Spanish Rice

I have discovered a simple way to make Spanish rice a little healthier.  Now this is definitely not as good as the real thing, but it doesn’t take too much effort and there is no lard involved so that's a plus.

½ green bell pepper, diced

½ small yellow onion, diced

1 clove garlic

1 cup brown rice (or white if you prefer)

2 cups water or chicken broth

1 tsp cumin, ground

1 can rotel tomatoes with chilies

Salt to taste

1 tsp olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a medium pot to medium-high heat.  Add the onion and cook until softened, then add the bell pepper and garlic and cook until the pepper is softened.  Pour in the water/broth and bring to a boil.  Add the rice and return to a boil.  Cover the pot and reduce the temperature to medium.  Cook for 15 minutes then remove the pot from the heat but leave the lid on.  Allow the rice to sit, with the lid on, for another 15 minutes.  All of the water should be absorbed by then and you should have fluffy rice.  Add the cumin, rotel and salt to taste.  The seasoning is kind of what makes this dish, so if it’s under seasoned it won’t be good.  Add more cumin if you think it needs it and don’t be afraid with the salt, add a little at a time and taste, I think I used about ½ tsp.  You can return the rice to the burner on medium for a couple minutes to cook out some of the tomato juice if it looks soupy.

Serves 4, 200 calories, 3 g fat

Fish Tacos with Jicama Slaw

I don’t really eat much fish but I know I should.  So every once in a while I buy some and then end up having to put it in the freezer because it never actually sounds good.  I am going to tell on my husband right now.  Yesterday he went out for lunch and ate oh probably 2000 calories in one meal.  So needless to say, he didn’t need much for dinner last night.  Since he is the one that usually vetoes the fish, I went ahead and cooked it last night since he wasn’t eating much.  

2 tilapia filets

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

1/3 cup jicama, julienned

1/3 cup carrots, julienned

¼ cup red onion, thinly diced

2 tbs cilantro, chopped

Juice from 1 lime

Small handful of shredded cheese (I am still using that dang Manchego cheese, it is like never ending)

4 corn tortillas

Heat olive oil in a skillet to medium-high heat.  I like to use a cast-iron skillet that has ridges in it, that way I can get char marks on the fish.  So depending on what type of pan you use will determine how much oil to add.  For this type of pan I add enough oil so that the ridges are able to get oiled by tilting the pan a bunch first, but the fish won’t be sitting in oil while it’s cooking.  Season both sides of the fish with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper then cook in the pan until flaky.

For the jicama slaw, I prefer to cook the red onion for a couple minutes to take the bite off, but if you like raw onion then that isn’t necessary.  I do it in the same pan I will cook/cooked the fish in.  Mix the julienned vegetables, red onion, cilantro and lime juice.  Season with salt to taste.

Slice the fish and assemble in 4 warmed tortillas with the slaw and cheese. 

Serves 2, 335 calories, 8 g fat

This turned out pretty decent, but I think I overstuffed the tortillas.  This may have been more lady like to eat it in 3 tortillas each and the tortillas I got were only 35 calories each so no biggie.  I have noticed sometimes diets make you forget to eat like a lady, good thing I am already married, sorry J.

Savory Polenta

Last night I indulged in one of my guilty pleasures, sausage.  Now I know sausage is super bad for you, which is why we eat it maybe 3 times a year.  For anyone unaware, cured meats like sausage and bacon contain sodium nitrite, which is a preservative, and when consumed with foods high in protein, like meat, the sodium nitrite can form nitrosamines which create cell damage.  So in short, studies show that consuming foods with sodium nitrite increase your risk of colon cancer.  So don’t feed your kids hot dogs routinely and check that theur lunch meats are sodium nitrite free!  And hey, I’m a chemist, feel comfortable blindly believing everything I have to say, but I do encourage people to do their own research.

So anyway, off my soapbox, with my sausage I decided to make a polenta.  I tried a new recipe for it, this one is from Alton Brown and it was really simple and turned out pretty good.  It was not at all pretty though, in fact it was so unappetizing looking I didn’t even bother attempting at taking a picture.  I am really working on trying to take better pictures, but this one was hopeless. Give me some time I’ll get there, it’s not as easy as it looks.

