Neglected

Looking back over the posts for 2014 it seems this blog has been rather neglected. In fact I've made just 14 posts. It isn't that I'm not blogging as much as I used to but that my posts are now spread across three blogs. In total I've actually written 167 posts; six over on my code and electronics blog and 147 on model railways. I also joined Twitter at the end of 2013 and so have posted some items there over the last year as well. It does mean though, that I have a fair amount of catching up to do on this blog, so just as I did last year, I'll fill this post with brief glimpse of the rest of my 2014 adventures.

Looking back over the year the most interesting things (from a blog post of view) have probably been the trips away with work, as I've had the opportunity to visit some really great places. I visited four new places but only blogged, briefly, about the trip to Kaiserslautern. The first trip of the year though was in February when I went to Luleå in northern Sweden.

One of the main reasons for holding the meeting in Luleå in February was that there was a chance to see the northern lights. Unfortunately the weather was rainy rather than very cold and clear so I'll have to wait to see the northern lights. I did, however, get to experience a 15km ride over an ice road from Luleå out to the island of Hindersön. The trip was at night (we had dinner at the Jopikgården restaurant on the island which included reindeer steak and cloudberries) so there wasn't much of a view, which was probably a good thing as it was scary enough as it was. As we left solid ground and were driven onto the ice we were told to undo our seat belts as it's easier to escape from a sinking car without them on! If that wasn't bad enough part way over there was a little moment where the car wasn't pointing the right way, and our driver admitted he'd never driven an ice road before and it wasn't his car. It was certainly an interesting evening.

The following morning, before the meeting started, a small group of us managed to also make it out to Gammelstad which is a UNESCO world heritage site just outside Luleå. Apparently it's the best preserved church town and consists of 424 wood-built houses around the central church. Traditionally the he houses were only used on Sundays and during religious festivals by those members of the congregation who couldn't return home the same day due to the distance and travelling conditions.

After the icy cold of northern Sweden a trip to Turin in June made a nice change. It being Italy there was an awful lot of good food and coffee, although strangely I didn't have any pizza, but the highlight of the trip had to be the evening visit we made to the Egyptian Museum. Apparently it houses the worlds second largest collection of Egyptian artifacts after the museum in Cairo; it certainly was very impressive with lots to see and take in. Certainly well worth a visit if you are ever in Turin.

October saw the final work trip of the year to a new destination, this time Istanbul in Turkey. This was my first trip to Turkey and was certainly interesting. First of all Istanbul is HUGE. I don't think I've ever seen such a large sprawling city, which means I saw only a very tiny part of it, but what I saw was great. It's the first time I've seen the boundary between two continents. We had dinner at a restaurant on the European edge of the Bosphorus looking across the water to Asia. I also managed an afternoon of sightseeing and with a colleague in which we visited both the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia as well as sampling the delights of Turkish ice cream which is chewy and doesn't melt in the heat!

I've already blogged about some of our holiday on Skye in August including dolphins, seals, and Loch Coruisk but it's also worth mentioning that we had a wonderful lunch at the Kinloch Lodge Hotel; the first time I've eaten food that comes with a Michelin star!

Strangely I also seem to have spent quite a while fixing things this year, I even spent about 45 minutes on Boxing Day replacing the door lock on a dishwasher. My favourite fix of the year had to be the new bracket to fix the fridge door. I've already blogged about this, but I thought it worth mentioning agin especially as it made Shapeways review of the year blog post!

I also fixed a toilet using a piece of gaffer tape after it stopped flushing. It turns out that part of he mechanism is a rather flimsy plastic sheet, which can easily tear over time and when it does it can no longer lift the water to flush the toilet. Fortunately it's easy to repair... if you can get the toilet apart.

So it was an interesting year even if I didn't blog about a lot of it. Hopefully 2015 will be just as fun for us all!

Beef From The Orchard

Last year I was invited to join Tesco's new product testing site The Orchard. Essential what happens is that Tesco run some form of promotion, they send me a voucher so I can try the promotion free or for less than full price and then I give them feedback, as well as publicising the promotion in some way (like this post). Given that I do almost all my food shopping at Tesco (they are the main supermarket in Penistone) it seems like a good deal to me, and hopefully you won't be too annoyed by the occasional blog post.

So the first promotion I was asked to participate in was for uncooked fresh meat from the Tesco finest* range and I was sent a £5 off voucher at the beginning of December. Unfortunately due to being away for Christmas and my local store not always stocking the full range (it's not a huge store) I've only recently used the voucher. The wait was, however, worthwhile. In the end I bought 2 fillet steaks which I served with a Greek inspired bubble and squeak. As I wasn't serving a sauce with the steaks I wanted to make sure they were really nice and succulent so I soaked them in 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar for about 10 hours in the fridge before I cooked them. A simple but effective way of preparing the steaks especially as they turned out to be possible the best steak I've ever eaten; they really were unbelievably good. I'm sure a lot of that was down to the quality of the meat, but I'll take some of the credit for the marinading!

All in all, an excellent meal, and I'd be more than happy to recommend the Tesco finest* meats. I've already enrolled in the next promotion which is all about potatoes!

Why Visit Edinburgh?

I'm sure there are many reasons to enjoy visiting Edinburgh (in fact I know there are, so I definitely have my tongue wedged firmly in my cheek), but I only need one; the Bagel Factory in Edinburgh train station!

Individually Wrapped

While digging around for something sweet to eat yesterday (I made the Moffat Toffee last quite a while, thanks Adrian) I came across one of the more random things I brought back from my trip to Beijing back in 2010; an individually wrapped Polo mint!

Now I know that individually wrapped sweets aren't that uncommon, but individually wrapped Polo mints were a new one for me. The meeting room at the hotel we were staying in was always well setup in a morning with cups for the tea that was brought in at regular intervals as well as large bowls full of these mints. Needless to say I think we all found them quite intriguing and we certainly ate quite a lot of them.

It's now been over two years since my trip to China but I think that is probably the last of the blog worthy things I saw or did!

Tear-And-Share Cake

The Kindness Of Bloggers

I was spoilt for choice when trying to choose a title for this post. I considered both "It's Not What You Know But Who You Know" and "The Postman Wore Shorts" before settling on "The Kindness Of Bloggers". A simpler title, that gets straight to the point, would however, have simply been: Thank You Adrian!

Last weekend, when Adrian ended up in Moffat as the campsite at Biggar was closed, I suggested that if he needed something to do then he should definitely visit the Moffat Toffee shop. I didn't know at the time but Adrian doesn't really have a sweet tooth, but he does have a kind heart, and hence he made an offer to post me a tin of toffee.

Moffat Toffee is, to put it mildly, a bit weird. Firstly it isn't actually toffee, but a boiled sweet! According to their own website it has a caramel outside with a lemon centre, but personally I think they taste of toffee apples. Whatever they actually taste like I love them and the chance to have a tin (possibly only the third I've ever had) was too good to pass up.

We are really fortunate in the UK to have a number of local foods that are worth hunting out; as well as Moffat Toffee I'd recommend Wensleydale Cheese (although that's easy to buy in almost any supermarket now), the output from most of the small breweries/distilleries that dot the landscape (usually the smaller the better) and most definitely Grasmere Gingerbread. Grasmere Gingerbread is as much like gingerbread as Moffat Toffee is like toffee so don't rely on it's name for a description!

Thanks again Adrian, I know what I'm doing this weekend; sucking toffee!

4lbs and Counting

In common with the rest of the country Penistone, has so far, had a rather wet summer. Unfortunately this has limited somewhat the amount of gardening we have been able to do; even when the sun is shining the ground is so water laden as to be impossible to work with. This means there is a lot of weeding to do, but it also means that the actual plants in the garden have been kept well watered.

One plant that seems exceptionally happy is the tayberry. We only planted this last year and while it grew quite a bit during the summer it's gone crazy this year. It's obviously happy given the amount of fruit it's producing. So far I've picked just over 4lbs of fruit and there appears to be no end in sight. I'm not quite sure what we are going to do with it all yet; they've been washed, dried and frozen.

