Chris Barr

Balsamic Chicken with Onions

Monday, March 24, 2008

Tonight I decided to just make up a recipe and see how it turned out. Surprisingly, it turned out great, and I'm writing this post so I can reference it again in the future and share it. So here's everything you'll need to make this. I didn't write down any amounts, so I'm just guessing when I write them down. Just do what you think is best here.

Ingredients

• Chicken breast
• Chopped onion (about 1/4 cup)
• 3 garlic cloves
• Olive oil (about 2 Tbsp.)
• Balsamic vinegar (2-4 Tbsp. maybe more?)
• Lime juice (about 1 Tbsp.)
• Onion powder
• White pepper
• Black pepper
• Sea salt
• Brown sugar
• Paprika
• Crushed red pepper
• Coriander seed powder

Preparation

Add the oil and some balsamic vinegar in a pan and heat to medium-high. While that's heating up chop up the onions and garlic, then place then in the pan to caramelize.

In a small bowl, combine the onion powder, peppers, salt, paprika, crushed red pepper, coriander and brown sugar. Combine equal amounts of all these ingredients, but more of the brown sugar.

Trim all the fat off the chicken, and coat it with the mixture in the bowl. Once the onions and garlic are caramelized, place the coated chicken breast in the pan, along with the lime juice and some more balsamic vinegar. Cook for several minutes in each side of the chicken, and keep coating it with the liquid. Once it looks done on the inside, plate it along with all the onions and enjoy!

Ajax Forms in Expression Engine with FreeForm

Friday, March 21, 2008

Introduction

Something I've been wanting for a while was a way to integrate a contact form in Expression Engine with some nice AJAX effects from my favorite Javascript library, Mootools. I've not been able to find anything out there that does exactly what I want, so I've made my own. This does require the FreeForm Module for Expression Engine from Solspace as well as Mootools 1.11.

View a Demo

Download It! (v. 1.1.1)

Click the jump for more information on how to set this up...

After Effecting

Thursday, March 20, 2008

This past week web work was a bit slow, so I decided to make some stuff for my church‘s new contemporary service called Seven30Seven.  I spent a lot of time in Adobe After Effects, which I haven’t been in for a few years, and it took some time to get re-aquatinted with.

I made two videos for Seven30Seven, one is just a simple background to put on the screens that will animate in and stop, and the other one is a 5:00 countdown video so people will know when the service is starting.  I also created a Youtube account finally, so I put the videos up on there.  So either head over there and check them out, or just click the jump below to see them here.

Garmin Splash Screen

Monday, March 17, 2008

I needed to update the software on my Garmin Nuvi 660, so while I had it connected to my computer I decided that I was bored with the white logo on a black screen while it starts up. Gamin makes it easy enough to change, you just put an image in there and select the one you want to use.

I decided to give it an over the top "Web 2.0" look. The designed are way overused everywhere online, so I thought it might be funny to bring that here. I've uploaded the PSD file, so feel free to download and edit for your specific needs.

Download the PSD file (2.6MB - Photoshop CS3).

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts

Monday, March 03, 2008

Nine Inch Nails dumped their record label late last year, and now they are allowed to to basically whatever they want with their music. Today they decided to pull a move similar to what Radiohead did with their latest album In Rainbows. NIN has released a 4 volume instrumental album entitled Ghosts I - IV, which features a total of 36 tracks for just $5 to download in almost any format you want (MP3, FLAC, and Apple Lossless).

If you aren't sure yet, you can download the first volume for free on Bittorrent - the band them selves put it up on The Pirate Bay. I paid my $5 and I'm downloading the 600MB Apple Lossless files right now, and I haven't even heard a full song yet. More than anything, i support what this band is doing. They are once again proving to the record industry that they are no longer needed to sustain music sales or to keep customers happy with their product. If you make good music, fans will come.

If you want to buy this album, head over to ghosts.nin.com or Amazon.com and spend that $5. There's also some really nice box sets available for order, where they basically give you everything...and I mean everything, like a Blu-Ray disk with HD audio(24bit), all the multitrack files so you can remix the album, etc.