¼ cup red onion, thinly diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp olive oil

2 cups chicken stock

½ cup polenta

1 tbs butter

1 ½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 oz cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Heat the olive oil in an oven-safe skillet to medium-high.  Cook the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent.  Add the chicken stock and polenta and stir to break up any lumps.  Transfer the skillet to the oven and cover.  Cook for 35-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes to break up any lumps.  Remove from the oven and stir in the butter, salt, pepper, and cheese.  I used Manchego cheese since I had some in the refrigerator leftover from a recipe last week, but you could use pretty much anything.  Maybe a parmesan, gruyere, or gouda.

Servings, 2 sides, 260 calories, 13 g fat

I know this is a crazy thing to say, but I actually thought this was too rich.  I actually couldn’t eat it all it was so rich.  I think next time I will cut back on the cheese and maybe the butter.  J didn’t think it was too rich, he had no problem eating his portion and what I couldn’t eat of mine, so maybe 1 oz of cheese won’t be too much for you.

So a couple days after making this I went to a restaurant and had the most amazing polenta that put me to shame, so I will be trying this again.

Classic Chocolate Buttercream

When I try to think of my “signature dish” the first thing that always comes to mind is my chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.  I absolutely love chocolate cake and I have developed what I think is the most perfect chocolate cake imaginable.  It’s light, fluffy, and moist with a really good flavor.   The “crack cake” is what one of my girlfriends calls it because it’s so addictive.  A coworker asked me for the cake and buttercream recipe so I thought I would make it.  Now I am sorry I am not going to divulge my secrets to the interwebs for the cake but I will tell you how to make the buttercream.

I use Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Classic buttercream recipe from the Cake Bible.  This buttercream does take some work, and would be a pain without a stand mixer, but it is totally worth it.  It is very light and fluffy and not overly sweet.  A lot of people have the idea that the so sweet your teeth hurt icing on a grocery store cake is buttercream, but they are oh so wrong, and as soon as they have this they realize what they’ve been missing.  This is uber fattening, because well it’s basically just butter and sugar, but just ignore that for a minute.  Go ahead and add an extra mile to your run tomorrow just from reading this recipe.

6 large egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

2 cups unsalted butter, must be softened

6 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled

Have ready a greased 1-cup heatproof glass measuring cup.

In a bowl beat the yolks with an electric mixer until light in color.  Meanwhile, combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan (preferably nonstick) and heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves and the syrup is boiling.  Stop stirring and boil to the soft-ball stage (238 F).  Immediately transfer the syrup to the glass measuring cup to stop the cooking.

If using an electric hand-held mixer, beat the syrup into the yolks in a steady stream.  Don't allow the syrup to fall on the beaters or they will spin onto the sides of the bowl.  If using a stand mixer, pour a small amount of syrup over the yolks with the mixer turned off.  Immediately beat at high speed for 5 seconds.  Continue with the remaining syrup.  For the last addition, use a rubber scraper to remove the syrup clinging on the measuring cup.  Continue beating until competely cool.

Gradually beat in the butter followed by the cooled melted chocolate.  

A few tips

• The butter must be softened so let it sit on the counter for about an hour, do not put it in the microwave, melted butter and softened butter are not the same thing.  If the butter needs a little help softening and you are in a rush, hold it in your hands to soften it with your body heat. 
• Do not stir the sugar after the syrup comes to a boil or it will crystallize.
• This can be stored in an airtight container for 6 hours at room temperature, 1 week refrigerated, and 8 months frozen.
• If you store it let it come back to room temperature before using.  You can rebeat if necessary to restore the texture but do not rebeat chilled buttercream or it will curdle.
• When you separate the egg yolks and whites you can freeze the whites in a plastic bag for later.  Use in an omelet or in an egg white chocolate buttercream for a more airy and richer chocolate buttercream, I'll tell you how to make that another day.

