Handmade Spicy Chorizo Pasta

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Vince Marsters

After what seems to be an eternity I have found time to write another update and its recipe time again!

This time I have gone from something really sweet to something spicy – a home made Spicy Chorizo pasta. Not being that big on pasta I make sure the sauces I use are spicy and flavoursome. This one really fits the bill and is based on a recipe by Lesley Waters.

The tools needed to make this are a frying pan, large saucepan, sharp knives and either a pasta machine or a large rolling pin.

Ingredients (serves 2)
 
Pasta
  • 150g pasta flour (I use Wessex Mill Pasta flour)
  • 1-2 medium free range eggs (or 1 large)

Sauce

  • 1 small red onion – finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves – finely chopped
  • ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
  • 3 cumberland sausages – removed from the skins
  • 3 chorizo sausages (or 6 mini) – 2 removed from skins and 1 cut into bite size slices
  • 200ml red wine
  • 100g tomato puree
  • 55g sun-dried tomatoes – roughly chopped
  • 1 medium red pepper – sliced
  • fresh basil for garnish
Method
  1.  Make a mountain out of the flour on your worktop and make a well into it.
  2. Beat the eggs lightly and pour into the well.
  3. Using a fork slowly incorporate the flour into the egg. When the mix becomes to thick to use mix with the fork start using your hands.
  4. Keep mixing until all flour is incorporated into the eggs and you gave a dough.
  5. Kneed the dough mix until it becomes smooth and silky – this will take approximately 15 minutes.
  6. Set aside in a cool place for around 1 hour.
  7. Approx 20 minutes before the dough resting time fry the onions until translucent.
  8. Add in the pepper, garlic and sausage and fry for approximately 5 minutes until the sausage is golden.
  9. Add the remaining ingredients except the basil and bring to the boil.
  10. Simmer for approx 15 minutes.
  11. Whilst the sauce is simmering prepare the pasta by rolling it following your roller instructions.
  12. Finally shape the pasta into your desired shape.
  13. Cook the pasta in salted water – as it is fresh it will take approx 2-3 minutes.
  14. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce.
  15. Serve immediately and garnish with a few small basil leaves.

 

A word of warning though – this can be a very spicy meal. For a slightly less spicy meal just omit the chilli flakes. The sausages are spicy any way so will provide heat.

Next time I make this I will take a picture and post it here so you can see how it turns out for me.

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Chocolate Truffles

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Vince Marsters

I like to do some cooking and experimenting with new recipes but after watching an episode of Barefoot Contessa on Food Network UK I decided to try something quite simple – home made Chocolate Truffles based on this recipe. They didn’t come out exactly how I expected but went down a storm at work so here is the recipe I used.

  • 250ml Double Cream
  • 220g Milk Chocolate (I used Cadbury Dairy Milk)
  • 230g Plain Chocolate (I used Cadbury Bournville)
  • 1 tbsp Strong Coffee (make a strong coffee drink and allow it too cool)
  • 1 tsp Vanilla Extract (For this I used my own home made extract)
  • Cocoa Powder
  • Icing Sugar

Method

  1. Warm the cream in a saucepan until just starting to boil. The aim here is to take the cream off the heat just as the first bubbles start to appear but before it boils properly.
  2. Whilst the cream is warming chop all the chocolate into small chunks using a sharp knife. The smaller the chunks the better as it will melt faster. If it is just broken into the cubes it comes in then it is possible the cream will have cooled too much before it melts.
  3. Put the chocolate into a bowl and stir in the warmed cream. Whisk until all the chocolate has melted.
  4. Stir in the vanilla extract and coffee. (If desired also add a tablespoon of a good spirit like rum).
  5. Leave in the bowl to cool for at least 1 hour. After this time the mix should be virtually set and hold its shape fairly well.
  6. Using a small ice cream scoop/melon baller/teaspoon take a small amount of mix and make into a ball. The aim here is to get uniform sizes around half the size of a golf ball. Place on a baking tray covered in greaseproof paper
  7. Put into a fridge to chill for around 2-3 hours.
  8. Mix together 1 tablespoon icing sugar and 2 tablespoons cocoa in a bowl.
  9. Roll the chocolate truffles into a ball and then coat in the cocoa/sugar mix and place on a clean sheet of greaseproof paper.
  10. Chill truffles until around 15 minutes before required, although they are equally nice straight from the fridge.

 

If you are feeling adventurous you can also coat the truffles in tempered chocolate. To temper the chocolate Barefoot Contessa gave me a brilliant method using just a microwave. Put the chocolate into a microwave proof bowl on full power for 20 seconds. Stir and then microwave again for another 20 seconds. Repeat the stirring/microwave for 20 seconds process until the chocolate has just melted. It is important not to let the chocolate get too hot otherwise it won’t set with a nice glossy coating. Once melted hold a truffle in a teaspoon and the coat in chocolate using another teaspoon. This way the heat from the melted chocolate won’t melt the truffle before it is set.

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New Photos and Gallery

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Vince Marsters

It has been a long time since I last updated the site – far too long in fact but this is just a short update – but I have just changed the photo gallery I use and moved it to its own domain. The new gallery uses a widely respected site program called Gallery 3, which will give me more options to expand and develop the gallery in the future. As part of the change I have also uploaded a number of new pictures taken with my new Canon EOS 60D camera and various lenses. The new camera provides many more features and functions which I hope to learn how to use properly.

Along with this first post in a year, I have also changed the theme used on the site – I hope you like it.

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Waze – User Generated Satnav Maps

waze-banner
Posted on March 22, 2010 by Vince Marsters

It is amazing just how far out of date many satnav maps are, even on the latest systems. Companies like TomTom, TeleAtlas and Navteq have procedures where the end user (you and me) can report mistakes but even using these it can often take months or years for the changes to actually make it into the maps we see in our navigation products.
There is a new company on the block who want to change all that by using social mapping to get the latest updates as you drive around. They also provide a mechanism for reporting of hold ups again in realtime. The negative to all this though is that the maps in their current format are not suitable for any serious navigation within the UK until more of the country is mapped by driving around and then someone tidying up these GPS trails to make usable maps.
I recently started the process of mapping Evesham and the surrounding area. In the past month the majority of the town has been mapped with only the housing estate roads of Four Pools left. Once this is completed I plan on moving further out into the villages. Like all community driven projects though, the more people who are working on it the better the end result, whether that be those who just drive around with Waze running or those who then spend time tidying up the maps (and adding those all important road and town names)

If anyone else wants to become involved with Wazing their local area, a quick visit to Waze will explain more. The application can be downloaded for most major smartphones – Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian and iPhone, either direct from Waze for those devices which allow third party apps or from the device app stores (including opnmarket on Windows Mobile)

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Tesco Evesham Failing Still

Tesco Evesham Fail Again
Posted on December 28, 2009 by Vince Marsters

Tesco Evesham seem to be on a mission to self destruct – it may be all of Tesco’s from the other reports on the web.

Over the past few months they appear to have been cutting the number of customer facing staff (especially during the evening) creating a worse shopping experience in the process. Firstly they combined the customer service desk with the cigarette and lottery kiosk. The end result of this is that anyone who buys a console game (which despite being in security cases still require you to collect them from customer services) now has to queue with everyone buying cigarettes and lottery tickets. From personal experience this means that a wait of a few seconds to collect this disks is now a 5-10 minute wait and is not really acceptable. Also it means that you have to take you packed trolley of purchases back through the security gates into the store. I emailed the Tesco Comments address (after picking up one of their cards instore) and got a phone call basically telling me that the person dealing with my comment felt this was a bad move but the store management thought otherwise – probably thinking about getting a bigger bonus for reducing costs (hopefully the store will make less money and this particular manager will end up getting less).

In the run up to Christmas I needed to do some last minute shopping so chose a late (10pm) visit on 23rd December. This should of been a relatively quite period where shopping was easy. The store was unsurprising busier than usual but the amount of customers was reasonable. The staff though were busy restocking the shelves and seemed to think that providing obstacle courses for customers through their roller cages was sensible. It made shopping a truely annoying experience, especially when you also had to dodge (and try not to slip on) the plastic and cardboard everything came in. It is about time these staff where briefed on health and safety. Being untidy when the store is closed is one thing but when there are customers about it is unforgivable. Should anyone have slipped and hurt themselves on this rubbish, good look in suing Tesco.

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Android….Is it worth jumping yet?

