Simple Red-Peppered Steak Recipe

I had  T-bone steak that was on sale at Hannaford. I had to cook it. I had misplaced my black peppercorns. I was used to cooking steak using black-pepper but now I had to do without it. So I managed to cook a steak using dried red whole & crushed red pepper that ended up tasting 5-star-ish. I tried to avoid cooking the meat in oil or any kind of liquid, I was looking for that grilled type of taste.

Ingredients

T-bone Steak

Hydrogen Peroxide

Tamarind concentrate

Peppercorn Sauce

Garlic

Mushrooms

Dried Whole Red Pepper

Garlic

Sea-Salt

Equipment

Cast-Iron Griddle

Method

Heat Iron Griddle close to as hot as possible. 

Rub Food-Grade 3% Hydrogen Peroxide on one side of steak. Rub Tamarind concentrate paste & Peppercorn Sauce into both sides of steak. 

Add Whole Dried Red Peppers, Sea-salt, Crushed Dried Red Pepper to Griddle. Add mushrooms, cook in Griddle. Add Ale & spread throughout Griddle. Let ale evaporate via cooking. 

After steak has marinated approx 30 minutes, add steak, pieces of garlic. Cook for 5 minutes on one side without moving steak. Turn steak over. Pile mushrooms on top of steak. After 6.5 minutes of cooking time have elapsed, cover steak with lid of pot, lid should be a couple of inches deep vertically like a cylinder (the lid I had available barely fit the steak...need to buy pot with big lid). Leave lid over steak for 2 minutes. Remove lid. Continue to cook for 1.5 minutes. Transfer steak and mushrooms to cool plate. Wait 5 minutes before eating steak.

Result

The result was an excellent-tasting steak that provided a change of pace in terms of flavor and ingredients. The meat, a fairly thin-cut, was cooked to about medium no pink was visible, despite this it and the mushrooms were very tasty. The sauce left naturally on the plate (no special cooking done to make the sauce), provided a tasty sauce for a piece of white bread (the bread was toasted directly over the oven's gas flame for a little while). The whole project was simple and required little time in the kitchen. 

Mistakes(?)

The ale was used because I knew that crushed dried red pepper when burned or overcooked is more of a problem compared to black pepper. However the crushed dried red pepper ended up being overcooked and burned anyway. So perhaps I should have used only whole dried red pepper and not crushed dried red pepper.

Perhaps, I should carefully manage the dried whole red-pepper moving it in and out of the griddle to avoid burning it too much. Perhaps the ale should not be completely evaporated before the steak is added, or removed from the pan and saved for later use before the steak is added. Perhaps, the steak should have been cooked for less time so that it would be partially pink. Perhaps vegetables should have been added with the mushrooms such onions, undried peppers. Perhaps the garlic should have been added at the beginning when the mushrooms were cooked. Perhaps crushed dried red-pepper should continue to be used but added later in the cooking process.

Operating the Williams-Sonoma Infrared Thermometer

.Williams-Sonoma Infrared Thermometer | Williams-Sonoma

The Williams-Sonoma Infrared Thermometer (WSIT) reveals the temperature in a radius around the point where the laser-beam hits the target. Here are my notes for using the WSIT (always felt I would have been superior writing user-documentation).

1. The WSIT is shaped like a pistol. It should never be pointed at anyone's eyes & should be kept away from children as permanent eye-damage may result, if the eye is struck by the laser-beam emitted by the WSIT (Don't understand why WSIT does not come with a lense-cover).

2. Given the absence of a lense-cover, it is important to remember: the lense should be cleaned only with a paper-towel or cloth, & water or medical-alcohol.

3. Pulling the 'trigger' turns the pistol-like WSIT on and lights up the LCD display facing the user; then the WSIT automatically goes off after 15 seconds. It takes 0.5 seconds of depressing the trigger, to get an accurate reading.

4. Above the handle of the WSIT, facing the user, is the C/F button (toggle between Centigrade & Fahrenheit).

5. To the right of the  C/F button is the Laser on/off button (toggle between having the laser operative or inoperative; works when pulling the 'trigger' has turned the laser on for 15 seconds). The symbol for this button is a triangle with an asterisk in its middle.

6. Distance to spot ratio for the laser = 6:1. Meaning that, at 6" distance from where the projected laser-beam hits the target, a 1" diameter spot is measured, the laser light-point being the center of this spot; at 12", a 2" diameter spot is measured; at 6' a 1' diameter area is measured; at 30' a 5' diameter area is measured.

