Shot by Czech photographer Miloslav Druckmüller from the Brno University of Technology, these amazing composite images capture the moon during a total solar eclipse revealing a vast solar corona. To achieve the crystal clear effect the shots are comprised from some 40+ photos taken with two different lenses. Additional clarity was achieved due to the incredibly remote location chosen to view the eclipse from, a pier just outside the Enewetak Radiological Observatory on the Marshall Islands, smack dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. You can see several more images from the project at Druckmüller’s website and don’t miss this much higher resolution version including some 209 stars. All images courtesy the photographer. (via this isn’t happiness)
Wahoo! It's official: the IT Crowd will reunite for a final episode. My favorite new sitcom of the century will be back -- something that seemed less and less likely as the careers of its stars reached heights that were beyond the scope of UK TV.
During a Q&A session at the German re:publica digital conference, IT Crowd creator and writer Graham Linehan announced that he is bringing the award-winning geeky British sitcom and cast members (Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson and Matt Berry) back to Channel 4 for one last special forty-minute episode. According to Bleeding Cool, this final episode is to be filmed in three weeks time. The script for the special was written over a year ago, but due to a pregnancy and the actors being busy in other TV and film projects, it was postposed.
Happy Monday and Happy Anniversary! It’s been seven years since I started blogging, and I wanted to take the opportunity today to look back at some of my favorite dishes I’ve posted through the years. These don’t fit into any one category or any one theme; they’re just things I love and would eat 24-7 if given the opportunity.
Thank you guys for being a part of things around here for all these years. I’ve enjoyed blogging so very much, and you guys have been wonderful.
Here are some of my faves. Click on either the photo or link below it to be taken to the step-by-step. (Warning: I’ll start with the oldest recipes and work my way up…so some photos may be very old and grody-looking. My photography has been part of the process!)
I’m sharing a lot of recipes here…but there’ll be no more photos than my average cooking post! Har.
Olive Cheese Bread. This stuff is just sickeningly good. (Great photo, don’t you think? Not.)
Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce. One of my favorite desserts of all time. The maple cream sauce can be drunk with a straw. (Don’t ask me how I know this.)
Onion Strings. These things bring grown men to their knees, they’re so delicious and addictive. The only drawback is that they can’t be made fast enough.
Pasta all Vodka. Can I make this for breakfast? My gracious.
My Favorite Burger. And it still is. (This was the recipe that told me once and for all that I can’t shoot recipes at night. And to this day, I still don’t know how to use a flash.)
Ginger Steak Salad. Oh, I love this one. Best use of a leftover steak ever.
Quick and Easy Apple Tart. The perfect quick dessert! (Drizzle on caramel sauce instead of powdered sugar if you’re feeling particularly naughty.)
Key Lime Pie, which isn’t even made with key lime juice, but I’m okay with that if you are.
Simple Sesame Noodles. One of the simplest recipes on this site, it’s also one of the most delicious. You won’t believe the flavor, and you’ll make it all summer long.
Big Steak Salad. It’s 7:14 am, and I can close my eyes and taste this feast-for-the-senses salad. I absolutely love it.
Chipotle Steak Salad. This is the third sliced-steak salad I’ve put on this list. Do you think I might have a problem? Anyway, you’ll love this one.
Cajun Chicken Pasta. My kids love it. Marlboro Man loves it. Charlie loves it. I love it. It’s spicy, creamy, flavorful, and dreamy. You’ll love it, too!
Citrus Butter Cookies. These little numbers are both darling and delightful. (And buttery. Mmmmmmm!)
Corn & Cheese Chowder. It’s perfectly delicious in a regular ol’ bowl…but in a bread bowl, it’s utterly sublime.
Perfect French Fries. Dip ‘em in a mix of ketchup and mayonnaise if you’ve been good and have exercised all week.
Salisbury Steak. Who doesn’t love this school cafeteria throwback?
