I make my own bread

For about 5 years i have been making my own bread using a Panasonic bread maker. Almost every time i have made myself a nice loaf. Recently instead of 25g of Butter i have been putting in 25g of Olive oil often i have used Sultanas until today

Last night i did as i normally did, i put all the ingredients in and switched the machine on and started to wait the 4 hours it takes to bake. After 3 hours i had a look into the machine to see how it was coming on. Shock horror i had forgotten to put the water in when i put all the other ingredients in.

I had to switch of my machine and start all over again but this time i put the water in. It was 9pm and i had hopped that i would have some nice fresh warm bread for my supper but tonight i had none. I then switched the machine on once  again and waited the 4 hours it took to bake what seemed a long 4 hours.

Over time i have found that if i put a tea towel over the bread when it's done for about an hour, this changes the crust to a nice soft crust so it was a along wait before i could go to bed. It was almost 2am early in the morning when i could get to bed after such a stupid mistake. At least i have fresh bread for breakfast.

A alarming story of Dodgy phones

I get all my news from the likes of BBC news, Theguardian etc. Today i found an alarming story about mobile phones for sale on Ebay. It seems that a copy of a Samsung phone is for sale on Ebay and it's made in China. The story tells of how it was built with an and inbuilt virus and what it does is send your data to China.


The link below tells the whole story an before you buy a phone from Ebay, Amazon or other online sellers beware.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/18/chinese-smartphone-samsung-amazon-ebay-malware-google-play

Wooden box update

I was given a nice big wooden box to recycle early this week. I started to take the box apart only to find that there was to much rot in the box. Unlike the three boxes i had this one was full of signs of woodworm. As i started to take it apart i had some hope that maybe the rot was only in parts of the box and i may end up getting something from what was left. Sadly it was all to bad and it's only fit for the fire in the coming months when the weather gets a bit cold.

Chicco the timber guy has Chestnut timber like that i have been using in my kitchen but he tells me that it is not quite the same colour as my timber. My timber has aged over many years and has a nice old colour to it. It's looking like i will have to get timber from him as i need some longer lengths for around the doors and i have none left.

Additives from crushed Beetles in my Burgers.

Today I treated myself to some Beefburgers from a local Lidl. Because of a word I saw that looks like something i remember from when i was a butcher about 50 years ago. The word was cochonilha this looked so much like the word Cochineal that i new was a banned colour additive in the UK form 50 years. Cochineal is made from a Beetle, yes a Beetle and i have put a link to Wikipedia for you to read. To say i was shocked was an understatement. I still have 4 burgers left but the dogs next door will get them.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal

When i started work as a butcher i was told about the days when Mince would have Chochineal in it so it didn't loose it's colour while on display. It was explained to me why we no longer used it and what it was made from.

Now after a search on Google i find that E120 is in fact Cochineal but it's now properly processed to make it an accepted colour agent. It's a pity i was to quick throwing away the burgers i had but i learnt something  about Chochineal.

Percentagem de materia gorda inferior a 20% relacao colageneo proteina inferior a 15%
Ingredients: Carne de bovino (95%) pao ralado ( Farinha de trigo, aqua e levedura ) sal, antioxidates ( citrato trissodico e ascorbato de sodio ) consevantes  ( metabissulfito de sodio ) e corantes ( carmin de cochonilha ) Contem gluten e sulfitos.


Lower percentage of fat to 20% lower relationship collagen protein 15% Ingredients: Beef (95%) breadcrumbs (wheat flour, yeast and aqua) salt, antioxidates (trisodium citrate and sodium ascorbate) consevantes (sodium metabisulfite) and dyes (cochineal carmine) Contains gluten and sulphites.

A new Sport for the Olympics

I went to a bar called the MAY TAY tonight to watch the World cup game between England and Uruguay . Sadly we did not win but when England got a goal by Rooney lots of the Portuguese in the bar with use Cheered with use but sadly one goal was not enough.

If Football was a new Olympic sport what section would it be in, look at the list below.

Football.
Gymnastics.
Kickboxing. " Legs everywhere "
Karate " All the arms going in every direction "
Touch a man and down you go. " New sport "
That's just a few what can you think of?


At the end of the career they could all go to Hollywood  to become actors after all the practise they have had.

From Merseyside there are 11 players in the England squad including two on standby. Says a lot for the quailty of Football on Merseyside.

Everton 4 players including one on standby

Liverpool 7 players including one on standby

Wayne Rooney was trained by Everton from the age of nine till he moved when to Manchester United in 2004 at the age of 18 so i think Everton can take some credit for his talent.

Almost to hot to drive

Today was language class day and as usual i found it very difficult i always find it difficult but i try. Coming out after the lesson we all go for a drink mostly tea or coffee and today was just like any other day but hot. I had parked in a spot with a bit of shade but that didn't help at all. As i drove off i opened the windows and started my short journey to the cafe we normally go to. The steering wheel and gear lever where so hot i found it difficult to change gear and steer. On my dashboard the temperature was showing as 35.5c the heat is normally not a problem until you have to drive and then it is.

