Dinner Tonight w/Recibe as Well As a FUNNY Memory From back in The Day

Greetings Me Droogs N Droogettes!
Going to take a night off from the usual ranting and raving (well sort of). I mean I never fully stop ranting and raving, however, I’m burnt the fuck out. One thing for a ‘case in point’: Another skool shewtin’

As it sez, one DRT, 5 wounded.
Make it 6 as the shewter done capped hisself according to reports. Now… here’s where it gets interesting. I’m all about trying to figure out if Leviathan and the various (Un)Intelligence Organs have popped a ‘wind up toy’ to cover for whatever nefarious bullshit that’s going on out there.

The latest ‘new shiney’ for all the sheepole and ree-rees out there to focus on: “Gunz BAD! Repugnicunts BAD! NRA BAD! OrangeManBad BAD!”

You catch my drift.

Thing is, the perp?
Dylan Butler, 17.

Annnnnnnnnnd he’s a tranny.

Link HERE
MEMORY HOLE….ACTIVATED!!!

Curious to see if that makes it into the discussion.
Highly doubt it.

So, on lighter things, made my famous (round here at least) Tater, ham and cheddar soup. Getting cold, so a good stick-to-the-ribz soup for dinner is juuust what the Professor ordered. Recibe as follows:
1 Bag of Russet Taters
4 Celery Sticks (sliced)
4 Baby Carrots (sliced)
1/2 Large Vidalia Onion (diced)
1 Stick of Salted Butter
Black Pepper (to taste)
Aleppo Pepper (to taste)
Garlic Powder (to taste)
Water (to thin the mix) as needed
Shredded Cheddar Cheese (to garnish)

Now, the cookin’ instructions:
First thing, get a bag of russet taters. Dice ’em. Put ’em in a big ole pot.

Got me a bag of Publix russet… think it was like 2-3 pounds? Whatever the standard size is when you buy a bag of them. Hacky-Hacky-Choppy-Choppy and into the pot. Once in there, cover them til there’s about 3 inches of water over the taters. Set the stove to ‘high’ and then add just enough salt-to-flavor. This’s going to be pretty much the only salt you add to this, as the ham has enough, and as I lern’t by doing this recibe (yeah, this’s my own creation) that too much salt makes it inedible.

Now, once the taters are set to boiling, (I set the timer for 30 minutes and check with a fork… they have to be soft all the way thru,. but NOT falling the fuck apart FYI) I then start choppy-hacky on the next prep cycle of the vegetables.

Now, how much you add is up to you. For this batch, I used 4 celery stalks, and 4 mini-carrots cut –thinly– into rounds. I also, b/c I was pressed for time, cut the celery thin-thin too, as the thinner, the quicker they’ll cook to softness.

Now I use a trad Japanese Nakiri knife… I like the fact the veggies stick via capillary action, which allows me to scrape the pieces-parts off the blade into the bowl. Also, the pic above shows the two x 12 oz packs of diced ham. YMMV, use whatever ham you want, but about a pound and a half is best.

Then I diced up the onion. In this case 1/2 of a LARGE Vidalia:

Again, much easier to let the onion ‘stick’ to the blade to dismount it:

Now
By the time I got done veg-prepping, The taters were done. Strain out and RINSE them in the strainer. Put ’em back into the pot (I also suggest rinsing the pot too). Rinsing is to get rid of the extra starch, which you may or may NOT want, again, YMMV.

Now, here’s the next stage.
CRITICAL STAGE
This’s when you add the spices, blend the taters, add the heavy cream, and the butter, the butter in particular as the taters will still be hot, and the immersion blender or whatever YOU have will get it mixed faster as the butter melts from the heat of the taters.

Once the taters are in the pot and liquified with the butter and heavy cream, add the water as needed to make the thickness to your liking. Watch how much you add as you go… this batch took about a little over 3/4 of a cup. I added it a 1/4 cup at a time… YMMV again may vary. Then, add the spices. The Black Pepper, Aleppo Pepper and Garlic Powder are ALL to your taste.

Me? I go heavy (2-3 tablespoons) on the Garlic, 1 tablespon or more on the Black Pepper, and a tablespoon and a half on the Aleppo Pepper.