You can use the basic recipe to make any flavored buttercream.  Instead of chocolate add 2-4 tbs vanilla extract for vanilla buttercream, 1/2 cup raspberry sauce for raspberry buttercream, or replace the water with freshly squeezed lemon juice and finish with 1/4 tsp lemon extract for a lemon buttercream.  Once you get the technique down you can do pretty much anything with this.

Gordon Ramsay's Shepherd's Pie

I have just recently discovered Shepherd’s pie. Growing up chicken pot pie was much more of a common thing for me, but when I discovered that there is something similar but with mashed potatoes, holy cow. I have tried a few different versions, but then one day I saw Gordon Ramsay make his Shepherd’s pie and thought that is the one for me.  I hadn’t ever had lamb before; I can’t eat beef or pork because they don’t agree with me so I pretty much just steered clear of all meats other than chicken and turkey because I knew those were ok.  But when I saw Chef Ramsay’s Shepherd’s pie with lamb, I thought well maybe I will just try it and see how it goes, and thank goodness it went well because oh man I am hooked.

1 package lamb chunks (0.88 lbs) or 1 lb ground lamb (I like the chunks but use whatever you like)

1 onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 carrots, diced

¼ cup peas

2 tsp thyme

2 tsp rosemary

¼ cup red wine

¼ cup chicken stock

6 oz tomato paste

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Olive oil

2 lbs Yukon gold potatoes

3 tbs butter

½ cup milk

¼ cup parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

Cook the potatoes in boiling water until soft enough to mash.

Heat one turn of olive oil in a large skillet or a dutch oven.   Season the lamb with salt and pepper and cook until browned on all sides, stirring constantly.  Once the meat is browned remove it to a plate.  Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion begins to brown.  There should be a sufficient amount of grease in the pan from the lamb but if not add more olive oil to cook the onions.  Add the seasoning, peas, and carrots and return the meat to the skillet. Mix well to coat the vegetables with the seasonings then add the Worcestershire sauce and continue to stir.  Add the tomato paste and wine and stir, add the stock and stir.  Allow to cook for ~3 minutes to boil off some of the liquid and cook the vegetables then remove from the heat.  If using a skillet transfer the lamb mixture to a casserole dish.

For the mashed potatoes, mash the potatoes with the milk and butter.  The potatoes should be light and fluffy.  This will be better achieved with the Yukon gold potatoes than with russet potatoes.  Chef Ramsay adds 2 egg yolks to the potatoes and I have tried it with and without the eggs and I see no difference other than extra calories, but if the eggless potatoes are lacking to you feel free to add them.  Season the potatoes with salt and pepper to taste.  Top the lamb mixture with the potatoes and spread over the top so there are peaks in the potatoes and they cover the entire dish.  Top the potatoes with the parmesan cheese and bake for 20 minutes to set the pie.  Allow to rest a few minutes before serving, it’s hot.

4 Servings, 580 calories, 20 g fat

I have seen a few recipes online that claim to be Gordon Ramsay’s Shepherd’s pie and they are all different, so I don’t know how close this is to his real recipe, but I think it’s pretty dang good so I stick with this one.

I am not a big wine drinker, especially red, but I really like to cook with it.  The flavor of this sauce with the lamb is just amazing.  I don’t know how anyone could eat this and not have a huge crush on Gordon Ramsay, he is amazing, and that’s not even considering his awesome hair!

Cajun Chicken Pasta

At the end of the week the last meal usually ends up being an episode of Chopped.  I try to make something with whatever ingredients I have leftover in the kitchen from the beginning of the week.  This is a real simple dish that I have modified to be more waistline friendly while still being flavorful.

1 large chicken breast
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
1/3 green bell pepper, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
4 oz linquini
1-2 tsp cajun seasoning
Olive oil


Emeril's cajun seasoning (~2/3 cup)

2 tbs salt
2 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs black pepper
1 tbs onion powder
1 tbs cayenne pepper
1 tbs dried leaf oregano
1 tbs dried thyme 
1 tbs lemon pepper seasoning

Cook the linguini to al dente.
Heat one turn of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  Slice the chicken into 1" pieces and season with the cajun seasoning.  Cook the chicken through and add the vegetables.  Cook until crisp tender then remove from heat and stir in the sour cream.  Serve over the linguini.

