Creuzer – Page 161 – Random things Creuzer

Sautéed green beans with shaved asiago cheese

This little gem of a recipe is from a friend at work. Yes, That friend, of MANGIAA fame. She is so funny, I know she loves to cook Italian, so I always ask her for recipes and advice. She gets SO excited that she brings in a can of this, or a jar of that which is impossible to find in a store. This time she gave me a jar of Alessi Ira Diavolo Italian Red Chili in Extra Virgion Olive Oil. This stuff is freak’n awesome man. It has great heat without tasting like your chewing on a jar of Tabasco sauce. I opened it when she gave it to me, touched the inside of the lid and stuck my finger in my mouth. WOW, that lit me up pretty good. I think I am going to like this stuff.

Anyway, this is one of the two awesome sounding recipes that she gave me for tonight’s supper club.

One large bag of green beans
4 cloves garlic sliced extra extra paper thin
Imported asiago cheese in a wedge
Extra virgin Olive oil – coat the bottom of the pan about ¾ of an inch
1 cup dry white wine
Kosher Salt

In a large frying pan on med-high heat sauté garlic in olive oil until lightly toasted golden brown.

Add 2-3 chili peppers or three drops of the pepper oil to make it hotter.

Add green beans. Toss until green beans are fully coated with the oil.

Add wine and put heat on high stirring frequently until wine is reduced by half and beans are still firm add kosher salt to taste.

Put beans in a warm serving plate (you can put platter in a warm oven until beans are ready).

Shave large thick ribbons of asiago over beans with a cheese shaver or knife and serve.

Cooking Tips:
Wash and clean green beans before you put the garlic on. I couldn’t clean the beans fast enough, and the first couple of handfuls that went in got a little over cooked.
I like my beans still crunchy. I overcooked mine.

HDR Video Camera for Automotive Use

I want to put a video camera into my car so I can have it take photos and video for my car blog.

I would want it to have maybe 24 hours of recording time set up so it it erases the oldest footage automatically. It would be set up so that it talks to the main computers in the house at night when the car is in the garage and moves any video footage over. I may have a button on the dash to flag important parts, such as an interesting car, license plate, or somebody doing something stupid.

The hardest part of this is getting video of stuff at night. The camera would either adjust for the darkness and the lights would completely blow out the image, or the camera would adjust for the lights, and everything else would be pitch black.

I am thinking that the video source could possibly alternate between the 2 extremes, every other frame. Basically half the frames would be balanced for the darkness, and the other half would be balanced for the lights. You could then take any 2 frames and create a High Dynamic Range HDR a composite image together to create an image that is usable. You could even possibly HDR merge a video together merging each frame into the following frame. It may be easiest to just cut the final frame rate in half if this was done.

I don’t know if the camera CCDs are tuned at the hardware level or by software.

Maybe 2 cameras placed very close together so the parallax is minimal? Have the cameras manually set to +4 and -4 or something? No, probably would need to be hard set for night time traffic. Maybe 3 cameras, one allowed to auto-adjust, and the other two set up for night.

Interesting Bits

I have added a new feature to my website. It is the “Interesting Bits” section at the end of the narrow side column, below my Del.icio.us bookmarks. This is a running list of the last 10 blog posts that I have decided to share in Google Reader. This is going to be stuff that is interesting to me for whatever reason. Some of you have similar interests to me, and this is a way to share the articles I found interesting.

I am currently subscribed to 15 different blogs, and the posts listed would be the best out of all of them.

Car Phones

I recently read an article on cell phone usage while driving and I think I figured out part of the why cell phones and driving don’t go well together.

First, the difference between holding the phone and the hands free set.
Driving with the hands free set allows both hands for the wheel. This most closely emulates having a person in the car with you. I even notice a concentration difference between having the set on my right ear (easier) and my left ear(seems harder) probably because I am more used to having the passenger on my right side.
As for hand-holding the phone, I think this shifts your focus from the steering wheel and driving to your phone and the conversation. I seem to “loose” where I am at much more often with the phone in hand.

Needless to say, I try hard to not drive hand holding the phone, but when I need directions, I find that I miss turns more often and have a harder time reading the road signs with the phone in hand then with a hands free set.

Now as for why having a passenger is better. I think the reason is the passenger is participatory with the driving. The report even mentions that the conversation switches to current the traffic twice as frequently with the passengers then when on the phone. I also believe that passengers help navigate. I know I ask my passengers to play an active role in navigation when I am driving to a new location.

For example, I was talking to Katie tonight on the phone on my way home from some friends’ house. Traffic was pretty bad (probably post Superbowl traffic) and it was wet and rainy. I shifted focus from my conversation to completely focus on the road while navigation my exit. Katie kept talking, oblivious that I had tuned her out. If she had been in the car, she would have noticed and paused the conversation until I was through the intersection. I think this example shows how phone conversations while driving can be distracting.

What do you think?

Beer Cheese Potato Broccoli Soup

Quick, Superbowl Sunday, you need to bring a dish to a party where there will be a dozen HUNGRY people. What do you do?

Bear Creek Soup to the rescue!

2 packages of Bear Creek Cheddar Potato Soup.
1 head fresh broccoli
1 pound of shredded cheese
1 bottle beer.

In large crock-pot, add 15 (of the requested 16) cups hot water, bottle of beer, and 2 packages of soup. Cut up broccoli into small pieces and add to soup.

Cook on high for a while. Probably a couple of hours. So you can start this and forget it a while ahead of time.