New Music

I rarely post music reviews, mainly because I normally hate anything new coming out. I come from an era of amazing music so the bar is pretty high. Over the last few months I’ve made a focused effort to research new bands, listen to new albums in their entirety, and discover numerous “similar artists” along the way. Like many people, I am a subscriber to Spotify which makes it easy to “star” new music that I like so that I can revisit them. As of late, there are two bands/albums that have been getting played almost every day for a few weeks now, so I figured I’d write about them.

The first album:

Heartsounds are freaking awesome. I can’t stop listening to this cd. It is pure 90’s Epitaph punk at it’s best and happen to be on the Epitaph label as well. I find that many times they sound just like “No Use For a Name”. Great melodic punk loaded with technical riffs speed. This band is awesome and their video for “Unconditional” off their most recent album “Drifter”, is awesome/hilarious.

The second album:

The Menzingers are from Scranton, PA and are another Epitaph band. I actually found both bands together at the same time. This band is great as well, offering a softer sound with more of an indy touch. They still have a great punk edge and often remind me of Alkaline Trio. The most recent album, “On the Impossible Past” is 13 songs total, and maybe 2 songs from being a perfect album. It’s pretty good.

February 1, 2013 0

New Tribute to Evil Dead!

We have a new shirt out this week and I totally love it. Carrying on the new goal in 2013 of thinking outside the box when designing new shirts, this Evil Dead shirt came to me in a dream, literally. I woke up, had the image and placement on the shirt embedded in my head, and I went to work that night. The image is actually from Army of Darkness, but regardless, I love the result.

This shirt is available in our Etsy store and our eBay store. I’d normally say that it will be available at our website within a couple of days, but I’m super behind updating the official web store (It’s getting there!)

Cheers!

January 31, 2013 0

New Design!

I have a few new designs coming out this week, starting off with this tribute to one of the masters: Mr. Miyagi.

I like the way the design turned out as I’ve wanted to add a Miyagi shirt for quite some time. I wanted to originally do a shirt with the logo on the back of Daniel’s Karate gi, but decided to do this instead (although I’ll probably revisit the idea).

January 26, 2013 0

Thursday Dinner Recipe: Lemon-Garlic Sardine Fettuccine

After the Chili we had made last week, this Fettuccine dish sounded great. After all, I like sardines and Nicole was going to have to try them for the first time. We made a deal as part of our pact to try things that we had never eaten before. I had to try prunes in a dish we made last week. The dish was so good that I never blogged about it mainly because I was missing so many pictures from being distracted. I was dreading the prunes. They gross me out. A food related to making people drop a “number 2”, looking the way that it does, I could never understand anyone wanting to eat them! Anyways… now onto the Lemon-Garlic Sardine Fettuccine.
This recipe was easy to put together:

Lemon-Garlic Sardine Fettuccine

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/lemon_sardine_pasta.html

From EatingWell: November/December 2010
Even sardine skeptics will enjoy this lemony pasta with crispy breadcrumbs. Substitute two 5- to 6-ounce cans chunk light tuna for the sardines if you prefer. If you are using tuna or can’t find sardines packed in tomato sauce, add 2 tablespoons tomato paste in Step 4 with the lemon juice. Serve with a salad of bitter greens tossed with a lemon vinaigrette and a glass of Pinot Grigio.

4 servings, about 1 1/4 cups each | Active Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

8 ounces whole-wheat fettuccine
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs (see Tip), preferably whole-wheat
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 3- to 4-ounce cans boneless, skinless sardines, preferably in tomato sauce, flaked
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese
Preparation

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook pasta until just tender, 8 to 10 minutes or according to package directions. Drain.
Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant and sizzling but not brown, about 20 seconds. Transfer the garlic and oil to a large bowl.
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in the pan over medium heat. Add breadcrumbs and cook, stirring, until crispy and golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Whisk lemon juice, pepper and salt into the garlic oil. Add the pasta to the bowl along with sardines, parsley and Parmesan. Gently stir to combine. Serve sprinkled with the breadcrumbs.
Nutrition

Per serving : 475 Calories; 21 g Fat; 4 g Sat; 13 g Mono; 60 mg Cholesterol; 52 g Carbohydrates; 9 g Protein; 9 g Fiber; 716 mg Sodium; 427 mg Potassium

3 Carbohydrate Serving

Exchanges: 3 starch, 1 1/2 medium fat meat, 3 fat

Tips & Notes

Tip: To make fresh breadcrumbs, trim crusts from whole-wheat bread. Tear bread into pieces and process in a food processor until coarse crumbs form. One slice of bread makes about 1/2 cup fresh crumbs.

Gross.

This dish was horrendous. It was insanely gross. I believe one of the comments I used when I was eating this at the table with Nicole was, “Pasta in cat litter”. It was clear that whoever designed this recipe did not want you to taste sardines. They masked them in flavors of lemon and breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs make the entire meal super dry and gross. Note: Never eat pasta with breadcrumbs on it. Never. Two horrible dinners in a row. Tonight is a meat loaf recipe that actually looks promising. Fingers crossed.

