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Yatesmachine	“Dum spiro, spero.” – While I breathe, I hope.

yatesmachine

Country: United States
State: New Mexico
Metro: Albuquerque
Birthday: 3/26/1980
Gender: Male

Interests: I have known Christ as Lord since I was 8. Family, friends and church life are very important to me.I like to cook, travel, camp/hike, read books and work with my hands.Italy has been my favorite destination so far. Spain was pretty cool but I didn't like the food very much and their train system was horrible. All in all it was really cool to see the Muslim influence in Andalusia and to see how much culture from Spain was transported to my home state of NM.New Mexican, seafood, Asian and Italian are my favorite kinds of food but I'm willing to try almost anything.As for working with my hands - I've renovated a house I co-owned with my bro in Socorro. I'm currently working on the house that Calinda and I own. We just got finished tiling the kitchen and laundry room. I still need to fix the sprinkler system, drip system, patch the roof,...it never ends being a home owner.
Expertise: Who defines what an Expert is??? I'd say I'm pretty good at cooking but I'd like to learn more. I'm pretty decent at brewing wine and I've just started brewing beer. People come to me with their computer problems. I've been told I'm a good listener too.
Occupation: Systems/Electrical Engineering
Industry: Aerospace/Govt.

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yatesmachine

Member Since: 3/9/2005

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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Currently
Castaways and Cutouts
By The Decemberists
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My Ravioli Adventure

As Calinda mentioned in her Observations post, I made our Valentine's Day dinner yesterday afternoon. I was reading through our Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcela Hazen that we got at our wedding and decided that I really wanted to try and make pasta from scratch. I've had fresh made pasta at restaurants like Paisano's and it's certainly a lot better than store-bought dried pasta. I had some really good raviolis at Macaroni Grill that had a spicy creamy tomato sauce and wanted to try something like that. I also baked up a New York style cheesecake from my Joy of Cooking book. It didn't turn out quite as good as it should have because I failed to realize it "jiggled" too much and needed a bit more cooking time. Oh well, the outside 3/4 tasted really good...

To make fresh made pasta you have two options for rolling out the dough: a pasta machine or a long baker's rolling pin. Rolling pins are a lot cheaper than the machines and certainly more authentic. I didn't have time to wait for Amazon to ship it but I was able to find one at Now We're Cooking over near the Academy school. I
briefly considered trying to cut my own hardwood pin by buying a dowel from Home Depot or Lowe's but it would have been a lot of work. There was a lot of debate on whether the new pin should be seasoned with
vegetable oil prior to use. Use of vegetable oil is discouraged because it can go rancid while food grade mineral oil would be a better choice. Still others thought that the pin would become seasoned over time due to absorption of oils during use. I decided to only coat my new pin with flour.

I gathered all of the ingredients and began early...

Shortly after I added the eggs and olive oil and this picture was taken, the dam gave way and nearly leaked onto the floor

After I mixed the dough and kneaded I put it in a bowl with a wet towel on top to rest for half an hour. The dough has to rest so that the gluten can set up. While it was resting I made up the filling.

I didn't have a food processor so I used the blender and chopped it up in small batches.

It doesn't look extremely appetizing but it tasted very good by itself.

I then rolled out the dough after it had rested. The goal is to stretch it out as then as possible so you'll have enough to use up all of the filling and so that you don't have chewy dough after it's been boiled. I halved the ball of dough and got to work:

My first go around went OK - it was kind of thick but holding it up to the light I could see that it was unevenly stretched. My second half went much better; like most things you get better with practice. I then cut out 2 inch strips, egg washed one side and laid down dollops of filling.

I ended up with a lot of extra filling so I stored that in the fridge and we'll enjoy raviolis again in a week or so. Here is the finished product:

You dust the pan with corn meal so it doesn't stick. If you let them dry thoroughly you can store them in the fridge, uncooked, for up to a week. I started the sauce right before I cooked the raviolis because they cook very quickly - in as little as 3 minutes.

And here we have a very satisfied customer:

Here's the recipe in case you want to try it yourself. I highly recommend it, buon appetito!

4:31 PM - 34 views - 6 eprops - 3 comments - email it

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Currently
Footfall
By Larry Niven
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A Pressing Engagement

So, quite a few months ago one of my uncles on my dad's side asked me if I was interested in an old fruit press that his father owned. I guess Grandpa Powell had planted a vineyard near Belen and planned on making and selling grape juice. He has since passed and the press was used only a handful of times. I told my uncle Victor that I was very interested since pressing 24lbs of grapes by hand to only produce 2 gal of grape juice wasn't very fun.

Victor gave me a call last night saying he was going to bring by the press in his truck. I had seen grape presses at Victor's Grape Arbor (no relation to my uncle!) so I had assumed that the floor space it would take up would only be the size of a small barrel stood up on its end. Well, it turned out that this press is significantly bigger...

