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Standard Steak Marinade Recipe

Ingredients Rub: Olive Oil Johnnys Seasoning Cajun Seasoning Mesquite Seasoning  Marinade: Worcester Sauce Mesquite BBQ Sauce Fresh local honey  Instructions: Oil down each piece of meat and then using your hands, rub into the meat a mixture of the three seasonings. Then stick into a gallon ziplock bag. Pre-mix 1/4 cup of Worcester (a lot I know but worth it), a bottle of mesquite BBQ sauce, and then honey. The amount of honey really depends on taste. If you want more of a sweet teriyaki taste, add more honey and a couple splashes of soy sauce. If you want a more traditional steakhouse taste, do maybe 1/4 cup of honey. After pre-mixing the ingredients, poor into the ziplock bag and let sit in the refrigerator over night.

Bell Pepper stuffed with rice and spam :)

So I thought I had posted this a while back but here goes : Shredded Mozzarella cheese 1 12oz can of spam 3 bell pepers 2 cups of cooked rice 2 tablespoons of soy sauce cajun seasoning garlic onions salt pepper rosemarry basil 1/2 cup of water 1 cup of tomato juice. Bake 350F for 17min or so...

Easy two person talapia bisque

Disclaimer: requires blender and white wine. Ingredients: 1/2 cup white wine 1 can of bisque or tomato soup 1 small fillet talapia Oragano Chile powder Rosemary Throw all together in blender for 2 minutes , the. Heat over stuff till ready :) thats it. I recommend salmon for this but talapia and tuna (even packaged) will do

Tri culture pan fried talapia

Alright so no real portions as usual, i made this last night and going to try it again tonight. Ingredients: Talapia Butter Lime juice Salsa Hoison sauce Put your talapia on a fry pan but dont turn on the heat yet. Spray both sides of it with lime juice, then use a spoon and lay salsa on top, the put a drop of hoison sauce on top of it. Drop 1/8 cup of butter onto the pan it self. Turn heat to med-hi . You dont want to traditional fry it, but let it simmer each side for 12min. Serve with rice and steamed vegetables :)

Balsamic Vinegar Fish Glaze Recipe

Alrighty so while I traveled I made food for my new cousin's-in-laws  who are letting me stay at their place and I checked a couple references and then used the ingredients list below. One thing I really like about this recipe is that its pretty light dinner but fulfilling: 4 pieces of cod - (Can be done with talapia and halibut, especially halibut steaks) balsamic vinegar olive oil brown sugar garlic powder ginger a whole onion Alright so now to the cool part - mix to taste the vinegar, oil, brown sugar, garlic powder, and shred the ginger into it. You can mix how you like, but I prefer a little thicker, not really a paste but will stick on top of the cod. Slice your onion in such a way that you can have a thin layer of onion on the bottom of your skillet to put the fish on top of. Depending on the amount of time you have, you can either marinate the fish in your glaze or if you didt have a lot of time like myself, just put the fish in the skillet, dump and spread the glaze on the fish so its smothered, and then cook on medium or so heat for like  30-35minutes or until fish is done to your satisfaction. Do not let the glaze carmelize on the bottom of the pan within 15minutes, if that is happening your heat is too high set and you might burn the onions and fish. Once the fish is finished, set it on a plate, serve it with a fruit salad and some bread.

Sweet and Salty Chicken Bake recipe

So... Sorry I dont have the portions for this.... I made it up on the spot before a potluck and it actually worked out great!   So!   ingredients: johnnys seasoning onoins sweet potatoe can of tomatoe soup or sauce curry powder cajun honey steak seasoning brown sugar chicken   Making: get your chicken into really small pieces and then boil it to cook it for the most part. Once its done about 70% cooking, take it out and put it in a bowl and make sure the chicken gets some olive oil. Then season all of the chicken with a mixture of Johnnys seasoning, cajun seasoning, and steak seasoning. I know some people will think why not poultry but its because the steak seasoning has more bolder flavors that will stick out more. Then slice an onion in such a way as to line the bottom of a pie dish. Then add a layer of sliced sweet potatoe. Then add an appropriate amount of brown sugar to all of the sweet potato lining. Spread the chicken on top of that layer, and then add another layer of sweet potato. take the can of tomatoe soup/sauce and mix in honey and curry powder to taste. Then pour it into the baking dish. Bake for 30min at 350F   Let me know how it goes :)