Chicken Florentine Pasta. Protein, veggies, carbs…this has it all! I love, love, love this pasta dish.
I was out of town all weekend and blew in from the airport mid-afternoon yesterday. As I always do when I pass through town on the way home from anywhere, I called the kids and asked them if we needed anything specific from civilization before I headed out to the ranch, where I planned to promptly don my yoga pants and settle in for an evening of The Amazing Race, The Good Wife, and complete inactivity. And, as is usually the case, my precious, well-behaved children screamed into the phone, in unison:
“Something sweet! We need something sweet! Don’t come home unless you bring something sweet!”
They missed me so very much.
I stopped at the grocery store in town to get milk and orange juice and bread, and I scanned my brain for “something sweet” ideas, everything from cookies (but I’d have to wait for the butter to soften) to sheet cake (but I’d just made one last week) to pie (but I’d have to make a crust because I just used the last one in the freezer)…and then I had a revelation.
Monkey Bread.
What kid doesn’t love monkey bread? What grownup doesn’t love monkey bread? What dog, cat, gopher, or coyote doesn’t love monkey bread? My old friend Ryan posted the classic cinnamon-sugar Monkey Bread recipe here years and years ago, and it pretty much can’t be beat. But once I got home, hugged the kids, kissed Marlboro Man, and sniffed Charlie, I decided to go rogue and make an orange-vanilla version.
It turned out to be one of the most profound decisions of my life. Or at least of that afternoon.
First, zest a couple of oranges.
If I were cool, I would have used a microplane zester. But I’ve lost mine somewhere along the way.
Translation: My boys probably tried to saw down a tree with it somewhere.
Anyway, get the zest off the oranges however you can do it.
And then…hello! Three small can’s o’ biscuits.
Don’t hate. Appreciate.
You can try making your own biscuit dough for this monkey bread if your soul desires.
But it won’t be as good.
Hahahahaha. Hahaha. Haha. Ha.
Ha?
Pop open the cans and cut each biscuit into quarters.
Keep going till you have a big pile of biscuit pieces.
And an important note: Please do this when the biscuits are super cold, right after you take them out of the fridge. I’d let mine sit on the counter for awhile and they weren’t as easy to handle.
Don’t be like me. I hate putting away groceries. So I just choose not to do it.
Okay, now just grab a big ol’ ziploc bag and throw in a cup of sugar and a dash of salt.
Then throw in the orange zest…
And seal the bag and shake it all together until the sugar and the zest almost become one.
Throw in the biscuit pieces (and I can’t emphasize enough: Make sure they’re cold or you’ll have a sticky headache on your hands)…
Then seal the bag again…
And shake it up, turn it over, and/or swing it around until the biscuit pieces are totally coated in the orange-sugar mixture.
Tip the biscuit pieces into a bundt pan and set it aside for a sec.
Now for the naughty part: Melt 2 sticks of butter in a medium pan…
Then throw in 3/4 cup brown sugar…
A good tablespoon of vanilla extract…
And stir it all together. No need to totally get it all combined/dissolved; it’s actually better if you don’t.
You knew this was gonna happen: Now just pour the contents of the pan all over the biscuit pieces. The butter will be a little separate from the brown sugar, but don’t worry about that; it’ll all become one in the oven.
This is Fifty Shades of Wrong right here.
Where wrong equals right, of course.
Next, bake it in a 350 degree oven for just about 25 minutes, until the top is nice and golden brown.
And this is the tough part: After you remove it from the oven, you need to set it aside for a good 10 minutes or so before you turn it out of the pan. There’s so much buttery caramely stuff going on, if you turn it out too quickly, it’ll run and fall all over the place.
Okay, I waited.
Confession: I don’t think I waited long enough, as it was just a leetle tenuous when I turned it out of the pan. But I was concerned that if I waited too long, it would stick in the pan…so I picked the lesser of two evils.
And speaking of evil…my WORD, was this good. A little too good, actually. Sticky, caramely, orangey, sweet…ugh.
