Fish Fear Me

That Woks For Me

Winter drags on and the grill is still encased in snow and ice. I've let that put me into a bit of a rut as far as cooking goes, with the usual beef and fish entrees starting to get a little stale, so to speak. Then last week I remembered the wok sitting in the back of the lower cupboard and dusted that bad boy off.

Last week it was chicken fried rice. Today I pulled out an old recipe for Mandarin beef that I haven't made in some time. Quite a few recipes for that call for actual oranges or orange juice, but the one I used from an old Betty Crocker cookbook doesn't and I prefer it that way.

Here it is:

Ingredients
1 pound boneless beef sirloin steak or round steak 
1 tablespoon vegetable oil 
2 teaspoons cornstarch 
1 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon soy sauce 
1/2 teaspoon sugar 
1/4 teaspoon white pepper 
2 green onions , (with tops) 
1 , large green bell pepper 
1/4 cup vegetable oil 
1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger root 
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic 
3/4 cup shredded carrot 
1 teaspoon chili paste 
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce 

Directions: Trim fat from beef steak cut beef lengthwise into 2-inch strips. 

Cut strips crosswise into 1/8-inch slices. Stack slices and cut lengthwise into thin strips. 

Toss beef, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, the cornstarch, salt, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, the sugar and white pepper in medium bowl. 

Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Cut green onions diagonally into 2-inch pieces. Cut bell pepper into 1/8-inch strips. 

Heat wok until very hot. Add 1/4 cup vegetable oil tilt wok to coat side. 

Add beef, gingerroot and garlic stir-fry 3 minutes or until beef is brown. 

Add bell pepper, carrot and chili paste stir-fry 1 minute. 

Stir in green onions and 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce Stir-fry 30 seconds. 

Cutting the steak up is the most time-consuming part of the prep work, but overall it's a simple and fairly quick meal to make. I serve it over white rice since that's what I prefer, but whatever floats your boat. The recipe says it makes four servings, but it really seems like three to me. If I were cooking for four I would pump up the beef and vegetable amounts a little and make 2.5-3 cups of rice. 

You don't have to have a wok to make it work either. Any 5-quart or so skillet that can handle high temps and non-stick will do the trick.

Delicious, but not too spicy. You can add more chili paste if you want to spice it up more, but be careful. A little of that stuff goes a long way.

U-phoria

The last three Gopher men's basketball games, or parts of games, that I've managed to catch on TV had been painful to watch. Turnovers, bad shots, bad decisions and more plagued a team that had started the season at 12-1 but then plummeted from the national rankings when the Big Ten season started and they went 7-8. For the moment though, all is forgiven after I happened to catch them last night while grabbing dinner at the local pub.

The Gophers beat #1 Indiana by a score of 77-73 at home and it was probably the most thrilling and thoroughly enjoyable game from them that I've seen in ten years. The fans at the arena thought so too, as they rushed the court en masse at the final buzzer.

Despite their disappointing Big Ten record, this win and their current RPI ranking as #1 in schedule difficulty makes them almost certain to receive an NCAA tournament bid in a few weeks. Whether they can build on all that and play on a consistently high level is a big question though.

A different but related question is, why is there a big giant head near center court in the picture above?

It looks like somebody moved it too. I don't normally post pics that belong to other people, but this one seems to me to be worthy of some commentary, as it looks like the Pioneer Press is messing with its readership a little.

Post Oscars

I'd like to start this Monday by saying I could not care less about a bunch of nasty, stuck-up, overpaid, idiotic bunch of twits and anything they have to say.

Now that we have the politicians in Washington out of the way, let's talk about the Oscars.

Ba-dum boom.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. 

Let It Snow

Looks like I'll be firing up the snowblower again when I get home this afternoon:

Friday is the 12th day this month out of 22 with measurable snow. If the Twin Cities gets 4.8 inches, this would become one of the 10 snowiest Februarys on record in the metro, following an early winter with little snow and a summer-fall drought.

The National Weather Service reported that the storm is dropping more snow on southern and southwestern Minnesota than in the Twin Cities area. Claremont, west of Rochester, has seen 8.2 inches so far. Ellendale, north of Albert Lea, has 7.5 inches, Fairmont in south-central Minnesota has 7.2 inches, Worthington in southwestern Minnesota has 5 inches and Northfield 4.2. Farmington leads the way in the metro with 5.

It looks like we got about 2" of snow overnight and we'll get another 2-3" before the day is out.

As much as I'm starting to get tired of winter I'm glad to see the snow keep coming, and it's really good to see the farmland south and west of here getting even more moisture too. If the moisture and temperature trends continue it bodes well for solid moisture for the spring melt, yet not so much as to cause above normal flooding. 

It also marks a strong two months of normal snow and temperature levels for the Twin Cities. Last fall was warm and dry and the drumbeat about climate change was incessant and annoying. Now all I hear is crickets chirping on that score. I know, a few months doesn't really mean anything, but then I wish the same would hold true for the flip side. So just as a nudge at those who constantly use weather to try to make the case for climate change...  

Dude, where's my climate change?

What If All The NFL Logos Were British?

I think this is pretty good(and safe for work):

What if all the NFL logos were British?

