Shameless, RyanScare and Let's Eat!

Two blog entries in as many days - aren't you lucky!

Today me and the beast visited Milton Keynes. At this point, some people might go - "eugh, what the hell did you want to go there for?" - if you're one of those people, you can piss off now!

You see, MK (as I'm going to affectionately abbreviate it to) is a new town. Just like Telford, Crawley and Stevenage amongst others. I've had the unfortunate experiences of visiting the aforementioned three - I even live about 15 miles from Telford unfortunately.

Whilst I don't want to disrespect anyone who lives in those places, they are shit holes. Concrete jungles that were created simply to meet a nationwide housing shortage. I lived in Crawley for a year and I never will again.

Milton Keynes on the other hand really isn't that bad. Rather than write paragraphs about this, I'm going to list a couple of simple reasons:
1) It has the MK Bowl - 65,000 seat venue for some cool gigs and events
2) MK consists of a grid system - based on Los Angeles. Roundabouts connect each grid and between each roundabout, rather than having to drive at 30mph (like you would in all other towns), you get to drive at 60mph - which is great fun.
3) The Centre - a huge shopping centre with a massive selection of shops.
4) It's an economic centre - there's lots of big companies, technical design centres and commerce taking place there.
5) Trees and Parks. Unlike some other towns, these aren't full of graffiti and actually blend into the urban environment.

There we go. In short - go visit the place - you might be surprised.

This also bring me onto Let's Eat. Which I think may possibly become my all time favourite shop. Located in MK's The Centre, it's a sort of combination between a shop and a cafe. The shops sells cool food important from America - stuff like Bettie Crocker cake mixes, all sorts of sauces, candy bars - you name it, it's here.

The cafe serves up ciabattas, baguettes and a massive selection of muffins, cup cakes and brownies. Lush. Well worth a visit, or you can check them out here.

To get to Milton Keynes, I have to go through Luton. And this means I was able to call into the Shell garage with my old receipts, get some fuel and collect the cars the bastards owe me! I got a few dodgy looks carrying three little Ferrari's back to my car!

Going out for a run this evening, I bumped into one half of the new neighbours. He looks like one of the Gallaghers on Shameless. Gave me a well dodgy look. They are the most bizzare people - I hear them shouting at each other from opposite ends of their flat some times.

Finally, check out RyanScare - they have a sale on at the moment - you can get to Sweden for example for £40 return. Bargain.

Lahmacun (Not Loreal's latest age revitalising cream..!)

Lahmacun - "IPA: [lahmaˈdʒun]) or lahm bi-`ajĩn (From Arabic لحم بعجين lahm bi-`ajĩn, "meat with dough")" according to Wikipedia is essentially a Turkish version of Pizza:



How did I find out about it? Well, I blame my good friend Elliot, who set his myface status to "is making 2kg of Lahmacun". Not having a fucking clue what Lahmacun is, I thought I would google it and found out that it sounds rather nice.

With one of my old colleagues (*sniff*) leaving for Turkey on Monday, I thought I'd give it a go (in her honour - even if she is a vegetarian!).

So, here's a recipe.

What you need:

For the actual bread:
175g of good quality plain flour
1/2 a little sachet of the easy blend yeast (available in all supermarkets near the flour)
1/2 tsp salt
125ml of warm water
1tbsp of good quality extra virgin olive oil

For the topping:
250g lamb mince
2 tablespoons of tomato puree
1/2 an onion
1 large pepper - green, yellow or red - depending on what you favourite colour is.
1 garlic clove, finely chopped.
A couple of sprigs of fresh, flat-leaf parsley.
1tsp of hot paprika (Hungary's answer to life)
1tsp salt

What you need to do:
1) Sieve the flour into a bowl.
2) Add the yeast and the 1/2 tsp of salt.
3) Make a well in the centre and pour in the warm (not hot!) water.
4) Mix to form a sticky dough.
5) Flour a clean work surface and knead the dough for 5 minutes or so until smooth.
6) Pour a splash of olive oil into a bowl and roll the dough in it and around the sides of the bowl. Lob the bowl in a warm place (I put mine on top of my TV!) for an hour or so.

Then..

1) Roughly chop your onion and pepper. Chuck this in a food processor and whizz it until you get a sort of paste. (Don't worry if you don't have a food processor - I use a £5 hand blender thingy I got from Te$co).
2) Put the paste in a sieve over a bowl to get rid of the excess water / juices. You can throw the water away.
3) Put your mince into a bowl, then add chop your parsley and chuck that in too. Add your tsp of salt, the chopped garlic, paprika and finally the mushy onion and pepper mixture.
4) Get your hands dirty by mixing it all together.
5) Retrieve your dough and divide it into either 2 large balls (for pizza sized Lahmacun) or 6 balls for little ones. Knead the portions for a minute or two to squeeze out the air. Grab a rolling pin (hint: You can use a roll of cling film if you don't have a rolling pin) and roll the balls into circle shapes, with a thickness of about 3 - 5 mm. You want them real thin.
6) Chuck the bases onto a baking tray and then smear portions of the mince mixture on top - making sure you go right to the edges and again, keeping it thin.
7) Bake in a preheated oven (230 degrees, gas mark 8) for 10 minutes or so.
8) Enjoy!

