Last week was spring break. I did get some work done on the site, but I also focused mostly on visiting family and friends. I got to see my grandpa for the first time in a few months, which was nice. I still can’t quite find what I’m looking for to replace the food page, but I’m close. Ideally I will be able to update the front page and have every other page update automatically. More to come on that, so please just bear with me while I try to get this all figured out.

Today was the first day of fall quarter as well, so I need to determine when I can actually post updates during the day.

I’m going to just wait it out until after finals week is over. That means no update today or Friday. However, by the end of Spring Break I will have the site completely fixed up, including the food tab.

Updates lined up:

• Latkes (potato pancakes).
• Pudding injected, glazed banana muffins.
• Biscuits.

I promise I haven’t forgotten you Internet, it’s just that I accidentally broke the site during maybe the worst possible week.

Hard-boiled eggs on a bagel. With cheese.

Hard-boiled eggs are delightfully simple. All you really need to hard-boil an egg is about 15 minutes, some boiling water and an egg. They are also fairly filling and can be utilized in a number of dishes such as deviled eggs and egg salad.

If you happen to be pressed for time or don’t have/like mayonnaise, just slice the egg thin and put it on some sort of bread. Maybe something like…leftover bagels. The egg bagels (Eggels?) to the right are simple; a cut and toasted bagel with a piece of cheese, one sliced, hard-boiled egg and some salt and pepper.

They make for a fairly substantial lunch and are easy. Plus you can add just about anything you want. A slice of tomato, light mayonnaise and some spinach would be good. Add a piece of goetta or bacon and you have a breakfast sandwich. Some chipotle ranch dressing and leftover chicken breast, maybe. The world is your oyster. Make a seafood bagel.

If you have never made a hard-boiled egg, fear not. I have. A hard-boiled egg will keep for a while, so you might as well make a few. Set your egg(s), shell intact, in a pot with at least enough water to cover them. Turn the stove on and get the pot up to a nice rolling boil. Depending on how fast your stove is it should take about 10 minutes (or a little less) of boiling to cook the egg through. They will be very, very hot.

The egg is less likely to crack due to sudden temperature change if you have it in the pot as it starts to boil. Adding an egg to a pot of boiling water can result in cracking and an annoying mess.

Set the eggs aside until they cool and put them back in the fridge until you need them. If you’re into instant gratification and want your egg now, put it in a bowl of cold water in the freezer for a few minutes.

There are a few ways to approach cracking a hard-boiled egg. If you don’t care whether or not it stays intact, just crack and peel. My personal favorite is to grip the egg in one hand to make a fist, then punching my open palm. The egg will crack (or squash if you use too much force) and you’ll probably feel a little cooler. Assuming you do care about the look of the egg, a little more care would be wise.  There will be a space of air at the bottom of the egg called an air cell. That is a good place to start if you’re not used to peeling an egg. Crack that and do your best to peel the entire shell away with the thin white skin that will be attached to the shell.

Slicing an egg is fairly simple. I find it’s best to take a very sharp paring knife and just press it through the egg. Be careful not to press it through your finger as well. A cutting board would be ideal. The yoke will provide some resistance, but that shouldn’t cause too much trouble.

Edit:

(The Real) Chris is right. Adding a little salt to the water as you boil it will make peeling the egg easier. Also older eggs are apparently easier to peel (as opposed to farm-fresh).

Smoked sausage and spaghetti

For the last several days I have been making some modifications to the site. A few one them are obvious, like the random gallery and the little ad block on the right. A few changes have more to do with streamlining and formatting and are less obvious. Well, because I have spent more time on the site than cooking I don’t have any gallery or recipe today. Instead I have a simple meal suggestion.

Pasta is almost as easy as it gets when it comes to feeding yourself in college. It’s fairly filling and about as easy as boiling water. The problem is that it gets monotonous. Unless you happen to be Josh. It’s easy enough to add some variety to spaghetti and pasta sauce. Meat is probably the most obvious route. Whatever you happen to have in the freezer, 1lb of smoked sausage or a few chicken breasts, will go well with pasta.

Assuming that your meat of choice is not frozen, cut it into bite-size pieces and cook them however you see fit. I usually put either chicken or sausage with some spices in a skillet with some oil. In fact, this chicken will work just fine. Be sure that the meat is cooked through to your satisfaction before you go eating it though. While the meat is cooking get the water for the pasta boiling and the sauce warming in a saucepan. Once the meat is done just drain the oil and put the meat in the sauce with anything else you might want over spaghetti. Maybe some finely chopped onions or shredded cheese.

Different meats or vegetables added to pasta changes the flavor and provided some variety, which is apparently the spice of life. It’s also a good way to use up leftovers.

I improvised by just baking the corn dogs on a baking sheet. What resulted was, as anticipated, cornbread coated hot dogs. They were not really corn dogs. Honestly I would rather have chopped the hot dogs up and tossed them into the cornbread, but for an experiment they weren’t too bad. Next time  I will make sure that I have enough oil.

In other news, my plans for the site are moving slowly but surely. Hopefully by the end of my spring break I will have redone the Food page as well as the way posts show up here on the front page. Ideally there will be description of what was made (like the one you just read) followed by a continued link. Clicking the post title or the continued link will take you off to the full post, displaying the recipe and possibly gallery as well. I’m not sure yet.

Finals week is fast approaching though. School takes priority.

My reasoning is actually pretty simple; I want to put recipes in the news posts. Problem is…they’re pretty long. It occured to me when talking to my dad a week or so ago that the recipes are not exactly visible. He actually had never clicked on the food tab, so he missed the galleries and recipes. I feel like I need to get the galleries and recipes in the news posts, but I certainly can’t do that with the whole story being displayed on the front page. Too busy.

I also need to do something with the Food page. The placeholder page that is there right now is simply not going to cut it. I need something cleaner. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. There will be an update tomorrow. Probably corndogs.

On a mostly unrelated note, I’m in the process of applying for internships for Online Journalism. I’m going to be sending a few applications toward the East Coast around the D.C. area. If you have any suggestions I’m all ears eyes.