Serves 2, 425 calories, 7 g fat

The original recipe called for heavy cream and I honestly don't see any deficiency in flavor by substituting with sour cream and it saves about 50 calories/serving.

I like to have this cajun seasoning on hand all the time so I make this 2/3 cup batch and store it in the freezer.  It adds a ton of flavor to a creamy pasta sauce like this or can be used for blackened chicken or fish.

Vegetable Risotto

Last night was one of my favorites, vegetable risotto.  Watching Gordon Ramsay yell at people all the time over risotto had me a little intimidated by it initially, but one day I just tried it and it’s really not that hard.  Granted he would probably throw me out of my own kitchen if he saw my risotto but it tastes good to me.  So the way it works is you coat the rice in fat then slowly add hot stock to the rice and that releases the starch.  This creates a rich, thick creamy sauce.  You have to stir the rice constantly so you are kind of stuck in front of the stove for like 20 minutes, but I think it’s completely worth it.  You can use lots of different combinations of vegetables but this time I actually went with what was in season and did a summer squash risotto.

3 tbs butter, divided

1 clove garlic, minced

2 zucchini squash

1 yellow squash

3 cups mushrooms

½ cup peas

1 ½ cup Arborio rice

Dry white wine

Chicken stock

¼ cup parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

You will need a total of 4 ½ to 5 ½ cups of liquid and you can divide that between the wine and stock however you like.  I usually do about 2 cups wine and 3 cups stock.  There are a lot more calories in the wine than the stock so you can cut it back or out if need be.

In a large saucepan melt 1 tbs butter.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Dice or cut the squash into bite-sized strips and add to the mushrooms.  Season the vegetables with salt and pepper after each addition.  Cook until the squash is crisp tender.  The squash doesn’t take as long to cook as the mushrooms so that’s why you want to start cooking the mushrooms first. Remove from heat and set aside.  The sauce pan that I use is big enough for either the vegetables or the rice so I put the vegetables in a large bowl and use the same pan to cook the rice.

Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in another pot.  Melt 2 tbs butter over medium high heat in your rice sauce pan.  Add the rice and stir to coat well with a wooden spoon.  Cook until the rice is translucent, 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add ½ cup of the chicken stock and stir constantly.  Continue stirring the rice until all of the liquid is gone then add ½ cup wine.  Since the wine is cold or room temperature I add it slowly so it heats up quickly in the pan.  Stir the rice constantly until the liquid is absorbed.  Continue the process with the rest of the chicken stock and wine until the rice is thick and creamy and softened. Once the rice is fully cooked add it to the vegetables, stir in the cheese and peas and additional salt and pepper to taste if necessary. 

Serves 4, 525 calories, 12 g fat

A typical risotto is much creamier than this because you usually add more butter and cheese but this is one of the few times where I actually don’t think all that extra cheese is needed.  The rice makes the dish creamy and a little bit of cheese adds to it and makes it just a little bit richer.  It of course would be nice if it had more cheese, but I actually don’t think it’s necessary.  This also makes a good lunch the next day.

Don’t be intimidated by Chef Ramsay, just try it.

Hatch green chile chicken enchiladas

Being that it’s hatch green chile season I thought I’d try to make enchiladas with a hatch green chile sauce. This is not a meal to make in a hurry.  It wasn’t that difficult and there wasn’t that much going on, but there was enough to do and enough mess being made that I have to take my time or I get rushed and screw things up.  I was not quite as pleased with the enchilada sauce as I was anticipating, but it wasn’t bad at all.  The next day it was actually quite a bit better so it may not be a bad idea to make the sauce the night before and let it sit.

1 ½ lb chicken breast

1 tbs cumin, ground

½ tsp salt

olive oil

16 hatch green chiles

1 small yellow onion, diced

1 roma tomato, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

8 oz sour cream (fat free)

3 oz Manchego cheese, grated

12-16 corn tortillas

Lay the chiles out on a roasting pan and broil until the skin is blackened and bubbling away from the chiles.  Turn the chiles so that they are roasted all the way around.  Remove the chiles to a plastic or paper bag and allow them to steam for 20 minutes.   Open the bag or remove the chiles from the bag until they are cool enough to handle.  Peel off all of the skin, cut off the stem, seed and dice the chiles.

