Current 'Projects'

I've been quite bad at finishing things lately, which mean I've currently got several projects in various stages of completion.  I'd like to say I'm listing them here so that your kind words of encouragment might spur me to focus on a project, in thruth though, it's more so I can keep track.

DIY:

• Shelves.  To be fair this is the project most close to completion.  I bought ten Fabian shelves from ikea at £3.50 a pop and so far three have been put up in our lounge and four in the bedroom.  What remains is to finish painting the lounge shelves and consider putting up the final three (one or two in each of bathroom and kitchen).  That said I've also got some rails and hooks and things which need to be put up, and I want a spice rack.
• Shoe Pockets.  Okay, so not really a project but it is (almost) completed so I wanted to include it here.  Nothing more complicated that buying and fitting some of these canvas shoe holders from argos.  Described by some as "space saving simplicity", I'm inclined to agree.  Of course I couldn't make it too simple for myself, so instead of using the supplied hooks (which were designed for a proper door rathet than our thin cupboard doors), I went for hot gluing it to the back of the cupboard which is partly glass.  it may sound a bit drastic but a quick test showed it could probably come off.  Sadly I was right and it hasn't stuck at all well to the glass.  Next plan is to modify some picture hook to work as clips to hold it in place (doesn't need to take much weight).  Failing that it'll be bulldog clips, perhaps some red ones off ebay.
• Shoe Chest. I'm not obsessed, but shoe storage can be a bit of problem around here and could do with a good solution.  To that end I have procured three Rast drawer chests, again from ikea, with the intention of combining them into one uber shoe storage solution.  The problem we have is a built in wardrobe that is three foot deep, so the plan is to attach all units, front to back, and fix all drawers together so that pulling out one drawer pulls out all three.  There may be some small technical hurdles to overcome (I can already forsee the use of my saw) but I'm convinced the final result will be worth it. 

I had intended a brief description of all projects, but I'll just have to leave you in suspence with the electronics as I'm running low on time.

Electronics:

• Altoids Dialable Mood Lighting
• Coat Hanger LED Lamp
• Arduino GPS blinds

Hopefully the more interesting of the above will get their own blog posts, with photos and everything!

All the Ox

So I finally found some Ox kidney!

After trapsing through the ice and snow covered streets for over an hour last night, speaking to at least 5 different butchers, I finally found that most prized of offal* at the food hall off John Lewis on Oxford Street; really just a slightly posher Waitrose.

Not only that, but they also had Ox cheeks and for a very reasonable £3.99 a kilo!  I've not decided what to do with them yet, but doubtless the slow cooker will be involved somewhere...

*Okay, so it might only be prized by me, but still.

British Gas EnergySmart Energy Meter

Having got my new energy meter plugged in and working, the next obvious step was to tear it apart.

Okay, the first obvious step was to plug it into the computer (nothing much happened). Then I tore (okay, gently prised) it apart.

I won't go into the nitty gritty here because someone already beat me to it.  What I will say is that all the pins were connected on the USB port (though mainly to vias and I couldn't get at the underside of the board to find out where they ended up) and that one of the unidentified chips (the SIL T630) pointed out by the good chap linked above is actually a small form factor MCU.

I'd love to write more but it's bed time and my oscilloscope's in Wales.  Next step is to look for TTL level serial coming out of the data pins on the usb port.  Might have to wait quite a few weeks though.

Almost forgot to mention, the heater in the bedroom used 2kW.  Aren't you glad you know that?

Quiche - Jamie style

The main act this evening will be "Italian Ham and Spinach Tart" courtesy of Jamie Oliver. Okay, so it'll be as close an approximation as I can muster - especially considering I've only gotten half as much creme fraiche as the recipe calls for (single cream will do, right?).

The pastry is currently resting in the fridge, fingers crossed it'll work out better than the apple pie...

Don't go breaking my heart

With Halloween on the horizon, Adam and I somehow got on to the topic of gruesome things we could do with a heart for his party. We decided that the gore factor of having a pulsating heart on a plate in his fridge was definitely worth attempting.

Initially the plans revolved around attaching electrodes to achieve a TENS style effect. A bit of googling threw up little more than some dodgy Darwin awards contenders (I'll let you look that one up). Ultimately we came to conclusion that if it could be done, it would be on youtube, so we decided to pursue different avenues.

Adam wanted to go down the inflation route, while I was convinced a motorised solution would be easier to build and control. We decided that it wasn't worth arguing about until we at least knew we could purchase a heart.

Thus, the first half of last Monday evening was spent calling in every butcher (Polish and Halal, we weren't fussy) asking if they had any hearts. Thankfully we weren't arrested and eventually found what can only be described as a breakers yard for sheep. The guy on the band saw at the back sticks in the memory, as do the skinless (but sadly not eyeless) sheep heads to the right of the display.

The gentleman took our order and disappeared out back, leaving us to peruse the assorted bits of meat. Most were identifiable, a collection of pale looking almost spherical organs were not. Adam paid 46p for the heart and was leaving the shop when curiosity got the better of me and I decided to enquire about the identity of the unidentifiable organs. With churlish grin and hand aloft, palm up in a grasping position: "Testicles!" he bellowed. We left, quickly, each of us giggling. You could probably make a decent soup out of them.

I tried to buy flour in a Polish supermarket but, alas, I do not know the Polish words for 'plain white flour' so had to resort to Tescos. I did find some nice cherry juice though, sadly not as good as the greek sour cherry juice we had in Parga. The search continues. We did find another butcher that supplied us an ox heart, to go with our lambs, for just £1 though.

