Experimental Cookery 'Tuesday' #67: Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Posh Ham

This was an odd one. The original plan was for me to cook them last Friday. However, due to a combination of not being bothered and also suffering a PC meltdown, I instead had pizza. Therefore, the plan was revised to have them on Saturday. This was then scuppered by PC World.

The revised revised plan saw me cook up the chicken on Saturday (to prevent it from going off), but not eating it until Monday. This worked fine, mostly.

The food came out of the pan looking good enough to eat. However, by Monday it had cooled, and really didn't look appetising. However, I duly heated it in the microwave, and gave it a try. And it was okay - not great, but okay. I suspect it would have been better had I eaten it right away, but even then I doubt it would have been as good as some of the other options in this chapted.

Still, I think that's enough to take this chapter to 6-0, despite this being the weakest entry so far.

Next up is "Griddled Lamb Chops with Chunky Salsa", and then Moroccan Lamb with Couscous". I hope to tackle one of these before Christmas and the other in the week after. Once I've done that, I'm going to leave this book behind due to the remaining meals all being fish.

Experimental Cookery 'Tuesday' #65: Crunchy Garlic Chicken, and #66: Best New Potatoes

I did these a couple of weeks ago.

The chicken was fine - it was easy to make, and tasted good. The only oddity was that they came out green instead of the brown colour in the book. I think this was due to my adding too much parsley, although I only did what the book said.

Anyway, that takes that chapter to 5-0.

The new potatoes were also something of a success, although they could probably have done with a minute or two more cooking. So that would be 3-1 on "Delish Veg".

The Strange Liberation of Loss

After a long, hard week I got home last Friday expecting to have a couple of nice restful days. My game had been cancelled, so I had two full days 'off', during which I was all set to do some light preparation for my Eberron campaign, do a bit of reading, watch some TV, and generally laze around.

Immediately on arriving home, I switched on my PC, then went to make a cup of coffee while it started up. My PC is getting old - it takes several minutes to warm up. I'm sure it didn't used to be so slow.

Anyway, when I came back, I was faced with the horror of a "Windows Failed to Start" message, followed by a cryptic error number.

There then followed a couple of days of messing around, the full horror of which I won't go into. Eventually, I found that the solution was an easy fix - just a bios setting to change. Unfortunately, the setting in question was in a hidden menu that I simply could not access. And so came the ultimate indignity: I had to take it back to PC World for repair!

I eventually got the PC back on Monday, having had the hard disk blanked and the system restored to factory settings. A nice clean slate to work with from here. Since then, I have been busily re-installing software, rebuilding my data, and generally wasting lots of time getting the system working again.

For the past year or so, I kept saying to myself, "I really must get one of those big external drives, and set up automatic backups. It sure would suck if my PC died and I lost all the data I've spent years building up." I kept saying that, and saying that...

About three months ago, I finally bought one of those big external drives, and set up automatic backups. This proved exceptionally fortuitous, as I was thus able to restore all my documents and files after getting the PC back. Huzzah! (And also: bloody hell, that was lucky!)

There's just one minor problem: it seems the the automated backup system does not include email. So, all the emails I have stored since forever (back to my first PC in 1994!) and all of my email contact details, and all of that stuff, is all gone!

I expected to by much more dismayed about this that I actually am. The thing is, while it sucks to lose data, and especially to lose it when I thought it was safely backed up, it's also true that I hadn't looked at most of those emails in years. Indeed, I had folders entitled "From 2007", "From 2008" and "Older" into which I just threw the appropriate emails and forgot about them. So, in many ways, it's a relief to be free of that junk. I wasn't using it, so I haven't really lost anything.

The one thing I did lose was the license key to a particular piece of software I have used only occasionally (but, like much occasional-use software, when I wanted to use it, I really wanted to use it). Even here, though, there's no great problem - they have been able to regenerate and resend the key.

Plus: now my PC is more up-to-date even than it was before the problem hit, and doesn't have quite so much lingering "junk software" lying around. So, really, it might not be the worst thing that has ever happened. Maybe.

