Thursday, November 24, 2011

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Serves 6| Hands-On Time: 05m | Total Time: 50m
Ingredients

* 6 medium sweet potatoes, unpeeled
* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
* 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400° F. Pierce each sweet potato several times with the tines of a fork. Place the sweet potatoes on a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil. Bake until tender, about 45 minutes. Make a slit in the top of each sweet potato. Top with 1 tablespoon of butter and season with the salt and pepper.



Nutritional Information

* Per Serving
* Calories 214Calories From Fat 50%

* Fat 12g
* Sat Fat 7g
* Cholesterol 31mg
* Sodium 230mg
* Carbohydrate 26g
* Fiber 4g
* Sugar 5g
* Protein 2g

source: http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/baked-sweet-potatoes-10000001537621/index.html

Green Bean Casserole Recipe

Baby boomers fondly remember the simple classic green bean casserole as a Thanksgiving favorite. This version is updated a bit to add fresh mushrooms. It also uses frozen green beans which contain less salt and retain more color. The traditional dish is considered almost decadent these days with cream of mushroom soup and crispy fried onions on top. Feel free to make the noted substitutions to fit your diet, but it will not taste quite the same. You may find you will need more salt than when using canned green beans.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Total Time: 60 minutes
Ingredients:

* 8 ounces fresh white mushrooms, brushed clean, trimmed, and quartered
* 1 teaspoon butter or olive oil
* 1 pound frozen green beans, unthawed (or 2 cans (16 ounces each) cut green beans, drained)
* 1 can (10.10-3/4 ounces) undiluted condensed cream of mushroom soup
* 1/2 cup heavy cream, half-and-half or milk
* 1/4 cup chicken or vegetable broth
* 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
* 1 can (2.8 ounces) French-fried onions, divided use
* 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
* Kosher salt to taste

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. F.

Place a heavy skillet over medium high heat. When pan is hot, add mushrooms and butter or olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Saute mushrooms until they release their liquid and mushrooms begin to soften. Transfer to a large bowl.

Add frozen green beans, cream of mushroom soup, heavy cream, chicken broth, Worcestershire sauce, half of the fried onions, pepper, and salt to taste. Mix until combined.

Pour green bean mixture into a 1-1/2 quart casserole dish. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and top with the remaining half can of fried onions. Bake an additional 5 to 10 minutes until onion topping is browned and crispy.

Notes: Green bean casserole is a traditional Thanksgiving comfort food for many, but enjoyed year-round. If you wish, you may substitute blanched fresh green beans, non-fat or low-fat milk, and low-sodium cream of mushroom soup, but do not expect it to taste like the original that Mom or Grandma used to make!

source: http://homecooking.about.com/od/vegetablerecipes/r/blv305.htm

Monday, November 21, 2011

AMAs 2011: Jennifer Lopez, OneRepublic embarrass themselves



Pop & Hiss will be posting live throughout the night. There may be typos.

This is a post largely about a couple of songs that don't even deserve to be written about. Jennifer Lopez gave what will surely be the most cringe-inducing, embarrassing performance of the night at Sunday's American Music Awards with her "On the Floor." It wasn't that Lopez wasn't really wearing any clothes, as audiences expect that nowadays. Instead, it was Lopez's choice of an accessory, which in this case was a car. When the actual commercial ran not too long after the performance, the only difference was the emphasis on the name of the brand.

Worse, however, was OneRepublic, which arrived simply to tell the world that it'd been living quite well off its one massive hit, "Apologize." New song "Good Life" is little more than a city-by-city list of where the band has thrown away cash. "My friends in L.A., they don't know," sang Ryan Tedder, "where I've been the past few years." He then told us: China, Paris, Colorado, etc. Fascinating, Ryan. Tell us more.

The awards show's now about half over, and the best moment of the night so far came when Nicki Minaj won favorite album for her "Pink Friday" over releases from Jaz-Z & Kanye West and Lil Wayne. It was her second award of the night. "This one is actually going to make me cry," she said. "I can't believe this is happening." She thanked God and Lil Wayne, and said her mom had a publicist and was putting out a gospel album. "I'm like, Mom, please, you can't be serious."

