Finding the chase and cutting to it

OK!? What are we talking about today, please?

OK…

I was born in 1973 and that year there were 3.912 billion people on the surface of Earth. In the 1970s the oil crisis was on, the 3 day week, frighteningly high inflation and difficultly in making ends meet for many in the UK.

Today there are 7.674 billion. That means much of what we do today needs to adapt to ensure everyone has a share of water, power, heat, land and food. Some may say power and heat are the same thing but power, such as transport and medical care, needs to come from assured sources rather than heat which can be generated by simply burning materials.

We digress. Thing is, people like hot food. It gives us more accessible nutrients and it may partly be how humans have achieved so much. An earl in Sandwich put things between two slices of bread but since then such meals have been roasted and toasted all requiring power.

I am putting together a small picnic for tomorrow and much as my mum would have, I’m using as much home cooked fare as possible. This is kind of the point of this piece.

Oh? There is one, is there?

Yes: should you blind bake a flan? I have three cook books from various eras all saying different things.

I do know that my mum doesn’t bother. Given the fact there’s so much call on electricity and gas these days, I’m inclined to agree with her.

The pastry does indeed need cooking – raw flour is not easily digested in the human gut. But if we’re doing that, shouldn’t we only do the job once?

The recipe I’m following to make a quiche lorraine says to roll out the pastry then fill and cook for 35-45 minutes. ( We’ll eat it hot tonight and then as a cold dish tomorrow lunch time with salad). But many (many) others say to cook the pastry for 15 minutes first then fill and cook for 35-45 minutes.

The idea of blind baking is to make a crispy base – for a quiche or lemon merringue pie which is when I tend to make flan bases, I don’t think that’s vital. I use a fan oven, which should also help the hot air to convect all the way round the pie dish too. The fan oven generally means you can cook at 20°C as the fan needs less power to achieve the same result.

So, for the planet, I am not going to be blind baking.

Not convinced this is where I thought this would be heading…

Having heard about induction hobs in 2006, they have been on my radar but not something I’ve considered more than a “when I fit my dream kitchen, I’d like…”

Our recent forays in the garden and making burgers have brought on a different issue though: how can we do the onions etc that we love with only a camp stove when we have loads of energy coming down from the sun?

Induction hobs work by using magnetic currents to generate heat in pans – no pan, no heat.

As such, they are not wasting power generating heat and light which is then conducted and convected to your pan and then your food. This means they can be 85% efficient which is really wow! A truely efficient car or motorbike is only managing 35-40% efficiency and a microwave is about 70% efficient.

But induction hobs are not an easy leap of faith – starting at £255 for a lower range one, it’s a bit of a gamble if you’re not sure that’s the way you want to cook.

And we’ve got our camp stove business case, so part of this year’s bonus went towards a “Tefal everyday induction hob”. At £49.99 for a single hob, it’s a big price for an outdoor piece of kit – but I’m keen to see if it can make a difference to our fuel usuage figures.

I got it yesterday and am using it to cook our carrots, beans and broccoli for our Sunday lunch.

I’ve made sure I have a small pan that will induct (stainless steel in this case) and put in the water and the carrots and wait the normal 15 minutes before I’d normally start to heat the water.

The pan starts to boil less than a minute later, so turn off the hob and wait 7 minutes and repeat the process. Once the water is boiling for real, I set the timer for 8 minutes on the hob.

I add the beans and broccoli and turn the hob down – only that stops the simmering so end up on “Power level 3”. At the proscribed time, the hob beeps and the power stops.

Have to say, I’m impressed – true the halogen I normally use would have been set to level 1 rather than 3 but the speed of boiling is awe inspiring. I also didn’t have any over boiling, the power response is instaneous.

The pan I used was not the “right size” to make use of the “boiling water” mode. My pasta and soup pan is ideal though and the stew mode should make an interesting soup later today; the plan is a butternut soup.

The hob is a chunky piece of kit – a little bigger than I was perhaps expecting but it is ready to use out of the box and the instructions are really straightforward.

What it may mean is we make the change indoors a little earlier than originally planned.

I’m thinking about putting some of my recipes down in a cook book as I’m sitting watching Saturday Kitchen.

The past few months, Saturday morning has been spent making my pasta for the week with Saturday Kitchen playing in the background while I’m hands on and my focus while I’m doing the waiting.

I’m 48 and I watch these recipes thinking, such a lot of effort. Not just the shopping, the prep and the cooking but dealing with the aftermath!

As you get older and try to fit everything into a day, you find the short cuts. I make scrambled eggs with only dirtying the pan and the spoon – but it’s delicious.