Android...Is It Worth Jumping
Posted on September 12, 2009 by Vince Marsters

The smartphone market has come a long way over the past couple of years with the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android platform, joining the existing Microsoft Windows Mobile and Nokia’s Symbian platforms. The iPhone took a large portion of the consumer market with its touch interface and slick marketing but at the expense of user customizability – Apple are notorious for locking down what you can do on the iPhone to just what they want. Windows Mobile has long held the business market with a very capable very customisable interface which lacks finger touch capabilities and does not grab the same ‘fanboi’ cult following Apple have managed. The Symbian platform has also been around a long time and the S60 interface also provides plenty of customisations for the end user. A newcomer to this market is Google with its Android platform, initially launched in late 2008 with the T-Mobile G1 manufactured by HTC.

Recently HTC have released a couple of new phones based on the Android platform – the Vodafone Magic and the Hero (available on Orange or Sim Free as the Hero and on T-Mobile as the G2 here in the UK). Other manufacturers are also rushing to release Android based devices but the only other one available in the UK currently is the Samsung Galaxy which is available on O2 contract or Sim Free from companies like Expansys. For the Hero HTC have used the latest Cupcake (1.5) release of Android and added the own custom interface called Sense UI. This is an evolution of the TouchFlo interface HTC have used on their Windows Mobile phones for a number of years. This provides a multi screen interface which can have different widgets and application shortcuts added to it to provide a totally unique interface for each user.

In use Android is very slick with responsive actions to all finger presses. The current capacitive screens provide a finger friendly touch interface but do not support the use of a stylus. Personally I prefer to use a stylus as I find it more accurate and faster to type with but the current consumer market is demanding stylus free devices. For new users they probably are easier to learn and use.

Software wise Android comes with the Android Market (the Android version of Apple’s AppStore). This contains many thousands of applications and games, some for free and some which require a payment from a few pence to £30-40 for the latest SatNav applications. Some of these are useful and like all application stores, some are just for fun. My current favourites are Facebook (a Google written facebook app), KeePassDroid (for password management), Daily Dilbert (gives me my daily Dilbert fix), Handcent SMS (a replacement SMS application – miles better than the bundled versions) and Meridian (for playing music). Helpfully all these applications are also currently free of charge.

Using the Hero as a phone is also easy. Sense UI has a phone link always present at the bottom of the screen, which provides a large finger friendly keypad for typing numbers. This also searches your contacts as you type (so to bring up contacts called Paul all you type is 7285 and then pick from the contact list. Also helpfully these contacts can be automatically syncronised with your Google account, along with the Google calendar and email. Call quality on the phone is very good and in my experience the phone holds the call very well as you move between cells (both 2G and 3G).

Battery life on smartphones is typically quite poor and a common cause for complaint. Experiences users of them will know not to expect much more than a day or so without recharging but new users who are used to not having to recharge a phone for over a week are often surprised and annoyed by this . The HTC Hero is not uncommon with a battery life of a day under quite heavy use and a couple of days with average use. To increase battery life it is possible to turn off unwanted radio services (switch to 2G when not in a 3G signal area, turn of GPS and WiFi etc, turn off automatic updating/syncronising of software) which can substantially increase battery life but still not to the week standard phone users expect.

In conclusion I would suggest that users who are not looking for applications stick to a standard phone, but for existing smartphone users or those who are looking for smartphone features should actively look at the Android platform. It has matured well from the initial release and is now a very capable operating system. Like most though it is not for everyone so trying out the interface and usability in a shop would be a good idea.

 

 

Portions of this page (the Android images) are reproduced from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

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5* NHS Treatment

Cheltenham Hospital
Posted on August 29, 2009 by Vince Marsters

Well after many years of pain in my back, getting worse each time it flared up and becoming more frequent, it was nice to have something positive to look forward to. This time round my doctor sent me for a MRI scan which showed I had slipped 1 disc properly with another coming out in sympathy (as my doctor put it – much like I would of). It also revealed that I had a couple of vertebrae starting to fall apart, but nothing that bad that they needed treatment. The decision was then taken to refer me to a specialist consultant with a view to surgical treatment.

This was in June and the first available appointment was in August, but my parents wanted this to be done sooner and offered to pay for a private consultation once I knew the name of the consultant. Luckily for me I had the  name (Mr El-Abed) through within a few days and a private appointment was arranged for July. The downside being this cost £150 which I am forever grateful to my parents for paying this for me. The end result of the consultation was a choice of either a spinal decompression operation (Microdisectomy) with a success rate of around 90% or an injection with a success rate of 30%. Given the odds the surgical route was the only one that made sense. Also given the fact I was really struggling to walk at the time of the consultation, the consultant put me onto his urgent list – meaning the operation should be done with 2 months.

