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Refried Beans (Team McInroy Carb Option)

June 1, 2019 By Allen Leave a Comment

Let’s say you’re in the mood for tacos or fajitas, but you just know that no taco / fajita is complete without refried beans. Unfortunately, you’ve fallen into one of the following scenarios:

  • You don’t have any refried beans
  • You’re on a strict meal plan and can’t eat canned refried beans
  • You don’t trust “refried beans” in a can
  • You just want to make something yourself because you’re an adult, damnit, and refried beans shouldn’t be hard.

Well, you’re in luck! I’m going to tell you how to make delicious, nutritious, and meal-plan approved refried beans! 

You’ll need:

  • Beans. This part should have been evident. I’m using canned black beans, but you can use pretty much any sort of bean you like.
  • A jalapeno
  • Salt
  • Onion powder (optional)
  • Chili powder (optional)
  • An immersion blender, or a non-immersion blender, or a fork and a lot of patience.

Step 1: Dump can of beans into a pot – including the juice.

Step 2: Remove seeds and stem from jalapeno and cut into chunks. Put chunks in pot with beans.

Step 3: Add 1/4tsp of salt. Or more, or less, depending on how salty you like things. 

Step 4: Optionally add 1/2tsp of onion powder

Step 5: Optionally add 1tsp of chili powder

Step 6: Simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes

Step 7: Remove from heat and blend with immersion blender until thick and smooth.

Step 8: Apply refried beans to food of your choosing, inserting into mouth for maximum enjoyment. ** Note: allow beans to cool before inserting into mouth.

 

Filed Under: Food

Boneless Skinless… Ground Chicken Breasts

May 23, 2019 By Allen Leave a Comment

So, I’ve become a bit of a master of chicken breasts. I eat them two or three times a day, every day. One would think I’d be tired of it after 11 months of chicken, but I’m really not. I have other options, for sure, I could eat some steak, or some pork tenderloin, or ground turkey, but none of the portions I get of those are really substantial enough.

Chicken breasts have the distinction of being one of the best pure protein sources with limited fat content, and they’re so versatile… especially when one has a meat grinder. 

Oh yes, a meat grinder. Rather, a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer with a Meat Grinder attachment. This thing is totally awesome. 

Just yesterday I ground up 16 chicken breasts in a matter of 15 minutes, and then created some amazing chicken burgers (two ¼lb patties = 1 chicken breast), and chicken meatballs (6x40g balls = 1 chicken breast). 

Next up on my agenda is getting the sausage stuffer accessories and some sausage casings so I can make homemade chicken sausages (and, eventually, homemade chicken smoked sausages). 

The big thing will be to see if I can get the kid to try the burgers and meatballs. I figure she’ll like them as they have the right texture and flavour; she’ll just need to get over the mental hurdle of trying something new. Recipes to come soon!

Filed Under: Food, Weight Loss

Use HomeKit? Get HomeBridge!

March 23, 2019 By Allen Leave a Comment

Homebridge; a software utility, written in NodeJS, for making non-HomeKit compatible products work within HomeKit.

This is awesome.

My Harmony Hub activities? Now they’re HomeKit scenes.

My Ring Alarm system? Totally integrated with HomeKit.

The local weather? It shows up as a HomeKit weather station device.

Siri can unlock my doors, set my alarm, adjust the lights, and everything else. I can create complex scenes, create dummy switches, and have complete control over a complete digital dwelling – powered by a little HP Stream mini-desktop sitting in the basement.

Don’t feel like using the Command Line? No problem; I can fire up the HomeBridge-UI-X interface in a browser to update plugins, add new ones, and even adjust my configuration file.

Don’t know NodeJS? Neither do I! Most plugins come with sample configuration files which you can copy in and adjust with a few simple parameters to get them up and running.

There’s lots of great guides out there for setting it up:

On a Raspberry Pi

On a Mac

On Windows…

I installed mine on CentOS7 – the OS I’m most familiar with administering as a server – but the OS matters way less than the awesomeness of the software itself.

Seriously; if you use HomeKit, but are frustrated by the lag in hardware manufacturers picking up the platform, HomeBridge may be the solution to your woes!

Filed Under: Technology

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  • Refried Beans (Team McInroy Carb Option)
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About Me

Heya; I'm Allen. Server-monkey, web hosting guy, WordPress web developer, and general do-er of internet things.