I cooked rissotto on Thursday, but to save washing up, I cut the chicken breasts up with scissors. It means I don’t need to deal with a meaty soiled chopping board. One board is used for the veg but not for the meat. Saves space too.

I love fish – I cook fish in the microwave. It’s quick, tasty and ready in minutes. As a simple tea for one, trout, peas and boiled potatoes with horse raddish sauce is ready in minutes.

Last week I made a microwave cooked tomato soup from tinned tomatoes. In 15 minutes, I had a tasty soup for 1 with a “bung-em-in-the-oven” baguette for some carbs to help give me the energy. Using a hand blender to mash it in the litre jug used to cook the food means it’s an easy wash-up.

Eh?

Fill up the jug with water and switch the blender back on in the water – while the soup is cooling, that makes and a cleaner jug and blender wand as the food clinging to the blades are thrown in to the water and the food stuck the jug is pulled off into the water.

When you’ve finished the soup, the washing up is very simple.

Oh, making it simple?

Absolutely. Bon appetit!

Needing the loo. Whilst doing the doing, I’m kicking myself – should have grabbed the sensor reader or at least my phone though I already know my blood sugar is high and I’m hyperglycaemic or hyper for short.

Sure enough, when I check my reader, I’m 21.5mmol/l – that’s four times what it was this time yesterday. Damn (or words to that effect).

So I don’t disturb my husband, no point in both of us being awake, I grab the insulin in my nightstand and head into my home office. I grab one of the small syringes and draw up 20iu of 100iu/ml fast acting insulin. But I don’t shoot this all into one site: I choose my right arm first, right abdomen, then right abdomen and finally the left arm.

Why not one shot? Well, insulin is not absorbed well when it’s all given in one site. Instead of being in my body for its standard 4.5 hours, it would hang around for ever as well as taking forever to drop back to normal, all the while letting the hyper take it’s toll.

By 3:35. I’ve dropped to 20.5mmol/l. At 03:45, I’m reading 19.8mmol/l. That’s just short of 2mmo/l every 10 minutes – I should be back to 6mmol/l in an hour. The feeling is relief. Every fibre in my being is still hurting but this should be temporary.

It’s not as quick as taking the insulin intravenously but it’s as good as it’s going to get. It’s 03:50, I’m 19.5mmol/l and I’m heading back to bed as soon as I finish this pint of water. When it’s flushed through my system, taking some of the ketones with it, I’ll do an insulin on board calculation and see if I need any carbs to soak up the remaining insulin.

Sweet dreams 🙂

Sounds great, sign me up!

Love your enthusiasm (must say, it’s a little unusual)…

Focus!

You’re right.

Like many, we’re using smart meters and online portals to see what energy we’re using at any one time. Good for us and good for the planet.

But not making the most of the collected information that’s out there.

How much of the energy that’s being produced in the UK is coming from renewable systems right now? How do we evolve our usage patterns to ensure the power generators can move away from fossil fuels and gas?

Tools like Ovo’s Greenlight aim to do just that.

By letting us see where the grid’s energy is coming from, we can make the decision to do (or switch off) a major energy task like running the washing machine – when is the best time to do it for the planet? Let’s look at what we get.

So now is not the time! Let’s dive into “See 48 hrs carbon forecast”…

So, we’ll wait to put the washing on until a bit later today and might team that up for when we’re producing enough solar. Thanks Ovo.

But that’s not really the point. Energy management is going to allow countries like the UK make that move towards renewable energy across the country rather than at the microsource without risking brown-outs.

Building new houses with heat source pumps and solar cells help, but for some older houses, retrofitting such technology (especially heat source pumps) is not going to be possible. Building new houses uses a lot of energy – so knocking down the old is not the answer.

Perhaps these tool help resolve that divide.

We don’t have many biscuits in the house, but those that do make it over the threshold tend to be plain chocolate digestives.

My fault: I am not a fan of the milk chocolate used for biscuits, it’s a bit sickly. So plain chocolate digestives were the compromise because I really am not a fan of digestives either.

Once you’ve switched from milk chocolate diggies to plain ones, you never look back.

But weirdly, this few millimetres of plain chocolate make them a luxury item so liable to VAT or value added tax.

Where on earth are you going with this?

Chocolate, plain chocolate diggies and sweets are all liable to VAT, at 20%, that’s quite a mark up.

But cakes are not. They are deemed a staple food, seriously. A chocolate cake is deemed an essential: so a 400g chocolate cake is £2.75 and 400g of chocolate is also £4 but with 80p going to the exchequor.