Sharing a Blog article

I'm not much into reposting other people's blog articles but this one i think hits a bit close to home. http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/28856-beauty-vs-sexuality I think the gold nugget here is the following:

To put it another way, we shame men by insisting they're fundamentally weak, constantly vulnerable to being overwhelmed by sexual impulses. We shame women for not being better stewards of that supposed weakness. That shame doesn't just lead to unhealthy sexual relationships (including between husbands and wives); it leaves too many men feeling like potential predators and too many women feeling as if they're vain, shallow temptresses.

  I personally struggle with this idea and also know others on the male and female side and its something to consider. This isnt a license for men to gawk or woman to dress like a tempress, but an opportunity for those to engage in an open and honest dialogue. just my two cents.

Would you come and discourse?

In the world of politics, religion, mac vs pc, etc. it seems to me that society is pretty hit or miss on its "open-mindedness." Its funny because we get all riled up when another individual disagrees that your world view isnt the "right" one or that your phone has better apps than the other. To preface this, i disregard the idea of relativity since if someone can be wrong but there is no absolute truth when if there is a wrong answer there is always a right answer. A person may state then it depends on perspective. I believe we all agree murder is wrong, and not murdering is right - therefor its not a matter of perspective. Its a matter of courtesy, respect, and ministry. So what does this have to do with discourse? Everything! Are you willing to come and discourse with people? Honestly respect, listen, and let others speak into your life while you speak into theirs? A bigger question: Are you willing to even think? In the analogy or perspective of a Christian being "attacked" by an individual who disagrees, are you willing to discourse and think - realizing that this "attack" is a facade/wall and begin ministering to another? Likewise would the "attacker" take the time to listen and potentially think, and begin to see that maybe just maybe - this other person is trying to "minister" as best as they can and they legitimately care about you? That they are actually walking about what they believe and not being hypocritical? I use that example because it rarely happens but also because it can be at the times the most hurtful for both sides and thus becomes an even rarer experience because people dont discourse with each other or even broach the concept. I think one of the larger portions of something like this is that we as a group of people are genuinely open to ideas, thoughts, questions, etc. but we are afraid of scenarios of people being super upset and angry. Honestly, its not that bad. I've asked people on ski lifts what they think happens when they die, and it was a wonderful experience and I loved speaking with the random people I was able to. I've asked a elderly local man, and he seemed upset but that was because he was tired of "religious" people coming to his house all the time trying to convert him. I'd be upset too if I had random people who didt legitimately care about me stopping by my house all of the time. Its a terrible bother (I say this with 30% facetiousness). We then talked for 35 minutes about his home, woodworking, and traveling. He may have seemed upset, but he was willing to discourse with me. I would also submit that if you are tired of people knocking on your door, ask them what their story is. What was their childhood like? What brought them to your city? What was their favorite subject in high school? Sadly stuff like this may scare them away because some people just are not ready to have "personal" conversations. If you think this post is "so true! people need to chill out!" then you might be the most guilty of shutting others down. If you think this post is retarded then set that aside and begin to discourse with me in the comments section. If you feel trapped by two options, discourse or no discourse - dont be :)  - There are more than just two options.  