Now, for those not familiar.
Aleppo Pepper is a pepper from the Middle East (naturally) and I lern’t to cook some damned good Middle Eastern food while I was there, and lern’t a lot about local ingredients. Aleppo pepper is actually Halaby pepper, which became a staple in the ancient markets of the old city of Aleppo Syria, which is where the spice gets its name (Halab is the Arabic word for Aleppo).

That’s the one I use.
A dab’ll do ya, so the $12 for the small bottle isn’t too bad.
Thing about Aleppo pepper is the flavor it has? Maaaaan…

Heavenly IMO.
It’s all the ‘pepper’ flavor, rich and complex, but without the throat burning OMFG heat. Reason that is is because of the way they dry them… long of the shot is despite that the Halaby pepper is technically hotter than jalapeño peppers, with a Scoville heat unit of 10,000, it’s mostly a mellow flavor enhancer.

HIGHLY recommend.

Anyways, once all the spices are in, and the flavor of the ‘base’ is to your liking (I do the add a bit, taste a bit, wash rinse repeat as you can’t remove spices once you added them) then add the veggies, as well as the ham:

Fold everything in, set the stove to med-low for 10 minutes, and keep stirring as because it’s heavy cream and taters, the bottom of the pot will burn unless you keep up on the stirring. Once it’s ‘good’, turn the heat down to ‘simmer/low’ for about 20 minutes…

After that, pull it and serve. Best way to tell if it’s done is get a piece of the carrot and celery and see if it’s nice n’ soft as opposed to crunchy, (unless that’s how you roll). Then, I add shredded mild cheddar on top to garnish.

Give it a shot, let me know what you think.

Otherwise, since we mentioned the troon earlier, I figured I relate a story from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day during my post-Gulf One Reserve service. This’s hopefully a short one, but either way… Nmaes changed to protect the stupid and/or guilty.

After Gulf One, and being highly unsatisfied with my time in the desert (to paraphrase Sam Kinnison: “It’s a fucking desert!!!! Nothing grows here!!!! Nothings gonna grow here!!!! Pack your shit, we’ll make one trip!!!!” I went back to college… (what a mistake!)

Found I had been inexorably -changed- by my time in service. I still had a rather significant reserve commitment (thank God as it allowed me to be among “My People” i.e. Infantry) and I was doing the one weekend a month plus. The supply Sergeant and the First Sergeant fucking loved me and my best bro of the time (a guy I went thru basic with, a week apart but we were joined at the hip alllll the way until I got out of the Army, and he went ‘strange’) as we volunteered for ALL the extra time/duty we could get.

Clean out connexes during ‘off weeks’? Fuck yeah.
Do a supply run with Supply Sgt Bloomington in a ton to get shit for the unit? Fuck yeah.
Help Motor Sgt Sirloin-of-Beef (nickname) in the motor hole fixing our trucks? Again, Fuck yeah. These guys were all the “Full; Time Active Reservists” that kept the unit operational. There wasn’t any openings, as the 1st Sgt had the Operations down pat, and Master Sgt Zennenmann assisted with all the rest of the shit.

A side note: MSgt Zenny as we called him? Cool AF.
Dude was in his, I think, late 50s, maybe early 60s. Now mind you, this was 1992… he was American and a ‘Murican can be, but ethnic German too. No accent however, he was proud AF of his Dads service to Der Fuhrer. Seems Dear Old Dad was an undiscovered member of the SS who managed to make it to the US.

Zenny used to regularly wear a pair of M40 German Feldgrau pants, suspenders and everything, that were tucked into a pair of what looked like a pair of legit jackboots. Told us lowly privates that he “…was keeping up a family tradition!”

Gotta say, he was a cool old dude.

Anyways… back to the point of the story…
The reserve unit was located veeeery close to the Cabaret strip club… a shady AF facility to say the least. Thing was, it was spitting distance for ‘home drills’ which were drills we spent staying at the reserve base, or leastways going home at night, and making it RTB on time in the AM, but as it was, it was usually more fun and easier to crash at the base after a night of serious Infantry Level Debauchery.

