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Latest Truss vote share betting as we wait for the election result – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • dixiedean said:

    .

    Today I learned that in Canada there's a newspaper called Prince Albert.

    https://paherald.sk.ca/

    Nope. There's a place called Prince Albert. The newspaper is the Prince Albert Herald.

    I'm such a child.
  • ping said:

    I’ve come up with a fun PB game we can play.

    Predicting the correct order of PM Truss’ diplomatic travel schedule.

    My guess;

    1 NI
    2 Scotland
    3 Wales
    4 Kiev
    5 USA
    6 Brussels. Or maybe Berlin.

    Perhaps a trip to Dublin somewhere in amongst those. Maybe a random trip to Helsinki, or Warsaw.

    No. I’ll stick with those six. What are your guesses, good denizens of politicalbettingdotcom?

    1 Scotland
    2 England

    Is a 1.001 shot.
  • There is some dispute whether the English translation of “war mongering” is as perjorative a term as the French original:

    #France's President Macron says the #EU's policy over #Ukraine must not follow the policy of "the most war-mongering types" (i.e. the Baltics, Poland), since this would "risk extending the conflict and closing off communications [with #Putin] completely". What a disgrace.

    https://twitter.com/kyleworton/status/1566575126514106369

    Hard to believe people accuse the French being a nation of collaborators.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841
    edited September 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited September 2022

    dixiedean said:

    .

    Today I learned that in Canada there's a newspaper called Prince Albert.

    https://paherald.sk.ca/

    Nope. There's a place called Prince Albert. The newspaper is the Prince Albert Herald.

    I'm such a child.
    Don't email them.
    They prefer it if you give them a ring.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 2,800
    edited September 2022

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    This seems quite unfathomable to me. I don't mean in a 'you're wrong' sense - just that I find cooking such a delightful way to unwind and enjoy time. In winter I will quite often just take 10 minutes 'at the stove' when making dinner as I tend to make a big pot of something (which does take a long time) then live off that for a few days. But I'm guessing that's not what you mean?

    May I ask what kind of things it is you're cooking?
  • pingping Posts: 3,724

    ping said:

    I’ve come up with a fun PB game we can play.

    Predicting the correct order of PM Truss’ diplomatic travel schedule.

    My guess;

    1 NI
    2 Scotland
    3 Wales
    4 Kiev
    5 USA
    6 Brussels. Or maybe Berlin.

    Perhaps a trip to Dublin somewhere in amongst those. Maybe a random trip to Helsinki, or Warsaw.

    No. I’ll stick with those six. What are your guesses, good denizens of politicalbettingdotcom?

    1 Scotland
    2 England

    Is a 1.001 shot.
    Starting from after she gets back from Balmoral, obviously!
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861

    Today I learned that in Canada there's a newspaper called Prince Albert.

    https://paherald.sk.ca/

    Are you still at Junior School?
  • IcarusIcarus Posts: 885

    @IshmaelZ - another Wine Soc bargain

    Lovely Alsatian Muscat for just under a tenner

    https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/muscat-reserve-lucien-albrecht-2020

    We used to drink Gewurtztraminer from Alsace but every bottle have tried recently has been too sweet. Asked the Wine Soc. but weren't as helpful as I had hoped.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    edited September 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    At the risk of you murdering me and displaying my flayed corpse i am compelled by my inability to resist a pisstake to enquire as to the mouthfeel of this coup de grace?
    Mouthfeel: 9/10, as long as you keep the rice a tiny bit *al dente*

    Incidentally, for all PB foodies this is an amazing website

    https://www.tasteatlas.com/search


    You can search basically all the cuisines in the world, with all the dishes, in various lists, you can even do it by map. And it recommends restaurants. You will get lost down the rabbit-hole

    But WTF are Ecclefechan Butter Tart, Pan Haggarty and Rumbledthumps, which are apparently found either side of Hadrian's Wall?
    Keep the rice a bit 'ard he said, Trevor. Cheers Leon, i might actually try that, i'm not a risotto fan generally but maybe ill give it a go.
    Im cooking a bit of leg of lamb i got in my Xmas box from the butcher this one just gone today, 3 days dinner plus a couple of sandwiches. Thrifty stuff.
    Went out for dinner with Pa Woolie yesterday, pub was ramjammed. Last day of summer hols sure but as i remarked to the senior Woolie, definite feel of Paris on the Eve of War. (Except it was scumbags in Norwich)
    I'm not a risotto fan either, but I adore that dish (with the added flavours)

    It costs about £15 but that provides a bloody big risotto which will furnish three yummy meals

    I can eat it warmed up in the morning as breakfast/brunch, with a hot smoky ketchup on the side. Mmm
    My top risotto tip (works especially well with mushroom) is to use a Belgian lambic beer instead of white wine. Adds a pleasing earthy funk.

    EDIT: you can then, of course, drink the rest of the bottle while cooking.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    nico679 said:

    That poll is before the Maggie Clone dishes out the money for the energy bills so I’d be shocked if the Tories don’t get a decent poll bounce after that ,

    A 7% bounce and she will be back to the -10% Bozo offers the Tory party...

  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    Completely agree. Very hard to make good tasty nutritious meals in "ten minutes". Unless it's a basic salad and you just chuck on the dressing

    Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Minute dishes take about 30-40 minutes in reality, so I have been told (I've never even tried)

    Indeed that's about my ideal length of time to cook: 30-45 minutes, enough to be engaging and absorbing, but not so long that you feel an idiot for spending hours on a meal you eat in less than 20 minutes

    @NickPalmer may have come up with the most controversial opinion of his PB career. "I never bother cooking for more than 10 minutes"

    !!!!
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Christ


    “Life in Blackout Britain: Experts warn energy rationing this winter could see people told not to cook until after 8pm, pubs close at 9pm, 'three-day-a-week' school, care homes cancel outings for residents and swimming pools left unheated”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11173211/Life-Blackout-Britain-Experts-warn-energy-rationing-winter.html

    Think I really will eff off to bangers

    Well, its not for the first time that you seem to need to change your undies about some Daily Mail madeuppery... Just remember that like all writers/journalists, 90% of the time they don´t know what the f&%& they are talking about and are just looking for a story tag.
    Talking of which;

    A front-page article in the Telegraph earlier this week incorrectly used new analysis to claim that working from home will add more than £2,500 a year to energy bills, and said this meant commuters would be likely to save £1,500 by going out to work instead of staying at home.

