Road Trip

Well the boys and I drove up the coast, to scatter Carmen's ashes, but decided not to scatter them with her mother's, on Mount Yarrahapinni, we agreed on a place that felt right, and decided to wait till Tom could make the trip to be there as well.
While up the coast, I had my camera and caught this kookaburra, in flight.http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16634475Rs4XPjf9

Carmen

Well waking nightmares do happen, Carmen passed away early this month, and It is has been tough over the last few weeks on the boys and I to keep it all together, I would like to post some photos, but sadly do not have many to post, except for this one,it is a few years old, and Carmen did approve it for public view, I think it helps to convey her bubbly and enthusiastic attitude.

National Geographic

Honda has cars for pets

Virtual Pilot

Convection Oven Pork

Well we got a new convection style oven 11.5 ltr, to add to our collection of ovens. I say collection because including the 2 Microwaves I had, as well as a 17ltr Toaster style oven and Carmen's Microwave and mini toaster oven that now makes 6 ovens as well as a pizza maker, and a George Foreman Grill, Cafe press, and not to mention the BBQ. It is faster and cheaper than all the other ovens, to cook in, exxept say the microwave, but lets face it who would eat a microwaved leg of pork?
We did need this because the main oven is out of action and has been since we moved in.
Now I was surprised that this oven did not come with details on how to cook a pork with crackling, in fact there were no details on pork at all only on beef, lamb and chicken, which is why I decided to post these details.
How long to cook Pork Roast with Crackling in a Glass convection oven
We start with a 3kg piece of pork leg, bone in and skin on, Turn on the oven to preheat to 240 degrees C.
Score the skin in long thin strips with a sharp knife. (the butcher usually does this, but I add extra scoring, and cut all the way past the fat to the meat)
Then sprinkle with white vinegar and rub with plenty of salt. feel free at this point to add any other flavors like garlic inserted in small slits into the roast or rub with oil and spices (Not on the crackling because you want this to go crisp)
This was a good size roast and in hindsight I should have de-boned it. So in the oven it went, low rack because of the height, the time was set to 30 minutes @ the preset 240 degrees C, and then lowered to 180 degrees C for 1 hour and 35 minutes, and I then boosted the temp. for approximately 10 minutes @ 240 degrees C, before taking it out. (I kept a close eye on it for that time to ensure there were no unexpected results)
I did use a cooking thermometer because from experience this oven did cook very fast, and the results were quite good except that the height of the roast meant that the skin close to the top was slightly over cooked, and not crispy lower on the side the photo was taken from, which is why I said I should have taken out the bone, to reduce the height, this may have affected circulation of air which is paramount in these ovens. I did try during the cooking process to flip the roast over, but that did not work because of the bone, the height did not change and I did not want the crispy skin sitting on the bottom of the oven. I know some of these ovens come with an extension ring just for this reason.
I crisped up some microwaved potatoes and onions in the juices while the roast had it's 15 minute rest, I set the temp. to 220 degrees C, the following day jacket potatoes pumpkin and onion were well done in 45 minutes, @ 220 degrees C.
In conclusion this is a very good oven to save time and energy for everyday cooking, and we will be using this, for those times like now, when the weather is dark and chilly and we do not want to go outside to BBQ, and we are in a hurry.

English Muffins

Well, I have not signed in for a couple of weeks, and even though I was a little under the weather, I wanted some english muffins for when Kris and Kyle come over so they can make me a Egg and Muffin for breakfast.
This was my first attempt at making these, and I found them very easy to make, but I did make some large and some small, and the large ones would only fit two in the pan, so this took some time to make, at about 10 minutes per muffin.
If you would like to try these, here is the recipe:
Ingredients: 1 x cup milk, 2 1/2 tbls butter, 1 x egg, 6 grams salt, 9 grams sugar, 410 grams flour, 1 1/2 tsp yeast. I always use a set of scales when making any kind of bread, so I found that knowing the dry ingredients in grams was handy.
I warmed the milk to body temperature in the Microwave about 35 seconds, and melted the butter (do not over heat). I then mixed the egg and milk and put into my bread maker, then added the melted butter, flour, sugar and salt, followed by the yeast.

