Time:
Like space but more personal and precious, although you are free to use it as you wish, it will force you to travel in only one direction. Sharing time with someone is the greatest gift you can receive.
Moelleux a la Chataigne
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Garage Led panel lights
Got a led panel light to put into the garage, I had one last area that I was not happy with the lighting. I decided to give a go with the LED panels. I used LedHut.co.uk and took a 1200X300 panel. Cheap enough and comes with a transformer.
The light is nice, a bit “too blue” for me but it is not too “cold” and it goes ok with the other fluorescent lighting that was already there.
The panel is very thin and did not have a satisfactory way to attach it to the ceiling of my garage. I did not want a set of hanging wires which is the default way to install these. I decided to delay installation until I could design a clamping mechanism which would allow me to grab the panel and the H-beam going across the garage.
I designed in inventor, then laser cut multiple pieces of 3mm thick wood, then glued everything together. I drilled through the glued parts to be able to have some sort of clamping method around the H-beam.
I am happy with the result, although I would not replace all my lights with these panels.
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Happy New Year !
Well, I am very happy to see the back of 2016…not a great year professionally and the impact on personal life was just not right.
As we travelled to France for the big Xmas family reunion, we had a bit of an accident with a low gate on the motorway, both of my electric bikes and the roof box got slammed off the roof of the car…thousands of sterling of damage on car and bikes etc…
However, we all walked away from the accident very happy that nobody got hurt and that nothing worse happened to anybody around us either.
It was for sure a climax for the end of the year…
For 2017, need to enjoy work a lot more so that life is more enjoyable overall.
Big new year resolutions !….
Bikes are now at the repair shop for inspection and quote for the repairs…ouch…
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Flex-box with Laser
I have been wanting to make a “live-hinge” for months, with the visit of Nicolas and Pascale, we used the opportunity to do a full project together from scratch.
The girls went shopping whereas Nicolas and I played in the garage with the Laser cutter.
We designed the basic shape on autodesk inventor but then had to move Adobe Illustrator (Creative Cloud version) to create the live hinge. The most time consuming part of this project was to create the hinge in adobe illustrator as we are no Graphic Designers….still we got it done. We had to do a couple of versions of the top part, to get to the correct length to properly close. The hinge is amazingly solid and flexible. I used the best wood quality I had to ensure we had a multi-ply wood.
To finish the box, I sanded with 500 grit with the Festool sander.
We also added some sort of locking mechanism, to prevent the spring of the live-hinge to open the box on it own.
I am very pleased with our first go !
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Beef Casserole
With the recent turn of the weather to a very Wintery style…and the office in full Glacial mode…I am finding the weekend a great place to try comfort food…this one is a great simple slow cook dish.
I use my Le Creuset dutch oven and cook at 150 degres for 3 hours…simply perfect.
Ingredients :
- Slow cook beef, Tesco has a pre-diced meat which is nice.
- Salt and Pepper, olive oil, butter, spices such as piment doux, nutmeg
- Celery, Carrots, a tin of chopped tomatoes, Paris white mushrooms
- Shallots and Garlic, chopped.
- A small glass of wine, I use Cote de Rhone
- Vegetable cube diluted in hot water
How to Prepare :
- First bring the olive oil to temperature in the Dutch oven on a strong flame
- Put the spices in the oil, mix a little to spread the spices
- Put the meat in the pan and seal it well. Let it turn a slight caramel colour.
- Take the meat out of the pan, reduce the heat and put the shallots and garlic
- Stir the shallots and garlic to get all the juices off the sides and the bottom of the pan
- Put the carrots, the celery and keep stirring. This should coat the vegetables with the juices and spices.
- Check the seasoning and adjust to your taste. I like to add the nutmeg at this point.
- Throw the glass of wine in the pan and stir again.
- Bring the meat back and finally the mushroom. Stir…
- Cover with the vegetable broth until the meat is covered but not so much that it is all in a soup. Probably just a finger under the top of the vegetables.
- Put into a pre-heated oven at 150 degres celsius (fan assisted), live it there for 3 hours.