Not quite dead

I have fallen behind on maintaining the blog, primarily due to a recent bout of PC problems. Normal service will be restored shortly.

Goals 2009 Wash-up

Last night was the final meeting of my Spanish course. It has been good!

Amongst other things, this completes the last of my goals for the year. So, as promised, here is the wash up, followed by some thoughts.

• Super Secret Goal #1. Complete.
  
• Super Secret Goal #2. Abandoned in April.
  
• Books. Complete.
  
• Weight loss. Complete.
  
• New skill.The Spanish course finished last night. However, a new course starts in January, which will pick up where this one left off.
  
• Car fund. Complete.
  
• General finances. Complete.
  
• Band. Complete.
  
• The house move. Complete.
  
• TV. Complete.
  
• RPGs. Complete. We have actually managed to get together for three whole sessions of the Warhammer campaign (including two in a row!), and should be getting together for another on Saturday (three in a row!). Additionally, I have started up a second campaign in Falkirk, meeting on almost alternate Tuesdays.
  

And so, there it is. Ten complete, and one abandoned. Frankly, I consider that a rather spectacular result for the year. Some thoughts:

• The tyranny of goals: For about six weeks there, I was juggling about six different goals concurrently, and so found that my every waking moment, and almost every waking thought, was dedicated to one or another of these goals. This was not a terribly pleasant experience. Next year, I'll either not be setting so many goals, or I will time-limit them so that there is a limit to how many are running at once.
  
• That one abandoned goal. Circumstances required that that goal be put on the back-burner indefinately. However, that goal is still important, and is therefore something that is going to have to be one of my main focuses for next year.
  
• Once a goal is finished. I have barely read anything since completing that goal. Since coming off the diet, I haven't been anywhere near as rigourous about what I eat, and have regained more weight than I really would have liked (though not a disasterous amount). The amount of TV I watch has gone up and down over the course of the year. In all cases, I have taken the view that once a goal is done, it is done. However, there may be an argument for some goals being considered ongoing matters, and not to be neglected once the (usually arbitrary) target is reached.
  

Goals for next year?

Well, I will have some. I even have a couple in mind. However, I don't as yet have anything concrete. And, frankly, given how busy I am and am going to be, I'm not sure I will really be able to juggle goals on top of that.

First Sunday in Advent

Yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent, and so I promptly went all Christmas-y. To that end, and having completed a rather nasty cleaning job on the apartment, I proceeded to put up my decoration.

I have also donned my Christmassical Trevor t-shirt once more, and have started work on my festive beard, making an heroic return after its year in the wilderness. I felt there was a need to return to the traditional fripperies of the season.

Experimental Cookery Tuesday #64: Pork Kebabs

I did indeed do the Experimental Cookery Tuesday last week, but just never got around to updating the blog with the results. I've been absurdly busy.

The short version is that the kebabs were quick and easy to make, and they tasted much as I would have expected, which was quite nice. Also, I managed to avoid poisoning myself, which is always a plus.

That's really all there is to say about that. Next up is "Crunchy Garlic Chicken", which I'll actually be tackling on Friday as I won't have time tomorrow.

Uh-oh

Apparently, Swine Flu has reached my place of work. This is not a good sign.

One advantage we do have is that the office is not air conditioned, which should hamper the spread of the virus. Also, the person involved caught the symptoms early, and has promptly isolated himself. Still, it doesn't bode well.

That said, I suppose if I have to catch it, it would be better to catch it before Christmas, rather than over the break. That would suck.

But not tomorrow. I refuse to get sick before tomorrow.

Gaming Revisited

A couple of months ago, I blogged about the cancellation of the regular Saturday game, and how I suddenly found I was no longer "a gamer", so much as "someone who games occasionally". I also said at that time that I found this entirely unsatisfactory.

So, not being one to just accept when things aren't right, I set about fixing the problem.

