Trial by fire

Tonight I made one of Britgals fav dishes, sweet n' sour pork. So I got to you my wok again in two different ways, and the new rice cooker! So, with regards to the wok, I got to deep fry some pork tenderloin, and I will say it performed very well! The cast iron keeps things nice and even, as well as holds the heat well. The holding means I don't over load the pot by putting 5 pieces of pork in. In many other pots, too much meat lowers the temperature too fast and instead of frying you end up with oilly soggy mess. The wok is fairly non-stick already and the more I cook with it, the more non-stick patina gets created.

Along with this meat, I prepared the rice (jasmine) in the new PC rice cooked I scored the day before. Overall, I like the machine. It isn't a beefy as my original one (good thing, since I don't make 20 cups of rice) and this one is a sealed/lock lid which means less mess and more steam. The glass lid version I have over boils sometimes and makes a mess! The time on this machine says 50 mins, which seems quite a bit longer than I'm used to making rice but then again I always start the rice prior to prep/cook and it's done when I'm done. The machine makes measurements easy - if you stick 2 scoops of rice in, you fill the water until the 2 scopes line on the pot. Close the lid, hit the cook button and that is it (well fluff the rice after it's done and let it steam/warm for a little longer). It's very important to rinse the rice as all the starch on the outside will make a sticky mush if you fail to rinse properly.

Now, I did run out of rice, so I made slightly less than 2 scoops so I had a little too much water, but it turned out fantastic anyways. Must be that fuzzy logic technology in the cooker :) .

On the guitar front, I'm still deciding to either get a practice amp which I plug in headphones, or just a straight effect box. The advantage to the amp of course, is that I can rock out loud, but the options are few on these things and they are still small. Here is an example of one I'm thinking of. Now with an effects box, I can get more flexibility in sound, still plug in headphones, but rocking out loud would require connecting to an outside amp (and it never sounds right). The big plus, is that some of these boxes I can connect to my Mac and use GarageBand to record, track, play and all sorts of other things I could not with a straight amp. I think I am leaning towards the effects box, since headphones are important if I have to practice something repetitive, but the ability to crank the amp and shred some rocking riffs out still appeals (much to the annoyance of BritGal).

Null Out.