I’m surprised I haven’t written this recipe before now. This is one of the first dishes that I prepared and is a family favorite. We eat this when cash is running a little low, we eat it when we’re in the mood for it and we also make this when we have guest coming over. Almost always a crowd pleasure.
I haven’t really modified it much over the years, mostly, I just add chopped onion once you add the chicken.
We also had some left over green onion, so I chopped some of those and put them on top, I don’t think it added anything.
I cooked it on High for three hours and we were hungry so it only cooked for two hours and 45 minutes, probably could have started eating at the two hour and thirty minute mark.
I also used a full cup of milk, as I don’t have a 3/4 measuring cup, or I didn’t think I did. I didn’t fill it up to the rim so it was probably more like a 7/8 cup of milk.
We buy the pre-mixed Colby cheese and Monterey Jack Pepper cheese mix so that saves a step in the preparation. The way I do it, I spend like 20 minutes (or it feels that way) on putting in the ingredients. I could have cut the bacon into smaller parts, as we didn’t buy the Oscar Meyer bacon bits, like I prefer. So there were some strips of bacon that were longer than usual. Which was nice as the bacon usually disappears in the pot. I didn’t notice a difference in taste.
Sometimes, I do forget to buy an onion which I think makes the chicken taste sweeter. I did use an heavier hand when the pepper, so that made a difference too.
For once, the top layer of tater tots covered the top, usually I get a good circle around the border but then the middle isn’t covered in tater tots.
Overall, it tasted as good as it ever does, which is pretty good.
. . .
Television wise, I finally got to watch Doctor Who Season Nine’s Woman Who Lived. Pretty good episode, I really need to watch these two parters closer to each other.
I’ll be heading to Denver this week, for work, so I should have plenty of time to watch my shows. So that’s pretty exciting.
Except, that I finally got a working Kindle and downloaded the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Legends game. I’ve tried so much to download it onto my phone but I understand why it wouldn’t work on my Android phone. It is a very large file and my phone graphics (and size) wouldn’t have been big enough for the game. There is a lot to do, and it reminds me so much of the Marvel : Avengers Alliance game that I was super addicted to on Facebook, last year. So I worry about getting as addicted to this game, which if that does happen, I’ll have to delete it and never look back. It is super fun though, I have a load of characters, I’m on mission three and trying to do all of the side stuff. I was tempted to bring my Kindle to work but opted not to do it. My mother-in-law got Walker Dennis a new Kids Kindle, so I got his old one. The battery life isn’t great but it has been hinted that Santa might get me an Adult Kindle but I’m able to do pretty much what I would have wanted on a proper Kindle, I’m just pretty much plugged into a wall the entire time though. It is a kids game, so they only give you like 60 pizza slices, which is your time meter, so that goes pretty quickly. Except, at first, it lasted as I was leveling up all the time. Which helped me get way into the game. I have a slew of characters and I feel like I’m doing okay. Now I’m at the point where I don’t have enough mutagen canisters so I can’t level up my team like I would like. Which also adds to the limitations of the game. Which I need, or I would just fall into the abyss of the game. So that happened.
The game, which I might have to do a proper post on, has the same game mechanics as Avengers Alliance, where each of the five characters classes is strong against another type and weak against another type. So there is strategy to each fight.
I downloaded it yesterday and I already have – Leonardo, Karai, Newtralizer (the starter characters), Snake Weed, Spider Bytz, Fishface and Stockman-Fly (got this morning).
It is nice that you have five person teams, so I only have two that sit out of each fight.
Our next episode of The Office is Season Four’s Dinner Party.
Our next episode of Person of Interest is Season Five’s Reassortment. QSO was a pretty good episode too.
We’re in the middle of Arrow Season Five’s So It Begins, we couldn’t quite finish it last night.
I think that was the bulk of our television watching. I’m going to try to create a list of shows that I want to watch, while in Denver. As I do enjoy watching an episode of a series and switching to another series. It keeps it fresh but maybe I’ll just try to knock out Doctor Who, while I’m there.
I keep finding myself thinking about the upcoming Fall Television season.
I’m using the above Wikipedia page to keep track of upcoming shows that we are interested in, if you want to follow along.
Sunday
I doubt I’ll be watching CBS’s Wisdom of the Crowd but it has Monica Potter of Parenthood and Head Over Heels fame, I’m glad she got another series not too long after Parenthood ended.
I am tempted to give FOX’s Ghosted a chance as I’ll watch anything that has Adam Scott in it and Craig Robinson is always funny, so the two of them should work wonders together. I doubt it makes it a full season, but I’ll give the show a couple episodes. I’ll probably end up watching it by myself.
Looking ahead at a few series, I’m glad that America is finally coming around to the British way of doing television, with ten or 13 episodes making up one season. Not every series needs 22 episodes, and even those series, probably could do without one or two episodes.
I’m definitely going to follow Star Trek : Discovery onto CBS All Access. 15 episodes sounds like it will be pretty stellar. Pun intended!