January 11, 2013 1

New Shirt!

Last nights dinner recipe turned out to be a disaster. Here is a rule you should always follow, if you have a chili recipe that you normally use, and its good, don’t mess around with another one. I found a Weight Watcher recipe online for chili, and at first glance, it looked like it would be pretty good. It was really bad. Nicole and I felt as if we were sitting at the table eating a bowl of average pasta sauce. So instead of talking food, I’m sticking in a cheap plug for the new “Strange Brew” shirt!

This turned out to be one of my favorite shirts. I didn’t even plan on making this shirt, I was simply sitting around, waiting for the work day to end so that I could sip on a fine brew when this movie sort of popped into my head. This shirt is now available in our Etsy site and our eBay store.

Cheers!

January 10, 2013 0

Tuesday Dinner: Grilled Salmon with Mustard-Herb Crust

Last nights dinner was a more simple dish to make but a good reminder that you don’t need some elaborate recipe to have a great dinner. We decided to make Grilled Salmon with Mustard-Herb Crust. This is another Weight Watcher Recipe so it has the point value included in the recipe.

PointsPlus Value: 7 per serving
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 8 min
Cooking Time: 12 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
3 Tbsp rosemary , leaves, fresh, chopped
3 Tbsp fresh thyme , leaves, stemmed
1 tsp black pepper , freshly ground
2 spray(s) cooking spray
1 1/4 pound(s) uncooked salmon fillet(s), with or without skin , though skinless recommended, Atlantic-variety (four 5-ounce pieces)
4 Tbsp Dijon Mustard , regular or grainy-variety
Instructions
1. Prepare the grill for direct, medium-heat cooking.
2. Mix the rosemary, thyme and pepper in a small bowl.
3. Spray the bottom of the fish fillets with cooking spray (that is, spray the piece of the fillet where the skin would have been, usually with some gray or brown mottling on it).
4. Spread 1 tablespoon mustard on the top of each fillet. Sprinkle about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the herb mixture on top of each.
5. Place fish herb-side up on the grate directly over the heat. Cover the grill and cook until the fish flakes when gently scraped with a fork, about 12 minutes. Transfer to plates with a wide spatula. Yields 1 fillet per serving.

The side just consisted on asparagus and cherry tomatoes with some fresh garlic, salt, pepper, and some lemon juice. Just a random thing Nicole whipped up to go with this salmon.
When grilling the salmon, we cooked at low heat because the salmon doesn’t get flipped, it cooks all the way through on one side. When it was finished, it looked and tasted great. This was one of my favorite recipes so far.

January 9, 2013 0

Monday Dinner: Jerked Seitan with Mango Salsa and New Potato Salad

Well it’s back to the old drawing board. The holidays are over, my birthday has passed, and there are no more excuses to be eating the way we have been. We continued our healthy dinner practice last night with Jerked Seitan with Mango Salsa and New Potato Salad.
This is a recipe that we got from the extensive weight watchers community collection. Nicole and I used to be vegetarians when we first met each other, and we both agree to this day that it introduced us to foods we would have never tried otherwise. Even today we still incorporate a vegetarian dish or two into our weekly routine.
If you have never had Seitan before, or have never even heard of it, I suggest you try it out. This was the “meat” I enjoyed most as a vegetarian. I was the worst kind of vegetarian, constantly looking for substitutes for the non-vegetarian food I had loved. Seitan is a great meat substitute and you can find it in the cooler of your local grocery store if they have an organic section. Its also something that you can make from scratch but it’s a huge pain in the ass and I never got it to taste right.

Here is the recipe:

PointsPlus Value: 8 per serving
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 25 min
Cooking Time: 8 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
1 spray(s) cooking spray
1 Tbsp jerk seasoning
1 pound(s) seitan slice(s) , rinsed and dried, cut into 16 pieces
1 large mango(es) , diced
1 small jalapeño pepper(s) , diced (don’t touch seeds with bare hands)
1/4 cup(s) fresh lime juice
3 Tbsp uncooked red onion(s) , diced
1 pound(s) uncooked red potato(es) , boiled, cooled and cut into quarters
3 medium uncooked scallion(s) , sliced
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
Instructions
1. Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Place jerk seasoning on a plate and roll seitan in seasoning to coat on all sides. Brown seitan in skillet, about 3 to 4 minutes per side.
2. In a medium bowl, combine mango, jalapeno, lime juice and red onion; cover and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, mix potatoes with scallions, vinegar and oil; toss to coat potatoes.
4. To serve, place 1/4 of seitan on a dinner plate, top with 1/4 of salsa and serve with 1/2 cup of potato salad.

I won’t lie. I realized when we started the recipe that I had never cut a mango before. Not that it was at all difficult, I just never did it! Youtube.

Boiling the potatoes takes the longest when preparing this. The recipe called for red potatoes but we just used fingerling potatoes mainly because we had them in the house already.

Jerking the Seitan before cooking…

Besides the potatoes, we also altered the recipe by replacing the scallions with shallots, two minor changes. At first bite, we both agreed it tasted a little bland. Once the flavors started to mix together, it actually got really tasty. The mango and onion really made this dish pop and the jalapeno peppers gave it some really good spice. If you are not a fan of really spicy foods, don’t worry, this isn’t spicy at all. The potatoes do a great job of keeping the jalapeno’s from overpowering the dish. All in all, I think I’d make this again. I’m not nuts about it, but it was a nice blend of flavors worthy of being made a second time.

January 8, 2013 0

The New Colored Onesies!

We have added the new color options to the shops for onesies. For years we only really offered our designs printed on white onesies but have now added the option for light blue and pink. This is an exciting addition and gives our buyers even more options when shopping for little ones!

January 7, 2013 0

Full House Ranger Joe Mr. Woodchuck Onesie!

One of the projects I had on the 2013 list is the Mr. Woodchuck onesie. This will be the ultimate for any Full House fan. I have looked all over online, and there is nothing out there for Ranger Joe and Mr. Woodchuck. I could not let that be. Ladies and gentlemen……Mr.Woodchuck.

January 4, 2013 0

Wednesday Recipe: Barbecue Portobella Quesadillas

Last night was tough, basically meaning that we didn’t feel like cooking. Instead of calling it off, we decided to make an easier recipe, and these Barbecue Portobella Quesadillas sounded pretty simple. I used to work in a kitchen, so whipping up some Quesadillas is nothing for me. We had a minor roadblock when Nicole was slicing up some onions and then almost lopped off her finger, it was pretty gross. I’m surprised I handled it that well actually.

I may blog on here about how I love action movies and ass kicking, but if I see wounds or blood in real life, i usually get nauseous and need to sit down. Not this time. I was all man.

We changed one thing in this recipe out of pure laziness. Instead of using the chipotle pepper, I just used cajun seasoning. I think cajun seasoning and Barbecue blend better anyways.

Barbecue Portobello Quesadillas

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/barbecue_portobello_quesadillas.html

From EatingWell: March/April 2009
This smoky mushroom-filled quesadilla is reminiscent of pulled pork. A touch of chipotle chile pepper adds extra heat. Serve with coleslaw and guacamole.

4 servings | Active Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 cup prepared barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, (see Note), minced, or 1/4 teaspoon ground chipotle pepper
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons canola oil, divided
1 pound portobello mushroom caps, (about 5 medium), gills removed, diced
1 medium onion, finely diced
4 8- to 10-inch whole-wheat tortillas
3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Preparation

Combine barbecue sauce, tomato paste, vinegar and chipotle in a medium bowl.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add onion and cook, stirring, until the onion and mushrooms are beginning to brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer the vegetables to the bowl with the barbecue sauce; stir to combine. Wipe out the pan.
Place tortillas on a work surface. Spread 3 tablespoons cheese on half of each tortilla and top with one-fourth (about 1/2 cup) of the filling. Fold tortillas in half, pressing gently to flatten.
Heat 1 teaspoon oil in the pan over medium heat. Add 2 quesadillas and cook, turning once, until golden on both sides, 3 to 4 minutes total. Transfer to a cutting board and tent with foil to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining 1 teaspoon oil and quesadillas. Cut each quesadilla into wedges and serve.
Nutrition

Per serving : 311 Calories; 13 g Fat; 5 g Sat; 6 g Mono; 19 mg Cholesterol; 43 g Carbohydrates; 11 g Protein; 5 g Fiber; 710 mg Sodium; 771 mg Potassium

2 1/2 Carbohydrate Serving

Exchanges: 1 1/2 starch, 1 vegetable, 1 other carbohydrate, 1 high-fat meat, 1 fat

Tips & Notes

Ingredient note: Chipotle chiles in adobo sauce are smoked jalapeños packed in a flavorful sauce. Look for the small cans with the Mexican foods in large supermarkets. Once opened, they’ll keep up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator or 6 months in the freezer. Ground chipotle, made from dried smoked jalapeños, can be found in the specialty-spice section of most supermarkets or online at penzeys.com.

One thing to note when cooking all of this in the pan is that the mushrooms and peppers are loaded with water so you will have some excess liquid. I tried cranking the heat up in the final minutes to boil some off but I still had to drain some out before transferring this to a bowl.

Even after draining the water, the Quesadillas dripped liquid after the initial first bite. A messy meal.

This meal was tasty, mainly because I’m a sucker for Barbecue anything, however it was a pretty messy ordeal and not worth the hassle. I would change this up if we decided to do these again by using less mushrooms, a meat of sorts, and I’d scrap the Monterrey Jack and replace it with goat cheese. Now that’s the bomb.com.