So?

Well, what is more luxorious than a cake? What has more labour and effort put into it than a cake?
More importantly, our 400g of chocolate contains 266 Calories (kCal) in it, where-as the cake contains 424 Calories (kCal).

If you go to the nutrition, the cake is flagged as a “high fat” food and even the most basic cake is that, but it also flags highly on the sugar stakes

We don’t have many biscuits in the house, but those that do make it over the threshold tend to be plain chocolate digestives.

My fault: I am not a fan of the milk chocolate used for biscuits, it’s a bit sickly. So plain chocolate digestives were the compromise because I really am not a fan of digestives either.

Once you’ve switched from milk chocolate diggies to plain ones, you never look back.

But weirdly, this few millimetres of plain chocolate make them a luxury item so liable to VAT or value added tax.

Where on earth are you going with this?

Chocolate, plain chocolate diggies and sweets are all liable to VAT, at 20%, that’s quite a markup.

But cakes are not. They are deemed a staple food, seriously. A chocolate cake is deemed an essential: so a 400g chocolate cake is £2.75 and 400g of chocolate is also £4 but with 80p going to the exchequer.

So?

Well, what is more luxurious than a cake? What has more labour and effort put into it than a cake?
More importantly, our 400g of chocolate contains 266 Calories (kCal) in it, where-as the cake contains 424 Calories (kCal).

If you go to the nutrition, the cake is flagged as a “high fat” food and even the most basic cake is that, but it also flags highly on the sugar stakes. A sponge cake in its most basic form is a third sugar, a third fat and a third flour – given that most flours are 50-75% sugar, that makes the humble cake a hugely luxurious food in terms of impact to health.

Which begs the question, why are we not charging VAT on cakes, please?

. A sponge cake in its most basic form is a third sugar, a third fat and a third flour – given that most flours are 50-75% sugar, that makes the humble cake a hugely luxorious food in terms of impact to health.

Which begs the question, why are we not charging VAT on cakes, please?

I’ve never had french onion soup – there’s a fundamental problem with it when I eat out and that’s the edition of a layer of cheese on the top.

I love cheese and onion and gravy – believe me, French onion soup is the equivalent of onion gravy and who doesn’t like onion gravy? – so it’s a wonder this isn’t my ideal dish apart from the fact the cheese is melted in to the dish making bolusing difficult.

I think due to lockdown, the mincing attachment for my mixer came with a “continuous slicer/grater” which promises to process high volumes of veggies and other materials quickly and efficiently. I had visions of it languishing in my cupboard. But I’ve been making a few soups recently and thought I’d give it a go.

I even mentioned in during the weekly Covid-call we’ve been having with our friends. “Oh, I tried that,” said Chris a particularly keen home cook and someone I consider the Ivan Lendl out of us when it comes to cooking: text book perfection. “I couldn’t make a decent one. Disaster every time.

Daunted, me? No way. I looked at several recipes, in particular the directions and formed my plan.

I have to say, I wasn’t helped by the fact the principle recipe I chose was for a soup maker rather than cooking in a pot on the stove. But I’m a human being, most adaptable creature on the planet; I could do this.

Bearing in mind the onion gravy comment, that was one of the things I did differently. I put gravy granules in as well as the beef stock.

You also need to bear in mind you get a burnt layer on your pan bottom. Comes off with the second stage of the cooking but is a little nerve wracking to look at 5 minutes into cooking. I did wash the pan immediately too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah; what was it like?

Good, actually. A lot like onion gravy.

The past few weeks have been spent in a couple of key ways while using up some leave.

Oh yeah?

Yes. Firstly having been given a kit by a friend to enable my food mixer to be used as a meat mincer, or grinder to my American friends, and finding neither me or my husband could get it attached to the mixer, I went and bought a device which would work.

Phew, long sentence

It really did feel like that. Working out how the equipment worked and doing it all for the first time, plus, of course the washing up…

Anyway, the idea was to make use of big joints of meat that would be too large for the two or three of us in a roast meal that we’d end up throwing away and use as mincemeat instead.

When the newer mincer arrived, we still couldn’t see how it fitted even with the adapter I’d bought. Having finally worked it out, 45 minutes later, I was ready to go.

I made mince with some left over beef and a tasty fresh Bolognese sauce.

That’s one thing then…

The 2nd is having seen the mincer on the Kenwood world site, I gave in to curiousity and bought a pasta maker attachment too 🙂

Pasta? Doesn’t that come in nice packets and you cook it for 10 minutes as a foil for pasta sauces?