Tayberries, for those who don't know, are a cross between blackberries and raspberries and so I'm thinking jam might be a good way to go.

The Pie Master

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, but before I post about the festive season, I have one more post about Rob and Rhona's wedding...

Having found our way to our table I was a little worried about what I found on my seat: a chef's hat and an apron.

When Bryony and I got married, and Rob was my best man, he "borrowed" my apron for use as a prop during his speech. Given this I was more than a little concerned by the presence of a apron and chef's hat. I didn't know if it was going to be a prop during a speech or ... my imagination was running away from me in nightmarish directions.

Fortunately it was only a few seconds before I noticed that a few other chairs also held aprons and hats. Whatever was going on I wasn't alone! I hope Rob won't mind me saying, but he (just like me) does enjoy his food and the only time I have ever seen him off his food was at our wedding when he knew he had to give a speech. Having learned from that experience Rob and Rhona had scheduled the speeches for before the food so I didn't have long to wait to find out what on earth I was expected to do with an apron and a chef's hat.

In retrospect I should have been able to guess what the hat and apron were for. I already knew, and the menu confirmed, that for main course there was a choice between chicken or beef pies. Normally you have to choose your food months before the actual day but we had never been asked what we wanted. The answer was that large dishes consisting of nine portions where brought to the tables. Those with an apron and hat were then responsible for dishing out the pies; I was responsible for a beef pie.

It was really quite fun helping with the food, especially when it came to bartering with the other "chefs" for seconds! Yet again another feature of the day that was very different to anything I'd experienced at any wedding I've ever been invited to. I'm sure it will stick out as a memorable day for everyone who was there -- for me (ignoring my own wedding) it is second only in unique memories to my cousins wedding, which included a car chase that could easily have been a deleted scene from the Italian Job (note to self: that actually might make a good blog post at some point).

Once again congratulations to Rob and Rhona!

And The Words Became Flesh

For the last two years Bryony's birthday cake has involved bees in one form or another. Back in 2009 there were the bees that wouldn't set, and then last year I was actually in China on her birthday but left a tin full of baby beehives for her and my family to enjoy. This year we were away for her birthday at Rob and Rhona's wedding, so she had to wait until today for her birthday cake.

As you may remember, one of the presents I got for my birthday was a book on how to make sugarpaste characters for decorating cakes. Over a few weeks I had fun making pink elephants, pigs, and mice. So my plan was to put these new found skills to use in decorating Bryony's birthday cake.

Among the many cookery books we have in the house there are two on cake decorating written by Debbie Brown (Magical Cakes and Lovable Character Cakes). A quick flick through both books and the cake started to take shape in my head. The magical cakes book included a large dragon wrapped around a castle, and given Bryony's love of dragons I knew that would work well. I was, however, unsure if I could pull of both an elaborate shaped cake as well as a large sugarpaste dragon. Flicking through the other book, I came across a cake in the shape of an open book with Barney (yes, the purple dinosaur) sitting on it. The book appeared to be easy to make and ice and so my idea was to make a spell book from which a baby dragon had just been summoned.

So I set about buying the necessary ingredients and equipment. There was a cake box and board, orange, black and white sugarpaste, some edible glue, paint brushes and a pot of gum tragacanth to help the sugarpaste hold it's shape. As I had hoped, icing the cake was fairly straightforward although I'm sure it could have been neater. Making the dragon, however, was quite a challenge.

I hadn't realised quite how long the gum tragacanth would take to work and so I started to make the dragon's head while the sugarpaste was still too soft. In the end I gave up and scrunched it back into a ball and left it to harden for an hour before trying again. The wings were also tricky as I had to shape them and then leave them to harden overnight before I could glue them onto the dragons back. All told it probably took me somewhere between 4 and 5 hours to fully assemble the cake, but the look on Bryony's face when she saw it for the first time this morning made it all worthwhile. I just hope it tastes as good as it looks!

