Culinary type post

9/3/26:

A reaction to a reaction. In the computer biz, this is called recursion.

Or did I forget something again???

It reminds me that I cooked a lot using a microwave... It turns out that I can cook some steak by using the defrost setting on this microwave I'm using now. Run it about 30 minutes or so, and it comes out ok. Just ok??? Hey, I'm not picky. Just lazy. Cooking this way takes little energy from me. It might not even take all that much electric energy. It's low power mostly. It doesn't seem like enough to cook, but I noticed awhile back that it really will cook something if you leave it in there long enough. But what about that tendency to cook around the edges only? Put some water in a clear casserole dish, and the water will heat up and spread out the energy so that it will cook evenly. Worked for me this morning!

6/26/26:

Lot of Word Crimes here, eh?

Maybe food crimes, too... Now, the idea about cooking with the fewest calories is indeed an idea worth considering...

Update a little later...:

I've watched a few gourmets on TeeVee. Here's a video of one that you may enjoy: Justin Wilson. If Louisiana fare is not your thing, well I have another one I watched on PBS: (PBS! Yep.). He went by the moniker of Frugal Gourmet. If were to do gourmet videos, I'd make one thing plain. I'm no gourmet. The name? The Lazy Man "Gourmet". I cook for convenience. It may not be fine cuisine, but it is good enough to eat. Not trying to put on airs here. Just telling it the way it is.

May 3, 2018:

Fancy word for cooking, that is.

Been experimenting with my cooking lately.  Yesterday, I boiled an egg in water.  So what?  Well, the egg was cracked and out of the shell.  It was boiled in water, which is no calories.  The problem with this cooking technique was that the egg stuck on the aluminum foil.  So, I got some Pam, and sprayed it on the aluminum this morning.  Yep.  It worked good.  How was the boiled eggs?  Well, they tasted like, ahem, boiled eggs.

I don't know if that counts as a success.  What was the objective?  To cook without oil, and to use as little energy as possible.  This latter part was achieved by cooking on the lowest possible setting on the propane stove.  A small amount of water did reach boiling point, provided that, you cover the top with foil as well.  This traps all the heat, and allows boiling point to be reached.

The eggs were on for about twenty minutes.  They were fully cooked.

Eggs like this are pretty bland.  How do you fix them up to taste better?  I like cheese on my eggs, so the next time, I will add sharp cheddar to it.

Add some bacon bits, and maybe some tomato, and that's good eating.   At least it is by my standards.

Predictions

4/24/25:

I started this post, which turned into an update of an old post. Actually, I wanted to find the beginning of a new category. The categories were supposed to be set up so that old posts like this one could be found. I wanted the blog to be a resource. The idea is not to re-invent the wheel.

The category I looked for was "history of the blog". Actually, this is not as easy to find as it should be. Could it be that I don't even know what is on my own blog?

Anyway, lots of things happened during the Obama era. It would seem that the Trump Administration is trying to roll back some of it. But there's a huge fight to try to stop that.

The fact that we are even in this fight at all is on the one hand a small miracle, and on the other hand, a major tragedy. It should never have happened. But it did. Not only that, Trump's rollback may not succeed. There's no guarantees that it will.

7/12/13:

This is something that I've attempted numerous times.  In the eighties, I wrote some software that I hoped would help predict the outcome of football games.  In the nineties, I wrote some software that I hoped would help me predict how the stock market would behave.  Neither of these worked to my satisfaction.  There was some limited utility to these programs, but weren't marketable.

Nevertheless, the idea of predicting the future course of events has remained an attraction for me.  This blog is supposed to be something like that, but there hasn't always been a focus on that.

There may have been predictions here, but they haven't been catalogued and thus be easily referenced to see if the predictions came true or not.  If you can't measure it, you can't evaluate it.

There was one near the beginning of this year in which I predicted that we will find out if the GOP intends to be a me-too party or an opposition party.  The results are now coming in with respect to the immigration bill being considered in Congress.  They will be a me-too party, but they will try not to appear to be blatantly so.  They have to keep up appearances.

