My wife and I are on a diet, and I wanted to make something that was low in calories, and high in iron. I also wanted some ground beef (a rare treat on a low calorie diet). This turned out fantastic. I’d cook it again even if I wasn’t on a diet.. I’d just have seconds. Enjoy.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp each salt, pepper
½-teaspoon ground cumin
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cups beef broth
2 cans (15 ounce) black beans, rinsed and drained (substitute with any canned bean as desired).
1 cup diced peeled potato
1 can (14 ounce) diced tomatoes
¼ to ½ teaspoon Louisiana hot sauce
2 green onions, sliced

In a bowl combine beef, 2 cloves minced garlic, thyme and ½ tsp each of salt and pepper; roll into approx 1 tbsp balls.

In a skillet or large sauce pan, heat oil over medium-high heat; brown meatballs, in batches as necessary, turning often, for about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towel. Drain fat from pan.

In skillet/sauce pan bring the onion, remaining garlic and ½ cup broth to a boil. Reduce head; cover and simmer for 6-8 minutes or until onion is tender. Stir in the beans, potato, remaining tsp of thyme, cumin and remaining broth; return to boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Stir in tomatoes and hot sauce; heat through. Sprinkle with green onions.

Yield: 6 servings Approx 300 cal per serving.

I just read on a friend’s lj that Palladium games, makers of the RIFTS, Robotech, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Role-Playing games, have suffered between $850,000 to 1.3 million in losses due to embezzlement.

This, combined with losses taken producing a RIFTS game for the Nokia N-gage, as well as stalling in the production of the RIFTS movie, and a general lull in the demand for RPGs has created an environment

Kevin Siembieda has posted an open letter to the public asking for financial support to get his company through the year. To generate this support he is selling a numbered art print of Palladium’s cast of characters from their various games.

“- I, Kevin Siembieda, will draw a special, pencil drawing with key characters from our entire game line to be made into a simple, black and white, toned piece of artwork, 11 x 14 inches, printed on a good quality paper.

- Each print will be hand signed by me. I’ll indicate which number that print is (i.e. #1, 2, 100, 1000, 2010, etc.). I don’t know how many there will be in the end; I pray for thousands!

- EVERYONE who purchases the print will see their names appear in the back pages of a major book listed as “Heroes of the Megaverse®!”

- The print will sell for $50.00 plus shipping and materials (envelope, protective cardboard, etc.), probably about $2.00-$5.00 by regular first class mail.

- We need those sales NOW!!! If 4,000 or 5,000 people all order that darn print within a month or two, it should give us the money we need to get back on our feet! Without a shot in the arm of some big cash, and fast, I fear Palladium is gone. That kind of jump start should carry us through the year and should enable us to do the other things we need to do to keep the company going for years to come!”

Buy a print and support a company that has entertained so many, and continues to exercise the creativity and intellect of youth and adults alike.

Here is a link to buy a print.

Here is a link to the lj where I heard about this.

Most “free” music delivered via the internet is either illegal or disappointing. Last.fm is neither. The concept is streaming audio based on community and user feedback.

To sum up the service:

- You sign up, and download their free streaming audio player.

- At this point you can search for bands you listen to and tag them based on genre.

- At any time on any bands page you can choose to preview music by the artist (a 30 second sample). Better yet listen to similiar artist radio, which plays music by the artist or(obviously) music by similiar artists. You can even listen to artist fan radio which plays music that people who have tagged the artist like.

- As an added bonus, you can also listen to radio stations based on tags. If you feel like listening to nothing but japanese pop, or 80s this feature can be pretty handy.

- My favourite feature – In the radio tab you can create a custom radio station by entering examples of the bands you feel like listening to.

All of this comes at you in 128KBps quality. And all for free. The site also has lots of community tools that may be worth checking out. I’ve found about 12 cds I want to buy, and 3 new bands I love since I started using this service yesterday. Too bad I can’t afford any of them.

These days it’s hard to get me excited about up-coming video games. The most exciting game I can think of that came out in the last 6 months is “shadow of the colossus,” and I can’t think of even one really new-concept title for the PC in the last year/year-and-a-half. This game looks amazing. I watched the entire movie in awe at the scope of it. Check it out: