My husband just programmed our living room lights to turn on and off with his iPhone.
For a wedding present, our friend got him a Raspberry Pi. I got all kinds of excited thinking we were about to munch on some delicious desert, until much to my chagrin, I learned it’s a credit-card sized computer capable of doing all sorts of techy stuffs.
Kieran is a MacGyver of electronics. Most of the time he does cool shit with that knowledge, like make a Knight Rider costume with a functioning red LED light bar:
Or get out his Oculus Rift to try and program Virtual Reality video games:
Or improvise when he’s playing a 3D video game, when we don’t have 3D glasses:
But sometimes, he uses this knowledge for shenanigans. Once he secretly programmed my text messages to auto correct to “meow” every time I wrote “now”. I assumed since I joke around and type “meow” instead of “now” on occasion, my phone figured I was trying to actually write “meow”, so it changed it forever. A month went by and had enough. Frustrated, I complained , “Why in HELL does my phone keep changing the word “now” to “meow”!!??!! Kieran fell to the floor laughing and immediately I knew he was the culprit. I couldn’t help but laugh too. I believe I called him a “hilarious bastard”. Sigh, I’m always falling for his buffoonery.
Anyway, this Raspberry Pi dealy is really cool. Kieran told me you can hook them up to the electronics/light switches in your house, get them in-sync with a server, and program your electronics to turn on and off, from all over the world, with your iPhone.
Admittedly, I was turned on and scared by all of this. I’m turned on because I think Kieran is hot, and his level of smarts is sexy. On the other hand, I’ve seen enough Sci-fi movies to know technology can turn on you, and I don’t want my house to murder me in my sleep.
My sister-in-law joked that maybe Kieran was programming the pi to turn “ME” on. I laughed at the though of that:
Me: Not tonight honey, I’ve got a headache.
Kieran (pushes a button on his phone).
Me (not eve 5 seconds later): On second thought.
Anyway, if Kieran can use these antics to program our living room, here’s hoping he can turn our kitchen into a self sufficient, cooking machine.
In the meantime, I’ve got this! (pretty awesome segway into my recipe eh?)
So spinach…… I use to hate it as a kid. I don’t know if my mom severed frozen or canned spinach, but whatever it was, it tasted nasty. Of course, my taste buds were really immature when I was young, so she could have sauteed fresh spinach for all I know.
As an adult, my palate changed and I become a veggie lover. Sauteed spinach is one of my favorites now. It tastes fantastic sauteed with just salt and pepper, but I like to add ginger and garlic to jazz things up a bit. I’ve seen many recipes that do NOT call for onion, but I always seem to have left over onions chilling out in my fridge. I personally love onion, so I use it, but this tastes delicious without onion too.
This side dish is quick, easy, and healthy, and extremely delicious. It’s my go-to when I’m cooking some meat and want a healthy side dish to accompany it!
- 16 oz of organic baby spinach
- ½ or 1 vidalia onion, diced (depending on how much you like onion, white onion OK too)
- ½ tablespoon EVOO
- 2-3 garlic cloves, minced (depending on how much you like garlic)
- 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
- Rice wine vinegar, to taste
- Reduced sodium soy sauce, to taste
- Toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
- salt and pepper
- Heat EVOO over large nonstick skillet over medium high heat.
- Add onion, with a big pinch of salt and pepper, and saute until soft and translucent, approx 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Add garlic and ginger and cook until garlic becomes fragrant, approx 30 seconds, stirring frequently.
- Add spinach, by the handful, big bunches at a time. If you pan is too small to fit all the spinach, cook it so it wilts down, and you can add the rest. Every time you add spinach, add a small splash of soy sauce.
- Once all spinach is in the pan, add a small splash of rice wine vinegar (I do a cap full to start), and cook for another minute. Taste for seasonings and add additional soy sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper if needed!
- Garnish with a handful of toasted sesame seeds, serve up and enjoy!
I do not measure out the soy sauce or rice wine vinegar. I add small splashes of soy sauce as I'm adding the spinach, and add a small splash of vinegar once all the spinach is wilted down. Once everything is cooked, I tasted for seasonings, and add additional soy sauce, vinegar, salt, and pepper if needed.
Spinach has a lot of water in it, so you may see a lot of liquid in the pan. I usually serve the spinach with a slotted spoon to drain some of the liquid. If I'm serving this with grilled chicken, I'll drain the liquid on top of the chicken for extra flavor!
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