I would suggest accompanying this with the wine I mentioned in the previous post. It's called Terres De Galets - a Cote Du Rhone that I picked up from Sainsbury's (25% off this week). Medium bodied and with lush fruit notes it goes great with red meats.

Cheers to Dr M for recommending the new Moby album - well worth a listen. It's far more diverse than his past album.

Hotels, The M25 and Sun-dried Tomatoes!

It's been a long week this week, but a good one I think :-s

I'm making good (but still not fast enough!) progress on a major project at work, however this is resulting in me working long days and having to put pretty much everything on hold - including more important things such as keeping in touch with friends. Work to live, not live to work as they say.

On the other hand, some of the things I do at work are enabling me to meet more new people which is great - if only they were all in their early twenties and hot girls. One of the thing's I've always struggled with is business meetings with people I don't know. I don't know why - maybe it's human nature to know what you are up against or to know your opponent.

Anyway, since starting my job I am glad to say that this appears to improve every week at the moment. Now, if I am asked to present or participate on a tc (telephone-conference) I refrain from researching the call participants (which I used to do before). I've found out that if I know where the other call or team members are in the pecking order, that only makes me nervous.

Today for example, I rocked up to a call - did my thing and then found out later that one of the managers on the call rang one of his staff members and told him that he'd do well to have the confidence I have. Which is always nice to know I guess, even if I don't think I have that confidence!

The biggest achievement of the week is that I think we have managed to find a hotel for our visit to the Oktoberfest in September. The owner sounds like that guy off' Little Britain - the one who says "yeesssss" all the time, but you can't have everything I guess!

2 and 1/2 hours today were spent on the M25, which is not bad going considering I've been sat on it for 3 going just one way before. I still hate the road though - the only motorway that is a constant car park. NCP would have a field day with it.

My latest food / recipe is actually just an assembly job, but it's a great light bite - or you could cut it into chunks and serves as nibbles (with a decent bottle of Champers of course).

Smoked Salmon and Sun-dried Tomato Bagels

What you need:
Pack of smoked salmon (Circa £3 from Morrisons this one was!)
Decent, fresh bagels
Philadelphia cream cheese
Sun-Dried tomatoes (I picked these up from Sainsbury's - they are in a sort of yogurt tub with garlic and olive oil.

What you need to do:
1) Cut the bagels in half and pop them under the grill - with the insides facing up.
2) Whilst they are toasting, chop the tomatoes slices into 1/3's.
3) Spread the bagels with the cream cheese.
4) Sprinkle over the tomatoes
5) Cut the salmon into strips and pop over the tomatoes.
6) Serve

Just in case you don't know what a sundried tomato looks like, here is a picture:


These make great light snacks - for example Thursday night is swim night, so I don't want to eat anything too heavy, these make a nice supper.

I don't know if anyone has actually tried my concoctions, if you have, let me know if you like them!

Today I called into the supermarket on my way home and bought a bottle of wine. So expect a review at some point - I think it's unfair to review gadgets, but not alcohol.

Bye Bye Michelle, Tony, Maxxie, Sid, Cassie, Jal, Anwar and Chris

As you can see from my previous post, I got as far as Monday then thought "I can't be arsed with this" so gave in. The rest of last week is therefore left up to your imagination!

The weekend however was a good un'. One of my colleagues from a large electronics company I spent my industrial placement with, is moving to Turkey. Saturday night was therefore spent in the Punch and Judy and Porterhouse in Covent Garden.

I don't remember the train ride home, but I do know I had a great night! Then again, I don't think I've ever had a bad night out in Landon - so I can't complain too much :-)

Sunday was spent recovering and generally not doing a great deal!

Today - hardly anyone was in my office and none of my team were in. I called into Luton after work (which I'm sorry, but is worse than Chavanage), to pick up some dry cleaning and fill up the beast with V-Power, only to find out friggin Shell have ran out of the free Ferrari cars.

That's twice now the stupid garage hasn't had any - I now have two receipts to take in. So far I have the F430 and Enzo. This constitutes Moan of the Week. What is the point in selling amazing fuel and tempting idiots like me in with a free car, only not to have any to give away?

A random Shell garage near Perry Barr in Birmingham also owes me a bloody Ferrari. At this rate they'll owe me the equivalent of an actual Ferrari.

