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.

Observations of a tester....: Oy you tester!

Observations of a tester....: Oy you tester!

Testing Blog Posting From My Mobile

Having my new fancy HTC Desire has made me think of blogging again. This has meant searching for an Android app which will upload to Blogspot. After searching around, I found  Blogaway .

As with many apps, this one is in fairly early development. What drew me to Blogaway is a combination of three things:

1. The app upload to Blogspot - kind of essential what with me having a blog there!
2. It saves drafts - this is essential for when one is out and about.
3. Pictures and video upload - not tested this yet, but was the deal maker for a photoblogger and pub Blogger such as myself.
4. It is free - useful for me to get back onto blogging.

So I guess watch this space...again.

My New Favourite Website

I have been out for a while. Not ill. Just out. I’m trying to get back into it…again.

One thing I have been keeping up with is my blog readings. It’s a great way to start the day by firing up your RSS reader, and finding out what the people you are stalking following are talking about.

One of my recent finds has been Blagger (www.blagger.co.uk). No, it’s not a freebees website. If you want that go to www.moneysavingexpert.com. What Blagger is is a blog about becoming self sufficient, but in a gradual easy going way. It’s not all hemp wearing, tree hugging. It more common sense and using what they have to make their lives better. I especially enjoy the many recipes and processes that are documented on the site. One of the sections I find myself browsing through is the Brewing and Winemaking section. Does what it says on the tin really.

From elderflower champagne blowing up everywhere through the odd jammy disaster and finishing with a monthly egg count this is definitely a site to get stuck into.

Let the Games Begin

This weekend sees the start of a new part of my life. Summer club sports. For years I have been meaning to get back into playing cricket, and either couldn't be bothered, or forgot, or in one case the team never got back to me.
This summer will be different. I have joined my local club Chesham CC. Everyone has been very welcoming, even trying to teach me which end of the funny stick I need to hold to hit that funny red thing! Now I am cricket mad! I eat, sleep, drink cricket. It's like I'm 12 again, absorbing any snippet of information I can.

Tomorrow, I will be playing my first club match in 20 years (yes, you read correctly!). Chesham 4th XI are at home to NPL Teddington CC 3rd XI. We are meeting as part of the 8b league of the Morrant Thames Valley Leagues. I can't wait. Next week I will try and post about the pain I'll be in.

Watch this space!

Fivers From an ATM?

I remember about ten years ago when you could get £20, £10, and £5 notes from an ATM. All banks eventually changed to allowing only £10 & £20 notes to be withdrawn.

Today, I went into a Barclays bank and took out £10. Imagine my surprise when I was presented with two £5 notes. It confused me so much I actually stopped for a couple of seconds to work it out!

Weird.

A Possible Fix if Your Homepage Keeps Resetting

I was recently presented with a problem by my in-laws. Their browser's homepage kept on resetting to MSN every time they restarted. Although a reasonable homepage to have, they prefer to just have the google.co.uk front page.
The specific page that the browser would reset to was - http://uk.msn.com/?ocid=iehp. I thought the same as you, just go into options -> properties and reset the homepage. Nope. Every time the browser restarted, back to good 'ole MSN.
So what is the solution? Well, after much googling for various things, I found an obscure reference to my dilemma on a forum (can't remember which, sorry). It turns out that some spyware and antivirus programs (in this case Norton) have 'homepage protection'. This setting locks anything from hijacking your browser homepage for their own nefarious purposes. It also means that once a homepage is set, it will continue to default back to that upon a browser reload.
So there you have it. Turn off your homepage protection, and return it to the correct homepage. I don't know what happens if you switch the homepage protection back on and I don't intend to find out.

Twitter Twit

A couple of my friends recently did a shout out asking if anyone was on Twitter. I knew a bit about Twitter, but had never really looked into it. A couple of days ago I thought I would have a look. I’m now twittering with everyone else!

For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is a sort of mass text messaging social network. You ‘follow’ someone’s updates and they and/or others follow you. It’s one of these silly-but-fun web 2.0 things.