After some wrangling, embedded motors were to be our actuators of choice The 12mm pager motors I'd spotted on ebay were deemed to be ideal. Wednesday evening saw me detour via Oval to collect them.

A bit of electronics research, a few days, a pub quiz and more than one trip to Maplins later and we considered ourselves all set. Not one to miss any excitement, Will joined us on Friday evening to assemble the monstrosity.

This is where I'd normally put a link to the youtube video. Except it didn't work. The pager motors just didn't have the grunt to induce any significant movement in the lump of tough meat. The electronics were abut half way complete but at about midnight we called a halt to the proceedings. We destroyed a cat-5 cable to use the insulation as a tube and half glues half duct taped a balloon on the end then Will and I left to catch the tube/bus back home.

I didn't attend the party, but I imagine Adam probably cooked the heart, whole, in a stew. I'm not sure if I'd have eaten any.

All The Pies

A few weeks ago I made corned beef pie - people don't seem to realise how yummy it is! but that is not the subject of this post.

While checking my Jamie Oliver book for the pastry recipe (no, I don't know it by heart yet) my eye was caught by his Apple, Blackberry and Ginger pie, mhmmm.

How not to make pie:

Naturally I picked up all the ingredients and made up a batch of pastry which I then characteristically let sit in the fridge for nearly two weeks. Don't worry, I threw it away having gone a dull grey colour.

So at about 20:30 last Sunday evening I decided to use up the apples et al before they went bad and try again with the pie. This time I tried a mix of butter and margarine but this left the pastry a lot more melted than I'd have liked, I was in a rush so I popped it in the freezer to stiffen up a bit.

On to the apples, I didn't have a corer so I cut then in quarters then cut out the cores. After nursing the cut to my finger that resulted it was back to quarter/eighth/sixteenth the rest of the apples and throw them in to the pan with the melted butter and sugar. So far so good, quickly shop up some stem ginger, throw in the blackberries, still and stand back to admire my handiwork.

Returning to the pastry it's still squidgy in the middle but now hard on the outside, no matter, I just gave it a bit of a mix together and it felt about right. I didn't have a suitable pie dish so I was using a large dinner plate - roll out the pastry, cut it to size, place it on the plate and in the over to cook the base a bit. Jamie didn't suggest this bit, he was going to put it on the base of the over, presumably to get extra heat on the bottom, but with the state of our over I thought better of it.

Back to the mixture it was all starting to look a bit gloopy, which was nice, except that the apple skins were starting to come off and look a bit unsightly. A quick check of the recipe confirmed that yes, I had forgotten to peel them. The next ten or fifteen minutes were spent trying to fish out bits of skin from the gloop.

Upon giving up I remembered the pastry - now quite done but still okay, phew. Jamie said to pour of some of the juices, well my filling was practically apple sauce by now so it all went in, a few bits of skin and all. Egg was the edges, lay out the top I'd cut out earlier, a few slits in the top and in the oven. Except I wasn't using an over glove, toughing my finger on the shelf resulting in me practically throwing the pie (safely on to the shelf, phew again) and wrenching my hands upwards, straight on to the element - ouch!

a mild burning flesh smell and plenty of water later I sulk off to find some sympathy. It was about two minutes in to sympathy gathering that I realised I'd not egg washed the top nor sprinkled with cater sugar. Out came the pie, on went the wash and sprinkled went the sugar. Back in the oven and I'm thoroughly exhausted.

This is when I started on pie number two (more on that later).

The best part of an hour later and it's time we went to bed. The pie should be done by now so I check the oven. A dark brown UFO (unidentified frazzled object) greets me.

We each had a slice with some ice cream, but you can understand why I didn't take a picture. It wasn't That burned but it wasn't that great either.

How to make a pie:

You follow this delicious recipe, without cutting yourself, burning yourself, or deviating! Okay, so I deviated a little - I couldn't find ox kidney in any of the supermarkets, so I went with lambs kidney instead. It rquired cutting out each of the little white bits (so Deliah told me!) but I couldn't find any skin to remove, so I assume that was gone already.

The result was delicious, but I will say that kidneys aren't at the top of everyone's hit list. It wasn't done til the Monday and I ended up inviting Will round last minute as Nadine wouldn't touch it. I can't say I blame her, after a day of slow cooking the kidney smell was quite overpowering in our little flat.

It was nice though, incredibly rich - I made about a third the amount Fiona suggested (I wasn't planning a inner party) with about 800g beef to perhaps 500g kidney. It was still a lot of kidney. I also skipped out the red wine and the final lot of mushrooms. I may have also forgotten to add the mushroom ketchup til close to the end.

Next time I think I'll try beef and ale stew - slightly less controversial.

Hello and Welcome!

I've come to discover that most blogs have a reason. The author can be interested in food, photography, horse riding or interesting things you can do with an altoids tin, the point is they are interested in something. They have a focus.

I'm less focussed, some would say 'faddy' or even obsessive. I don't think this is a bad thing, I just think it makes me... multifaceted. The point is that you shouldn't expect a long discourse on one particular topic. If you get anything it'll be what's on my mind. Today - that's blogging.

Other current fads: My slow cooker and electronics. More about those later.

For now I need to go shopping. The slow cooker (still nameless) needs to be fed, as do we.