Experimental Cookery 2023: Pumpkin & Carrot Soup

We had some pumpkin left over from making the chilli, so to use it up I purchased some ingredients and made soup. The method came from "A Soup for Every Day", which is a generally useful book to have.

Making the soup was easy, with hacking up the pumpkin being the most time-consuming bit. Then the stove did all the work for me. Job done!

The resulting soup was, initially, somewhat bland - as with a lot of vegetable soups, it needed quite a lot of help from salt and pepper to help bring out the flavour. But once that was added, it really came together quite nicely - one to have hot on a cold day, and with some nice crusty rolls.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Slow-cooker Pumpkin and Beef Brisket Chilli

Until yesterday I had somehow never cooked with pumpkin. I'd always been intrigued by them, but we only ever had one for carving, and I'd never quite found a use. But this month's Tesco magazine has a couple of good slow-cooker recipes, and with there being the annual Halloween event on Saturday I thought this would be an ideal pre-event repast.

Well, it would have been, except that I ended up cooking it on Sunday rather than Saturday, and then we barely ate any of it. This weekend has not been the most successful.

Anyway, this was quick and easy to put together, as is generally the case with slow cooker recipes. And then it was just a matter of waiting for a very long time.

The result was... interesting. It's very different from the chillies I've made in the past, though that's not necessarily a bad thing - it was considerably meatier but with essentially no heat at all. As I said, it would probably have been just the thing for us all to have in rolls before heading out to the village Halloween event.

Oh well. Maybe next year - because this is one I do intend to do again.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Curries of the World 1

On Wednesday I enjoyed a team-building day at the "Edinburgh New Town Cook School". ("Enjoyed a team-building" anything should really be a contradiction in terms, but this once was an exception.) The course was the aforementioned "Curries of the World 1", the nature of which should probably be obvious.

It was a really good course - well presented, and the instructor was clearly both well on top of her subject and also enthusiastic about presenting it. All of which is to the good.

The day began with a demonstration, as a curry paste was put together and then used to cook a dish. This then served as a morning snack, before we proceeded with our cooking: two curry pastes, and then four dishes, most of which we took home. There were lots of prawns.

Anyway, it was a really good day, and I found I enjoyed it a bit more than the Nick Nairn thing I attended a few years ago, though probably just because I knew some people there!

And that's actually all I have to say about that - the latter half of the week has been a disaster, so I'm playing catch up more than a little.

#19: "Firefly: What Makes Us Mighty", by M.K. England

Day 300: Update on Goals

We've now reached day 300 of the year, so it's time for the penultimate update on goals for the year:

• Books: This is done - I finished "Atlas Shrugged" during the October break, thus completing The List. My total number of books is a measly 18, which I'll aim to improve on next year, but that's okay.
• Blogging: I'm now back to being on target on this blog. I just need to finish up the year on schedule and this goal should complete. Over on the Imaginarium I'm quite some way behind the goal I would have set, had I set a goal there. I'd quite like to get caught up, but a lack of inspiration is hurting that.
• Redecorating: The new carpet arrived on Wednesday, so this is now done.
• Other stuff: My updates to the church website are proceeding apace, but the process is going slowly. Similarly, I've done a small amount of writing towards that 6,000 word target, but there's a long way to go there. And I'm in the process of populating the NAS with data, but given the sheer volume that may be a year-long project.

Currently, it looks like all three jobs should complete, given that two are done and the third is on target. That's not exactly the biggest achievement, though.

New Worlds to Conquer

Originally, this post was going to be entitled "no more worlds to conquer", and was going to note that the NAS was something I regarded as my 'last' big purchase - it essentially completed the set of things I wanted to own, and thereafter purchases would be a matter of updates and replacements. At least until something new changed the game.

However, over the weekend I realised that there remain two more 'things' to be considered, things that were actually enabled by the NAS, and having the data populated (at least in part):

• At some stage I would like to set up most or all of our rooms with suitable tablets/speakers to access content from the NAS. These can be relatively basic, in that I'd like them to be able to handle streamed music and internet radio, and not much else. Even viewing video files it probably beyond the scope of what I'd envisaged... although, maybe.
• The other thing, coming out of having those very tablets, is that it then becomes practical, nay easy, to set up a home automation setup - smart lightbulbs everywhere, smart plugs in key locations, and so on.

Neither of these is urgent, of course, and neither of them is a one-and-done project (they can easily be built up over time). But they would, I think, represent genuine improvements in our quality of life, which is obviously something to at least consider.

A TV In Her Room?

Growing up, the ultimate thing to have was a TV in your bedroom. The main reason for this was economic - it was an indicator that your parents were so well off that thy could afford the indulgence of not just one but multiple televisions. The other factor was one of control and independence, as having a TV in your room gave you unilateral control over what you watched.

A couple of weeks ago, Funsize asked about getting a TV in her room. She's not getting a TV in her room.

In fact, it's very likely that Funsize will never have a TV, as such, in her bedroom. Because, quite simply, the whole notion is just obsolete these days.

Right now, Funsize has a tablet of her own. This in itself is a rather ludicrous thing for a five-year-old to have - it's way more powerful than she needs, and frankly is a crazy indulgence. And yet, we've found that it is insanely useful especially on long journeys, such that not only do we not at all regret the purchase, but it's likely Surprise! will be getting one fairly soon.

(The other thing, of course, is that Funsize won't remain five-years-old, and although the technology will age and become less useful with time, at the power level of the thing it should remain good enough for a good long time. So it's a crazy indulgence that becomes less crazy as time goes on.)

And there will come a point, probably sooner than I'm really comfortable with, that she will benefit from having a laptop of her own - initially for homework, of course, but the reality is that these things have a great many uses.

And unlike when I was growing up, these days there is no meaningful distinction between a TV and a laptop, or even a tablet - via the magic of wi-fi and some carefully selected apps, those devices can watch anything that's available on our TV, and vastly more than I ever had access to.

I think there is, still, just about, justification for having a dedicated family TV. I don't think there's any real justification for having a TV as such in a bedroom - too many other devices can do the key things well enough to make it worthwhile.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong!

In Which I Am Less Right

Last night Spain did Scotland a favour and beat Norway. The consequence of that is that Scotland have now qualified for the Euro 2024 competition. Huzzah!

A few years ago I made a rather pessimistic prediction that Scotland's men would never again qualify for a major tournament this side of independence. Obviously, independence has not occurred. (I did put a caveat on that "unless they change the rules to basically let anyone in", which is why I don't count Euro 2020 - the "UEFA Nations League" basically meets that criterion.)

Anyway, the upshot of all of that is that I was, quite obviously, wrong in that prediction. Happily so.

(It's just as well, really  - given that the SNP basically gave up on independence some years ago, the prospect of independence within my lifetime is essentially over.)

Anyway, now the challenge is to try to finish top of the group, but more importantly to then try to get out of the group stage in the tournament itself and achieve our best-ever result. But that's a problem for another day. For today, it's all to the good.

Status Report

I've spent much of the past week feeling various measures of not great, and the last two days feeling pretty awful. Fortunately, it has nonetheless been a productive week - I had a list of five things I wanted to get done, and can report significant progress on four of them:

• I finished two books this holiday, being the final book from The List, and one from the big pile of waiting books. That clears off one of the items from my "clearing the decks" list, and takes a bite out of another.
• We've arranged to have the carpet in the upstairs hallway replaced - that should be done by the end of this month, and just in time for my penultimate update on goals for the year.
• The NAS has been set up! It was horrible, but the various steps were taken, the PCs are now backed up (and set up to back up), the media server is set up and working, and the library is populated at least with some things. I now have a very large task to populate the rest of it, but that's another job for another day (or year).
• I tried to update the church website, only to discover that the server is positively creaking. Some surgery has been done to this, and a big chunk of the update is now done (or at least good enough). There's quite a bit still to go, especially on the back end, but I'm happy with what I've done.
• I did not, however, get any of those 6,000 words written.