To that end, and after some investigation, I set up a Meetup group dedicated to D&D in the Falkirk area. This has proven to be a success, meeting and (perhaps) exceeding my expectations. The second meeting is tomorrow night, during which we will probably kick off a new D&D campaign set in Eberron.

There's just one problem: in amongst all the chaos, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to do more than jot down a few very basic notes for the outline of the campaign. I didn't really want to have to run the first session without proper preparation, but it does look like this may well have to happen.

At the same time, my Saturday game seems to have found itself a new lease of life. After a couple of false starts, we finally managed to get together for a game two weeks ago, and then again on Saturday. It's starting to look like the interest may be starting to come back there, and we may be able to pick up the pace again.

Of course, that means I now have two full campaigns to juggle, two sets of players to manage, two sets of characters to challenge, and two sets of adventures to prepare. And that on top of band practices twice a week (and probably bag packing most weekends), my Spanish course, and then a trip to the Squirrel Ballet. Plus, somewhere in there I am supposed to do some Christmas shopping.

Life is quite hectic at times.

Christmas Lights and the Environment

In pretty much every town centre up and down the country, you will now find they have put up their Christmas lights, which are lit for several hours every night. They're quite pretty, and generally rather nice (despite it not being December yet).

They are also, fundamentally, a waste of large amounts of energy.

So, here's the thing: if the powers-that-be are really, truly as worried about climate change as they keep telling us, why is this waste of energy acceptable? Sure, it wouldn't be much fun to ban the lights... but it would be rather less fun (I imagine) to find the world becomes uninhabitable.

(I expect the likely response to this is that they'll claim the lights are used in a "carbon neutral" manner - they've offset the cost to the environment by planting some trees, or paying for China to build a cleaner coal power plant, or something equally silly. The problem with this argument is that carbon offsets are a big con, a way for people to salve their guilt without actually having to give anything up. If they're really, truly as worried about climate change as they claim, they should be paying the carbon offsets and not putting up the lights either. In fact, they should then be using the money saved on all that power they're now not wasting to pay for more carbon offsets. A Christmas present for the whole world, if you will.)

Experimental Cookery Breakfasts 12: Fresh Fruit Platter

I finally got around to finishing off the breakfasts chapter of Jamie's book.

To be honest, I think it was a bit of a cheat to have a 'recipe' that was essentially, "Get some fruit. Put it on a plate. Add yoghurt. Eat."

Still, never mind. It was nice enough.

That concludes the chapter at 7-5 in favour. (Yes, I had to go back and find that number.) The result would have been much better, except for all the many eggs. I think my favourite was the smoothies, while the loser was clearly one of the eggs. But which one? We hates them all... I think the omelette, purely because it was more hassle than the others.

I have now moved my secondary bookmark to the start of the soups chapter, and will probably work through that chapter gradually. Between now and Christmas, I also intend to tackle the remaining half-dozen 'meats' in "Quick-Cooking Meat and Fish", and then I think I'll retire this book and move on to something else.

(Incidentally, I've noticed that this is beginning to turn into "Steph/ven's Food Blog". That's not really my intention. However, at the moment my internet connection is down, so I'm trying to do the minimum online I can get away with without letting tasks just pile up.

Experimental Cookery Tuesday #63: Spanish Style Griddled Steak

So, another Tuesday means another Experimental Cookery. This one almost didn't happen - I was late in due to traffic, and had to go out again fairly quickly (more on that later). Still, I checked the book, and it claimed to be a 5-8 minute cook-time (6 minutes in practice), so I decided to go ahead.

I'm glad I did. The preparation for this one was a breeze, and it cooked very quickly indeed. The results were also rather impressive. I particularly enjoyed the peppers, although was a bit less impressed with the chillis, which were extremely hot.

Anyway, that makes for another success, taking this chapter to 3-0. It also confirms my opinion of the buttered spinach - I was going to try that again, but didn't have time. As a result, I had a handful of spinach raw, and it was rather better than the results of cooking it.

Next week is pork kebabs, which could be interesting...