Dice Sweet Potato Appetizer or hashbrown alternative Recipe

So this is something I like to make a lot because its simple and its potato so its pretty cheap. This can be done with normal potatoes but I definitely prefer the taste of sweet potato.   Ingredients: 1 Diced sweet potato Olive Oil salt pepper basil cinnamon/sugar (the reason I dont give amounts is because not all potatoes are equal) Process: Preheat oven 400F Dice your potato into smallish cubes and then mix with some oil in a fairly large bowl so that all sides are covered but not smothered in oil. In a separate bowl mix together salt, pepper basil, cinnamon sugar. For measurement I would say 1 part salt, 1 part pepper, 1 part basil, 4 parts cinnamon-sugar. mix enough to cover but not smother your potatoes and slow mix it into the bowl with the potatoes. Once you have done that, put the cubed potato pieces on a cookie tray and bake for 5-20minutes, depending on the size of your cubes.   when done, taste awesomeness :)  

Simple Cubed beef for rice/mashed potato Recipe

Alright so This should/could be seved with rice and or mashed potatoes but I will not go into how to make either of this   Ingredients 2lb cubed beef 6 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 2cup milk 1 cup of oil 1 tablespood of pepper 1/2 tablespooon of salt 3 tablespoons of basil 1 tablespoon of itailian seasoning 5 cloves of garlic   Process: mix it all together, cook in skillet over low to medium heat till done. I say till done because some people like their meat differently. My biggest thing is DO NOT cook on high less you burn your sauce or over cook the meat so that it doesnt keep flavor. Marinading this together for an hour is also an option.

The forward thinking church?

what is it to have a forward thinking vision for your church? I observed an old style baptist church this last sunday. It was awesome, totally brought of back to my roots. One thing i observed was a ton of really creative retro fitting that looked really pretty clean and a normal paritioner would not notice. So I gauged the building at being 20+ years old. I found out it was over 50-years old.This made of awe at how well the upkeep was. I them asked how full it gets... They pretty much for the last 10 years have done 2 services and always about 3/4 full. On the surface this looks really good. I think its great in a lot of ways. There is one concern i have, what now? I also recently visited a local church that the body has been around for 20+ years and recently completed a new facility. it was a $7-million building. The max capacity was set to be about 500 people and before a split with the youth pastor, their congregation was at 400. Its now at about 200 people. What I'm curious for is why at 400 people in regular attendance would you consider making a building capacity at 500? I understand the idea of multiple services but that has its own set of problems and divisions among the young and old. In a time where the younger generation needs wisdom and guidance from the more spiritually mature congregation, it seems difficult to split those into two different service segments. I am not a pastor, architect or anything else besides a Communication graduate and web coordinator, so please take what I say with a grain of salt. I have been apart of ministries for the last 15 years and worked on the technical end for a vast majority of that. That being said, what happened to believing in long term miracles of revival and drastic increases of church attendance? I know every movement of God has been bathed in prayer more massively then we could have ever imagined but even past that we need to actually BELIEVE in that. Why do I stress that? Well I think we become caloused over the years to unanswered prayers when God really was answering but we just missed what He was really going for.  But the fact of the matter is, God wants to see His children return to Him, correct? If so then why are we not praying and expecting to God to act? If we are really saying we expect God to move, then why are we making buildings that cannot support the ministry that we believe and pray for? Its an entire paradigm shift to believe that way as well. And maybe you are just wanting to support the ministry you currently have and thats awesome, some buildings really are only made for a small group, so hey why not allow some chinese or russian or hispanic churches to meet in there too? Lets build each others ministries with the resources we currently have. Just a few thoughts. Post thoughts in the comments, I would love to continue this conversation because I really believe its important on more levels then we can imagine.

