Breakfast rides

A few of us meet up in the city most Saturdays for breakfast and maybe a ride afterwards. Today we were joined by Nikko, who had obviously had one too many coffees with his breakfast cheesecake (!)

I had a play with cropping the original photo, so let me know which one you prefer - a fairly wide pan and some playing around with the colours (above), which is my favourite

A much closer crop (second favourite)

Or something midway between the two (a bit messy).

It's not all mountain bike madness though - Gordy often turns up on his tourer, sometimes when he's least expected :)

Dull photographic note - the first picture was taken using burst mode, the second using burst mode with flash. The use of flash obviously slowed down the shutter speed which blurred out Nick. Although I quite like the effect - I mean, it's what I was aiming for.....

Thanks to Nikko for busting out phat moves several times in a row, and Gordy for still smiling despite the obvious!

Say Cheese

This is the cheese straight out of the moulds - a disc of feta from the press, a bud of feta from the bag and the ricotta that I made up from the left-over whey (ricotta is italian for 're-cooked', and is made by almost boiling the whey and adding a few drops of vinegar to tempt out all the remaining cheesey proteins) 

 I put the cheese in the fridge over night to solidify and used the ricotta as a weight to help flatten out the bud of feta in the mould - worked suprisingly well 

Feta is aged in salt and there are two ways of doing it - either by sprinkling with salt or by soaking / piuckling in brine. I'm trying both to see which works out best

It's already pretty tasty :)

Christmas feasting

Is it just me, or did Christmas feel weirder this year because it fell on the weekend? Christmas day was done & dusted and then we still had two more days off work. And coupled with the usual contrasts of an Australian Christmas (30 degree heat, blue skies, summer storms) it's been a funny few days.

Luckily I was able to distract myself with cooking. First off we cooked up our xmas turkey three ways - smoked breast

 barbecued leg & wing, and then the other half roast in the oven.

On Christmas Day we also had some magnificent glazed ham - something very common in Australia, but not so elsewhere - along with a slap-up buffet & some fine whiskey at Liz's parents place.

Boxing Day felt like a normal day, and at 10am I was in the queue at the supermarket getting some fresh water to brew with for the first Saison of the summer - of course entitled ''Tis the Saison to be merry'. Which will be funny up to the point where I have to write it on 30odd bottle labels. No pictures of the brewing, and the only thing different to normal was the re-use of saison yeast that has been in the fridge for 10 months. I was a bit worried that it wouldn't re-animate but after plentiful sugars and yeast nutrient and many murmers of encouragement from me it seemed to pick itself up. As Charles Papazian (one of the gods of homebrewing) says when things don't seem to be working out - 'don't worry, have a homebrew'. He suggests the same when things go smoothly, and it was a merry boxing day in Villa St because of it. I also have circumstantial evidence that yeast responds to Christmas carols.  

Today was cheese-making day, inspired by a cheese press I received as a present (thanks Jan & Laurie!). Instead of halloumi I decided to try a Christmas Fete(a), although the processes are much the same. Heat up milk to 30 odd degrees C, add culture, leave for an hour, add rennet, leave for an hour or until you get a clean break. What's a clean break you ask? Well, pretty much this

This happened exactly on cue, unlike my other cheese-making experiences where I've had to wait for hours. I think this was partly due to a stable temperature control - the recipe said 'hold the milk at 30 degrees' and since that was pretty much ambient temperature in the kitchen it wasn't hard to do!

After slicing the curds and giving them a stir I got to use my cheese press

 This helps press the whey out of the curds and will give a nicely formed disc of cheese - it's also much more controllable than balancing plates and cups of water onto the curds in a colander. However there were too many curds so I also had to resort to a more rustic solution - hanging the curds in cheesecloth. Note the authentic use of rubber bands and shoelaces. 

It does give a great shape to the cheese, although you can reduce this by turning the cheese in the cloth mid-hang.

This worked OK until the storm hit and re-soaked everything. More pics tomorrow when everything is drained, salted  and ready to brine :).

Cheese making sounds time consuming but most of it is just waiting around for things to happen, so it helps to have other things to do. I also watched the cricket and overclocked my HP Touchpad tablet - just like the cheesemakers of yore I'm sure. 

Happy Christmas!

Hope you're having happy holidays, whatever you believe and wherever you are :)

  

Ginger minger

Bad news for those awaiting the ginger beer - I opened one yesterday and it was completely flat. I must have left it for too long in the primary fermenter, so all the yeast settled out. And without yeast in the bottle, there's nothing to munch on the priming sugar (additional sugar you add when you bottle the beer) and produce carbon dioxide (aka 'fizz') as a side product.

Not the end of the world as I can reintroduce more yeast. I've reopened all of the bottles and tipped in some additional dried yeast into each, and this should hopefully be enough to get some fizz going (but hopefully not enough to produce bottle bombs). If not, well as Niel said this morning soda streams are back in fashion this year.

