Challenge, Post you shave set up: Saswsheezle Shaves

Merkur progress and long handle 12c I believe. Van Der Hagen Luxury scented soap. Trois old timey Old Spice shaving mugs. Proraso pre-shave. Alum bloc and Nivea balm for post shave. Derby blades of course.

Challenge: Post Your Shave Set-up, RyDub edition

Merkur 34c razor, Derby blades, badger hair brush, Van Der Hagen luxury scented soap, Colonel Conk brush and razor stand, Colonel Conk soap mug, Osma alum block

Challenge: Post Your Shave Set-up

Derby DE blades, Van Der Hagen scented luxury shave soap, Merkur long handled safety razor, personalized mug inherited from my grandfather, Mohawk brush also inherited from said grandfather

More Hot Wheels

Hot Wheels

Mustard Aggression Experiment

Word on the street is making whole food mustard isn't too difficult. For this recipe see Dustins earlier blog post. So, here goes:

Preamble: Gather thy ingredients:

Ingredient list: foreground: $8/# organic whole brown mustard seed, $7.50/# organic whole grain yellow mustard seed background: brown sugar, trader joes unfiltered apple cider vinegar, cerveza, Walmart brand 100% pure honey 

Step One: Combine mustard seeds, vinegar, and beer. I ended up using a New Belgium Side Trip Belgian style pale ale that I started last night an had sitting in my fridge. 

Step Two: Wait... A minimum of 8 hours (aka overnight) but up to 2 days.

Waiting... (Covered with plastic cling wrap and stored in a cool cellar.) (So far, this does not look like mustard.)

Overnight Update:

Step Three: Add your salt, brown sugar, and honey.

Step Four: grind it with some sort of blender or food processor to your desired consistency. You probably want to keep some whole seeds in there.

Step Five: Wait some more. Return your mustard to a cool place and let it sit.

More to come...

$2/lb protein and fiber source?

I came across a great deal at Trader Juan's. $1.99 for 16 oz (aka 1lb) of roasted sunflower seeds.

And nutritional info.

I think these will be good additions to things like my Tabbouleh salad and other kinds of "mix-up" dishes. Always delicious for a nice snack. $2/lb. Get out. Can't beat that price. Fiber too. I bought multiple bags.

Rabbit Holes

Productivity 101: A Primer to the Getting Things Done (GTD) Philosophy


Productivity 101: A Primer to The Pomodoro Technique


These are hyperlinks.

DIY Mustard

Sawsheezle, here's that Mustard method from America's Test Kitchen's DIY Cookbook published on the web:
http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/do-it-yourself/2011/08/how-to-make-whole-grain-mustard/

Debut

Did you guys check out that sick lower left corner? That's a book.

Let's Hummus

I have been interested in making my own hummus for some time. I have also been making my own hummus for some time, but it always kind of sucks. There aren't many ingredients: chickpeas, tahini (ground sesame seeds), lemon juice, olive oil, and perhaps garlic and cumin for seasoning. How do I keep getting it wrong? Well, I don't know and this has caused a lot of sleepless nights at Chez Saw. I think the balance of all of these ingredients is what's key as well as their freshness. Apparently, we may not even have the right chickpeas available to us in the USA. Boo. Decent tahini at a decent price may also be out of reach. We've got lemons, garlic, and cumin coming out of our rear ends though. Anyway, I wanted to write this up officially so as to document the process and some of the things I have learned along the way.

1st thing I learned: follow a recipe from an Israeli chef laid out in detail via npr.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/06/446249184/for-israeli-born-chef-hummus-and-tehina-are-a-bridge-to-home

The night before you'll want to take some dry chickpeas and soak them in a bowl. Yes. This is complicated so pay attention.

Make sure to rinse the chickpeas before you finally let them soak. This will remove any industrial gunk and dirt remaining on these beans.

When you awake the next day, the chickpeas will have properly soaked and grown in size!

It's time to cook these bad boys. Put them in a shallow pan and fill with *NEW* water (the soaking water should be removed as it contains gas-inducing chemicals). And you'll want to add about a tablespoon of baking soda to the pot.