You probably can't read the name cast into the face of the press but it says "Happy Valley Ranch". Quite an appropriate name for making wine in my humble opinion

I proceeded to look up this company in the hopes of learning how to use the press. Turns out this model is called the "Homesteader" and is a single tub cider and wine press. You can't see it very well but the flywheel on the side turns an "Apple Eater" grinder at the bottom of the chute. These grindings fall into the "tub" which has a cap. Once you've filled the tub you cap it and then use the press to press the cider or grape juice. For grape juice I suppose you could use the grinder but it may not be necessary.

It takes 40lbs of apples to produce 3 gallons of cider!!!

I'm very excited for next fall whenever I can make up some cider, hard cider and wine. So, if any of you know of people with excess grapes or apples please let me know and I will gladly come relieve them of them!

9:59 AM - 18 views - 4 eprops - 2 comments - email it

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Currently
Make Another World
By Idlewild
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For all of you who had a #7 burrito from Golden Pride on Juan Tabo...

...you have my sympathies.

We had braved Coronado Mall to buy some cards at Hallmark (our Christmas shopping is already done

) and then we headed to Hobby Lobby on Juan Tabo to check out their 50% sale on Christmas items. I was starving so we decided to head north and eat at GP. We're big fans of their #9 burrito (scrambled eggs, roasted green chile, cheese, hashbrowns, bacon all wrapped in a very tasty flour tortilla. I was pretty hungry so I got us a #7 for us to share as well. Calinda had eaten plenty so I downed it myself. We then proceeded to do a bit of antique shopping which she absolutely loves to do. We've found a place on Central called the Antique Connection Mall. We browsed there a bit and then decided to head home to rest a bit before we were supposed to head down to LL to have dinner with my Papa Tom. He's suffering from a sinus infection so we didn't go. I'm really glad that we didn't go. After eating leftover chicken pot pie and drinking a homebrew I started feeling queasy. By bedtime I was making regular trips to the head. And, as you can tell from the timestamp on this blog, I've been up early this morning still suffering. Calinda and I have eaten identical meals for the past few days so I'm almost positive I got the food poisoning from GP. Ugh. What a way to start my 2 weeks off from work and school...

5:37 AM - 18 views - 2 eprops - 1 comment - email it

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Did you know? We Won in Iraq

http://www.zombietime.com/vi_day/

Yes, we won. What, you didn't hear it on the news? GW didn't hold a press conference to declare we've won in Iraq? No, you won't hear it in the news (they rallied against victory) and no, you won't hear it from our government or military.

Take a look at the link above or read the book below. Read it about it from people who have been there, who have gone on patrols with our soldiers and who really know what it's like "on the ground" in Iraq. Yes, we had a failed strategy going in but thank God for General Patreus and other leaders who turned things around. Thanks also go to Al-Quaeda in Iraq. Yes, to them too. Without them showing themselves for who they truly are the Sunni Awakening would probably have never occured and our standing there would be much different. So, don't forget to thank those who have served in Iraq today, Nov. 22nd, 2008.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/

3:16 PM - 12 views - 2 eprops - 1 comment - email it

Currently
Before the Ruin
By Various Artists
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Taking what's already there

Yes, yes, I know friends, two blogs in one day - quite extraordinary for me.

For the past week I've been spending my evenings on something other than homework for school and overtime work on fuel cell research for work. Our house came equipped with two passive solar air panels on our south facing roof. When we bought the house I was intrigued by the possibility of using it to supplement our heating in the winter and by the control panel I presumed controlled it that I found above the workbench in the garage.

So, a few months ago I crawled my way into our attic space through blown, cellulose insulation and tried to determine why the system wasn't functioning. I determined that water had leaked down the mounting straps supporting the motor and had shorted it out. I pulled out the motor and searched for a replacement. I found a good match at Grainger and was able to buy one (with the help of my father-in-law) at the contractor price.

I'm still a skeptic of the theory (yes, it's still a theory) of Global Warming (© AlGore) but I'm not one to pass up ways of saving money and keeping our air clean. There has not been enough evidence presented to my satisfaction to convince me that mankind is able to affect global climate patterns. I was skeptical before, but after I took my Space Environment class I'm even more convinced that we really don't have a clue as to how to predict solar weather and thus its effect on the Earth's climate.

I was (thankfully) able to use the ducting adapters from the old motor/fan assembly and I attached them as seen below.

The silicone sealant will help prevent any cold air from the attic leaking into the air stream.

It's up and running so far. I need to experiment with the thermostat settings to get it to run efficiently. The fan is controlled accordingly: once the thermocouple in the panel heats to a high enough temp then the fan is turned on until the temp dips below the preset. In series with the thermocouple is a thermostat in the house. If the thermostat is set below the temp in the house, the fan will not come on.

As we get deeper in the winter it will be able to run only for a short amount of hours as the angle of Earth keeps dipping until we hit the winter solstice. The fan so far runs from 10:30AM to 4:30PM. It only requires about 180W (three regular lightbulbs) for the short time it runs so I'm sure that we're getting a net energy gain compared to the gas required by the furnace. If this first panel seems to be successful for us then next winter I'll attempt to replace the other fan (and then be able to provide heat to our bedrooms).

11:31 AM - 6 views - add eprops - add comments - email it

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