Simple, right? When I cook, I have a sort of sixth sense about what I should, or should not, include in a recipe, and it typically never fails (although it did lead to my infamous BBQ Bay Leaf Stir-Fry Pasta).

My Cooky Sense tingled while I threw chunks of veggies and scoops of lentils into the slow cooker. In my freezer, I had bones from a rotisserie chicken. I took a page from the Carl Weathers School of Cooking (as seen in Arrested Development), and kept the bones, because, to paraphrase Carl, there was still plenty of meat on the bones and could be used to get “a stew goin’.”

I pulled the collection of bones from my freezer, which resembled something from The Thing (the old The Thing, not the new The Thing), and hurled a few into the slow cooker.

After a few hours my soup, like a Kardashian marriage, was finished. Each spoonful tasted great, and also brought me closer to my own doom. I was watching Burn Notice an educational program while eating, so my eyes were not on the contents of my spoon.

Then I felt it (no, not presence of my old master)—something like a rock in my mouth, which rolled its way to the back of my throat. I hacked and gagged, and after a spit-take any Stooge would be proud of, a chunk of bone sailed across the room and plinked against my TV screen.

While I had meant to only use the larger leg bones, I had apparently grabbed a few of the smaller, easier to swallow bones too. In this case, a vertebra—and thankfully, a chicken vertebra (you never know).

I told this story to Stephanie [girlfriend - Ed.], and she merely shook her head, as she is prone to do when I explain Anything to her. “Why didn’t you just boil the bones in a separate pot and pour the liquid in the soup?”

I only shrugged, and went to work deboning the remaining gallon of soup.

Cue dramatic music.

How terrible it must be to be the final apple about to face The Peeler. 

I was helping make apple pies and I thankfully had my camera with me. The sight of an apple being peeled (and cored) on a peeler makes for an interesting (and somewhat disturbing) photo, don’t you think?

"Are you using the whole fist, Doc?"

—
Daniel J. Hogan is a freelance writer, podcaster, and a photoblogger.  He listens to Dio albums in Lansing, Michigan.  Follow him on Twitter, @danieljhogan.

Last week, I whipped up some easy mini pizzas, using leftovers. Read the recipe after the break.

Ingredients:

Asparagus (raw or steamed)

Prosciutto

Pizza sauce

Thin sliced, whole grain, flax bread

Fresh basil leaves

Parmesan cheese

Farmer’s cheese

Olive Oil

Prep:

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. Arrange bread slices on a cooking stone. Mine is small, so I could only do six slices of bread.
3. Spread sauce on slices, maybe about a tablespoon each.
4. Add basil leaves, either whole or torn up. Mine were nearly dried (they were fresh earlier in the week).
5. Add cheese (use a cheese grater).
6. Add rest of toppings (prosciutto and/or asparagus). For a fancy touch, roll the asparagus in the prosciutto.
7. Drip a bit of olive oil on top of the slices. Not a lot, just a few drops.
8. If you have any Italian style seasonings laying around, sprinkle those on top. I have a Tuscan blend (it has rosemary, etc) that I used.
9. Cook for 10 minutes or so.

And that’s it!

Easy. All of these ingredients I happened to have on hand, so I decided to mix them together (hence my using farmer’s cheese instead of mozzarella). You could make a whole tray of these for appetizers if you wanted.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 good size eggplant (a large one will feed three people easily, if not four.  Check for damage first)
• 1 container of Italian style bread crumbs (these have the extra seasoning.  you can make your own with basic bread crumbs, just add oregano, dried garlic, etc).
• Extra virgin olive oil – you’ll need a lot, so get a good sized bottle. Darker the oil, the better. It’ll add a lot of flavor.
• 1 chunk of parmesan cheese (skip the powered container junk, get the real thing). Go to a place like Horrocks Cheese Room, where the price is based on weight and get only what you need (little goes a long way). Make sure you have a cheese grater.

Steps

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Slice eggplant into thin slices, the thinner the better as they’ll soak up more of the olive oil. You can do thick slices if you want. I keep the outer skin on.
• Salt eggplant and layer them in a colander, place colander in the sink with a heavy plate on top for 20 to 40 minutes. This draws out some of the bitter flavor of the eggplant. Use kosher salt if you have it.
• After eggplant sits, rinse and pat dry with paper towel.
• Pour a decent amount of olive oil in a large bowl (big enough that a eggplant slice fits into it). Season the olive oil if you want, I usually do with garlic (not too much) or oregano.
• Pour a decent amount of the bread crumbs onto a plate, next to the bowl of olive oil.
• Dip eggplant slices into olive oil, covering both sides, and then into the bread crumbs (again, both sides). Do that one at a time. NOTE: this is a bit messy, be prepared to have your hands covered in oil and bread crumbs.
• Layer slices (don’t stack) in either a baking dish or cookie sheet (cookie sheet makes them a bit crispier).  You may want to spray baking dish or cookie sheet with nonstick spray. Do this until you either run out of eggplant or think you have enough. If you run out of olive oil and/or bread crumbs, just pour out more.
• I season the slices before putting them in the oven with a little bit of extra oregano and the Outrageously Garlic seasoning by Two Sisters Gourmet (dried garlic, onions, etc).
• Bake for 20 minutes or so and keep an eye on it–especially if you have thin slices on a cookie sheet.
• Remove slices, put on a plate (careful! they are HOT), grate cheese over slices and serve right away! You can also cover them in pasta sauce (either buy pre-made or make your own). Simmer the sauce on the stove top while you are prepping and cooking the eggplant.