The rest of those predictions linked above also seem to be accurate.  At least for the moment.

Sometimes I forget what the focus of this blog should be.  It should be about the future and predictions fit into that theme.

If there's anything that I would add to those predictions at the beginning of the year it would be this:

Things are not getting better.  Things are getting worse.  There's no reason to believe that things will get better.

How do you measure this prediction?  After all, there could be some dispute over the economy.  Some seem to think the economy is getting better.  But that is a delusion.

Perhaps you could use some objective standard instead of a subjective one.  An objective one would be the statistics, but there's some controversy about that too.  Unemployment going down?  Not really.  No inflation?  Not really.  Budget deficit getting smaller?  Not really.

Here's something that's pretty objective: quantitative easing.  The Fed is doing it or they aren't.  Interest rates--- they are going up or going down.  Stock market too.  Gold prices.

I will rephrase the "getting worse" prediction as follows:  the Fed won't be able to stop quantitative easing.  I think that is a bad thing.

Thus, the subjective things are getting worse.  For other folks, they may appear to be getting better.  Not very useful for predictions.  The goal will be to be as objective as possible.  Memo to self: remember that.

This will be a new category called predictions.  It will also be filed in the history of the blog.

Egg cooker is more than that

Update:

Looks like I did this before.

Yesterday, I tried it with 1 meatball.  Today, two of them fully cooked.

Done with solar power.  How bout that?

5.29.18

Here's a pic of the little gizmo which I like so much.

I used it to make carrot, broccoli, and cauliflower for supper.  I saved up the broth from the chicken thigh I made with it earlier, and used it for flavor.

Nice little gizmo, but there appears to be several variations of these on the market.  It's the concept that counts.

Where to buy, if you're interested

A bit of organizing today

 For the last couple of months, I haven't attached labels to my posts.  This makes things a bit less organized than before.

It is helpful sometimes in finding a post if it has a label.

Update:

The reason  for all of the uncategorized posts may be due to the fact that it is harder to use the Android device to make posts.  I've been using that device for months now.  It isn't easy to make posts on it, and that's just one more thing that is a bit more complex than it needs to be.  So I tend to overlook the organizational aspect to the blogging.

Besides the uncategorized posts, I've been checking my links on the sidebar.  How did I decide to put those there?  There was a reason, and it is probably noted somewhere on this blog, but it is buried.

Using the Android to tie these things together is not easy.  The blog suffers as a result.

The main problem is the lack of bandwidth.  In the old days back in Houston, I had truly unlimited data.  But the data  out here is said to be unlimited, but it isn't.  That's the problem.

Just going to have "soldier on" as best as possible under the circumstances.  Doing something about bandwidth is running against another constraint.  It is the same constraint the world seems to run into which is $$$$$$$.

Housekeeping 7.22.19

Been busy with this kind of activity lately.  It may explain the dearth of new material.

At this juncture, I may turn my attention to this blog.  The topic "housekeeping" refers to the principle at the general level.  Nothing much has changed on the blog.  But there may be a few things that will have a different look and feel going forward.

For instance, I am experimenting with fonts and colors.  Looking at the appearance of the blog may give me some ideas on improving its appearance.

Let's see some fonts and colors:

• Mary had a little lamb.  It's fleece was white as snow.  Default
• Mary had a little lamb.  It's fleece was white as snow.  Courier
• Mary had a little lamb.  It's fleece was white as snow.  Georgia
• Mary had a little lamb.  It's fleece was white as snow.  Helvetica
• Mary had a little lamb.  It's fleece was white as snow.  Times
• Mary had a little lamb.  It's fleece was white as snow.  Trebuchet
• Mary had a little lamb.  It's fleece was white as snow.  Verdana

Nothing has been decided with respect to the fonts.  By the way, as of this writing, I did some rearranging.  It is largely self-explanatory.

Housekeeping 4.21.19

Once upon a time, I created a category for this.  The infrequency of the posts seem to suggest how little time I actually spend on it.

