Tag: research

making homemade corn dogs & pepperoni nuggets

One of our astute readers sent us a link to a funny and informative video (big props to Rurouni Kenneth), and it spawned some research and experimentation by the infamous Buffet o’ Blog Research & Development (R&D) department.  But first, let’s discuss the video.  You may not be into cooking shows, but this episode of “Good Eats” is called “The Man Food Show”.  It’s not about how to make your food pretty or different ways to steam vegetables.  (There’s plenty of that on TV!)  This episode is about man food.  And it’s presented FOR men BY a man.  It’s about homemade corn dogs and mini-burgers.  Alton Brown wants to help guys develop their “man food skills”.  So check it out.

BTW, even if you don’t want to watch it all, check out the beginning, where he asks women to leave the room so he can talk to just the guys.  (Obviously, any women reading this should stop playback and/or leave the room when he says so.  If you don’t follow instructions, bad things may happen.)

In part 2 he explains the technique for keeping the grease at the right temperature, and how doing so will prevent the food from becoming greasy (and thus extra fattening) despite being deep-fried.  He even uses a football illustration to make his point.  (If only cooking involved more physical contact…)

Alton Brown, the host, claims these are the best corn dogs in the world.  That’s quite the claim, and it seems unsubstantiated without our own taste test.  So one of our researchers made the corn dog mix and brought it to our meeting last night.  In the interest of full disclosure, his mixture was lacking the jalapenos, onions, and corn, only because those things weren’t readily available.  And he used regular milk instead of buttermilk.  So our recipe was different, and some manual adjustments were necessary to obtain the proper consistency.   But regardless of all that, it turned out very good.  Was it the best ever?  Perhaps.  I would definitely eat them again, to get a larger sample set.  🙂

Our corn dogs had a lot of flavor, and the hot dog part stayed juicy.  So it was really good.  The only drawback was that there weren’t enough of them.  In case you aren’t a statistician, you need a large sample set to reduce standard deviation and aberration within the results.   Or in plain everyday language, you need a lot of samples, which in this study is food.  So once we ran out of hot dogs, we took some turkey pepperoni from the fridge, ran it through the two-stage batter process, and tossed ’em in the deep fryer.   This in turn created pepperoni nuggets.  I don’t know what you would expect from them, but they were quite delicious.  (Next time we’ll put two pepperoni slices per nugget, to better balance flavor.)

We’ve now had several food research sessions (see Buffet o’ Bacon 1 and 2 and chocolate-covered bacon on a stick), and they’ve all been a great time, with new discoveries.  We’ve taken food beyond its normal frontier and boundaries.  We’ve invented several new dishes, and we’ve got a lot more ideas to try in the future.  We’d like to open a restaurant, but that’s just not in the budget at this time.  Perhaps we should start charging admission to our food research expeditions.  🙂

the mystery of belly button fluff

One of my readers recently heard a strange news story on the radio, so they found the link and sent it to me.  The article is called “Revealed: The secrets of belly button fluff“.   They said it sounded like something that should go here.  (I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.)

Dr. Steinhauser, an Austrian scientist, has solved the “mystery” of belly button fluff.  He studied 503 pieces of fluff from his own belly button, and ran chemical analysis on the samples.  He works at the Vienna University of Technology, which doesn’t seem to fit with the story.  He said that shaving your belly will result in a fluff-free navel, but only until the hairs grow back.  And he said body piercings, such as belly button rings, help sweep away the fluff before it goes in your navel.

You may be wondering who cares about all this…  But Dr. Steinhauser said, “The question of the nature of navel fluff seems to concern more people than one would think at first glance.”  So maybe some of you have wondered.  I’ve never cared, though.  A similar Australian study concluded that the typical carrier of navel fluff is “a slightly overweight middle-aged male with a hairy abdomen.”  So it’s mostly older, hairy, fat men.  (Fortunately that does not include me.)  That study collected 5,000 samples.  Can you imagine studying other people’s belly button lint?

The article says Dr. Steinhauser also works on other projects, such as monitoring the erosion of his wedding ring.  I suppose if you want a research project that will last you the rest of your life, that would be one.   That sure sounds boring, though.  Also mentioned in the article is Graham Barker, who has been collecting his navel fluff in jars every day since 1984.   He’s now in the Guinness Book of Records for the world’s largest collection of navel lint.  I realize many people want to be famous, but there has to be a better way…

it’s time for some research funding!

