Mr. Helper

I purchased my soymilk maker from BigCrazyStore via their ebay store for a total of $39.94 with shipping included. The reason I got such a good deal (most soymilk makers are around $100) was because this one was used. It's in great condition though.


The box included an instruction manual, a recipe book, a measure cup, a tooth-brush thingie for cleaning the filter, a soft scrubby pad for cleaning, a tub for soaking the dirty parts in, a power cord, and of course the soymilk maker. The soymilk maker is basically three parts, its got the pitcher part, which is just a metal pitcher. The top lifts off and has the computer and the motor in it as well as the heating element and a couple of sensors. The filter basket on the bottom can be removed to reveal the blades.

How it works:
Soak one scoop of dry soybeans in water for 8-12 hrs. Then with the filter basket screwed on, pour the soybeans though the chute in the top. The reason you can't just put them in the basket and screw them on is because they basically fill the basket and you won't be able to work the blade down in there (trust me, I tried it). Sometimes the soybeans get backed up in this little chute and you have to shake them down, which would be my main criticism of this device.


After adding the soybeans, just fill the pitcher part with water up to the line (1.8L) and lower the top onto it. You plug it in, press a button, and in about 20 min you have fresh, hot soymilk! It even plays some sort of Chinese song when its done!

To clean up, you place the whole top part into the tub that is provided and fill it with water to soak it. Then you gotta remove the filter basket and toss out the soybean sludge (which is a great texture, by the way) and scrub out the tiny holes in the filter with the toothbrush thing. You can't submerge the whole top since it has electrical parts, but you can run them under water and wipe it off with the scrubby pad provided.

The soymilk is great! A little bit of grit on the bottom, but so much better than store bought soymilk in my opinion. It's good hot with sugar, or cold in cereal. I don't add sugar to the whole batch, since its good plain in sweet cereal.

I would highly recommend this device.

Soy Milk for Earth Day!

I got my soymilk maker that I bought on ebay in the mail today! What a great earth day present to myself! I promise I will post a more detailed entry once I've made my first batch (beans are soaking as I type this).

Jasmine Tea Biscotti

I first had these at Far Leaves in Berkeley and thought, "Hey, I could probably make this." So I did, and I love them! They're good served with any green tea, or black for that matter. The only problem is every time I've made them, I've forgotten to write down the recipe--specifically I always forget how much tea to put in! So this time I took notes and took pictures. I basically just modified a spiced biscotti recipe but instead of cinnamon and cloves and all that, I add ground up jasmine tea leaves. I've also reduced the vanilla a teensy bit.



Ingredients:


2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp ground jasmine tea or the contents of about 6 tea bags*.
2/3 c sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/4-1/2 tsp vanilla*

*Note: So I actually failed this time around and with only 1 Tbsp of jasmine tea (about 4 tea bags) the biscotti were not jasminey enough. It might be because I usually use looseleaf tea that has been ground up in a mortar and pestle (or you could use a spice grinder). I'd guess that 1 1/2 Tbsp might be enough, although you might want to try 2 Tbsp. Also, the original recipe I modified this from calls for 1/2 tsp vanilla. I reduced it so I could taste the jasmine more. It's up to you.

First, mix all the dry ingredients besides the sugar and including the tea.
Then, whisk the eggs and sugar together and add the vanilla.


Fold the dry ingredients into the wet. This will make a dry, crumbly dough (which makes sense because the only liquid is egg!).


Form the dough into two flat loaves on a greased cookie sheet. Those green specks are the tea leaves. There should be more of them.


Bake at 350 for 25 min or until the edges begin to brown. Let cool for 10 min. Meanwhile, reduce the oven temp to 325. Once the loaves are cooled, slice them on the diagonal and place the slices on their sides back on the cookie sheet. Pop them back in the oven for around 15 min, flipping them halfway through.

Cats Stats and St. Pats

So this weekend turned out to be pretty nice despite the craziness of unnoficial St. Patrick's day and all the work I have to do for next week.

Friday was unofficial. For those of you who are not from around here, this is a holiday that was invented by local bar owners to compensate for the fact that St. Patrick's day always falls on spring break, when many students are away from campus. To celebrate unofficial, students drink all day and disrupt classes. The lecture I TA for had 4 or 5 police officers and 3 security guards outside checking people's bags. On unofficial, no one is allowed to have any beverages of any kind in classrooms. Last year, around 90 people went to the hospital for alcohol poisoning I've been told. I already knew I would hate this holiday, but several unexpected things made it worse.

First, a student in lecture had a shirt on that was so terrible that it totally ruined my day. I wanted to punch him in the face. I won't go into details, but let's just say he succeded at offending Irish people, Native Americans, and women. Good job, asshole.

After that I taught and had a student get all up in my face about a lousy 2 points on a test question. Then at noon, walking back to my office, I saw a guy stumbling along, drunk, holding a Jones Soda bottle and mumbling "fuck" over and over to himself.

This was too much. I had to go home for the rest of the day.

Saturday was better. Got some grading done and then went over to Katherine's house for a game night. She has some crazy cats. One of them likes to chew on fingers A LOT. Check it out:



The other one just likes to lay on shoes and jackets. Not that weird I guess.


We played a bunch of different games including one that's kindof like balderdashand trivial pursuit combined but with personal questions instead of definitions, if that makes any sense. They guessed it was me whose last words would be "bring my body to the top of Mt. Diablo so I can be eaten by turkey vultures."

We also played Clue: Museum Caper. Here's a thief-eye-view of Lisa.


Today (Sunday) I went back to El Charro for lunch before doing FOUR HOURS of statistics homework. I had two al pastor tacos and one lengua taco. The al pastor is just so so, bu the lengua was very good.


(lengua on top)

El Charro Taqueria

I found El Charro when I was recently tipped off by my geologist friend Amanda that there is a Mexican market in town. I went to check it out and was pleasantly surprised that it is also a taqueria. What is a taqueria, you ask? And how is it different than any other Mexican restaraunt? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Taquerias are usually self-serve type restaurants where you order at a counter and bus your own table. They usually have minimal decor (it was especially minimal at El Charro) and sometimes more minimal menus than other Mexican restaurants. Taquerias usually have things like tacos, burritos, tortas, gorditas, and sometimes have a few (or many) entree style dishes (platillos).

As far as a market goes, El Charro was not too impressive. They didn't have much that you can't find in the Mexican aisle of Meijer. They did have some meats that you possibly might have trouble finding elsewhere.

I ordered one of my favorites, a burrito with milanesa ($4.99). Milanesa is a little like chicken-fried steak. It's thin pieces of steak that are breaded and fried and then chopped into bite-sized pieces for the burrito. Now, I must preface this review with the fact that I have high standards when it comes to milanesa burritos. My burrito contained refried beans, iceberg lettuce, and tomatoes in addition to the milanesa. I think it also had some sort of cheese. The cheese was not very good, the tomatoes were not that great (they are out of season to be fair) but the milanesa itself was very good.

I also ordered horchata ($1). Horchata is a little like sweetened rice milk spiced with cinnamon and other spices. The horchata here was maybe a little on the thin side, but still delicious.

I'll definitely have to come back and try the tacos, gorditas, and perhaps some of the weekend only specials (tamales, posole, and something else I can't remember).


As far as taquerias go, ehh not that great. As far as Mexican food in Chambana goes, not too shabby. Pretty impressive for a town with only about a 2% Latino/a population.

El Charro
55 E Green St
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 337-6647

Blog Transformation

Hi everyone, Eric here. Just letting you know that I'm thinking of turning this blog into a food blog--at least a partial one. I like the style of Ebeth's blog and might make mine into something like this.

This potential change was inspired most recently by my discovery of a taqueria in town. That's right, Champaign, IL, a city in the middle of Illinois with only a 4% latino/a/hispanic population, has a taqueria. And it looks like a pretty good one to boot. They've got milanesa, lengua, barbacoa, and al pastor. They've got gorditas, tortas, posole, tamales, tacos, and other good stuff. Expect a review of a milanesa burrito soon.

Hi, I'm still here

Hey look guys, my neighborhood is in the news! While I don't feel like finding an actual news article, I can tell you that the American Planning Association recently voted my neighborhood among the top ten neighborhoods in the US. What exactly that means, I'm not sure. Check out the site to see pictures of where I live.

Here are some pictures I took of things here. Just some eye candy to keep you maybe interested until I find the time and drive to write a real entry.


These are my walls. Sea foam green paint and green striped wallpaper. My house is full of great wallpapers and other textures. I have plans to make a collage of the textures of 506 West Nevada Street soon.



Here's a cicada I found one night outside my house. Can you spot the copyright infringement on his back?



Another visitor to the outside of my house. Who do you think would win in a fight?



This is, apparently, the art history building. It is an old house literally in the middle of campus. Kindof goofy if you ask me.

One more critter related picture. I was leaving my office on Saturday after picking up some papers to grade and I came out to find this scene.


I said "Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" and he still sat there long enough for me to get my camera out of my backpack and take a couple of photos.