Proteiini Pannukakku

So I just tried a new recipe, a variation on the standard pannukakku, or "Finnish Pancake," that I often make.
This was inspired by a recipe for regular, non-Finn pancakes that I found and tried last week, with disastrous results, about which the less said the better.
Anyway, I call it Proteiini Pannukakku, or Protein Pancake, and it turned out much, much better than last week's experiment:

"Flappy!  Good news; I've decided not to kill you!"

The recipe is as follows:

3 Eggs
4 Tbsp sugar (or sugar substitute in my case)
2 Scoops protein powder (I used vanilla, but chocolate might be interesting...)
1 Cup prepared Quinoa
1/4 Tsp salt
2 Cups milk

Preheat oven to 400.  Place 1/4 Cup butter/margarine in a 9x13 pan, and put the pan in the heating oven to melt the butter.  Beat the mixture very well.  Once the butter is melted, pour the mixture in the pan and place back in oven for 15-20 minutes.

Most people like their pannukakku warm, but I prefer it after it's been refrigerated, as it manages to set up a little better and isn't so runny.  It's excellent topped with warmed fruit sauce/jam, like raspberry, blueberry, ligonberry, thimbleberry, etc.
The Quinoa gives it a bit of a gritty texture, which is a nice contrast to the lightness of the rest of the ingredients.
For a more traditional version, use 1 Cup of flour in place of the Quinoa, and subtract the protein powder, though of course you can leave that in if you want the benefit of extra protein...

UPDATE:  A while back I tried a further modification that turned out even better and also adds more protein to the mix.  Basically, rather than simply adding two scoops of protein powder, I just did a straight substitution of protein powder for the flour/Quinoa.  Try it.

Quick Update (With A Recipe)

After being out since August on medical leave, my boss came back to work today.
Yesterday I thought, "I should make her a cake."
Seeing as how I had to stop somewhere after work to get a birthday card for my niece Jenni (more on that in a bit), I decided to pick up what I needed and do just htat.
I went with what I'm sort of known for: a mint chocolate cake
The recipe is as follows:

White cake mix
Peppermint Extract
Chocolate syrup
Green food coloring
Cool Whip (8 oz should be sufficient)

Prepare the cake mix per the instructions on the box, but add about 1/4 tsp of the Peppermint Extract to the mix. Bake per the the instructions in a 9x13 pan.
Let the cake cool, then take a wooden spoon with a round handle and use the handle to poke a series of regularly-spaced holes in the cake (I usually go four or five holes across by however many can fit along the length of it). Fill the holes with chocolate syrup.
Next, add 1/4 tsp of the Peppermint Extract to the Cool Whip, along with a dash of the green food coloring (this is optional, and I don't give an exact measure because it's up to you how green you want to make it), stir it all together until you've got an even color, then spread it over the top of the cake.
Finally, drizzle some more chocolate syrup on top of the Cool Whip in whatever pattern you like.
It's best to keep the cake refrigerated, as the frosting can get kind of runny at room temperature.
In my experience, people will love it, and will assume that it was incredibly complicated to make.

The cake was enjoyed by everyone on my team, and greatly appreciated by my boss. Everyone was amazed by the fact that 1. I could bake at all 2. I could bake something so seemingly complicated 3. I was thoughtful enough to do something like that.
While I'd mostly intended it just for us, there were other people coming in and out of the break room, so we couldn't really say, "No! You can't have cake!" so several other people had some. One person, after finishing his piece, asked who made it. When everyone pointed to me, he came over and shook my hand. I guess he liked it.
As for the birthday card...last time I had to stop at a store to pick up a birthday card it was for my nephew Jacob. I was stymied by the fact that while they had plenty of cards for nieces (and daughters, and granddaughters, and sisters, and moms) they had virtually no cards for nephews (or males in general). I finally managed to find one card for a nephew.
This time around there were virtually no cards for females, and absolutely none for nieces.
Who knew that birthday cards based on gender were seasonal?
(Seriously, WTF?)
Finally I had to settle on a non-gender-specific card.
We didn't do Riff Trax night tonight, as two of the kids have confirmed cases of the flu and Scott woke up this morning exhibiting symptoms.
We were actually planning to postpone it until tomorrow anyway, as Scott was going to have to watch the kids tonight, but now we won't be having it at all this week. Oh well.
As for me, I've been dividing my time between not doing anything in particular and working on the picture I started on Sunday (I said it was complex and would take a while).
And that pretty much brings you up to date.