    The Telegraph appears to have multiplied by 12 the expected energy savings in January 2023, as estimated by the price comparison website Uswitch. This calculation is flawed because energy usage is much higher in January than in an average month.

    Uswitch’s estimate may also not be reliable, for instance because it makes assumptions about the way that people use their heating that are different from official data on the subject.


    https://fullfact.org/economy/telegraph-working-from-home-energy-costs/
    Journalist + Numerical Data == Bullshit.

    The typical Journalist has the scientific training of @Leon

    So, it is all yada, yada, yada, aliens are coming, yada, yada, yada, AI is coming, yada, yada, yada, the End of Times is coming.
    Yes he’s so dumb that right now he’s being paid to sit by a pool in Portugal, or so I hear. Just down the coast from me

    If only all of us could be so “unscientific”
    Issue: Journalists being misleading to the public in areas of science and bluffing.
    Response: Yes, but it's profitable for the person in question.

    That doesn't really make it better.
    But it's nonsense. If a journalist consistently writes bollocks they will get found out, and called out, by readers - and then by the editor. Eventually they will get the sack, or, if they are freelance, they won't get any more commissions. It might surprise you how seriously editors approach this issue. Accuracy

    Even in my 2nd job writing travel for the Knapper's Gazette, the editors are quite prickly about this. There is no sense of "oh this'll do", you have to get the RIGHT price for the hotel in midsummer, and use the photo of the actual beach you describe, not the one next door, and so on

    If you get this wrong readers get (justifiably) irritated, and make their irritation known. Indeed with the internet providing instant and often hostile feedback, as well as plentiful competitors to the newspapers, the pressure to get it right is probably greater than ever

    Do journalists make mistakes nonetheless? Of course, they are human and often hard pressed

    I would add one caveat, the one place I do see lots of inexplicable errors is British TV news journalism, especially in the BBC. I dunno why. Lack of competition?
    Nope; if journalists write bollocks and their audience enjoys it, why would they stop? Only if it directly affects them - so a travel journalist writing bollocks can, as you say, get found out. Someone writing on economics, or politics, or especially a scientific area - where are they going to get called out by the readership?

    The criterion is whether or not it sells, not whether or not it's accurate. Pandering to prejudices gets sales, so if a journalist finds a home where their own prejudices chime with the readership, they're home and hosed. If pandering to prejudices causes obvious issues (travel journalist), then they will have to adjust. If it's an area where they can just keep going, they're just going to keep going. Even if it's harmful misinformation.

    Accuracy is out to one side.

    The article in question - if people look in and work out whether or not it's accurate, then they might raise issues. How many of the Telegraph's readership are going to do that? The retired ones won't be affected. Those working might simply believe it without checking. Hell, we've seen things circulating online and outright believed where simply clicking through the link disproves it, and the vast majority never even bother with that.

    To get sales and readership: Make it simple, put in a bad guy, try to get a three act structure and, for God's sake, say what your readership want to believe.
    I simply don't recognise your description of how (most) British newspaper journalism works, but I don't have time to carefully rebut all of your 19 paragraphs, as I have to do some paid journalism
    Yeah, that'll be why it's impossible to tell the difference between articles in the Telegraph or Guardian.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2022
    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 2,800

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    We need to talk more about Chris Pincher, so we don't forget why Boris Johnson had to go.
    Pincher helped us get rid of Boris. It was a public service. Few MPs will do anything as useful.

    A statue of Pincher in a characteristic pose, perhaps grasping a buttock or grabbing a crotch, should be commissioned for the Member's Lobby.
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    Interesting oddlots episode;

    “In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, China arguably led the world out of the downturn. Its gigantic fiscal stimulus not only boosted domestic growth, it also created an incredible amount of demand for commodities all around the world. Today the story is different. The government's Covid Zero policies have been a drag on growth and the real estate sector is deeply troubled, with a rise in homebuyers refusing to make mortgage payments. On top of that, the country is experiencing searing heat and drought. So how bad is it? Are things meaningfully worse than in previous downturns? To understand more, we speak with Tom Orlik, Chief Economist at Bloomberg Economics and author of the book "China: The Bubble that Never Pops."

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/odd-lots/id1056200096
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,160
    My pressure cooker will be getting lots of use this winter. Not only excellent for making quick soups, broths, stocks and so on but also a decent way albeit not perfect of replicating the slow cooking of joints way cheaper than most other ways of cooking outside the microwave.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841
    edited September 2022

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Christ


    “Life in Blackout Britain: Experts warn energy rationing this winter could see people told not to cook until after 8pm, pubs close at 9pm, 'three-day-a-week' school, care homes cancel outings for residents and swimming pools left unheated”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11173211/Life-Blackout-Britain-Experts-warn-energy-rationing-winter.html

    Think I really will eff off to bangers

    Well, its not for the first time that you seem to need to change your undies about some Daily Mail madeuppery... Just remember that like all writers/journalists, 90% of the time they don´t know what the f&%& they are talking about and are just looking for a story tag.
    Talking of which;

    A front-page article in the Telegraph earlier this week incorrectly used new analysis to claim that working from home will add more than £2,500 a year to energy bills, and said this meant commuters would be likely to save £1,500 by going out to work instead of staying at home.

    The Telegraph appears to have multiplied by 12 the expected energy savings in January 2023, as estimated by the price comparison website Uswitch. This calculation is flawed because energy usage is much higher in January than in an average month.

    Uswitch’s estimate may also not be reliable, for instance because it makes assumptions about the way that people use their heating that are different from official data on the subject.


    https://fullfact.org/economy/telegraph-working-from-home-energy-costs/
    Journalist + Numerical Data == Bullshit.

    The typical Journalist has the scientific training of @Leon

    So, it is all yada, yada, yada, aliens are coming, yada, yada, yada, AI is coming, yada, yada, yada, the End of Times is coming.
    Yes he’s so dumb that right now he’s being paid to sit by a pool in Portugal, or so I hear. Just down the coast from me

    If only all of us could be so “unscientific”
    Issue: Journalists being misleading to the public in areas of science and bluffing.
    Response: Yes, but it's profitable for the person in question.

