My named is dubbatrubba, and I’m addicted to the Instant Pot.
It’s a combination slow cooker/pressure cooker/rice maker/steamer/yogurt maker… I think it might even play karaoke tunes – I’ll have to check the manual.
I couldn’t help myself – all the cool kids were doing it, and I succumbed to the peer pressure. Oh, and there’s also the fact that a lot of recipes that used to take hours now take mere minutes. Hence the “Instant” part of the name.
A co-worker was the one who introduced me to it. She kept bringing in her lunches and raving about how good they tasted, and how easy they were to make. Her recipe for lentil chili is killer, dude! Of course, she’s a darn good cook even without the Instant Pot.
Now I can’t go a day without using it. As a veg-head, it comes in very handy. I make a big ol’ batch of black beans every week. I used to have to make them on weekends, because they take 10 hours in the crock pot. Now it takes less than an hour. I’ve also whipped up red beans with veggie sausage, the aforementioned lentil chili, curried lentils, mashed potatoes and a batch of veggie chili. It comes in handy when cooking for my 16-year-old son (the fitness freak) too. He eats chicken for lunch and salmon for dinner every doggone day, and it used to be a laborious process of thawing and baking. Now we can go from frozen to finished in less than an hour. We also use it for brown rice and hard-boiled eggs. And I’ve merely scratched the (cooking) surface of what it can do. Seriously!
I think you might even be able to make brownies, but searching for Instant Pot Brownies might get me busted in Ohio.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m jonesing. I need to go make another meal. Be back in an Instant!
In this case, P.B.S. doesn’t stand for Public Broadcasting System. Sorry Elmo.
Elmo sad. Elmo need hug.
P.B.S. = Pearls Before Swine, a great comic strip. This past Sunday, PBS creator Stephan Pastis went a bit deeper than he usually does, and I loved it.
That’s a pretty profound pig!
Don’t worry, the very next day Stephan — and his character Pig — did a 180:
Now that’s just plain funny. Check out a week’s worth of strips at this link — Pig is just one of the many animal characters in the strip. I think you’ll find yourself laughing more… and maybe you’ll get some food for thought too.
Our 18-year-old leaves his friend’s house to come home. Light snow had melted but then froze into a thin sheet of ice on the main road to our house. It caught folks off guard… and the salt truck drivers must’ve been watching the game instead of hitting the roads.
Our son sees cars slipping, sliding, spinning, careening, crashing into each other like a demolition derby.
At least six cars got dinged. He’s less than two blocks from our house, but it’s enough of a downhill slide to make continuing risky business, especially with a couple of crashed cars up ahead in his lane. He pulls over, hits the hazards and calls home.
“Patience is a virtue, Possess it if you can, Seldom found in woman, Never found in man.”
When you’re 18, the waiting is the hardest part.
But it can also be the smartest part. Wait it out. Call for backup. This too shall pass.
I still go to a fair amount of music concerts, though not nearly as many as when I worked at a radio station and could get free tickets… and not nearly as many as before kids came along (their “school night” is my “school night” too… 5:45 a.m. alarms don’t mesh well with a rock and roll lifestyle).
My wife and I both like Lyle Lovett and Shawn Colvin. When I saw they were playing an acoustic concert together at the Taft Theater, a downtown Cincinnati venue, getting tickets was a no-brainer.
Except for the Ticketmaster fees. Oh, the horrible, hideous, insidious fees! Tickets in the “cheap” seats were $32. But ordering just two tickets online would cost me another $32 in fees – basically you get two tickets for the price of three… what a bargain!
There’s the service fee – per ticket, mind you – then an order processing fee tacked on for your payment pleasure.
I love how those Ticketbastards put an exclamation point behind the “Free” in the Delivery method. I’m surprised they haven’t figured out a way to charge folks for using their own printer and ink to print tickets, or their own mobile phone for e-Tickets. If I’d chosen the snail mail option, I’m sure they would’ve charged me $4.90 for a 49-cent postage stamp.
It’s ridiculous. It’s outrageous. It’s usurious. And there’s not a darn thing I can do about it. Especially since Ticketmaster merged with LiveNation, a company that owns and/or operates hundreds of concert venues across the country. They own the theater (or at least have exclusivity rights on performances therein). They own the ticket seller. So they have a monopoly on the music (80%+ market share). Wanna see Lyle and Shawn? It’s gonna cost you. Dearly.
Thankfully, I was able to walk over to the concert venue’s box office, which is five blocks away from my work. That 10-minute jaunt saved me $27. I should’ve charged Ticketmaster a “pedestrian fee.”
If you’re keeping score at home, this is my 328th post about the band Buffalo Tom. Sorry, but I fell in love with them in ’92 and just can’t quit them.
Buffalo Tom’s new album Quiet and Peace comes out on March 2nd. They released it early to their Pledge Music backers, so I’ve been listening to it non-stop for a couple of weeks. Granted, I’m biased, but I think it’s fantastic. As my friend Joe said, “it’s timeless in the best possible way.” Or as the press release from their website says:
Quiet and Peace is a compelling 11-song set that finds the trio—singer-guitarist Bill Janovitz, bassist-vocalist Chris Colbourn and drummer Tom Maginnis—simultaneously mining their best-known sonic elements while breaking new ground on emotionally resonant new tunes such as “All Be Gone,” “Overtime,” “Freckles” and “CatVMouse.” Full of nostalgic and dusky imagery, much of Quiet And Peace emerges from New England’s less visited darker corners, offering a sort-of poetic travelogue of faded colors and woods illuminated in the light of the seaside.
KEXP is premiering the video for a song from the album called “Roman Cars.” It features lead vocals from bassist Chris Colbourn, who wrote and sings lead on more songs on this new album than on any other Buffalo Tom release. And he has a fantastic voice. Many of the songs on the new release are about getting older, and this one references age as well.
About the video, Colbourn tells KEXP:
“In this song Buffalo Tom take a rollercoaster ride from grumpy middle age back to the halcyon days of youth. For the video, we decided to utilize the great cover art we have for the album and think it came out great.”
I do too, Chris. I do too. Put your ears and eyes on it right now:
You done said…