Why we need to re-think urban living and development

so, inherently this is something that comes to my mind pretty often. The main proponents and inspiration of this are Barb Chamberlain and James H Kunstler. As a result of Kunstler, Wal-Mart is also in this. Barb Chamberlain is a pretty involved individual in Spokane, WA. and is dedicated to making places bicycle friendly, technologically green, and to borrow from Kunstler- to create a place "worth caring about." Amidst this a big push of Barb's efforts are related to advocating biking (although I advocate longboarding), is to design, re-design, and build a city that is pedestrian and biking friendly. This would inherently have intense ripple effects and would impact every part of society. Everyone should follow her twitter account because she is really that cool. @barbchamberlain and her website is http://www.biketoworkbarb.blogspot.com/ . This could reduce obesity in the region, promote healthier environments (on the ground and air), and build a stronger sense of community. I don't believe the last one is as explicit as the others however, I believe as we strive to put people closer together, we are going to either have amazing communities that have positive impact or we will have more crime. I believe and would hope for thriving communities that could inherently build stronger interpersonal relationships with one another and by golly kids could actually play outside. Above these things though, I think we have to take it one step further into a different perspective and a step into the realization of what this really looks like. Now the above things hinge on two aspects – how far away we live from our job and how well we design our cities. These are not and cannot exist outside of each other and because of that, for any of this to work would be contingent on one thing. People willing to set aside their selfish images, beliefs and take one for the team. For an example, with Kunstler in mind, if say a designer who works in the heart of downtown Spokane says to himself, "I want a home that kind of has a suburb feel that has four bed rooms and two bathrooms, designed super modern," then he would potentially live 20-30 minutes away from the heart of downtown right? Now in perspective we deal with traffic, but this house location could be 20-30 miles away to reach a suburb or relatively country yet modern location to find and raise a family. However, for the example of Spokane, to get from river park square to the south east corner of the valley is about 12miles, 22+minute drive (without traffic). Now I'm not in the most awesome shape and due to my adverse relationship to bikes (I had a bad experience as a child), I would drive my 32mpg car. So every two days I would spend roughly $10 on gas. Please stay with me on this. That's close to $25 a week in gas just driving to work, a huge mortgage payment every month, headaches, and more construction in further areas because you might have 2+ kids who will want homes in 20 years. All of that just because you "wanted" or "needed" that house. You "believed" that you had to attain an "image" and it was all about "you." Sounds pretty selfish eh? Now you might say you have no other option, the city doesn't provide that kind of housing. This is true. That's where the other hinge has to come into play and Kunstler's ideas come in. We must design better urban sprawls because well, it doesn't fit the current need and over-population doesn't help either. This is where Wal-Mart parking lots could stay parking lots but, have structures that provide housing, or schools in an innovative format that is aesthetically pleasing. I may sound idealistic but how come we don't move closer to our jobs? Why don't we revamp River park mall as a giant condo community with stores on the bottom, condos on the top floor and use that whole middle space for a school? Oh you don't want to live that close to work? But what if you could walk 3minutes and have lunch with your son or daughter? Walk 5minutes and be home? Your first thought is, "But Adam, I want *insert desired noun or adjective*." That's nice, but when are you going to take one for the team? Take one for your family, city, and nation? When are you going to be willing to build a place "worth caring about?"

Anonymous, I appreciate you but careful yo

Anonymous just released its #opIran press releases and this weekend plans on setting up to occupy wall-street and camp there for a while. All the while I dont believe in all the methods and integrity they stand with, I agree in most of their campaigns. However with the recent crackdown by foreign authorities and our own government via the FBI, I wonder what the future holds. One thing as I look at the circumstances is that Anonymous needs to be leery of two things. The first I believe is that even though anonymous is supposedly a collective, which in some cases is true, however there is definitely a sub group of leaders and the second is that they are spreading everything pretty thin. Now I dont know know exactly these people do for a living, however the sub-group of leaders may need some time to relax and re-coup and retain their vision for what is going on. The worst thing that could happen is burn out and fatigue. Past that is going broke and being unable to actually do their own conceived work due to poor financial decisions. I know these people range from 16-60 years of age however I cannot help but wonder what their day occupation is. The second point I think is more serious due to the increase in activity not only of #operations but citizens arrested for participating. The more diversified and strangely un-united the efforts are, the less effective they will become in their efforts to make change. E.g. if you have a collective of 500 working on #opIran, but most of those want to work on different #ops, then their going to be down to maybe 200 people on #opIran and when you have 75 raids and 16 people arrested it can make #opIran a bit more difficult to make a difference and easier to trace with the lowered amount of people. The fix to this is to go back to the core #operationpayback and focus on 5 targets max as a much larger collective than to diversify into some many off branches. This would also hopefully reduce in-fighting as well but also retain the integrity of what #anonymous really is. In my mind, Anonymous is a societal watch dog for the American constitution and a force that does good amongst the nations, once they break past that, then I cant believe in their vision. Some Food for thought.