- Check once in a while to make sure that there is enough sauce and nothing is overcooked.
I like to eat this dish with Charlotte potatoes that I have pre-boiled for 15 minutes, then placed a large oven proof dish, I sprinkle salt, pepper, herbs and olive oil and let brown in a hot oven at 220 degres celsius. This will make them nice and crispy outside and soft inside.
Enjoy !
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Cramique Belge
Got this recipe from the net…
Another mucky Sunday and could do with moral lifting food…
I used to eat this at my grand’ mother place.
Ingredients:
- 500g of flour
- dry yeast (enough for the flour quantity probably 1 tablespoon)
- 1/4 l of warm milk -250ml – 250g
- 150 gr of dried raisins (put in warm water if they are too dry)
- 100 gr of soft butter
- 1 tablespoon of sugar – 15g
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt – 2.5g
- 2 eggs
- some butter to put in the cooking tin
How to prepare :
- Put the raisins in some warm water to soften them. (not necessary if the raisins are already juicy)
- Mix the yeast with a 10cl of warm milk. Wait for it to “start working”. Mixing yeast into milk takes patience…
- Put the flour, yeast, sugar, milk in the Kenwood and mix.
- Add the butter pieces by pieces and the salt.
- Then add slowly the 2 beaten eggs but keep a little to put on the top of the cramique for cooking (gives a nice golden look). The dough should be elastic and soft.
- Add finally the raisins.
- The mixing is a bit tricky, you want to add the bits slowly enough so that the dough stays elastic and the butter gets incorporated into the dough.
- When the dough is done, put the mixture in a bread tin. Let it rise another 30 to 45 min. The dough should double in size.
- Cover the top with the remainder of eggs, just before putting into the oven.
- Pre-heat the oven at 220 degrees. Cook the bread for 15 minutes at this temperature then drop the temperature to 200 degrees and cook for another 45 minutes.
I am writing this post as I am making the dough and finding issues with the original recipe…updating as I go along. A bit like live blogging…
Because it is a brioche type of bread, it is normal for the dough to be very soft and a bit of a mess because of the softened butter. This is normal. Keep mixing with the Kenwood until you get a “dough”. This is probably a very difficult recipe to make just with your hands.
Well, first try was not great…:(
The bread was way too compact and did not have brioche type of texture…very disappointed, but Nicolas is trying a different recipe using his “Thermomix”…he will share the recipe if it is any good!
Need a bit more patience for this one… (check the bread-making top tip post to improve on this original post, also the mascarpone brioche which might be a better base for this bread)
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Lemon Meringue Tart
This is a bit of a complicated or more accurately lengthy recipe. It is not difficult but it just takes a few steps and as a consequence you end-up spending a fair amount of time in the kitchen…however the final product is to roll on the floor…this recipe is also fairly rich with a lot of butter, eggs and sugar. Perfect for a rainy autumn or early winter afternoon. See my notes at the very end about the amount of sugar.
Ingredients for the base :
- 1 egg yolk (keep the white for the Meringue)
- 225g butter, room temperature
- 50g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 350g plain flour
Simply mix all the ingredients in the Kenwood robot and make a dough ball. I tend to cut the butter in a lot of smaller pieces to help with the mixing. Also, ideally you want to leave the butter out of the fridge for a little while before using it so that it is easier to make the pastry. It takes approximately 15 minutes with my robot to get a smooth dough.
Once the dough is made, put in the fridge with some cling film over it. leave it to cool down for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Then take a 23cm pie base (with a removal bottom). Spread the dough so that it is the correct size for the base. you should have a fairly thick base with thick sides. Let’s say about 8 to 10mm thick.
Cover the base with aluminium foil and then the cooking beans. Put in the oven at 160 degres for a fan assisted or 180 if not. Bake for 15 minutes with the beans and foil, then for 10 minutes with the foil and beans taken out.
As soon as the dough is in the fridge, you want to start working on the Lemon curd. It will take time to make the Curd and you will probably be cooking the base before you finish the curd.
