Pallets of Veg. - Pt 2

The veg patch got more sides, but instead of making each piece fit in place we did some planning! 

The second bed needs completing and it was worth a shot at making up a whole side as a single piece first and then putting it in place. Sort of a good plan, but it was substantially harder to hammer into the ground, purely because it's harder to avoid the random deposits of rocks and stones underneath the grass.

The next bed, down the side of the house framing the path from the gate was made in a few pieces instead and knocked into an existing trench (made by removing the stone edging) and then backfilling slightly.

Far easier, still not as easy as building it in place a piece at a time, but that's much more time consuming, so either way, nothings perfect. Perhaps a bigger hammer...

Our landlord happened to have a greenhouse going spare during some improvements of his own so we carried it (without the glass) over the hedge into our garden. Back (as we've found out since) to within a few feet of where it was removed from this garden to his years back.

The frame is sound, but covered in moss. The glass was partially out and needs a good clean too, not to mention a few panes are broken so need replacing.

After a good cleaning though, the frame came up really well.

The harder part is laying a brick foundation into the grass, which every few inches has what seems like a thousand stones. At times, it'd be less rocky doing this on a beach. Still plenty of pallets left, probably make a floor, rather than making a flag floor and fitting that in nicely.

Pallets of Veg. - Pt. 1

When I lived in Padworth we had a veg patch, and it grew a decent variety of things, but it wasn't all that big, nor was it ideally placed for the sun (shadow of the house from about midday passed right over it). 

The new place has a much bigger garden, and it's mostly laid to lawn, but it gets a HUGE amount of sun. There's a wall to give a bit of shade to some of the plants, but  enough room to move things around. Plus there's the side of the house to the left which is south facing and should provide suppoirt to the taller plants with some trellis.

Theres what used to be a border, but is now something of a desolate wasteland to the side by the house which is going to get pulled up and raised if we get enough pallets.

We got enough pallets.

The first set went in slowly, digging holes for the posts and backfilling where the edging used to be (Yeah, there was edging in the first shot of the other side of the 'path'). And there were stones. So. Many. Stones. In the end a new tactic of chop the uprights into points and hammer them in where they needed it with the siding knocked into the softish earth. Waaaay faster.

The second bed was started in the same manner, begin with the 'path' edge (spot the trench) about a meter long and then work along the longer edges to the wall.

Not bad for a days work collecting, breaking down and shopping. I've sourced a local guy with topsoil as well which is handy. Next jobs are turn over the grassy areas in the beds, and finish the last side of the bed. then do the other side of the path.

The reclaimed edging even has a plan, if the landlord is happy enough to go with it and I cna cheaply find the materials. Pt. 2 to come soon if the weather holds.

Foody things from 2013

Once again, i've got a backlog of posts from the last few years that i've neglected to actual post.

This last year I've found a few things food related which don't really need a whole post to themselves and have kind of ended up straggling as a non-entity. So there are a couple of posts coming about some of the slightly random bit of food stuff I've found in the last year. I might make it a regular thing for those bits that don't fit anywhere else.

As a regular at Costco, I've many times sampled their in store hot dog and soda for lunch. For £1.50 it's a bargain and you can refill the cup after while you wander about, or leave, either way.

Recently (read sometime in autumn '13) the Reading branch started doing a chili-cheese dog. 50p extra per topping, so in essence still a bargain, but with great toppings, come great problems.

Sometimes, they can get a little more generous then usual, not that i'm one to turn down a plentiful meal, but it does sometimes become tricky to hold. Even when cut in half, napkins are required.

In the same vein as before, both of these are from imgur posts and by extension of that, reddit. but imgur is where I found them, so that can have the credit.

The first was pretty simple, why dunk oreo's in milk, when you could just have a bowl of oreo's and milk, like you would cereal. they do soak up pretty fast and in fairness they do also make an oreo's cereal. But as that's hardly widely available in the UK, this is an acceptable, and delicious substitute.

The next is somewhat more radical. Sweet potato fries, and Nutella. Yes, that's right, read it again if you need to, I'll wait.

It works, it sounds a bit mad, but it really does work well, my parents were skeptical too, then we made it, and once the Nutella melted slightly and was more dippable it worked even better.

The potato was sliced fairly thinly into chips, shallow fried in the pan (they probably need more time to crispen next time) and then have a good sized teaspoon of Nutella dropped on top. The picture was taken about half way through the bowl. Like I said, they were good!

I'll probably do a proper write up on these sometime this year, there were a few things I'd change if/when I do it again.

And finally, Showing just how long ago this was (I've moved twice since I had this kitchen). What do you do when you've got a load of odd bits and pieces of lunch and snack food. Have all of it!

Granted this was for 3 of us (I think) and it was good. Plus it's actually pretty healthy, at least in comparison to the last few things i've posted. Probably worth doing again

Smoker advances

Another post from history, last time I used the smoker, while it was cooling down the lower saucer cracked, and then shattered into 3 bits. Somewhat annoying but not 100% unexpected.

The solution fixes two problems with the smoker. The first is that the fire is a bit higher, hence further from the saucer and less likely to be badly affected by the intense heat.

Secondly, the pot feet lifting the saucer create a gap around the whole circumference of the fire tray allowing loads more air into the base of the fire. This should (when properly supervised and fueled) keep the fire burning more evenly and effectively.

The first firing was pretty good and using a bigger joint (2.25kg, instead of about 1-1.5) it took around 6-7 hours to almost completely cook the pork shoulder. It was  still a little pink/juicy in the very middle so we finished it in the oven for half an hour, which was probably a bit too long. The flavour was good too, using mostly applewood, and some oak when we ran out.

Not Quite the Healthy New Year

It's a new year, and I should probably make another effort to keep updates coming more regularly. So what with New Years being all about healthy eating, here's something that's not, on pintrest. 

One sheet of ready made puff pastry, because new years eve is no time for making pastry when you could be doing anything else at all. Roll it out just over a foot square, ish. Or more or less, whatever, i'm not a cop.

The original has a large bar of chocolate, but it seemed like a much better idea to use Cadbury's Caramel, but the bar is a bit smaller than the one in the video, so...

...Improvise! Splitting the bar into three strips filled out the pastry much better, but then what to do about the large gaps? Marshmallows. Always marshmallows.

Cut in at an angle and fold the ends over to hopefully stop the contents leaking everywhere.

Slice the sides in strips and fold over in a lattice, alternate sides, then egg wash the pastry.

Bake it for 10-15 minutes at 180C and then see how it looks, if it's not golden yet, give it a bit longer.

Impressively very little leaked out, although it was fairly fragile, getting it from the tray to the plate was a bit trickier than imagined, but it survived.

It was everything I wanted it to be, and the caramel and marshmallows were the right decision, as expected.

Would I make this again, yes, would I probably die early as a result, yes. Would it be worth it? Yes.

Brb, Germany...

At least, after some 5 years, I'm once again Nurburgring bound. It's been FAR too long frankly since the last trip, the Lolf has had to have some welding for it's MOT (first time it's needed welding) and some other niggles, including a concerned call from the garage asking if there was a knack to get it started as it was getting harder to start as the days went on moving it around. Turns out what it needs is fuel (GG there).

The Z4m in the convoy has had a full work over prior and we're currently on the ferry (this will probably be posted later, yay roaming data :( ). France beacons,  Brussels looms like a threat of torment to get round and then it's onwards to Eifel, ze Fatherland in a pair of Bavarian steeds.

Short and Sweet

Browsing imgur today and saw this:

Specifically this image

Remembered I had both of these:

And then did this:

There were no regrets.