Dissolve the baking soda in water first before adding it to more water. Use a whisk (french style shown below). Don't fret if this is too complicated.

Begin to boil. You'll notice foam will develop on top. We want to remove this.

Use a small fine mesh strainer to quickly scoop it out.

This is where it gets tricky. You want to cook it enough for the husks to breakdown, but not too much as they become too mushy. About 15-20 mins is about right. Then remove from water (keep cooking water) and let chickpeas cool. They'll look like this.

Ice them down for faster chilling.

Then go through the arduous task of removing the husk from as many chickpeas as you can before you ultimately give up. Removing the husks is crucial in getting that ultra smooth texture.

This is what the mess look like after peeling and more cooking. It's a mess. You want to heavily drain these chickpeas so your hummus doesn't get watered down.

Ok. I forgot to take pictures of making the tahina sauce, but I followed the directions from the above recipe. At this point, with the tahina sauce made and the mostly-peeled chickpeas, the mixture becomes super-easy to blend, but I did not use my ninja blender. I don't think it does as good of a job as the food processor.

Now for something different.Take some rosemary and black pepper and some olive oil. Add them to a large bowl.

In the bowl add a bunch of pita wedges. Toss the pita wedges in the rosemary, pepper, oil mixture and then arrange on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes at 375 F.

With your homemade pita chips and hummus, serve with chopped up cucumber and tomato, parsley, and add paprika and oilve oil. Pine nuts are expensive as sin ($16/lb) but are a wonderful treat to give you that next level fun time.

tWhat's the verdict? In some ways, this is the best hummus I have ever made, however, while the consistency of this hummus is good, the flavor is too bland. The chef said Greek style uses tons more garlic and lemon and I think that is exactly what is missing. I'll have to try again soon.

So, you want to build an AR-15?

Been awhile since I’ve posted anything (although my cooking adventures continue) but I’m back with something that’s hopefully interesting to all! Today, we’re going to be going over the process of building an AR-15 pistol. One of the reasons for the massive popularity of this weapon is its customizable and modular nature. You can build basically any configuration you like, in nearly any caliber you like. The AR-15 platform is a superb base for anything from small pistols to long range precision rifles. Its almost like LEGOs for grown-ups; the only limits to what you can build are your imagination (and the laws in your jurisdiction of course). Assembly is almost as simple; once you’ve sourced the parts you can put it all together in less time than an IKEA coffee table.

Today we’ll be building an AR-15 pistol, chambered in .223 (in) / 5.56 (mm). Why a pistol you ask? Well that’s an interesting bit of legalese. Rifles with a barrel length of less than 16” are specially regulated by the ATF and fall into a separate classification known as “short barreled rifles” They are still legal to own in most states, but require additional paperwork and the acquisition of a $200 tax stamp from the ATF. Yes, it’s actually a physical stamp like you’d put on an envelope (albeit an expensive one)! However, if you do not put a traditional stock or vertical foregrip on the weapon, it is classified not as a rifle (and thus not a short barreled rifle) but a pistol instead. As a pistol, it’s regulated exactly the same as any traditional pistol is. As this will be my third build and I already have a couple of traditional carbine-length AR-15s; I want to switch it up with something novel. For this reason, I’ll be using a super-short 7.5” barrel, and making a pistol. Lets get started! 

 

The first part we need is called a lower receiver. You can think of this as the backbone of the gun. Everything else will attach to it. This is also the part of the gun that is serialized and legally considered a firearm. All the rest of the parts can be shipped directly to you – but this will need to be sent from the retailer to a local federally licensed dealer. There you will fill out your paperwork, get your background check, and undergo your three-day waiting period. Upon the completion of those things, you can return and pick it up! 

The first thing we’re going to do is attach the magazine release. This is the spring-loaded button that holds the magazine in position. Pressing it releases the magazine from the receiver. You can see how that works below. 

 

The next thing we’ll be installing is the bolt catch. This holds the bolt open after the last round has been fired and the magazine is empty. Depressing it releases the bolt and chambers the next round from the new magazine. 

