Friday, October 8, 2010

Veggie Stew Recipe

To celebrate having a new stove and dishwasher, marking the first time we could cook at home for about 2 months, I made some stew. Some of my friends know of this stew. This time, especially after some persuading from others, I have decided to write down a recipe. So here it is. 


The measurements may be a little rough, but stew is pretty lenient. Also, it is worth noting that this is my super-easy "semi-home-made" version of this. When I'm feeling up to it, I'll cut up and otherwise prepare a whole bucket o' fresh veggies. However, this is almost as good at about 1/10th the effort.


1 14.5oz can of vegetable broth
1 14.5oz can of sweet corn
1 14.5oz can of peas
1 14.5oz can of sliced carrots
1 14.5oz can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1/2 or 1 can of pinto beans
2 14.5oz cans of 'new/baby' potatoes
1 14.5oz can of diced tomatoes
1 large (30oz?) can of tomato sauce
1 cup frozen (or fresh) mukimame (shelled edamame)
1/2 cup uncooked 'minute' brown rice
1 cup frozen diced onion OR 1 medium white onion
1 tbsp diced garlic (2 large cloves)
1 tsp Mirin
1 dash of 'Italian seasoning'
2 tsp of chili powder
2 tsp or more of cayenne pepper, to taste
1 tsp or more ground black pepper, to taste


*Note: get the reduced salt or no salt canned vegetables whenever possible. Also to avoid: the cheapest can. It's never worth it. Get your green giant or del monte or whatever and enjoy it. You can spare the extra $1.50 total.



  1. Heat a large stockpot on a med-high burner. Once it's warmed up, add about a tablespoon of whatever lubrication you prefer. All I had on hand at the time was seasoned wok oil, which worked great. Olive oil would work great too.
  2. Add the onion, sauté until translucent. Add the garlic as the onions are just starting to turn. You don't want to burn the garlic. 
  3. At around the same time as the garlic, add your mukimame. If you are using fresh or thawed, add them a little later. If you're confused about this whole mukimame/edamame thing: soybeans. Soybeans out of the shell. That's what I'm talking about.
  4. You want the mukimame to get just a little bit of brown to some of them. This helps make them a little chewy later, which is delicious. The onions can be a little brown in places, but generally translucent.
  5. Before anything starts to burn (or if it does), add the whole can of veggie broth and stir it up to get any goodies off the bottom of the pot. (Deglazing, sort of)
  6. At this point, add the corn, peas, carrots, garbanzo beans, pinto beans, and potatoes. Make sure to drain each can first. Some bean juice is not just okay but good. For the potatoes, you'll need to cut out any eyes that escaped the machines and slice the potatoes into roughly bite-sized chunks before you add them. One benefit of using canned potatoes is that you can leave larger chunks and they will still cook through, as they are already par-cooked.
  7. Add the spices and the Mirin. Stir thoroughly.
  8. Bring to a low boil, then cover and reduce temperature to simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
  9. Add the rice. Stir. I used about 5 'small handfuls' of rice, so I'm estimating 1/2 to 1 cup, uncooked. Use 'minute' rice.
  10. Add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. Stir thoroughly.
  11. Bring back to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 50 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  12. Enjoy!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Wildlife Photography

Wildlife and nature photography is something I'm interested in, in an amateur fashion. I got a zoom lens (75-300mm) recently and hadn't really used it yet. I started to take a walk in the park the other day and noticed the copious amounts of cool birds in the marsh, so I ran back home, grabbed my camera and gear, and went back.


Now, this was my first real use of my new lens, and I'm still learning the basics of photography to begin with. Also, most of my good pictures so far have been of .. flowers. Because they're pretty, and they don't move too much.


Birds are also pretty, but damn do they move around.


You know all those sayings about how mistakes are really lessons? I learned a lot of lessons. Took a lot of pictures. Only a few of them are good. But I learned a lot of lessons.


Lessons Learned: Day 1
  • It's true that a zoom lens is hard to keep steady for your picture. A tripod, however, is not an option. I learned this over and over again when things happened and I couldn't get my camera around in time. Folding up some of the legs to make it a monopod was great, I wish I had been doing that from the beginning.
  • A zoom lens has a really narrow focus field. And so, you should always take at least 3 pictures of a great subject, and adjust the focus a little each time (a little too near, what you think is right, and a little too far). That way you increase your chances of one being right.
  • It's fairly easy to get close to geese (although they slowly swim away from you), but it's really hard to get close to this guy:


  • I learned how to recognize (via the sounds they are making) that a group of geese is about to take off from the water. This is crucial if you want to be ready to take a picture of them taking off.
  • I also learned to recognize the call of a sandhill crane. This happened when three of them flew literally ten feet above my head and I was not ready for them. Perfect shot missed.
  • It pays to hide. Perhaps I need to invest in some more camouflaged, or at least earth-toned, clothing.
  • Try not to get fuzzy vegetation in the foreground. You may be zoomed all the way to 300, but you still need to know what's right in front of you. You can only crop out so much.
  • Ultimately, I'll need an even bigger zoom lens.
  • A zoom lens is not for taking landscapes with. You cannot get a big enough focal plane.
See all my pictures from day one here.