I think the most fun thing about Twitter is that some of the geekier celebrities Twitter. So you can follow them and what they are doing. As I said silly-but-fun. Amongst some of the more frequent twitter-ers is Stephen Fry (http://twitter.com/stephenfry). He twitters three or four times per day. It’s kind of fun to know what he’s up to and comment about it.

So, go on, give it a go. I won’t say who else is on there for following, you can find out easily enough, and that is part of the fun, I think.

Back Into the Saddle

Ok. Four months without any updates to any of my blogs is a bit pants. Last year I wanted to average one blog update per week…on all of my blogs. If you do a quick tour around, you will see that this didn’t happen. In fact, I barely made it past averaging one blog update per week on all my blogs put together.

So this year, I want to try for the full 52 on this blog. It’s going to be tough, especially since we’re nearly two months in already, but hopefully I will be able to do it.

You will have seen me say this before, but watch this space!

Books and Blogs - The Frugal Cook

Continuing from yesterdays post about frugality, I have a recommendation, particularly with Christmas coming up.

Typically for this time of year many books are being released, particularly in the cookery section. One book you may not be aware of is The Frugal Cook by Fiona Beckett.  As I said, there are other cook books out this season, one of which is Delia's reprise of her Frugal Food recipe book, and is a direct competitor for your pound this Christmas. While this is a good book, it is a re-release, and I would urge you to go for an original publishing.

The Frugal Cook is based on Fiona's blog of  the same name. I love the blog. It's on my RSS feed, and I read every article with interest. Fiona's writing is well thought out, her recipes concise, and her ideas inspiring. I also like the fact that if you comment on any of Fiona's articles, she will generally answer you personally. It is this accessibility that makes me a fan, and will see me buying her book (or getting someone to give it to me as a present) this Christmas.

Whether you get the book or read the blog, enjoy. It is time well spent.

Frugally Yours

Wow. Well, it's been quite a while since my last post. I unfortunately found that other things in my life needed to take priority above blogging, but I am going to have to get back into blogging as it was a great outlet both psychologically, and creatively.

And what better way to get back on the wagon than to tell you what I have been up to!

In the current financial climate the watchword seems to be "Frugal". Speaking personally, I am doing everything I can to lower my overall spending. One place Mrs. Mouse and I are boxing clever is with food shopping. This is an area fraught with pitfalls put there by supermarkets attempting to maximise their impact on your pocket. To counter this, we have taken a few measures which have saved us quite a bit of money.
Firstly, we do almost all of our vegetable shopping at the local market. Their prices are excellent, and we get a bit of exercise cycling to and from the market.
Secondly, we have moved down a pricing band, where possible, in our supermarket purchases. This is a common with most people - if you buy the premium brand, you move to the regular brand, etc.. The breadth of this I feel is shown by Tesco introducing a fourth tier of pricing with their "Discount Brands" which sits between regular and basics range.
Finally, we shop a bit later in the evening to get cut-price goods. This technique won't suit everyone, but it can mean you get some good breads for next to nothing, as well as cooked produce which needs to be sold that day. It does mean you have to be a bit flexible with your meal plans, but is also fun when you have an impromptu lounge picnic!

These three tips have helped us save quite a bit of money, and have fun doing it!

And I Quote...

One thing I love is quotations. I enjoy pithy, witty, funny, and thoughtful quotations. Therefore, it is with no surprise that one of the modules I have on my iGoogle is "Quote of the Day". Quite often I have seen a quote and thought I should share it on the blog, only to forget. However, one of today's quotes just has to be posted.

This, I think sums everything up about quotes in one quotation:

Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.

- Anonymous

Profound and ironic at the same time. I love it.

Statistically Speaking...

One of the things I put on my blogs more or less from the start was a stats tracker from StatCounter.com. This is not to track demographics for targeted advertisements, or anything like that. I have a stats tracker on my blogs so I can see if anyone comes to visit. I have had this particular blog (Mouse's Musings) running for nearly 18 months now.
Of the three blogs that I keep up to date post articles to, this has had the least amount of visitors. This is probably because I don't post any photos on here, that's for my Photo Blog, nor do I talk about a singular topic, that's for my Pub Run. Therefore, I am always interested how someone has come to be viewing my blog.
There seem to be only three reasons to visit my blog:

1. You have seen my blogger profile - I post comments on many of the blogs I read, either to add some other little titbit or to just tell them what I enjoyed about the article I've just read.
2.  You want to know the key board shortcut for the Euro sign - This is my most popular article by far.
3. You want to know why your Micra won't start - I hope this article has saved people money. It certainly has for me.

So, no matter how you got here. Welcome. Please feel free to rummage around. And please feel free to visit my other blogs.

Technorati: Get Your Act Together

I use Techonorati to keep an eye on all of my favourite blogs. Until recently I would have recommended it as a good tool to find out when your favourite blogs have been updated (I don't really to RSS feeds).

Recently, however, the Favourites section of Technorati has been down. Eventually, on the 20th of this month there was a posting on the support page just saying that Favourites/Fans Currently Down and that they are working on it.
Today, apparently Favourites/Fans (are) Back which they are, to some extent. I am able to click on the Favourites link and see my favourites area, but it is not populated by any recent posts. Clicking on the Favourite Blogs tab seems to work about 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time it tries to load and just shows their "Techonrati is Borked" page.

Come on Technorati, sort it out!

No, I'm Not Dead

It's rather embarrassing when your own blogs are at the bottom of your 'recently updated' list of blogs on Technorati. According to that list:

Mouse's Musings was updated 41 days ago
Lifelong Pub Run was update 37 days ago
SheyMouse's Photo Blog was updated 37 days ago

This is not the longest I have gone without a post, but over a month without a post is rather slack of me. Since I have split my blog into three, I have enjoyed my writing much more, as well as found more motivation for taking more (and better) photos.

So, with the above in mind, what kept me from writing for so long? The answer is that Mrs-Mouse-To-Be has now become Mrs. Mouse. Yep, I am now married to the lady I have been in love with for nearly 10 years. We had a wonderful wedding in deepest Suffolk followed by a wonderful honeymoon in deepest Dominican Republic. Both of these have given me much material for all three blogs.

As always, watch this space...

Games, Heroin, and Teenage Pregnancies - What's the Difference?

I have just read an article by Giles Whittell of The Times entitled Video Games: I'll never buy one. The reporter/contributor/"notebooker" describes why he will never be buying his children any games consoles. Apparently the answer is because games "suck real people into fake worlds and hold on to them for decades at a time." What a wonderfully broad and sweeping statement. And if that is his main reason, then maybe he should stop his children from watching TV, going to the cinema, surfing the internet, or reading.
Now, I am old enough to remember getting my first games console in the mid 80's, and have had many games machines since. I do not believe I ever wasted my life. I enjoyed playing games, because of the adventures they took me on. Just like reading, and going to the cinema. I enjoyed the social aspect of them; my mother and I used to sit up late into the night playing the latest adventure game.
I do agree in a small way with Mr. Whittell in that many children seem to be so intent on finishing the next level that they barely look around sometimes. For that, I do not blame games, I blame the parents. Surely, it is the parents who should tell little Farquar and Portia to put down their Nintendo DS until after dinner, or whenever. I know it's easy to blame the parents, but in this case I truly believe I am right. My parents used to make sure I stopped playing on my games console and went outside, or stopped playing my Gameboy at the table, and so on. Don't deny your children, but educate them enough to make their own choices and govern themselves.

And equating games with heroin and teenage pregnancies ("It's because, compared with everything else on offer in a kid's life, video games and heroin and teenage pregnancy are a colossal waste of time.") is just irresponsible. Well done for inciting people to read your article Giles, but it is a low blow, and a tenuous analogy at its best.