Month: September 2003

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Food Log

We had salad and a beer tonight. Granted, it was a fairly substantial salad, but I was feeling pretty good about it. Then my wife told me it was our brother-in-law’s birthday, and her mom was having cake and ice cream. :-/
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Chicken Enchiladas

Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray

food network dot com

Recipe Summary

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

  • 8 soft corn tortillas

Filling:

  • 3 cups chicken broth
  • 4 pieces boneless skinless chicken breast, 6 to 8 ounces
  • 1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
  • 2 sprigs fresh oregano
  • 1 small onion, quartered
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder, ⅓ palm full
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • Salt

Sauce:

  • 2 cups tomato sauce
  • 2 teaspoons hot cayenne pepper sauce, several drops
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon, 2 pinches
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 2 ½ cups Monterey Jack shredded cheese, available on dairy aisle

Preheat the oven to 275° F.

Wrap corn tortillas in foil and warm in the oven. Bring broth to a boil in a saute pan. Set chicken into broth with bay and oregano and onion. Return to a boil, cover and reduce heat to simmer. Poach chicken in broth 10 minutes. Remove chicken breasts to a bowl and shred with 2 forks. Add ½ cup of cooking liquid and tomato paste, spices and salt and work through the chicken using the forks.

Combine all sauce ingredients and heat through, keeping warm until needed.

Remove tortillas from oven and switch broiler on high.

Pile chicken mixture into warm corn tortillas and roll. Line casserole or baking dish with enchiladas, seam side down. Pour hot tomato sauce over the chicken enchiladas and top with cheese. Place in enchiladas in hot oven 6 inches from broiler and broil 5 minutes to melt cheese and set enchiladas. Serve.

Rachael Ray (2003), <i>Chicken Enchiladas</i>. Retrieved Tuesday, September 30, 2003, from <a href="http://www.foodtv.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_21595,00.html" title="Food Network: Chicken Enchiladas">www.foodtv.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_21595,00.html</a>.
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Food Log

We had corkscrew noodles with <dfn title="Bech&quot;a*mel, n. [F. b&eacute;chamel, named from its inventor, Louis de B&eacute;chamel (1630-1703) chief steward of Louis XIV.] (Cookery) A rich, white sauce, prepared with butter and cream; milk thickened with a butter and flour roux [syn: white sauce]">B&eacute;chamel</dfn> sauce (<a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_22896,00.html" title="Food Network: Classic Italian Lasagna">recipe on this page</a>), a Waldorf salad, and a beer for dinner last night. This morning I had a bowl of peach slices and a glass of orange juice.



<ins datetime="2003-09-30T15:02:00-05:00">For lunch, I had an apple and a bag of potato chips. Also I walked almost five miles today &mdash; one for a meeting on campus this morning and four over lunch.</ins>
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CLASS and ID as CSS Selectors

So the main difference between <code>class</code> and <code>id</code> is that there can only be one thing on a page with a given <code>id</code>, while any number of things can have the same <code>class</code>. One way to interpret this is to say that <code>id</code> implies structure &mdash; in the same way that the <code><html></code>, <code><head></code>, and <code><body></code> elements do &mdash; while <code>class</code> implies presentation &mdash; in the same way that the <code><p></code>, <code><address></code>, and <code><blockquote></code> elements do.

1.4 Class as selector

To increase the granularity of control over elements, a new attribute has been added to HTML: ‘CLASS’. All elements inside the ‘BODY’ element can be classed, and the class can
be addressed in the style sheet:

<HTML>
    <HEAD>
        <TITLE>Title</TITLE>
        <STYLE TYPE="text/css">
            H1.pastoral { color: #00FF00 }
        </STYLE>
    </HEAD>
    <BODY>
        <H1 CLASS=pastoral>Way too green</H1>
    </BODY>
</HTML>

The normal inheritance rules apply to classed elements; they inherit values from their parent in the document structure.

One can address all elements of the same class by omitting the tag name in the selector:

.pastoral { color: green }  /* all elements with CLASS pastoral */

Only one class can be specified per selector. ‘P.pastoral.marine’ is therefore an invalid selector in CSS1. (Contextual selectors, described below, can have one class per simple selector)

CSS gives so much power to the CLASS attribute, that in many cases it doesn’t even matter what HTML element the class is set on — you can make any element emulate almost any other. Relying on this power is not recommended, since it removes the level of structure that has a universal meaning (HTML elements). A structure based on CLASS is only useful within a restricted domain, where the meaning of a class has been mutually agreed upon.

1.5 ID as selector

HTML also introduces the ‘ID’ attribute which is guaranteed to have a unique value over the document. It can therefore be of special importance as a style sheet selector, and can be addressed with a preceding ‘#’:

#z98y { letter-spacing: 0.3em }
H1#z98y { letter-spacing: 0.5em }

<P ID=z98y>Wide text</P>

In the above example, the first selector matches the ‘P’ element due to the ‘ID’ attribute value. The second selector specifies both an element type (‘H1’) and an ID value, and will therefore not match the ‘P’ element.

By using the ID attribute as selector, one can set style properties on a per-element basis. While style sheets have been designed to augment document structure, this feature will allow authors to create documents that present well on the canvas without taking advantage of the structural elements of HTML. This use of style sheets is discouraged.

