Monthly Archives: June 2013

Bachelor Chow – Cooking For the Single Guy

I am not a single man, but was one once. And when I was a single man I had to eat. I had to eat food. And even though I ate them often, one can’t subsist on Western Bacon Cheeseburgers alone. So there are several things that I made for myself on a regular basis, one of them was bachelor chow.

I call it bachelor chow, but there are many different names for what I make. My mother-in-law calls it a variation on dirty rice. Other chefs may call it a good start to an interesting chili. My mom calls it dog food. She calls it that for good reason, that’s how I learned how to make it. The basis is from a recipe that my mom used to feed my first pet, Muffin, when she was sick and needed a special diet. 
The ingredients are simple: 
– Ground beef
– Chopped/diced onions 
– White rice, cooked
That’s it. Cook the beef and onions together and spice to taste; add the rice and voila! 
At least that’s how I used to make it. That particular preparation is actually pretty bland. Not bad in a pinch, but it doesn’t have much “wow” to it. When I did the No Wheats/No Sweets diet it was important to find things that were easy to make and that had no gluten and no sugar in them. Bachelor chow totally qualifies but I wanted to, literally, spice it up. When I started my experiments I had to work with the spices on hand. We had recently moved and most of our stuff was still in boxes. I had salt, pepper, garlic powder and mustard powder. It was good and warranted some perfecting. I now have my preferred mix of stuff and I live tweeted/Instagramed my preparation last night. 
Here it is in a single place just in case any of you single fellas out there want to feel like a single serving gourmet:

These are my preferred spices now: Coleman’s mustard powder, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, and Gilroy Garlic Festival Garli Garni – this stuff is key. It’s garlic, which makes it wonderful, and has all kinds of other great flavors in one convenient package. Rene and I get it at the Orange County Fair every year.

I’m very particular about my beef. I like Trader Joe’s because they are too. For this batch I selected Teva Kosher Foods Angus Ground Beef. It keeps well and cooks well. 85% lean means less chance of a heart attack.
Chop up half a white onion and add it to a large skillet with bell peppers. I used Trader Joe’s frozen Melange a Tois. The frozen part helps later.
Toss in the beef with the veggies. Then sprinkle on the mustard, Garli Garni and Worcestershire sauce to taste, I’m generous with the garlic and mustard.
I don’t use white rice any more. Since I’m getting older I’ve started using brown rice. It’s a grain. It tastes good. Again, this is from Trader Joe’s. It microwaves in three minutes and comes in a convenient bag. Good stuff.
Because the bell peppers start frozen they make a lot of liquid in the skillet. Simmering everything together really helps to blend the flavors. Also, since this is something I can eat through the course of the week, it helps keep it moist so that it microwaves well.
After the meat is cooked and the rice has been nuked I put them together over the medium heat. This finishes any cooking and the rice helps soak up some of the liquid. Each grain of rice becomes a little flavor bomb!
Here it is, the finished product!
If you try it let me know what you think or if you have a new variation.
See you next time!

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Filed under cooking, food, garlic, Gilroy garlic, meat, photos

Fun Video Friday – The Chili

Yesterday Wiggy Webs released our first sketch – “The Chili!” It is the first of many planned new items for the Wiggy Webs channel.

Starring its writer, Alexander Rossiter, and myself and directed by Zeke Pinheiro this is the exploration of two men trying to discover whether or not they love chili.

Watch, “Like,” and subscribe, like you do for YouTube stuff,and feel free to comment.

See you next time!

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Filed under acting, Andelon, fun video friday, shameless self promotion, video, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs, YouTube

Time Keeps on Ticking Into the Future

Disapproving Owl Stares Disapprovingly

Time management.

It is a skill that I make a great deal of effort at, but don’t always succeed with. This is evident with this blog. The goal is writing everyday but, with the exception of January, that just hasn’t happened. I can justify some of that away in that the bigger fires are being put out – and for the most part they are – but I refer you to my No Excuses, Only Results post and apply a bit of my own advice to myself.

Things don’t have to be hard. It’s easy to make them hard, sometimes it’s even fun. It can make you feel important to have your schedule full. When I was in my mid-twenties I prided myself on how busy I could be. Now in my mid-thirties I do my best to not be busy and regularly fail.

I don’t have answers but I do make efforts, mostly in the form of deadlines and schedules. Classes and events are easy, they have determined times, but loose things, creative things like editing and the blog tend to have fluctuating time tables. It feels hard to change that. I’m making a particular effort right now just to write this, but I’m itching to do something else, put out some other fire. It is an act of will to complete this. 
I invite your solutions. How do you manage your time? Is it just disapline or do you have techniques?
I look forward to your comments, now onto other fires… 
See you next time!