Ingredients for Lemon Curd :
- Juice of 5 lemons
- Zest of 3 lemons
- 200g of caster sugar
- 125g of unsalted butter, cut into a few pieces
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 egg yolk (Keep this white as well for the Meringue)
- Pinch of salt
This is the part of the recipe which can be a bit annoying because you want to make a curd without having lumps and it requires a constant mixing and control of the temperature of the mixture so that the eggs don’t over cook. This is where the Kenwood Chef is really helpful as you simply let the robot do the work…
I start with taking 3 lemons Zest. Then I juice all the 5 lemons. I strain into the main bowl of the Kenwood. I add the sugar, the butter, the salt. I setup on the quickest mixing with the flexi beater. I set the temperature to 85/90 degres. It is not extremely precise, but it is important to prevent the mixture to get too hot as it will over cook the eggs if not.
Once the butter has melted and the mixture is smooth, I beat the 2 eggs and the yoke in a separate bowl before introducing to the Kenwood bowl. I keep the machine steering for a good 20 minutes. Sometimes longer to get a custard like smooth curd.
Once the base is gone through its cooking time without the foil, take the base out of the oven and pour the warm lemon curd on the base. The base won’t be fully cooked but should be firm to the touch. (not brown, more like light beige). Put back into the oven for another 10 minutes. I usually increase the temperature here to 180 in my fan assisted oven.
It is now time to make the Meringue.
Ingredients for Meringue :
- 4 egg whites. (2 from the above recipe and 2 new ones)
- 225g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
Beat the whites and the salt on full blast with the Robot for something like 10 minutes. Then incorporate the sugar with a spoon to get a silky stiff Meringue base. ( It is possible to mix all the ingredients in one go and beat the whole lot together until you get the Meringue base, I just prefer to incorporate after).
Once the Base+Curd has been in the oven for the time defined above, take the base out, pour the meringue on it, put back into the oven. Still at 180c on my fan oven. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes until golden brown peaks or you see the Meringue is ready.
I prefer to stop the oven at this point but keep the Lemon Tart in it and leave the Meringue go crispy on the top.
It is a long recipe but it is very nice ! Manu find it a bit too sweet, so next one I will do with a little less sugar to try.
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Pastrami – First Try
I have been waiting to try a few recipes where you need to cure the meat before cooking it. Such as Ham or Pastrami or even Saucisson.
I am trying today Pastrami….
[Update] The pastrami is very nice but a bit too salty. I used the same brine for a Ham as well and it was also a bit too salty. I have updated the quantities below to adjust for next time I make it.
The ingredients and the recipe below is for 1.5kg of Beef, I only have half of that today so will simply halve all the ingredients.
- Ingredients for curing :
3 to 4 litres of Water (enough to cover the meat when curing)
1/2 cup salt [was 1 cup of Kosher salt]
1/4 cup pink curing salt – Also known as curing salt or prague powder
1/2 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp pickling spice
1 tbsp whole coriander seeds
1 tbsp whole yellow mustard seeds
4 cloves garlic, minced
1.4kg to 1.8kg beef brisket
Make the brine with all the ingredients above and bring to a boil to dissolve all the sugars and mix well the spices. Put the meat and all the brine into an airtight container for 5 days. turn the meat daily and shake about the brine. Perfect for Sunday afternoon preparation so that next Saturday morning cooking..
Then rub the meat with the spice rub ingredients below and cook slowly for 1 hour for each 500g of meat at 150 degres. Put the meat on a rack inside a tray like dish. put some water [should put plenty because it evaporates a lot] in the dish. Do not use the brine for this as it is salty. Cover the meat with aluminium foil. Let is slow cook…
- Spice Rub Ingredients
1/4 cup ground coriander
2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp smoked paprika
Once all done, let it cool-off and can be kept in the fridge for a week or frozen.
Friends enjoyed this recipe, I will make again.
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Plum Tarte Tatin
I made some Tarte Tatin today but with plums instead of apples. It is very nice !…Maybe the plums are giving too much juice and water as they cook, so there might be a way by which you could soak some of the juices before cooking the pastry. Next time I will try to either pour the extra juice out or collect with a spoon before cooking the puff pastry.
The Sauce is an “extra” that is not required for the plum tart but it makes it very special. Overall it was very nice.
Ingredients Sauce (taste like mulled wine):
- 450ml cote du rhone red wine
- 150g caster sugar
- 4 star anise
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- Grated zest of an orange
- 3 cloves
Ingredients Tarte :
- 25g unsalted butter, melted
- 130g soft, light brown sugar
- 650g of plums or enough to cover the disk, halved and stoned
- ready-rolled, all-butter puff pastry
How to Prepare :
- For the sauce place all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally, leave to boil for 15 minutes. Filter out into a bowl, leave the sauce to cool.
- For the tarte tatin, heat the fan oven 180°C. Pour the melted butter into the tart dish and sprinkle half the sugar. Arrange the plums, cut side up, in the dish making sure they are tightly packed but still in one layer. Arrange a few blueberries between the plums. Sprinkle over the remaining sugar. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove and leave to cool for 15 minutes. This will prevent the pastry from melting on contact with the hot plums.
- Put the puff pastry over the plums. Make a large slit in the centre to allow steam to escape. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 5 minutes so that the juices become a bit more jelly like. Place a large serving plate over the dish and flip over. Lift off the dish and remove excess juice with paper towels.
- Serve in slices with a tablespoon or two of the spiced red-wine syrup drizzled over.
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Weekend activities busy bee
Well weekend was full of varied activities of all sorts, including fireworks and trying to repair front door of the house !
Manu used the kenwood blender to make some very nice almond butter. Essentially take fresh almonds, roast them for a few minutes, then put into the blender with a pinch of salt, run the blender until you get a smooth and creamy texture. This might require a few stops with pushing the almonds from the sides back towards the blades. Looking forward eating this on toast over the coming weeks…or is it week ?
I also cleared the vegetable raised bed garden during the weekend. The tomatoes will not go red as the temperature has dropped too much and the sun is now very weak. I tried to take a few tomatoes and make them turn red by putting them under the Phillips grow lights in my hydroponic setup in the garage but it did not work. Everything was taken down and cut in small pieces to go on the compost heap.
Took the opportunity to cut down the verbena plant and cleaned the leaves before setting them up to dry. I plan to use these leaves as a xmas gift of scented pouches. I need to design a small pouch and see how easy it is to keep the leaves in it. I will probably use a few pebbles of clay to go inside to help with the crushing of the leaves to release the nice smell of verbena.
The curry plant and the kaffir lime now have to live inside the house for the rest of the winter. I know they will not like it ! So I am looking closely at any signs of weakness. The curry looks ok but the kaffir lime tree is being attacked by bugs. At least one spider is still leaving here and there is a fair few xxx who are little buggers to kill. I am now on my 3rd round of spraying insecticides.
Finally, I manage at last to do some further embroidery work for a friend. She is making a gift for a new “mother”. I had to make a large “m” using a pre-defined font in adobe illustrator from the creative cloud. I then converted the adobe file into a jpeg, which I imported into a software to convert into stitches, called easy saw. I then transferred the file into the sewing machine and adjusted size and position. Loaded the material and press “start”. I had a couple of broken thread because it was a bit too fragile for the job. Still it all worked out ok at the end. This is another area of hobby “making” which could benefit greatly from open source and improvements in the overall workflow. The standards are very loose and the software is very clunky and expensive. When I look at the amount of time spent to essentially embroid a few stitches it is difficult to see how can small businesses survive on these jobs in the real world !
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Bon Appetit !
I made a few things this weekend !
I made a copy of something I did a long time ago for my sister in law. It is a chopping board made out of bamboo.It is actually a “file” folder/tray from John Lewis which I cut with the hacksaw and then used the laser to make the final shape and engraving.
