Ingredients

• 2.5 pound chuck roast
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons of kosher salt
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 1 onion sliced
• 1/2 cup of red wine
• 1 14 oz can of low-sodium beef broth
• 1 dried bay leaf
• 6 soft rolls
• 3 tablespoons of butter melted
• 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder
• pinch of kosher salt
• 6 slices of provolone cheese

Instructions

1. For best results, let chuck roast rest at room temperature for at least 15 minutes before searing.
2. Add vegetable oil to the Instant Pot and hit the sauté button.
3. Season chuck roast with 2 teaspoon of kosher salt, freshly ground pepper to taste and 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder on all side.
4. Using a pair on long heat-proof kitchen tongs, sear roast on all sides in Instant Pot.
5. Remove seared roast from Instant Pot and set aside.
6. Add onions to pot and sauté just until they start to soften.
7. Add red wine to pot and let simmer until reduced by half.
8. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up seared bits from the bottom of the pot as it simmers.
9. Once wine has reduced, add low-sodium beef broth and bay leaf.
10. Return roast to Instant Pot, close lid and make pressure release valve is set to sealing.
11. Hit Meat/Stew function and increase time to 100 minutes.
12. Let Instant Pot natural release for 25 minutes, then turn valve to venting to release any excess pressure.
13. Remove lid and transfer roast to a serving plate and shred.
14. Strain liquid through a fine mesh strainer and serve warm for dipping sandwiches.
15. Set oven to broil and place sandwich rolls on a baking sheet.
16. Combine melted butter, 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder and pinch of kosher salt in a small bowl.
17. Brush over rolls and toast 2-3 minutes, just until gold brown.
18. Pile meat onto rolls and top with cheese. Return to broiler and heat just until cheese has started to melt.
19. Top sandwiches with freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley and serve with warm au jus for dipping.

Ingredients

• 8oz pkg cream cheese
• 2 C powdered sugar
• 1/2 C Creamy Peanut Butter (can use crunchy if you want)
• 12 oz Cool Whip
• 9″ Store Bought or homemade graham cracker crust in a pie tin

Directions

1. Have cream cheese at room temperature
2. Cream sugar and cream cheese until well blended
3. Add peanut butter and blend
4. Fold in Cool Whip
5. Poor into a graham cracker crust
6. Chill for 2 hours

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 425°F
2. Place the potatoes, oil, salt, and pepper in a large bowl and toss to combine
3. Transfer the potatoes to a rimmed baking sheet and spread into a single layer
4. Roast for 15 minutes
5. Flip the potatoes over with a flat spatula and return to oven
6. Cook until browned and tender, about 10 minutes more
7. Remove the baking sheet from the oven
8. Set the oven to broil
9. Sprinkle the potatoes with the garlic and half of the cheese and move the potatoes around to coat well
10. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the potatoes
11. Broil until the cheese is soft and melted, 1 to 2 minutes

Well it’s been quite a while again since I last posted but I needed a place to stick this recipe and figured it was a good time to pick this back up.  I cobbled together a few different simple recipes to find a combination my family likes a lot and is still super easy to make.

Ingredients:

• Skin on chicken legs (however many you need)
• Oil of choice (I used avocado spray)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Smoked Paprika
• Garlic Powder
• Dried Rosemary

Recipe:

• Preheat oven to 375 F
• Line a baking tray with tinfoil if you want easy cleanup (one with raised edges to hold in the grease)
• Lightly coat the tinfoil with the oil
• Rinse and pat dry the chicken and place skin side down on the tray
• Season the chicken to taste with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder and rosemary
• Bake for 30 minutes
• Flip the chicken to skin side up
• Season the new side the same way
• Bake for 23 minutes
• Change to broil and cook another 7 minutes to give skin a nice crispy texture

Serve and enjoy!