Why not become a follower of this Blog

Hi to all those who follow my life here in sunny Portugal.

Please take the time to become a follower just to give me an idea of how many regular readers i have.To those who have taken the time to become a follower i say a big thank you and i hope that i have given you a view of one persons life in this beautiful country.

For being a follower you get no junk e-mails, no extra bits in fact nothing just the pleasure of knowing that you have given me an insight into how many regular followers i have.

A nice wooden box to recycle.

A while ago i was promised an old wooden box to recycle the timber. It's this type of box i have used for around my windows and to make my shelves and fold down table in my kitchen.

The box is outside in the lane till i can carefully take it apart tomorrow without damaging any of the timber. There is some rot in the box but i don't mind cutting it away bt i should end up with a lot of good wood to reuse.

Planed down the outside will come up fine but darker than the inside as it's only the outside that weathers.

This should give an idea of the colour of the timber on the inside. I can make good use of all this aged timber.

my house is under seige from cats.

Fernando my next door neighbour has cats not one but a whole heard of them. Fernando had four cats and i am not an animal lover but i don't wish them any harm until now.

Since i finished my veranda it's been nice to sit out and read my Kindle and enjoy a cold drink. On have had to start keeping my door closed as it seems that the cats want to get in my house. Four cats are bad enough but i have now seen in front of his back door Fernando has another seven kittens.

Fall you dam cat but it was still there after an hour and i wasn't going to help it. If it fell it may not come back again.











Fernando also has four dogs i must be fair to him that he does take them for a walk every day pity he brings them back. Two of his dogs if not kept on chains get out and two of them if they see me and one of them has managed to bite the bottom of my jeans. I now have sticks all over the village to fend of the little B*****ds. If one of these dogs should get to bite me i will KILL it no if's or but's it's me or the animal.

It's bad enough that i can't leave my door open but to be attacked by dogs is to much, OK they are not big dogs but size is not the issue.

If you are an animal lover i am sorry for what i have said above but i must defend myself.

Window done.

Without Chicco to cut my timber i would not be able to get wood that looks like the picture below. I have plenty of timber to thick to use to go around my doors and window but Chicco cuts it down to size and i have now managed to finish around one window in my kitchen.

The picture below is how it looks finished and i used wood just like in the picture above but with six coats of varnish.

Now i have another window and two doors to do just to finish this part of the kitchen.













After this i have to do the Plinth under the base units and the skirting boards. It's a good job i have enough timber to complete this. I do have the promise of another box to take apart to reuse the timber in it.

Cherry Vodka again

Well the sun is out and it's going to be a good time for fruits  or i hope. I have a number of Cherry trees and maybe not as good as the big black cherries you get in the shops but still they are OK.

I got a bottle of Vodka from Lidl for 5.49€ in the UK you would pay about £9.99 for the same size bottle. I have done a before and after pictures and the only thing missing is the tooth pick i used. You need a tooth pick to stab the Cherries before you put them in the bottle and fill it up with your Vodka.

The bottle of Cherry Vodka will be left now till about Christmas to give it plenty of time to mature before drinking. The remaining fruit will be used to make a very adult sponge cake.

Empty bottle, bottle of Vodka and a jug of Cherries.

Now the bottle with the Cherries and Vodka mixed for maturing.














Now if its easy for me to do why not have a go yourself Brandy, Gin or maybe white Rum.

The best i made last year was Cherry Remy Martin and the Cherry Vodka was also very good. This year i plan to use white Rum and maybe Gin it just depends what fruits i have to use. Close to my house there is a place where i got over 4 kilo of Blackberries i used to make wine so this year i may make Blackberry white Rum.

Just wait and see.

Update on slugs

I mentioned a little while ago about Slugs and my strawberries well here is just a little update. My strawberries are doing well and i have had more strawberries than i had all of last year.

As you can see on my tower i have strawberries starting to ripen. Almost ready for me to enjoy for dessert.




















In total i have about 50 strawberry plants and not a slug insight. So if slugs spoil your strawberries then build a veranda high if the ground and it works.

  

I feel like a good Rant

It's no secret on the Forums i am on that i use Ubuntu Linux and i have found it secure and have no problems that i have found since changing from windooooows. It's not unusual to have other members have a go when i offer a solution to problems they may have with windooooows.

I wonder what they would say after i read about a computer in China that runs Ubuntu just like i do. OK it's a version in Chinese but the difference being this computer is twice as fast as the last computer that was the fastest computer in the world. After doing a quick search i have just fund that the top 10 fastest computer on the planet all run on Linux. So all these people who criticise me over window then just look at the link below from Wikipedia and the facts.

Of the top 500 the list below shows the operating systems and only windows are used on 2 out of 500 machines.

Operating system family

• Linux – 482
• Unix – 11
• Mixed – 4
• Windows – 2
• BSD-based – 1

http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/05/27/fastest-supercomputer-runs-ubuntu-openstack/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOP500