No Prawns

It is now a safe bet to tell you the prawns did not survive. I had a good look this morning and no sign of any. All gone.
The cat fish on the other hanad of course look frisky, that is, if cat fish can look such a thing.
This weekend will see me clearing out the accumulated sludge that has built up in the header tank. Might also be a good idea to install a bottom drain tap to make it easier for cleaning the next time round. Ill buy the fitting this afternoon and see how I feel on Saturday about doing anything!!!
Im also thinking about adding a second tank for prawns but really I do need to let this set up work its way through one cycle first. Its only been on the go for 40 days. What I will be doing is weighing the fish and from here on in will be checking them on a weekly basis. Should be an interesting  exercise and indeed I will also start to monitor and weigh the food I give them. Make it all a bit more scientific.

The Mighty Duct Tape Speed Tape

Date:  Jan 14, 2015

It is often mistaken as a “duct tape”.  But it looks very shinny.  

Yesterday, we came home on this Jetstar plane.  And to our surprise, we saw this!

Duct tape!

For don’t know what reason, Jetstar actually uses the duct tape to path the engine/turbine together.  Seems like it.

Indeed looks very very scary.

But we arrived home from Hong Kong to Singapore safely.

The ride is very smooth.  Should we thank the duct tape?

Today, I get the chance to search on the Internet - keyword “Jetstar duct tape” ...

And I found this video.

Source:  http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/01/watch-an-engineer-repair-a-jetstar-plane-with-gaffer-tape/

WOW!  Jetstar!!!!!!!!!  Why????? Always use duct tape to repair your airplane?

Wait now...

Let’s search “Budget Airline duct tape"

So, it is not only Jetstar.  This is EasyJet.  But they have explained why they need to use this.  It is not a duct tape.  It is called a “Speed Tape”.  It is a common thing in airlines industries.

Source:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3102312/Shocked-passenger-takes-photo-airport-worker-using-TAPE-engine-shell-easyJet-plane-moments-off.html

Tiger Airline not too bad.  Use duct tape to stick the windows back.  Make it more firm.

Source:  http://forums.vr-zone.com/chit-chatting/3232351-my-window-tiger-air-flight-hong-kong-singapore.html

Cebu Airline fix a bit minor problem using duct tape.

Source:  http://hotels-in-cebu.com/duct-tapes-on-cebu-pacific-plane/

OK.  Wait now….

Let’s try to search “Singapore Airlines duct tape"

And… Singapore Airlines also uses it.

The airlines engineers knows that they doing.

Of course they have calculated all the odds and making sure that the plane flight is safety.

Using duct tape or speed tape to repair the airplane is acceptable.

It can be used to repair boat too.

And cars too.

Something to think about.  hahahahaha

Onion Focaccia

Onions and yeast, ah the smell of it makes me drooly

Onions and wheat never go out of season (really just have a long shelf life) nor do they go out of style. In the dead of winter a hot loaf of bread is a breath of fresh air. Focaccia is a non-bakers friend. Its just pizza dough with extra oil. You dont have to knead if you have a food processor, and I suggest having a food processor. The other nice thing about this recipe is that the dough gets better the longer you let it sit in the fridge. Which means you can make mulitple batches of the dough in advance and bake it up in a snap without much effort. Its alittle richer than your average pizza dough recipe, but dont let that stop you from making pizzas with it.

Onion Focaccia

5 cups flour
.25 oz (or 2.5 tsp) active dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup oil
1 3/4 cup warm water

4 onions
1 tsp olive oil, more for drizzeling
red pepper flakes to taste
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tblsp medium ground corn meal
salt for sprinkling

Pulse 5 cups of flour, yeast, and salt to combine in the bowl of a food processor. Mix water, oil, honey, and vinegar together. Start the food processor and add the liquids in a steady stream. Dough will clump together and bang against the bowl once all the liquids are added. Keep processing for about 45 seconds. Sometimes my food processor starts to burn out (I can smell the motor) and I give it a minute break. The dough will be sticky. Scrape it directly into a sealable container. Let sit overnight in the fridge and up to 5 days. After 5 days you can freeze the dough for up to 6 months until you are ready to use it.

Sticky dough

Chop onion into 1/8 inch thick half moons. Now is when you really get to exert your power over food. Chop and cook those onions into tasty savory caramelized oblivion. Its best to use a thick bottomed pan so you can slowly brown them rather than burning them. Onions have a lot of sugar, and do burn if you dont watch out.

From this

To that

Add the onions, with 1 tsp of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and red pepper flakes to a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat. Stir to coat the onions. Cook over medium until transparent. Add the vinegar scraping bottom to pick up an browned bits. reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 30-40 more minutes until deep caramel color forms. The longer the better. The volume will greatly reduce but the flavor will get bigger. Stir often. Onions can be made 2 days in advance and kept chilled.

Dough after 3 days in the fridge is loose and bubbly

Ready to bake? Get ready to fill the house with awesome scent of onion and yeast. Grease an 11x17 rimmed baking sheet (Im using my trusty jelly roll pan) and sprinkle with corn meal. Not just any corn meal, you need to get medium/coarse corn meal. Medium corn meal also doubles as polenta in my home, and could even be passed off as grits. Im no grits expert, but I think it does fine.

Corny meal, look for medium ground

Drop the chilled focaccia dough onto the baking sheet. Stretch it with your hands into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick, nearly the size of the pan. Make indentations with your fingers. These will be little wells for the oil to collect in.

Sprinkle with a little oil and rub to cover. Next spread the caramelized onions over the dough. No for the part that separates pizza from focaccia drizzle the dough with olive oil until well coated and pooling in areas. Finish with a sprinkle of sea salt. Let sit in a draft free area for 60 minutes to warm up the dough and allow it to get puffy. Meanwhile preheat oven to 450 degrees. Bake for 20-25 minutes light browned. You will know by the smell when its almost there. Its the best smell on earth. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Slice and serve. Great a great snack for munching on while drinking beer. I made mine for super bowl. The focaccia didnt make it to the 2nd quarter.

Jay is No Longer Severely Overweigth

Date:  Jan 26, 2016

Jay Jay is no longer “Severely” overweight.

Last 3 years, the report card will mark as “Severely” overweight.

Look at the BMI.  It actually dropped.  Which is good.

And he has been doing Bicycle, swimming, Taekwondo, Golf, Badminton, etc all kinds of sports weekly.  

Not to mention the care program in early morning before class.

He is happy.

He is having lots of fun.

And now he is just “overweight”.  Keep up the good work Jay! 

Major Smell

Got home last night and the smell from the fish tank was high!! I mean high. No dead fish but several gasping for air. I also noted they had not eaten the food I had put out in the m0rning. So mentioning this to Wanna, "Yes I fed them this morning", So did I chirped in Owen. Well they had had a good day in terms of food. Three times more than necessary.
Only problem is too much food is no good for them. I recalled that Travis in his manual stated if the water smells stop feeding. Done....
I removed the uneaten pellets and also the various leaves etc which had been added.
Later in the evening I decided to also remove the water. Yes the water. Pumped away about 80% and refilled with fresh tap water.
Seems to have worked OK as this morning the water was clearer and the fish still swimming, (the right way up!). I tried a few pellets but not much interest so will lay off the food for a few more days.

Christmas Cookie no 4 Sesame Cookies

Why are sesame seeds so cute. Love them on a little cookie.

Ive made Pistachio Apricot cookies for their fruity nutty flavor. Nutella Dream cookies are a gooey filled surprise. The gluten-free ginger bread people fulfill the ginger spice category and cover the gluten-challenged people on my list. I wanted the next cookie to be less sweet. Im a sugar junky, but I know a lot of people like to take it easy on the sweets. Sesame seeds are just the savory to sweet flavor to top off such a less than sweet crunchy little cookie that could almost pass as a mini biscotti. The dough is easy to make, and dousing dough balls in sesame seeds takes a fraction of the time it takes cut and decorate them. Its on my cookie list for sure. This recipe is based on the version on Giusto Gusto.

Sesame Cookies

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter
4 tblsp olive oil
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tblsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups flour
2 cups sesame seeds

Mix sugar, butter and oil in the bowl of standing mixer for 7 minutes until light and fluffy, scraping sides of mixer at least once. Add eggs one at a time, mixing between in each addition. Scrape down sides of mixer. Add vanilla, baking powder, and salt, and mix for another 2 minutes until combined. Add half the flour and mix until barely combined. Add remaining flour and mix until combined. I like to take the bowl off the mixer during the last few mixes of dough and get in there by hand to make sure its evenly mixed.Chill dough for 1 hour to overnight.

Preheat oven to 350. Scoop one tablespoon of dough. Roll the ball in a circle on your palms to create a ball. Then roll back and forth to make slightly oval. Place shaped dough on a tray and continue until all the dough is formed. Place the 2 cups of sesame seeds into bowl. Roll each dough ball in the seeds to cover and place on an ungreased baking sheet, about 1 inch apart. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown on the bottom. Transfer cookies to cooling racks.

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies

KWT Winter CSA Month 2 January

Happy New Year. Its snowing leafy green vegetables with a high of 55 degrees in Brooklyn. My CSA is great this month, heavier than the previous month and just as vibrant. A result of warm weather, or just good agriculture practices from Garden of Eve? I look forward to eating the results. Here is what was included:

Kensington Windsor Terrace Winter CSA Month 2: January
1 big bunch of arugala
1 bunch beets
1 bag broccoli
2 bags of salad greens
1 bag of kale
1 bag of collards
8 yellow/white carrots
6 turnips
3 potatoes
3 medium diakons
3 heads of garlic
3 DOZEN EGGS (thats alot!)