 

Next, we’re going to install the pivot pin. This is used to attach the upper receiver to the lower receiver and allows for easy takedown of the gun for cleaning and maintenance. You’ll see this in operation a bit later. 

 

Next come the trigger and the hammer. These drop into the lower receiver and are held in place by two more pins. The trigger releases the hammer, which interfaces with the bolt and causes the weapon to fire. 

 

The next component we’ll install is the recoil system. This consists of the buffer tube, the buffer, which is just a weight, a spring, and some more pins. This works (along with the bolt carrier group) similarly to the slide on a pistol – moving backwards with the recoil of a shot and then chambering the next round when it returns to its natural position.

  

At this point, it’s beginning to resemble a firearm. You can see the buffer tube attached to the back, the trigger inside the trigger guard, the bolt catch protruding from the top, and the pivot pin at the very front of the receiver.

 

The final major component of the lower receiver is the selector switch or safety. The switch is inserted through the side of the receiver and is actually held under tension by a small spring and pin that are inserted into the bottom of the receiver. The spring and pin are in turn held in place by the attachment of the grip. 

At this point we’ll also attach our buffer tube cover. Traditionally, this is where you’d mount your stock but, since we’re building a pistol, we won’t have a stock. Instead, we’re going to use a cheek rest. This allows you to get an additional point of contact on the firearm and a consistent sight picture by establishing a cheek weld. It legally does not however, constitute a stock as long as you do not shoulder it. 

 

We now move on to the upper receiver. Attaching the gas tube, hand guard, and barrel to the upper receiver require tools that I do not have at home, so I had it done in the shop. Apologies for skipping ahead. With that done, we insert the bolt carrier group and the charging handle into the upper. The charging handle is used to chamber a round and the bolt carrier group contains the bolt and firing pin that will actually strike the round.

 

We’re almost done! The upper receiver attaches to the lower receiver via that front pivot pin we installed earlier. It swings down into place and a second pin in the back holds it secure.

With that complete, the only thing left to do is install our optic. I’ve put a red dot sight on this pistol. The top rail is an industry standard for mounting accessories and optics, so the whole thing is basically plug-and-play. Usually, you would also attach iron sights as a backup, in case your optic breaks or runs out of batteries, but this gun is destined to be only a toy for the range and not a practical weapon of any sort.

 

And there we have it – a 7.5” AR-15 pistol. The entire assembly process takes about an hour. Not too bad. At this barrel length, its not a particularly practical weapon. It's short enough to rob the 5.56 round of much of its velocity, and the full powder charge of each round does not burn inside the barrel. You end up with an underpowered round and a giant muzzle flash, which doesn’t make for a particularly useful firearm, but it does make for a fun day at the range! Here it is next to one of its full-sized friends for scale:

 

Obviously there is a ton of political debate swirling around this sort of thing, but I’ve tried to side-step it all and just focus on the build process itself. Hope you found it enjoyable! If anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer them!

Pass the Parsnip Chips

End result:

These taste good, but only the very thin ones have the crispy snappiness of a potato chip. Could probably use more salt too. All in all a good first attempt. I'm definitely try this again with more vegetables, I'll just slice them thinner in the future.

Obviously this takes a day to prepare, but really slicing the veggies and laying them took maybe ten minutes or so. The parsnips cost $1.20 for the two. Health wise, these are definitely a better snack choice.

Vegetable Chip Experiment

WYou ever see those "healthier for you" veggie chips at the store? Sometimes you can find what look like straight up dehydrated and salted green beans or broccoli. Other times it's fried taro roots or sweet potatoes. I got to thinking, maybe this is something I could replicate with my dehydrator at home?

I grabbed two parsnips from the store. Then I ran them through the Mandolin slicer. I used the thickest setting.

Then I tossed the raw chips in a bowl with some olive oil and sea salt. Finally, I laid them out on the dehydrator and set the temperature to 135 degrees.  

Will this experiment end in success or failure? Stay tuned to find out.