When I saw this car up for sale in the auction house, I had to have it. I love the way the cape flows over the roof and trunk. To see a full screen version of either photo, click on the picture. These photos were taken at two fantasy tracks created by the Forza 2 Game designers. The top photo is at Maple Valley. The bottom photo is on a mythical track through the streets of New York City.
1lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs (5 or 6) 1lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts halves (about 3 pieces) 1/2 tsp. fine sea salt, plus more for the cooking water 1/8 tsp. freshly ground pepper 1 Tbs. unsalted butter 1 large onion, finely chopped 1 14 1/2-ounce can low-sodium chicken broth 1 1/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme 2 Tbs. cornstarch 2 Tbs. all-purpose flour 2 cups low-fat milk 3 carrots, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick 1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
Ingredients for the dumplings:
1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal 2 tsp. baking powder 1/4 tsp. fine sea salt 2 Tbs. cold unsalted butter, cut in bits 3/4 cup low-fat milk
Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat a 6-quart Dutch oven over medium; add the thighs. Cook, turning once, until nicely browned on both sides and cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a platter. Repeat with the breasts, cut the breasts crosswise into thirds.
Add the butter to the pot; when melted add the onion, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 6 minutes. Stir in the broth and thyme; bring to a boil. Combine the cornstartch and flour in a bowl. Gradually whisk in the milk, and whisk the milk mixture into the broth. Boil,whisking until thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat; return the chicken to the pot.
Bring a saucepan of water to a boil; add salt. Add the carrots and geen beans; cook until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Drain in a colander, rinsing with cold water to stop the cooking. Stir into the chicken mixture in the pot.
Prepare the dumpling dough: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter; cut into the dry mixture until mealy. Pour in the milk, stir with a fork until the dough comes together. Return the chicken mixture to a simmer, and drop the dough by tablespoons on the surface of the stew. Cover; cook for 15 minutes without lifting the lid. (The dumplings will puff up.) Serve.
Per Serving, 442 calories, 12 G fat, 42 G carbohydrates
From The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, The New Classics
My favorite Xbox360 game is Forza Motorsports 2. I have played a lot of racing games, and this one is as good as it gets. You can chose from driving hundreds of cars, make thousands of performance modifications, and drive on a couple dozen tracks. You can race against computer drivers or real people on Xbox live.
The game has a very original feature that is populated exclusively with user content. It has a build-in "paint shop" where people can create custom artwork for their cars. All car paint schemes can only be created with the tools within the Forza 2 paint shop. Uploading of pictures or clipart into the game is not allowed. Inside the Forza 2 online auction house, users can buy and sell each others cars. None of the sales are with "real" money. The transactions are all in the fantasy "Forza 2" in-game credit currency.
I have almost 200 cars in my Forza 2 career garage. I have bought many cars in the auction house. I was browsing through my garage the other day, and I realized that I have a lot of really cool looking cars that I have completely forgotten about. So I had the idea to occasionally showcase some of my cooler cars to help refresh my memory.
Above is the 2002 "Dunkin Doughnut's" Toyota Soarer. I think my sister-in-law Kim should consider repainting her Honda CRV to match this car! I remember when I saw this car for sale how funny it would be to see Kim in this car, at the crack of dawn, zipping around town, making a doughnut run!
I took these pictures in the game, on a real-life race track. If you think you know the track, tell me in the comments. Special bonus points to the first person who can give my nickname for the area behind the car in the top picture.
Saturday November 1st I participated in the first annual Alpharetta Century bike ride. The ride began and ended in downtown Alpharetta, GA. The route headed north through the back roads of Alpharetta, Cumming and Dawsonville. Many of the roads I traversed I did for the first time. When you venture off the highways you see a very different Georgia from what you usually see. Gone are the strip malls, and fast food restaurants. Instead you see farms, horses, rolling hills, and spectacular views. This was a charity event. All proceeds went to benefit the GA Transplant Foundation.
The signature portion of the ride occurred at mile 48. Here you began the 6 mile, 1400 foot climb up Burnt Mountain. After reaching the top and enjoying a well earned snack you follow the directions on the sign above and head back down the mountain.
Below is my GPS track file from the ride. Click on the "+" and "-" buttons to zoom in and out. Clicking on the "Hybrid" or "Satellite"buttons to overlay satellite photos of the terrain. Clicking and holding the left mouse button while the pointer is on the map, allows you to drag the map. Clicking on the title "2008 Alpharetta Century" takes you to the Bikely.com website where you can view this track on a full screen as well as get the cue sheet, elevation profile, and more features.