I need to do penance today.
(But I might have to have a few little pieces of monkey bread first.)
First, make sure all the biscuit cans are very cold.
Open all the cans of biscuits and cut the biscuits into quarters. Fill a large Ziplock bag with the granulated sugar, the orange zest, and the dash of salt. Seal the bag and shake it around until the zest and the sugar are totally combined. Add the biscuit pieces to the bag, seal it and shake/toss it around until all the biscuit pieces are coated in the orange sugar. Pour the pieces into a bundt or tube pan and set it aside.
In a medium pan over medium heat, melt the butter then stir in the brown sugar and vanilla until just barely combined. Pour the mixture all over the biscuit pieces, scraping the pan to get all the butter/brown sugar out of there. Let it settle for a second, then place the pan in the oven.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until the top of the biscuits are golden brown. Then remove the pan from the oven and set it on a rack. Let the pan sit for at least 10 minutes (but no more than 15), then turn the cake out of the pan onto a cake plate.
Note: When it first comes out of the pan, the melted sugar/caramel will be a little on the hot side. Wait a few minutes after turning it out before serving.
Charlie Haughey was drafted into the US Army in October of 1967. He was 24, and had been in college in Michigan before running out of money and quitting school to work in a sheet metal factory. The draft notice meant that he was to serve a tour of duty in Vietnam, designated a rifleman, the basic field position in the Army. After 63 days in Vietnam, he was made a photographer, shooting photographs for the Army and US newspapers, with these instructions from the Colonel: You are not a combat photographer. This is a morale operation. If I see pictures of my guys in papers, doing their jobs with honor, then you can do what you like in Vietnam. He shot nearly 2,000 images between March 1968 and May 1969 before taking the negatives home. And there they sat, out of sight, but not out of mind, for 45 years, until a chance meeting brought them out of dormancy and into a digital scanner. At first, it was very difficult for Haughey to view the images and talk about them, especially not knowing the fates of many of the subjects of his photos. When the digitization hit 1,700 negative scans, Haughey put them on a slideshow and viewed them all at once, and didnt sleep for three days after. Hes slowly getting better at dealing with the emotional impact of seeing the images for the first time in decades. A team of volunteers has worked with Haughey to plan a 28-image show, titled A Weather Walked In, which opens April 5th in the ADX art gallery in Portland, Oregon. The difficulty of keeping notes in a war zone along with the passage of decades has faded the details behind many of the images, and the captions reflect this fact, with many shots of unknown people in forgotten locations at unspecified times. It is hoped that publication of the pictures can yield more information. More images from the collection will be released as the project progresses. You can follow the progress on facebook and Tumblr. Thanks to Chieu Hoi project volunteer Kris Regentin for preparing much of this introduction and the accompanying captions. -- Lane Turner (46 photos total)
Bowed head in truck: Soldier and location unidentified. Charlie's first response to this photo: "It was not uncommon to find anyone with a head bowed for a moment, more often when we were heading out than when we were coming back. Interesting that he has a flak jacket, he's taking precautions on both sides of the fence. M16, a steel pot, a flak jacket, and a prayer."
The shoreline -- of the sea, lakes, and rivers -- is a dynamic interface of civilization and the natural world. It exerts a powerful draw on us. That transition space holds beauty and carries risk, the zone where we at once embrace and battle the environment in which we exist. The shoreline provides food, recreation, breeding grounds, commerce, peace, and even primal fear. Two thirds of the world's largest cities lie in low-elevation coastal areas, vulnerable to sea rise even as population trends show us increasingly dwelling in urban areas. Gathered here are images exploring our attraction to the water's edge. -- Lane Turner (46 photos total)
Christian Tio of the Philippines freestyles during day three of the KTA Bintan at Argo Beach Resort on February 23, 2013 in Bintan Island, Indonesia. (Xaume Olleros/Getty Images)