Yes, yes it does. I’ve never had ambitions to make my own pasta. But the past few weeks, I have been making my own. Check out Home made pasta. The first lot I made with for a Pasta alla Genovese and the 2nd with the home minced beef. It’s tasty and once you’ve worked out how all the equipment works, pretty quick. Cooking it is mind blowingly quick: 2 minutes for really fresh pasta, 3 minutes if you’ve kept it a couple of days.

Oh yeah, as quick as opening the packet, measuring out what you want and bunging in some hot water?

No, of course not. But the pasta keeps for a week in the fridge and the texture is amazing. Of course, it is reducing plastic waste too.

Cost-wise it’s a dead-end, not worth the effort. A dried packet of pasta is £0.75-£3.00 depending on where you shop per 1kg.

The flour alone is £0.60 per portion and then you have eggs on top. That only makes enough for 4 servings.

But wow, it does taste amazing and cook incrediably quickly (after all the prep 😉 ).

OK, so that’s four weeks worth of time then?

Last night, with a penultimate afternoon off, I bought some venison, steak and made three burgers; one for me, my husband and son. I’ve not found anywhere that will sell me just three burgers so we end up splitting the last one.

This took a long time, from start to eating was just under 90minutes.

But wow, tasty for a burger that didn’t have any salt or pepper added. Cooked over a barbeque (and it was cold out there, so thanks Jon) and served with onions, the burgers were very different to the normal shop bought ones as it had the venison. They were darker in colour and flavoursome. I wasn’t planning on making them either – looking for steak, the venison was on special offer.

Of course, next time, I’ll be much quicker making them. The onions, parsely and garlic I add will be done in my hand blender mincer instead of the Kenwood Chef, meaning I can mince and do that at the same time. It will also reduce the washing up – that device being much simpler than the one I’d used instead.

But definitely, something to try again. I did buy the rolls the burgers… but I could do everything?!

Lockdown, in the UK, has afford many of us opportunities as our busy commute and work lives have dramatically changed.

Due to shortages last year, I have started making bread from scratch in my bread maker rather than using packets. To be honest, the mixes are interesting because someone has done all the experimenting for you and worked out the perfect ratios of the ingredients for a perfect result everytime.

Where-as I’ve spent the last 10 months doing just that.

Is there a point to this?

I’m getting there, hold your horses.

Today’s adventure is making pasta from home, and hence the title above. Pasta is an involved process. Using strong flour, like the bread, this is more hands on (no handy pasta maker here) and uses various pieces of equipment.

The first step of the process is making the dough, no it doesn’t have yeast, but the glutenous features of durum wheat means, much like bread, there are resting periods.

You make the dough (or rather the food mixer does) and “rest the dough” in the fridge, 30-35 minutes.

You then roll the pasta into thin wafers, another 10-20 minutes (I suspect longer this first time) and then cut, another 3-5 minutes. The “dry the pasta”, another 30 minutes.

Seriously, 1hr 40 minutes?

Seriously. This is not a spur of the minute thing and there’s also the washing up and all. This time, I am not going to be making the mince for a bolognese but a home cooked alla genovese sauce (delicious, and using shop bought pesto and frozen veg, really quick to make).

The pasta, if fully dried, should keep for a week and one of the big benefits should be a very quick cook time – 2 minutes or so.

There are other points to notice. 200g of flour makes a BIG protion each for three. Worth dividing in two and making two different shapes with the amount. It should keep for a week.

Is it worth it?

That’s always a tough question. If you count the time, it’s a big investment and that’s not including the equipment (processor, rollers and pasta cutters). True, you only pay that once, but it makes that first batch incrediably expensive.

It did cook beautifully: al dente, thick spaghetti, which the sauce clung to. Buon appetito!

This week has been interesting in a few of ways. Firstly, we got a reminder about the 2021 census which we’re keen to do.

Government grabbing data to chase us on taxes…

No, way of establishing the make up of the country and working out where budgets should be provided.

Plus of course, it allows people following family trees in the future vital records of where people are when. It’s a way of leaving your stamp on the world.

We also got our voting cards for the upcoming local elections. Due to the pandemic, they are offering everyone the chance to vote via mail.

I’ve never taken part in an exit poll but surely there’s no chance of that happening if I post my vote?

We’ve also been asked about our thoughts regarding a proposed blocking of a neighbouring road to through traffic. Which is nice, but the letter arrived on Wednesday and they want the answer in the “Traffic strategy office” by Monday. Obviously true democracy is only available to those with the time to invest in it and not people running part of their metabolism and working from home.