The base itself was an old Nike-Hercules Nuke Missile Interceptor base. No shit. Link HERE for the story. That was where I did my drills until the unit got close to disbanding back around 93? Thing about the base was the buildings were literally nuke proof. Like 3 foot thick, steel reinforced fucking bunkers man.

Kinda cool IMO

Anyways, so we went out to the Cabaret… it’s pretty well known as a skankasaurous kind of titty bar… but full spread eagle crotch shots being legal and whatnot. Now, it was Myself (PFC), our Platoon Sgt., Big Franko, the Section Leader Sgt. Wally, my Squad Leader Sgt. Booker, and a couple other Privates, my best fren Dee, and a guy named Gillette (like the razor). Like figure 9-12 guys (I was pretty stoned at the time, as Dee and I blazed up in my car on the way there to say the $$$ on the drinks).

So…. we get there, we’re in uniform, against every. single. regulation. that -I- can think of, but hey, fuck it, I’m a PFC, and I got an E-7 buying rounds of Tequila.

Good Times, Good Times.

Now, whilst the shenanigans were going full bore, as every slore in the place was ALL about the Infantry, (much to the hatred of the other patrons) SP4 Gillette struck up a conversation with a ‘chick’ working the club… call it a rather unexpected person.

Namely it was a tranny.

Now, granted, this one was pretty fucking well on his? her? its? way to full conversion, but maaan, the Adams apple gave it away. Truth be told, I was stoned as fuck, and didn’t realize that G had a thing going with what appeared to be a broad, but was a dude. -I- thought it was a chick, but, like I said, stoned AF on some primo Columbian herbals.

So, once I was ‘in’ on the joke…I sort of left it alone. Call it a case of “Nunya”… Gillette was a deep Southern Borne and Raised guy, who’d only come waaay up to the ungodly and degenerate Northeast (Boston) for work… he got transferred when they shuttered his workplace in Alabama? Arkansas? something like that, and they let him transfer to the North. He was a former AD kid like me, and now was a reservist, and as our unit was closest to his house, he joined our unit.

So, as the late afternoon transitioned (heh) into early evening, Sgt. Wally looked around, and realized Gillette was AWOL. No biggie, but now word was passed to keep an eye open for him, and if he wasn’t back shortly, then we’d go on a search. That suited everyone, up until Haskel, another PV2 in our crew came over and said he saw “… Gillette going out to his car with the fuckin’ fag…” or word to that effect.

We waited, although we weren’t too concerned as Gillette was a grown assed man, and IF shit hit the fan, well, we were in uniform, and DotMil usually catch a break from the local Po-Po and Swine, be it State Level or ‘other’.

About 45 minutes after Gillette left, he sauntered back in, with what could only be called a look of ‘satisfaction’ on his face. Sgt. Franko, our Platoon Sergeant rolled over to him and asked him “Where the fuck you been asshole? You had us worried!!”

To whit Gillette replied in this reeeeally hardcore half-plastered south’ron voice “Welllll Sarrrrgent, I done went and got me a skull job from that there female I’da been talkin’ to!”

Man, you could have heard a fairy fart.

We all had this look of absolute incredulity on our faces…
How the fuck does shit like this happen Aye?

Well, leave it to Sgt. Wally, who happened to be an absolute asshole, not in a bad way mind you, but like one of those guys who’s head is terminally stuck in “smartass/dick mode”… well he breaks the news to Gillette:

<stated in an East Bawston/Hardcore Northeastern Accent>
“Gillette… you know something?… that broad… the one you went to the car with? That was a fucking dude man!!!! That was a fucking tranny troop! Just what in the fuck do you have to say for yourself!?!”

Gillette sat back…
Grabbed his beer… (Bud Longneck)
Quaffed his thirst… took about 30 loooong seconds for those of us who were eagerly awaiting his answer never mind reaction to this what I’d consider a catastrophic revelation…

Looked at ALL of us, and I shit you fucking not said:
“Welp, she or he sure did give good head.”

Damn.
Talk about a phlegmatic and philosophical outlook

Anyone else would have gone pure dee batshit…
But, looking at the clock, between ALLLLLLLL the shit I was doing tonight, I ran over my ‘before midnight’ poasting. Apologies for that.

More Later
Big Country