It's about time for some of that, then.

The reminder was that video about shortcuts.  Now I am reorganizing things.  Hey, it might lead to some improvement, who knows?

Housekeeping the Blog

Yesterday was a bit of an unsettling day.  For a long time, I believed that an electric car was feasible.  Now, that belief has been shaken a bit.  To be a bit more accurate, electric cars are feasible, but perhaps not economical.

The reason for this was an oversight by yours truly.  I figured that ammonia was easy to make, and easy to "crack".  Therefore, I didn't do my homework, and consequently, I assumed something to be true, which may not be.

As a result, I made some slight modifications to the left sidebar in order to indicate this doubt.  I added a question mark to the link to a couple posts in the "Brainstorm" list of links.  These links point to posts made previously with respect to a certain topic.  Two of those topics apply here

1. Electric cars are feasible today.  and,
2. Killer app for molten-salt reactors.

Frankly, the whole idea of not using carbon for energy has to be looked at.  The question for me has always been whether or not burning fossil fuels was really a problem for the human race.  I expressed my doubts about this.  However, what if that is correct after all?

If it is correct, then we may have a real problem here after all.  The thing that changed here for me was that finding that ammonia is not likely the answer.  If that is the case, and if AGW is actually a valid theory, then this is going to turn out to be a major challenge.  Human beings are very dependent upon carbon energy.  Economic growth and stability could be on shaky ground.

Plenty wet around here due to rain

There was a shortage of water, now there is more water than I know what to do with.

I found another thing I could do with all this rainwater that I have been collecting lately.  There was another 10 gallons that I needed to find a use for.  All of my containers are full of water, so that was not an option.

The solution was to flush my tanks of my trailer.  Besides that, after muddying up the floors, I needed to mop up afterwards.

While I was at it, I cleaned up the joint, and used some Pinesol for the floor.  Now the place smells fresh and clean.

And the water is flushed down into the tanks.  I haven't emptied the tanks yet, but I'll give that a little more time.  It is still muddy outside.  I sure hate to mess up the pretty floor again.

Whatfinger

You may notice that I have made a few changes on the left sidebar.

One of those changes is to add "Whatfinger" to the preferred blog list.  Whatfinger is a news-aggregation site, not unlike Drudge.

Drudge has become unreliable.  Maybe he always was.  Won't go any further than that.  Read up on the speculations to understand why.

There are a number of interesting links there.  Stuff you may not see elsewhere.  In fact, if I can remember it, I am planning to visit that site for news on a daily basis.

The Last Refuge Added to Preferred Blog List

There are but a few blogs which I recommend as a reading list.  Actually, I do not always read these blogs.  For some reason, I have forgotten why I listed any of them.  So what else is new?  I am not the most organized person in the world.

Even though there are but a few blogs in this list, I do read other stuff.  Actually, most of what I read each day is not on this list.

Today, I changed the list just a little.  I took down Knowledge is Power, and replaced it with The Last Refuge.  I DO read The Last Refuge a lot.  Every day, as a matter of fact.  Perhaps this is why I am adding it.

Another reason I am adding it is that I think the author does a damn good job.  Enough said on that.  What else needs to be said?

Knowledge is Power is not necessarily a bad blog, but I felt like I should not include it because I don't read it that often.  I think I might have included it because I used to read it a lot more than now.  There are many blogs that I used to read from the "old days" that I no longer read. 

I renamed the "Quality Reading List" as "Preferred blog list".  I could not think of another name.  Let's just say that this is a list of blogs that I do not wish to forget about.  That makes it easier for me, because I forget things easily.

Why should you read these blogs?  I think they are all worth reading.  There is one in the list is about Chordoma, which is what I have.  ( that's kinda personal )

Anyway, there are no other changes for now.

Egg cooker

Saw this gizmo on Instapundit, and decided to try it.

