For Comparison

Regarding that last.  Tonight I bothered to grab the SRL when making chili just to see the difference.  Then I remembered, Oh yeah, I friggin' love this camera.  Chili's more about the aroma (and taste, obviously) than its look particularily - at least to me - so.  Case made.

 Zucchini, broccoli, green olives, yellow, orange and red peppers, chopped tomato, red onion, mushrooms, TVP (textured vegetable protein) and my sauce of Prego, pesto, basil, oregano and red pepper flakes.

 About a teaspoon of olive oil and got the onions going till they turn translucent.

 Prepped the lean ground beef the night before with a smoked paprika & chili rub, bay leaves and chopped garlic cloves.  There was no way this picture was going to not look weird.

 The traditional adding and cooking of meat.  Wherein we turn brown from pink.

 Final addition of beans, veggies, sauce, water and any additional flavours to taste.  See, this is why I love TVP, it blends in seamlessly with the ground beef making it seem like I have almost twice as much dead animal.

 Then I let it sit for at least 30, allowing the chili to thicken as I like.  (I used the time to sneak in another Insanity workout, Fast & Furious - so I could really earn that chili - while trying not to kill my joints.)

This is another super healthy meal with the same problem as wrap night: I've never seen anyone stop eating it after getting full. Seriously, unless I make a point of putting it away it'll be gone before bed.  Serves at least 10 people within reason, or 2 - 3 people without reason.

So to sum,
Canon T2i: All the points
HTC Desire:  Negative points

For fairness it should be noted that in the category of making phone calls and texts though, the scores are reversed. 

Oh, and here's the Chili's scorecard for those curious:
Serving size: approx. 1.5 C
Calories: 380
Total Fat: 6.3 g
    Saturated: 1.8 g
Cholesterol: 50 mg
Sodium: 68 mg
Total Carbs: 34.4 g
Dietary Fibre: 9.9 g
Sugars: 4.9 g
Protein: 50.3 g
Vitamin A: 39 %
Vitamin C: 125%
Calcium: 14%
Iron: 53%

Off-Book

Apparently there's a reasonable danger of this blog just turning into "Things I Consume".  That said, adventures in bark!

The only thing fat-free about this is the pictures.  So lucky you!  Now originally it was supposed to be two layered and macadamia nuts but being me, well when do I not go off recipe? "You can't tell me what to do, instructions!  You're not my mom!"  Though in my defence, this time it was an accident.  Partially.

No macadamia nuts, so I replaced them with almonds, hazelnuts, pecans  and the occasional walnut.  Then took a hammer to that shit.  Warning: this procedure may miss some nuts entirely while turning others to powder.  (Fine for taste, just depends on the texture you're after.)  I took a knife to some of the remaining whole ones to slit them in halves for managability.

So poured the first layer (Dark chocolate) and decided it would be better to mix half the nuts in so to capture them between layers (already off-book!) - as opposed to just on top.

Second layer was to be white chocolate but it turned out I didn't have enough... BUT I did have butterscotch chips!  Which are delicious in a way that works with all the flavours and also light coloured (this mattered because I planned on dying this layer red).  Unfortunately I did not consider that butterscotch chips have a different texture and aren't really....melty in the way I needed.  Adding eggnog helped make it a little more viscous but it wasn't spreadable enough.  Also, kind of hideous despite the dye and not melding with the first layer.

Solution!  Third layer of milk chocolate to seal it all in.  First laying down the rest of the nuts, then pouring that sucker on.  Of course now it's ridiculously thick, but whatever, that just means there's more delicious - and it'll take longer to set.

Upon freeing it from it's frozen prison after an hour or so I quickly learn this particular bark is now thick like family and does not want to split.  I can respect that, but now it is, quite literally, hammer time.

And hammer time.

How to Experience The O of Angels in Your Mouth

[Picture intensive entry.  All taken from my phone, so forgive that.]

Step 1:  The dough.  Here we have a chocolate chip-oatmeal texture going.  Gluten-free, proper butter.  Already delicious.  Do not consume before recipe is done or you'll have no cookies.

(I'm told this looks like vomit.  The similarities end there, I promise.)

Step 2:  Bacon.  Cut that sucker up, slices to chunks (more or less the size of the chocolate chips).

2a:  Fry it up so you don't end up poisoning yourself.

Step 3:  Mix the dough and bacon chunks together, then divide into cookie sizes on baking tray.

3a:  Taste for "quality control".

Step Hot: Put in oven for 12-ish minutes.  (Depending on preference of crisp-to-gooey.)

Step Important:  Ration out, add ice-cream.

Another Step:  Devour.  Savour.  Change underwear.  You're welcome.

They can be made as proper ice-cream sandwiches if one isn't lazy/impatient.  Unlike us.  Otherwise, the spirit (read: melty-orgasm-delicious) is still all there.