    That doesn't really make it better.
    But it's nonsense. If a journalist consistently writes bollocks they will get found out, and called out, by readers - and then by the editor. Eventually they will get the sack, or, if they are freelance, they won't get any more commissions. It might surprise you how seriously editors approach this issue. Accuracy

    Even in my 2nd job writing travel for the Knapper's Gazette, the editors are quite prickly about this. There is no sense of "oh this'll do", you have to get the RIGHT price for the hotel in midsummer, and use the photo of the actual beach you describe, not the one next door, and so on

    If you get this wrong readers get (justifiably) irritated, and make their irritation known. Indeed with the internet providing instant and often hostile feedback, as well as plentiful competitors to the newspapers, the pressure to get it right is probably greater than ever

    Do journalists make mistakes nonetheless? Of course, they are human and often hard pressed

    I would add one caveat, the one place I do see lots of inexplicable errors is British TV news journalism, especially in the BBC. I dunno why. Lack of competition?
    Nope; if journalists write bollocks and their audience enjoys it, why would they stop? Only if it directly affects them - so a travel journalist writing bollocks can, as you say, get found out. Someone writing on economics, or politics, or especially a scientific area - where are they going to get called out by the readership?

    The criterion is whether or not it sells, not whether or not it's accurate. Pandering to prejudices gets sales, so if a journalist finds a home where their own prejudices chime with the readership, they're home and hosed. If pandering to prejudices causes obvious issues (travel journalist), then they will have to adjust. If it's an area where they can just keep going, they're just going to keep going. Even if it's harmful misinformation.

    Accuracy is out to one side.

    The article in question - if people look in and work out whether or not it's accurate, then they might raise issues. How many of the Telegraph's readership are going to do that? The retired ones won't be affected. Those working might simply believe it without checking. Hell, we've seen things circulating online and outright believed where simply clicking through the link disproves it, and the vast majority never even bother with that.

    To get sales and readership: Make it simple, put in a bad guy, try to get a three act structure and, for God's sake, say what your readership want to believe.
    I simply don't recognise your description of how (most) British newspaper journalism works, but I don't have time to carefully rebut all of your 19 paragraphs, as I have to do some paid journalism
    Yeah, that'll be why it's impossible to tell the difference between articles in the Telegraph or Guardian.
    You seem quite bitter on this subject
  • HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    ping said:

    I’ve come up with a fun PB game we can play.

    Predicting the correct order of PM Truss’ diplomatic travel schedule. Starting from after she gets back from Balmoral.

    My guess;

    1 NI
    2 Scotland
    3 Wales
    4 Kiev
    5 USA
    6 Brussels. Or maybe Berlin. No, I’ll stick with Brussels.

    Perhaps a trip to Dublin somewhere in amongst those. Maybe a random trip to Helsinki, or Warsaw.

    Pft. I’ll stick with those six.

    What are your guesses, good denizens of politicalbettingdotcom?

    Add Rome if Meloni gets in at the Italian election at the end of the month, Meloni would then likely be Truss' biggest ally in the G7 and G20
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246
    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    Don't quite understand?

    A neat trick I learned recently is to use kitchen scissors for chopping herbs - like coriander, parsley, basil. It is SO much quicker and easier than using a knife. I have wasted human years carefully chopping coriander with a knife. DUH
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,869
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    At the risk of you murdering me and displaying my flayed corpse i am compelled by my inability to resist a pisstake to enquire as to the mouthfeel of this coup de grace?
    Mouthfeel: 9/10, as long as you keep the rice a tiny bit *al dente*

    Incidentally, for all PB foodies this is an amazing website

    https://www.tasteatlas.com/search


    You can search basically all the cuisines in the world, with all the dishes, in various lists, you can even do it by map. And it recommends restaurants. You will get lost down the rabbit-hole

    But WTF are Ecclefechan Butter Tart, Pan Haggarty and Rumbledthumps, which are apparently found either side of Hadrian's Wall?
    If I get banned from PB for posting a subsample of pineapple pizza whilst listening to Radiohead, and have to reinvent myself, they will be my next three usernames.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited September 2022

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.

    That's a limited kitchen time way to cook your own roast without relying upon microwave meals or Toby Carvery etc
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    There is some dispute whether the English translation of “war mongering” is as perjorative a term as the French original:

    #France's President Macron says the #EU's policy over #Ukraine must not follow the policy of "the most war-mongering types" (i.e. the Baltics, Poland), since this would "risk extending the conflict and closing off communications [with #Putin] completely". What a disgrace.

    https://twitter.com/kyleworton/status/1566575126514106369

    Hard to believe people accuse the French being a nation of collaborators.
    Most people don't -- because it is racial stereotyping.

    Something on which you have previous ...
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,533

    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    I expect Braverman would like to see capital punishment back as she’s said that before . I also expect a big push to remove the UK from the ECHR . All in all it’s going to be a horrible two years with no 10 embarking on a strategy of division and hate to deflect from the economic implosion .
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    The Guardian were cheering the downfall of Johnson a couple of months ago, and now they sound absolutely furious that the Conservatives are about to elect a Conservative to replace him.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,763
    Scott_xP said:

    Latest on #Truss cabinet positions -- our POLITICO London colleague @e_casalicchio reporting this morning that Truss was rebuffed by Penny Mordaunt, Sajid Javid and Robert Buckland for job of #NorthernIreland Secretary
    https://twitter.com/suzannelynch1/status/1566709094039203841

    The Saj really should be back in the cabinet but his leadership campaign that never even got off the ground did him few favours. Buckland is by no means the worst of the current cabinet and Mordaunt did quite well in this contest, certainly in the early stages. I suppose NI is useful though if you want to be able to say that you have offered a job to people you don't like.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Christ


    “Life in Blackout Britain: Experts warn energy rationing this winter could see people told not to cook until after 8pm, pubs close at 9pm, 'three-day-a-week' school, care homes cancel outings for residents and swimming pools left unheated”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11173211/Life-Blackout-Britain-Experts-warn-energy-rationing-winter.html

    Think I really will eff off to bangers

    Well, its not for the first time that you seem to need to change your undies about some Daily Mail madeuppery... Just remember that like all writers/journalists, 90% of the time they don´t know what the f&%& they are talking about and are just looking for a story tag.
    Talking of which;

    A front-page article in the Telegraph earlier this week incorrectly used new analysis to claim that working from home will add more than £2,500 a year to energy bills, and said this meant commuters would be likely to save £1,500 by going out to work instead of staying at home.

    The Telegraph appears to have multiplied by 12 the expected energy savings in January 2023, as estimated by the price comparison website Uswitch. This calculation is flawed because energy usage is much higher in January than in an average month.