In a large skillet heat 1 turn of olive oil to medium heat.  Season the chicken breasts with cumin and salt and cook them in the skillet.  Once fully cooked remove the chicken and set aside to rest, at least 5 minutes.  The chicken will go into the oven eventually so err on the side of undercooked rather than fully cooked and dried out.  Cook the onion and the garlic in the chicken drippings until tender, not browned.  Add the diced chiles and tomato to the onion and stir.  Season the mixture with salt.  Transfer the salsa to a bowl and add the sour cream. 

Preheat the oven to 350.

To prepare the enchiladas, first slice the chicken thinly.  Warm the tortillas in the microwave for ~15 seconds so they are pliable.  Place a small handful of chicken in the center of a tortilla then a scoop of sauce alongside the chicken.  Roll the tortilla and set in a large baking dish with the seam on the side up against the wall of the dish.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas until all of the chicken and sauce is used up, laying each rolled tortilla sideways with the seam up against the last one in the dish.  Sprinkle the cheese on top of the enchiladas and bake until the cheese is melted and the chicken is reheated, about 10 minutes.  If you don’t put the enchiladas in the oven fairly quickly the tortillas will dry out and crack, no longer looking like pretty little rolls.   

This made 14 enchiladas for me and I had to use 1 large pan and 1 small pan. Serves 7, 417 calories, 16 g fat.

Machego is a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese and has a very distinct taste, kind of sweet and buttery, not real overpowering.  If you can’t find the cheese or are nervous about trying it you can always use Monterey Jack instead.

I was planning on making Spanish rice with this, but we may or may not have eaten a substantial amount of chips and salsa before dinner and decided to skip the rice and basically only ate the enchiladas because they were ready. Sad, I know.  But I do highly recommend the hatch chile salsa roja (or something like that, it's the red hatch green chile salsa) from HEB.  It is very good; I just wish I could figure out a way to eat it without having to eat so many chips.  I have considered a spoon but I just can’t bring myself to do that.

Cilantro Chicken

I found a recipe on another food blog that I wanted to try.  The picture was really pretty, it was really easy, and it had really good reviews so I thought I’d try it.  Unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectation.  I definitely think it is good to look for new recipes and try new things, but you can let me be the experimenter on this one, don’t waste your time.

 2 chicken breasts

1 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs toasted sesame oil

2 cloves garlic

1 ½ cup cilantro

Pulse the soy sauce, oil, garlic and cilantro in a food processor until the cilantro and garlic are roughly chopped.  Pour the marinade over the chicken in a sealable plastic bag and let sit in the refrigerator for one hour.

Preheat the oven to 425.  Bake the chicken on a roasting pan for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

It was as simple as you could get but to me it just tasted like sesame.  This is the way I always cook my chicken breasts though, they always turn out very tender and juicy.

Thai Basil Chicken Stir Fry

Last night I made Thai basil chicken stir fry.  The star of the dish is of course basil, and what did I do, I forgot to buy basil.  Brilliant.  Usually on Sundays we end up running around town because we don’t want to just sit at home on our last day of freedom.  For me every Friday feels like the last day of school and Sunday is the last day of summer vacation so we always try to do as much as we can on Sundays.  I already had my grocery list done and had it with me so we could stop at the grocery store on the way back from whatever random thing we ended up doing.  By the time we got to the grocery store and finished with the shopping it was already 7:15.  That is a little late for me, I like to start dinner closer to 6 or 6:30 and so of course J tried to convince me that it was way too late to cook so we should just go ahead and order pizza.  But I stood my ground, I knew I was making a stir fry and I can have it done in 30-45 minutes. So don’t let those voices distract you from your goal, making the stir fry didn’t take too much longer than having a pizza delivered and I saved at least 500 calories.