The funniest thing about this, and as a liberal I feel there some be as much freedom of movement as possible to allow free flowing traffic and basically options if things foul up not to mention the barrier this would form to health care officials in reaching some of the residents of this road.

The fact is, the road in question is very close to the park and during the pandemic as at other times, the road is often blocked by people parking their cars their to enjoy the park. Which would not be stopped by blocking off one end, indeed it may encourage the behaviour. The argument to put them in is to reduce noise for the local residents: this is not true on that road which is a 20mph limit and modern cars obeying the noise pollution act (not to mention EVs) are really quiet anyway.

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This week has been interesting in a few of ways. Firstly, we got a reminder about the 2021 census which we’re keen to do.

Government grabbing data to chase us on taxes…

No, way of establishing the make up of the country and working out where budgets should be provided.

Plus of course, it allows people following family trees in the future vital records of where people are when. It’s a way of leaving your stamp on the world.

We also got our voting cards for the upcoming local elections. Due to the pandemic, they are offering everyone the chance to vote via mail.

I’ve never taken part in an exit poll but surely there’s no chance of that happening if I post my vote?

We’ve also been asked about our thoughts regarding a proposed blocking of a neighbouring road to through traffic. Which is nice, but the letter arrived on Wednesday and they want the answer in the “Traffic strategy office” by Monday. Obviously true democracy is only available to those with the time to invest in it and not people running part of their metabolism and working from home.

The funniest thing about this, and as a liberal I feel there some be as much freedom of movement as possible to allow free flowing traffic and basically options if things foul up not to mention the barrier this would form to health care officials in reaching some of the residents of this road.

The fact is, the road in question is very close to the park and during the pandemic as at other times, the road is often blocked by people parking their cars their to enjoy the park. Which would not be stopped by blocking off one end, indeed it may encourage the behaviour. The argument to put them in is to reduce noise for the local residents: this is not true on that road which is a 20mph limit and modern cars obeying the noise pollution act (not to mention EVs) are really quiet anyway.

Anyway, being consulted is nice. We are exercising our democratic prerogative and all three of us our voicing why this is bad. Me to allow ambulance traffic, my family for relief on the main road when things are difficult road-wise.

This is a bit of a sore point as sections of the cycle lanes have been blocked off by “wands” – vertical rods sticking out of the road to section off the cycle lane from non-cycling traffic.

As a cyclist, I think these have been put in the wrong place for many reasons but I hadn’t considered that some cyclists may be forced out of cycle lanes by them and that’s the trailer buggies for very small children. I witnessed a man with his two children have to fight with normal traffic instead of just hanging out of the cycle lane a little because of the wands. He looked horrified that he was put in that position – what I should have done was taken a photo but now I know who to write to, I’m doing that.

I have not mentioned the impact this has on roundabout usage for cyclists (which as someone who needs to turn right to get into our place) denying them the usual path round a roundabout. Our roundabout has several collisions anyway, I spotted the fact a driver pulling out hadn’t looked my way a few years ago which allowed me the chance to avoid an accident. If I’d been in the outer lane, a driver is not going to see a cyclist on the “natural flow” of the traffic far more often. This happens when we drive too, cars heading from the west to the east on this particular roundabout often don’t look left before joining the roundabout. Which is a pretty basic failure of driving competence.

nyway, being consulted is nice. We are exercising our democratic perogative and all three of us our voicing why this is bad. Me to allow ambulance traffic, my family for relief on the main road when things are difficult road-wise.

This is a bit of a sore point as sections of the cycle lanes have been blocked off by “wands” – vertical rods sticking out of the road to section off the cycle lane from non-cycling traffic.

As a cyclist, I think these have been put in the wrong place for many reasons but I hadn’t considered that some cyclists may be forced out of cycle lanes by them and that’s the trailer buggies for very small children. I witnessed a man with his two children have to fight with normal traffic instead of just hanging out of the cycle lane a little because of the wands. He looked horrified that he was put in that position – what I should have done was taken a photo but now I know who to write to, I’m doing that.

I have not mentioned the impact this has on roundabout usage for cyclists (which as someone who needs to turn right to get into our place) denying them the usual path round a roundabout. Our roundabout has several collisions anyway, I spotted the fact a driver pulling out hadn’t looked my way a few years ago which allowed me the chance to avoid an accident. If I’d been in the outer lane, a driver is not going to see a cyclist on the “natural flow” of the traffic far more often. This happens when we drive too, cars heading from the west to the east on this particular roundabout often don’t look left before joining the roundabout. Which is a pretty basic failure of driving competenance.

Hope your experiences are better, have a beautiful day.