Baking with Sheena II

Today I finished transcribing all 123 of Gran's hand-written recipes.  The Australian Tea Cake card is my favourite, because of the warning at the top.  

Photo-54

Recipes 19, 23, 59 and 106 are all for chicken liver paté, which either means that she really loved it, or could never find a recipe she liked.  The recipe for beetroot chutney is covered in purple splatters.

Recipes for Banana Loaf

 

 

 

 

 

14

15

16

Favourite

bananas

3

3

3

3

butter

4 oz

5 oz

3 oz

2 oz

sugar

4 oz

6 oz

4 oz

8 oz

flour

6 oz SRF

8 oz wheat

7 oz SRF

10 oz plain

eggs

2

2

2

2

liquid

2 T milk

1 orange

 

 

leavening

1 t soda 

1 t powder

1/4 t soda

1 t powder

 

There are also three recipes for Banana Loaf, which Gran made often to dispose of overripe bananas. According to Lynne, she latterly preferred the recipe from the Callum's Trust Home Baking Book (marked Favourite), which has far more sugar.  I hate banana bread, but now I'm tempted to make four in the name of science.

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Tattie Harvest III

Tattie3

Two medium, three small, seven tiny, nine minuscule: 450g.  This crop was made into patatas bravas for Jamie's birthday dinner.  They were delicious.  I was especially impressed by the two-tone tattie.  I hope I get more of those. 

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Tattie Harvest II

It occurred to me that I forgot to weigh my first harvest.  This one comes in at 630g, so I'm estimating the last batch at 500g.  That's over a kilo of potatoes so far!  I'm planning to use the little ones to make potato salad for dinner, and the largest four or five are for the nice man downstairs that has put up with my gardening all year.  The count for today comes to 5 small, 12 tiny and 16 minuscule, plus two medium reds.  Total weight so far, 1.13kg.

(download)

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Whew!

Passport

I can finally relax and make plans for our trip to California, because
I can finally go! The UK Border Agency has just returned my passport,
along with Jamie's passport, our marriage certificate, my citizenship
test pass notice, and indefinite leave to remain in the UK for
purposes of settlement. I am almost British!

This is very comforting, as I've been without photo ID since
mid-February. We've been making contingency plans in case we were
undocumented at flight time: Jamie even applied for a second passport!

For internet search purposes, the elapsed time for UKBA immigration
applications submitted by a US national in February 2012 was 14 weeks.
The expected period, by way of Jamie's research, is 16.

So, in conclusion, yay!

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It's beginning to look a lot like data

Click here to download:
celebrations.pdf (890 KB)
(download)

December first is the day to fill the advent calendar. And also the
day to begin the chocolate-before-breakfast debate anew.

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Science is Real

August
Data from HasCRUT3 record of global temperatures, Edinburgh Royal Observatory series 031607

The University of East Anglia has just released an astounding amount of climate data to the general public. A few minutes' fiddling gave me this pretty plot of average temperatures for 133 consecutive Edinburgh Augusts. There are observations from all over the world, covering various ranges of years. It takes a department of scientists to properly analyse the whole data set, but now anyone with Excel can do a little citizen science. This has enormous engagement potential for schools in particular. How about a statistics class based on climate analysis? How about a business class based on presentation of data to a general audience?

Run with it, world. This kind of data dump doesn't come around very often.

Download the whole data set here.

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Home Carbon Emissions

Carbon

(Graphic via imeasure)

For the last two months I have been tracking our home carbon
emissions, as a function of electricity and gas meter readings. I
have learned a few things:

1. The largest part of our energy emissions come from heating. The
high gas readings in March are correlated with winter weather, and now
that we have turned off the heating, we're using just under one unit a
week for cooking. There seems to be little room for improvement in
the summer, but our winter strategy will change as October approaches.
Draught insulation and nighttime window coverings will be key.

2. Our electricity use is mostly stable. It seems to wobble according
to how many loads of laundry we do. The highest reading was for this
past week, when my mother was staying with us. We did an extra load
of laundry, spent more hours watching television (the Eurovision Song
Contest is a cultural experience), and powered a third computer. So
our 42kg should really be split three ways, giving us 14kg per person,
which is much better than we have ever done as a two-person household.

3. There are still actions to be taken. Our dishwasher, for example,
is a dinosaur. Though we don't use it every day, we could cut down
even further, or replace it with an efficient modern model. My baking
obsession is another strain on the electricity. I already try to
double up where possible, making trays of granola only when the oven
is on for another purpose, but I could try to cook more dinners on the
more efficient gas stove top. When I finish my thesis, my computer
usage will decrease, but I'm sure there are efficiency savings I could
be making with behavioural changes. I am also looking into insulating
the gap between the oven and the fridge.

We have gone from a D rating to a C since beginning to measure our
energy usage. Our block of flats was built in 1895, so I'm not
expecting to get a top rating, but I'm shooting for a B by summer's
end.

You can track your own home carbon emissions at http://imeasure.org.uk/.>

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