The Original Sacher-Torte

When I travel I try and make sure I get to sample the local specialty foods and drinks. For example, in Bled you have to eat the cream slice and in Beijing it's Peking Duck. When I was in Vienna I did sample the local wine (one of the social events was held at a vineyard), although I missed out on trying Sturm. I also decided there was no way I could travel to Vienna without trying the original Sacher Torte. Apparently.... the history of the world-famous Original Sacher-Torte began in 1832, when the 16-year old apprentice cook Franz Sacher created this dessert at the court of Prince Metternich. In the meantime, it has become the most famous torte in the world and the hand-written recipe is a "state secret" of the hotel. The Original Sacher-Torte is still produced in the traditional manner and is hand-made.

As I didn't have too much time to sit and enjoy the delights of the Hotel Sacher, instead of eating a slice in Vienna I bought a whole torte (in a wooden box) and brought it home. It survived a mad dash across Munich airport as I nearly missed my flight home, and it was worth every Euro I spent on it. Absolutely gorgeous. From the smell of high quality chocolate on unwrapping the box, to the lightness of the cake, it was just a delight to eat.

Of course you don't just have to take me word for it, you could order your very own Sacher-Torte to bring a little piece of Vienna to your own corner of the globe!

Trying (And Failing) To Speak German

When I was at high school I spent two and a half years trying to learn German. It certainly wasn't my best subject and I eventually scrapped through with a D at GCSE level. Now that I travel quite a lot with work I get plenty of opportunities to make use of my limited German ability. Unfortunately although I try hard there is hardly ever a great success story. For some reason I seem to always struggle to buy lunch.

I'm in Vienna all this week and so I've had plenty of opportunity to hear, read, and try to speak German. Usually I limit myself to please and thank you, but yesterday I made the mistake of trying something a little more complex. I went into a sandwich shop, decided what I wanted, and ordered it along with a bottle of coke all in German. My sandwich and coke arrived and then I was hit with a long stream of German, of which I understood exactly zero words. So I had to switch back to English. Fortunately the guy serving spoke English and so there wasn't a problem. He even said that my German accent was quite good.

I wouldn't mind if this was the first time that this had happened, but in fact the first time I visited German (Bonn back in 2005), I also ordered a sandwich but couldn't understand the questions I was asked. On that occasion the woman behind the counter didn't speak English so I had to be saved by some helpful German students.

So from now on I think I'm going to stick to just reading small amounts of German and give up on the idea of ever being able to hold, an even simple, conversation.

Get Off Me Cheese!

Probably not as well executed as the elephants or the pigs but technically more challenging. They involve four different colours; I had to get away from just pink icing!

Pinky and Perky

As promised, after the elephants came pigs.

Thanks again to Helen, Ian and Linda for the birthday presents which led to me making these. I'm not sure what I'm going to make next but I'm sure I'll let you know.

Missing Pips

Over the years I've cut up an awful lot of oranges and lemons and you can guarantee that you'll find at least one pip in each.

Over the last few years I've started cooking Mexican food quite a bit and this, in turn, has led me to cut up quite a few limes. I must have cut into at least a hundred or so limes and I'm yet to encounter a single pip. Do limes not have pips? I'd always assumed they were reproductively similar to oranges and lemons. Am I missing something obvious?

Dismemberment

Dismemberment: the act of cutting, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise removing, the limbs of a living thing.

Turns out I quite like fresh elephant meat. The ears were especially tasty!

Pink Elephants

As some of you will know I recently had a birthday (if I haven't already said thank you for a card or present then... THANK YOU!), and yesterday after a) fixing Blogger's mistakes and b) a full working day I decided to relax by having a play in the kitchen using two of my birthday presents.

Helen and Ian had kindly bought me a book from my Amazon wishlist about making sugarpaste characters for decorating cakes. Even after just a quick flick through I knew I was going to be making the second character in the book, a pink elephant (if you go to Amazon you can look inside the book and see the instructions for making the elephant yourself). So I spent some of the money Linda had given me as a present on buying pink icing, black gel colouring and a modeling tool. These arrived in the post yesterday so once work was over I set about making some elephants.

