Um, okay then..

Does anyone know why when in my previous post, I used the term "breadcrumbs" and the first "correction" the spell checker tried to suggest to me was "bridegroom?"

I can see it now.. "and if I had some bridegrooms I would have used those on top!!"

*scratches head*

Tales from the Kitchen!!

One has to wonder if a large number of recipes out there are a result of someone trying a completely different recipe and either messing up, or substituting ingredients because they were out of whatever they needed. Like if someone was trying to make brownies and ended up with blondies.

I had a similar experience the other night, where I was forced to make some substitutions. I feared the worst, but I ended up with good results. I was wanting to make a tuna noodle casserole (yes, I wanted to make one) and so I looked on one of my best friends when it comes to cooking, Recipezaar. I found a recipe that looked like it had everything in it that I wanted, and set out to make it the next night. The following day I was at the grocery store and did some shopping.

Lo and behold, I did what I end up doing a lot - forgetting ingredients completely, and not realizing it until I got home. And I REALLY did want to have to go back out again. So, I just made some creative decisions and substituted some things that I had in the pantry and refrigerator, hoping everything would turn out fine. I didn't find the odd veggie brand the recipe called for, so I decided to use some frozen vegetables I had. I forgot milk, and I didn't have really enough to spare, so I used some cream I had from another recipe. No egg noodles, so I used some whole wheat rotitni. No mayo (which I don't particularly like anyway) , so I used yogurt. The recipe also didn't have enough tuna to my liking, so I added more. It ended up like this:

1 can of cream of celery soup
1/2 cup milk (Cream did in a pinch)
1/2 cup yogurt
8 oz. cooked and drained pasta
1 1/2 cups frozen veggies (uncooked)
2 cans tuna (I spoiled myself and used albacore)
a couple of handfuls of shredded cheese
spices to taste (anything will do. I used some old bay)
and if I had some breadcrumbs I would have used those on top!!

Anywho I mixed all the above together in a casserole dish, put the top on it, and cooked it at 350 for maybe 35-45 minutes (I didn't time it exactly) and was rewarded with a creamy and rather tasty tuna noodle casserole. It even reheated well the next day!

So I guess substitutions can be a good thing. Especially in angel food cakes. But that's another..

TALE FROM THE KITCHEN!!

Panned

The nominations for this year's Academy Awards were announced earlier this week. The film Pan's Labyrinth earned 6 nominations, including best foreign language film, makeup, art direction, music, original screenplay, and cinematography. And probably for the first time since Return of the King, I'm rooting for a movie at the Oscars.

I never really root for anything at the Oscars, since most of the time, the Academy Awards are just a display of "it's the best movie made this year because we said it is." I've never been much for being told what I should and shouldn't like. The American public has already pretty much decided what the best movie of the year is - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. The movie made over $400 million in the United States, and totaled over $1 billion worldwide. Does that make it the best movie made last year? No, but it does tell me that it was good enough to keep people coming back again and again to see it. But Dead Man's Chest was only nominated in the technical categories. Other movies, many some of you may never even heard of, were nominated as the best movie of the year.

The Academy Awards also seem to be an exercise in peer pressure. The "popular" movies - that is, popular to critics - almost always seem to win. Sure, there's the "upset" and the "snub" here and there, but for the most part, where most critics go, the others will surely follow. Almost as if to say, "if I don't vote for Movie Y, the others will think I'm a wuss!" In the end, I always follow a quote from William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist. He said, "if a film is liked by the critics and the audience, it's probably a great film. If a film is liked by the audience, it's still probably a great film. If a movie is only liked by the critics, it's a piece of crap."

Moving on to Pan's Labyrinth, it's just not widespread enough to find a large audience. But from what I've seen, the audience that has found it has enjoyed it, and critics seem to agree. Don't let whatever ads or trailers you might have seen fool you. This is no fantasy film. It's set in 1944 Spain, and it's subtitled. The story follows a girl whose mother marries a Captain in the Spanish Army, and moves to a mill in the mountains near a large labyrinth. As the war story unfolds around her, the girl follows a series of quests to reclaim her birthright as princess of the underworld. Is it real? Or is this just a Spanish version of Calvin & Hobbes set in World War II? You be the judge. All I can say is that this was a very engrossing film, and for those able to see it, I recommend it. All this from the director of films like Blade II, Mimic, and Hellboy! Just be wary that the movie is rated R, and features some brutal, often hard to watch, violence (unless you enjoy watching people do their own stitches on their faces).

This is one movie I'll be rooting for come February 25!

The Battleplan.blogspot.com Bowl

It's been college football "Bowl Season" for a couple of weeks now, with the premier games being played today and within the next few days.

Traditionally, there have been few Bowl games that actually meant something - games like the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, and Rose Bowl.

As for the other Bowl games - well, I hate to break it to you, some college football teams - they just don't mean anything. There's been a record number of Bowl games this college football season. So it's not like they're inviting the best of the best to the bowl games. Teams that were 6-6 during their regular season have the chance to play.

So why are they playing? Money, of course. The teams involved share a payout given by the sponsor of the bowl game. It's as "little" as $250,000 and as much as $17 million. Imagine that. A team that has achieved a state of mediocrity for the season - winning as many games as they've lost - can receive quite a sum of money. Sure, it's a big deal for some of the smaller colleges, but for the ones with big sports programs, it's just more money to throw into the pile. And is the money going into the school? Not likely. More likely the money gets put into the sports program, rather than going towards improving academics. I read an article a few years back that said close to half of colleges going to bowl games were on track to graduate less than 50% of their players at the end of the college year. It's not like these players are guaranteed a job in the NFL, either. So where does that leave them? Shouldn't some of that money go towards academics then?

Speaking of money, many companies are paying it out to get "sponsorship" of many of these bowl games. The narrator in Fight Club quips at one point, that when we colonize space, it will be the corporations that name everything - like the Microsoft Galaxy. Sadly, it's not too far off. Most of the new sports stadiums these days are named after companies (Minute Maid Park in Houston - gag!), and now many of the bowl games bear the names of the corporations that sponsor them.

Say goodbye to the Humanitarian Bowl - say hello to the MPC Computers Bowl! The Copper Bowl is history, replaced by the Insight Bowl. The Florida Citrus Bowl has made way for the Capital One Bowl. Hall of Fame Bowl? Not anymore. Now it's the Outback Bowl (for Outback Steakhouse, of course). Where as a college player I may have been proud to represent my team in the Peach Bowl, now I get to represent my team in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl. Of course new bowl games pop up each year. A new entry this season was the Papajohns.com Bowl. Yes, you read that right - the Papajohns.com Bowl. Don't get me wrong, I love Papa John's Pizza, but the name "Papajohns.com Bowl" is absolutely horrid. I'd be embarrassed to tell someone I was playing in that game. But that's just me. At least my team would still be sharing in a payout of $300,000.

Get real, NCAA. Do we really need over two dozen bowl games? It's not like they have the pageantry of regular season games. If a regular fan of a college team wants to go to a bowl game for their team, often they have to travel out of state and pay large ticket fees. Can you afford a ticket to the Fiesta Bowl? $2,500 for the worst seats? I sure can't. Maybe if those teams would share some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they got for just showing up.