April 2011 – Page 2 – m0rd0r's bl0g

How to peel a tomato.

tr!cks Comments Off

Apr 252011

Peeling a tomato is not what I prefer in anyone’s kitchen. Tomato’s skin has the most minerals and vitamins in all the tomato. But if you need It peeled – here’s my way of doing this:

Clean it from the stem.
Cross cut it on the opposite side.
Have in mind, you must not cut too deep or the tomato juices will all go off in the hot pot and leave the tomato dry inside and with bad taste.

Have its skin cut all the way to the stem.
Have It forked from the stem side.
Put a small container of water on the hot plate.
Wait for it to start boiling at 100 degrees.
Put the forked tomato inside.
Count to 40.
Get it off.

Let it cool a bit. You should really wait or you will malform the tomato if you are in a hurry. It’s quite tender when warm.

Peel slowly from the cross section towards the stem.
Leave it to cool completely on some surface.
Use it for whatever you decided “peeled tomatoes” are good.

Even if I am to keep all that skin off from the tomato for some reason, I would put it in the boiling water as little as possible. The tomato is quite tender and I don’t want squishy salad. (It’s still good for Gazpacho soup or a juice though. Don’t just throw it away. Remove the stem and put it in the blender to make an excellent tomato juice).
There are two reasons I approve this method for peeling. It’s Lycopene. First – Lycopene is one important carotene in the red tomatoes. And It’s ability to kill bad cholesterol and actually get rich and with higher concentration in baked and boiled tomatoes is the second.

So, If you want to keep healthy – don’t mind the tomato’s quality and just have it in the dish or in the plate. There are a lot of recipes with peeled tomatoes or with minced/ground ones, even if they are a bit soft.
Anyway. If you know better, faster or healthier way – Just let me know.

Why walking when you can ride?

Bik!ng Comments Off

Apr 232011

My iron horse. 1 km away from the city.

First of all, walking has its own charm. But … it’s not always fun. Try walking to work every morning if you think otherwise. On the other hand, while riding a bike you can get the velocity of the sprinting hound while using the same two legs and investing the same power as walking in the park.

It is also … more fun

Second. You burn more calories by riding your bike and listening to the wind than walking in the park.

By walking for an hour in the park, you burn merely 396 kcal, which is about … one of my soups.

Some unknown park walk

Riding your bicycle for one hour at 14-15 km/h burns around 800 kcal. That’s around … one of my main dishes or working as an IT for about 4 hours.

Don’t mind me talking whole 3 sentences for calories -> there is a reason 😉

Riding a bike has less impact on your joints. The only bad thing is – your bottom will be sore from the saddle for the first week. Even with VERY expensive saddle with Silicone. But that never stopped me wanting to ride more and more when there is at least a bit of time.

A bit of a rest with my friends.

While I was occupied with my previous work, I calculated that it takes 40 minutes to use the subway and walk to the job and about 35 minutes of rigorous bike riding to do the same. That was merely an 11 km ride. No biggie but it pays off in the long term. Having 5 work days burning 500 more calories per day is sometimes enough. I am sorry to say my new work is about 17 kilometers away and I’ve still not tried riding there. It takes about an hour by subway and the walking afterwards. Still not checked the difference with a bike. And have no place to store it. And there a lot of girls with sensitive noses around me at work too 🙁
Anyway. It pays to use the bike instead of your legs. It’s faster, more fun, a bit risky in the big city but you know what they say – City transportation killed more people than AIDS 😀

Вижте Just a spring ride. на по-голяма карта

Meatball soup and roasted chicken

My k1tch3n Comments Off

Apr 232011

Every time I try to do some soup it turns into all purpose main dish instead of … just a soup. And every time I promise myself “I will not overeat, I will not eat half a loaf of bread with this” etc. … I simply fail.

This one turned tasty, too. I failed again. Then I said to myself “What the heck. It’s spring. Bike time.” and I kept cooking.

For this one I put most of what my fridge had not dried and left unusable:

few medium carrots, some green onions,

piece of butter (around 25 grams),

ground spices, chunk of old cheese,

minced meat, a handful of rice, 1 medium sized mushroom.

I’ve diced the mushroom and mixed it with the ground meat and the cheese. Put some salt, ground black pepper and cumin. Rolled balls about 2 cm in diameter and let them steam a bit with the vegetables in a chunk of butter. Then poured a liter of warm water and left it to boil for 40 minutes on medium hot plate.

While it was cooking I made a cup of salad and found that there are few large pieces of chicken behind the bag of vegetables … still not behind it’s “don’t eat this after this” date stamped on the package.

So I’ve decided to make them all too, so I don’t throw them in the garbage tomorrow. I’ve got ground spices already and was thinking what to do with them.

So it’s a soup with a side dish of salad and roasted chicken after all.

I promise I will burn everything with the bike tomorrow. Found a bottle of white wine also. And I can assure you, it’s fully compatible with the roasted chicken.

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