Opine Away

Fun action movie with some “borrowed” elements.

Without putting a spoiler here, I’d just say that the story is about a person (and he’s getting company later) that one day starts to get commands and be controlled by someone to actions he is forced to do with no choice.  Of course there’s much more, but I don’t want to spoil…

Acting is good, and action scenes are well done.  Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan are doing a good job, Rosario Dawson & Michael Chiklis are OK, Billy Bob Thornton is annoying as usual, but his acting is good…

Some elements in the movie are really taken from other movies/stories, with some modifications of course, but obvious similarities. Some twists and turns are good, and the movie is definitely fun to watch.

Enjoy!

L.

Was asked one day “I have this meat, how should I cook it?”, so I had to come with a quick answer… Here it is:

Ingredients:

A nice piece of meat for roasting, rib eye (or prime rib) will be good,  1/2 Lb per person

A stick of butter,  room temperature soft

Olive oil

Coarsely grinded black pepper

smoked habanero (you can find it at www.davesgourmet.com ) or other hot red pepper.

Salt

Dry herbs blend (spices rack in the supermarket.)

Cloves of garlic (about 2-4 per pound of meat).

Wood chips for smoking (hickory, cherry, pecan, apple, whatever…).

You’ll also need a grill with a rotisserie attachment.

Preparation:

Make small cuts 1” deep in random locations in the meat, and push a garlic clove in each as you cut.

Next steps will be advices to do with disposable gloves.

Take the butter, and smear it all over the meat, massaging it in. Work it to get it in all over. Take some olive oil, and do the same. Take your time with it, do it with love…

In a bowl, take a very generous amount of the black pepper, some smoked habanero (very spicy, so up to you…), some salt and some dry herbs, mix them all together.

Take the spices mix, and spread it all over the meat, generously. You can never have too much of the black pepper, so add more as seems right.

Put the meat on the rotisserie skewer.  Don’t put it in the grill just yet…

Put the wood chips in the grill. I don’t wet them as they instruct you. I put them in, and add more every hours or so, to keep lots of smoke going all the time. If you don’t have a place to put them in your grill, you want them over the flame in aluminum foil.

Light the fire under the wood chips. This fire should not be directly under the meat when you put it in. If you have a rotisserie flame at the back of your grill, that’s the one you should use. Otherwise, you want a flame in one side of the grill, and the meat in the other side.

Let the grill heat up until the chips start to produce some. Put the meat in the grill, and turn on the rotisserie. Close the lead, and let the meat turn in the smoke. You want to make sure that when you put the meat in there’s a lot of smoke, because this is when the meat is open and will get in lots of the smoke.

Now let it cook…  a piece that’s 6-8Lb I cook for about 3 hours.  When the smoke stops, I add more wood chips, the more smoke the better.

After about 3 hours, you can take the meat out, but don’t cut it for 10-15 minutes, otherwise it will lose lots of the juices. After waiting a little, cut and enjoy. 

Righteous Kill

Good acting and OK story, slow at times.

The story is about a cop who takes the law in his own hands (a “Dexter” if you watch HBO, but without the slice and dice…), with twists and turns.

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are being and acting exactly as you can expect, good acting and no surprises, they are just as you know them. 50 Cent is playing good, so are John Leguizamo, Donnie Wahlberg (Marky Mark’s brother), and Carla Gugino stood out here in my opinion as a very talented actress. 

Do you think Trilby Glover is the lost daughter of Danny Glover? Here’s a picture, you tell me:

Trilby Glover

Her acting was good too….

At points the story is getting a little too stretched and slow, and even though the movie is not that long, it seemed much longer than it really is.

The bottom line is it is an OK movie, you can either see it in the theatre or on DVD, no rush…

L.

If you get the Coen brothers,  you’ll dig this movie.

It’s a story of not so sharp people finding a disk who they believe contain classified info, try to sell it, and creating a whole mixed up story around it.

Acting is great, from Brad Pitt as the gym instructor, the angry John Malcovich, the annoying George Clooney,  the unstoppable Frances McDormand (which is BTW married to Joel Coen) to Richard Jenkins ( the dead father from “6 feet under”).

Brad Pitt is really funny, but at some point in the middle it gets a little tiresome, then it picks up again.

Movie, as a good Coens’ movie, is getting twisted by the minute, with funny scenes and dialogs.

I definitely recommend, especially if you like other Coens’ movies…

L.

Chinese Spare Ribs

These are like candy covered meat, and are tender and delicious…

 Ingredients:

Spare Ribs,  cut into single ribs, 3- 4 pounds

2 Garlic Cloves

¾  cup brown sugar (“Sugar in the raw”)

¼ cup vinegar

Juice from one lemon

¼ cup soy sauce

1 cup water

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon cornstarch

¼ teaspoon Chinese Five Spice (can be found in most supermarkets).

Hot pepper powder to taste (cayenne pepper or any other red hot pepper will do, as much or little as you want).

Preparation:

Crash garlic with the side of a wide knife.

Mix well everything except ribs in a bowl.

Put ribs in an oven pan large enough and deep to contain ribs and sauce.

