Spaghetti a la Supertaster

Over five years ago I introduced the world to my personal spaghetti recipe. Since then I’m sure you’ve all been wishing I’d given more detail and today I’m happy to oblige!

I present therefore the step-by-step pictorial recipe for my delicious version of spaghetti bolognaise!

  
Start by cutting about 1/3rd of a yellow onion into small pieces. 

 
Sweat the onion in a light sprinkle of oil. If it gets clear (or even worse brown) you’ve gone too far!! You’ll want to put a big pot of water on high heat now as well for the pasta.

 
Add half a pound of 93% ground beef. 

 
Stir it up with the onions, and cook on medium heat until it looks like this: 

 
Have a nibble at this point. If it’s delicious and meaty you’re on the right track! 

 
Next you want to add a single beef stock cube and stir it in. Let it simmer for a minute or so and taste it again. Unless you’ve ruined it, it should taste a bit like Vegemite now. 

 
The water should be boiling now, so put in a decent portion of spaghetti. The exact amount is up to you, but you’ll want to have enough so you won’t be sad but not so much you’ll get fat! Leave the spaghetti cooking and return to the meat. 

 
Open a small tin of tomato paste and remove a small amount. There are two important notes here: the paste has to be unflavoured, and you need to add less than you expect! It’s more for colour than flavour! 

 
Stir it in well until it looks like this: 

 
And last but not least, add a pinch of salt, ideally from a Rilakkuma shaker: 

 
Now cover it and let simmer on low heat while the spaghetti finished cooking. It will look like this once it’s al dente

 
Everything is ready! The recipe is enough for two portions, so plate half the meat and pasta with style… 

 
And enjoy with an adult beverage: 

 
This is an easy to prepare meal with a refined and manly taste. The delicate blend of salty and salty tastes is sublime to those with the unique palette of a supertaster and I’m sure if you give it a try you’ll enjoy it as much as I do ๐Ÿ™‚

Force Friday

Today was ‘Force Friday’, which was the heavily marketed release day for the first toys from the upcoming Star Wars film. It was a bit of a big deal, and while many shops had midnight launch events I stayed in bed and waited until after work to spend my cash. 

 
Everywhere I went the in-store advertising was abundant, with special props going to Target for their full size animated BB-8 droid (lower left in the photo) as well as the way they replaced some of their register belts with Star Wars scrolling text belts: 

 
I’ve always been a Star Wars fan. It has never waned, and I can’t deny a tremendous anticipation for the new film. I’m also a sucker for merchandise of all sorts, and spent a few hours today driving around several stores since there seemed to be different stuff everywhere.

So what did I buy…? 

 
That’s the boring stuff. Two action figures, a mini model of one of the new Tie Fighters, and a placemat ๐Ÿ™‚ 

 
Slightly more interesting was that balloon. I bought it since I hadn’t seen (and liked) the Drew Struzan art on it ๐Ÿ™‚ 

 

Those are ‘collectable game pieces’ sold blind in packs of five. The games is a bit like dominoes but we love the fact they are magnetic! With the addition of a few tiny little magnets our fridge will now be covered in flashy Star Wars hexagons! 

 

Avoid the blind-packed micro machine toys. Even at $2 they are terrible. The one shown is The Force Awakens heroine Rey on some sort of speeder. 

 

Dog tags are always fun! I guess this confirms C3PO to be in the new film.  

 
The less said about the above the better…

…but wouldn’t it make a fine Christmas gift? 

 
This was my second favourite purchase of today. One thing I was surprised by was how much new merchandise of all sorts there was – not just Force Awakens stuff. These Lego kits are based on the old Bionicle style and look great, but Grievous is far and away the best of the bunch. 

 
My favourite purchase was this children’s meal set, which will now be added to our cupboard alongside five (!) other SW meal sets dating back to ’99 when Episode 1 came out!

Look at that plate! Look at the cereal bowl with Kylo Ren and Phasma on it! And what about the First Order Tie Fighter on the cup?! Lovely stuff all of it ๐Ÿ™‚

As I said: lifelong fan! 

 
That’s something I didn’t buy: a $150 four foot talking Vader model. Pretty cool eh?

There’s one item though I should have bought, and probably will, and that’s the new Lego First Order Tie Fighter. I guess I just love the black and white design too much!

So readers, what did you pick up on Force Friday?

The Fair

Once again we visited the Duchess County Fair. It was great as usual, and here’s a list of ten things we saw:

1) Lots of rides! They were a little less dazzling after what we’d seen in Hamburg, but I still cursed my craven sense of balance that prevents me from riding them these days! 

 
2) Prize winning wheat! Nearby were sunflowers about 10 feet tall!

 
3) Delicious fair food, absolutely worth the incredibly inflated prices! $9 for a cob of corn and some lemonade? No problem ๐Ÿ˜‰

 
4) This amazing first-prize winner of the 7-10 year old ‘non kit’ Lego assembly contest. I kid you not, this was indeed the blue ribbon winner:

 
5) Some extremely sporty sheep! 

 
6) A legion of Minions! 

 
7) Fine, fine art: 

 
8) Porky the giant pig! Enough sausage for 1000 people! Two 100 pound hams! (No we didn’t enter to see what was probably a sleeping pig) 

 
9) A baby cow, born only minutes earlier: 

 
10) And last but not least many animals for KLS to feed. She was scared of the camel because of his teeth, but he turned out to be a gentle (slobbering) fellow ๐Ÿ™‚