    Uswitch’s estimate may also not be reliable, for instance because it makes assumptions about the way that people use their heating that are different from official data on the subject.


    https://fullfact.org/economy/telegraph-working-from-home-energy-costs/
    Journalist + Numerical Data == Bullshit.

    The typical Journalist has the scientific training of @Leon

    So, it is all yada, yada, yada, aliens are coming, yada, yada, yada, AI is coming, yada, yada, yada, the End of Times is coming.
    Yes he’s so dumb that right now he’s being paid to sit by a pool in Portugal, or so I hear. Just down the coast from me

    If only all of us could be so “unscientific”
    Issue: Journalists being misleading to the public in areas of science and bluffing.
    Response: Yes, but it's profitable for the person in question.

    That doesn't really make it better.
    But it's nonsense. If a journalist consistently writes bollocks they will get found out, and called out, by readers - and then by the editor. Eventually they will get the sack, or, if they are freelance, they won't get any more commissions. It might surprise you how seriously editors approach this issue. Accuracy

    Even in my 2nd job writing travel for the Knapper's Gazette, the editors are quite prickly about this. There is no sense of "oh this'll do", you have to get the RIGHT price for the hotel in midsummer, and use the photo of the actual beach you describe, not the one next door, and so on

    If you get this wrong readers get (justifiably) irritated, and make their irritation known. Indeed with the internet providing instant and often hostile feedback, as well as plentiful competitors to the newspapers, the pressure to get it right is probably greater than ever

    Do journalists make mistakes nonetheless? Of course, they are human and often hard pressed

    I would add one caveat, the one place I do see lots of inexplicable errors is British TV news journalism, especially in the BBC. I dunno why. Lack of competition?
    Nope; if journalists write bollocks and their audience enjoys it, why would they stop? Only if it directly affects them - so a travel journalist writing bollocks can, as you say, get found out. Someone writing on economics, or politics, or especially a scientific area - where are they going to get called out by the readership?

    The criterion is whether or not it sells, not whether or not it's accurate. Pandering to prejudices gets sales, so if a journalist finds a home where their own prejudices chime with the readership, they're home and hosed. If pandering to prejudices causes obvious issues (travel journalist), then they will have to adjust. If it's an area where they can just keep going, they're just going to keep going. Even if it's harmful misinformation.

    Accuracy is out to one side.

    The article in question - if people look in and work out whether or not it's accurate, then they might raise issues. How many of the Telegraph's readership are going to do that? The retired ones won't be affected. Those working might simply believe it without checking. Hell, we've seen things circulating online and outright believed where simply clicking through the link disproves it, and the vast majority never even bother with that.

    To get sales and readership: Make it simple, put in a bad guy, try to get a three act structure and, for God's sake, say what your readership want to believe.
    I simply don't recognise your description of how (most) British newspaper journalism works, but I don't have time to carefully rebut all of your 19 paragraphs, as I have to do some paid journalism
    Yeah, that'll be why it's impossible to tell the difference between articles in the Telegraph or Guardian.
    You seem quite bitter on this subject
    Not really. I've actually been impressed by a couple of science journalists (John Burn-Murdoch and Tom Whipple), but I recognise that most newspaper articles won't reflect stuff like that.

    It's always interesting to see how people react when they read an article on something where they actually know quite a bit. And almost invariably, it's inaccurate or at the very least oversimplified.

    There's then a step to "Hang on, if most of what I'm reading is wrong in areas where I DO know stuff, what should I believe in other areas...?"
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    Found out today that being paid to sit by a pool proves that you can't be unscientific.

    I suppose it fits with the prevailing global philosophy that if something makes a fast buck it can't be wrong.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246
    nico679 said:



    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    I expect Braverman would like to see capital punishment back as she’s said that before . I also expect a big push to remove the UK from the ECHR . All in all it’s going to be a horrible two years with no 10 embarking on a strategy of division and hate to deflect from the economic implosion .
    If Truss can sort out the Dinghy People Problem, she will get a big boost - which she needs, it seems

    Resiling from the ECHR in some form could play a role in that. It is all easier said than done, of course
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited September 2022
    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2022

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    Blah, blah, blah.

    All those 'decent honest people' demanding Boris resign for having some after work drinks outside and getting a birthday cake mainly didn't vote for him when he won in 2019 anyway and won't vote for Truss now in gratitude Boris has gone.

    Yes I will support Truss but the early evidence is not good. Not only has she failed to win back any voters from Labour and the LDs if Survation is right but she has also lost Tory voters who backed Boris
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited September 2022
    nico679 said:



    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    I expect Braverman would like to see capital punishment back as she’s said that before . I also expect a big push to remove the UK from the ECHR . All in all it’s going to be a horrible two years with no 10 embarking on a strategy of division and hate to deflect from the economic implosion .
    Do you have a link for that?
    I tried googling for it a few weeks ago, but couldn't find evidence of her support.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Result in half an hour!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
    Yes, that is really NOT a roast. That's a TV dinner. Ugh
  • Our local boozer, which I have sung the praises of many times on here, is the 9th best pub in the UK according to Timeout. I would heartily recommend a visit.

    https://www.timeout.com/uk/food-and-drink/best-pubs-in-the-uk
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    Completely agree. Very hard to make good tasty nutritious meals in "ten minutes". Unless it's a basic salad and you just chuck on the dressing

    Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Minute dishes take about 30-40 minutes in reality, so I have been told (I've never even tried)

    Indeed that's about my ideal length of time to cook: 30-45 minutes, enough to be engaging and absorbing, but not so long that you feel an idiot for spending hours on a meal you eat in less than 20 minutes

    @NickPalmer may have come up with the most controversial opinion of his PB career. "I never bother cooking for more than 10 minutes"

    !!!!
    The time to make a meal is also very dependent on how many times you have done it before. When you've got it memorised it becomes much easier. I also think that 10 minute home-cooked meals are quite limited - omelette, but what else? Unless you count cheese/beans-on-toast!

