Great Ass BBQ in a Lame Ass Apartment

So, you live in a shitty apartment that either doesn't allow grills, or restricts you to propane only... which is basically not having a grill at all, amirite, purists? But, being the cultured and swag-a-licious individual you are, you invited everyone over for a BBQ anyway. Now, you have problems! Where is everyone going to stand? What is everyone going to do? And where are you going to come up with BBQ'd food using just your stove and microwave?!

Corn on the Mutha Effin' Cob

Oh shit, you can't BBQ without corn! Nah dawg, this one's super easy. Take your corn, lube that shit up with butter (husk it first you dirty animal), give it a light but even dusting of salt, pepper, and cayenne (no seriously) and wrap that shit in foil. Throw them bitches in your 400* oven (Fahrenheit not Celsius, obvi) and wait ten minutes. BAM.

Oh shit I'm hungry and all I have at home is shit, how do I make it awesome?

So no shit, there you are - 2am and all you have at home is... crap. You're fresh out of mac and cheese and frozen pizzas, all that's left is stupid veggies and other unmade shite. WOE!

Time to make it dank. First up! No matter what, you want to saute some onions and garlic in some oil. This builds up the aroma of the dish, and makes everything else better. If you have some carrots and celery, chop that shit up and throw it in there too - depth of flavour! You can really do this with any veggies you have laying around. Except tomatoes, because we're making red sauce. Wait, what? 

If you have those premade cans of tomato sauce, or even just cans of diced tomato, this is where you throw it in. Remember all that shit we just sauted? That was to add flavour to the otherwise bland red goop. If you don't have any canned/jarred tomatoes, you can totally use the real thing, but then people might be all: "Whoah, you're like an Itallian Chef!" We've all seen enough mob movies to want to avoid that.

So, you throw in your diced tomatoes. Now, taste that shit - chances are it's super acidic, so kick it up a notch with some sugar. Then, because you're not some caveman, add salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning until it tastes like something worth eating. Yeah boy.

In another pan, add some oil and heat that shit up. Now, you just have to find some meat. Bacon is always rad, sausage works. If you're some kind of king and just happen to have lamb shoulder or steak loafing around, cube that shit up and use it! We're gunna saute the shit out of that. Remember to add salt and pepper! You want the meat flavourful, not just warm. When it's done, scoop the meat into your sauce and let that shit cook more. Awwwwww yeah.

Now, what are you going to put this on? Noodles, duh. Here's a big secret - you don't have to make the pasta yourself, you can get like 100 pounds of it for $5. Or something. Cook that shit - directions are on the box. Then? Pour the noodles into the sauce (#backwards) and stir it all around. Pour it in a bowl, and if you're trying to impress some fine ass ladies, sprinkle some parsley on that bitch as a garnish. (The food, not the lady. Or both. Whatever.)

Boom! You just made a delicious original meal out of random shit in the cupboard. You're officially a dope ass bad mamma jamma, now.

Broadening Horizons

Chances are, you're not super familiar with German cuisine. Outside of special "German Town" bubbles in the US, it's not in vogue. Portland, for example, despite being a foody town, has three - one terrible, one mediocre, and one I haven't been to. (My previous favourite closed because of the limited appeal.) So! Here's a few ideas... you have to look the recipes up though, because mine are top secret.

Jaeger Schnitzel with kasespatzle and braised red cabbage

This is actually a pretty simple meal, and follows all the health and meal composition tips - a veggie, starch, meat, and a sauce. There's a bit of prep time, but fortunately it's all stuff that can be done days in advance to speed up the final preparation time.

So! First up...

Braised Red Cabbage with apples. Super easy, and it contains everything wonderful. Render some bacon, sweat some onions, and braise the cabbage in chicken stock with a cinnamon stick. ~20 minutes later throw in some brown sugar, a diced apple, and a smidge of apple cider vinegar. Let it braise for a bit longer and BAM! Delicious! The longest part is shredding the cabbage, unless you buy it that way.

