It's Gardening Time, Bitches!

I got my deck side herb slash tomato garden planted this afternoon and it's modest awesomeness kicks all-you-all's in the pooter.

There it be. Yeah, it may be small, but what it lacks in girth it makes up for with rockin' staying power. Wait, that's something completely unrelated. Anyway, let's take a closer look.

First up is a nice looking roma. Second is something like giganticus, which I'm guessing means that they will be huge-normus. Thirdly, we got ourselves a captain beefheart. The muffin man is nowhere to be found. Perhaps some of these fine tomatoes will find their way into a nice pico de gallo. Who's to say? Me, that's who!

Now on to the upper level herb section. Not that kind of herb, those are down in the concrete bunker in the massive growlight level, I mean I don't have that kind of herb in the Smartguy lair. Moving on, first we have some oregano.

Lookin' good so far, next we have some cilantro.


Not the best looking plant, but it was the last one there and dammit, I wanted some cilantro. It'll go great in the pico de gallo that I was talking about earlier. It'll be the best peeco dee guy-o this side of the ol' el ree-o, or something. Lastly we have some sweet basil.

Pretty awesome huh? You're jealous, I can tell.

Hot Damn, Dinner was Good!

One of my latest little obsessions has been cooking. More specifically, teaching myself how to cook like a normal human being. That means taking real, unprocessed food and turning it into something not only edible, but delicious as well. This has been going on for a while; I made a thanksgiving dinner for a large swath of family and they all ranted and raved about how everything was so delicious. Now, I'm not anywhere near a professional chef, in fact I'm still quite amateurish, but I keep trying and overall, I'm happy with the results thus far. Some of my successes that I can list off the top of my head include:

Baked Ziti
Beer-oni and Cheese,
Slow-Cooked Chili
Slow-Cooked Oatmeal
Green Beans Blanched and Sauteed with Garlic and Shallots
Beef Stroganoff
Roasted Asparagus with Chopped Almonds

These have all turned out pretty good, but I really enjoyed what I made tonight.

I stumbled across a simple looking recipe for something called Chicken Adobo. It didn't look like much. You basically take boneless, skinless chicken thighs and marinated them in a sauce that consists of rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, onion, crushed peppercorns, and bay leaves. Let the thighs soak for a couple of hours, then bring the whole thing to a boil for a spell then slowly reduce heat and let it simmer for about an hour. Serve it with rice and you have yourself a hell of a meal. The chicken was tender and tasted wonderful, and the sauce went with the rice perfectly.

For a side, I sauted some fresh mushrooms in olive oil, added some garlic, nutmeg, ginger, white pepper and a little kosher salt. Cooked them up for a few minutes then added some fresh baby spinach and cooked that down. This little dish was also very good and went perfectly with the chicken.

This was a fantastic little meal and is one more mark in the awesome column for old Smartguy; more proof that I'm one of the greatest human beings to ever live. This son-of-a-bitch can cook, y'all.