This was my first century ride without my riding partner and best friend Jim. This was also the lightest attended organized ride that I have done. The New York City Century in September had five to six thousand riders. The 2007 Seagull Century and the 2005 Tour of Hope also had thousands of cyclists. This ride only had about 400 riders, with half doing the full century and the other half doing rides of shorter distances. In heavier attendant rides, your usually are always in a group of cyclist. Not this day. The majority of century riders were fast, hard core, experienced cyclists. In the first 20 miles I got passed far more than I passed other people. I have read that a rider will exert 20% less energy riding in the peloton compared with riding alone without any drafting help. After my first rest stop where English century riders went one direction, and metric century riders went the other direction, I wouldn't do much drafting. There would be a lot of solo riding ahead of me.
The ride began promptly at 8 AM at the Milton Center in Alpharetta. It was a crisp fall morning, with temperatures in the high 30s. Temperatures would warm quickly after sunrise. Highs were forecast to be in the low 70s with a crystal clear blue sky.
I knew going in that this would be a long day. I wanted to ride as much in the cool morning temperatures as possible. Usually I stop at all of the organized rest stops. I intentionally passed on the first stop at mile 16. I road non-stop for 33 miles to the second rest stop. I pulled in at 10:40 AM to the sounds of gun fire! The ride organizers had set up shop in the parking lot of an outdoor shooting range. I ducked and dodged my way to the Porto-let just like a virtual soldier in "Call of Duty 4".
It was at this rest stop that I learned a neat trick that I'll use on future cycling events. I was wearing my favorite Pearl Izumi cycling jacket. It is light weight, warm, yet breathable, with a lot of really cool zippered pockets. It's also expensive. The problem was it was now too warm to wear a jacket, and I had no place to put it. My Trek 720 hybrid is equipped with a rear tire rack and cycling bag. When I ride that bike, I just take off my jacket and stuff it in the bag. But on this ride I wasn't riding my heavy, wide-tire hybrid bike. I was riding my light, skinny-tire Trek Pilot 5.0 road bike. There was no place to store my jacket. I had no choice but to tie it around my waste, and deal with it for the next 70 miles. I met a guy at the rest stop who was wearing a new $5 sweatshirt from Walmart. When he was ready to get back on the road, he just removed the sweatshirt and left it behind. Great idea!
It was high noon when I arrived at the base of Burnt Mountain. I could see the beginning of a very steep climb in front of me. I peddled past the Steve Tate Highway on my left. This was the road back to Alpharetta. The thought entered my mind to just skip the mountain and start heading back home. The organizers made it very easy to skip. The route has you climb the mountain, but you don't descend on the other side. Once you reach the top, you just turn around and head back down to the base the same way you came up. Never one to avoid a challenge, I pressed on.
This was the hardest climb I have ever done. Burnt Mountain would be an extremely challenging road on it's own, let alone prefacing it with 48 miles of foothills. I usually don't have too much trouble with hills. My usual mode of operation is to find the right gear for the slope, settle in the seat and get into a comfortable, methodical cadence. Rarely do I ever feel the need to get out of the saddle and stand on the pedals and pump. I did this day. My Trek Pilot 5.0 has 27 gear combinations. For most of the 6 miles I was in my lowest gear setting and it wasn't comfortable. There were multiple segments of the climb where I had to stand and pump. My legs were burning, my heart was at a very high rate, and I was breathing very hard. I am not embarrassed to say that I had to briefly stop twice to catch my breath. The road did take pity on us cyclists briefly. In two places it leveled off. Each time the reprieve was short lived. In a matter of minutes I was back in Crank #1, Rear Gear #1. I climbing the mountain with one eye on the road, and the other eye on my GPS display which was counting down the distance to the top.
It took me 40 minutes to ride the 6 miles up Burnt Mountain. It took me under 10 minutes to ride down. I captured the descent on my Oregon Scientific video camera which I had mounted to my handle bar. In order to meet the 10 minute, 100 mb restrictions of YouTube, I've broken the video into two parts. Below is Part 1,
and Part 2:
The return ride to Alpharetta was challenging. It was now warmer. The cumulative effect of the miles and the mountain were taking it's toll. The body began to develop aches and pains. Fatigue and dehydration were becoming factors. Even with constantly drinking sports beverages and eating carbohydrate rich food, you never can fully recapture all the nutrients that you burn. As the ride progressed, it became more of an effort to eat. I ate so many Cliff Bars on this ride I could careless if I ever had another.
