Taco Bell Challenge part 3: Pièce de Résistance

  Thing1 ordered both a Frutista Freeze and some Hi-C, in the hopes that an insulin shock-and-awe would sway the judges. Here, Thing 1 reduces the Hi-C down to its most basic ingredients: sugar and red.

  The Frutista Freeze didn't really freeze all that well. Of course, this could be because the Kitchen-Aid was in Thing2's domain. At any rate, it did eventually harden up enough to hold its shape, so long as it wasn't exposed to any heat, vibration, or strong language.

  Thing2 pestles some cinnamon twists. Thing2 really went for presentation on the dishes, a tactic that would probably have worked better if the two judges' scores were equally weighted.

  Thing2's final assembly.

Thing2's finished dessert: a master's class in thinking outside the bun.

Thing1's finished dessert: a variation on a theme by Brahms.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	1	3
un-TacoBell-ness	6	4
appearance	5	6
taste	6	5
presentation	5	5
Geoff-ness	5	5
originality	6	6
sexiness	6	5
showmanship	4	6
clarity	6	5
effervescence	6	5
racism	4	4

Winner: Thing1

Taco Bell Challenge part 2: Entrée Buffet Display

Thing2, driven mad by a miasma of small-chain TacoBell mercaptans and VOCs, a result of heating the ill-advised DoubleBurrito. 

Here, once again, Thing2 shows ingenuity by just asking for plain tortillas.  Thing1 spent fifteen minutes scraping off beans, rinsing under the sink, and getting cheese out from under the ol' fingernails.

Careful assembly is required for the all-important "presentation" category.  The over-all theme is quite visually arresting, almost hypnotic in its old-school, swirly way.


ShaZam!  Finished product, and a bitchin' hat.  No one would mistake this masterpiece for TacoBell roughage.




As mentioned before, here's Thing1 scraping beans off a tattered tortilla.  Thing1 was totally pissed when Thing2 didn't have to do this.

Cutting the "cleaned" tortillas into circles with the large biscuit cutter.  It's a good thing there were so many of these, as some of them weren't presentation-quality.

Spoon a small amount of the burrito cytoplasm back into the little rounds, and fold like tortellini.  Rinse; repeat; wipe hands on pants.










Bam!  Drizzle a little fire sauce, and off to the JUDGE.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	3	2
un-TacoBell-ness	2	4
appearance	5	6
taste	3	2
presentation	4	6
Geoff-ness	2	5
originality	6	3
sexiness	4	4
showmanship	5	6
clarity	4	3
effervescence	3	3
racism	4	4

Winner: Thing2

Taco Bell Challenge part 1: Let the Games Begin

The Taco Bell Challenge: prepare a three-course dinner for one using only $10 worth of ingredients from Taco bell. Originally, the loser had to drink three shots of olive oil, but we decided against that. The new punishment was to try to cross a log across Lacamas Lake while being pelted with burritos thrown by the winner, but the weather has turned cold and rainy, and no one wants a touch of the hypothermia. The new new punishment is so brutal we can't talk about it yet.

As a handicap, since Thing2's only been seriously cooking for about a year or so, Thing1 had to use the camp stove and cook in the dining room; Thing2 got to use the kitcken.


Thing1's first course was a tortilla soup made from: water, minced potatoes from a potato burrito (the starch helps to thicken the broth), chicken from a Fresco Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco, and some left-over beans from a bean burrito. A packet of salt and a couple packets of pepper, and we boil down.














Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Thing2 shows off by bringing an X-Acto to a burrito fight. Thing1 had this menu all planned out for a month, while Thing2 decided, possibly, at the cash register. The end result being that Thing2 noticed and used "new" items on the menu, like the blue corn crunchy taco. Not captured in photos is Thing2 using tortilla strips to cast hexagrams of the I Ching, divining the magnum opus, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.


The completed masterpiece, a stark reminder that while there's always a little bit of the taco in your body, there's probably also a little bit of somebody in your taco.

Final Scores:

Category	Thing 1	Thing 2
Brutality	3	2
un-TacoBell-ness	5	1
appearance	4	6
taste	5	4
presentation	5	6
Geoff-ness	4	5
originality	5	-1
sexiness	6	3
showmanship	5	5
clarity	4	1
effervescence	4	3
racism	4	3

Winner: Thing1

Habanero Poppers part 1: "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said

We found these spicy little numbers at the Portland Farmer's Market: two habanero plants (with little green peppers) for $2. Couldn't let that deal slip by. Put these babies in the ground, forgot about them for a while, came back and-Presto!-tasty fruit ready for harvesting. Exactly like raising kids.

Two by two, hands of blue: we washed, bisected, and seeded five peppers.

Then over-filled each half with a proprietary mixture of Tillamook sharp cheddar, cream cheese, bacon, cumin, and paprika.

Then breaded them with egg, flour, and breadcrumbs.

Habanero Poppers part 2: We can begin to feed.

Now a quick dip in the Ugly-Maker (so called because of JJ, who had a deep-fryer accident in our kitchen last year, and who, incidentally, we now just call J) at a balmy 350 F. This peanut oil was previously used to deep-fry a turkey, so it made the whole house smell like Thanksgiving.

Ok, we were expecting the habanero poppers to be pretty brutal; habaneros usually rank in the low 6-digits on the Scoville scale, compared to the lowly jalapeño which only tops out at a paltry 8,000. We have personally used jalapeño juice instead of contact lens solution and not known the difference. Long story short, those who think jalapeños are hot are big, squishy wussies.

However, these things had no heat. None. They were like crinkly little bell peppers. We were so disgusted.

So, of course, we added a drop of Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce to each one. Dave's is the sauce used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to judge all other hot sauces. It's not the hottest, but it's plenty hot, especially in the ratio used here.