Another super easy one. Flour, egg, and seasoning. It's easier with a spatzlepress (imagine that), but a collander works just fine. The trick to this one is the seasoning: Make sure there's plenty of salt, pepper, and nutmeg. I also like to melt in swiss cheese and parsley at the end when you're browning it in the saute pan. Make sure that you cook a few dumplings first to check the seasoning levels.

As for the sauce... you don't get a picture. No picture for you!
For this one, the trick I've found: Make the brown roux before hand and put it to the side. I like to make up a huge batch and just store it in tupperware. (If it starts to go bad, just add sugar and volia: shortbread cookies.) Saute some mushrooms and onion and garlic, add cream or beef stock (personal choice), and then thicken with roux. I throw in some parsley here as well, because that shit's delicious.

Then... the schnitzel itself. Basically, it's just a lightly breaded cutlet. Veal is traditional, but you can use beef, chicken, or pork. Make an egg wash and dredge it in seasoned flower.. I use fennel, salt, and pepper. Sear both sides and let it sit in a covered pan - the steam will finish cooking it quickly while you mess around with other things.

There you go - about an hour start to finish, or 10 minutes if you've done the prep before hand. Delicious, nutritious, and probably not anything you've had before.

5 Ways Men are Better than Women

This post is brought to you by Amanda from Veglandian W fame. Well, I wrote it, but she requested it. So. There you go - I'm required by the class to write it. (Direct all hate mail to her!)

5. Better jobs

Only 12 of the Fortune 500 companies are run by women. That's like, a quarter of 1%. .024%. Man that sucks... if you're a woman! If you're a dude those odds are lookin' pretty fly, right?

How to tell if your time is being wasted

It's 9am and you find yourself in a business meeting, a lecture, surfing Facebook, or standing there while your girlfriend tries on dresses. How do you know if this is a good use of your time or, as you secretly suspect, a colossal waste of energy that could be better spent on angry birds?

What's your time worth anyway?

It's a bit harder to figure out the value of the thing you're doing, and that changes depending on the activity, so let's start with the baseline. How much, exactly, is your time worth?

First, let's look at something called opportunity cost. Economists use this to figure out hidden costs beyond "This activity costs $100 to attend."

Economic
This is pretty easy to figure out. How much do you make per hour while at work? (Let's say $10 because that math is easy!) Thus, if the activity is two hours long, you've lost the potential to make $20. But wait! You also have to figure out the maximum amount of time you're willing/allowed to work a week - if your schedule already calls for 40 hours and you are not permitted overtime, you can't apply that $10 an hour lost opportunity.

Social
People, as a whole, tend to enjoy spending time with people. So, when you're at a lame ass meeting, you're not spending time with associates or friends being rad. This is a bit harder, and a lot more abstract, to put a value on but is just as important. Even if you're jobless, homeless, and mostly braindead, there's a certain point where you go "Fuck this bullshit, I'm out!"

Top 5 Murderous Animals

So, you probably expected a list of like alligators or iskanara jellyfish, or drop bears, or any other animal that lives in Australia. PSYCHE. Oh no, here's some every day house animals that decided ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Fox hunting is serious business. You might think it's all about hunting foxes, but they're tired of it.

The Most Epic Thang that's Also Informative

Intro Section. The Prologue. The before words time words.

So there you are, being awesome, when it strikes you - history's really, really, really boring. Like, super boring - I'm pretty sure all those historic dudes died of boredom. But ignorance is pretty lame, and we've already established you're pretty rad. So, I bring to you... history, but fun. WHaaaaat?

Phat Rhymes

I present to you: Epic Rap Battles of History, possible the most awesome thing ever to grace the interwebs. If you ever wondered: Who would win? between two historic dudes (Or not historic, like that badass Leonidas from 300 versus Halo's Master Chief), there are now three seasons of grade A kick-ass answering all those questions.