cooking corner with chef sumedh

Welcome back to another exciting meal with Chef Sumedh. Today we'll be making Vegeterian Sausage Fettuccini. Mmmm doesn't that sound heavenly ? Oh yes it does!

So the ingredients you'll want to have ready are:

• 7 Morningstar Breakfast Sausage patties
  
• 1 green bellpepper
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 lb of mozarella cheese
• 1 lb of fettuccine pasta
• 2 small cans of french green beans
• garlic salt
• peanut oil (i'm sure olive will work just fine)
• Mushroom & Bellpepper Pasta Sauce (regular tomato pasta sauce will be alright)

Got your ingredients and ready to cook? Fuckin Awesome!

LET'S COOK!

1. Gather your ingredients. (simple enough)
2. Get that pasta cooking! Fill your pot or wok with water but leave about 3 inches remaining.
3. Put your wok of water on the stove on HIGH heat. Keep an eye on it to see when it starts to boil!
4. Let's start to defrost that sausage. Put your 7 sausages in a bowl or plate and microwave it for about 2 minutes.
5. Your water should be boiling by now or at least strongly bubbling. Throw all your pasta in and let it loosen up in the water so all of the pasta will be immersed. Keep on mixing the pasta every 2 minutes.
   
6. While waiting, start to cut your bellpeppers. Take out the seeds and cut them lengthwise into strips. Then break the strips into half the size.
7. Ding! Sausages are done. Since they're defrosted you can now start to rip them into little pieces that are about 1x1 inch. Doesn't need to be exact.
8. Now you can throw all these sausage pieces onto a pan greased with a couple swigs of peanut oil.
9. Mix the sausages around and let them cook real nice.
10. Time to check on that pasta. Take a taste of one those fettuccine pieces and check out that texture. Be sure to chew completely into it to see if its an even texture.
    
11. If the pasta is to your liking, turn off the stove and carefully drain the water into the sink. Then rewash the pasta in hot water and strain about 95% of the water.
12. Now put your pasta into another container and make sure to cover it. This way it won't dry out.
13. So your sausages are also done so turn the stove off and leave those aside.
14. Cut up your onions into pieces slightly smaller than your sausage.
15. Take your onions and bellpeppers and throw them onto a pan with some peanut oil.
16. This should start to smell pretty good. Throw in a dash of garlic salt to let those bellpeppers get the onion and the garlic flavors.
17. Once the onions get transparent or start to turn a little brown, the mixture is about done. You can add your sausage to this mix and let all those cook for about 3 min. This time feel free to add more garlic salt. Make sure the sausage doesn't stick to the bottom of your pan.
    
18. Now open your can of french green beans and strain half the liquid. Now throw your beans and pasta sauce into a pot. Make sure the heat is on HIGH until it starts to boil. Then lower the heat to just a simmer.
19. Take your pasta thats just sitting around and throw it into a pot and then add the sauce-beans mixture. Keep on mixing it till the sauce is pretty even through the pasta.
    
20. Now add a good share of mozarella while mixing it. You'll know the cheese is melted when it starts to get stringy.
    
21. This is the best time to add your sausage-onion-bellpepper mix and keep on mixing all that on the stove.
    
22. Garnish with more mozarella and perhaps some basil if you'd like.

Eat with some garlic bread and perhaps some red wine. Garlic bread might be excessive if you put a lot of garlic salt and/or pasta (its really filling!).

Serves about 3?

Who would have thought vegeterian meat could be used in an actual Italian dish?!? All I can say is that this is a pretty healthy meal and fun to make. I would definitely like to try some other vegeterian meats and see how those go with other exotic dishes.

Till next time

innate sexual demons?

I suppose this post is going to be somewhat explicit in nature but trying to tackle some major issues (ethical, political, social, etc.)

If you've been watching the news recently, child pornography is becoming a growing concern as seen by the addresses to Congress and the plight of parents across the country.

First I think its important to understand who the good and bad guys are. On the surface, the good guys are the government and the law enforcement while the bad guys are these pedophiles. The government and the law enforcement are the good guys since they prevent these bad pedophiles from molesting or taking explicit pictures of innocent minors.

So what's the problem? We know who the bad guys are so there shouldn't be any hurdles in going after them right? I really don't think its that simple.

Let's try and understand what society considers indecent in terms of sexuality. That's pretty easy just go and look at a pornographic website.

Exhibitionism: Sex in public. (Public should not be forced nor be exposed to sex in everyday life, especially kids.)

Incest: Sex with family members. (Considered dirty and savage by most. Also results in genetic complications and a reduction of the gene pool.)

Child Pornography: Sex with minors. (Minors don't have the ability to make decisions and should not be taken advantage of until they're "ready" to defend themselves and let alone by sexually mature.)

Homosexuality: Sex with members of the same sex. gay/lesbian (Only recently accepted by society but still looked down upon since it also seems un-Christian or at least un-Catholic.)

So I've started to think about what makes homosexuality right and pedophilism wrong. No I'm not super conservative and completely homophobic nor am I a pedophile or a pedophile supporter but there are some similarities and differences that are worth noting.

I sincerely believe both homosexuality and pedophilism result from strong sexual urges, urges so strong that they cannot be suppressed but rather need to be satisfied. I feel both these urges are just as natural as the other and both are looked down upon just the same. Homosexuality is okay since it usually involved partners, people who are peers and mutually make the decision to engage in sex. Pedophilism is not okay since it involves an adult and a minor. The adult can (legally) make decisions whereas the minor cannot. Since the minor cannot make decisions nor can he/she prevent these sexual actions being taken upon him/her this constitutes rape or molestation. If pictures or video is taken, it constitutes child pornograpy.

I hate to say it but the pedophiles are in a really bad situation since their (sexual) needs are not met by society. Its unfortunate that what they want, they cannot have. Its almost not fair to them to have the natural urge to want something that society deems illegal.

To those who believe homosexuality is okay and pedophilism is not, you need to see which of these two "conditions," one would consider a "disease" or a natural God-sent/natural sexual urge. If you think you can "cure" a pedophile, guess again. Most pedophiles are pedophiles for life.

If humans didn't nurture and take care of their kids till adulthood (at least 16-18), this probably would not be an issue since children would be independent as soon as they were sexually mature. But ass long as a parent is accountable and responsible for their child, the parent would not want any adult to take advantage of their child and end up scarring them for life.

This is still a tough issue that I do not believe is easy as black and white. Definitely leave comments so this entire issue can be brought to the forefront.