Pour mix on ribs and let marinate for at least an hour.

Cover pan with aluminum foil, sealing all sides.

Put  pan in the oven, about 350 degrees (f) for 2-3 hours.  Turn ribs after 30 minutes, and as often as every 10-15 minutes after that. After an hour and a half, let the aluminum foil just sit on top of the pan, shielding the ribs from direct heat but letting the sauce evaporate.

In the last 20 minutes before serving, remove aluminum foil, put temperature at 450 and let the ribs brown more, turning them every few minutes.

Take out and serve.  The sauce at the when ready should be pretty thick and nicely cover the ribs.

L.

It comes out so excellent!

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon white sugar

½  teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 ½  cups milk

3 tablespoons butter (salted or unsalted, does not matter).

Maple syrup for serving.

Preparation:

• Melt butter in a microwave (about 30 seconds, in a microwave safe bowl).
• Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl (Flour, baking powder, sugar, salt).
• Add milk, egg and melted butter.
• Mix well, until smooth with no lumps.
• Oil a large pan lightly by smearing it with oil soaked paper towel.
• Heat pan and pour about ¼ cup for each pancake. Flip over when bubbles appear on the top, bottom should be slightly brown. Second side will brown fast.

For chocolate chips if wanted, don’t use the readymade ones,  use regular chocolate, cut it to small pieces and throw it in the mix, it is much tastier.

Enjoy!

L.

Go and see.

I’m an action movie macho, comedy and a sci-fi geek, I go to see a movie to have fun, and usually don’t go to movies that are more on the romantic side. But, I did go, and I really enjoyed this one.

It’s a good story told in a fun way, if a little weird (not a typical Woody Allen, but has some weirdness in it as the narration tone).

The story is about two NYC friends (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall), who travel to Barcelona for vacation to stay with family friends and get entangled in romantic situations with a local artist (Javier Bardem) and his ex-wife (Penélope Cruz), all in the beautiful countryside of Spain.

Javier Bardem, who is so ugly and revolting in “No Country for Old Men” looks good here (don’t get any ideas, I’ll get to the ladies next), and acts great.

Both Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall are beautiful. Penélope Cruz, in her crazy own way, is hot. Acting is great.

The scenery and houses are as beautiful as can be, a great tourist attraction to Spain, makes you want to go right now. If I am to point out something that bothered me, it is the clothing, especially of Vicky and Cristina (Johansson and Hall) - I think that both, as New Yorkers, would have dressed better. On the other hand, the nerdish clothing of the, well, nerds, was so good it got me annoyed with them.

There is one scene in the plane, that Cristina (Johansson) talk exactly like Woody Allen, which I found to be very funny, like an Allen cameo only through someone else…

So - good casting, good acting, good story, beautiful locations, fun music, the Spanish and Spanish accent are fun to listen to. Some nude would’ve been welcome to make it look more natural, and with that I must quote the official rating - “Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexuality, and smoking.”. “and smoking”? Who are you kidding?

Anyway, go and see, you’ll enjoy it.

L.

This one is simple and delicious. Can be done with chicken wings, strips of beef, ribs (baby back or spare cut into individual ribs), prime rib, etc.
You start with mixing the sauce. You need a good amount of sauce, to not just cover all the meat, but also to let the meat be immersed in it, at least partially.
You can make your own BBQ sauce, based on ketchup, mustard and molasses mixed together; you can add honey, sugar, spices, whatever comes to mind…
Or you can take a short cut and start with readymade BBQ sauce – when I do that, I usually use a few mixed together – spicy, smoked, honey, you have to be creative.
I also add honey, a little soy sauce, sometimes some maple syrup, brown sugar, maybe a little vinegar, hot pepper, smoked habanero (you can find it at www.davesgourmet.com ), garlic (crash a few cloves with the side of a wide knife and throw them in), you can add some onion soup powder, or onion powder you buy as a spice.
Taste the sauce. If it is good now, it will be good later.
Put whatever meat/chicken you use into the sauce, and let it marinate for an hour or so. If you don’t have enough time, skip the marinating time… Lick your fingers to make sure you really like the sauce, and add whatever to improve it…
Put the meat with all the sauce in an oven pan and cover with aluminum foil. Put in the oven, about 350 degrees (f) for 2-3 hours. Yes, it has to be at least that. But don’t let it just sit there:
After the first half an hour, turn the meat over inside the sauce. You’ll do this over and over again, as much as you can, but at least 5-10 minutes apart. At the beginning not as frequent, but more and more toward the end. The meat (or wings or whatever) will start to build a sauce cover over it, that will get darker and thicker. Keep rotating, and replace the aluminum foil over it each time, but loose, so the liquids can evaporate but will not expose the meat to direct heat.
About 15 minutes before you want to eat, remove the aluminum foil completely. At this point, the sauce should be much thicker that what you started with, and the meat should be very tender, so handle with care… Put the oven on broil, and rotate every couple of minutes, to avoid burning but to really tan it nicely and get a good cover of sauce over everything.
Remove from the oven, let it cool a little because it will be very hot, and enjoy. Make sure you make enough, it will go fast… Can be served with white rice, corn on the cob, and lots of napkins.