Count me in with FOX’s The Orville, at least the first episode. I imagine how involved Seth MacFarlane is with this, this being his show, it should be super watchable. Adrianne Palicki probably isn’t coming back to Agents of SHIELD, any time soon. Not like we are watching that show anymore, with my wife’s ban on Joss Whedon continuing. Plus, we are so far behind on shows that, even when that ban lifts, Palicki might be back on that show or in today’s modern television era, her contract might have availability for that show.
Monday
We’ll be watching ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, expect a post regarding that cast once that is known. Which should be soon, I imagine as the season is set to start in the middle of September.
We’ll be skipping The Good Doctor, good that kid from Bates Motel got a new gig so quickly. West Wing’s Richard Schiff is part of that show, which is nice.
Bobby Moynihan’s comedy version of This Is Us, CBS’s Me, Myself & I is a show I’ll be passing on. He left SNL for this (or it timed out that way) so I hope it works for him.
My wife is still watching Scorpion, it does seem like a good show, the few segments I’ve seen of it.
We’re still on for CW’s Supergirl. We’ll probably watch Arrow and Legends on Netflix, unless we can squeeze those shows in (and if we can finish Arrow in time).
Entertainment Weekly states that there will be a proper four part crossover in November, so no word on any secret two-parters like Flash and Supergirl last season.
I’ll be watching FOX’s The Gifted, the new X-Men series. Hopefully it is good. I’ll be watching it just for Amy Acker, if for nothing else.
We’ll also be watching The Voice, now with Miley Cyrus and Jennifer Hudson. Cyrus has proven herself on the show but the clips seem to be turning Hudson into someone that makes me weary of her inclusion. I’ll be missing Alicia Keys but she did win a season, so she has to go. That’s the rule. I see on the Wikipedia page that Kelly Clarkson will be a coach, replacing the Gwen Stefani / Cyrus coach position.
Dancing and The Voice, in the Fall, is what puts us so far behind on our television watching. At least Dancing is once a week (I hope they never go back to two nights) and it is good pretty much from the start. I wonder how many Blind episodes of The Voice will there be.
I deifnitely have no interest in Young Sheldon, on CBS, and I can’t imagine that show lasting a full season. It is going to be this odd little footnote into the series.
Tuesday
We’ll be watching ABC’s Black-ish, they added another baby, so I wonder how many more seasons will there be. Tracee Ellis Ross keeps winning awards, and the only one to do so, so expect those wins to earn another season for the show. Will this be Yara Shahidi’s last season? I know Zoey is supposed to be “off to college” but she’ll probably still pop up from time to time.
I like the idea of ABC’s The Mayor, but I’ll hold out an opinion until I see a trailer for it.
I do like Jason Ritter, but I’m not sure we’ll watch ABC’s Kevin (Probably) Saves the World. Maybe if it gets high praise reviews, we’ll give it a shot.
Still be watching CW’s The Flash and keeping an eye out for Legends of Tomorrow in November.
We’ll be watching FOX’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
We’ll be sticking with The Voice on NBC and of course, This is Us. We really love that show. The short season means no filler too, which is outstanding. Once Upon a Time and Revenge as really killed my buzz for 23 episode series. Be it comedy or drama though my patience with comedy seems to be greater.
NBC’s Law & Order True Crime is tackling the Menendez Murders (for some reason), my wife got caught up in the original case, so we’ll probably give this eight episode series a look. Though, whenever I think of this show, I always think of that incredible skit from SNL.
First Got Horny 2U
Thanks to Saturday Night Live for hosting that video!
So good!
That show has Anthony Edwards, Sam Jaeger and Healther Graham in it, so that’s cool.
Wednesday
We’re still in for ABC’s The Goldbergs. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this show’s return as I’m all about Bryan Callen now and he did an interview with Bill Goldberg with Fighter and the Kid, where they confirm that Goldberg is playing Callen’s Coach Mellor’s brother. That should be super fun.
Thanks to The Fighter and the Kid for hosting their own videos.
It is a pretty good episode.
I’m still working on my Fighter and the Kid post, the way I have it now, it has like 30 videos in it and I really don’t think all of those are necessary, so I’m still tweaking it.
How are they going to work Hayley Orrantia’s Erica into the upcoming season? Or does she have one more high school year left? She’s going to Georgia for college so she should only appear for the holiday episodes and a phone call now and again, right? I’m going to miss her on the show.
We’re still watching Modern Family, still not enough Alex for my taste. That show has to be ending soon too, right? Their lack of award nominations tells me that the industry is moving on and the writers seem to be right behind them too.
My wife moved ahead with Designated Survivor so she’ll probably keep with that show.
Speaking of which, CBS’s Survivor’s theme is Heroes v Healers v Hustlers. We’ll be watching it, I like the competition elements but I do lose interest in the parts surrounding the comps. Tribal is still good, but it takes me longer and longer to learn people’s names, with each new season.
I’m all in with CW’s Riverdale, Luke Perry is going to survive the gun shot, right? Right!?! Probably the only season finale that I’m still thinking about. Flash was okay but it is clearly going to resolve itself before minute the fifth minute.
My wife will be watching FOX’s Empire. I’m not sure if she watches Star, it sounds like she does but I don’t know.
Thursday
My wife is still watching ABC’s Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. I know it is Scandal’s final season.
We still really enjoy CBS’s Life in Pieces, we do miss that show when it is Thursday and we want to watch the episode but we have to wait until Friday to do so.
We’re catching up with CW’s Arrow but not sure if we’ll be watching it live.
There are times when I wouldn’t mind catching up with FOX’s Gotham. Orville being on Thursday is a nice sign of confidence. The Sunday timeslot must have been a premiere night.
I’ve also been tempted to get caught up with NBC’s Superstore. I’m not sure if I’m watching Will & Grace, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the show, towards the end, but I do like these reunion series that we’re getting now.
Friday
ABC’s Once Upon a Time is being “treated” to a time jump, so don’t expect that show to get renewed. I’m not sure if we’re even attempting Inhumans, it doesn’t look like any Whedon is involved with this show so maybe we’ll give the first episode a look. I do like it only being eight episodes.
We still watch CBS’s Blue Bloods, I like the show and I’m glad it continues. It is one of those rare shows where they can just keep releasing season after season, like an old school procedural. Though Frank always seems like he’s ready to retire, which would probably be the last season. I wonder if they are going to do more with Erin and Jamie this season, outside of the two spotlight episodes that they have to get.
I really want to watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on the CW, but it is so hard to see an episode on Netflix.
. . .
I guess that’s the 2017 element of the 2017 – 2018 Television Schedule.
I still see series listed By Network, that are not included in the above chart.
ABC has a Dancing with the Stars Junior competition that I’m sure my wife is going to love.
The CW is having Black Lightning, which is NOT part of the Arrow-verse so I’ll probably be passing on that until it is considered part of the Arrow-verse. Seems pretty dumb to not be included in the fun but Greg Berlanti said that they can jump in at any time, which is really nice of him. I completely understand wanting to stand on their own feet but it just feels like a shame to not be included, especially being on The CW. Might as well be on FOX with Gotham.
FOX has New Girl that I didn’t see above, which is also on its final season. They are bringing 9-1-1 back, now with, Angela Bassett. FOX also has The Resident that Emily VanCamp is in, she was the only reason to keep watching Revenge and after rewatching Civil War, I could be up for watching her new series. She looks to be the main nurse on that series but fourth listed on the Wikipedia page. Though I don’t recognize the first two names, I do know Bruce Greenwood. I looked them up, the top guy is Logan from Gilmore Girls and the other was in the fourth season of Agents of SHIELD. I still don’t recognize him.
NBC, the network that spurred this post, has The Awesome Show, with Chris Hardwick. Which reads, to me, like his Wall renewal contract stated he get a show that is more in line with his actual interests. It’ll be six episodes, like his BBC show was. But without the pop culture, it looks like.
I’m not tempted by The Brave show, at all, though it is getting all the Hulu advertising. Odd for a show that doesn’t have a September or October start date. Oh, I missed it above, it is on Monday nights, after The Voice.
I wonder if my wife will watch Ellen’s Game of Games.
NPH is hosting Genius Junior, a kid quiz show, in prime time!
They also have Good Girls with Christina Hendricks (maybe on a show I’ll actually watch) and Mae Whitman! Hey, Matthew Lillard is on it too! Retta of Parks and Recreation fame is the third lady of the series.
Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman are going to host a reality show, Handmade Project, which might be interesting.
Reverie is a show with Person of Interest’s Sarah Shahi as well as Dennis Haysbert, so that could be good too.
And, finally, due to alphabetical order, NBC’s Rise! The show that I’m super eager for! It stars HIMYM’s Josh Radnor as the teacher that inspires a city, via the high school drama department. It also features Moana’s Auli’i Cravalho as well. I’m surprised Disney didn’t throw a series at her but I’m glad to have her involved in this show. Still no release date. Here is an interview with Josh Radnor, regarding the show –
Thanks to Josh Radnor Videos for hosting the above video.
It is only a minute long but from the upfronts, it sounds like the trailer was well received.
Shannon Purser of Riverdale and Stranger Things (she’s Barb) will have a recurring role in it, which seems awkward. Is she only in six of the ten episodes?
Marley Shelton will be playing Radnor’s wife on the show. I know her as being the object of affection from Trojan War, though she had no chance against Jennifer Love Hewitt. She’s in Pleasantville and Never Been Kissed but I don’t recognize her from those films. I still need to watch Sugar and Spice as it has James Marsden in it. I’ve seen clips of Bubble Boy, so I know she’s The Girl in that film. She’s The Customer in Sin City, whatever that means. From in W, a horrible film. The deputy in Scream 4, which might be familiar. Shelton has these great eyes, which do leave an impression, which helps me remember her. So I’m as familiar with her as probably a small margin of people but she should be good in the role.