I have seen first hand, as well as read on the Internet that a number of people got lost on the course. This ride was held solely on public roads that were also open to traffic. Everyone who checked in at the start received a cue sheet that provided step-by-step turn directions for the entire route. The organizers also painted arrows in the road along the course where there was a change of direction. At some intersections there also were signs posted. The organizers made it clear that it was each riders responsibility to stay on course. I agree, however with that said, the organizers could have made it easier. Given the high number of turns, it's highly likely that one will get missed. Once you are off course, the cue sheet becomes worthless. More signs would have helped.
The more tired I become, the easier it is for me to miss a turn marker. I did get lost briefly on the way back. Thanks to my GPS, I caught the mistake after just a 1/2 mile. Along with a street map, my GPS displays the route and the distance to the next waypoint. The information is updated continuously in real time. After I missed the turn, soon I noticed that the distance to the next waypoint was not decreasing, but increasing. I immediately stopped and investigated further. As I was coming to the conclusion that I made a mistake, another rider passed me. I yelled to him, "Hey, I think we missed a turn back there."
Slowing down ever so slightly, he responded, "No, I don't think so, there are other people right behind us." Before I could respond, he was around the corner, and I never saw him again. I doubled back the half mile, and was back on course.
With about 15 miles to go, I stumbled upon another rider who had lost his way. He told me that he set out to ride the metric century (62 miles), but he had already done 95 miles! He said that he was lost, had bad cramps, and was looking for the next rest stop so he could bail and get a ride back to his car. I gave him the bad news that there were no more rest stops. He didn't believe me. Nature was calling me rather loudly at this moment, so I pointed him in the correct direction, and headed for the nearby tree line. After a few minutes, I mounted my bike and headed out. In a couple of minutes I see a rider heading towards me. It's the guy I just put on course! He still wasn't sure I had put him on the correct road. I told him "Look, see this on my handle bar? This is a GPS. It's telling me to go this way. I suggest you follow me." The three letters "G", "P", and "S" were all the convincing he needed. He tucked in behind me. In 5 minutes we came across the next turn marker (as my GPS predicted), and he was sold on the benefits of GPS technology.
With less than 10 miles to go, I suffered a mechanical problem that nearly prematurely ended my ride. After climbing a hill, I went to change gears from the #1 to the #2 front crank. The chain feel off the gear, and got jammed between the gear and my frame. I wrestled with freeing it for 20 minutes, and it wouldn't budge. I couldn't believe with so little distance left, I wasn't going to finish the ride. It was at that moment, when my new friend, the once lost metric century rider, came up from behind and stopped to help me. Together we freed my chain in just a few minutes, and I was back on the bike. From that point forward I carefully changed gears. The chain was now making a lot of noise rubbing badly on the front derailleur. I didn't dare use the #1 crank for the remainder of the ride. This made climbing hills more difficult, but I managed.
I pulled into the parking lot of the Milton Center at 4:55 PM. Discounting my mechanical problems, I finished in about 8 1/2 hours. The parking lot was nearly empty. But I was glad to have finished, and participated in the first Alpharetta Century. Hopefully we'll get to do it again next year. I'm sure the organizers have learned much from this year, and the event will only be bigger and better.
If you are going to have a buttermilk theme week of cooking, what better way to close it out then with old fashion buttermilk biscuits. There are no shortages of recipes. This also comes from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, The New Classics. The recipe makes 15 biscuits.
Ingredients 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting 4 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1 1/2 tsp. coarse salt 1 tsp. sugar 1 cup (sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces 2 cups buttermilk
Preheat the oven to 375F. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add the buttermilk; stir just until the mixture comes together, the batter will be sticky. Transfer to a lightly floured work surface; use your floured fingers and rolling pin to pat the dough to 1" thickness. Use a 2 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter or cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits, as close together as possible to minimize scraps.
Transfer to a baking sheet; bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from the oven; cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.
I had three quarters of a jug of buttermilk in my refrigerator this morning. Searching for recipes over the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee; I settled on this one. It comes from my television girlfriend and real life convicted felon Martha Stewart. It's from her book: Martha Stewart Living Cookbook, The New Classics. This cookbook contains a mammoth 1,200 recipes published in her magazine over this decade. This recipe serves 4, and has 362 calories and 5g of fat per serving.
I liked the consistency and spiciness of the coating. It had a little bite, but wasn't over the top spicy. Julie didn't care for this recipe. She said it tasted like cornflakes on chicken!
Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Transfer to a medium bowl. Pour the buttermilk over the chicken. Cover and let marinate 1 hour in refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 400F. Generously coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray, set aside.
Toss the cornflakes, Old Bay, thyme, basil, and cayenne in a large bowl. Remove 1 piece of chicken at a time from the buttermilk, letting excess drip back into the bowl; dredge in the cornflake mixture.
