Robert Forto

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Recipe Rants: Snooze Breakfast Pot Pie

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Snooze Eatery came up with this recipe for you to cook at home.

Snooze Breakfast Pot Pie

Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry (approximately 8×10 inch)
12 eggs scrambled
4 cups sausage gravy (see recipe below)
Egg wash (whisk one egg with 1 Tbs. water)

Sausage Gravy: 
2 cloves minced garlic
2 leeks, cleaned and chopped (discarding leaves)
2 celery stalks (chopped)
1 sprig of rosemary (finely chopped)
1 lb. bulk breakfast sausage (browned and drained)
3 Tbs. unsalted butter
½ c parmesan cheese (grated)
½ c all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions: 
Melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot (Dutch oven or stockpot) over medium heat. Add leeks, carrots, celery, garlic, and rosemary and sauté until vegetables soften (about 10 min.). Stir in flour and continue to cook until the flour is well incorporated. At this point, stir in the cooked sausage, milk, and parmesan cheese. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and allow to simmer (stirring occasionally) until the gravy thickens (about 10-15 min.). Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Assembly: 
Pour thickened gravy into a medium-sized casserole dish. Top with scrambled eggs. Cover the casserole dish with the puff pastry dough, crimping the dough around the edge of the dish. Lightly brush the pastry dough with egg wash. Place in preheated oven (400 degrees) and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

Serves 6 to 8

This recipe is from Snooze Eatery in Denver, CO. My wife, Michele and I found this place on Tuesday morning while we were playing hooky from work. It is a great place for breakfast (and I don’t usually care for breakfast). Snooze shares this recipe so you can make it at home.

 

Robert Forto | Team Ineka | Alaska Dog Works | Mushing Radio | Dog Works Radio |Denver Dog Works

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Robert Forto is a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the popular radio show, Mush! You Huskies and Dog Works Radio Shows

31 Days of Horror. Day 24: The Shinning

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Every year we have a tradition in the Forto house where we celebrate the greatest month of the year, October, with scare your socks off, hide under the covers, turn on all the lights, sleep with one eye open, fright fest, movie marathon everynight of the month! We call it 31 Days of Horror

Tonights Movie: The Shinning is one of my favorites. It is a movie that I watch every year. I have been a Stephen King fan for as long as I can remember and remember reading his books for book reports in junior high. While one of Stephen King’s greatest books isThe Shining he has often said that he did not like the movie version directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick even went so far to reject a screenplay for the movie written by King and Kubrick ended up doing it himself.

In today’s movie review I am going to do things a bit different. I want to share with my rabid reader, friends and fans some little known facts about the movie:

According to Stephen King, the title is inspired by the refrain in the Plastic Ono Band’s song, Instant Karma (by John Lennon) which features the chorus: “We all shine on.”

The Timberline Lodge in Mt Hood Oregon, the hotel you see in the opening scenes, feared that no one would ever stay in room 217 (the number of the haunted room in King’s book) so it was changed to 237. There is no room 237 in the Timberline Lodge. Also the inside shots were done entirely indoors on sound stages in London. The Timberline Lodge was only used for the front views.

In the scenes where Jack his typing is novel, Kubrick had a typist type the words: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” (These are the only words he types in his descent into madness). Kubrick thought that typing letters on a typewriter made distinct sounds so he wanted to be authentic.

In the scene where Wendy wakes Jack up with breakfast in bed, Jack is wearing a shirt that says Stovington. Stovington is the school Jack worked at that is mentioned in the movie and the name of the school is mentioned in King’s book only.

The famous line by Jack, “Here’s Johnny!”, made famous by the Johnny Carson Show was ad-libbed by Nicholson. Kubrick did not know the line when it was taped.

Danny Lloyd (Danny) was 17 years old when he first saw the full film. 11 years after it was made. His parents told him he was making a drama not a horror film. Danny was 6 at the time the film was made and now is a professor in a college in the Midwest.

The finger gesture used by Danny when his “invisible friend” talked was his own idea.

My favorite coffee mug!

Danny says REDRUM 43 times before his mom wakes up in the iconic scene. REDRUM spells Murder backwards and you can see it in the mirror in the film.

In one weird scene in the movie where Danny is on the floor playing with his toys and he and his mom are watching TV, there is no cords or plugs for the TV that is in the middle of the room.

It took over a year to make the iconic blood scene and had to be “just right” according to Kubrick.

The movie was released on Scatman Crothers (Dick Hallorann) 70th birthday.

The made-for-TV version of the film was filmed at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado and is believed to be really haunted. In the book and the film the hotel is said to be in Colorado. In the film and the book it is called The Overlook Hotel.