Lessons Learned: Day 2
So, having learned many things (and more than I listed) on the first day, I returned again this morning in better light and better conditions.

  • Go on a weekday morning. Nobody else is in the park to scare the animals, the lighting is better, and most of the birds are busy eating, so they don't care as much if you're there.
  • Stalk slowly. Basically, you are playing a game of red-light-green-light. If they look away, feel free to run to a new spot, quietly. You will be rewarded:


  • Walk softly. I was clomping my way along to the next spot I was going to take photos from when I saw three turtles slip into the water after I startled them. I could have had some great photographs of them if I had been walking more quietly and paying more attention to my surroundings.
  • When sneaking up on an animal, don't keep yourself below the brush line and then suddenly appear right next to it. I got close, but if anyone was in the park this morning and wondered why about a hundred birds suddenly took off from the shoreline and went out to the middle of the lake: that was my fault.
  • Sandhill cranes really don't want to be photographed.
  • I need a bird identification book. And some binoculars.

I had a lot of fun, and I'm going to keep trying. I'll probably need to pick up some more supplies and check out some books from the library for pointers. If I get some really good shots, or learn some really good lessons, I'll let you know here.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Car Saga

Chapter 1: The tale of how the Corolla came to be


So, about 2 years ago I bought my first car. It was during the super gas price days, when it regularly hit $4 a gallon, so finding an economy car was very difficult. I ended up with my swank 1999 Toyota Corolla, which was exactly what I was looking for, so I overlooked some of the minor concerns we had with it. (It has paint issues, it shook on the highway, dent in the hood, looks like it was treated unkindly.) Bought it for about $4500, after we talked them down a grand. The day after I bought the car and happily drove it back to Madison, the check engine light came on. The dealership was good enough to take it back, check it out, and fix whatever it was for free, as I had literally just bought it. It turned out to be a faulty sensor, no big deal. I should have taken it as an omen, though.


Sunday, March 7, 2010

Aggressive Self-Defense: The Morality of Killing in War

The following was originally written in an ethics class in 2007, and I have made some minor edits. Enjoy.


War is an oft-discussed topic in America right now. People discuss how many deaths there have been on each side, and how the objectives are progressing (or how they are not), and various other details that interest the citizens of a nation at war—for everyone has a vested interest while their country is at war. Of course, another hot topic for debate is the justification for the current war in Iraq. Various politicians, journalists, and celebrities have weighed in on the political, social, and moral justifications for the war. But one debate about war has been simmering for a long time and lies at the heart of past and present anti-war movements: can war be justified at all? Justification for war can come from many angles, but one must eventually examine the core issue—that of the justness of killing in war. A lot of debate has gone into who it is permissible to kill: combatants, non-combatants, guilty persons, innocent bystanders; and there have been many arguments on just how to define those groups of people. Most of all, people have long debated by what principles killing for god or country can be justified morally. None of these justifications, however, provide a satisfactory moral case for just killing in war, and as such, they are not sufficient to justify war itself.



I have chosen two articles with differing views on the morality of killing in war (though they both think it is morally permissible, the justifications and lines drawn are distinct). The first is Robert K. Fullinwider's War and Innocence1 and the second is Lawrence A. Alexander's Self-Defense and the Killing of Noncombatants2, which is a direct reply to Fullinwider. First I will examine Fullinwider's somewhat simpler argument before diving into Alexander's response, which is a more complex model based on Fullinwider's original. After that, I will give my own reasons for which killing should be (and can be) avoided in general.

First, we must set up the thought experiment on which Fullinwider, Alexander, and I are working. This stars the ubiquitous Smith and Jones, and the basic example is the following:
Jones is walking down a street. Smith steps from behind the corner of a nearby building and begins to fire a gun at Jones, with the appearance of deliberate intent to kill Jones. Surrounded by buildings, Jones is afforded no means of escape. Jones, who is carrying a gun himself, shoots at Smith and kills him.3