Random Pointlessness (With Bonus Cookie Recipe)

Sometime around 4 AM I was awoken by an odd sound that I couldn’t quite place. It sounded rather like static, but not quite.
After determining that it wasn’t coming from my clock or computer, I realized that it was coming from outside, and so I peeked through the blinds and saw a world still blanketed in white and some poor schmuck trying to clean off his car. His scraping of ice was the source of the mysterious sound.
Over the next few hours I was awoken by a similar sound as other brave commuters tried to make their way out of the parking lot.
Given this, I wasn’t surprised when, at 8, my phone rang and I was greeted by Tabitha – that actually is her name – calling to tell me that the dentist office would be closed today, therefore my appointment was cancelled.
After that I went back to sleep for a little over an hour.
Beyond talking to my mother, the only thing I’ve done is go out and clean off my car and move it to a space that’s been plowed out.
Though there was heavy coverage on my car, it didn’t take long to remove it, as it was basically thick, wet snow covered by a hard shell of ice. Further, at the bottom it was beginning to melt, so all it really took was a shove and huge chunks, sliding on the wet surface and held together by ice, would slough right off.
I actually removed the snow on the roof of my car in one piece by simply it off.
The most effort went into moving my car, though even that wasn’t too difficult, just a couple minutes worth of rocking.
The sun keeps poking out periodically, and will likely make short work of the bulk of the snow if it manages to stay out from behind the clouds for a while. Even so, while the actual snowing has long since stopped, the ice is melting, schools have been cancelled for tomorrow as well as today. Why not just cancel them for Friday, too?
I just don’t understand why they think that a little snow and ice is such an intractable problem, especially considering how much money as the county has. Oh well.
Oh, one other thing I’ve done so far is a tutorial on creating a realistic-looking LCD screen. Here is the result, which I’ve personalized:



One thing that I’ve discovered after my upgrade to Vista is that I am able to once again get my LightScribe drive to work properly.
LightScribe is a technology that allows you to use your DVD burner’s laser to print labels on special LightScribe compatible discs.
I bought my drive a computer ago, and had no trouble with it in the HP, but after I’d installed it in the current Hugin, I was no longer able to get it to work, despite trying multiple fixes. It worked just fine for burning discs, I just couldn’t use the laser printing feature. I would get an error saying, “Unable to communicate with drive,” or something to that effect, which annoyed me, as I was always able to get the print preview feature to work, which required that there be a LightScribe-enabled disc in the drive. So it could communicate with it for the preview, but not for the actual printing.
Anyway, turns out it was lying to me the whole time, as once I downloaded the Vista drivers and software for it I was able to print without any problems.
So this is another instance in which I wish software and hardware followed the domestic abuse approach to interface design so that I could slap my LightScribe drive around for lying to me for so long.
What other lies have you told me, LightScribe drive???!
Anyway, this hasn’t really been a productive week.
Apart from going grocery shopping, I haven’t ventured out into the world at all. I still need to do that stupid emissions test and get my taxes done.
I’ve done zip in the way of drawing anything interesting. I had to give up on the one picture I wanted to draw because the low-res screen cap I was using as a reference is just too dark and too lacking in detail to allow me to even try to extrapolate useful reference information from it.
I’ve started on another picture, but my heart just isn’t in it.
I was going to make oatmeal raisin cookies yesterday, but I couldn’t manage that, as I don’t have any vanilla extract and I wasn’t about to drive to the store with there being actual weather outside and everyone in full end of the world panic mode.
I ended up making peanut butter cookies instead, which is okay, but I really had my heart set on oatmeal raisin. Oh well.
(Oh, and for those interested, here’s my three ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar (or Splenda if watching carbs)
1 egg
Mix all ingredients together. Make little balls and place on cookie sheet.
Criss-cross fork impression on top of cookie to flatten a bit. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350.)
Anyway, I think that’s more than enough for one pointless, boring entry.

