Search results matching tag 'Misc'

7-Layer Bean Dip

NathanZaugg — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:01:00 GMT

I know this is a little off topic for my blog as I only usually blog about technical stuff, but I LOVE 7-layer bean dip! I have been "perfecting" the recipe ever since I've been married and I have a pretty good recipe on my hands. Of course many of these ideas are not my own but rather borrowed, but I don't know of anyone else that does this combination. My recipe is based on the principal that the dip should never break a chip and that you should be able to get something from all seven layers in each bite.

Shopping List

Refried Beans - Get the good quality, name-brand beans! You can really taste a difference if you don't.
Sour Cream - Small
Taco Seasoning
Pace Salsa
1 can medium or small olives
1 Firm Avocado
2 Firm Medium Roma Tomatoes
1 pkg Cheddar Pizza Cheese (or a block of Cheddar will do)
5 green onions

Preparation

Open the can of beans and dump into a medium mixing bowl. We want to "thin" out the refried beans a little bit. I like to use Salsa! Add about 1/4 cup salsa to the beans and mix thoroughly. Add more Salsa if needed to get the beans to a soft but "stiff" (not runny) texture. I consider this to be an original idea but I am really not sure if I was the first to think of this. Spread the beans evenly in an 8x10 casserole dish.

Open up the container of sour cream and empty into a smaller mixing bowl. Add about 1 Table spoon of taco seasoning (half a regular package). Mix and spread thinly and carefully on top of the beans. Make sure the sour cream is not "too deep" or "too thin" in places.

Open the can of olives and cut them into ringlets. I prefer to use smaller olives as they usually have better taste, are firmer, stay fresh longer, and allow people to get a ringlet of olive in every bite. They do sell cans of "pre-cut" olives and you can use them but these are no where near as good as quality! Hand-place the ringlets of olives on top of the sour cream. It's important to hand place these because their shape can make the dip uneven looking. Also the olives form a moisture barrier between the layers that keeps keep the dip fresh longer. It is also important to make sure the ringlets are completely dry before applying to the dip.

Next we want to chop the avocado into little chunks. The avocado needs to be a bit firm (usually a day or so before ripe) or the dip will not keep for long. Also, in the context of the dip pre-ripe avocado tastes better than fully-ripe avocado. Also, I always prefer fresh avocado to guacamole. Sprinkle the pieces of avocado onto the dip and salt. The salt will improve the flavor and help the dip keep.

The tomatoes come next. Quarter the tomatoes top-wise and remove the "tasty slimy" inner parts of each quarter (shown below). The insides of a tomatoes add too much moisture to the dip so they have to go! They also don't stay fresh for long. Chop the remaining bits of the tomato and sprinkle evenly onto the avocado. Salt again.

Next comes the cheese! The pizza cheese is dry, stays fresh a long time and is the right flavor for the dip. If you do not have the packaged cheese you can grate cheddar cheese or a similar flavor. When grating remember to use the "small" grater to make smaller diameter cheese threads. Also don't press the cheese into the grater very hard as that tends to create longer threads when we want short ones. Spread the cheese evenly. You can use as much or as little as you like but I like to use a whole package.

Green onions are optional. I like them but they add a very strong smell! If you are going to use them chop them into ringlets and apply lightly to the top. After the dip is finished keep covered in the refrigerator. If made and kept properly it will last 3-4 days or more.

Personally I think it's better if you can serve it fresh, but if you made it the night before a party then let it "warm up" by letting it sit out of the fridge for 10-20 min's before serving.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. If you have any of your own recipe tweaks let me know about it.

My Home Office

NathanZaugg — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:53:35 GMT

Over the summer I was lucky enough to get my home office re-done. I don't really have any before pictures but you can see it's quite nice now. I like being able to use my nice, fast computer for work! I like that I have dual monitors, software, and a good chair! Sometimes the simple things can make the work place a lot more comfortable and that has a tremendous affect on my output as a programmer. If I am not comfortable I don't work as fast! The irony is that I am writing this while at work in a cold, noisy, dusty warehouse! I suppose the sad part of that irony is that I'll probably never get a real office nearly as nice as my home office. Hopefully I'll be able to work from home sometime in the future!

Pictures

Image 1: Office Entrance. Oh, I love my dual flat panel monitors. My computer is also pretty flashy. I'll post specs below.

Image 2: Guest Desk. This is place where a friend can come over and have a space to work. This office chair is pretty cheap though -- It doesn't recline!

Image 3: Office Sofa! This is nice when it's late at night and I am waiting for a query to return or an import to run, etc.

Image 4: Storage & Mountain Dew for Phil when he comes over to work.

