A year of Challenges

[von Corax]

I will note that the image at the top of the page here that was my list to pick projects from is absent for me. And I think this has happened for other pictures I've posted to the forum in other threads. I think it has to do with the fact that the only way I can seem to post pics is to post first to Facebook, then copy the image link from facebook and paste it in here. I'll have to figure out a better wayto get photos here.

It's only these photos, and it happened right after a Firefox update, so I suspect you're a casualty in the war between Facebook and The Mozilla Foundation.*

here's to some fun making crazy projects.

You look like you're enjoying yourself. I envy you your ambition.

*My browser flagged "Facebook" as a typo, but not "Mozilla."

[rovingjack]

X is for xerography art (xerox art)

edit: to add

A is for Acrylic paint pouring

Little disappointed with this one. No cells formed, the colors muddled and it just feels like it could have gone better. I did one on paper that came out even worse, but with the intent to see if the paper can be cut into strips and glued into other works later. we will see if I can do something with this in the future.

[rovingjack]

B is for book Binding (coptic stitch experimental hexagonal book design)

C is for chalk carving

Z is for Ziti ( i suppose I could have made baked ziti, but instead I chose to carve it and make it gold and silver

[rovingjack]

M is for Mask hand sewn by me

V is for Victory Vase made from silver wrapping paper


and that's it for the alphabet projects. 26 projects, one for each letter of the alphabet in the month of february.

... now on to marching to my own tune. lol.

[Banfili]

You have done well, rovingjack!
I like the space material you used on your mask.

[SeVeNeVeS]

Oh and I'm also going to do another youtube channel for some slightly more unconventional projects a sort of Autodidact journal as it were:

-KonMari minimalist organizing
-learn to flip food in a pan
-roll a coin across my knuckles continuously
-fire eating
-firehandling
-learn fire breathing
-a routine of magic tricks
-juggling
-decorative napkin folding
- pen spinning
-card throwing
-learn 10 different dances
- calculate the day of the week of any date

and that may get me tthrough June if things go well, at which point I've got a huge list to pick more from.

Deep sided pan, wok or saute pan, non stick and you can flip to your hearts content, no skill, slight flip of the wrist....... and done.  omelettes, stir fries, etc like a pro'

[MWBailey]

Oh and I'm also going to do another youtube channel for some slightly more unconventional projects a sort of Autodidact journal as it were:

-KonMari minimalist organizing
-learn to flip food in a pan
-roll a coin across my knuckles continuously
-fire eating
-firehandling
-learn fire breathing
-a routine of magic tricks
-juggling
-decorative napkin folding
- pen spinning
-card throwing
-learn 10 different dances
- calculate the day of the week of any date

and that may get me tthrough June if things go well, at which point I've got a huge list to pick more from.

Deep sided pan, wok or saute pan, non stick and you can flip to your hearts content, no skill, slight flip of the wrist....... and done.  omelettes, stir fries, etc like a pro'

Question: is it possible to flip while jolding food in a pan?




   

[SeVeNeVeS]

Oh and I'm also going to do another youtube channel for some slightly more unconventional projects a sort of Autodidact journal as it were:

-KonMari minimalist organizing
-learn to flip food in a pan
-roll a coin across my knuckles continuously
-fire eating
-firehandling
-learn fire breathing
-a routine of magic tricks
-juggling
-decorative napkin folding
- pen spinning
-card throwing
-learn 10 different dances
- calculate the day of the week of any date

and that may get me tthrough June if things go well, at which point I've got a huge list to pick more from.

Deep sided pan, wok or saute pan, non stick and you can flip to your hearts content, no skill, slight flip of the wrist....... and done.  omelettes, stir fries, etc like a pro'

Question: is it possible to flip while jolding food in a pan?




   

I feel that would depend on your temperament and current mood whilst in the kitchen.

[rovingjack]

this months project is to create a standup comedy.

You might be thinking: Surely you can't be serious?

To which I must reply: of course not this is comedy...


... and don't call me Shirley.

[rovingjack]

is it cheating if I figured out the story line for my july independent film today? I mean I'm the one making these challenges for myself, and it's all made up and the points don't matter, but still feels a bit like getting ahead before it starts.

meanwhile I'm tempted to scrap the comedy set that I was working on, starting over with one that's more how I joke around with folks, rather than a constructed scripted act.

Planning my photography book project for May and debating if my June game Jam will be a board game, or a computer game this year, next year I'll do the other one.

Which brings up the skills I want to learn this year, and the monthly challenges together being part of a series of videos. The skills I want to learn this year, the monthly challenges and my desire to work towards a more stable future for myself seemed to all be possible to frame from the perspective of starting from zero and working on them for a time. And I thought 0-60 seemed like a good number. So some of the skills I'll be working on will be 0-60 days, some will be 60 hours, some might be 60 minutes if I pick them up quickly. But the monthly challeneges I decided to frame as 60 weeks. So while I've been doing the ones so far since new years, I'll be setting out to document them on a youtube channel starting the end of this month and counting May 2021 (mayking a photography book) through June 2022 (second june game jam). That way it'll be 60 weeks. Which also means I do May and June twice in those 60 weeks.

I started a channel for these, and my making a stable future for myself, and am setting it up as 60 weeks to see how things go on those fronts, and while I'm at it I'm looking at the idea of seeing where I can take a youtube channel starting from zero, in 60 weeks. After the first 60 weeks I'll be stopping the youtube channel updates, and most of the monthly challenge weekly updates and then only doing more of that for requests and milestones. But I'm hoping to add new things like taking an 'art career' from 0-60; and maybe something else.

So another question for anyone interested is  what are some thoughts on:
a) board game or video game this june?
b) if I do my very short video updates for each of these things each week on a monday - wednesday - friday, and wednesday is the youtube channels from 0-60, do we like money mondays, and ?skill learning fridays? or financial fridays and ?learning mondays?
c) Monthly challenges done on the weekends for the first 60 months?
d) or do I abandon all reason and go for Monthly challenge mondays, Youtube channel 0-60 wednesdays, Financial fridays and serial skilling saturday/sundays?

[rovingjack]

well I should have figured life would hard derail me after I proclaimed my intent for these projects this year. But I'm hoping to try and get back to some of these projects soon. They might not happen in the timeline ascribed to them but I still would like to see if I can do them by years end.

In the mean time I've been dabbling with a few other projects. Trying out some new artforms, starting a discord group for artist friends to network and support and learn from each other to help us grow as artists and maybe give assistance in making a viable art career happen.

one of the things I'm tinkering with is the recent experiment with writing on grains of rice. After revisiting my micro origami I started to wonder if I could do other micro-arts, and found the writing on rice. Now I find myself wondering if there are other things comparable in size I could make art on. Not nessecarily food based, but cheap and common of reasonably uniform size, that won't decay. I debated if I could do watch parts or even components from trash electronics. I just don't know.

[rovingjack]

So refocusing on the rest of this year, and likely trying again for next year.

Jan- Janimation. 5 minute animated short in a month
Feb- Alphabet project- theme, medium, technique, object, letter prompt list.
Mar- march to your own tune. 7 songs, minimum 31minutes.
Apr- April foolin around, comedy/ magic trick routines in a month
May- may-king a photobook. 150 photos book.
Jun- solo by solstice game jam. solo creator, possibly solo play, board or comp game by solstice
Jul- Indie film month. film in 30 days.
Aug- (Harvest Fare). try a new recipe each day
Sept- paintember. 1 painting a day
Oct- Skitober. 1 skit a day
Nov- Pen-ultimate challenge. challenges base on a pen
Dec- invent calendar. new invention each day

[rovingjack]

August was a recipe a day for the month, though my life was still in the midst of falling apart then, so I did a few things, and I'm trying to round out the the rest of the 31 recipes. I've made Monte Cristo sandwhich, not sure if I will count the croque monsieur before that (it's not really all that new to me or exactly a complex recipe),  made Seitan, and wheat starch Facon (essentially bacos bacon bits in strip form).

I've also made some other improv cooking things, that don't follow recipes and are just weird experiments I tried. Like french toast fries (I mean I was making a monte cristo, I had six slices of bread worth or trimmed crust, and some egg wash left over) just mix in some pie spices vanilla and a bit of maple syrup to the egg, put the crust trimmings into it and place in a buttered pan, by the time you put the last one in and wash your hands you should be ready to use tongs to flip the first one and when you've flipped the last one you can turn the stove top off get a plate and a dipping dish with maple syrup in it ready. scoop them out of the pan onto the plate and either drizzle with maple or dip them.

I've a few ideas of some other things to try. Caramel corn and some variants I might make up. Ruben. might try some stirfry sauces like orange chicken, and General Tso. Might try a few noodles from scratch. maybe see about making frozen yoghurt and maybe a non-dairy icecream option. also might play with non-dairy whipped cream, maybe non-dairy cheese making.

also does it count if I made Macaroni and cheese with a homemade cheddar jack queso sauce instead of any standard way?

I shall continue to dabble and see how I do getting to 31 recipes.

[von Corax]

Ruben.

• Corned beef (hot)
• Sauerkraut
• Thousand Island salad dressing
• Rye bread (light or dark caraway)
• I can't believe I forgot the Emmenthaler cheese!
• DO NOT GRILL!

[rovingjack]

Ruben.

• Corned beef (hot)
• Sauerkraut
• Thousand Island salad dressing
• Rye bread (light or dark)
• DO NOT GRILL!

not too different from an open faced sandwhich I used to make. pumpernickle/rye swirl bread, russian dressing, bacon, oven roasted turkey deli slices, and swiss cheese. toasted in the oven.

[rovingjack]

reuben down. Homemade russian dressing, finding corned beef ways harder than expected. and my sourkraut looked fine but the lid ha a black wet bubble in the middle, so I got a new container (I don't care for slime mold in my food).