Tonight I went for a run, then settled down to watch the season Finale of Skins. Which it has to be said, was amazing. I'll post a clip on here once the Youtube geeks put one up. Best episode of the series, but it'll be interesting to see what they come up with next. Rumors are that the entire cast are being replaced.

Right, that's your lot for today. Bye.

"You've been hit by... a smooth Barry!"

Hey Hey.

Once again I've been a bit slack on the updating front, so rather than just ignore the past week, I'm gonna quickly run through where I have been, who I've seen and what I've been doing - catchy that isn't it!

Friday
Don't think I did much last Friday (hell, it's been nearly a week - I can't remember!). Afternoon of conference calls at work, but we did manage to get our Canadian team all they way through the test script we've been working on with them - so that was a success.

Evening was spent at home, chilling out in front of the TV after a long week.

Saturday and Sunday
Saturday and Sunday were spent in Kingston, chilling out with the Kingston Duo and drinking far too much absolut Citron - which is lush with Lemonade. I reckon it would be nice with some raspberry too. Apparently you can make a good Mojito with it too :-)

Part one of the Kingston Duo - Elliot, is a mean cook (as in bloody good!) and made a really nice dessert that we had with dinner on Saturday night. I'll try and rob the recipe and stick it on here sometime ;-)

The night ended with Wii sports, including the first "Wii-related incident" I have seen - a glass being smashed to smithereens by the Wii-mote.

Kingston has some really nice bars and clubs (it's also home to what is arguably the best Oceana in the UK).

Monday
I spent most of Monday revising for an exam I had at work on Tuesday. Dorothy (see past blogs regarding work) was in a right mood - I felt like saying to her "I can see that you are not 100% today, can I suggest we reschedule our chat for another time". I couldn't get a word in edge ways though.

Tuesday

Recipe 2 - White Chocolate Cheesecake

What you need: 2 ordinary tubs of Philadelphia cream cheese, 4 medium eggs, 2 bars of milky bar white chocolate, 1 vanilla pod, a 200g tub of creme fraiche, a tablespoon of butter (+ some for greasing) and some ginger biscuits.

You need to:
1) Whack your oven on at 150 Celsius, 300 Fahrenheit, gas mark 2.
2) Grease a decent sized spring-form baking tin (I think I used 28cm wide or so)
3) Chuck 2/3 of the packet of ginger biscuits in a food bag, then whack that bag inside another food bag. Grab a rolling pin and proceed to beat the sh1t out of the biscuits until you are left with the crumbs. Melt the butter in a saucepan on a gentle heat and then stir in the biscuits.
4) Grease and line the bottom of the tin. Spoon in the biscuit mixture and press down hard with the back of a spoon all the way round.
5) Beat the cream cheese in a bowl with a whisk until soft and creamy, add the vanilla seeds from the vanilla pod and the eggs - one by one, beating in between.
6) Melt the chocolate either over a pan of simmering water, or in the micro. Fold in the creme fraiche till smooth.
7) Fold the chocolate mixture into the cream cheese mixture gently.
8) Pour into the tin over the biscuit mixture and bang the tin on a solid surface a few times to remove any air bubbles.
9) Whack in the oven for 45 mins - 1hr till the centre is firm or until turning a very very light brown.
10) Important: Leave to cool for a couple of hours and then put it in the fridge. Cheesecake often tastes better if left over night and then cut and eaten the next day.

Serve with some Raspberry Jus or even better - Haagen Dazs Bailey's Ice Cream.

No, we will definitely not do that

Grr - what a week! Yet again I am being a bit slack on updating this - now I know I can just send an email update, I might start doing more.

The "Kingston Duo" came over for dinner on Tuesday night which was cool - it's been ages since we all caught up and it's good to get reacquainted over a bite to eat. The recipe which I mentioned in my previous post was White Chocolate Cheesecake - which I have the pleasure of being able to share with you in the post after this one.

Main course were Lamb Shanks, which just about had enough time to cook. Reason being I got held up at work after being asked at the last minute to run a conference call.

I don't mind doing that - providing:
a) I have an idea as to what the meeting is about and
b) I'm given the flexibility to run the meeting how I want

Now when Dorothy (yes, another alias!) who asks me to run her meeting, then joins the call and proceeds to stamp her authority all over it - I wasn't too happy. I replied to her "no, we will definitely not do that" with "I think we need to take this offline" and that appeared to help the discussion move forward more productively. More frustrating than anything else - you either want me to run your call or you don't..

In other news, my new headphones for podders2 - or shuffle podders finally arrived today. They are a pair of Sennheiser PMX70's. I bought them so that I can go "yogging" as Ron Burgundy would put it, without having to constantly hold onto the apple one's. (They just fall out whenever you move your head). Expect a full review at the weekend when I will give them a proper road test.