Extra Credit

• Pair with garlic bread and a nice red wine, pinot noir is my favorite (I don’t care if that is “right” or not ) and you got yourself an easy, tasty dinner that can feed quite a few people.
• Refrigerate leftovers for a tasty treat later–cold, breaded eggplant is yummy. They make a great sandwich (I’ll put cold pasta sauce on the sandwich too).

I saw a Twitter update by @gmcalpin (writer and artist of one of my favorite webcomics, Multiplex) about the metal band Mastodon allegedly scoring the upcoming film Jonah Hex (based on a comic). It lead to an article on Ain’t It Cool News (movie rumors and such).

I read the article and was amused, I enjoy Mastodon but realized I don’t own nearly enough of their music. I hopped over to YouTube and watched a few music videos and also listened to some other songs, sampling cuts from the albums Leviathan and Blood Mountain.

Realizing I still had an online gift certificate from my birthday, I decided to buy a Mastodon album (along with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl). But I couldn’t decide which to get–then a friend commented on my Facebook page that Crack the Skye was nothing short of amazing (a friend whose opinions I hold in high regard).

So, I ventured back to YouTube to listen to a few cuts from Crack the Skye and read a few online reviews. I quickly decided on ordering the album–and when it comes to bands like Mastodon, I really prefer having the original CD over .MP3s (because the music is complex and/or layered–things that can get lost when compressing music to .MP3s).

After clicking Finish My Order, I sat back and thought “What the heck just happened?” Over the span of maybe twenty minutes, I went from reading about Mastodon scoring an upcoming film to buying one of their albums, mainly on a whim.

It was an interesting string of events: I read the article, listened to songs online/watched videos, got a recommendation from a friend who lives in another city, read reviews and purchased an album. All without leaving my seat.

I guess this shows you can’t underestimate the advantages of people talking about your stuff on the Internet.

Also: My latest article for Lansing Capital Gains is now online.  It is about the Soup Spoon Cafe, a very tasty restaurant (good coffee too).

This was inspired by a recipe for “Rice Triangles” in the cookbook that came with my Laptop Lunch bento box. I figured, “Hey, that’s just sushi without the fish, I’ll give it a try.” Well, the first few I made weren’t that pretty and were difficult (based on the directions in the recipe), so I said the heck with it and just started doing my own little sushi rolls. I laid the seaweed paper out, spread out the rice and started laying veggies on top. It took a few times to get the hang of it, but I’m glad I decided to experiment (which is what I like most about cooking, just trying whatever I want).

I had a lot of fun! I love cooking and this was certainly a new, fun way to cook. Plus it lets me make healthy stuff for my daily lunches I take to work. My veggie rolls are a neat way to eat some raw veggies, and they are fun to make.

I decided to make more today, so I headed off to the East Lansing Farmer’s Market and picked up a cucumber and a zucchini (and a pint of super yummy blue berries).

Came home, made the rice (making only half of what I had made last week, because it was way too much for just me), added the sushi vinegar (have a bottle of stuff ready to go I got at the store), and the sesame seeds. Then the fun began.

This one has carrot, spinach and zucchini. I think I seasoned it with cilantro, can’t remember (some were seasoned, some weren’t, like I said: I experiment).

I switched some things up with each batch, but they all had some mix of veggies.

This one was spinach, cucumber and zucchini. I also seasoned it with cilantro as well as Two Sisters Gourmet Outrageous Garlic seasoning (dried garlic, onion, etc).

I might pick up some soy meat/tofu to try out next time as well, so I can have some protein in there.

I’m happy with how these turned out. Still need to get the bamboo mat-rolling thing, but I will soon. And I’ll tell ya, they ain’t kidding when they call it ‘sticky rice,’ it is a pain to get off my hands, but that’s part of the fun.

My only experience with chili cook offs is via the Simpsons episode Homer ingests a freakish chili pepper and has various hallucinations.

Needless to say, I had high hopes for this cook off.

Upon arriving (with a pair of friends in tow), I was thankful I had purchased my ticket in advance–not only did it save me $3, I got to go to the front of the entrance line instead of waiting for a spell, like my friends had to. This was where I first spotted the muffin trays that almost everyone seemed to have.

This sight intrigued me, as that was something totally unexpected (not unlike the Spanish Inquisition). I later found out what the tins were for–stacking multiple cups of chili at once so you could enjoy them at your leisure. A novel concept. I imagine too that you could probably have chili poured in the tray itself if you wanted, to save on waste…but I didn’t really see that happening.

While waiting for my friends to work their way through the line, I enjoyed a couple of chilies. They were quite tasty. After linking up with my pals, we surveyed the mass of people and decided to just pick a spot and start. We had all kinds of chili: cheesy chili, chili made with coffee and even chili made with chocolate.

One chili had a rather amusing name

After enjoying a bunch of chili (as well as a Melting Moments ice cream sandwich for myself), one of our party decided to ride the mechanical bull featured at the cook off.

This was free and it was a riot, watching people of all ages try to tame mechanical beast. Our friends did pretty well, but was eventually tossed.

The crowd was more than I expected and the dueling music stages seemed to take a bit of the focus away (as well as cut down on places to sit, etc), however I had a great time and I’m looking forward to next year.