It uses but little water, and 350 watts of power.  Let's do the math.  There are two ounces of water being used.  That's 1/8 of a pound, as a pint weighs about a pound.  Thus, to raise the temperature to boiling requires  140 degree F delta t.  If you divide 140 by 8, you get 17.5 joules in order to raise 2 ounces to boiling point.  Convert to watts, and you get 17.5 watts times 1/4 hour and you obtain  4 1/8 watt hours.  Does not sound like much energy expenditure.  Too little....

The device claims it uses 350 watts, so let's try another angle.  One quarter hour yields just shy of 90 watt hours.  Hmm.  I think this version is more accurate.

Anyway, I ran the device on my off-grid equipment.  There was a voltage drop to just under 12 volts, but the system ran okay for about seven minutes or so.  The thing has an automatic shutoff, which is set by a temperature sensor.

The water was boiling, as you might have expected.  It doesn't take that much energy to get the water to boiling, as we see above.  To make it boil maybe takes more energy, thus the discrepancy.  Maybe, the discrepancy was rather large.

The battery returned to normal voltage rather quickly.  The upshot here is that this device will work with the equipment I have, and therefore, I should be able to cook a solar cooked egg. 

Whoop-de-doo doo.

Lazy man cooking

Well, here's a post on housekeeping.  Guess what?  Not that much to post about, that's what.  I got one idea, and now this is it.  The next post may come in a couple months, maybe.

Okay, maybe not that long.

Here it goes.  In the last few months, I contrived a way to cook which uses a lot less propane.  I cook off the top instead of the oven.  I figure the oven uses too much propane.  This way uses very low heat in order to accomplish the same goal.

It works for me because I cook for myself.  If I had somebody else to cook for, maybe this wouldn't work as well.

Looks like this system will cook frozen meat and a frozen veggie side like this.  I put it in a pan, in the which the bottom is covered with aluminum foil.  This is so I won't have to wash the pan after cooking, you see.  I put a piece of foil on top, with another pan on top of it.  This will trap the heat, so that I get the most out of the heat that is being used to cook.  Cooks fairly fast, by the way.  Faster than you would think.

It is fairly healthy, too.  That is, if you want it to be.  I am using frozen broccoli and cauliflower.  The meat is ground pork.  I'll season it up once it is done.  Very simple, quick, and I don't have to wash the dishes.  The lazy man's way of cooking.

Do I get my good housekeeping seal of approval?  Yuk, yuk.

Oh, forgot to mention...  I use water instead of oil.  Fewer calories!

Upgrading the blog

Originally posted 5.19.17,


Updated:

4.25.18:

In order to add content, I made a small change in the label attached to these posts called "Housekeeping the blog".  It has been changed to "Housekeeping".  The posts listed under that label have been retained, and new content can now be added.  The housekeeping will be general in nature, so that it won't necessarily be blog related.  This is so I can blog about stuff I do about the house.

It could include little things I do in order to save time and effort.  Lazy man ideas, so to speak.



The original post follows:


Did a bit of spring cleaning on this here blog.  Maybe it improves it, maybe it doesn't.

If you don't like it, you can get a refund.  Simply ask for one, and your money will be sent by check in the mail.

16:22

After reading a number of articles by Sharyl Attkisson , I note that she predicted months ago what I wrote earlier today.  She's way ahead.  What happened with the independent counsel was a result of energy, drive, and determination from the dems, which at this point has not been matched by the GOP.

A real disservice has occurred.  It is likely to get worse.  The people who support Trump are behind the curve, and have to catch up.

How to do that?

Computer housekeeping

You probably wouldn't guess it if I didn't mention it.  I have a computer science degree.

Yep, didn't do me much good.  

My computer skills may not be any better than anyone else's.

Computers have a rapid obsolesence quality about them.  What you know today won't necessarily help you tomorrow.  What I learned in the seventies isn't much good now.

Anyway, I spent some of my time today fixing the netbook.  More RAM is now available.  There ought to be a way to get it ALL back, but I won't make the effort.  There may not be much life left in it anyhow.

This post is being written on my tablet.  I am thing of dropping the conventional internet and going all wireless.  I've done that before.  It constrains you, as you have to keep track of your data usage, and be careful not to incur additional costs.  The tablet uses wireless.

