Rick's b.log - entry 2024/11/09

Winter is coming

Making something to eat.

On the left, making home-made bread. I followed the instructions almost exactly (I added 8g of sugar) and it seems... sticky and maybe a little too wet. It doesn't seem to want to rise much either, so... let's see how it turns out.

In the middle, on the other hand, is eight euros worth of crappy beef along with two euros worth of stew vegetables and two of my own potatoes. You can see in the picture that I have some dumpling mix. I'll make that up and pop them into the stew towards the end. I've never made dumplings before, so I hope they turn out nice.
Oh, and sage, thyme, and bay from the garden. Should I have added pepper and salt? I didn't think about that.

The best bit? It's a bloody enormous pile of food, the big bowl is almost full. I'll be putting some into a plastic tub for tomorrow for sure. It's worth pointing out that even though this took forever to cook, such as are slow cookers (clue in the name!), the entire outlay was maybe €12 tops. Less than a meal at your preferred burger flinger. And for that, enough to feed a family. Pack it out with some Uncle Ben's and/or bread, it'll go even further. And it's actual meat, not whatever crushed and pounded and extruded nonsense actually ends up in burgers.
I wanted to thicken the juice, but I'm not sure that'll play with the dumplings. I mixed up a little bit of corn flour and water and added that in various positions to see what happens. I suspect I might simply have used too much water in the first place. Oh well, I can draw some off before serving.

Now, if I set things up right, I can either do this on the weekends, or sort things out in order to leave it running to be ready when I get home from work.
I fried the onion and the beef to brown it, and then I fried the carrot and leek a little. I didn't fry the potato as that was more of an afterthought added ten minutes later. Frying isn't necessary, but it greatly helps the flavour. So, yeah, probably more a weekend job than a first-thing-in-the-morning one. I'm barely alive until I've had my tea dose.

Later: Despite looking like a sorry mess in the bread maker, it actually turned out a pretty reasonable loaf. It's a bit flat, but that's because the Lidl bread maker is a dual-paddle family sized one, not a there's-only-one-of-me single-paddle size.
This was using my customised programme that increases the rising time (by about half an hour) and decreases the baking time (by a quarter hour, in order to not have hard crust). The Lidl/Silvercrest breadmaker has eight 'slots' for custom programmes as option #16. Very cool.

Home made bread.

Of course, the first task was to pop two slices into the toaster and cover in marge afterwards. ☺

That was odd

Went outside, nothing. Looked in the letterbox, and that was the source of the clank. Parcel delivered.

I don't know where he (or she) parked. It's nearly dark, I'd have seen headlights. I only just shut the shutters afterwards as I wanted to be able to go answer the door.
But nope, like a stork delivering a baby, (s)he came from nowhere, placed the envelope into my letterbox, and vanished into the gloom.

Speaking of Gloom

(though, note, by the time we do get to see sun, it'll be weak and it'll be those nights where the lack of clouds means the heat vanishes faster than it came - oh yes, I do so love winter...)

An expense, but useful?

An old freezer.

It is currently sitting atop the fridge. It feels, psychologically, like it is taking a lot of space and it makes the medicine cabinet hard to get to. So I have two options. Either I can move the medicine cabinet, or I can move the freezer. I'm thinking that, maybe, I'll put the freezer in the back kitchen because it's not something I'll need to access often (like, you know, opening the fridge every time I make tea...).

Inside the old freezer.

The freezer claims (rating label on the side) that it consumes 1.15kWh per day (~100W). This is initially scary. 1.15 × &euro0,38 is about €0,44 a day. Which doesn't seem like much, it's only a little over €13 a month, or twice that per billing period. Just don't look at the consumption per year. It... adds up.
Except, it's probably calculated on a room being, I dunno, twenty? Well, it's maybe 14°C in here right now, and it's only going to get colder. So hopefully it'll run less.

So, why the interest? Particularly after nearly a quarter century of not having one?

Put simply, this will - if it works (I need to leave it to settle until tomorrow before plugging it in) - then it can greatly enhance my food options. I do not eat a lot of vegetables because I like frozen peas or frozen brocolli, but there's a problem. My fridge's icebox means stuff can only be kept for three days. If I eat 500g of brocolli in three days, I'll do myself a mischief. Likewise, frozen burgers come in packs of ten. Sorry, but I just can't eat ten burgers in a weekend.
Which means a lot gets thrown out. And, well, I just can't justify the wastage so I don't buy these things very often.
But with a freezer, I can have things, have them kept properly cold, and take out what I need when I need. By doing this, I can enhance my diet with the sorts of things that I normally would forgo due to the wastage. Frozen peas and baby carrots? Done. And so on.
It'll be especially nice to buy a family-sized bag of chips so if I feel I need a chip-fix I can shake some into the air fryer and spend the ten minutes of cooking time contemplating ketchup or just a good glug of Sarsons.

There are two controls and three indicators.

Freezer controls.

On the right, the temperature. Helpfully marked from 1 to 4. She said "it works just fine where it is, don't touch". Though I'm me, I will be leaving a thermometer in there to see what the cold actually is. I think these things are supposed to be -18°C, yes?

The red light means it's too warm.
The green means it's on, powered, everything's cool. (see what I did there?)
And the left toggle button and the orange light is the rapid-freeze mode which will bypass the temperature control and run the compressor continuously. Maybe useful for a while after loading it up with cupcakes? <shrug> I probably won't use it, sounds too much like something I'd forget to turn off.