While I've decorated cakes before the closest I've got to making fancy decorations were my iced bees which were recognizable as bees (or possibly wasps) but which wouldn't really have won any awards for artistic merit. So while I'm unlikely to be offered a job making models for the next Wallace and Gromit adventure I'm still more than happy with the results (and I haven't even tasted them yet). I'll definitely be making more elephants in the future and as I've still got plenty of pink icing left I might branch out into making pigs as well.

Everything But The Pig

As well as growing strawberries we've been experimenting this year with growing a whole raft of different vegetables. Whilst not all have been a success and some aren't yet ready to eat we've produced enough that last weekend I cooked a meal in which everything but the pig came straight out of the garden!

The meal consisted of a maple and mustard glazed ham served with roast potatoes and steamed carrots and peas. The carrots (Amsterdam Forcing Sprint) were grown in a half barrel, the potatoes (Vales Emerald) were grown in purpose designed sack, and the peas were grown by accident!

We actually grew mangetout with the intention of eating the whole pods. We did in fact eat quite a few mangetout in salads and in a Chinese stir fry. However, we had planted more seeds than we needed and so got lots and lots of mangetout. As we didn't eat them fast enough they continued to grow until they were essential peas in a pod. So we picked and shelled the peas and they worked perfectly.

There are still two more sacks of potatoes, three courgette plants and some runner beans growing in the garden so I doubt that it will be the only meal this year where most of the ingredients come fresh from the garden.

Pick, Soak, Boil, and Set

Pick, soak, boil and set are the four stages to making a truly heavenly strawberry jam. We planted five strawberry plants in the border last year, and while we got some fruit, there wasn't enough to do anything other than just eat them. This year, however, the plants have gone mad. So far we must have picked at least 3lb of strawberries and there are still plenty ready to pick and plenty that have yet to fully ripen.

When we came back from holiday (don't worry there will be more holiday themed posts) I had a few days before I went back to work and given the amount of strawberries I decided that some of the time should be spent slaving over a hot stove producing strawberry jam.

Of course while making a batch of jam is rewarding, there is a feeling of accomplishment as well as a sweet food, you can't really eat jar after jar of jam on it's own. So this weekend I made fruit scones.

So the last two days have been pretty good; eating homemade scones with home made strawberry jam while watching the British F1 qualifying/race. What more could a person want?

Shitaki Mushrooms

Hopefully this won't be my last blog post, but if it is then you can probably blame the mushrooms!

Whilst on occasions I might like living dangerously I'm not stupid enough to go harvesting my own wild mushrooms. Picking wild mushrooms when you don't know what you are doing is analogous to playing Russian roulette and my life doesn't need that kind of stress. I do, however, like mushrooms and I do like trying different varieties. I also quite like growing plants that I can eat (chillies being my favorite) so the idea of growing my own mushrooms was too good to pass up. Bryony spotted that one of the plant catalogues she was ordering from sold kits for growing mushrooms so we decided to give them a go.

We currently have three kits on the go (for Button, Oyster and Shitaki) but the first to fruit are the Shitaki Mushrooms. Last night I cooked Woodpigeon pasta which involves wild mushrooms and while I used the jar I had already bought I chopped up three home grown Shitaki mushrooms and used them as well. The taste of the mushrooms was excellent and 24 hours later we are both still alive so I call that a successful experiment. Let's just hope the other kits turn out to be as good.

Iced Bees

Click To Play

Some of you may remember that back in 2009 I baked a beehive shaped cake for Bryony's birthday and had problems getting the bees to set. The runny bees were not the only problem though; I had issues with the instructions and converting from American to English units. Added to that the fact that without the cake tin you couldn't really re-produce the cake I didn't include the recipe in the post. Well I've now played around with the recipe a little more and have a solution to all the problems!

The main problem was the bees. In this new incarnation I've switched from using royal icing to make large bees, to using writing icing to make small bees. After a fair amount of practice I've figured out the easiest way of making the bees which you can see in the accompanying video (I won't be directing movies anytime soon).

As for the lack of a suitable cake tin, well I've solved that by making individual cakes using a muffin tin instead. Of course the smaller cakes means the smaller bees work perfectly.

For the full recipe and to see exactly what the finished cakes look like, head on over to the cookbook.