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Filed under personal, rambling

Fun Video Friday – The State of Stuff for June 2013

For Fun Video Friday this week we have the new June State of Stuff.

For those of you who would like to see the links, they are below:
http://CurtisAndersen.com
http://WiggyVonSchtick.com
https://twitter.com/AndelonProd
https://twitter.com/CurtisAndersen
https://twitter.com/WiggyVonSchtick
https://www.facebook.com/AndelonProductions
https://www.facebook.com/CurtisAndersenFanPage
https://www.facebook.com/WVSProd
http://tinyurl.com/CurtisGPlus
http://tinyurl.com/AndelonGPlus
http://tinyurl.com/WiggyGPlus
http://studio-105.biz/

See you next time!

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Filed under Andelon, state of stuff, update, video, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs, YouTube

No Excuses, Only Results

Rene and I did some shooting this week for a new project. It’s a travel show that has been sitting in the back of my head for a while now. We haven’t really done anything with it, frankly, because we haven’t been able to afford to. No mystery challenges, no equipment problems, just cost. For a while I thought that’d we’d sell the idea to the Travel Channel and maybe be able to host it.

Well the Travel Channel didn’t buy it and so we decided it was time to do it ourselves.

And that’s really what I wanted to get to in today’s post, waiting for permission.

One of the things that I preach is “finding a way.” “No excuses, just results.” My students hear it and more than one of my friends in the pit of their despair has heard me say it. Rene, my poor suffering wife, has heard it often enough that she knows when it’s coming. But as often as I say it, it’s something I don’t always do myself. When it comes to the entertainment industry it’s easy to look for “the way” to do things. Following steps. For example: If I want to make a TV show then I should 1) put together a pitch 2) build a package of materials 3) put together a sizzle reel and 4) present to the appropriate company to get the budget and crew to make the show. These are simplified steps, but you see what I’m talking about, right? Also, that way is REALLY hard! Super hard! Unless you are Mark Burnett or Chuck Lorre there’s no guarantee that you’re getting anything even to pilot. So what do you do?

Conventional wisdom would suggest getting a job at a production company or waiting until you are a celebrity and then hoping for a development deal. These options aren’t much better than the first. So this year I’m not asking permission any more.

We’ve had a lot of projects that have been sitting idle just waiting for someone to say yes. “All we need is one!” has been a popular mantra, but that “one” hasn’t come yet. It might not ever. Waiting is not a position of power and it doesn’t help get anything done.

If I were talking to me I’d tell myself that waiting for money is just an excuse and nobody wants excuses, they only want results. So that’s what we’re going to do now, generate results. With the help and support of my wife and our friends we have started a series of projects that will be released come hell or high water. Whether it be on the WiggyWebs YouTube channel or some network does magically come along and sweep something up remains to be seen, but we’re doing them and that’s that.

Financing schminancing – production levels will be at whatever we can beg, barrow or steal. Thankfully we have some very talented friends with some very nice toys. And in the end, if what we do is really good and lots of people watch it, the projects will start paying for themselves and then we just need to keep cranking stuff out (fingers crossed).

I know this isn’t a new idea, hell there’s a whole community over at YouTube of people who got this way before I did, but I’ve finally gotten on the train. And maybe by talking about it you can get on the train too.

Besides, Rene and I had a hell of a lot of fun shooting this weekend and that in and of itself was worth it.

See you next time!

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Filed under Andelon, Get Lost, travel, video, Wiggy VonSchtick, wiggy webs, YouTube

Fun Video Friday – 3 Minutes with Curtis & Dean Doctor Who Edition

Since a new Doctor is coming to Doctor Who I thought it might be a good idea to go back into the archives and pull out one of the most popular episodes of 3 Minutes with Curtis & Dean, our Doctor Who episodes. We shot this at the beginning of Matt Smith’s term as the Doctor and now it’s hard to remember a time before he played the character.

I’m really looking forward to the 50th anniversary show and who the new Doctor will be!

My buddy AJ has started campaigning for the role, he has a Facebook page about it.

Let me know who’d you like to see as the new Doctor in the comments! Oh and for those of you who may want to grab the Matt Smith years here are some links to Amazon:

See you next time!

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Filed under 3 minutes with curtis and dean, doctor who, fun video friday, random facts, rant, video, wiggy webs, YouTube

All Quiet on the Blogging Front

Been a bit quiet on the blog.

A little too quiet.

That’s ‘cuz we’ve been plannin’.

Plannin’ and schemin’.

Makin’ plans and schemes about things and stuff.

In the mean time enjoy this video of Charlie the Cat in The Nine Lives of Charlie the Cat: Life 2.

See you next time!

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Filed under charlie the cat, Nine Lives of Charlie the Cat, rambling, video