(Note the large muffins in the photo above, are on a standard size 26cm Corelle dinner plate so you get an indication of size) I then let the bread maker do it's thing for about 15 minutes and checked to make sure that the mixture had picked up ok, all was well and I only used my silicone spatula to ensure some stray bits were incorporated in the mix, I left it till the signal let me kow it was ready, about an hour, and then spread the dough on a tray lined with baking paper, and sprinkled with dry semolina. (usually the muffins are coated with polenta or cornmeal but semolina works as well) I used small and large egg rings to stamp out the muffins, as well as combining all the trimmings at the end, finding I had too much left for one, so I split it in two and made two more small ones, using the method of pushing all the loose dough into the middle of the ball of dough, and then placing that side down, and flattening with a spatula. I ended up with 4 large and 6 small muffins.
I put them on a tray and left them in a warm oven for about 1 hour, then sprinkled semolina in a heavy pan sprayed with olive oil, and placed the muffins for approx. 5 minutes per side, I had started the temp setting at 7 on a 10 scale and later turned it down to between 2 and 3 because the muffins were getting a too dark.
The muffins will be toasted tomorrow which will ensure they are fully cooked inside and out. Looking forward to them, after having toasted one, and testing it smothered in fresh creamy butter MMM!

Feathertail Glider

Well Carmen just came in with what I thought at first was a mouse on her shoulder, she said it was not a mouse but a gliding Possum which after having a look on the internet found it was a Feathertail Glider.
It was so small and she had a hold of it by the tail so I was afraid it would drop it's tail, as the chipmunks did back home when caught in a no win situation. It looked like it was a baby, so I did not want to put any more stress on it by taking photos.
I have since found this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feathertail_Glider
If you have a look, it is native to this area, and the small size and lack of stripes indicated a feathertail rather than a Sugar glider, which is larger.
It was found in the bathroom near the cat food and one of the cats was eyeing it off, so it ended up some distance from the house in a tree where we hope it will stay, and stick to it's diet of bugs nectar and pollen, gliding from branch to branch.

Lichens

I liked the look of the lichens on this tree, I boosted the colour saturation on this photo, to compensate for the overcast day.

Ironfest continued

As you can see in this photo the flags are horizontal the rain is falling the blue sky is disappearing, and the tent is almost being lifted by the wind.

Ironfest Day

Well the day started ok, I was up early, so we could get an early start. I decided to make a couple of egg mcmuffins and fry up some left over mashed potato a-la-hash browns, I had just finished the potatoes, and the muffins were just about to be toasted, when I noticed a trail of blood ...............

It was coming from the freezer section of the small fridge and worked it's way down to the floor ending in a crimson pool at the foot of the fridge Oh S#%t the fridge had defrosted, all the extra or overflow from the big freezer was in there, chicken, mince, sausages, as well as all the fixings for more Turkey croquettes!
I spun around in my wheelchair to grab a sponge from the sink to clean up the bloody mess, forgetting I had placed the plate of potato patties on the shelf of the wheelchair, the combination of gravity and centrifugal force was just enough to spread the contents over a nice arc on the kitchen floor! Great! way to go! what a great start, the next two hours saw me cleaning and cooking , not only the initial breakfast (potato patties for the dogs) but the defrosted mince sausages and chicken all of this before being able to get away, consequently we did not get to Ironfest till about 2:30, entry was half price, at this stage, and the battle recreation had just finished, the Jousting was due to start in half an hour, when we were assaulted from the sky by a blustery wind and cold stinging rain, this resulted in cancellation of the jousting....
Well we still had the stalls and shops but the outside ones were not too inviting due to the weather so we ended up indoors doing the rounds of the stalls had a coffee and a kebab for lunch and then made our way home, which because of the long weekend in conjunction with the end of school holidays meant we got caught in traffic on the return trip this resulted in trip that should have been 1 1/2 hours stretched out to almost 3 1/2 - 4 hours. Needless to say I did not get any great photos, in fact due to the rain I took 3 photos.
The first is an image of a Water Resonator, this is what the plaque on the bottom left said it was. I blacked out the background and increased the colour saturation, sort of what I had in mind when I spotted it in the park. sorry no knights minstrels or maidens.