This all reminds me that I still need to watch Mercy Street. I started the first episode, months ago, and didn’t even get to the Josh Radnor scene! I did like seeing Mary Elizabeth Winstead, again, I don’t see nearly enough of her work.
. . .
Going down the Renewals and Cancellations section.
ABC’s The Middle is ending, a show I’ve seen like three minutes of. Scandal is ending.
CW’s Originals is ending, my wife likes that show too.
New Girl is ending and probably about time for it too.
I thought there would be more shows to confirm.
. . .
So that’s the list of what we’re mostly watching and what a few things I know I’m already not tempted by.
We combined the above recipe with another recipe as I printed one and my wife thought I was making the other.
Mostly, what I did was additions then. Along with the 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, I added 1 teaspoon of paprika and another teaspoon of rosemary. Which added some heat to the recipe. Rosemary, from what I’ve read, is a simple spice that adds a nice savory flavor.
Instead of cream, I used milk and instead of beef stock, I use chicken – as that’s what I had.
Except, when it came time to mix the soup, spices, stock and milk in a bowl, I completely forgot to add milk and stock – like a complete idiot. I was placing the casserole dish, I used our 9 x 13 as we don’t own an 11 x 7 dish, I saw the measuring cups and realized I left some ingredients out. So I mixed the chicken stock and the milk and just poured it into the dish. I figure, the potatoes really need to be soften, so the additional liquid will benefit the dish, I didn’t know about the science of what it would do separated from the proper soup mixture. I imagine, those two ingredients would have helped during the pouring stages, as the mixture sat there in clumps. I wrote squares around those ingredients in the directions and the ingredients – hopefully, I don’t forget them again.
This was pretty tasty, probably could have used another potato. Does anyone know how long a five pound bag is supposed to last? It seems just shy of two weeks is too long by a bit.
During the browning of the beef phase, along with the onion, I put a 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder, paprika and rosemary, to create a nice synergy with the beef and soup mixture. That’s what I like to do with the meat, makes it all come together.
What I use I did, was find a way to add some color to the recipe, as it was a lot of white with the potatoes with spots of brown with the beef. Could have used some greens or reds to brighten it up. Which, again, is only a thought I’ve had now that I’m taking pictures of my dinners.
The one hour cook time seemed to be plenty, so I wouldn’t change that. Mostly, the only change for next time would to not be a dummy and include the milk and stock at the proper time. Usually I place all of my ingredients (with an -ents and not -ants, apparently) on the counter. I usually don’t with milk, as it is milk but I’m not sure what made me leave the chicken stock in the fridge.
. . .
The Montana fires are still terrible. I wish we could use cartoon logic, take all of that extra water that Texas is sadly dealing with, and air lift the water up here. We could really use it.
. . .
Television wise, we did some marathoning of the Office and our next episode is Season Four’s Launch Party. So glad that Pam and Jim are together, and we didn’t waste even more time getting there.
We’re on episode seven of Person of Interest’s final season. That show is getting so good!
We’re on episode episode three of Arrow’s fifth season. Is season six abandoning the flashback sequences? Might have my answer if I watch more episodes but I really hope they do abandon that as he was on the island for five years and we should be done with it. Also, for the most part, the present day storyline has always been leaps better than the flashback sequences.
We saw Captain America : Civil War again, which is nice as I’ve been watching it in four minute intervals and only got to Tony Stark at the college scene. My wife didn’t recall anything from it, from the time we saw it in the theater to now. She’s nice enough to indulge me with these films. Listening to Living Between Wednesdays, I’m finally in 2016 with that podcast, and they are getting hyped for Civil War so I’ve been wanting to watch the film again. I should rewatch Winter Solder, probably will next, as there are moments in that film I want to see again.
I made it like two minutes into the second episode of Assets, then my son stopped me.
So we’re trying to do this Office – Person of Interest – Arrow cycle, so far, it has been pretty successful.
Last time, I went down this How I Met Your Mother YouTube rabbit hole. I really wish they had gone with the alternate ending, it would have made that show’s legacy, that much better.
Thanks to YouTUber flavi_us for hosting the video!
That and maybe not undoing Barney and Robin as quickly as they did. In the alternate timeline, does that mean Barney and Robin are still together? I hadn’t thought about that until right now.
I must have taken that final season episode, How Your Mother Met Me, for granted, as I started watching it this morning and that episode is amazing. Cristin Milloti should be in more things, I really wish NBC’s A to Z got a full season.
I want to say that was pretty much our television watching, we got caught up with Master Chef, I’m still not sure who will be in the finale, I guess the Top Five are going to be those from the winning Red Team (Cate, Dino, Eboni, Gabriel) and Yachecia. I imagine Jason would be in the finale and that Jeff will be gone next. Eboni’s comment about Yachecia being the new Jeff, had us cracking up. Then, Jeff didn’t go home and that was disappointing. We don’t need Old Jeff when we now have a New Jeff. Also, I wouldn’t even know how to make a truffle, so it is amazing that they all knew how to begin making them.
Okay, this may just be me and how often I’ve heard this song.
Shawn Mendes’ There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back, thanks to ShawnMendesVEVO for hosting this video.
Gosh, Walker Dennis is obsessed with this song! He just listens to it on a constant loop. So I’ve heard it so many times. It is to the point where I have to make up something so we can leave his Kindle behind after the third playing of it. Or worst, he uses my phone and listens to it there.
At some point, the melody of the song reminds me of Neon Tree’s Sleeping with a Friend
Thanks to NeonTreesVEVO for hosting this video.
Am I crazy or do these two videos share some musicality?
I haven’t been doing a good job on keeping up with disastrous robot or artificial intelligence news.
Facebook was trying to create a chatbox with two programs started talking using English but not comprehensive English. Things out of hand and not before too long, shut it all down. Other articles are being written that Facebook really shut down the program as it wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. I’m just happy that it got shutdown as we don’t need to be experimenting with artificial intelligence.
I still can’t find that article regarding the robot scorpion that cut a Carnegie Mellon University student.
They really should have worked the word “Elbow” or “Macaroni” into the title, as once you put a pound of elbow macaroni into a 9 x 13 dish, the recipe becomes 80% elbow macaroni. Also, it becomes much heavier!
Didn’t modify this too much, as I was cooking it. I would probably use only 1/4 teaspoon of pepper instead of 1/2 teaspoon, but that could be on me for not sprinkling the pepper in a better fashion. But it just looked like a lot of pepper.
I would also use two tablespoons of olive oil, as the chicken was a tad dry. I definitely cooked it at 30 minutes, as opposed to 40 as I knew with the additional 20 minutes of cooking, at the end, that it the chicken was definitely going to get cooked. Now I’m wondering if I should have cooked it for 25 minutes upfront and added five minutes during the second round? As our Progresso Panko break crumbs didn’t really firm up. I don’t trust broiling, it seems high risk and no real reward. Maybe I’ll try that, next time. We went with the Italian variety instead of Japanese, it felt right with what we were preparing for.
Apparently Campbell makes a Cream of Mushroom AND Cream of Chicken Soup, in the same can. So instead of this recipe being 50/50 Cream of Chicken and Cream of Mushroom, it was more 75/25. So we’ll definitely either buy a can of each soup, next time, or we’ll buy two cans of the combo soup. I didn’t even know such a combo soup existed! It looked more like Cream of Mushroom though.
Overall, besides the Panko not being more firm, it turned out pretty well. I also have to shred the chicken more, as it was still rather chunky instead of being more shredded. With that much macaroni, the chicken got a tad lost.
. . .
I was able to watch the McGregor v Mayweather fight on Saturday Night. After hearing about it so much on The Fighter and the Kid and Prinze and the Wolf, I got the idea in my head that I would like to watch it but figured I couldn’t. I had committed to watching highlights and whatever clips I could obtain but I was able to enjoy watching the fight. I didn’t realize rounds were like three minutes, so I knew I wasn’t going to be up past midnight. I still was, though, as I wanted to see if anyone matched my outrage over the Technical Knock Out. Which, I still find suspect. A match of this caliber, and on such a large state, shouldn’t be ending on any technicality. McGregor didn’t even touch the ground! He could have just moved against the ropes for the rest of the minute and a half and sat down during the brief break. It did look like he was getting gassed during the seventh round but making it to ten is amazing! I was super impress with referee Robert Byrd, with lots of his calls but that final call, tainted the whole thing. I’m glad McGregor said something about that, after Mayweather’s speech. McGregor was talking fine and was a tad dazed, that’s all it was.
. . .
Television-wise, we finally finished Daredevil Season Two. I’m not sure when we’ll start on Luke Cage. We opted to watch Arrow’s Season Five’s first episode instead of making progress on Person of Interest. It was really late and I had the thought that we started Arrow, when it first came out, before committing to just watching Supergirl and Flash as it aired. As, at that time, I knew that those two shows were going to crossover and I knew we would be fine with watching the Arrow and Legends episodes of the mega-crossover, without being too lost or spoiled on their individual subplots. I’ll have to do some research with the upcoming seasons to see which shows we need to follow. I bet we could do the same thing and just stick with Flash and Supergirl.
Our next episode of The Office is Season Three’s Back from Vacation.
I woke up this morning, wanting to jump back into Jodie Whittaker’s The Assets, so I might try to sneak in another episode of that, as that is only eight episodes, the last one appears to be an interview with the real Sandra Grimes. I’m on the second episode of that.
Look, I made Thursday Dinner! My wife had one of our (several) cook binders open and I know how to cook, so I just start prepping it, once we got home.
When I saw that it required 1/2 cup of chopped basil leaves, I was like “gosh, that’s a lot of basil leaves!” It took our entire container of basil leaves. Once the meal was completed, I chalked it up to it being like a pesto sauce.