    A great deal of the time in preparing a home-cooked meal isn't that actual cooking, it is the cleaning up. I WFH and I sometimes use my lunch break to cook the evening meal for the family (e.g. lasagne, shepherds pie, curry, casserole etc.). Combined with making myself a light lunch it is rarely less than 30 minutes (excluding cooking time) and generally more like 45.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,533
    Leon said:

    nico679 said:



    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    I expect Braverman would like to see capital punishment back as she’s said that before . I also expect a big push to remove the UK from the ECHR . All in all it’s going to be a horrible two years with no 10 embarking on a strategy of division and hate to deflect from the economic implosion .
    If Truss can sort out the Dinghy People Problem, she will get a big boost - which she needs, it seems

    Resiling from the ECHR in some form could play a role in that. It is all easier said than done, of course
    Many Tory MPs wouldn’t support leaving the ECHR . It’s not a manifesto pledge and therefore has no democratic legitimacy and would trash the UKs reputation especially in light of the situation in Ukraine. Notwithstanding that it was the Brits who were instrumental in setting it up with the help of Churchill .
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    @IshmaelZ - another Wine Soc bargain

    Lovely Alsatian Muscat for just under a tenner

    https://www.thewinesociety.com/product/muscat-reserve-lucien-albrecht-2020

    looks excellent. Ordered.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited September 2022

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    I don't understand your confusion about his faith and loyalty to Johnson.

    Faith is about putting aside evidence, reason, logic and intellectual or moral rigor and believing in something 'just because' of your faith, regardless of what comes along to shake or test that faith.

    That seems to be HYUFD to a tee.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    Blah, blah, blah.

    All those 'decent honest people' demanding Boris resign for having some after work drinks outside and getting a birthday cake mainly didn't vote for him when he won in 2019 anyway and won't vote for Truss now in gratitude Boris has gone.

    Yes I will support Truss but the early evidence is not good. Not only has she failed to win back any voters from Labour and the LDs if Survation is right but she has also lost Tory voters who backed Boris
    Decency is not blah blah etc

    And your half hearted support for Truss is all to do with your desire to see Johnson back and it simply is a very sad attitude
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    "I used whole fennel for the first time"

    I bet that made your eyes water.

    Actually, raw fennel is very tasty. Just munch away and enjoy. And our rabbit enjoys eating the green leafy bits.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    Don't quite understand?

    A neat trick I learned recently is to use kitchen scissors for chopping herbs - like coriander, parsley, basil. It is SO much quicker and easier than using a knife. I have wasted human years carefully chopping coriander with a knife. DUH
    Also scissors for cutting up meat if required. Scissors are a much under-used piece of kitchen equipment.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    Blah, blah, blah.

    All those 'decent honest people' demanding Boris resign for having some after work drinks outside and getting a birthday cake mainly didn't vote for him when he won in 2019 anyway and won't vote for Truss now in gratitude Boris has gone.

    Yes I will support Truss but the early evidence is not good. Not only has she failed to win back any voters from Labour and the LDs if Survation is right but she has also lost Tory voters who backed Boris
    It was condoning sexual assault that did for him.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    Completely agree. Very hard to make good tasty nutritious meals in "ten minutes". Unless it's a basic salad and you just chuck on the dressing

    Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Minute dishes take about 30-40 minutes in reality, so I have been told (I've never even tried)

    Indeed that's about my ideal length of time to cook: 30-45 minutes, enough to be engaging and absorbing, but not so long that you feel an idiot for spending hours on a meal you eat in less than 20 minutes

    @NickPalmer may have come up with the most controversial opinion of his PB career. "I never bother cooking for more than 10 minutes"

    !!!!
    Everyone to their own, but I agree re eating and cooking. If I could get a bypass to my stomach I would eat all day, but only good food. Do not eat convenience food at all. Same with cooking. Love it. Make my own marmalade and pickles. Nothing in the shop compares. Make my own bread. Pies, tarts, sorbet, etc with home grown fruit.

    Love cooking at Xmas. Not a fan of turkey so often do a beef wellington, homemade mincemeat, Xmas pud in November, red cabbage, dry figs, homemade stollen, etc, etc. Spend several days just cooking.

    A wellington is a lot of work, but easy on the day.
  • AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    Completely agree. Very hard to make good tasty nutritious meals in "ten minutes". Unless it's a basic salad and you just chuck on the dressing

    Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Minute dishes take about 30-40 minutes in reality, so I have been told (I've never even tried)

    Indeed that's about my ideal length of time to cook: 30-45 minutes, enough to be engaging and absorbing, but not so long that you feel an idiot for spending hours on a meal you eat in less than 20 minutes

    @NickPalmer may have come up with the most controversial opinion of his PB career. "I never bother cooking for more than 10 minutes"

    !!!!
    The time to make a meal is also very dependent on how many times you have done it before. When you've got it memorised it becomes much easier. I also think that 10 minute home-cooked meals are quite limited - omelette, but what else? Unless you count cheese/beans-on-toast!

    A great deal of the time in preparing a home-cooked meal isn't that actual cooking, it is the cleaning up. I WFH and I sometimes use my lunch break to cook the evening meal for the family (e.g. lasagne, shepherds pie, curry, casserole etc.). Combined with making myself a light lunch it is rarely less than 30 minutes (excluding cooking time) and generally more like 45.
    Here's what you need;

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/10/50-best-cookbooks-edouard-pomiane

    The recipies are on the limited side, but the book itself is utterly charming. Pomiane sounds the way a French cook should.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
    Yes, that is really NOT a roast. That's a TV dinner. Ugh
    The limited effort in doing it from scratch more than pays for itself. A bit of work on the meat, roasties, gravy and yorkshires and, sure, you can short cut the minor veg and boil and/or steam them together.
    Aunt Bessie was a lazy old tart in life clearly. Too busy shagging the mill owner to cook a proper dinner for the family
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    Blah, blah, blah.

    All those 'decent honest people' demanding Boris resign for having some after work drinks outside and getting a birthday cake mainly didn't vote for him when he won in 2019 anyway and won't vote for Truss now in gratitude Boris has gone.

    Yes I will support Truss but the early evidence is not good. Not only has she failed to win back any voters from Labour and the LDs if Survation is right but she has also lost Tory voters who backed Boris
    It was condoning sexual assault that did for him.
    He didn't, Pincher lost the whip when Boris was still PM
  • AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    Completely agree. Very hard to make good tasty nutritious meals in "ten minutes". Unless it's a basic salad and you just chuck on the dressing

    Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Minute dishes take about 30-40 minutes in reality, so I have been told (I've never even tried)

    Indeed that's about my ideal length of time to cook: 30-45 minutes, enough to be engaging and absorbing, but not so long that you feel an idiot for spending hours on a meal you eat in less than 20 minutes

    @NickPalmer may have come up with the most controversial opinion of his PB career. "I never bother cooking for more than 10 minutes"

    !!!!
    The time to make a meal is also very dependent on how many times you have done it before. When you've got it memorised it becomes much easier. I also think that 10 minute home-cooked meals are quite limited - omelette, but what else? Unless you count cheese/beans-on-toast!