All in all, I'm happy with that. I now have one more task on the "clear the decks" list to go, and one goal to complete on my trio for the year. So that's pretty good, I think.

Baking with Surprise! #1: Meringues

One of the side-effects of making the chocolate velvet ice cream is that it left me with three egg whites to use up. Which obviously meant that there was a need to make meringues. And so yesterday, Surprise! and I made up a batch.

Making meringues is, of course, pretty easy, which makes it ideal for a small child to help with - Surprise! had great fun adding the sugar a spoonful at a time, until he got bored of that, and then he had great fun using the electric mixer to combine the sugar with the eggs.

And so now I have ten meringues to eat up...

Not Baking With Funsize #8: Chocolate Velvet Ice Cream

We've all been on holiday this past week. We didn't actually go anywhere, which has meant we've been scrabbling around for things to do. And so, one of those things was for Funsize and I to make some ice cream. Which was, of course, great fun.

I've made this ice cream before, and it is very nice. That hasn't changed with this iteration. Neither has the simplicity of making it. The main benefit of the experience this time was that Funsize enjoyed the process, such that she is now keen to make many more ice creams in the future.

Which means I'll need to come up with some nice flavours for us to try.

#18: "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand (the final book from The List!)

Babylon 5: The Road Home

As I've said before, I'm a huge fan of "Babylon 5" - I consider it to be the third-best Sci-fi show of all time (behind only "Star Trek" and "Doctor Who"). So when it was announced that a new B5 Tv movie was coming, I was of course going to get it and watch it!

Unfortunately, B5 has a significant problem in that the core story (seasons 2-4 of the show) is absolutely solid, but everything around that is of wildly variable quality - "Crusade" had potential but never lived up to it, "Legend of the Rangers" didn't proceed beyond a pilot for fairly good reason, season 1 was very slow and season 5 stretched too little material into too many episodes, and of the T movies only "In the Beginning" was truly great. And any new B5 project has an even bigger problem that about half of the core cast have now passed away.

So a new TV movie was a somewhat dubious proposition. But it's B5, so of course I still watched it.

And it's good. At least, it's good if you've seen and enjoyed the show - it adds a bit more context to some parts of the story, it fills in some of the "darkest timeline" stuff we see in a couple of episodes, and it of course centres around some beloved characters. It's a fairly small moment, but my favourite point probably involved some corn fields, of all things.

But my main reaction to the movie was that it left me wanting to watch "Babylon 5" again, and I just don't have time for that.

My recommendation for this one has to be conditional: if you haven't seen "Babylon 5", don't bother with this. And if you didn't enjoy B5, you won't enjoy this. But if you did, and you feel like revisiting the Third Age of Mankind, this is a fun way to do that.

Ahsoka

There is no Star Wars TV series that I have looked forward to more than "Ahsoka". I'm a big fan of "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels", and very much enjoyed Ahsoka's appearances in both "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett". But after the abject failure that was "Secret Invasion", I actually approached the series with something approaching terror.

The good news is that that terror was almost entirely unfounded - "Ahsoka" has an excellent cast, a strong (albeit very slow) plot, and loads and loads of Star Wars goodness. And the fifth episode, in particular, may be the single best thing Disney have done with Star Wars since they got it.

I don't want to say much more about the series now, to avoid spoilers. I strongly recommend it. But, if you haven't watched "The Clone Wars" and, especially, "Rebels", I strongly recommend waching those first - while "Ahsoka" does manage to stand alone, it gains a huge amount from the context that those shows give.

#17: "Elektra", by Jennifer Saint (good book, by the way)

The SNP's Management Woes 2023

Oddly, the SNP today find themselves with almost exactly the same predicament as Rangers did on Saturday night - the guy at the top is clearly not cut out for it and absolutely has to be replaced, but despite that there is the issue that whoever they appoint next will still have to deal with the same players, who are also clearly not good enough. (There's also an uncanny similarity about them both being utterly strapped for cash, but that's a whole other topic.)