I recently upgraded a cluster of ESXi 5.1 hosts to 5.5 and learned a lesson about using a NIC that requires a third party driver.  All of my hosts are using Qlogic 10Gb CNA cards which requires a driver to be loaded (a custom vib).  Unfortunately if you try to upgrade to 5.5 using Update manager it disables the third party drivers before actually doing the update.  Since Update manager does the update over the network interface as soon as that driver is disabled the host loses contact with vCenter and Update manager and the upgrade hangs.  Luckily nothing has actually been done yet and the host can simply be rebooted and it will come back up as though nothing has been changed.  The solution is to always do the upgrade using the ISO (either as a physical DVD or USB flash drive or network mounted via a management card like an iLO on HP servers) so that there is no networking required during the upgrade.  Once the upgrade is completed I was able to install the newer driver for ESXi 5.5 and a reboot later and my host was back in business.

So the lesson learned is be very careful if using third party drivers not part of the base ESXi image.  It always seems to be safer to interact with the host directly rather than using vCenter for upgrades (never had an issue yet with patches though) if third party drivers are involved at all.

The next time I have to upgrade I think I may try to create a custom ISO with my third party drivers already integrated just to avoid the extra steps.  If I do I’ll try to post about the process and how it went.

It’s been a while since I’ve added an entry on here and I’ll be adding a bunch soon.  I’ve got a bunch of half written posts and some new recipes I just have to get the pictures the way I want.  I’m still here and more should be coming soon!

Just made our 2012 Christmas batch of Monster Cookies and thought I’d share.

Ingredients

• 12 Eggs (yes a full dozen)
• 2 lbs Brown Sugar
• 4 c White Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla
• 1 Tbsp White Karo Syrup
• 8 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 lb Butter Softened (yes a pound)
• 3 lb Peanut Butter
• 18 c Oats (Not quick oats)
• 5 bags various candies (I used M&Ms, Chocolate Chips, Peanut Butter Chips, Butterscotch Chips & Heath bits this time)

Tools

• If you have a mixer with detachable beaters I strongly recommend using one of them in a power drill to do the actual mixing as you can burn out a standard electric hand mixer with this recipe.
• Plastic dish tub (there is no bowl large enough!)
• A regular mixer to beat the eggs/sugar (or use the drill!)
• Large baking sheets (2) (one in the oven and one in prep so you can keep swapping as it takes a while to bake them all, I use 2 large air bake sheets that I can put 15-24 cookies on depending on how big I’m making them)
• Something to store them in when you are all done (I use gallon freezer bags usually and can fit 12-30 in a bag depending on size)
• A scoop or spoon
• Strong wooden spoon (or your hands!)

Directions

• Beat the dozen eggs until well blended (do not over beat)
• Add in the Brown and White Sugar and beat until well mixed
• Add in the Vanilla, Karo Syrup and Baking Soda and mix in
• At this point start using the power drill if you aren’t already otherwise a wooden spoon
• Add in the Butter and beat until fully mixed
• Add in the Peanut Butter and beat until fully mixed
• At this point you will need to use either a strong wooden spoon or your hands as not even the power drill will work
• Add in the Oats and mix thoroughly
• Add in the Candies and mix to get an even distribution throughout the batter
• Preheat the oven to 350F
• Spoon the batter onto an ungreased cookie sheet (you can make these a variety of sizes to try out different sizes, I used a Pampered Chef medium scoop with a  squeeze handle for ease and I wanted them to be a consistent size)
• Bake for 10-15 minutes (varies by the pan type used and the size of the cookie so keep an eye on them until you figure out the time you need)
• Let the cookies cool on the sheet for at least 5 minutes before trying to move them off as they are very soft and fragile when fresh out of the oven
• I use a non stick spatula to remove them from the sheet, smaller cookies come of easier, larger ones you need to work from all sides to loosen it enough to come off cleanly
• I also use the spatula to scrape off any remains before I scoop new ones onto the sheet.
• Assuming you are using two cookie sheets there is time after you take a batch out to let it cool, move to a cooling rack or paper towel and then scoop on the next batch before the one in the oven is ready to take out.  You should always have the next one ready to go in when you take one out or you end up baking all day!

This recipe will make anywhere from 12 to 25+ dozen cookies depending on how large you make them.  Using the scoop I ended up with around 27 dozen 3″ cookies.  Those are full size cookie sheets in the picture below (I didn’t bake on those, just used them as a final resting place before bagging) to get an idea of the size (that is about 200 of them in the picture).