Heres my plan of attack: eat the salad greens up first, as they are the most perishiable. I will probably eat them in salad for dinner and chopped up with beans for lunch. Diakon and carrots will get sliced up for snacking on plain. I will have an egg and potato. I predict some savory bread pudding in my future too. For dinner Ill make a pot of black bean soup and toss a few handfuls of collards, kale, and beet greens in. I loved the roasted broccoli I made last month, maybe Ill try something new this month. Those white juicy crunch turnips will be gone by Monday. I love to snack on them plain.

The Building of a Greenhouse

Well, after months of debate on the type and style of greenhouse to use, and after much consideration with respect to price for prefab structures I have opted to build my own greenhouse from the ground up...without using plans. Here is what it looks like thus far. I decided on a 12Wx20Lx9H structure to start with...

As you can see this is the post setting stage with an 80lb bag of concrete securing each post.

These are two old 7x13 dog pens that I will be converting to cold frames once the greenhouse is finished.

  This is the Girt additions to tie it all together.

  and the trusses for the roof, the peak is 9 feet and the side walls are 5.5 feet, the whole structure is 12x20 which should provide plenty of room to start and I have plenty of room to grow the structure on the left side if needed.

The roof sheathing is being placed and regular composition roofing will be used on the north side of the structure. Notice the additional bracing on the girts.

The next stage was placing the siding, I used T1-11 and cut opening for windows and also place felt paper on the north side of the roof.

and here is the structure as it sits now, I have completed the purlins for the corrugated clear polycarbonate panels on the south facing portion of the roof, and painted them with white paint as recommended by the panel manufacturer. Now on to painting the rest of the greenhouse to match our home. Time to complete this stage - 2 weeks @ 4-5 hours per day.

KWT Winter CSA Month 3 February

I wasnt expecting a rainbow of foods in February. We are digging deeper into the dog days of winter, which means we must dig for our food too. 3 varieties of potatoes, daikon, two kinds of onion, garlic, beets, carrots, turnips. Im gonna list this down below, thats a tubular amount of tubers.

Im glad for the 2 spots of green collards and salad mix, which I will thoroughly wash. Slugs! I found 4 slugs in last months greens. Im sorry to say there probably were more that I unintentionally ingested. I was a little too disgusted to photograph them, but next time I catch one I will publish the evidence.

Kensington Windsor Terrace Winter CSA Month 3 February

1 head cabbage

1 bag collards

1 little bag salad greens

1 shallot

1 red onion

2 heads garlic

10 medium and large beets

5 medium diakon radishes

5 large carrots

4 medium turnips

3 lbs red potatoes

2 lbs russet potatoes

2 lb sweet potatoes

Im thinking the cabbage will become sauerkraut, which I havent had this winter yet. I eat the potatoes for breakfast like home fries (who needs toast?) with an egg on top. I prefer not to eat large turnips raw so I will probably cube and roast them, or try maybe something new. Previously I was slicing the daikon and carrots up and eating them with lunch and for a snack. Daikon cakes seem to be in my future with the volume. I will boil the beets until they are soft peel, cut, and toss them with garlic, shallot, parsley and black eyed peas for lunch. Today I plan to make a big pot of lentil soup with a little bit of all of the above because Im just dying to taste it all.

KWT Winter CSA Month 4 March

winter vegetable pile

I love trying new vegetables. Scratch that, I live to try new vegetables. I love to compare them in my head, and think up new combinations. In the end I mostly eat the whole thing plain. This months Kensington Windsor Terrace CSA includes chickweed. Our pre-distribution email explains that chickweed:

"Like most wild food it is super high in vitamins and minerals (Iron, Copper, Manganese, Magnesium, Zinc, Potassium, Vitamin C and A). It is higher in iron and zinc than any domesticated green." and goes on to say, "Helps maintain healthy weight (contains saponins, which may help to bind fats and remove them from the body). Nourishing for the lungs. Helps carry off cellular debris through our lymph system and it also helps clean out and clean up cysts. Great for drawing out infections and soothing pain. Great remedy for eye problem."

Oh man that is specific. Cysts look out chickweed is coming to get you. My lungs will probably be grateful. Just a thought on this wonderful explicit passage, are other vegetables just as nourishing and or good for killing cysts? Or is chickweed oh so special. If so then why arent we eating it already? The chickweed tastes pretty good. Crisp with a mineral flavor a lot like fresh romain lettuce, but a touch metallic. Its long and stem-y with dainty leaves, even a few edible flowers. The stems are not tough. I like it.

Included in this months Kensington Windsor Terrace March CSA

1 bag of mixed red, blue and white potatoes, about 3lb

several yams

8 small baking potatoes

3 lb carrots

2 lb beets

1 lb purple top turnips

1 rutabaga

2lb daikon

1 bag braising greens

1 big bunch of chickweed

1 dozen eggs

Im going to have to eat a lot of potatoes for breakfast this month. Perhaps some potato pizzas are necessary. The other root vegetables may become the worlds biggest sheet of roasted root vegetables. I dont know how to explain exactly but when roasted vegetables just disappear off my plate. A tub of soup wouldnt hurt either.