In the opening scenes of the film where you see Jack driving up to the hotel for his interview is supposed to be Colorado but was actually filmed near Glacier National Park. Kubrick actually sent a crew to film the scene in the mountains of Colorado but the  director didn’t like the way it looked. If you have ever driven to Estes Park from Denver the drive is very similar to what you see on the film with long windy roads and steep cliffs.

The radio station that is playing in the blizzard in Denver is an actual AM radio station in Denver-KHOW and it happens to be one of my favorite talk radio stations in the nation.

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31 Days of Horror. Day 22: Texas Chainsaw Massacre

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Every year we have a tradition in the Forto house where we celebrate the greatest month of the year, October, with scare your socks off, hide under the covers, turn on all the lights, sleep with one eye open, fright fest, movie marathon everynight of the month! We call it 31 Days of Horror.

Opening Narrative:

“The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy that befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare.

The Events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” – August 18th, 1973

The True Story

This film is based on the life of American serial killer, Ed Gein of Wisconsin. WhileGein has been the subject of many horror movies over the years including Norman Bates of Psycho (1960) and Buffalo Bill the demented killer in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

In fact, Ed Gein did wear a human’s scalp and face. Gein did this however, to help quell his desire to be a woman, not because of a skin disease as with Leatherface in the film. Also included in his uniform, Ed Gein wore a vest of skin complete with breasts and female genitalia strapped above his own.

Fun Facts:

Despite the obvious implications of the film’s title, only one victim is killed by a chainsaw. Two more are bludgeoned, one is impaled on a meat hook, and one is run over by a semi truck.

This film is an example of a money maker! It was made on a budget of just sixty grand, later costing 83,000 but has grossed over 30 million to date.

Director Tobe Hooper claims to have got the idea for the film while standing in the hardware section of a crowded store. While thinking of a way to get out through the crowd, he spotted the chainsaws.

The human skeleton in the house at the end of the movie was a real human skeleton. They used a real one because a human skeleton from India is far cheaper then a fake plastic skeleton.

Alternate titles for the film included “Headcheese”, “Leatherface” and “Stalking Leatherface”.

Plot: En route to visit their grandfather’s grave (which has apparently been ritualistically desecrated), five teenagers drive past a slaughterhouse, pick up (and quickly drop) a sinister hitch-hiker, eat some delicious home-cured meat at a roadside gas station, before ending up at the old family home… where they’re plunged into a never-ending nightmare as they meet a family of cannibals who more than make up in power tools what they lack in social skills…

Due to the low budget, Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface) had only one shirt to wear as Leatherface. The shirt had been dyed, so it could not be washed; Hansen had to wear it for four straight weeks of filming in the Texas summer. By the end of the shoot no one wanted to eat lunch with Hansen because his clothing smelled so bad.

According to John Larroquette (of Night Court fame) his payment for doing the opening narration was a marijuana joint.

What is your favorite scary an/or Halloween movie? I would love to hear from you!

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31 Days of Horror. Day 21: Snowbeast

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Every year we have a tradition in the Forto house where we celebrate the greatest month of the year, October, with scare your socks off, hide under the covers, turn on all the lights, sleep with one eye open, fright fest, movie marathon everynight of the month! We call it 31 Days of Horror.

My wife bought me a collection of videos called 50 Chilling Classics. They appear to be public domain films and most of them have appeared on Elvira’s Movie Macabre.

Tonight’s movie is sure to be an instant favorite (not!). It is a 70s made-for-tv movie: Snowbeast. It was made just two years after JAWS and is almost a direct knock off from the spooky big-fish movie except this time it is on the slopes of colorful Colorado.

It is a beautiful little B-movie. Well maybe I am giving it a little too much credit. Maybe a solid C. There just is not enough Yeti to make it suspenseful enough for my tastes. Sure any movie with a man running around in a Bigfoot costume is designed to not only bring some chills but some laughs as well. In one scene the yeti’s shadow crosses to the left but all the sudden his arm comes through the window to the right.

Look at it this way… We still have 49 chilling classics to watch. I am sure to find a gem in that rough!

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31 Days of Horror. Day 18: Creepshow

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Every year we have a tradition in the Forto house where we celebrate the greatest month of the year, October, with scare your socks off, hide under the covers, turn on all the lights, sleep with one eye open, fright fest, movie marathon every night of the month! We call it 31 Days of Horror.

Plot: Five tales of terror are presented. The first deals with a demented old man returning from the grave to get the Father’s Day cake his murdering daughter never gave him. The second is about a not-too-bright farmer discovering a meteor that turns everything into plant-life. The third is about a vengeful husband burying his wife and her lover up to their necks on the beach. The fourth is about a creature that resides in a crate under the steps of a college. The final story is about an ultra-rich businessman who gets his comeuppance from cockroaches.

What is your favorite scary movie? We would love to hear from you!

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