Chicken Pineapple Mango(Peach) Chipotle Salad

Here’s a salad I created that has great taste, low/zero fat and is super fast and easy to make!

Add these things, in the order below, to your plates for a nice presentation - 

1.  Iceberg Lettuce - shredded   (other types of greens optional)

2.  Large fresh firm tomato - diced

3.  Grilled chicken breast, chopped - marinade for a day in hot sauce/salsa

4.  Sweet Red (or yellow) Onion - finely diced (optional)

5.  Black Beans - canned/strained - add to taste

6.  Corn - canned/strained - add to taste

7.  Fresh jalapeño - minced/diced (optional)

8.  Add a generous amount of -

(quick version) Peach Pineapple Chipotle Salsa (bottled WalMart brand)

(long version) Homemade fruit based salsa - mango, pineapple, tomato etc.

9.  Top with -

A sprinkle of  Feta Cheese or Mexican blend  (optional - use none for a zero fat salad)

8 Simple Ways to Stimulate Your Creativity

This might, at first, sound like a list of “Things Mother Told You”, but life can be deceptively simple at times. Taking care of your health is just the first step towards better creativity, and better brain function in general, but there are more fun ways to get creative every day.

1. Eat Your Greens. 
Science has proven that milk, spinach, whole grain pasta, tofu, salmon, and sunflower seeds all make you feel happier and more creative.

2. Exercise
Regular exercise is great for a lot of things, but even just stepping outside and taking a quick walk can be an instant boost to battle a creative block. Other great physical practices for creativity: dancing, yoga, and meditation.

3. Notes
Keep a notebook, or several, handy wherever you go so that you can record your thoughts and ideas as soon as you have them. This makes it much more likely that you’ll remember the thought, and do something with it!

4. Relax
We mentioned meditation above, but it bears repeating: relaxing your mind gives it the processing time it needs to let the subconscious mind offer up true creativity. Anything that promotes relaxation, tranquility, and peace will do wonders for creativity! Baths, naps, light reading: try a whole host of relaxing things to see what might work best for you.

5. Trust Your Gut
Intuition comes from different place in the mind than your rational thought, so give up the rational for a while and let your intuition guide you. Daydreaming is a great way to jump-start the intuitive mind; let your mind wander and wait and see what comes out.

6. Stimulate Your Sense
Turn up the music, inhale the scent of a freshly baked pie, pet the soft fur of your favorite animal. Awakening your senses, preferably as many as possible, can heighten your awareness and increase your creative juices.

7. Revisit Your Creative Past
Take a quick trip down memory lane by looking at some of your old artworks, and take a moment to appreciate where you’ve been, where you are, and where you are going. You can even use these old works as a theme, and try new variations on the theme. Just avoid self judgement at all costs. The idea here is positive appreciation.

8. Risky Business
Take some risks! Try something new! Keep that gray matter stimulated, and thus your creativity bubbling over, by immersing yourself in new experiences. This is, by far, the best way to overcome a creative block.

2012 Grammy Awards Show Performances

2012 Grammy Awards Show Performances (Review and List of performers)   By: Karen Engel ©karenengel.com

All in all I thought the show was great and rate it about an 8 out of 10.  It was a really well rounded selection of performances this year.  My only critique of some of the performances, was the clear trend away from true musical instrument proficiency and the music itself -  towards staging, light effects, pyrotechnics, dancing and the “spectacle” of the whole thing.  It’s an eye candy/circus effect targeted towards the social media generation.  But let’s not forget learning music and how to actually play folks!  There were some minor audio problems during the show but nothing too bad considering the overall size of the production.

In order of appearance - 

Bruce Springsteen - 

“Are you alive out there?” seemed a little off considering the death of Whitney Houston looming over the show.  I never really personally “got” Springsteen music, but it was good for what it is.  One thing though - does his head seem unusually and incredibly enormous for his body to you?  Weird.

LL Cool J didn’t perform but did a decent job as host but isn’t on the level of a Billy Crystal or Eddie Murphy.  This was the first host they’ve used in some years on the show.