-- Todd Martens
Photo: Jennifer Lopez performs at the 2011 American Music Awards. Credit: Matt Sayles / Associated Press
source :http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2011/11/amas-2011-.html

Sunday, June 19, 2011

'Transformers 3' $150M For First 6 Days? Now 3D Opening On 7th Day: Tuesday 9PM

UPDATE: Turns out Paramount can't count any better than I can. (And I'm math-impaired.) I've just learned that Paramount is low-balling its internal projections and saying Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon should make $150 million in the first 6 days of release starting Wednesday, June 29th, and continuing through Fourth Of July's long holiday weekend because it's tracking "very good". But the studio is set on eking out every last dollar at the North American box office and just announced an exclusive 3D and IMAX engagement beginning on a 7th day -- Tuesday, June 28th at 9 PM. in locations across the country. This is the first of Michael Bay's Transformers franchise to be shot in 3D which Paramount's Vice Chairman Rob Moore said in a statement today was "an incredibly engaging and immersive 3D experience" from the director. So let's get real: a $150M/5-day result for Transformers 3 would be disastrous, especially since the pic is 3D.



Monday, June 13, 2011

Coming Up… June 15th Total Lunar Eclipse LIVE


Don’t say we didn’t warn you ahead of time! The upcoming total lunar eclipse will happen on June 15, 2011… and it’s a rare one. This time the Moon will pass directly through the center of the Earth’s shadow cone – an event that hasn’t happened in 11 years and won’t happen again until 2018. The eclipse visibility path will be over Africa, and Central Asia, visible rising over South America, western Africa, and Europe, and setting over eastern Asia. In western Asia, Australia and the Philippines – visible just before sunrise. But before you just read on to another article because you can’t see it from where you live, remember I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve…

Thanks to this fantastic magic we call the Internet, all you need to do is tune into our friends around the world! The first listing of our live eclipse broadcasters will be Astronomylive.com. Coordinating the eclipse project and different activities for this year is Mohan Sanjeevan, a science and science fiction writer from India. Since May 2011, Mohan volunteers as the Event & Broadcast Organizer of AstronomyLive covering his country. But Mohan is more than just a coordinater, he’s also involved in other venues like writing poetry – including science poems (freelance science writing for more than twenty years; writer of nano science and tech articles for Nano Digest, a monthly magazine from India), popularization of science and creating awareness on global warming, alternative sources of energy and making the planet a more livable place. Space and astronomy are his natural areas of interest. To top it off, Sanjeevan is also a researcher – full of implementable ideas for space and future technologies.

AstronomyLive is a center for LIVE astronomy and you can participate, too! Host your broadcasts of various types on this free service. Amateur astronomers, professional astronomers, observatories, astronomy associations and more are all very welcome. The current team consists of Sander Klieverik, Voskuh and Dennis from the Netherlands, LesD from the United States, Mohan Sanjeevan, Aakanksha, Prof. M. Jothi Rajan, Jhon Kennedy, Bhaskar, Abhilasha and Sanyam Kumar Shrivastava from India. All of these great people came together to share the view with you!
And there’s more…

 The great folks at Bareket Observatory have expanded tremendously over the years and now they’re pleased to announce the launch of the Astro-Edu Network, a free state-of-the-art astronomy education database for teachers, students and the general public. Among the goals of AStro-Edu is increased communication and understanding within the population of the Middle East using astronomy as the catalyst. Astro-Edu net can be translated to more than 60 different languages using the integrated translation module (move your cursor over the flag in the upper left to translate the materials).

 So don’t sit out the total lunar eclipse on June 15, 2011 – 17.00 – 23.00 UTC (GMT). Be sure to enjoy the event with our friends around the world!

http://www.universetoday.com/86522/coming-up-june-15th-total-lunar-eclipse-live/