Josh Babetski : Quixotic Bravado

Recent links posted to Delicious:

• Vlad the Deployer
• Simple scalable CSS based breadcrumbs | Veerle's blog
• Revisiting the randomized signature AppleScript, now with API goodness – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• Designing Social Interfaces – Social Patterns
• Skittles Vodka Tutorial | Mix That Drink
• Easter egg on Spell Number v1.03 that enable Emoji icon on non-jailbreak iPhone/iPhone Touch | Waterworld Easiest way to add Emoji keyboard on the iPhone.

Recent links posted to Delicious:

• kuler "Web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you're creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community."
• Sequel Pro — MySQL database management app for Mac OS X
• iConvert: Convert ico, icns, and png icons online for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
• Bacon Explosion: The BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes
• rentzsch's clicktoflash at master – GitHub ClickToFlash is a WebKit plug-in that prevents automatic loading of Adobe Flash content. If you want to see the content, you can opt-in by clicking on it or adding an entire site to its whitelist.

  Try control-clicking (or right-clicking) on a unloaded Flash box to access ClickToFlash's contextual menu which allow you to do advanced things like edit its whitelist.

So I only know how to make a handful of things. One of them is my pseudo-famous recipe for my pierogies, taco, beef, sausage, casserole concoction, better known as “Pieracos™.”

Every time I make it a tweak the recipe a bit. After cooking it up this weekend, I thought I’d post an updated version of the recipe for 2009. The original can still be found here: Polish Tex-Mex: Pieracos.

Ingredients:

Note: These are just the brands I use. Feel free to alter to suit your tastes and preferred brands.

• 1 package Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix
• 2 packages Mrs. T’s Potato and Cheddar Mini Pierogies. Don’t get no-name brand, it’s not the same.
• ~1lb 80/20 ground beef
• 1lb package Hillshire Farm Lite Smoked Sausage. Cut into slices and cut slices in half.
• 1lb bag of frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 24oz and 1 16oz jar of Chi-Chi’s Salsa (mild, medium, or hot). I usually get the large one in medium, the small one in mild.
• 1 bunch chopped green onions aka scallions
• ~3/4tbsp. chopped garlic
• ~1/2lb bag of Sargento Shredded Mild Cheddar Cheese and a ~1/2lb bag of Sargento Shredded Chipotle Cheddar Cheese
• Tabasco Sauce (optional)

Directions

• Prep pierogies
  1. Bring large pot if water to a boil
  2. Once boiling, add frozen pierogies and continue to boil for about 8 minutes (Basically, follow the directions on the box)
  3. Drain pierogies and put off to side
  4. Optional: Cut-up some or all of pierogies
• Prep ground beef, onions, garlic and sausage
  1. In a deep pan, brown ground beef, feel free to season with some pepper and other seasonings
  2. Once beef is almost browned, strain grease and return to stove
  3. Add chopped scallions and garlic; cook for about 5 more minutes
  4. Add 3/4-cup of water and taco seasoning; cook for 5 more minutes
  5. Remove ground beef from pan; replace with sliced-up sausage
  6. Add 1/4 cup of water and rest of taco seasoning to sausage
  7. Cook sausage until it just starts to turn brown
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Cheese and Salsa Prep (skip if only using one kind of cheese and/or salsa)
  1. Open both bags of cheese and empty into a large bowl
  2. Mix cheese around
  3. Open both jars of salsa and empty into a large bowl (not the same one as the cheese please)
  4. Mix Salsa
• In a about a 15”x11” casserole dish, add pierogies, ground beef (with garlic and onions), sausage, 2/3 of the cheese, frozen mixed veggies, and 3/4 of the salsa
• Shake in some Tabasco if you like it hot
• Mix around; take care to not mash the pierogies, but breaking them up is fine
• Pour rest of salsa on top
• Pour rest of cheese evenly on top of salsa
• Bake for about 40-45 minutes
• Eat!

If you like it, please let me know.

Note: For the vegetarians out there, replace the beef and sausage with chopped mushrooms and black olives. Put like a 1/4 pouch of the taco seasoning in before mixing with the rest of the ingredients as above.

Recent links for http://del.icio.us/quixado:

• Best Local Restaurants Guide, Reviews, and Reservations | Where The Locals Eat
• TUAW Tip: What to do when a disk goes bad – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• iPhone Buzz Kill- MacLife How to eliminate speaker-buzz made by your cell phone.

NOTE: I’ve been looking through the stats to see what people are still looking for that was on the previous version of the blog. I’ll try and report some of the more popular ones.

This one in particular is a good post because it yields a very nummy concoction. Soooo…, pulled out of the archives, here’s my recipe for: “Pieracos”. (Last posted: April 6, 2006)

Ingredients:

• 1 package Taco Seasoning
• 1-1/2 packages pierogies. Regular size works fine, but the Mrs. T’s mini-sized are better.
• 1lb ground beef
• 1lb sausage
• 1lb bag of frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 24oz and 1 16oz jar of Salsa (mild or hot)
• 1 can red kidney beans
• chopped green onions
• some chopped garlic
• 1 lb bag of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

• Bring large pot if water to a boil
• Once boiling, add frozen pierogies and continue to boil for about 8 minutes
• Drain pierogies
• In a deep pan, brown ground beef
• Once beef is browned, add 3/4-cup of water and taco seasoning and cook for 5 more minutes
• Remove ground beef; replace with sliced-up sausage and brown that
• Open kidney beans and drain (optional ingredient)
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• In a about a 15”x11” casserole dish, add pierogies, beef, sausage, 1/3 of the bag of cheese, mixed veggies, kidney beans, onions, and 1/2 of the salsa
• Mix around, try not to break the pierogies
• Pour rest of salsa on top
• Pour rest of cheese evenly on top of salsa
• Bake for about 40-45 minutes
• Eat!

Let me know how it turns out.

For the vegetarians out there, replace the beef and sausage with chopped mushrooms and black olives. Put like a 1/4 pouch of the taco seasoning in before mixing with the rest of the ingredients as above.