Home smoked salmon

It's the 23rd December (also known as Christmas Eve Eve) and that's reason enough for a celebration. So tonight we had tea-smoked salmon, with orange peel and dried chillis added to the tea for extra flavouring

  The chilli made the smoke pretty acrid - this picture required a respirator

We served it up with cumin-infused sauteed potatoes, mixed fried veg and a dill white sauce. Lovely.

Tomorrow we roast turkey and (unsurprisingly) smoke turkey breast. Yum.

Smokin'......!

We picked up a smoker at the weekend as a reward for finishing our Xmas shopping. It's a stainless steel box with a lid and two racks - the idea is that you sprinkle sawdust on the base of the box, put meat or fish on the racks, put the lid on and then place it over a dish filled with flaming methylated spirits. The sawdust smokes cooks the steak.

I wasn't sure how efficient the cooking would be so I tried it out with steak marinated in lemon juice last night, figuring that if it's undercooked it's not going to kill us and we can always slap it on the barbie to finish off.

Fire, meat and a beer close to hand - how happy can a man get? The burner is on the base of our brazier, which I'd flipped upside down so the smoker wasn't sitting on a lip and was instead flush to the base. This turned out to be a blunder.

  All set up and ready to smoke

It turned out that it actually cooked pretty quickly, the flame was bigger than expected. Note to self - do not cook near flammable objects. The intense flame on the near corner of the box is from the rubber foot on the base of the brazier. Oops. 

After 20 mins I noticed the fire had gone out, but by then the steak was already cooked (if not a bit overcooked).  Surprisingly effective!

Another blunder was using the lower rack in the smoker, so the meat was only half an inch or so above the sawdust. As the fat dripped off the steak onto the base of the smoker it spat and blew bits of half-burnt charcoal over the bottom of the steak. I needed to wash them before we could eat.

Despite my blunders but the steak came out juicy, smokey and really tasty. There's a whole raft of different sawdusts, teas and foliage out there to give different flavours so I'm looking forward to some experimentation over the coming months.

Not Tigger, but not Eeyore

I did my weekly trail run last night and it went surprisingly well. I knocked 3 minutes off my best time, bringing it down from 51 mins 20 seconds to 48 mins! And I enjoyed it more too, I felt much less 'ploddy' and more dynamic and for the first time I didn't feel completely buggered by the time I got back to the car. Of course this means that I can start running further...

Not sure on the difference. May have been the temperature - a cool 24 degrees instead of the 34 degrees of the previous week. (Transalation for readers in England - 'a balmy 24 degrees instead of the 34 degrees of the previous week'). Maybe the can of V I had before the run. Maybe a more positive attitude. Maybe getting used to the shoes. But I like to think it's because of my new sleek & streamlined summer haircut

Every year in summer the long-ish hair eventually becomes too much to bear and I shave my head. The goatee won't last much longer, but I grow it in homage to a couple of mates from Manchester I got to know when I was working on the bar. Very friendly guys who were also very scary bad boys, and who helped me out of a couple of awkward situations with aggressive drunken customers just by standing behind me and smiling. Cheers lads. 

Home made pork scratchings

Christmas is coming, and is bringing the usual bloated feasting and general laziness. Hurrah! However my body is a temple, so this year I was tempted to have a healthier, less fatty christmas where I could use the time off to motivate myself, to set rigorous yet achievable goals and to start to get fit again.

Then I thought bugger it and made some pork scratchings*

Take a slab of pork belly (*mmm* - fatty)

 Chop into bite-size bits

Fry batches in a little oil (not too much - remember your health!) until they start to crackle & brown. This spits a lot of fat so best to fry it wearing a singlet at least.

Transfer to a baking tray (use tongs) and bake in an oven @ 200 Centigrade for 20-30 mins. Then take out, tip out the excess fat (it's healthy remember), sprinkle with a bit of chilli powder, salt, pepper and sliced garlic. The recipe I used also included honey but I wouldn't use that again. I'm also tempted to try an uber-hot chilli version.

 Cook in the oven for 5-6 minutes more

Pukka!

*This is based on a Jamie Oliver recipe. Yes he can be an irritating idiot, but his casual way of cooking works well for us and his recipes are so so tasty.....

Updates

First the quiz answers -

•De Rosa Singlespeed - Avocado Stack - Pete
•Salsa Casseroll (with front rack & bag) - Haloumi Stack - Gordy

•On-one Pompetamine (Singlespeed, flat pedals) - Savoury Mince - Graham
•Shogun Katana (fixed gear) - Huevas Flamencos - Me

 
No-one got them all right first time, but Kitty gets a bonus point for displaying her workings in the comments section :). I was a little hurt by her comments on the uselessness of fixed gear bikes and haloumi, given that I've made both myself, but she may not be too far from the truth.
 