Around a month later (and a week after I should of had my initial consultation) I was waiting for the operation (Tuesday this week) at Cheltenham General Hospital. The new way orthopedic surgery is done at Cheltenham is for you to go into a pre-op waiting room before the operation and then after recovery then be moved into a ward for final recovery before discharge. This works very well but has the downside that I was unable to let anyone know what ward I would be moved into.

The operation itself went very well, although I remember very little (thankfully as that meant the general anesthetic I had worked well). My last memory is the anesthetist informing me that the injection he had just given me was the one that would knock me out. On TV they always ask you to count down from 10 to 0 but I was out for the count by that time. My next memory is the nurse in recovery asking me if I was awake – I was almost, but I was certainly not very aware of where I was or what I was doing there.

After finishing my time in recovery I was moved to the ward (Alstone Ward). This was a well presented ward with 6 all male beds and a toilet unit. All patients there were recovering from orthopedic operations – the majority appeared to be knee replacements. There were plenty of nurses (and support staff) who were very polite and efficient, helping us with day to day tasks and ensuring we recovered as well as possible. My stay there was brief at 2 days but I was impressed with the service I received and that there never seemed to be an urgency to send me home. In fact it was me wanting to come home that dictated the time I spent on the ward (2 days without internet access was more than enough for me). This was all in stark contrast to media reports of poor NHS hospitals giving low quality service and discharging patients before they were ready. I would also say that I prefer the NHS we have here in the UK to the insurance lead health service in countries like America. Here there is no asking can you afford it before you are treated. If you need treatment you get it with minimal fuss and agro.

Since leaving hospital I have begun the recovery period at home. This will take between 4 and 6 weeks, during which I have some exercises to do from the hospital physio and have been advised to walk around as much as possible. I will be seeing the consultant again in 6 weeks when I hope to be given the all clear and to finally be able to live my life without fear of annoying back pain every few months.

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King of Shaves Azor – Better Because it Bends?

King of Shaves Azor - Because it Bends Header
Posted on July 11, 2009 by Vince Marsters

A newcomer to the shaving market, and one I had been meaning to write about for a while now is the Azor razor by King of Shaves. As a long time user of KOS products I was interested in the new design razor, claiming to offer a much better shave than the leading competitors – Gillette.

The razor looks more like a disposable at first glance, being all single colour plastic rather than the chrome effect I have become more accustomed to with Mach3 and Fusion shavers from Gillette. It does have replaceable heads in much the same was – with 4 blades with an Endurium coating claiming to keep the blades sharper for longer. In use I found the blades typically stayed sharp for around the same length of time as the 5 bladed fusion heads I normally use.

The actual shave it produced was very good once I had got used to a different shaving technique (mainly because the head doesn’t pivot on the handle as I am used to). It provided a smooth shave and I didn’t get any of those annoying cuts which I always seem to get when I use Wilkinson Sword Quattro razors. The end result was also about as close as I am used to getting with any competing product.

The biggest let down was the lack of holder for the razor. I am used to having a holder which holds the handle with head attached as well as some replacement heads, but KOS chose not to provide this with the Azor.

Cost wise the Azor razor are excellent value for money with the blades retailing for around £5 with 3 blades (a few quid cheaper than the Gillette Fusion range when not on offer). Heads are a comparative bargain though, also retailing for around £5 for 4 and £9 for 8. This compares to around £8 for 4 and £15 for 8 Fusion heads. There is still a huge markup on these heads though. Reports have put the costs of making a Fusion head at being around 5p so it should not be costing KOS too much more too make heads for the Azor.

Along with the new razor, KOS have also introduced some new shaving gels with the Azor branding. These are typical quality products as I would expect from KOS and I place them above the standard KOS gels and very close to the higher Kinexium products. There are 2 different gels in the range – the white pack standard and black pack menthol. I have actually now moved away from the Kinexium products to Azor gels because for the price I believe nothing helps provide a better shave.

Recently KOS have also introduced a range of razors for women which are styled on the Azor range called Azure. At first glance the appear to be the same as Azor but with different colours to appeal to women not men.

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