Anzac Day weekend & Ironfest

Well the ANZAC day holiday is coming up and lands on a Friday this year making a long weeekend for All in Australia NZ & a few Island nations.
Anzac day commemorates the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. The acronym ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, whose soldiers were known as Anzacs. The pride they took in that name endures to this day, and Anzac Day remains one of the most important national occasions of both Australia and New Zealand.

During the 1920s, Anzac Day became established as a National Day of Commemoration for the 60,000 Australians and 18,000 New Zealanders and Islanders who died during the war. The first year in which all the States observed some form of public holiday together on Anzac Day was 1927. By the mid-1930s, all the rituals now associated with the day — dawn vigils, marches, memorial services, reunions, sly two-up games — became part of Australian Anzac Day culture. New Zealand commemorations also adopted many of these rituals, with the dawn service being introduced from Australia in 1939.

With the coming of the Second World War, Anzac Day became a day on which to commemorate the lives of Australians and New Zealanders lost in that war as well and in subsequent years, the meaning of the day has been further broadened to include those killed in all the military operations in which the countries have been involved.

One of the traditions of Anzac Day is the 'gunfire breakfast' (coffee with rum added), which occurs shortly after many dawn ceremonies.

The other event on this week end is Ironfest in Lithgow which is where Carmen's mother was born, it is a steel and coal town and coal is still being mined for the 2 power plants in the area.

Ironfest was first held in April of 2000 to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the birth of steel in Australia, in Lithgow.

Last year was the first that we went to, as suggested by Kyle & Kris, there were Blacksmiths and and associated art & crafts everything being made in Australia.

The whole fair is medieval themed with Actors, shows, music, jousts, battles & demonstrations from sword and chainmail being made to sculpting jewelery & weaving. heres a link to the website, http://www.ironfest.com.au/index.html but I found it took a long time to load, so you may not want to wait, which is why I detailed what happens there above. photos from the fest will be in my next blog.

No surgery for me but Tom is not so lucky

Well latest info is that my surgery scheduled for Monday has been postponed till May the 12th, from all accounts this could keep getting postponed for a year or more! lets hope not.

In the mean time Tom Bourne, Kris and Kyle's mate who is like a brother, and son of ours, has had a severely broken leg playing Rugby, the break is below the right knee and the tibia is split as well as the patella being displaced, surgery to insert pins is planned for Monday the 21st of April, let's wish him luck, and a fast recovery.

Hibiscus

Well before I had that massive steak I spent most of the day taking photos of the Hibiscus we have growing around here.
I got jack of the fact my camera does not have a good close up ability so started to tinker to see what I could rig up, well I did certainly get a lot closer to my subject have a look at the slide show.

Hibiscus

Dinosaur Steak

Well Just had a Steak the likes of which I have not seen before except maybe on TV or the Movies. It was so big I was only able to eat the fillet part of the T Bone, It was tender and juicy. Carmen had been to the local butcher and asked for a special steak, what they suggested was a cut they had, that won a Silver award in last months Easter show. Kris is the master when it comes to cooking steaks and after a coating of olive oil and garlic created a masterpiece, needless to say I have plenty to eat for tomorrow for brekkie lunch and dinner! Here's a picture of part of the beast! unfortunate but I only got a photo of the smaller one as I had consumed the better part of mine before the Idea came to me to get a photo!

New Blog to record events

Well decided to go with Google because I also have Picasa Web for photos and can link the two together and because my "Free Bigpond blog only allows 10MB upload of photos and Myspace and Facebook are full of annoying advertising and Google allows 1GB well the choice is obvious isn't it?
I still think Veoh is good for movies, but I think I can post Vids here as well links to Veoh so that is handy as well and in the mean time if I get some photos that I want to sell well there are sites that I can post on as well, So here we go first Post