The Minnesota Vikings turn out like this:

Hahaha! I love it. After all, uncouth is kind of a feature, not a bug in the NFL.

Eagle Cam Update

I'm sorry to say that things are starting to look kind of grim for a successful hatch for our bald eagle webcam subjects. The Minnesota DNR sums up the situation:

Well, it was a long, long weekend.  The eagle pair has been diligently tending to and sitting on these eggs for at least 40 days now.  While we haven't given up hope that one will hatch, we are becoming ever more humbled by our limited knowledge of these majestic creatures.  Keep in mind that this is one of the first cameras ever placed in an eagle's nest.  We are learning right along with all of you while we patiently watch.  What the eagles will do, how long they will sit, when they will realize that their eggs are not fertile are all mysteries that we just cannot answer.  This is the nature of observational research; watch, wait, record. This is also the value of this camera.  We can observe without harming or disturbing the birds. The knowledge that we gain from this observation will help us make informed decisions about bald eagle management, research and protection. We just don't know how long the pair will tend to these eggs before they will abandon them.  Will they kick them out of the nest?  Will a predator come and eat the eggs?  Will they just abandon and not come back?  We just don't know, and again, we will not intervene.  

Originally they cited a 35-day incubation period. I guess it's possible that because the eggs were laid so early they need more time in the oven so to speak, but as the days tick off now without a hatch it's more and more likely that this pair of eagles will be unsuccessful this year. We'll see what happens.

What's Up With Gasoline Prices?

I've been searching for explanations about the current spike in gas prices and what I seem to be finding are mainly contradictory statements and a whole bunch of shrugs. Some people talk about refineries closing or being offline for maintenance, then others show that gasoline inventories are high enough and demand moderate enough that they don't justify the price spikes. Oil also seems to be holding at artificially high prices. What the heck is going on?

I'm not at all one to jump at the "damn speculators" argument, but I wonder if that's not the case this time. Gasoline prices right now do seem to be untethered from normal supply and demand restraints and it has me thinking that Daniel Dicker might be on to something here:

Many of the most repeated arguments I hear just don't wash for me, including reduced Saudi supply and a shutting down of East Coast refineries previously owned by Hess (HES) and ConocoPhillips (COP).

What does make sense to me is the strong increase in speculative positions in gasoline, now at a greater number than at any time in that contract's history, even going back to the major spike in oil prices in 2007.

Much more detail in the video at that link, so I would encourage you to watch it. I don't know if he's right, but from what I can see right now, normal market behavior doesn't explain the spike. This price jump just doesn't smell right. 

I Really Do Try...

...to not be judgmental, but seriously?

Minnesotan Bronies

Okay, I can just let it go, but that was a real test.

Cats/Dogs

Here's another reasonably funny(for dog owners) contribution to the endless war between cat and dog owners:

5 Reasons Cats Are Inferior to Dogs In Every Way

I"m a dog lover, but I always get along quite well with cats and certainly don't hate them. I'm inclined, though, to agree with this adage from a comment at the link above:

"A dog thinks, 'He feeds me and takes care of me, he must be a god', while a cat thinks, 'He feeds me and takes care of me, I must be a god'."

Sounds about right to me. :)

Elections Should Be Easy

Maybe some localities just need more competent election officials:

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union pledge to create a nonpartisan commission to “improve the voting experience in America” has triggered reactions from the election-overhaul community that range from guarded optimism to overt disappointment.

It baffles me why some parts of the country seem to have such a problem with elections. It's not exactly rocket science and with optical scanning systems it is not only easy to process large numbers of ballots efficiently, it's possible to instantly check for errors such as double voting for one office right there before the voter leaves. 

Right-size your precincts. Properly staff and equip them. Maintain your registered voter rolls. It's a pretty simple formula. I realize there are areas that can be exceptions, but I'll bet a six-pack that the overwhelming majority of problem voting precincts are not matters of exception, but choice.

For example, there's a picture at that link above of a long line of people waiting to vote in Washington D.C. Bummer, right? Well, if nothing has changed since 2004 then the perhaps the problem is that DC has chosen to have voting precincts that are 2.5 times larger than the national average of 1338 voting age residents per precinct. If that's what DC voters want that's fine, but then don't complain about long lines. If that's not what they want, then they should get the mayor and other local officials to choose more wisely and either make smaller voting districts or properly staff and equip the ones they have to handle the load. 

My own voting precinct has grown quite a bit with several new apartment/condo projects added to the area in the last five years. The number of voting age residents is probably over 2000 now, but the polling place seems to be handling it. There are jams in the early morning and after work, but those result in waits of maybe ten or fifteen minutes based on my experience and what my neighbors say. I don't like to wait anymore than the next guy, but ten or fifteen minutes is no big deal. Hours? All I can say to that is it wouldn't be tolerated here. The local politicians would be getting their butts chewed off.

Here's what I think the president should have said:

"Running elections is one of the basic functions of local government. With the modern tools available to easily and efficiently cast and tabulate ballots at polling places there is no excuse for hours long waits to vote. If local election officials are not doing their job then it is up to local voters to hold them accountable. If they aren't willing to do so, then they aren't doing their job. We don't need commissions, we don't need gimmicks, we just need everybody to live up to their responsibilities."