    A great deal of the time in preparing a home-cooked meal isn't that actual cooking, it is the cleaning up. I WFH and I sometimes use my lunch break to cook the evening meal for the family (e.g. lasagne, shepherds pie, curry, casserole etc.). Combined with making myself a light lunch it is rarely less than 30 minutes (excluding cooking time) and generally more like 45.
    Here's what you need;

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/10/50-best-cookbooks-edouard-pomiane

    The recipies are on the limited side, but the book itself is utterly charming. Pomiane sounds the way a French cook should.
    ETA: There were some BBC microshows based on the book as well;

    https://youtu.be/lzjyfqPe7ZE
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183

    Our local boozer, which I have sung the praises of many times on here, is the 9th best pub in the UK according to Timeout. I would heartily recommend a visit.

    https://www.timeout.com/uk/food-and-drink/best-pubs-in-the-uk

    That's a fun list. A bit London-heavy - I concede that London does have some very good pubs, but I think it may also owe a bit to the location of the journalists.
    The pub at the top of the list looks a tad discouraging from the outside!
    I've been to Nos 5, 6 and 13.
    I can certainly vouch enthusiastically for The Marble Arch, Manchester, and the pub in Old Radnor is the one pub where I've had a Sunday lunch as good as a home cooked Sunday lunch.
  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    Dura_Ace said:

    How long before Jizzy Lizzy is Ukraine for a photo op in body armour? I reckon Friday.

    Then there's who she will be meeting after she becomes Tory leader and before she goes to Balmoral. That can't be mentioned in front of the children though.
  • Our local boozer, which I have sung the praises of many times on here, is the 9th best pub in the UK according to Timeout. I would heartily recommend a visit.

    https://www.timeout.com/uk/food-and-drink/best-pubs-in-the-uk

    Ashamed to say I've never had a pint in No. 1, must rectify that. Quite Belfast heavy which is fair enough as it's a proper pub city, even if some of them are a bit scary.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841
    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    Don't quite understand?

    A neat trick I learned recently is to use kitchen scissors for chopping herbs - like coriander, parsley, basil. It is SO much quicker and easier than using a knife. I have wasted human years carefully chopping coriander with a knife. DUH
    Also scissors for cutting up meat if required. Scissors are a much under-used piece of kitchen equipment.
    Secaturs for jointing a bird
  • boulayboulay Posts: 3,773
    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til
    the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    Not sure if this is quick and easy enough for you but I get the cloves I’m using, place them on chopping board and smash with the side of a heavy knife with your weight on the other side of the blade.

    The skins then come off easily as broken and the actual clove is already largely split reducing the amount of chopping.

    If you don’t want to cut at all just keep using the side of the blade to grind into a paste using hand pressure on the upper side of blade.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    Blah, blah, blah.

    All those 'decent honest people' demanding Boris resign for having some after work drinks outside and getting a birthday cake mainly didn't vote for him when he won in 2019 anyway and won't vote for Truss now in gratitude Boris has gone.

    Yes I will support Truss but the early evidence is not good. Not only has she failed to win back any voters from Labour and the LDs if Survation is right but she has also lost Tory voters who backed Boris
    Decency is not blah blah etc

    And your half hearted support for Truss is all to do with your desire to see Johnson back and it simply is a very sad attitude
    Well if that Survation poll showing Truss almost doubling Labour's lead is right then many Tory MPs will be begging Boris to come back to save their seats.

    For Truss' sake and our sake we have to hope she has some effective policies in the first period of her likely Premiership to begin to make an impact
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246
    nico679 said:



    Leon said:

    nico679 said:



    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    I expect Braverman would like to see capital punishment back as she’s said that before . I also expect a big push to remove the UK from the ECHR . All in all it’s going to be a horrible two years with no 10 embarking on a strategy of division and hate to deflect from the economic implosion .
    If Truss can sort out the Dinghy People Problem, she will get a big boost - which she needs, it seems

    Resiling from the ECHR in some form could play a role in that. It is all easier said than done, of course
    Many Tory MPs wouldn’t support leaving the ECHR . It’s not a manifesto pledge and therefore has no democratic legitimacy and would trash the UKs reputation especially in light of the situation in Ukraine. Notwithstanding that it was the Brits who were instrumental in setting it up with the help of Churchill .
    I wasn't commenting on the virtues or otherwise of this proposed policy, I was just making the political observation that Sorting the Dinghy Problem would be a major win for a new PM. And if she wants to do that quickly, she might see withdrawing from the ECHR, or reducing its influence, as helpful to her cause

    And the Dinghy Problem really does need to be sorted. It's all very well blatting on about human rights, but the numbers are getting quite staggering. 60,000 are predicted this year, doubling every year. And it's not going to get better. And the British have their own human rights: to secure borders
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 4,861
    Sandpit said:

    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    The Guardian were cheering the downfall of Johnson a couple of months ago, and now they sound absolutely furious that the Conservatives are about to elect a Conservative to replace him.
    Are you suggesting the Guardian journalists should not criticise Truss's policies because they supported Johnson resigning?
  • ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    Why have you got a shower head in your kitchen?
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    Blah, blah, blah.

    All those 'decent honest people' demanding Boris resign for having some after work drinks outside and getting a birthday cake mainly didn't vote for him when he won in 2019 anyway and won't vote for Truss now in gratitude Boris has gone.

    Yes I will support Truss but the early evidence is not good. Not only has she failed to win back any voters from Labour and the LDs if Survation is right but she has also lost Tory voters who backed Boris
    Decency is not blah blah etc

    And your half hearted support for Truss is all to do with your desire to see Johnson back and it simply is a very sad attitude
    Well if that Survation poll showing Truss almost doubling Labour's lead is right then many Tory MPs will be begging Boris to come back to save their seats.

    For Truss' sake and our sake we have to hope she has some effective policies in the first period of her likely Premiership to begin to make an impact
    The one thing we agree is Truss has to provide a huge cost of living package and this week
  • rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    True, but the lazy version (flooding it with a shite-load of stock after the initial stage and letting it simmer down slowly whilst you ignore it) is almost as good as the constantly stirring version.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2022
    Leon said:

    nico679 said:



    Leon said:

    nico679 said:



    "The most rightwing cabinet in 100 years" is on the way, according to one Tory MP watching the pre-announcement leaks and who's quoted in the Guardian.

