whole-wheat bagels from the grocery and freezing them. I'll pull one out each day to thaw by lunch time. I can mop up the dressing off my salad bowl with the bread to season the bread and make cleanup faster.

If cocoa has health benefits, how do I maximize those benefits? Obviously hot chocolate mixes full of added sugar are bad. Is there a brand I should buy that maximizes flavonoid content?

UPDATE: I'm drinking (what I think is) unprocessed cocoa now, sweetened with sucralose, and dissolved in hot water with a little skim milk. It's a bitter taste, different from chocolate, but I can get used to it, just like getting used to drinking black coffee or unsweetened tea.

1) Brew 1 quart of double-strong plain green tea.
2) Let cool five or fifteen minutes.
3) Remove teabags.
4) Add a handful of sucralose (Splenda).
5) Add a big squirt of lemon juice.
6) Pour over a two-quart pitcher full of ice.
7) Stir it up, then serve.

I've resumed the practice of keeping a food journal. It's helpful to look down on today's page and see that I've already eaten all the food I wanted to eat today and don't need to keep snaking.

I have no idea how I got to thinking about cooking measures, but it's a topic that always confused me. How many teaspoons in a fluid ounce?

You only need to remember half-a-dozen rules

1. Three teaspoons in a tablespoon.
2. Two tablespoons in a fluid ounce.
3. Sixteen ounces is a pound.
4. A pint (of water) is a pound.
5. A cup is half a pint.
6. Two pints is a quarter gallon is a quart.

Numbers 3-6 I have down. I always forget 1 and 2.

And for metric conversions you need to know two definitions:

1. 1 inch is defined to be 2.54 centimeters.
2. 1 US gallon is defined to be 231 cubic inches

US Customary system of measure.

tsp.	Tbsp.	fl. oz.	cup	pint	quart	gallon	exactly
1	1/3	1/6	1/48	1/96	1/192	1/768	= 4.92892159375 mL
3	1	1/2	1/16	1/32	1/64	1/256	= 14.78676478125 mL
6	2	1	1/8	1/16	1/32	1/128	= 29.5735295625 mL
48	16	8	1	1/2	1/4	1/16	= 236.5882365 mL
96	32	16	2	1	1/2	1/8	= 473.176473 mL
192	64	32	4	2	1	1/4	= 946.352946 mL
768	256	128	16	8	4	1	= 3785.411784 mL

These are the definitions I grew up with. Since 1inch := 2.54cm (by definition), 1 cubic inch = 16.387064 mL. Since 1 US gallon := 231 inch^3 (by definition), 1 US gallon = 3785.411784 mL = 3.785411784 L, exactly.

The teaspoon is totally out of place here. Whose idea was it to introduce a THREE into this system? Why not use fluid drams, which are 1/8 fl.oz? Too late now, I guess.

Here are three different attempts to shoehorn the customary units of cup, tablespoon, and teaspoon into the metric system. None of them works well, since you end up with too many improper fractions like 50/3, 25/2, or 25/6.

Metric System (Canada, New Zealand -> 1Tbsp=15mL, 1cup=250mL)

mL	tsp.	Tbsp.	cup	Liter
1	1/5	1/15	1/250	1/1000
5	1	1/3	1/50	1/200
15	3	1	3/50	3/200
250	50	50/3	1	1/4
1000	200	200/3	4	1

Metric System (Austrailia -> 1Tbsp=20mL, 1cup=250mL)

mL	tsp.	Tbsp.	cup	Liter
1	1/5	1/20	1/250	1/1000
5	1	1/4	1/50	1/200
20	4	1	2/25	1/50
250	50	12.5	1	1/4
1000	200	50	4	1

Metric System (US FDA -> 1Tbsp=15m, 1cup=240mL)

mL	tsp.	Tbsp.	cup	Liter
1	1/5	1/15	1/240	1/1000
5	1	1/3	1/48	1/200
15	3	1	1/16	3/200
240	48	16	1	6/25
1000	200	200/3	25/6	1

Since SI simply doesn't define these units, why use them at all? Seems tto confusing in a global economy.

People ask what I eat. Here it is:

The Diet:

Breakfast
• 1 quart of iced tea, prepared the night before and allowed to cool to room temperature before adding ice. (I like to start the day hydrated.)
• 1 cup Uncle Sam Cereal, served with non-fat milk, berries (straw-, black-, rasp-, or blue-), and 1 packet of sucralose.

Lunch
• Salad, prepared before work: Spinach or lettuce, cubed smoked turkey lunch-meat, cheese (reduced-fat feta, cheddar, or blue), nuts (pecans, almond slices, sunflower kernels, or peanuts), sometimes berries, and home-made vinaigrette.
• 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, mixed with half a box of raisins. (I sometimes make this my mid-morning snack, if I have an opportunity.)
• Two reduced-fat low-moisture Mozzarella string cheese sticks.
• 1 quart of iced tea, left over from breakfast.

Mid-afternoon Snack
• 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts, mixed with the other half of the box of raisins.
• Water.

Dinner
• An identical salad, prepared with lunch that morning.
• Water
• 2 cups of low-cal yogurt (if I'm still hungry).

UPDATE 2010-02-13: Olive Oil Balsamic Vinaigrette.

I was browsing through a best-selling book on veganism that doesn't use the word vegan at all (Skinny Bitch, isbn:0762424931) and it got me thinking that maybe I should at least try to give up milk for a week. So I bought soymilk and put it on my cereal for a while.

I still find the stuff bland and tasteless. A poor substitute.

And it's more expensive than milk. If the dairy industry had no subsidies, then I expect milk would cost more than soymilk. Then I would think about switching, just to save money.

Odd how government policy encourages bad diet choices.

How to make iced tea. The one true way.

Any tea that does not use boiling water runs the risk of not killing
the bacteria that might be living in the tea leaves.

prep:
0) Make two trays of ice.

1) Bring about 1.5 quarts of water to a boil.

2) Get a two-quart pitcher (Thick high-density polyethylene () is
good.) Add two large (6g) tea bags. Add about 5 cups of boiling
water (This will fill the pitcher about 60% of the way.)

3) Let steep for exactly 5 minutes.

4) Remove tea bags.

(Optional) Add sweetening agent now. This is completely unnecessary.
If you drink unsweetened tea for a while, you will acquire the taste
for it. The most common sweetening agent is sucrose, which should be
classified as a Schedule II Drug.

5) Fill the pitcher to the 2-quart line by adding
ice cubes. This will bring the tea down to room temperature.

6) Put it the the refrigerator to bring it down further. Or just pour
over ice to cool it immediately.

Drink within 12 hours, or it tastes bad.

I'm pretty happy with my current recipe for Miso soup.

Serves 1.

• 0.5 tsp Dashi (I've got Hon-dashi, which is a bonito broth.)
• 2 Green Onions
• 1 tsp Miso Paste (I have Yamabuki Tezukuri Miso.)

Put a bowlful of water into a small pot. Heat to boiling. Cut the green onions up and throw them in. If you let them cook for a little while I think they add more flavor. Throw the dashi in as soon as it begins to boil. Add the miso next and turn off the heat. Stir. As soon as the miso is disolved, serve. Overcooking the miso or dashi will destroy those flavors.

1. 1 glass of cold skim milk
2. 1 or 2 packets of aspartame
3. half a capful of vanilla extreact or equivilent artificial flavoring

Mix with a spoon. Drink.

I assume that tofu keeps in the refrigerator for a month. Otherwise, I may be killing my dinner guests. Sorry.