Transfer the pieces to a baking sheet; lightly coat each with cooking spray. Bake, turning the pieces once, until crisp and cooked through, about 40 minutes. Transfer to a platter, garnish with lemon wedges and parsley.
This recipe comes from my favorite cookbook: Reader's Digest Great Recipes for Good Health. This recipe serves 4. A single serving has just 379 calories and 3 g of saturated fat.
Ingredients 1 Tbs. corn or peanut oil 4 boned chicken thighs, skinned and cut into 1/2" cubes (about 1lb) 1 large yellow onion, chopped fine 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 Tbs. flour 2 tsp. chili powder 1 tsp. ground cumin 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth 1 cup buttermilk 1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chilies, drained 2 tsp. low-sodium tomato paste 8 6-inch flour tortillas
Preheat the oven to 375 F. In a heavy 10-inch skillet, heat the corn oil over moderate heat for 1 minute. Add the chicken and cook, turning occasionally, until no longer pink on the outside -- about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken to a bowl.
In the same skillet, cook the onion and garlic, uncovered, until soft -- about 5 minutes. Blend in the flour, chili powder, and cumin, and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes.
Stir in the chicken broth, buttermilk, chilies, and tomato paste. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered for 4 to 5 minutes or until slightly thickened. Return the chicken to the skillet and stir.
Place a scant 1/2 cup of the chicken mixture on the lower third of each tortilla, and roll it up like a cigar. Place seam side down in an ungreased 13"x9"x2" baking pan.
My favorite Xbox360 game is Forza Motorsports 2. I have played a lot of racing games, and this one is as good as it gets. You can chose from driving hundreds of cars, make thousands of performance modifications, and drive on a couple dozen tracks. You can race against computer drivers or real people on Xbox live.
I have almost 200 cars in my Forza 2 career garage. I have bought many cars in the auction house. I was browsing through my garage the other day, and I realized that I have a lot of really cool looking cars that I have completely forgotten about. So I had the idea to occasionally showcase some of my cooler cars to help refresh my memory.
Saturday November 1st I participated in the first annual Alpharetta Century bike ride. The ride began and ended in downtown Alpharetta, GA. The route headed north through the back roads of Alpharetta, Cumming and Dawsonville. Many of the roads I traversed I did for the first time. When you venture off the highways you see a very different Georgia from what you usually see. Gone are the strip malls, and fast food restaurants. Instead you see farms, horses, rolling hills, and spectacular views. This was a charity event. All proceeds went to benefit the GA Transplant Foundation.
half doing the full century and the other half doing rides of shorter distances. In heavier attendant rides, your usually are always in a group of cyclist. Not this day. The majority of century riders were fast, hard core, experienced cyclists. In the first 20 miles I got passed far more than I passed other people. I have read that a rider will exert 20% less energy riding in the peloton compared with riding alone without any drafting help. After my first rest stop where English century riders went one direction, and metric century riders went the other direction, I wouldn't do much drafting. There would be a lot of solo riding ahead of me.
It was high noon when I arrived at the base of Burnt Mountain. I could see the beginning of a very steep climb in front of me. I peddled past the Steve Tate Highway on my left. This was the road back to Alpharetta. The thought entered my mind to just skip the mountain and start heading back home. The organizers made it very easy to skip. The route has you climb the mountain, but you don't descend on the other side. Once you reach the top, you just turn around and head back down to the base the same way you came up. Never one to avoid a challenge, I pressed on.
The more tired I become, the easier it is for me to miss a turn marker. I did get lost briefly on the way back. Thanks to my GPS, I caught the mistake after just a 1/2 mile. Along with a street map, my GPS displays the route and the distance to the next waypoint. The information is updated continuously in real time. After I missed the turn, soon I noticed that the distance to the next waypoint was not decreasing, but increasing. I immediately stopped and investigated further. As I was coming to the conclusion that I made a mistake, another rider passed me. I yelled to him, "Hey, I think we missed a turn back there."
With less than 10 miles to go, I suffered a mechanical problem that nearly prematurely ended my ride. After climbing a hill, I went to change gears from the #1 to the #2 front crank. The chain feel off the gear, and got jammed between the gear and my frame. I wrestled with freeing it for 20 minutes, and it wouldn't budge. I couldn't believe with so little distance left, I wasn't going to finish the ride. It was at that moment, when my new friend, the once lost metric century rider, came up from behind and stopped to help me. Together we freed my chain in just a few minutes, and I was back on the bike. From that point forward I carefully changed gears. The chain was now making a lot of noise rubbing badly on the front derailleur. I didn't dare use the #1 crank for the remainder of the ride. This made climbing hills more difficult, but I managed.