I should say, that this doesn’t really make a “sauce,” it is more like a mixture.
My wife didn’t care for it, at first, but after a few more bites, she was enjoying it. It is one of those recipes where I already wanted to modify it as I was cooking it. Walker Dennis, on the other hand, loved it – that kid of ours loves pasta.
I used Celentan’s Cheese Raviolis – which were pretty good.
We already had minced garlic, and I used six 1/2 teaspoons – I thought about with ten 1/2 teaspoons but held off. I really should have, as my wife wanted more garlic.
At no point does the instructions state to include the red pepper flakes, I figure the best place was when I added the basil leaves. I already committed to using a 1/2 of red pepper flakes as opposed to 1/4 teaspoon. I think that improvement added just enough of a kick. Especially compared to how much basil leaves the recipe calls for. Next time, I will just do a 1/3 cup of basil leaves. There was plenty of basil so I think a tad less would be okay.
After cooking, I had to add basil leaves and Parmesan to our grocery list.
My picture and the picture from the website looks pretty different. Our raviolis are smaller, and our basil leaves were already chopped. We’re a McCormick household and we’re finally getting our pantry filled with spices. Like most families, I’m sure, we buy the Kraft Parmesan cheese, as well. For the garlic, I’ve always gone with The Garlic Company of California, 1/2 teaspoon equals one glove. Which now I see, that the recipe calls for “large garlic cloves” so I should have gone with ten 1/2 teaspoons, at a minimum.
. . .
TV wise, I finally watched the “Girl Who Died” episode of Doctor Who’s ninth season. I really should have watched the next episode, the second part, but it was already late and I thought I was going to be able to watch it on Wednesday but my son stayed up to see me so I had to go straight to bed. Which, really, is better for my work day on Thursday.
Our next episode of The Office is Season Three’s Branch Closing – this show, we can pretty much watch anytime. Usually we watch one episode at dinner, and sometimes, we will watch a second episode (if we’re not done eating or if we just want to) and we might sneak in another episode at night. We’ve been searching for a good 22 minute show for dinner purposes and The Office is right up there. Seeing Rashida Jones makes us feel silly that we watched Parks and Recreation last year and dismissed The Office then, too, when we should have been watching the original show this entire time.
Look at that cover! Two blue people with a sword, woman against man violence, what ten-year-old boy wouldn’t like that? Cover by Joe Madureira. That expression: Heads – You lose! Has stuck with me all of these years. To the point where I always call Head whenever I get the chance to call the coin flip. If I win it, I get to say, Heads, You Lose. It makes me smile, but I probably come off like a jerk. Which makes me edgy and cool, so really, I get to win twice. Which is nice.
This is a reprint of Uncanny X-Men 177 by Chris Claremont and John Romita Jr. You really can‘t ask for a better opening to a story. Mystique is running around a carnival and straight up killing X-Men, one on one style. This was the era where you could conceivably kill Wolverine by cutting his throat. Mystique comes up with some great ways to kill the X-Men. First Wolverine, then Kitty Pryde goes down, after checking on who she thought was Wolverine. Mystique guts Kitty and this angers Colossus beyond belief (as it should!).
He chases her into a Funhouse Mirror room and one of Cyclops’ optic blasts kills Colossus and then Mystique strangles him. Which I find to be unfair.
Mystique adopts this cool looking wetsuit and uses it to blow up Storm via a gas tank. Then Rogue shows up and Mystique blasters her with a gun. At this point, we know that Mystique raised Rogue for a time, but they are still only hinting that there is a relationship between Mystique and Kurt. She prepares herself to stab him but can’t and he knocks her out.
Turns out, this entire exercise is due to Arcade and Mystique is a willing participant in Murderworld. Sort of like Taskmaster’s training academy, Arcade rents out his Murderwold to fellow villains, so that they can practice their skills. You have to make a living somehow, and those two figured out the easiest way to do so.
All Arcade wants, as well as payment, is to make sure one of the robot X-Men is set to kill, whereas the rest are only set on stun. Rogue was the killer this round.
Kitty is dancing with at Stevei’s studio, about to open up about Storm’s new look, 80s Storm, when Storm shows up and ruins the mood.
Lilandra and Corsair say their goodbyes.
Then we move along to the conclusion of the issue. Double date city! Kurt and Amanda are out with Colossus and Kitty. They are going to see a ballet. Amanda and Kurt make a joke about Colossus and Kitty parking the car.
While on the way back to the ballet, Pyro and Blob start fighting Colossus. He actually holds his own for a while.
Pyro turns Colossus red hot, then Avalanche destroys these two semis that are holding liquid nitrogen (making Richard Blais and me pretty happy).
Kitty shows back up (after looking for help) to witness a frozen status of Colossus, but sister, that ain’t no statue.