Wednesday Hodge Podge Post

I woke up this morning convinced that it must still be around, say, 6 AM, only to discover that it was actually 9.
This annoyed me because I really didn’t want to get up, but given how short my Wednesdays are already thanks to my insanely early bedtime (an insanely early bedtime that allows me to get up before 5 AM and still manage to get a lot of sleep and manage to stay awake while sitting in one spot in a dark, cold, boring room for 12+ hours), so, cursing Father Time, I got up.
I then proceeded to turn on the oven to preheat it in order to cook the breakfast casserole I’d prepared last night.
While that was cooking I talked to my mother – who is moving into a different apartment within the same complex she’s in this weekend, as it’s on a lower floor and has a southern exposure so she’ll actually get some sunlight – and then got around to eating the aforementioned casserole.
Well, part of it, anyway, because even though I’d halved the recipe I’d based it on, it was still a lot more food than I’m inclined eat in one sitting.
(The recipe as found, but not as prepared, follows:
2 lbs. pork sausage (1 hot, 1 mild)
3 c. milk
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
9 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1 sm. bag Ore Ida hash browns

Cook sausage over medium heat until done, stirring to crumble. Drain well on paper towels, set aside. In same skillet, brown hash browns, over medium heat. Combine sausage, hash browns and remaining ingredients, mixing well. Pour into a well greased 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan. Refrigerate covered, overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Makes 8 to 10 servings.)
After eating I got around to showering and pinged Brian to see if he was up for seeing the movie today. He had to bring one of the cats to the vet not long before the movie’s start time, so that was pretty much a negative, and so I was left to decide whether or not I wanted to go see it alone.
While deciding, I worked on a tutorial for creating a postage mark.
The result of said tutorial work is shown below:



I made it a postage mark from Perdition, because that’s ever-so slightly more esoteric than Hell. Besides, there’s a Hell in Michigan, which people like to mail things from just so that it can be postmarked “Hell.” Similarly, around the holidays people like to mail presents from Christmas, Michigan.
While working on that, I thought, “What else do I have to do?” and so opted to head to the theater.
For a while I thought I was going to be the only person there, but then someone else came in, and after her a small group of teenagers came in, and, though there was no good reason for them to do so in the near-empty theater, they sat near me. Since it wasn’t as though those were “prime” seats, I assumed this meant that the Universe was just preparing to fuck with me by having these little shits behind me so that they could interfere with my enjoyment of the movie as much, and as loudly, as possible.
Fortunately they were reasonably quiet, so they didn’t annoy me too much beyond simply existing.
One of them did annoy me slightly after the trailer for the movie Lucky You – a movie that I saw a trailer for months and months ago, in the summer, I think, and which still doesn’t have an actual release date – starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore.
The kid said, “That looked pretty good until Drew Barrymore started crying. Then it, like, lost all credibility.”
I wanted to turn around and say, “What the fuck are you talking about? Do you even know what words mean?”
Instead I simply sighed and shook my head.
Then the movie started.
…
It was interesting, and, oddly enough it had some moments of real humor, though I think that they just stood out so prominently because they were set against such a bleak and humorless backdrop.
The basic premise of the movie is this: 20 years in the future, women have become infertile, with the last new child having been born 18 years earlier. The species is doomed, and that’s just one of the many problems in the world. In its dying throes, the ugliest aspects of humanity have come to the surface and we find ourselves visiting an England in which, much like the England of V for Vendetta, one of the worst crimes you can commit is to be from somewhere else.
Illegal immigrants – foogies as they’re called – are rounded up and placed in internment camps before being shipped away.
There is, of course, violent resistance to this state of affairs, and very early in the movie we’re hit with an act of stunning terrorist violence – the first of many.
The plot of the movie is centered around the quest to get a young foogie girl safely out of the country. This particular foogie is the most important person in the world. Why? Because she’s eight months pregnant.
The rest is all backstory and personal histories – such as the connection between the protagonist, Theo, played by Clive Owen, and the leader of the resistance group, Julian, played by Julianne Moore.
I have to say that I liked the pacing and the manner in which important information was provided to the audience (a sort of slow unfolding that inspires a growing awareness), and there are a lot of nice little stylistic touches, like the music, most notably the subtly not-quite right (thanks to the singer’s accent) cover of Ruby Tuesday.
I also appreciate the attention to subtle details. For example, in the movie Julianne Moore is in her 40s, which means she would have been in her 20s during the early 2000s, and as a mature woman she still bears the trappings that would have been de rigueur for an activist of that earlier time, such as a distinctive tattoo and a nose piercing.
So yeah, I’d say it was worth seeing. I can’t say for certain whether or not Brian would have liked it, but I’m kind of leaning towards him not liking it.
Once I got home I checked the mail and found that I’d gotten my belated Christmas present from Kevin.
I was surprised to find that it was two CDs. One I’d expected because he’d mentioned it when I last talked to him. It’s a CD called Where’s Neil When You Need Him? which consists of songs inspired by the works of Neil Gaiman, written and performed mostly by people I’ve only heard of because Neil has mentioned them in reference to the CD on his blog, and Tori Amos, who is a friend of Neil’s and who, by asking the question in one of her songs – she frequently makes references to Neil in her lyrics – provided the title for the CD.
The second CD, though, was a bit of a head-scratcher that falls into the “Uhhh…?” category, as I’m not quite sure what inspired him purchase it for me.
The CD is titled What is Hip?
It consists of remixes of songs that were popular when I was a kid. Songs by people like The Doobie Brothers and Seals and Croft (A remix of Summer Breeze that was, apparently, used in a Gap commercial, which explains why it sounded vaguely familiar).
So, yeah. I gave it a quick listen (listening to the Neil CD now), and it’s…interesting.
Still, I can see the motivation for getting me a CD with material based on Neil Gaiman’s work, but not really sure about the other one.
(In my thank you e-mail I quipped to Kevin that the only time that I think that “Jon” and “hip” will be likely to appear in a sentence together is in a form like “Jon slipped in the shower and broke his hip.”)
After I’d left the theater and turned my phone on I discovered that I had a voice mail from Kathleen, who was expressing anger and dismay at the fact that she’d gotten voice mail when calling me. I called her back and got her voice mail, even though it was already too late and I wouldn’t have been able to help her anyway (she needed someone to look up a phone number online, apparently).
Inside the box that Amazon shipped the CDs in was a little piece of paper that said, “Why worry about Valentine’s Day?”
I responded, “Exactly.”
I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that pretty much sums up my feelings about it.
Anyway, that was my day in a – wordy and boring – nutshell.
Three long days of work lie ahead of me, and I’m sure that tomorrow night I’ll continue what has become my Thursday night tradition of only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep for no apparent reason other than that I simply will not fall asleep.
I just don’t get that. What is the mechanism that keeps you awake like that, despite the fact that you’re tired? I mean, I’m tired, I want to sleep, and I’m in bed. What more is needed to make sleep happen?
But whatever, I guess I’ll swear at that bridge when I come to it.
In the meantime, I hope you all have more interesting and exciting weekends than I’m likely to have.