Recipe: Guerilla Risotto

I have not ever posted a recipe on this blog. Mainly for the fact that I have no real idea how to write one. It's not a great excuse, I know. So, I am sending out my opening gambit - Guerilla Risotto.

I love leftovers. I usually have them for lunch the next day, but have been known to have leftovers for breakfast, and even dinner. One of may favourite left over ingredients is rice. Leftover rice for me is a comfort food. Whatever I add to the rice it becomes a yummy unctuous mess that warms me through.


Before I begin, I must put forth a disclaimer. It is important to note that it is not recommended to re-heat rice the next day. So, follow this recipe at your own risk. For my part, I always make sure I heat the rice until it is boiling hot, and then I keep it there for as long as possible.

Ingredients:
150-200g Leftover cooked rice
Whatever other leftovers are with the rice ideally including some vegetables
50g grated cheese
20-30ml cold water
Oil for us in frying (sunflower/olive/groundnut)

Cooking:
1. Place the rice into a bowl and sprinkle over the water
2. With a fork or spoon separate the rice grains a bit to allow the water to work its way around the rest of the rice
3. Pour some oil into the frying pan and place on a medium heat
4. Add the leftovers (without rice)to the frying pan and fry until hot throughout
5. Add the rice and stir-fry until the rice is very hot
6. Empty the contents of the frying pan onto a plate.
 7. Season, and stir 1/2 the cheese into the mixture.
8. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese onto the top of the 'risotto'

So there you have it. The Guerilla Risotto may not look much, but it should be hot, a bit sticky, and hit the spot. Particularly on a winter's day.

Chesham Dads and Family Stay & Play a Success

Today saw the return of the Saturday dad's session at the Waterside Sure Start Centre in Chesham.

Late last year, many fathers in the area were saddened to lose their monthly "Dadtastic" get together. The leader of the session, Lee, recently qualified as a teacher and did not have the time to continue with them.

A few weeks back I bumped into David Rogers who mentioned that the sessions were beginning again on January 14th, and they were every week from then on. I have to say, I was a bit surprised that there was a switch to a weekly meeting. This is because Dadtastic wan't really growing, and the attendance was quite sporadic by all except a core few dads (I was a sporadic one).

Today I went to the first session of what has been billed as Dads Stay and Play, and was pleasantly surprised to see 30+ people at the centre. I think this is the most people I have ever seen there! It was fantastic! And all that despite there being very little advertising of Stay and Play outside of the regular weekday activities.

Hopefully this can be built on by the attendees today telling their friends about it, I know a couple of people I will mentioning this to. It is also worth noting that this is not just for Dads. It's for anyone. Dads are targeted as quite often they miss out on the activities due to working during the week. Having said that, in a modern society, it isn't necessarily the dad who misses out; it could be the mum, or even both.

I also hope that Sure Start and Family Lives (who were also there today) will be able to get Bucks CC to mention the session on their activities calendar.

Long may Stay and Play continue!

Further Reading

To find out more about Sure Start centres there is information on the Direct Gov site.
Click the links to find out more about the Sure Start Centres at Waterside and Newtown. This includes their timetables.
See also the Buckinghamshire Family Information Services website.

Chesham Twitterati

As you can see from the widget at the side of the page, I am on Twitter. My handle is @SheyMouse.

One of the things I have been doing this week is adding more people from Chesham (and to a lesser extent, Amersham) who are on twitter. My reason? I want to get to know the community a bit more, as well as see what's going on in my area.

Here is my list:

https://twitter.com/#!/SheyMouse/cheshamtweeps

At the time of writing, it contains 23 people. I'm sure there are more people out there from the area who are on Twitter, but this is the list so far.

If you are from Chesham and want to hook up, just tweet me on @SheyMouse,or just follow me. I look forward to hearing from you.

The Frugal Cook: The Return of Beyond Baked Beans!

So, a few days after Fiona Beckett mentioned on her Frugal Cook blog that Beyondbakedbeans.com was gone, I am happy to announce that Beyond Baked Beans is back up and running. It is now at a slightly different domain:

http://beyondbakedbeans.org

Fiona has put an explanation, and a plea for back links here:

http://beyondbakedbeans.org/articles/20120111

Hopefully, this BBB incarnation can regain its google ranking and therefore can be found by all the hungry students, and frugal cooks out there!

The Frugal Cook: What's happened to Beyond Baked Beans?

I have been a fan of The Frugal Cook, and Beyond Baked Beans for a couple of years. The latter site was an excellent resource and social hub for people students looking to get their cooking skills up Beyond Baked Beans. Unfortunately, as Fiona outlines on her Frugal Cook blog, BBB is no more, for the foreseeable future:


The Frugal Cook: What's happened to Beyond Baked Beans?


I am no expert on domains, but following the who.is links from BBB to the coupons site, it looks like BBB's domain was automatically taken over by a GoDaddy company called domainsbyproxy. They have then put a redirect to the coupon site on BBB. Effectively, GoDaddy are squatting on a domain they own (whois domainsbyproxy). A little underhanded if you ask me. Most domain companies will redirect to their commercial site asking if you want to own the domain. 
In the Frugal Cool article, Fiona indicates that GoDaddy have asked for a commission to "negotiate" the transfer of the domain back to her. If domainsbyproxy is a company already part of the GoDaddy stable then there shouldn't be much negotiation. A bit of a rip off really.

If I am wrong in the above, I am happy to be corrected. Otherwise, this has put me off hosting any site I have through GoDaddy. They already weren't top of my list, but they have moved further down the charts now.

I hope Fiona manages to come to a satisfactory conclusion with the BBB issue, be it only having the facebook page - Beyond Baked Beans - or something else.