Notes:

Availability of this product indicates the powers that be desire that super-cooks arise by way of using such tools, and opine that this consideration outweighs the danger that a few imbeciles get blinded due to the misuse of such tools. Compare that to, all the hand-wringing re how sometimes Cannabis etc. harms someone.

From Word Counter re this post:

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38 (12%)the10 (3%)is8 (2%)wsit8 (2%)laser8 (2%)of6 (2%)to6 (2%)that5 (2%)at4 (1%)for4 (1%)be

Seems the keyword density should be repeated, after most of the above words are removed from the text. Surprising that a sophisticate like Wordcounter.net, would count words like the, is, of, to, that, at, for, & be as 'keywords'.

Anatomical Determinants of Breast Shape

Being confused by the gravity defying shape certain female breasts have by nature, I resolved to discover what factors produce the said gravity-defying shape. I knew that if breasts were composed of fat alone, they would not be able to defy gravity, by for example, protruding parallel to the ground for long distances.

My research discoveries: 

Breasts are shaped by a combination of: fat, fat-placement (seems the sources claiming this don't understand what they mean by fat-placement), glandular tissue, skin, & ligaments.

The fat level in breast is effected by the fat level of the body. The size of the glandular tissue is effected by hormones, pregnancy, age and menopause. The glandular tissue is heavier than fat, and retains shape contrary to gravity  unlike fat. The skin varies in terms of its elasticity. The ligaments in a breast are not equal to each other in tensile strength. The strength of the ligaments varies depending upon the individual or the phase of life in given individual.

Some breasts are "dense", a high percentage of their volume is composed of glandular lobes & ligaments. Other breasts are "low density" breasts, a high percentage of their content is fat. X-rays show that breasts vary from around 10-90% fat. The extent to which a breast is composed of fat/glandular-tissue/ligaments varies and so therefore, the extent to which any of these elements is responsible for the shape of the breast varies also.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find information re the volume, mass, shape, percent of total breast volume taken up by the glandular lobes in the breast.

Astley Cooper in 1840 discovered ligament-like structures called "Cooper's Ligaments",  which run from the chest-wall into the breast. There is continuing controversy re whether the condition of these "Cooper's Ligaments" effects the shape of the breast. A noted surgeon, "Dr Christine Haycock", since at least 1993, has been astonishing the breast-world (since 1840 Cooper's Ligaments have been also called 'suspensory ligaments') by proclaiming that women do not change their breast-shape by wearing bras because breast-sag has nothing to do with the condition of the "Cooper's Ligament" suspension-system.

However Haycock's opinion has been contradicted by MDs and others. Women have testified that what they perceive to be breast-ligament-like- structures have been stretched, are in pain, & are responsible for the sagging of their breasts.

In 1998 Austrian surgeon Dr Elizabeth Wurzinger found breast ligaments which formed the shape of the breasts, like a "hammock". These ligaments are not the same as those discovered by Cooper and named after Cooper since 1840. Wuringer and others such as Surgeon Petrus van Devanter of South Africa declare that these new, what I call "Wuringer Ligaments" have much more impact on the shape of the breasts compared to the "Cooper's ligaments".  The Wuringer ligaments hold the breast the way a bra made of wire alone, with circular hole for the nipple, would hold the breast.

Devanter now (year 2015) proclaims that using internal mesh that mimics the newly discovered ligaments, produces superior breast-lift results compared to the general current practice which he describes as still, simply removing skin to tighten the skin envelope, which, according to Devanter, fails because the new smaller skin envelope soon stretches.

Internet research I did was impaired due to writers (surgeons, MDs & others):  contradicting themselves on the same page; saying one thing on one website, the opposite on another website; the use of unqualified generalizations in statements, implying that certain facts are always true with all women, when in reality they are sometimes true with some women; terminological carelessness (i.e., ignoring that although "Ligamenta Suspensoria Mammaria" = Cooper's ligaments, there are breast ligaments that are not specifically "Cooper's ligaments"); brainless copying of text containing such errors.

Conclusion

I recommend that if women wish to maintain the attractiveness of their breasts, and give their breasts the appearance that they naturally have in their prime, they should resort to the wearing of bras that mimic the structure of the Wuringer & to a lesser extent the Cooper ligaments (it would be interesting to see how a Wurzinger bra would differ from a Cooper bra).  The longitudinal flexibility, axial flexibility, size, and shape of the wire or wire-like material used should resemble that of the actual ligaments in their prime.