H&aring;kon Wium Lie and Bert Bos (1999, January 11), <i>Cascading Style Sheets, level 1</i>. Retrieved Monday, September 29, 2003, from <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1" title="Cascading Style Sheets, level 1">www.w3.org/ TR/ CSS1</a>.
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Food Log

Last night, the wife and I made Eggplant Parmesan sandwiches (2 each), baked beans, and cole slaw. If I recall correctly, I also had two beers. This morning I had a bowl of peach slices. For lunch today, I walked about two miles and ate a bag of peanuts.
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Jewelweed

I always thought it was just me. I learned to call these great plants Jewelweed when I was a kid. I always thought the name was made up. We even called them &ldquo;touch me nots&rdquo; when they were ready to set seed, because the seed pods literally explode. I had figured my own experience with Poison Ivy and Jewelweed was strictly a placebo effect. Assuming it was real, I can add the following: If you have ever gotten into &ldquo;stinging nettles&rdquo; &mdash; and trust me, if you had, you would know &mdash; crush some Jewelweed &mdash; it almost always grows nearby &mdash; and rub it onto the affected area, it gives almost instant relief.

Jewelweed, Spotted Touch-Me-Not

Impatiens capensis

Family Balsaminaceae

Characteristics:

  • Flower colored with varying shades of orange, spotted with a deeper red-orange, hanging like an earring or a goldfish.
  • Flower stems succulent, juicy.
  • Leaves opposite, spade-shaped, with rounded teeth on purple stems.
  • Seed capsule oval.
  • Height: 2-5′.

Natural History:

  • Flowers July – September.
  • Habitat: Wet, shady areas, streambanks.
  • Range: Throughout the United States.
  • Native.

Connections!

  • Jewelweed seed capsules hold the seeds under tension, and they split and coil when triggered by the wind or by a touch (hence the name “touch-me-not”), sending the seeds catapulting up to four feet away.
  • Jewelweed leaves are, for an unknown reason, waterproof; water beads across their surface, kept from touching the leaf by a thin layer of air trapped in microscopic hairs on the leaf. If you immerse a leaf in water, it will appear silver. When you remove the leaf it will be perfectly dry.
  • The juice in the jewelweed’s stem can actually help reduce inflammation from poison ivy and insect bites. If you come into contact with poison ivy and there is jewelweed in the vicinity, mash it and apply the mass to the affected area.
  • Native Americans used jewelweed in treating stomach cramps, and they boiled the juice of the plant to make a yellow-orange dye. 
Jiasuey and Allaire (1998), <i>Jewelweed</i>. Retrieved Sunday, September 28, 2003, from <a href="http://www.wellesley.edu/Activities/homepage/web/Species/ptouchmenot.html" title="Jewelweed">www.wellesley.edu/ Activities/ homepage/ web/ Species/ ptouchmenot.html</a>.
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Who Knew?

<a href="http://www.monopoly.com/" title="Welcome to Monopoly.com!">Monopoly</a> has a Web site, and they are <a href="http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/pl/page.treasurechest/dn/default.cfm" title="Welcome to Monopoly.com!"><strong>giving away money</strong></a>.
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Credit Where Credit Is Due

My navigation bar &mdash; the one above with Home, Networking Notes, Photos, Contact, Bio, and Blog &mdash; is adapted from <a href="http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/listamatic/horizontal05.htm" title="Listamatic: Eric Meyer's tabbed navbar">Eric Meyer&rsquo;s tabbed navbar</a> care of <a href="http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/listamatic/" title="Listamatic: Listamatic: one list, many options">Listamatic</a>. Also, while my layout started out pretty much the way it ended up &mdash; that is, I had planned for it to look like this &mdash; I did not get the kinks worked out of it until I found <a href="http://www.inknoise.com/experimental/layoutomatic.php" title="Layout-o-matic">Layout-o-matic</a> over at <a href="http://www.inknoise.com/" title="http://www.inknoise.com/">inknoise</a>. The link menu at the left, however, is my own invention.
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Basic Italian Bread

Recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, 2003

Recipe Summary

Prep Time: 35 minutes

Cook Time: 51 minutes

Inactive Prep Time: 2 hours

Yield: 1 large loaf Italian bread

  • 2 cups water, lukewarm
  • 1¾ ounces cake yeast (⅓ cup)
  • 5¾ cups bread flour
  • 1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1 egg white, lightly beaten
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Place the water and yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer and allow the yeast to bloom for about 5 minutes. Using a dough hook attachment, add the flour and sugar to the water and mix on low speed until a dough starts to form. Drizzle the oil and salt into the dough and beat on medium speed for 8 to 10 minutes, or until a smooth, firm, elastic dough is formed.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and spray the dough with a thin coating of cooking spray. Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to proof in a warm, draft-free place for 1½ hours or until doubled in size. Remove the plastic wrap, punch down and flatten the rounded dough with the heel of your hand. Roll the dough up tightly, sealing the seam well after each roll. The dough should be elongated and oval-shaped, with tapered and rounded (not pointed) ends.

Preheat the oven lined with a pizza stone to 425°F. Alternately, an inverted baking sheet may be used in place of a pizza stone.

Place the dough on a baker’s peel heavily dusted with semolina flour, or cornmeal, or alternately on an inverted baking sheet. Allow the dough to proof, loosely covered with a damp towel, for 30 minutes, or until doubled in size. Brush the dough with the egg white and sprinkle the sesame seeds over the top. Using a razor blade or sharp knife, score 3 (¼-inch deep) slashes across the top of the dough at a 45 degree angle.

Spray the dough generously with water from a water bottle and place in the oven on the baking stone. Immediately close the oven and bake for 3 minutes. Open the oven door and spray the dough again with the water bottle. Close the oven door and bake for an additional 3 minutes before spraying the dough for a third time (the spraying of the dough will ensure a crisp golden brown crust). Bake the dough for 45 minutes, or until a hollow thud is heard when the bread is whacked with the bowl of a wooden spoon. Allow the bread to cool slightly before serving.

Emeril Lagasse (2003), Basic Italian Bread. Retrieved Saturday, September 27, 2003, from www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_24293,00.html.