    I expect Braverman would like to see capital punishment back as she’s said that before . I also expect a big push to remove the UK from the ECHR . All in all it’s going to be a horrible two years with no 10 embarking on a strategy of division and hate to deflect from the economic implosion .
    If Truss can sort out the Dinghy People Problem, she will get a big boost - which she needs, it seems

    Resiling from the ECHR in some form could play a role in that. It is all easier said than done, of course
    Many Tory MPs wouldn’t support leaving the ECHR . It’s not a manifesto pledge and therefore has no democratic legitimacy and would trash the UKs reputation especially in light of the situation in Ukraine. Notwithstanding that it was the Brits who were instrumental in setting it up with the help of Churchill .
    I wasn't commenting on the virtues or otherwise of this proposed policy, I was just making the political observation that Sorting the Dinghy Problem would be a major win for a new PM. And if she wants to do that quickly, she might see withdrawing from the ECHR, or reducing its influence, as helpful to her cause

    And the Dinghy Problem really does need to be sorted. It's all very well blatting on about human rights, but the numbers are getting quite staggering. 60,000 are predicted this year, doubling every year. And it's not going to get better. And the British have their own human rights: to secure borders
    Love to know how you propose to solve what is an unsolvable problem....

    The reality is that as @rcs1000 points out what we need to do is remove any pull that encourages them to travel here.

    Which means a £10,000 fine to the director / manager of anyone employing an illegal worker and big incentives to encourage reporting of illegal workers alongside more enforcement workers....

  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    Why have you got a shower head in your kitchen?
    It's portable. Fill it with water, then tip it over your head when ready. Saves a lot of time if you can shower and prepare breakfast at the same time.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
    Yes, that is really NOT a roast. That's a TV dinner. Ugh
    The limited effort in doing it from scratch more than pays for itself. A bit of work on the meat, roasties, gravy and yorkshires and, sure, you can short cut the minor veg and boil and/or steam them together.
    Aunt Bessie was a lazy old tart in life clearly. Too busy shagging the mill owner to cook a proper dinner for the family
    This is why people who love to cook and people who don't like to spend a lot of time cooking can talk past each other.

    Aunt Bessie style food isn't microwave muck and if you're not interested in spending lots of time in the kitchen then putting that in the oven to roast is far superior to putting a frozen meal in the microwave.

    Oddly the first time we went for a full Aunt Bessie style roast was for Christmas dinner in 2020 during lockdown. My wife and I decided that since it was just the four of us we'd still like to have all the trimmings but wanted to spend the day with the girls and not in the kitchen.

    Others may look down upon that but it was not a choice I regret at all. Since then we still sometimes go through the faff of par boiling etc but most of the time don't bother. I cook the Sunday Roast most weeks and the family like it and its more time as a family doing other stuff instead of in the kitchen.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246
    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    Completely agree. Very hard to make good tasty nutritious meals in "ten minutes". Unless it's a basic salad and you just chuck on the dressing

    Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Minute dishes take about 30-40 minutes in reality, so I have been told (I've never even tried)

    Indeed that's about my ideal length of time to cook: 30-45 minutes, enough to be engaging and absorbing, but not so long that you feel an idiot for spending hours on a meal you eat in less than 20 minutes

    @NickPalmer may have come up with the most controversial opinion of his PB career. "I never bother cooking for more than 10 minutes"

    !!!!
    Everyone to their own, but I agree re eating and cooking. If I could get a bypass to my stomach I would eat all day, but only good food. Do not eat convenience food at all. Same with cooking. Love it. Make my own marmalade and pickles. Nothing in the shop compares. Make my own bread. Pies, tarts, sorbet, etc with home grown fruit.

    Love cooking at Xmas. Not a fan of turkey so often do a beef wellington, homemade mincemeat, Xmas pud in November, red cabbage, dry figs, homemade stollen, etc, etc. Spend several days just cooking.

    A wellington is a lot of work, but easy on the day.
    Processed food is also bad for you, of course. It's a nutrition thing

    I reckon one reason I stay relatively healthy (inshallah) despite drinking about nine bottles of wine a day is because I eat really healthy food: a ton of fish, lots of veg, salad, all fresh, and of course it all tastes better anyway. It sounds pious but it is true
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
    Yes, that is really NOT a roast. That's a TV dinner. Ugh
    The limited effort in doing it from scratch more than pays for itself. A bit of work on the meat, roasties, gravy and yorkshires and, sure, you can short cut the minor veg and boil and/or steam them together.
    Aunt Bessie was a lazy old tart in life clearly. Too busy shagging the mill owner to cook a proper dinner for the family
    "roasties"

    Oh dear. Roast potatoes FFS.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Christ


    “Life in Blackout Britain: Experts warn energy rationing this winter could see people told not to cook until after 8pm, pubs close at 9pm, 'three-day-a-week' school, care homes cancel outings for residents and swimming pools left unheated”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11173211/Life-Blackout-Britain-Experts-warn-energy-rationing-winter.html

    Think I really will eff off to bangers

    Well, its not for the first time that you seem to need to change your undies about some Daily Mail madeuppery... Just remember that like all writers/journalists, 90% of the time they don´t know what the f&%& they are talking about and are just looking for a story tag.
    Talking of which;

    A front-page article in the Telegraph earlier this week incorrectly used new analysis to claim that working from home will add more than £2,500 a year to energy bills, and said this meant commuters would be likely to save £1,500 by going out to work instead of staying at home.

    The Telegraph appears to have multiplied by 12 the expected energy savings in January 2023, as estimated by the price comparison website Uswitch. This calculation is flawed because energy usage is much higher in January than in an average month.

    Uswitch’s estimate may also not be reliable, for instance because it makes assumptions about the way that people use their heating that are different from official data on the subject.


    https://fullfact.org/economy/telegraph-working-from-home-energy-costs/
    Journalist + Numerical Data == Bullshit.

    The typical Journalist has the scientific training of @Leon

    So, it is all yada, yada, yada, aliens are coming, yada, yada, yada, AI is coming, yada, yada, yada, the End of Times is coming.
    Yes he’s so dumb that right now he’s being paid to sit by a pool in Portugal, or so I hear. Just down the coast from me

    If only all of us could be so “unscientific”
    Issue: Journalists being misleading to the public in areas of science and bluffing.
    Response: Yes, but it's profitable for the person in question.