1 package of hash browns southern style (32 ounce bag)
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 tablespoon pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 pint of sour cream
10 ounce Velveeta cheese, grated
Crushed Corn Flakes
Mix all ingredients together, put in greased 9 x 13 pan, sprinkle 1/4 cup melted butter, then mix with 2 cups crushed corn flakes.
Baked at 350 degrees for 1 hour
I’m pretty sure this was the first dinner I made, years ago. My wife really wanted to eat it, but didn’t want to make it, herself. I knew the recipe was essentially, put everything in one big bowl and mix it and bake it.
Like most recipes, if it calls for any amount of onion, I just use the entire onion. One, we’ll never use the other half of the onion in a timely manner; and two, we like onions.
Velveeta doesn’t make a 10 ounce package, so we go with the 16 ounce package. I’ve trade eight but it never seems like enough cheese. My wife enjoys making dips and such, with the other six ounces.
The amount of Corn Flakes, is also up to you. Two cups doesn’t seem enough, five is too much, but not really. Crushing the Corn Flakes is pretty relaxing until one of the sharper edges pokes you.
We usually eat it with a ham steak, I believe I went with the Hatfield brand. I never know what to cook or glaze it with, so I use butter. Delicious butter.
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Didn’t make much progress in any of my shows this past week. Walker Dennis has been waiting up for me to come home from my part time job, so I’ve been missing my three hours a week of watching shows. Which is nice, as that means I’m sleeping by 11:30pm or midnight instead of 1am. I have a really hard time falling asleep, on my own.
So no new Doctor Who but I did finished the second episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That show has amazing songs, so I thought my son would be okay with that. I did end up watching Trolls three times and parts of Sing, twice.
Oh! We finally watched Rogue One! Pretty good movie. That ending though, I love how it connects with A New Hope.
Thanks to YouTuber Edward Glover for hosting the video. I imagine he edited it.
I enjoy Star Wars, I’m not like a super fan or anything wherein I can name you every planet that they visit, but I enjoy the films a bunch. I’m more than a casual fan but I’m not running around having deep conversations about the Force or anything like that. Though I wouldn’t mind being in a Star Wars conversation, it just rarely happens around me.
I really enjoyed K-2SO, not enough of him in the film. Besides Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the Wasp episode of Doctor Who (which i have to watch again as I don’t remember her in it – at all), I’m still not that familiar with Felicity Jones. She’s great in this film
It bugged me that we were getting Black and then, Yellow Storm Troopers. Where was those guys 20 years earlier or even months later? I get that the Black Storm Troopers were that guy’s own military force (I imagine) and maybe the Yellow Storm Troopers were that moon’s version but they inclusion took me out of the film.
I apparently liked the film enough to rank it at #1038 over at FlickChart. Right between Dorm Daze and Where The Heart Is.
I liked Diego Luna in it too. Apparently, I’ve seen him in The Terminal and Milk, but don’t recall him. Hey, he’s in the Flatliners sequel, so I’ll see him in something else, relatively soon.
Our next episode of The Office is Season Three’s The Convention.
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I’m trying to reestablish my link with Tumblr, for this post, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ll try again on Wednesday.
I’ve had Living Between Wednesdays listed under my Favorite Websites for years now. I could have sworn I check-in with the website sometime last year but it must have been early 2015. Rachelle Goguen sort of did what I thought I was going to do, and write a post regarding how the blog isn’t dead, just taking a hiatus. So I checked back from time to time, back in 2014 or something, and didn’t see anything new. I left the link as the website was still active. She was such a great voice in the comic blog-o-sphere, years ago.
Now she has a podcast with co-host and co-writer of the blog, Dave Howlett. They just reached episode 100. Which is a pretty daunting task and I really considered not diving head first into it.
But then I just finished Undisclosed Season Two and was prepared to start their season of Jamar Huggins (it is only eight episodes) just checking that, I see they either wrapped up the Freddie Gray case or taking a pause on it to start a new case of Mitchum Reeves. This paragraph is mostly there to help Future Johnster Monster to know where he needs to pick up again on Undisclosed.
After completing the journey with Turtle Soup, I know I’m able to do another long journey and I really like them. It really helps that they cover comic news – reviews/recommendations – Winter Solider news (Rachelle is amazing!) – a general topic. So once they start with the comics I stopped at, episode one deals with Secret Wars 2015’s first issue, I might have to reevaluate the mission. But probably not, as by then, I”m sure I’ll be at episode 50 or something and be fully committed by then. Plus, the general topic is the last half of the episode and the news segment isn’t all that long nor is the reviews/recommendations. Plus plus, it serves as a nice time capsule of the time. I’m so out of touch with comic news and comic television and comic film news. If there isn’t a video on YouTube about it, I don’t really have a source to stay current. Well, that’s not completely true, the Uncanny X-Cast Facebook page keeps me somewhat updated on the X-Men news and if something huge happens, they talk about it. That’s why I think Secret Empire isn’t having that big of an impact, as there hasn’t been any “shocking” discussions regarding that crossover.
