Sushi and Tempura Veg

 

I'm making Sushi for tonight's dinner along with Tempura veg and a Kimchi pancake. A good site to see how to cook Sushi rice properly is at  https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/how-to-cook/how-to-make-sushi-rice 

Mine will have Daikon (Japanese radish,) Cucumber, Spring onions and Tuna. To dip the rolls in I'll make a sauce with soy sauce, chili paste, sugar and lemon juice. I also have wasabi paste which I love and Angie hates so I'll put loads of that in the rolls, only kidding.

The veg I'm going to coat in Tempura batter (made with ice cold sparkling water) are mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli,cauliflower and carrot. and the dipping sauce for them hmmm Teriyaki marinade, chili, grated ginger and lime zest.

Angie made some Kimchi so I'm going to make a pancake each too https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/quick-kimchi-pancakes

I like Japanese dishes and a lot of their culture, we used to plan a stopover in Japan when we flew back from Australia. When we moved to Australia I did a Beginners Japanese course and can still remember most of the phrases learnt back then like how to say "Nice to meet you" "How do you do" "My name is Robert" "I come from Scotland" "Thanks" count from one to ten and the like ohh and "Where is the pen" lol not sure why that stuck in my mind.

Also love Korean food, getting a taste for it when I was Master of a Korean charter vessel in Australia that gave me dinner as part of my wages every night.  

We have been meat free here for over two months now and I get a lot of my inspiration for tasty vegetable and fish dishes from Asia, in Japan eating meat was prohibited for more than a thousand years prior to 1868.

 

 Whirlygig Prototype.

I thought I would attempt to make a whirly gig for the front lawn, some movement to enhance the otherwise stationary carvings ( apart from an eagle suspended from a tree branch who lurches around alarmingly in a wind). 

Whirlygigs are thought to have first been created in China in 400bc but probably someone in Scotland made one before that as we all know how brilliant the Scots are with inventions, anyway below are a few pics of my creation and how I went about making it and the improvements I could make if I do another. Ohh and you can see the stump log planter box I was harping on about in my last blog also used as something to anchor it to :)

The blades are made from tin, bits left over from the shed construction last year and I made a hub from a hardwood circle with 30 degree cuts in it to hold the blades, I bent two flaps on each blade over and screwed them to the hub. 

I was going to use a stainless shaft, recycled from an old wine rack but didn't have a tap and die set to make a thread on the ends so went with a bit of threaded rod instead. To hold the shaft true I dismantled an old hinge that was on the old shed door and mounted it between two halves of wood that make up the base.

The cam to make the Axe Guy move is just a bit of hardwood with an offset hole connected to the wire that moves his arm up and down used washers and lock nuts on the fittings so they wont work loose.

The sort of Christmas tree at the back works as a wind vane turning the fan into the breeze, to find the pivot point to balance the gig on I sat the completed gig on a pencil and moved it until it balanced then drilled a hole to take the stainless pin, put a screw into the hole as a bearing for it to revolve on.

So what would I do different next time? Well I would use the stainless shaft so it wont rust, I like the dismantled hinges but need to come up with a way to insert them without cutting the base in two as water will get in the join and even though it is hardwood it will eventually rot, I would shape the ends of the base so it looks a bit sleeker and the wire to raise and lower the axe I shall have to find something more robust, apart from that it seems to work well and I will be really interested to see what force of wind it takes to demolish it lol. 

The gig can be lifted off the support pole if a gale is due and taken inside.

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 Back to the (Blogger) or The Future

I post a lot of things on Facebook, pictures of my garden plants, dinner recipes, woodworking creations and rants, but who sees the posts is dictated by an algorithm designed by Facebook so I have decided to start up my trusty blog again.

So, what am I up to today? well I have cut some wood circles from tree trunks and made rustic bottomless plant pots out of them, why rustic? well I thought spending money finishing them with routed edges sanding and varnish was a bit daft seeing they are going to be outdoors all weathers and I cant really afford to go to that extreme plus the wood is still freshly cut so wouldn't sand very well.

Very shortly, after I finish my peppermint tea (I started drinking peppermint tea after reading that studies of people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) treated with peppermint oil concluded that peppermint provided symptom relief),and I had IBS. I will shift some compost and fill the pots up ready for planting with flowers, on my driveway in the gaps between the hedges.

I have dozens of seedlings in small pots in the poly tunnel awaiting transplant outside but the weather is cold this week so they wont do any harm were they are for another wee while. I think a big sunflower in each with maybe some marigolds around its base would look good. 

Growing lots of marigolds as they attract hover flies and parasitic wasps as well as producing chemicals that repel white fly, companion planting is something that can be amazingly worthwhile like planting pots of mint in amongst brassicas, who would have known that cabbage moths and aphids hate the stuff, (apart from every horticulturist on the plant) mind you be careful to keep it contained in pots. 

Well I'm back in for a heat and lunch, and yep I got distracted, the tree trunk pots didn't get filled with compost yet. I had to retrieve my spade from the veg plot to sieve the compost and ended up turning over the soil on the plot again, and on the way back with the shovel I got distracted passing the shed and ended up creating a wee hair clip in the form of a turtle, from an off cut piece of hardwood as you do. I have to put some wee eyes on him and give him a proper sanding. With not having much in the way of head hair left I haven't a clue if he will work but hey its something else to put on my market stall when things reopen.

   The hair clip is not much more than an inch long.

Talking about things reopening, there is an advert on RTE radio (one of the only stations I can get on the old radio in my shed) that is driving me absolutely batty telling me repeatedly how wonderfully the Covid vaccination program is going in Ireland, Sheeze, maybe there is someone out there controlling adverts and laughing away at my reaction every time the advert comes on.

Ok I'm away back out to fill the tree trunk pots, or get distracted as the case may be.

Linux, lost photos

I had an laptop, that did not run properly it was overheating and I thought the battery was jiggered as I was getting the blue screen of death with it in, the sound didn't work and there were lots of other problems. Anyway I installed  Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS as an operating system and wow its like new.

Ubuntu, is a Linux based operating system so it takes the place of Windows, it's free and so far all my hardware works on it fine, also some of the open source software is as good as or better than Windows software.
I still have a Windows computer for Photoshop and my website design software but there was another even older desktop doing nothing so I formatted it and put Ubuntu on it too, software like Stremio (for watching streaming content like movies and box sets) works great  even though on the same machine running Windows 7 it was clunky.

The main reason I got onto this blog topic is that when I installed Ubuntu I deleted Windows and formatted the computers and I lost some photos I should have backed up to another device before proceeding. I saw a post on Facebook from my sister in Law in Sydney with her 14 year old dog Molly and thought it would be nice to post some pics I took of her dog when it was young and used to stay with us in Kurnell, when they were away, anyway those photos were some that had been deleted.
I thought maybe there would have been a blog post online with the pictures that I could resave to my laptop as I used to blog a lot, but unfortunately there aren't.

Pleasant sail

Had a wee sail today and came back through the  Cruinniú na mBád and instantly regretted not taking my decent camera with me but here are some shots of The Bád Mór (big boats) ranges in length from 10.5 to 13.5 metres (35 to 44 feet). The smaller Leathbhád (half boat) is about 10 metres (28 feet) in length. 
Both the Bád Mór and Leathbhád were decked forward of the mast. These boats were used to carry turf to be used as fuel across Galway Bay from Connemara and County Mayo to the Aran Islands and the Burren. The boats often brought limestone on the return journeys, to neutralise the acid soils of Connemara and Mayo. The Gleoiteog ranges in length from 7 to 9 metres (24 to 28 feet) and has the same sails and rigging as the larger boats. They were used for fishing and carrying cargo. Another boat, the Púcán, is similar in size to the Gleoiteog but has a lug mainsail and a foresail. 
Excuse the quality of the photos I only had my phone with me.

Lovely to see the resurgence of traditional boats in this region. I was going to go out and take photos of the regatta earlier in the month but it was cancelled for the fourth year out of five due to inclement weather so it was a surprise to see them today.

Taking my shore rod on holidays with me to see I I can catch my Mum a few cuddies of the rocks in Luing, I have my favourite spots from when I was a kid and used to fish a lot of the shore when there wasn't a boat to be out on. 

I'm driving up on Thursday and will leave here about 0630 and arrive sometime before 2200 with two ferry crossings its a bit of a hike but I am looking forward to getting away. Should get down to making myself a list of things I need, like chainsaws and wellies.

Sea Horse joins the carvings

The newest carving on the front lawn

Booked my ferry berth to drive up to Luing on Sept 1st am taking the Ford this time as it is a bit better on fuel and has four seats, the Subaru had to be converted to a 2 seater to be classified as a commercial and save €2000 a year in road tax.

We have had a nice couple of days since the Pikies abandoned summer early this year and all headed off. Lots of Rowan berries on the trees and I have my fingers crossed  for an Indian Summer since we missed the conventional one. Actually May was really nice.

This weeks creative side

Well the weather wasnt great this week but we got a few wee creative bits and bobs done, made a seagull for the wharf a Japanese style bird feeder type thingie and some bird boxes.

Not so much colour about the place just now a sort of lull in my planting plan anyway there are some French Marigolds and cornflowers about.