I've decided that I will count the croque monsieur. as I've done a few novel variants lately. I won't count the french toast fries as they are an improv of a known and common to me recipe. so I found something else to slot in there. And still debating is my cheddar jack queso pasta with a bit of homemade pico de gallo counts. I mean it's a new dish for me, though I'm not sure I'd call it a recipe and again is more of an improv dish.

otherwise I have a list of all the foods I'm making

on to other things.

[rovingjack]

garlic parm puffs. made from ziti

homemade rice crispies

[rovingjack]

made some toasted pecan butter today. I'll likely make some maple marshmallow spread, and make a gourmet fluffernutter on butter croissant.

also looking to make some caramel corn too. the recipes I try for the first time continue.

[Prof Marvel]

Greetings my good rovingjack!

Good work!
I want to post more later , just read a out Maets
I be back once I regain some composure

Prf mumbles

[Hurricane Annie]

Coming from country with an entrenched Scottish / Irish culture, I am left with 2 very serious concerns about your projects -

1. What is a Monte Cristo sandwich?

2. What is Russian Dressing?

 They do sound rather profligate and fancy

[rovingjack]

monte cristo is basically bread ham and cheese, bread with more ham and cheese and a final slice of bread, battered in an egg wash and fried. frequently with white bread with the crust removed. so it's a bit like a cross between a grilled cheese with ham and french toast. while also sort of being like a hot pocket ham and cheese with a french toast outer.

I used black forest ham, and gouda cheese.




FOR THE RUSSIAN DRESSING
1/2 c. mayonnaise
3 tbsp. ketchup
2 tbsp. horseradish
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. paprika
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

[Hurricane Annie]

monte cristo is basically bread ham and cheese, bread with more ham and cheese and a final slice of bread, battered in an egg wash and fried. frequently with white bread with the crust removed. so it's a bit like a cross between a grilled cheese with ham and french toast. while also sort of being like a hot pocket ham and cheese with a french toast outer.

I used black forest ham, and gouda cheese.




FOR THE RUSSIAN DRESSING
1/2 c. mayonnaise
3 tbsp. ketchup
2 tbsp. horseradish
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. paprika
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

 They could be fabulously combined. In an absolutely non kosher  way.

[J. Wilhelm]

monte cristo is basically bread ham and cheese, bread with more ham and cheese and a final slice of bread, battered in an egg wash and fried. frequently with white bread with the crust removed. so it's a bit like a cross between a grilled cheese with ham and french toast. while also sort of being like a hot pocket ham and cheese with a french toast outer.

I used black forest ham, and gouda cheese.




FOR THE RUSSIAN DRESSING
1/2 c. mayonnaise
3 tbsp. ketchup
2 tbsp. horseradish
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. paprika
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

 They could be fabulously combined. In an absolutely non kosher  way.

Well, technically, it never was Kosher (ham and cheese sandwich). And Kosher salt is not Kosher..It's called that in the US, because it lacks iodine or other additives and is in large grain form, which is traditionally used for "koshering" meats (salting meat to extract the blood from meet according to Kosher law). It's also called "gros sel"

[Hurricane Annie]

monte cristo is basically bread ham and cheese, bread with more ham and cheese and a final slice of bread, battered in an egg wash and fried. frequently with white bread with the crust removed. so it's a bit like a cross between a grilled cheese with ham and french toast. while also sort of being like a hot pocket ham and cheese with a french toast outer.

I used black forest ham, and gouda cheese.




FOR THE RUSSIAN DRESSING
1/2 c. mayonnaise
3 tbsp. ketchup
2 tbsp. horseradish
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. paprika
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

 They could be fabulously combined. In an absolutely non kosher  way.

Well, technically, it never was Kosher (ham and cheese sandwich). And Kosher salt is not Kosher..It's called that in the US, because it lacks iodine or other additives and is in large grain form, which is traditionally used for "koshering" meats (salting meat to extract the blood from meet according to Kosher law). It's also called "gros sel"

 The kosher reference makes sense there.
{NZ has no natural iodine or selenium in the soil. We have additives  of all kinds in bread, water, salt cereal, you name it}

[rovingjack]

I tried two versions of monte cristo, sweet and savory. the sweet I put a bit of vanilla and cinnamon in the egg batter and a bit of apricot preserves inside. it was okay. but the savory version just had some honey dijon mustart and nothing but egg for the batter. and I gotta say the dijon adds just the right kind of pop to the flavor. (I'm no expert but I think it would be rather difficult to make a kosher version of a monte cristo. aren't there prohibitions about things like meat eggs and dairy  being in the same dish?)

tried the maple pecan fluffernutter, and holy crap the homemade maple fluff is ultra sweet. you have to use it very lightly.

honestly the homemade caramel corn I made earlier is less overpoweringly sweet. But it was an experiment that I finally got the chance to try at any rate. on to the next batch of things to try.