Detroit 48 Hour Film Project: Team Midnight Oil

48 Hour Film Project 2013 Team Midnight Oil

I am going to be doing a 48 hour film this year. It is kind of improv for film makers. You get a theme and then you have to write, shoot, edit and hand deliver a film in 48 hours.

It is truly an amazing feet.

Our team is currently doing a fundraiser to help support the project.

48 Hour Film Project 2013 Team Midnight Oil 

Most of the money I am told goes to help feed the some 20 person crew.

I figure that I will be the crew chef as well as video crew and maybe even act and write. I really never thought about the food element of film making.

Please help out if you can. We are 1/3 towards our goal.

Thanks

Whole Wheat Strawberry Short Cake

I have been getting into whole wheat baking these days. Here is a recipe that works great. I use whole wheat pastry flour and butter milk in this traditional recipe. I provided a Straight Rhubarb option here, having found some great organic bright red local Rhubarb.

As for the Strawberry version, I can’t seemed to get myself to cook fresh strawberries. So I simple slice them and put them on top.

Whole Wheat Short Cake (makes 6 large short cakes)

2 Cups of whole wheat pastry flour
5 TBSP Sugar
1 stick of cold butter
1 TBSP baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 large egg for egg wash
sugar for dusting top

Rhubarb Filling

2 pounds rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 3/4-inch pieces (about 4 cups)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup of water
1 tsp minced ginger
zest of one lime

Place all of the ingredients in a thick bottom pan. Bring to a boil then simmer until thick. let cool. If it is still not thick enough, add a few table spoons of corn starch to thicken by stirring it in and bringing it to a boil them letting cool.

Top filling with a shortcake and ice cream and enjoy.

Procedure

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a bowl and mix. Chop up the cold butter into the flour mixture into small pea size pieces. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the butter milk and the egg. Mix to combine. Don’t over work.

It will be a wet dough. Scoop the dough into six equal sized blobs on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Brush with egg and sprinkle sugar on top.

Bake for 12-14 minutes on a center rack.

Cool and serve with whip cream and your favorite fresh berries.

Nightshade Army Industries Salsa: Get Yourself Some

YPSI Salsa

I was at the Ypsilanti Farmers Market yesterday, and I picked up some great salsa. In fact it is the only salsa I every want. It is by Nightshade Army Industries and it is made locally. They grow the tomatoes and peppers and they process the salsa at Beezy’s Cafe.They feature classic red and green and hot sauce and chilly vinegar. It reminds me of Southwest Style, the kind of salsa I loved in New Mexico.

Their partnership with Beezy’s Cafe makes this possible. In order for Nightshade to make their salsa, they need access to a commercial certified kitchen. These kitchen are everywhere. Every restaurant,cafe, or deli has one, but the are hard to come by.

Nightshade comes in after hours to make their salsa. I thought how many other local food products could we have if we could take advantage of a handful of kitchens after hours. What a huge untapped resource.

Think about all of that extra squash/pumpkin in your garden. That can be turned into pie filling. Or that apple tree in the back yard could make for a large batch of apple butter. Or how about small batch pickles, frozen dessert, or any number of food products that take advantage of local food, flavors and creativity.

Nightshade Army Industries does not just make great salsa, they are true local food heroes.

Go get yourself some.

 

These Boots are Made for Walking

I have been looking back to my ghosts of weight loss success past and my time hiking on the Appalachian Trail comes to mind.

Mathematically speaking, WHEN I was hiking the trail, I was successful losing weight. The key words here are WHEN I WAS HIKING because coming back is another story.

But hiking is weight loss gold. The average Thru Hiker burns 4000-6000 calories a day. This means that even a fatty like myself will lose weight while hiking no matter how much food he eats (when hiking).

The reason for the huge daily calorie burn is because hikers hike ALL DAY. That is really all I hiker does after breakfast to coming into camp. We are talking 8-10 hours of hiking. At 500-650 calories an hour, that starts to add up quick.

Picture your last hour session on the elliptical and times that by ten.

Case in  point, a buddy has started posting his runs on facebook. Here was his last run. Here runs at a good pace, but how many runs does he do, 3-5 a week for about 30 minutes?

So I thought, “What if I can take the hiker model and apply it to the “real world?”

If I took one day a week and “Hiked” (on the trail I would hike six days a week) I would burn more calories then a good week or two of going to the gym assuming a 1-2 hour aerobic session per gym visit.

A full day on the trail or in my case the 1.4 hiking loop in my town park would equal 8-10 exercise machine session.

I like those numbers. So I created a plan. I call it my Urban Thru Hiker Plan.

Unlike hiking the actual trail, this is ONLY one hiking day a week.

It is kind of the whussiest plan there is for actual thru hikers. For those hikers reading this, imagine a distance hike where you only hiked one full day a week, ridiculous right?

But in the real world, a full day seems massive, extreme, not practical in the least, the stuff of Forrest Gump like singular focus. “I just felt like walking.”

Unlike actually hiking in the woods, my Urban hiker plan means no sleeping in the woods, I walk on wide manicured trails, having access to treated water (a water fountain every 1.4 miles), a bathroom, a shower at home waiting for me, a comfy bed to sleep in and picnic lunches with fresh fruit and even a Whole Foods Market about 10 minutes off the trail.

It is comfort hiking to the extreme. And I don’t even need to carry a pack.

Now non-hiker might not get my plan, but distance hikers will see the merit and even ease of this plan.

The idea here is that a full day on the Urban “Trail” will add up to 4000-6000 calories burned and/or over one pound of exercise burning weight loss a week.