New kitchen project

So I definitely bought a strange house. One of my room mates calls it the hobbit house and there are some definite oddities So far I painted the main interior, and built a bonus room in the basement. I'm now looking at re-modeling the kitchen in stages. I say stages because I cant afford to do it all at once and one of my room-mates requires a dishwasher which is no biggy. Big Tip for remodels: Check the clearance/refurbish appliances at Home depot and lowes! I bought a $1100 all stainless steel GE Profile dishwasher for $475 (after $25 energy rebate). Why? Because the rubber liner on the machine broke and they had to fix it... they fixed it and sold it for less than half price. Good deal? Amazingly so.

Fake Pho

Ingredients packet of pho seasoning 4 capfuls of memmi soup base 8 cups of water enough beef that you want to eat 3 bags of nissan top ramen noodles 1 small cube of beef bullion 3 chive branches, minced So i know this isnt the real stuff but it definitely made my day. there are sometimes pho soup packets you can get at the store which are high in ingrediants that you dont know, so I thought if I used 1 packet as a base I could get it flavored the rest of the way. So boil the 8 cups of water with the pho seasoning packet and the beef bullion, then add the slices of beef to it with the chives. let it simmer/boil with a lid on it for 15min. As far as noodles go, I only used the nissan ramen noodles, DO NOT use the seasoning packets, just the noodles. Eat when noodles are ready :) tips: the longer you let the soup base sit, the better it tastes. And if you really do like pho, make sure you have a lime with you when you eat, it makes a world of difference.

Anonymous' message to the FBI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abmw0C2NYBU&feature=related - Anonymous So I know this is a little bit of old news, but I just got back from vacation and actually have a slew of written pieces I want to upload, but I figured this would be interesting for now. As unlawful as some things may be, I agree that government needs to change

I have mastered the art of cheap lunch!

So... You ever have those days where you forget to pack yesterday's leftovers and then are super hungry at lunchtime but don't really want to spend money? Well here is my tale of a journey of science with finances and how I mastered the art of a cheap lunch. Option #1: skip lunch Valid option but for dietary reasons really isn't an acceptable model. Although it does save the pennys, its not worth the value your costing your boss, while not performing at you top, nor worth the cost of your body. Option #2: go home and grab food Not always the best solution because you may not have a vehicle or may make it back to work late because of the distance. Once again cheap, but really if your trying to get between two places quickly, your gas economy drops and your possibly costing yourself a lot more than you think. Added negative impact is if your late coming back to work. Option 3: gourmet fast food Even though these places may have $5 deals, they usually charge extra for the drink and with tax make it $5.50-$8 which if your really bad about bringing lunches and regularly get Starbucks on the side, adds up extremely quickly. You could easily spend $25 a week, and over a years period gets close to $1000-$1200 a year you pay on extra food. Option 4: $5 footlong over 2-days The cool thing about buying a footlong is that it gets about two days worth of lunch for $5.40 (without drink). Now this isn't too bad and brings you down to $2.50 a day per missed lunch. Only negative, I'm so cheap I wanted to find something cheaper and the subway bread gets awkwardly soggy after a day in the fridge. Option 5: french bread w/ powerade. Okay so totally your like, "wah?" But I ate today for $2.19. Now the grocer I went to wasn't the cheapest but considering I got a french bread made this morning for $1.50 and a 32.oz powerade for $.69 cents was super encouraging. And because it is a grocery store, they don't charge tax on food. Now you could find french bread for less and when you think about it, straight bread is pretty filling and low calories. A serving of french bread is about 100 calories roughly. So in theory you can cut your costs from $1000 a year down to potentially $350 on extra food. Food for thought ya'll.

and this doesnt scare anyone??

and this doesnt scare anyone?? The ramifications of big brother watching you in all sorts of ways on FB, and other locations is crazy. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/178391/20110712/anonymous-hackers-release-government-passwords-antisec-security-online-hack-hacked-booz-allen-hamilt.htm