Some of us on the Buffet o’ Blog staff have joked that we should start a research project and find a way to get funded by the government.   After glancing over just part of the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act / spending bill, I’m convinced that we should actually do it.  Initially we were just joking, but people are getting big bucks for projects that our government probably shouldn’t be supporting.  Here’s a few examples:

* $360,000 to the “NOAA National Weather Service Pacific Region Headquarters to purchase, install, and maintain rain gages”.   Okay, maybe this one should be funded.   But $360,000 for rain gages?!?  I know, they have to pay someone to install and maintain them.  Still, you can buy a LOT of rain gages and pay quite a few salaries with that kind of money!   And that doesn’t sound like a full-time job for several people…  (On a side note, I was taught “gauges” is the correct spelling, but apparently both are acceptable.  Silly English language!)

* $1,000,000 to “Rhode Island Coastal Resource Management Council for the development of a comprehensive habitat restoration and protection plan for Narragansett Bay and nearby water bodies”.  But that’s not all.  Here’s a related one: another one million dollars to “Save the Bay for a middle-school youth program to study, cleanup, and preserve Narragansett Bay”.  Really?!? A million bucks to a professional group just to DEVELOP a plan seems WAY high, but then to add another million for a middle-school program?  Where’s that money going???   It’s not going to the kids.  It’s probably not going to the teachers.  Someone should watch that program.

* $2,150,000 to Wisconsin for the “Wisconsin Height Modernization Program”.  Is the height of Wisconsin out-of-date?  I don’t know what that’s about…

* $5,600,000 to “The JASON Project”.  I have no idea what that is.  But I’m thinking there should be a “Buffet o’ Blog Project”!  We can call it “The BoB Project” for short.   Our state senators should just put it in there for something small, like $100,000.  Who reads these bills anyway?  I don’t think our congressmen do.   This bill is 1,122 pages long, and they had less than 36 hours to read it before it was voted on.  I need to make some phone calls!

* $400,000 for “Horseshoe Crab Research”.  I wonder if this will involve the eating of any…  I’d like to participate in some type of research that involves lots of eating (as long as it’s not vegetables).

* $1,500,000 to “Auburn University for research”.   Some of the earmarks explain what the research is for, but to put “for research” is very generic.  It seems like there would be difficulty in maintaining accountability for that money…   Hmm…  that gives me an idea for my future “research” project(s)…  🙂

The list goes on and on and on and on.  You get the idea.  If you want to look over the plan, here’s the link.  (Be forewarned it’s a 12MB PDF file.)

Enough rambling about all that.  I’ve got to go now, so I can think up some type of “research” I can do to get lots of money.  Apparently this is the American way, and now that Pelosi and the Democrats are spending money like two-year-olds in a candy store, it’s time for me to get in on the redistribution of wealth!

Buffet o’ Bacon 2

Last night I had the Buffet o’ Blog staff at my house again, for one of our regular meetings, and a couple of the guys had become inspired by all the recent bacon talk (such as the Bacon Explosion and the bacon weave).  They volunteered to bring some original bacon dishes over, and there was no way I could argue against that!   So we had Buffet o’ Bacon 2.

No one made the Bacon Explosion this time, but there were 3 original bacon creations for us to research / taste-test.   I will describe these and show you pictures (which came from my cell phone, so excuse the quality).

First of all, we had a bacon pizza.  Well, we called it a pizza, but instead of a regular bread-based crust, it used a bacon weave, topped with pepperoni and lots of cheese.

bacon pizza

The picture really doesn’t do it justice.  When you looked at the bottom of the pieces, you could see the bacon weave.  But most important of all, it tasted awesome!   This was my favorite of the three.

The second dish consisted of a piece of smoked sausage, with a water chestnut slice on each side, all wrapped with bacon, and covered in an original BBQ sauce (made from ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, A1, and a small bit of actual BBQ sauce).  It was held together with a toothpick.

bacon-wrapped sausage plus

It was good, although to me the water chestnuts didn’t seem to go with it because of their texture.  But to each their own.  I still ate a couple.

The third item was bacon empanadas.  It was made from a biscuit rolled really flat then folded around bacon, smoked sausage, and a 4-cheese mix.

bacon empanadas

It was really good, although next time we’ll add some type of salsa or gooey cheese to make it less dry.  Of course, it could’ve been dipped in salsa or cheese dip, which would’ve worked well too.  I’d like to have these again.

A couple of the items were jokingly referred to as “gut-bombs”, a reference to our initial Buffet o’ Bacon.  (Follow that link and read the second comment for an explanation.)  This time, the bacon was pre-cooked in all three dishes, to prevent that from happening again.  But, for at least one person, the end-result was the same.  This “research” shows that you should eat bacon responsibly, and that bacon does have a dark side if you don’t respect its power.