L.

Cage, cage.

I wanted to start with a witty “Mr. Cage, you are very cagy”, but it doesn’t mean anything, so I’ll skip it. Nicolas Cage just always has that sad expression on his face, and he can’t get very exciting…. Gloomy expression continually? Come on…

The movie has some reasonably good action scenes in it, but: 

A. You can’t really ignore the scenes that are taken from other movies, as the long motor boat chase which is very James Bond like (The Man with the Golden Gun) or jumping into the bath tab to avoid the explosion (Lethal Weapon), even the elephant scene reminded me of the James Bond movie…. Won’t spoil, but there’s also one scene brutally ripped from the last “Die Hard”….

B. Too many yawing parts. Come on. Romantic scenes over stretched and bad editing showing Cage dramatically looking with his Basset Hound face (you know, the Hush Puppies dog).

So, if you ask me ( J ), you can wait for the DVD. Could’ve been a 4 stars movie with a different actor and better editing – barely makes it to 3 stars as is… If you really like Cage – go and see it now…

This is not my original recipe by any means, just a little adaptation… Was real fun to make it with my 9 years old daughter, and was a huge success ‘cause everyone liked it.

This version will make you 32 small pieces that are easy to handle and disappear  fast… I used two 8”x8” single use baking pans from the supermarket, easy to handle (and if relevant to you,  you do one while your kid do the other…). Cut all quantities  by half if you want to do only one pan. You might need to make another one right after, since it is going to be gone real fast.

It is easy to do, doesn’t take too long. Done in two phases, first prepare and cook the crust, then prepare the filling and cook all together.  I explain in details, so don’t get intimidated by the relatively long text…

List of all Ingredients needed in total (rounded up quantities, e.g. for checking what you have at home and for your trip to the supermarket, don’t use these exact quantities for the cooking…)

1. Non-stick cooking spray
2. Parchment paper
3. 8”x8x 1 5/8” high (that’s the off the shelf ones I found,  anything similar will do…) aluminum single use baking trays – 2  (they usually come in packaged of 3, oh well)
4. Confectioners’ sugar  - ¾ cup
5. All-purpose flour - 2 cups
6. Cornstarch - ½ cup
7. Granulated sugar - 1.5 cup
8. 6 Eggs
9. Butter  - 1 ½ stick
10. Baking powder - 1 teaspoon
11. Lemons  - About 8-10 (get a few more…) to make 1 cup lemon juice.
12. salt

CRUST ingredients

• 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons cornstarch
• ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup (1.5 stick) cold unsalted butter

Lemon Filling ingredients

• 6 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½  cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup fresh lemon juice

Directions

Prep the Pans:

1. Coat the two 8”x8” baking pans with the cooking spray, so the parchment paper will stick to them when preparing, and release easy after backing.
2. Cut the parchment paper to four 8” wide and about 14” long rectangles.
3. Line the pans with two crisscrossed rectangles each, leaving overhangs on all sides. This will make it easy to pull it all out when done. The paper should stick to the cooking spray and stay there.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with rack mid-height.  Squeeze lemons to get  1 cup of lemon juice (note – that’s what you get when you squeeze lemon J ).

Make the crust:

1. Put In a food processor with the sharp blade, and pulse a few times to mix:
   • 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
   • 6 tablespoons cornstarch
   • ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
   • ¼ teaspoon salt
2. Cut to a few pieces and add  ¾ cup (1 ½  stick) cold unsalted butter.
3. Pulse for 20-30 seconds (don’t take my word for this) until mixture turns into coarse crumbs.  If you over do it or the butter gets too warm, it will  mash together, it’s fine too, just stop there…
4. Divide to two and press each half into each cooking pan’s bottom (over the paper that’s already there) going up the sides about ½” to ¾” inch. Try to make it evenly spread over the pan
5. Refrigerate 10 minutes.
6. Bake until crust is lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
7. Take pans out of the oven, let it cool until filling is done, don’t take it out of the pan.

While it is cooling down, reduce oven heat to 325 degrees, and:

Make the filling:

1. Beat the 6 eggs with an electric mixer until it builds some volume and thickens. It should become foamy.  You can also do it in the food processor after cleaning it well from the crust, works too but takes a little longer.  
2. Beat in:

·         6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

·         ¾ teaspoon baking powder

·         ½ teaspoon salt

·         1 ½  cup granulated sugar

·         1 cup fresh lemon juice

1. Pour over warm crust.

Bake in 325 degrees until set, about 25 minutes. The top should be slightly brown, the inside will stay wet, that’s the way it should be…

Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least  1 hour.

Take out from the fridge, use the paper overhang to lift it out from the pan.

Sift confectioners’ sugar over the top, and then cut crisscross to 4 sections of 2” in both directions, to create 16 2”x2” squares. I like the outside crust, but if you want it to look better cut the crust around before you divide it to make a nicer presentation…

Oh, and I suggest cleaning the knife between cuts with a damp paper towel, to create clean nice cuts..

Lift pieces using a wide knife,  and place on a serving plate. Enjoy.

L.