I then made a small box to put the many charging cables that we have laying around in the living room. This is a simple variation on other boxes I have made before. It is a design that I know works well and is easy to assemble. The bamboo cuts with a larger kerf and I should probably change a little the design for the hinge, but it still works. I just think it might be fragile over time (there is a little bit of play in the hinge and the top piece could be a be larger to fit more snugly into the side holes). I made the top design from scratch and used adobe illustrator to make the simplified USB cable and charging sign.
Finally I am making a variation on the small magnet box that I made before to keep the seeds of this interesting flower/plant I bought for Manu last week. I have no pictures of it yet because I am still making the design. I am trying to make a design that is a bit more “organic” in its shape rather than the usual square boxes.
I would really like to be able to have these flowers in my garden. I have not found yet the name of the plant (I forgot to memorise it from the shop…)
I have harvested a few seeds and will take more from the current flowers when they fade away. This might be an interesting growing test for the winter.
I have found they are called Chinese Lantern Plant. but most plant shop would refer to it as Physalis.
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I love this place – Hakkasan
A great lunch place after some shopping in london : Hakkasan.
This is Dim Sum Platter (varied and very nice)
Aubergines and Oat and Mushrooms (amazing but needs to be a side dish)
Salt Pepper Squid (not particularly special but perfect)
Soft shell Crab (it used to be served with curry leaves which made a huge difference, I still like it very much but it has lost its “amazing” ranking…)
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Tray without Glue
I have been researching a few designs to make a small box or a tray with my laser cutter, but the challenge was to not use any glue for the assembly.
Most of the tenon and mortice setup allow for 2 dimensions to be locked. It is possible to use 3 pieces of wood or acrylic and some of the parts used will be locked in 3 dimensions.
There is always a “final” part to be included which provides the final locking of the assembly.
I have been trying to use a “flex” method, which allows for a piece of the design to flex under stress so that it can pass a no return position, and therefore locking the whole assembly.
I have found so far, that the stress it creates on the parts can be too much for the material.
I need to do a bit more research to understand better what makes the part break and what allows for the slight bend.
I have made a few with wood and acrylic. The popular one so far is the acrylic one. Although the tray is solid and stays put all together, it has a few broken bits.
The design with the engraving takes about 8 minutes to cut on my laser. I cut at 15mm per second with 100% power on my 60 watts CO2 laser and engrave at 400mm with 30% power. It comes out nice without too much flameouts.
A design to be refined.
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Powerbank
Made a powerbank with some lithium batteries so that I can power a Raspberry Pi on a field trip…Currently testing how long it will last under battery power.
It uses a 4200mah 4cells battery, delivering 14.8V to a UBEC 3A 5V converter. Should be around 12500mah if there is not too much wasted energy in the conversion etc…if I get 10000mah it will be good enough.
The 5V current monitoring tool is telling me that the Raspberry Pi is consuming approx 250ma per hour.
So I could hope for around 48 hours of “running”. I am sure that a solar panel will need to be added at some point…again this will need to wait !
[UPDATE 16th Oct 2016]
I have been running the Raspberry Pi all day with the powerbank. It has been running for approximately 12 hours and the battery is still approx 65% full. I am pleased that the system is working, but it is unlikely that it will run for 48 hours.
I will try to leave it overnight but I am concerned that I might forget it tomorrow morning and run the batteries flat. Potentially setting a fire ! (Lithium batteries are really scary)
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Vegetative or Flowering ?
For reference, the ideal time for the lights to be “on” during the day for vegetative growth is 18 hours of light for 6 hours of darkness. That is 5am to 10pm ! For flowering you want to move to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. Flowering and fruits is the same time.
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I joined the revolution
I bought a Farmbot !…yes I am an early adopter of emerging technologies…this one has a lot of things that I like, it is open source hardware and software, it uses Raspberry Pi and Arduino, it is a Robot, it is a farmer trying to change the way we grow food similar to hydroponics.
I expect to get mine next year for the 2017 growing season !
I probably will initially set it up in my garage to benefit from the hydroponics lights.
I would love to build a glasshouse on the side of the garden next to the garage so I could put this robot in it and have a larger growing Zone….another long term project.
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