Product Reviews

I got those cabinets from Ikea and it is very much a love/hate type of thing. They weren't too expensive as far as shelving but I'm still not convinced of their value. I had to drill a hole in the side to get some cables into the cabinet for printers and such and got to see what was inside. Most people at this point say "Oh no, not particle board!" and I usually laugh. Here is what it is really made of:

Laminate (no surprise)
1/8" particle board
Corrugated Paper & Glue
1/8" particle board
Laminate (even on back surfaces -- it's load bearing laminate)

To my surprise it is more sturdy than it sounds and very light! The limitation is that it's vulnerable to squeezing. You can actually squeeze the wood (including the desk) with your bare hands. I think that the shelves will wear just fine, but I am skeptical if the desk is going to stand up to any wear.

My other gripe about the cabinets is that they weren't very easy to hang. They are meant to hang from a wall like this but the screws and brackets are woefully inadequate and the holes provided are not on 16" centers so you can never hit more than 1 stud.

I got the sofa from Ashley Furniture and I LOVE IT! It's extremely comfortable and was inexpensive. The cushions do not come out so it's nice not to have to worry about pushing them back in before sitting down. I plan on getting new & bigger whiteboard and some artwork and I can call it complete!

Computer Specs

My computer is about 18 months old. It's a Dual Core AMD64 with 2GB RAM (soon 4GB) running Windows Vista Ultimate. I have a RAID 1 array for speed (makes the biggest difference in speed than anything else) and dual flat panel monitors. The monitors were purchased a few years ago and so they have a relatively low resolution of 1280x1024, but they are the same exact model in with consecutive serial numbers so the colors match exactly! I also have a USB TV/Video capture device. I use this device with Windows Media Center to record HDTV. My XBOX 360 can then connect to my computer as a Media Center Extender and play the recorded shows. It works pretty good though I need to get up in the attic and adjust my HD antenna. I also have a 2GB Thumb Drive that runs ReadyBoost for better prefetch performance (makes things go fast)! I hope to upgrade the core to a quad-core AMD when I get some extra money, but it's still the fastest computer I've used.

Props from Redmond

NathanZaugg — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:52:42 GMT

I subscribe to Redmond Press "Redmond Report" which is something of a news channel for Microsoft. The editor was asking for peoples reviews of Chrome so they could do a composite review. Having recently done a post about chrome on my blog I wrote the day it came out I decided to send him the URL as my Reader Review. I was surprised last week when the headliner of that edition featured my (this) site.

The full article is here, but here is what it said:

Shiny, Happy Chrome Site

One reader gets down to the nitty gritty with Chrome. Plus, clickjacking makes its presence known, details on the next rev of Visual Studio released, and more.

September 30, 2008 • by Doug Barney

Reader Nate sent me an e-mail last week about his online review of Chrome. The review was so well-done and so well-written, I thought I'd give good, old Nate a plug.

What Nate did is similar to what I'm doing with an upcoming Reader Review -- getting the skinny on Chrome. In Nate's case, we see one very well-informed opinion backed by his benchmarks. In my story, over a dozen Redmond Report readers will help form an overall evaluation of Chrome.
Here's what Nate liked: the sparse interface, speed and private browsing (what are you trying to hide, Nate?). On his not-so-good list? No advances in bookmarking and a processor-intensive architecture.

In addition to that I also received some very good comments about the post. Personally, I didn't feel like this was one of my better posts but I'm glad that it was found to be informational to some.

New Technology Meets Old Game

NathanZaugg — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:09:12 GMT

I am not a gamer! I would get killed playing anything modern! I was never very good at the games I did play (back in the 90's) like Marathon or StarCraft. I did like games before that but they were mostly DOS based games. I loved Cyberbox, a little game where you try to navigate your dot from one side of the screen to the other pushing blocks along the way. A couple of years ago I was introduced to Line Rider. A really simple game where you "draw" a track for our sledding hero to ride. A simple premise but a fun one! You can spend literally hours without realizing it just designing the most awesome ever track!

LineRider has gone Silverlight! It's been greatly enhanced with the new features of Silverlight and is pretty awesome. I am hoping that more and more Silverlight is adopted and ubiquity increases to match or exceed Flash. I know of no such place that keeps track of these types of statistics but it will be interesting in a year from now how much Silverlight will penetrate the market. It seems that they should be able to make it available as an update via Windows Update like the .net frameworks, but reaching a growing OS X audience may be more difficult. Hopefully there are plans in the works to get Silverlight on that platform.

If I can figure out how to post a capture video from Line Rider, I'll post it here.

Nathan Zaugg

Nerd Quiz

NathanZaugg — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:57:07 GMT

For now on you may address me as my proper title:

I wish the title was a little less blasphemous; therefore you may alternately call me 'King Nerd'. That would also match with my wife who is a "Slightly Dorky Nerd Queen".

I also scored quite high on the version 1.0 test:

Remember, that is 92 percentile!

--Nathan Zaugg