Base10Blog
Monday, July 07, 2008
 
Smoker Follow-up
Since the turkey came out well, I've decided to post my recipe for smoked chicken salad. Here goes:

Smoked Chicken Salad
One boneless chicken breast
2 tblsp hickory chops
salt & pepper
one cup smart balance mayonaise
six romaine lettuce leaves

Dry rub chicken breast with a small amount of slat and pepper. Smoke chicken breast in Cameron smoker with wood chips under drip oan (I used hickory) about 20 minutes. Remove smoker to oven and roast at 350 for an additional thirty minutes or until cooked through. remove and let rest until at room temperature. Dice chicken. Chop romaine leaves as if makng a Cobb salad. Combine chicken, mayonaise, lettuce. Mix thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Note that this recipe really benefits from a little extra fresh ground pepper.

I got the idea for this recipe from a little deli one Centre street by the courthouse. They serve a chicken salad that is heavily peppered where lettuce is mixed in with the salad. (I think they use iceberg). This makes an excellent sandwich served on crusty bread.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
 
Recipe of the Day
One of Base10's buddies recently bought an outdoor smoker. We were chatting about it and I decided to break out my Cameron Stovetop Smoker to try a few ideas. Anyway, I smoked a chicken breast and made chicken salad (good) and then tried a thin piece of skirt steak (really good). After that I decided to try something different. I smoked a turkey breast and made soup out of it.

Smoked Turkey Breast
1 small turkey breast half (without skin)
2 tblsp hickory chips

Dry rub the turkey with salt and pepper. Place woodchips in center of smoker below drip pan. Put drip pan on top along with rack. Spray lightly with cooking oil. Place turkey on rack. Close smoker. (I was able to close the smoker, but you can also seal with foil if it's too large). Place on stove on medium to high heat. Smoke until wood stops burning (about 20-30 minutes). Place entire device in oven a roast until cooked through (approx 30 minutes).

This was delicious sliced. But I was curious how it would translate to soup.

Smoked Turkey Soup
2 qts water
1 small onion
1 medium sized potato
4 stalks celery
Teaspoon chopped frozen basil
Teaspoon Chopped frozen garlic
1/2 lb smoked turkey meat
2 stock cubes
1 large bay leaf
1 medium carrot
1 cup egg noodles
Salt & pepper to taste

Place all ingredients (except noodles) into a large soup pot. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to a steady simmer. Let cook for about an hour. When done, soup should have a nice smokey flavor permeating all ingredients. Add noodles and simmer until tender, stiring occassionally.
 
Kindle Review
Base10 broke down and bought a Kindle with his stimulus check this week. I just got it and have been using it steadily. While I had my doubts, I must admit it is a pretty neat device. Whether it is the future of reading as some people claim remains to be seen. YOu can check out the official product page here.

The "e-ink" technology that is used by this and other devices is remarkable. I was able to read on the device for an extended period of time without getting the eyestrain that I normally get when reading off of an lcd or crt screen. With the good come the bad though. There's no backlight. While the device is easy to read in daylight, you need good ambient light to read (much like a real book). BTW, it's excellent on the subway.

The kindle store is very well done, having all of the current bestsellers. The device also has potential in the academic arena. Princeton has announced its support for textbooks on the device.

As far as other content goes, you can get subscriptions to magazines (I tried Time) newspapers (I tried the Times and the Journal) and blogs. The blog feature seems superfluous since you can read RSS feeds with the browser on the device. I also don't see the need for the magazines, since the content will at most be updated only weekly. I do find myself reading the newspapers on the device regularly. It's nice to have the Times available on the subway without having an internet connection.

It is not a perfect device. It seems to toy-like. I would like the device to have aq little heft to it. In addition, the side buttons that control paging are overly sensitive. In addition, the design team should have taken a lesson from Apple--the color scheme for this device is rather dull.

All in all, I'm happy with it. But I'm still learning how to use it.

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