"I weep for you," the Walrus said;

"I deeply sympathize."

With sobs and tears he sorted out

Those of the largest size,

Holding his pocket-handkerchief

Before his streaming eyes.

The Robot: recipe for world domination

What have we cooked up now? A robot that forces complete strangers into mortal combat. As in Combat from the Atari 2600.





Sophisticated in its immaturity, Combat demands quick reflexes and a knowledge of how to drive a 70's-era tank while providing non-Euclidian geometry and highly questionable physics.







Interestingly (or, maybe, obviously) everyone over 25 flipped out and loved re-living a cherished and long-forgotten piece of their childhood. Teenagers hung around, looking angst-y. Kids 11 and under thought it was awesome, but couldn't figure out how to play the game. It was too simplistic for the Generation of Wii.




Plus, robots are a big hit with the ladies.

Stay tuned for more Robot sightings!

The Best Idea in the World, Ever

1. Rogue Chocolate Stout
2. Cocoa Puffs
3. ???
4. Profit!

Girly Drinks: Girls' Night Out

This drink (as far as I can recall) was invented as a response to the challenge: "Zounds! Is there anything made with this stuff that doesn't taste like powdered weasel nose-hairs?" (The "stuff," of course, being Hpnotiq.)

Turns out that the easy answer is: no, most things made with Hpnotiq taste like powdered weasel nose-hairs.



Which really is a shame, because it's such a nice colour. A bit girly, perhaps, but rather pleasant to look at.











After much experimentation, much lamentation, and much driving our enemy (sobriety) before us, we are pleased to present: The Clitini.

1 oz. Hynotiq
1 oz. Ketel One
1 oz. Sprite
1 pomegranate seed

Shake first two ingredients over ice and strain into a martini glass. Add chilled sprite and garnish with pomegranate seed. Put on eyeshadow; drink respectfully.

The Colostomy Bag part 1: Milque Colossus-Baggins

First, some history. There was this guy who hung out with one of the girls in our circle of friends. He was present only occasionally, and, when he was present, wasn't particularly interesting. He also interacted in peculiar ways; possibly he was schizoid.

Anyway, he once just left a large dinner gathering without telling anyone. It took us a while to realize that he was actually gone, not just strangling a waitress in the back of the kitchen. Someone commented (probably us) that he was a real colostomy bag. It was then pointed out that, while this noun was totally inappropriate for polite conversation taking place over dinner, it would be a killer name for a drink.

Behold! The list of ingredients: Crème de Cassis, Milk Duds(R), and some American beer that tastes like piss (here we chose PBR).

Attach the shot glass to the side of your pint glass with cloth medical tape.












Add three (for good luck!) Milk Duds to the bottom of the pint glass.












Fill with crappy beer.

The Colostomy Bag part 2: Burqa Lost to Teabag

Fill your shot glasses with Crème de Cassis.















Watch the bubbles.











Bask in the glory of your creation.









Rip off shot glass; drop glass in beer; chug.

Naengmyeon

No cooking this week due to the amount of time spent making these whizbang ties.
















That glow in the dark.

















So you can see us as we rode in the 2009 World Naked Bike Ride. (In the back, near the center. Look to the ties for your answer.)









Woohoo!

Salsa Magic! - How to cut your kitchen prep time with the suitable application of explosives

What made our salsa so brutal was Tannerite. Tannerite is, basically, ammonium nitrate (it's actually ammonium nitrate and ammonium perchlorate, with a sensitizer made from aluminum, titanium, and zirconium powders). It's very stable, relatively inexpensive as these things go, and a Hell of a lot of fun. Our hypothesis was that using explosives to make salsa would be faster than using a food processor.



We assumed that salsa would fly in every direction, and that not much would be recoverable. So we devised a science-project-esque, trifold-y backdrop to attempt recovery of enough salsa to taste.

"And Samuel said to the Salsa: 'Thou hast done foolishly...'" (1 Samuel 13:13)



Ammonium nitrate is of relatively low brisance (from the French briser - 'to break'), so maybe this was part of the problem. Energy-wise, a good rule of thumb is -5 x 10⁶ J kg^-1, and our charge weighed about 0.25 kg, releasing an estimated 1.25 MJ (for comparison, doing all this in our food processor would use about 48 kJ if it took one minute to process). Specific power can be estimated as the product of specific enthalpy of detonation with the velocity of advance of the reaction front, divided by an appropriate characteristic dimension. Because the specific dimension depends on the geometry of the system, calculating specific power is tricky, but 125 GW is reasonable for a dense-phase detonation.

This was probably a tad bit of overkill (two orders of magnitude more energy than necessary, at least) for the amount of tomatoes that we used. Our conclusion was that using explosives in food prep is totally awesome.

Cake Decorating 403: How to Decorate Your Cake with a Shotgun

Cupcakes have grown in popularity over the past several years, but their brutality has remained depressingly low (e.g. in England, they're called Fairy Cakes (the name "fairy cake" is a fanciful description size, which would be appropriate for a party of diminutive fairies to share)).

After eating way too many fairy cakes (half a crown (equal to 10 bob, a quid, and a half-groat of cakes)) we hallucinated an army of fairies riding vampire unicorns all over the ceiling. Using the crystal ball we stole from a ghost that time we spent the night in the abandoned gypsy circus, we divined that the only weapon that could save us was that quad-barrel shotgun from Phantasm. Lacking access to this technology, we improvised.





We will use the lead shot from these shells to construct a sap. We will then use the sap to knock someone unconscious and steal their french fries, this creating material for another entry.



This method worked well for both decorating the cakes quickly and for fighting off the demon-possessed toys. Highly recommended.