Incidentally Kitty has been riding up from Singapore to Thailand with her partner Jon and they write two of the best blogs I've read in a while. Worth a look
 
http://thisguyknowswhatimtalkingabout.blogspot.com/
 
http://more-erratic-wanderings.com/blogs/blog1.php
 
The general view is that I cooked the rabbit wrong, and it would have been better served in a stew. Also they are serious pests in Qld that do more damage than almost any other introduced species, so the odds are they will remain illegal as pets for the forseable future :( 
 
The egg will be pleased to know that I'm planning to make some feta over the holidays

And a brew update -
 
The summer ale is ready and tastes crisp and clean. There's a slight woody taste (which may be due to coriander) but it sinks down well, dangerously well given the strength!
 
The ginger beer is in the bottle but will not be ready until Xmas. It has a bit of a funky odour but tastes dry and very gingery. Nervous about this one and how it will be received!
 

Ruby Red Slippers

Remember the days when a shoe was jus a shoe? You ran in trainers, worked in shoes (office job) or boots (outside), relaxed in slippers (UK) or flipflops / thongs (Australia).

Now the footwear market has splintered into a myriad different niches. One of those is trail running, and I added to my scarily large shoe collection with some trail running shoes ("Saloman XT Wings 2") the other day.

 These are different to 'normal' running shoes for a few reasons -  a more aggressive tread pattern

 a lower set and wider heel, which means less padding but a more stable foot

 and a generally sturdier construction with a draw-string like pull-fastening. No laces, so I can put them on when I'm drunk :)

I went out for a run after work on Monday to try them out. They immediately felt more stable - I've almost rolled my ankle a couple of times in my regular runners, but these felt very reassuring on rough ground. The reduced padding was a bit of a shock to my system but that's something I'll get used to, although I wouldn't want to run far on road in these. I felt like the increased confidence also lead to me descending more quickly and jumping more, and that's something I enjoy doing. Back in the day I used to do extended hikes around the Lake & Peak Districts in the UK and hopefully these will  help bring back some of that feeling of joy & free-ness on the trail instead of just plodding along with my head down watching for rough ground. Although that's not a bad thing to do, as at one point I had to step over a 4' long snake that was sunning itself on the trail.It's amazing how many sticks look like snakes after that happens.

I felt faster in my shiney new shoes but I only knocked a minute off my previous time. To be fair when I started running it was 33 degrees and humid, and it had only dropped a degree by the time I got back!

My only worry is that my foot was (as always) between two sizes and I chose the smaller option. There's a bit of toe-rub on my right foot - hopefully that will subside as the shoes wear in - but if not I'm sure I can find a small-footed Dorothy to pass them on to. 

Old friends

Whilst I was in Sydney I took the opportunity to catch up with an old friend from the UK who emigrated out a couple of years ago and who now lives in Manly.

Manly is a coastal suburb on the peninusla on the north side of the entrance to Sydney harbour. It's a 30 minute ferry ride away from Sydney, and it's a stunning ferry journey that takes you past some iconic places and stunning views

This is the southern headland of the harbour, made famous as the start point of the Sydney - Hobart race

Manly itself is a gorgeous seaside town with a mellow harbour on one side and a fairly serious surf beach on the other. It's odd to be so close to downtown Sydney and yet be feeling like you're in a seaside town

This is 11am on a Saturday in early summer with 3-4' waves - look how many people aren't out there, compared to the masses fighting over 2' of slop in the freezing waters in the UK.......

My friend Andy managed to liberate himself from his daughter's daycare Christmas party and we checked out a few of bars. You couldn't quite see the beach from this place, but when waves jacked up you could see surfers dropping in as you sup your pint.

 It was fantastic to catch up again mate - cheers.

Sydney

Sydney has a bit of an odd reputation in Australia. If you ask most people what their favourite part of Sydney is they'll tell you that it's the motorway leading out to other parts. That's unless you talk to a Sydneysider, who will tell you that wanting to live anywhere else is just wrong. In many ways it's like London - those that don't live there like to visit but are happy to leave, and those that do are happy in their inherent superiority because - well, the live in London don't they?

Attititudes aside I enjoyed my time in Sydney. The architecture is Victorian English in many ways, but the feel on the streets is of a more Asian city. There's a lot going on, and you always have the feeling that whichever way you go there's something in the streets that you didn't take that you have missed.

Some random pictures - some from my hotel room, the rest from my morning or evening roamings...
Cargo delivery bikes used by couriers

Darling Harbour, 2 mins walk from my hotel  

Views from my hotel room

 Hyde Park in the dusk, with fruit bats flocking overhead

 The Queen Victoria Building (and shopping centre)

Some bridge or other

There are 4 million odd people in Sydney (almost 20% of the population of Australia!), and I still managed to bump into a friend from Brisbane just before taking this!