The desktop needs updating.  What a pain that is.

All the old computers are gone.  These three are what I have now, plus a couple smart phones.  I am wondering if I can use the old smartphone for something.  It has a better camera than the new one.

Once I get out on the property out West, blog posts may just be links to videos.  A heads up for you, in case you are interested.

Updating my "Best of" posts

I was doing this on a regular basis, but stopped for some reason.  I don't remember why.

Anyway, it is quite interesting to go over these items one by one and see which ones make it and which ones don't.

One thing really gratifying is how many "Brainstorm" posts made the "Best of" list.

Brainstorms may never be implemented, for they are only ideas.  But just one really good idea can make a fortune.  Chuckle.  Here I am eschewing the reliance upon money and writing some like that.

Seinfeld posts: recurring posts about nothing--- in particular

A new category that will fit under Sundry Topics.   What I wanted to do was to add another category without cluttering up the blog any further than what it is already.  So, this post will be a catchall of sorts.  I will put all new posts like "Home Again" under this category.  Plus anything else in particular that is recurring, but isn't a series.  On further review, that last sentence reads like a contradiction to the title.  The thing that is in particular is the recurring post type, but the category isn't about anything in particular.  Perhaps that explanation clears things up.

Thoughts about the next stage of the water filtration

A quick review here:

What I've achieved so far:  I've got a simple and cheap water filtration device that can produce laundry quality water or higher out of laundry water. In other words, I believe that the water I got out of this system is at least good enough to reuse for laundry if it was used for laundry in the first place.

The water can be used for the spirulina systems as long as bleach isn't used for disinfecting.  For that matter, the spirulina system may be able to kill off all bacteria and virus because of the high pH.  But, to be on the safe side, before it is sent to the spirulina, it should be boiled.  It should be boiled before going through the filter, come to think of it.

So, the filtered water has two uses.  But what about drinking and bathing water?

I'm thinking another system will be required for that.

The condenser system that I've been working on probably won't be good enough.  I'm going to need something else.

All along, I've been considering a de-humidifier for the relative humidity condensation.  Could this not be possible for the water that is lost in the humidifier system?

Let's look what happens to that water that comes out of the humidifier.  It wants to condense almost immediately as it comes out of the device.  What would be better is if it were to evaporate completely and then run through a de-humidifier.

In order to do this, the water coming out of the humidifier needs to go through a long tubing that can let get away from the system as far as possible.  In other words, grab off the water and collect it, but don't worry about the "losses".  Those can be gained back later with the dehumidifier.

The long tubing can be my ozarka water bottles hooked up into series.  This will give the mist plenty of volume to expand into water vapor while at the same time, we can collect the water and maybe be able to use it for bathing.

The thing not to do is try to collect water in the container, as I've been trying to do.  It doesn't work well enough.

Instead, I will consider either making a condenser out of kiddie lab equipment and a boiling apparatus.  I don't care if it is kiddie equipment as long as it can produce usable water.

Actually, the kid stuff looks cheaper than a dehumidifier.  So, you've got that working for you.

I'm going to think on that one for awhile.  No rush.

After a pause, a few more thoughts:

Number one:  What I've been doing so far is similar to what happens as described in this video:


The last part, where the hot air is rejected to environment is what I want to use to run through a dehumidifier and gather that back up again without losing any water at all.  In other words, the part that is being lost, which in my system is about 4 ounces of water per hour, will go into the room where it will raise the relative humidity level, which, by the way, what the humidifier is supposed to do in the first place.

The water that is collecting is like the sump in the video.  It goes back into the chiller system, but I don't need that.  I will use that water for either laundry, bathing, or drinking depending upon quality.  At the moment, I've got laundry quality water coming out of it.

Since I'm not heating anything, the "kiddie" equipment isn't needed yet.  It could be used for some other application when boiling is necessary.  This may come into play when I want to get drinking water.