Bruno Mars - 

I’m not overly familiar with his music but this was an entertaining performance.  It’s a mashup of Little Richard, Elvis, Ricky Ricardo and James Brown all in one!

Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys Duet -

A nice performance, great vocals and cool electro-acoustic instruments.

Chris Brown - 

Dance music number - and he sure can dance, when he’s not beating on women!  I was worried he might miss one of those jumps off the hill of cubes on the stage with all the lighting changes, but he didn’t miss a step - all while singing through a headset mic.  Heavy use of Auto-Tune on this style of music may put some off, but that’s the popular trend right now.  In 10 years that all will be about as popular as big hair and leopard skin tights.  WE HOPE!

Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson Duet -

Country guy and ex-Idol ballad was a very good performance.  I’m not sure if that song was supposed to be country but it sounded more like rock to me.  Totally could see Meatloaf and Pat Benatar doing this one together instead.

Foo Fighters - 

A good energetic performance from inside a tent outside of the arena - I guess we’ll call this grunge rock.  Kind of reminds me of going out to see bands in clubs in L.A. back in the 80s and 90s a bit.

Rihanna and Coldplay -

With lots of neon colors and wild lighting effects this medley went from a hard driving electronic dance song with a stuck drum machine, to acoustic and then a rock-ish ballady ditty.  I wasn’t a fan of any of it, but to each their own.

Reunion - Beach Boys and others -

This really confused me.  Why put two groups doing covers out in front to warm up for the real thing?  Maroon 5 did OK, but Foster The People was pretty shaky and the singer looked very nervous.  The Beach Boys themselves were entertaining in the sense of history and legacy if nothing else!  Memories of the many many concerts of theirs I went to in years past.

Paul McCartney -

After a glowing musical intro by Stevie Wonder - joined by Joe Walsh and Diana Krall  on an old timey “standards” number that left me kind of wanting to hear the record version.  It just seems a bit of a round peg in a square hole to me, but interesting and enjoyable nonetheless.  How can you not like Paul?  Hard to believe he is 70!!!  And he actually looked even younger after they brought out Tony Bennett!

The Civil Wars -

An acoustic singer-songwriter country duet with great vocals and energy!  Pretty cool stuff if you’re into that whole country thing.  Love this guy’s voice.

Taylor Swift - 

A fun hootenanny country song guaranteed to sound like nails on a chalkboard if you hate country music.  Luckily I don’t, so it was enjoyable though the set did remind me of a ride in Disneyland’s Frontierland.  She’s mastered the “look” of being unfettered and green - and yet somehow always surprised that people like her.  Very cagey.

Katy Perry -

Here we go with the “my production is bigger than yours” race!  After a dark, false start and staged electronic systems failure, she descends from an elevated glass box, smashes the glass, flames blasting from all around and lights going crazy, dancing lighting effects - somewhere under there was a driving rock song that became lost, maybe for the better.  The spectacle was entertaining though!

Adele -

Rumors of her voice problems were greatly exaggerated as the Grammy darling of the evening took the stage and performed her award winning anthem.  Just vocals and music, by an otherwise completely average gal.  Maybe this is why people like her so much.  She seems completely bewildered at her own measure of success as well.   60 Minutes did a segment with her before the Grammys, and she’s just quite likable, cockney accent and all.

Glen Campbell and others - 

I wasn’t quite as put off by the two warm up bands in front as I was by the Beach Boys’ - but still don’t understand why.

The Band Perry did a good rendition of Gentle On My Mind - Blake Shelton’s choice of Southern nights wasn’t so great however - Glen wrote a lot of songs and this wasn’t one of his best.   As a 76 year old, (hard to believe) I think Glen did pretty good (and had Joe Walsh dancing in the aisles!)  I loved his closing lines - “Thank you all - thank you all so much - Awww - where do I go?  Do I go somewhere or shut up?”  ha ha   Have to wonder why he wasn’t also in the Beach Boys segment though as he was a member in the ’60s afterall.

Tony Bennett and Carrie Underwood - 

This was great - a bit of an odd matchup but turned out well.  Everyone loves Tony!  86 years old this year - amazing!

Jennifer Hudson -

A well done and emotional performance, though her vibrato is a little over the top for my tastes.  This was probably just added to the show at the last minute but quite good and very appropriate!

Dance music party (external to show) -

Chris Brown, David Gueta and Dead Mau5, Foo Fighters  (and looked like Lil Wayne joined in?)

OK, it’s dance and electronica - just not my cup of tea.  The show fell off track at this point.

How did both Chris Brown and Foo Fighters rate two performances in the show?  That never should have happened, but I’m completely confused as to the appeal of an electric mouse head/DJ  psychedelic neon Mickey Mouse LSD trip.  Whatever.

Nicki Minaj -

The LSD trip continues.  This time with a healthy dose of crack - and Tim Burton breakfast cereal done to the theme of the Exorcist as performed while rapping in a Broadway show on the Vegas strip.  In other words - WTF?  Worst performance of the night award.

Paul McCartney and friends -

To close the show - what better?  This Beatles song was the highlight performance of the show with the guitar jam at the end being quite fun!  

From left to right it included - 

Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh, Rusty Anderson*, Paul, Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), Brian Ray*

* = Paul’s band players

Loved Joe Walsh throwing down some James Gang licks!  Springsteen’s guitar sounded terrible and he really shouldn’t be allowed to play leads - ha ha. 

That’s a wrap - probably the best thing is the new direction the show is headed - towards more performance variety across many genres.  Cheers!

5 Minute Chicken Tortilla Soup

For those that don’t have time to do a lot of cooking.  Here’s a great meal you can do in the blink of an eye, that will impress!

1 can of each of the following -

13oz chunk chicken breast (shred)

28oz diced tomatoes

11-14oz diced tomatoes & red chiles (or variation)

15oz kidney beans

15oz black beans

11-15oz whole kernel corn

2 Cans - 4oz diced green chiles (or 1 8oz can)

1pkg Taco Seasoning Mix

1pkg  - Ranch Dressing Mix

Directions - drain the can of chicken - but DO NOT DRAIN remaining cans!  Everything goes in.

Toss in crock pot -  stir and heat on low for 4 hours - (or high for 2 hours).

Toppings - sour cream, grated cheddar jack, chopped green onions, tortilla chips.

You can add things like jalapeños, substitute the can chicken for your own - or beef - or vegan. 

The measurements are just guidelines - creative cooks can improvise - it’s wonderfully delicious just the way it is however!

www.karenengel.com

Qwikster - You’ve got to be kidding me!

Netflix has just released a “statement” about further dividing/separating their mail DVD business from the online streaming.

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html

Having used both DVDs+Streaming for many years, I was one of the ones that was OK with the 50% price increase they recently implemented (considering the price of postage and amount of use one can access) - although they did have a massive amount of negative feedback and mass exit from their membership/user base.

This “announcement” is simply a thinly veiled attempt at justifying the price increase, and a horribly poor attempt to edify the alienated or disenfranchised who are still complaining - or have left.  The problem is - spilt milk.  The hopelessly lost won’t be coming back.  This is foolish corporate backpedalling and trying to create a revisionist history with the way it “could have been” - a more politically correct scheme to jack prices on everyone!

In the same grand broad brush stroke, they are trashing a solid brand name by watering it down into two entities.  They will only make life much worse for their DVDs+Streaming customers if they try to further separate the two via two different websites, two different accounts/logins, and two different queues.  

I’m amazed at the stupidity.  This “Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO” has absolutely no common sense, but certainly earns himself 7 figures plus because he is “the boss” and the boss is always right?  This is just about as intelligent as HP buying Palm for $1.2 Billion dollars, then shutting it down a year later.

What this statement really ends up saying is - Netflix is in deep trouble.  The letter mentions AOL dialup and Borders.  Can Netflix be far behind now?  

We’ll have to sit back now and watch to see if Netflix/Whatever implodes.