To be honest, I’ve been trying to keep a list of comics I need to buy, if I’m ever so lucky to get back into the habit, but it seems like Marvel is still releasing like 50 comics too many that barely earn a seventh issue. But one never knows what title is going to hit huge, unless you first put out that comic. Thanks to Marvel Database for keeping me on track for that. I didn’t have that thought until a month ago, so it took a long time to get caught up on that task. Once I was caught up, finding out I was like 100 issues behind, also killed my enthusiasm but maybe I can get trades or something. I’ll let you know.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at with comic stuff but let’s get back to Living Between Wednesdays!
Rachelle was mostly known for her awesome segment –
Wherein she ranked the Superhunks, when she was actively doing it (it doesn’t look like she has updated it since coming back with the podcast), I was hooked and eagerly anticipating the next entry.
The blog posts about the podcast are super fun as those posts offer links or videos or images that are referenced to the episode. They are must reads for full experience but I’m sure you can get by on just the episodes alone. I’m on episode nine now, and really enjoying it. At that time, they were eagerly anticipating Captain America : Civil War.
If you are a Bucky Barnes / Winder Soldier fan, then this is the podcast for you! Get that right. Does anyone else repeat that phrase when Gordon Ramsay says it on Master Chef? “Get that right” the way he says it and how often he says it, it haunts me. I’ve checked Google and either he says “let’s” or “now” before hand but I haven’t noticed that.
Gosh, has anyone else have problems trying to make Google their default search engine? I’m in a constant state of having to change it on my laptop (I blame the laptop for this), it always wants me to use Yahoo. Have you tried using Yahoo for a search result? It looks not pleasing on the eyes. I also can’t stop Bing and that seems to also be the default app when I use Puffin, and I’ve changed that to Google as well, and it keeps reverting back. At least with Puffin, they have those handy options on the top left corner where I can click on the search engine of my choice.
I’m sure Bing and Yahoo love the fact that I search “Google” in their task bar to get to Google. Are there stats on that type of thing? I bet I’m not the only one who has to do that. Just typing “google” into the address bar, still results in a search result using Yahoo or Bing, which is even more irritating!
Yahoo
Bing
Google
Well, Yahoo and Bing are not that bad on the desktop but on the phone, there are so many ads or false results, it isn’t great. Those two sites just look cluttered to me, on the phone. The presentation isn’t great, whereas Google has only results.
Also, am I the only one that doesn’t find knee caps sexy, to be the most unsexiest part of the body? From time to time, probably is the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue (otherwise known as the only issue that they publish) and I see a news report that shows images of the latest batch of super models and who is the sexiest one and what nots. My eyes will eventually go to the knee caps. There are just no good knee caps, its all bone and jagged. I may also be the only one thinking of knee caps. But it is one of those ice breaker questions, what part of the body do you find unattractive, and that’s my go-to answer. Some people don’t even have an answer, or they say “tongue,” which is a decent answer I guess. Just have an answer, so that I don’t look weird for having an answer already prepared.
Maybe I’ve attended too many meet-and-greets, conferences and team building exercises. I’ve been asked a slew of ice breaker questions over the years.
Ooof, I got way off topic there. Anyway, if you are looking for another great comic book related podcast, I have to recommend Living Between Wednesdays. They are part of my rotation now along with the Prinze and the Wolf, Turtle Soup and Daydream Nation. Well, Daydream Nation, when when I’ve legitimately heard the album – I really need to listen to the other albums that they cover. I’ve only really have listened to the Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill episode as that album was mostly all singles besides like three songs and I eventually heard them. Eric and Preston are just too hip for me. I just checked, and their latest episode is Tears for Fears’ Songs from the Big Chair and that album has eight songs and four of them were hits. So I’ll probably work that episode into my rotation too. A band I’ve actually heard of and songs I’m familiar with are all I require to listen to that show. It is a big ask though. I’ve recognize artists, of course, I’ve looked up that particular album, and didn’t recognize any songs.
Then I have Undisclosed on my back burner, I check monthly if Serial season three is ever a thing. That’s how I found S-Town, and that was a nice podcast. I like that style of podcast, that tells a story over seven episodes and we’re out.
If the Uncanny X-Cast ever releases an episode, that’ll go straight to the top of my list too.
I really keep flirting with the idea of doing a podcast, I’ve always wanted to be on the radio and I do so enjoy podcasts.
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The intro / outro song is Wordburglar’s Drawing with Words
Thanks to Wordburglar Official for hosting the video.
Warning! That song is super addictive!
I looked “Making Canadian Jam like Bernie Mirault” for you –
in case you are interested after hearing the song or the outro to any of the episodes.
In Episode 17, they address the song they use for Mitchell’s segment.
Thanks to YouTuber Obscure Unreleased Soundtracks & More 2 for hosting the video!
The song is the Mitchell theme by Hoyt Axton. I haven’t seen that film nor the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode but I really should, as apparently, it is a very beloved episode of the series.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 