The big difference between the situations though is that Rangers do at least have the ability to go and find a manager from anywhere, and in theory they could find someone who can get more out of the existing crop of players and coax them through to the transfer window. The SNP's list of viable candidates for leader has exactly one name on it, and during the previous leadership election the powers-that-be within the SNP did a really good job of toxifying her in the media.

So, they're basically screwed. At this stage, the future for the SNP looks like being limping through to the General Election, taking a major kicking, limping through to the Scottish Elections, taking another major kicking, dropping out of government, and then maybe rebuilding from there.

In the meantime, Humza Yousaf must go... but don't expect much to improve as a result.

Paramount+

We're coming to the end of our three-month deal with Paramount+. As it happens, I'm going to renew for one additional month (to let "Star Trek: Lower Decks" conclude its fourth season), but after that I'll be cancelling.

Overall, I feel I've had my money's worth from the subscription, but only just - I basically subscribed for the various "Star Trek" shows, and have had good viewing from those. I've also watched two films, one of which I enjoyed and the other not so much. (It would be quite nice if "Scream 6" happened to return to the service in the next month, but I'm not too hopeful.)

Ultimately, though, I have very little interest in the rest of the offering - and, indeed, since I went in assuming I was going to cancel before too long, I deliberately didn't take a chance on any of the other series.

The upshot, therefore, is that I think this is probably a channel I'll dip in to for a couple of months roughly yearly, to catch up on the various Trek series, but otherwise won't bother with. And my recommendation would probably be to do the same. (This makes it different from Disney+, which is basically a permanent subscription for us - there's just too much good stuff on there.)

Clearing the Decks

Now that we're more than three-quarters of the way through the year, and with both my RPG campaign and the final book in The List coming towards their conclusions, I find myself thinking about the benefits of a clean slate going in to next year. There are a number of things that have been sitting in my To Do pile for quite some time, and a few other things that haven't been but maybe should.

In which case, here's the list of things I'd like to get done in the remainder of this year:

• Finish the final book on The List.
• Start reading through the big pile of books I have waiting.
• Replace the carpet in the upstairs hallway.
• Set up the NAS. (Yes, I recall my post from last month. But it bothers me having it just sitting there as an active accusation.)
• Update the church website. That has been sitting ignore dfor far too long, and really needs some attention.
• Finish the writing of the final part of the campaign - I have 6,000 words to go, and it would be good to get them written.

And that's it. I don't expect to get all of these done, and indeed may barely scratch the surface, but at least there's a list to be working through. Oh, it's also perhaps worth noting that this is not an ordered list - it's just a bunch of things to do, without priorities.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Blackberry and Apple Crumble

Excuse me while I wax nostalgic for a moment...

Growing up we had a variety of desserts, often fruit-based (a particular 'favourite' was tinned peaches with condensed milk). In hindsight, this was largely a consequence of my parents raising a large family on a single income. Unfortunately, as time went on the stresses of this got to Mum, and desserts became even more constrained by the need to be extremely convenient as well - fruit sponge was replaced with 'treacle' sponge as the latter could be made in the microwave.

I have, of course, made crumble before. However, I think the last time was back when I was in high school. And, like the aforementioned fruit sponge, these are the sorts of desserts that we used to enjoy that we just don't have any more.

The method for this one came out of Mary Berry's "Simple Comforts". I make no apology for using a recipe for this rather than doing it from memory - that is, after all, what we have recipes for.

Needless to say, this is quick and easy to put together. I spent more time peeling and chopping apples than I did on anything else, and I didn't spend much time even on that. Then it went into the oven, and was forgotten about for 45 minutes.

In terms of taste and feel, this was great. A real nostalgic treat. And, yes, I'd certainly have this again, despite my total inability to persuade Funsize either to help with the cooking or indeed to eat any of it.

All in all, that's a win in my book.