2 large chicken breasts, cut into ½” strips (Mine were 1 ½ lbs total)

1 tsp olive oil

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cups mushrooms, sliced

2 carrots, chopped

2 cups sugar snap peas

1 tsp crushed red pepper

1 ½ cup chopped fresh basil leaves

3 tbs soy sauce (low sodium)

1 ½ tbs fish sauce

3 tbs rice vinegar

2 cups jasmine rice

Boil 3 cups of water.  Add the rice and stir to keep it from initially sticking to the bottom of the pot.  Return the water to a boil, cover and turn off the heat.  By the time the stir fry is ready the rice will be perfectly fluffy and all the water absorbed.

Heat the olive oil to medium high-heat and cook the onion and garlic until lightly browned.  Add the chicken and cook until browned.  Add the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Add the vegetables and cook until crisp tender.  Add the remaining ingredients and stir to coat well.  Serve over the rice.

6 Servings, 450 calories, 5 g fat

Meal Planning

I thought it might be a good idea to go through my meal planning process and start setting goals for the budget.  So what I do is, every Sunday, or Monday if I get distracted on Sunday, I plan out my meals for the week based on what I have left over from the week before.  I also like to at least consider what the Tuesday grocery store flyers say will be on sale and what’s in season, but I usually just end up making what sounds good.  I have the Pepper Plate App for my Kindle where I can schedule the meals for the week and type up a grocery list.  I also use www.caloriecount.about.com to calculate the nutritional value of my meals.  It is a lot better for me if I calculate the meals before I cook, that way I am much more aware of what is influencing the meal and what my goals are.  I have noticed that sometimes they will give you different information so you have to use common sense and double check the values if they look funny.  I use www.livestrong.com as my confirmation.  There are a ton of websites and apps for your phone that will calculate nutritional information I have just been using calorie count for a long time so a lot of my recipes are stored there.

My menu for this week

Sunday plus 2 lunches – Thai Basil Stir Fry (6 servings)

Monday – Cilantro Chicken, Potatoes and Broccoli

Tuesday plus 2 lunches – Chicken Enchiladas (6 servings), Spanish Rice, and Salad

Wednesday plus 1 lunch – Vegetable Risotto (4 servings) and Salad

Thursday  plus 1 lunch – Cajun Chicken Pasta (4 servings) and Salad

Friday – Should cook but no plan yet

I like to keep a decently stocked pantry and plenty of vegetables so I have most of the things I need on hand all the time and then I just have to replace them every once in a while.  I like to keep different types of rice, homemade pasta in the freezer, pastas I don’t make like penne, bread crumbs, a bag of onions, and all kinds of spices.  For standard spices I go to Penzey’s because they are really good, not cheap, but good.  For any Indian spices like cumin, cardamom, turmeric, etc, I buy at an Indian grocery store.  They are ridiculously cheap there, every store I’ve been to has been.  They are always “expired” so I buy them as whole seeds.  Spices that are old and already ground will not be as flavorful as whole spices freshly ground.  I buy large quantities and store them in the freezer.

So for my grocery list this week I had to purchase the meat and almost all of the vegetables.  I already have the pasta and the rice, but I did have to replenish my stock of Arborio rice for the risotto, but now I will have enough for quite a while and I do like to make risotto pretty often.  So you can see that buying in bulk may make your grocery bill a little high one week but when you use the ingredients often it evens out over all.  And when I say bulk I don’t mean I have turned my laundry room into a pantry filled with 50 boxes of cereal and 100 1-lb bags of rice like on those coupon shows, I mean I purchase 2 or 3 bags of rice when they go on sale or a couple packages of chicken and freeze what I don’t need.  I am not denying those people are “saving” tons of money, but in my opinion having 50 bottles of ketchup that I got for $2 doesn’t do anything for me when I go through 1 bottle of ketchup a year. Who wants 50 year old ketchup?

So thinking about this, I realized that counting cost/serving based on my grocery bill for the week didn’t make sense since I already had a lot of the ingredients.  So I am going to try to break down the cost of the meal based on the amount of the ingredients that I actually used, regardless of when I paid for them.  We’ll see how that works, sounds like a lot of work.