The dehumidifier might at least get bathing quality water, so here's a recap:

The current system that I've proven ( I think it can be said to be good enough to say that) will produce laundry water and "irrigation" water.

The part that is currently being lost, can be recovered using a dehumidifier.  This will produce at least bathing quality water.  Especially when you use a bit of bleach as a disinfectant.

The last part can be run through the kiddie lab in order to produce drinking water.  This could be a fraction of the water that is currently being produced from the humidifier of my current system.

I don't want to quit on my system.  Just keep improving it.  Therefore, it won't be the last treatment for the water coming out of the current (proven) system.  It will need further processing.

Update:

I've been linking these water filtration posts together into a type of proto series.  From now on, they will be part of a new series.  Each of the posts so far have a link in it somewhere, although these have not been clearly defined.  It is possible to follow this up to this time, or track back into time to the first.  You can also access the thread from the Table of Contents post for the main series, which the off-the-grid series link in the sidebar.

Next ( TBD)

Plans are being updated with new material

In case I haven't mentioned it, I have a Table of Contents post for the off-the-grid series.  I've been updating the links in that post.  It may not look like much, but it helps tighten up things a bit.  My goal is to be able to use this as a reference.

It's all rather sparse, I know.  But this is not an entertainment blog.

By the way, I've been working on my water filtration experiments, too.  As I've mentioned, the water doesn't drain reliably in these sand filtration devices, so I've been trying a few things that may help move the water through.  It appears that squeezing the plastic bottle and moving the sand around helped with throughput.  That stopped working when I accidentally knocked over the device the other day.  Now, I wonder if another technique could help.  So, I tried an experiment last night.  I jabbed the sand with a screwdriver and creating a few holes that allowed the water to drain better.  However, the quality suffered.  However, I'm hopeful that a few times through will settle the sand back down and it will filter better.  All in all, the experiments are helping me learn how to produce a better device.

Update ( later today ) :

The water filtration technique is not working as well as I'd like.  Like to find a fast way of getting a lot of water out, but no luck so far.

While I was looking at some old links, I found this one that gets good customer reviews.  Unfortunately, the company ( Unisolar) has gone out of business.  There is a limited number left and no warranty.  If you like rolling the dice, this one may come up big.

Update ( a little bit later still today ):

On another subject, I viewed a video about the go anywhere toilet system.  If there is any downside to this, it is how much work it takes to maintain it.  Not as easy as flushing it and forgetting it.  But that goes away as soon as you get your own place.  For when you get your own place, you are responsible.  Not like living in an apartment and somebody else is responsible for the sewage.

Recap of last weeks posts 8/24 to 8/31/14

The tone is getting rather apocalyptic these days.  Maybe we are there, who knows?

The most views for the week:  Before and after 3rd try.  

That post was about the water filtration experiments.  With respect to that, I've set that aside for the moment.

Time is always short.  Maybe even shorter than anyone is aware of at this moment.

Update:

It seems like a little housekeeping may be in order.  I found several posts that made the "Best of" category recently, and now I've just done it again.  I didn't point out what category in a post like this, so I'm correcting that now:

Here's a category that have a few new additions to the "Best of":
Best of Financial Markets
Best of Brainstorms ( noted that recently, fortunately )
Best of PHD
Best of Energy
Best of Miscellaneous

Updated the index page

It has been over a year since I updated that page.

The most significant thing I've done over the past year has been this off-the-grid series.  The reason for its signficance?  I've actually done something about it.  I'm doing REAL things here.  Everything that came before ( in terms of series ) were on theoretical kinds of things as opposed to real things like this.

I've add the term "series" to the index.  It doesn't seem to pull up much, but it does pull up something.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I was wondering why John Powell of JP Aerospace didn't think of this?  Maybe he did, but it seems like he has to conduct his experiments in a time consuming manner.  Perhaps it would've worked better if he was out in the desert to begin with, instead of being in close to the city and having to go out to the desert for his missions.  But the desert is much closer to him than it is over in this neck of the woods.  Maybe it isn't too bad after all.