The February release unveiled an alleged project Anonymous named Operation Metal Gear -- perhaps referring to the popular Konami Game. Anonymous described the project as having two goals: "The main aims of the project were two fold: Firstly, to allow a lone operator to control multiple false virtual identities, or "sockpuppets". This would allow them to infiltrate discussions groups, online polls, activist forums, etc and attempt to influence discussions or paint a false representation of public opinion using the highly sophisticated sockpuppet software. "The second aspect of the project was to destroy the concept of online anonymity, essentially attempting to match various personas and accounts to a single person through recognition shared of writing styles, timing of online posts, and other factors. This, again, would be used presumably against any perceived online opponent or activist." During its raid, the post by Anonymous alleged that it had discovered documentation linking Booz Allen Hamilton to Operation Metal Gear: "HBGary Federal was just one of several companies involved in proposing software solutions for this project. Another company involved was Booz Allen Hamilton. Anonymous has been investigating them for some time, and has uncovered all sorts of other shady practices by the company, including potentially illegal surveillance systems, corruption between company and government officials, warrantless wiretapping, and several other questionable surveillance projects."

why we need to re-think urban living and developement

So, inherently this is something that comes to my mind pretty often. The main proponents of this are Barb Chamberlain and James H Kunstler. As a result of Kunstler, Wal-Mart is also in this. Barb Chamberlain is a pretty involved individual in Spokane, Wa. and is dedicated to making places bicycle friendly, technologically green, and to borrow from Kunstler- to create a place "worth caring about." Amidst this a big push of Barb's efforts are related to biking (although I advocate longboarding), is to design, re-design, and build a city that is pedestrian and biking friendly. This would inherently have intense ripple effects and would impact every part of society. This could reduce obesity in the region, promote healthier environments (on the ground and air), and build a stronger sense of community. I don't believe the last one is as explicit as the others, however I believe as we strive to put people closer together, we are going to either have amazing communities that have positive impact or we will have more crime. I believe and would hope for thriving communities that could inherently build stronger interpersonal relationships with one another and by golly kids could actually play outside. Now the above things hinge on two aspects - how far away we live from our job and how well we design our cities. These are not and cannot exist outside of each other and because of that, for any of this to work would be contingent on one thing. People willing to set aside their selfish images, beliefs and take one for the team. For an example, with Kunstler in mind, if say a designer who works in the heart of downtown spokane says to himself, "I want a home that kind of has a suburb feel that has four bed rooms and two bathrooms, designed super modern," then he would potentially live 20-30 minutes away from the heart of downtown right? Now in perspective we deal with traffic, but this house location could be 20-30 miles away to reach a suburb or relatively country yet modern location to find and raise a family. However, for th example of Spokane, to get from river park square to the south east corner of the valley is about 12miles, 22+minute drive (without traffic). Now I'm n ot in the most awesome shape and due to my adverse relationship to bikes (I had a bad experience as a child), I would drive my 32mpg car. So every two days I would spend roughly $10 on gas. Please stay with me on this. That's close to $25 a week in gas just driving to work, a huge mortgage payment every month, headaches, and more construction in further areas because you might have 2+ kids who will want homes in 20 years. All of that just because you "wanted" and "needed" that house. You "beleived" that you had to attain an "image" and it was all about "you." Sounds pretty selfish eh? Now you might say you have no other option, the city doesn't provide that kind of housing. This is true. That's where the other hinge has to come into play and Kunstlers ideas come in. We must design better urban sprawls because well, it doesn't fit the current need and over-population doesn't help either. This is where Wal-mart parking lots could stay parking lots, but have structures that provide housing, or schools in an innovative format that is aesthetically pleasing. I may sound idealistic but how come we don't move closer to our jobs? Why don't we revamp River park mall as a giant condo community with stores on the bottom, condos on the top floor and use that whole middle space for a school? Oh you don't want to live that close to work? But what if you could walk 3minutes and have lunch with your son or daughter? Walk 5minutes and be home? Your first thought is, "But Adam, I want *insert desired noun or adjective*." That's nice, but when are you going to take one for t he team? Take one for your family, city, nation. When are you going to be willing to build a place "worth caring about?"