"The Elite"

Rees-Mogg's idiotic tweet.

So, if an Eton-educated millionnaire hedge fund manager with an estate who lives in a stately home and has been knighted (it's Sir Arsehole) is not one of "the elite", then who is?
Oh, maybe it's the ten richest people whose wealth bumped $64,000,000,000 in ONE day following Trump's win. No, that's not millions, it's sixty four billion shared amongst a mere ten people.

Looks to me like the global elite did pretty good out of this, and Rees-Mogg is just your typical lying Tory piece of crap living in denial that arseholes like him are the problem.

Your comments:

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Rob, 9th November 2024, 22:08

Halloween. I read that as "when the frogs came"..     No idea how you lasted without a freezer. They are so handy, for all the reasons you gave plus: extending life of fresh stuff you can't eat in time, portioning off big batches of stuff, such as stews, storing ice cream.. Etc.

David Pilling, 9th November 2024, 22:38

A freezer is a great thing. How do the numbers 1-4 map to negative temperatures, is 1<4. It will help keep you warm. Three star model - so that's good.    Days and days of 'anticyclonic gloom' here. So dark. Seemingly the sun comes out on Monday.

David Pilling, 10th November 2024, 02:15

Probly a calculation, would a new freezer with better insulation be cheaper than an old freebie freezer. Insulation has improved. Chest freezers are more efficient but less easy to organise. Also keep full, use less energy.

Rick, 10th November 2024, 08:52

David:    Yes, a new freezer would be better. Even a basic Candy claims to use less than 200kWh in a year (about half this thing's rating).    Problem is, local supermarket doesn't sell freezers. Farther away ones don't want to deliver. I would need to arrange collection myself (€€€).  And, I don't exactly trust Amazon for things like this.    Let's see how this one goes and if I find it useful enough having a freezer.  As I understand it, it's like a fridge. The higher the number, the more it runs (hence colder it gets).    Rob:  Mmm, ice cream. I don't know if it's a side effect of neuroscrewy, but I think chips and raspberry ripple ice cream are a great combination.    Is there such a thing as raspberry ripple here in France, rather than poncey flavours like mint and pistachio or macadamia and maple (syrup)...

C Ferris, 10th November 2024, 13:27

The numbers seem to a guide - like in fridges.    Do you have a consumption meter to see what is being used?    Is there a local white goods store - Fridges stoves etc that deliver?

Rick, 10th November 2024, 13:53

No, I don't have a consumption meter.    As far as I'm aware, no white goods shops nearby. There used to be one in a nearby little town, but places like that do a horrific markup, so it's no surprise that they went out of business years ago. The little mini-mart in a nearby town often marks up things by 50-100% "for the convenience", which is why I rarely go there. Plus, you know, I drive by a decent supermarket every workday, so...    As for delivery, I'm nearly at the limit of where the local supermarket will deliver, and it's really not that far away - I mean, I work in the same town... 🤷

Gavin Wraith, 10th November 2024, 17:12

Ah, goulash and dumplings! I put thyme, and pepper and salt, in mine. They help to thicken the stew.

A tree-dwelling mammal, 10th November 2024, 21:33

Slow cookers are great.    Buy a 750g pack of lean diced stewing steak. Take one onion, peel, place in blender, add water, puree (I'm 'weird' with food textures, and while I don't mind onion flavour I can't stand the texture of it).    Take a large wok (if you don't have one a large frying pan will do). Add a tablespoon full of olive oil. Bring to a high temperature. Add the diced beef. Stir for one minute, then add the pureed onion.    Add another cup full of water (approx 1/2 pint).    Add an OXO or Knorr beef and rosemary stock pot (the jelly-like ones). Stir in. Add a tablespoon full of Bisto or OXO gravy granules, again stir in thoroughly.    Place one heaped teaspoon of cornflower into your half-pint tumbler glass. Fill with water. Stir in the cornflower. Bring the meat back to boiling then pour in the dissolved cornflower. Stir in again.    Reduce heat to a simmer, put the lid on the wok and cook for 15 minutes.    After 15 minutes, transfer to the slow cooker. Cook on the High setting for 3 hours. Turn off, leave to cool.    Once cooled down, you can transfer this to a glass dish with a lid and keep in the fridge for a few days until you're ready to do the next part:    Take a deep baking tin. Use the tin as a template to cut out a perfect circle of puff pastry. Then line the bottom and sides with shortcrust pastry, ensuring no gaps.    Add the slow-cooked meat filling, being careful not to get any on the top edge of the shortcrust pastry.    Using a pastry brush, brush some milk around the very top edge of the shortcrust pastry. Now take the disc of puff pastry and press it firmly into the edge of the shortcrust pastry. Take your pastry brush again, and brush the top with milk.    Take a sharp paring knife and punch 3 or 4 holes in the pastry lid.    Bake in a pre-heated oven for approximately 40 minutes, until golden brown.    Serve on its own, or with your choice of accompaniments.

A tree-dwelling mammal, 10th November 2024, 21:35

(Some of the penultimate paragraph went missing...)    Pre-heat the oven to 220C (convection) or 200C (fan oven).    Seems to work better in a fan oven. I've tried it in both, the fan oven cooks more evenly.

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