    That doesn't really make it better.
    But it's nonsense. If a journalist consistently writes bollocks they will get found out, and called out, by readers - and then by the editor. Eventually they will get the sack, or, if they are freelance, they won't get any more commissions. It might surprise you how seriously editors approach this issue. Accuracy

    Even in my 2nd job writing travel for the Knapper's Gazette, the editors are quite prickly about this. There is no sense of "oh this'll do", you have to get the RIGHT price for the hotel in midsummer, and use the photo of the actual beach you describe, not the one next door, and so on

    If you get this wrong readers get (justifiably) irritated, and make their irritation known. Indeed with the internet providing instant and often hostile feedback, as well as plentiful competitors to the newspapers, the pressure to get it right is probably greater than ever

    Do journalists make mistakes nonetheless? Of course, they are human and often hard pressed

    I would add one caveat, the one place I do see lots of inexplicable errors is British TV news journalism, especially in the BBC. I dunno why. Lack of competition?
    Nope; if journalists write bollocks and their audience enjoys it, why would they stop? Only if it directly affects them - so a travel journalist writing bollocks can, as you say, get found out. Someone writing on economics, or politics, or especially a scientific area - where are they going to get called out by the readership?

    The criterion is whether or not it sells, not whether or not it's accurate. Pandering to prejudices gets sales, so if a journalist finds a home where their own prejudices chime with the readership, they're home and hosed. If pandering to prejudices causes obvious issues (travel journalist), then they will have to adjust. If it's an area where they can just keep going, they're just going to keep going. Even if it's harmful misinformation.

    Accuracy is out to one side.

    The article in question - if people look in and work out whether or not it's accurate, then they might raise issues. How many of the Telegraph's readership are going to do that? The retired ones won't be affected. Those working might simply believe it without checking. Hell, we've seen things circulating online and outright believed where simply clicking through the link disproves it, and the vast majority never even bother with that.

    To get sales and readership: Make it simple, put in a bad guy, try to get a three act structure and, for God's sake, say what your readership want to believe.
    Indeed: the on-line news organisations like Slate or the Washington Free Beacon (and even frankly, the NY Times and Fox News's websites), all run off a business model where journalists are graded in real time on how many times their stories are tweeted, shared, etc. Engagement is in. Facts are out. You make more money from riling up your supporters than being accurate.

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    NEW Westminster Voting Intention, named party leaders including Liz Truss. Change vs today's standard voting intention. LAB lead of 17 points:
    CON 29% (-5) change was -4.5, rounds to 5
    LAB 46% (+3)
    LD 11% (nc)
    SNP 4% (nc)
    GRE 3% (nc)
    OTH 7% (+2):
    See: https://www.survation.com/westminster-voting-intention-update/ https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1566726690050646018/photo/1

    If this isn't an outlier then it's a shocking poll for Truss. IIRC every past incoming leader has got a bounce in the polls, however fleeting. I was expecting the Labour lead to shrink materially with Johnson gone. If she's got a negative bounce then the Tories are in big, big trouble.
    Well at least John Major would be pleased, if that poll is correct he will no longer have led the Tories to their worst ever defeat since universal suffrage, Truss will beat him on that score without even one election win under her belt like Major in 1992.

    Hopefully as I said after this week's coverage Truss will at least get some bounce otherwise the removal of Boris will be shown to have been a clear own goal by Tory MPs
    Thanks, HYUFD. Anyone with even the most basic entry-level sense of sanity or morality can see that he had to go irregardless.
    The left said Boris had to go, none of you will vote for Truss anyway.

    It was always in your interests to get rid of the most charismatic and successful Tory leader since Thatcher, much as it was in Tory interests to get rid of Blair, the most charismatic and electorally successful Labour leader ever (though Labour of course didn't replace him until 2007 despite his lies to take us to war, worse than Boris ever did)
    You are so wrong

    Decent honest people across the political divide demanded Johnson resignation as he debased his office from Paterson on

    I cannot reconcile your faith with your blind loyalty to Johnson and it really does not do you any favours

    To be honest your attitude really saddens me as we should both be moving on and supporting Truss going forward
    Blah, blah, blah.

    All those 'decent honest people' demanding Boris resign for having some after work drinks outside and getting a birthday cake mainly didn't vote for him when he won in 2019 anyway and won't vote for Truss now in gratitude Boris has gone.

    Yes I will support Truss but the early evidence is not good. Not only has she failed to win back any voters from Labour and the LDs if Survation is right but she has also lost Tory voters who backed Boris
    It was condoning sexual assault that did for him.
    He didn't, Pincher lost the whip when Boris was still PM
    He condoned it before he didn't condone it.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 2,800
    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    Don't quite understand?

    A neat trick I learned recently is to use kitchen scissors for chopping herbs - like coriander, parsley, basil. It is SO much quicker and easier than using a knife. I have wasted human years carefully chopping coriander with a knife. DUH
    Something along these lines : https://twitter.com/beasymss/status/1050760248535990272 - put point it away from you so the only effort you make is grating 'away' from yourself rather than side-to-side (or up and down as I did in the olden days).
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til
    the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    Not sure if this is quick and easy enough for you but I get the cloves I’m using, place them on chopping board and smash with the side of a heavy knife with your weight on the other side of the blade.

    The skins then come off easily as broken and the actual clove is already largely split reducing the amount of chopping.

    If you don’t want to cut at all just keep using the side of the blade to grind into a paste using hand pressure on the upper side of blade.
    That's interesting! I'll give it a go when I get home. Also sounds pleasingly dramatic
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    Cookie said:

    Our local boozer, which I have sung the praises of many times on here, is the 9th best pub in the UK according to Timeout. I would heartily recommend a visit.

    https://www.timeout.com/uk/food-and-drink/best-pubs-in-the-uk

    That's a fun list. A bit London-heavy - I concede that London does have some very good pubs, but I think it may also owe a bit to the location of the journalists.
    The pub at the top of the list looks a tad discouraging from the outside!
    I've been to Nos 5, 6 and 13.
    I can certainly vouch enthusiastically for The Marble Arch, Manchester, and the pub in Old Radnor is the one pub where I've had a Sunday lunch as good as a home cooked Sunday lunch.
    I was fully expecting to furiously complain about the absence of The Marble Arch after clicking the list, but there it is. These lists are always a bit of a fools errand though; pubs serve different purposes and, moreover, are very personal spaces. I'm very fond of The Harp near Charing Cross when I'm in London, even while I acknowledge its flaws and probably wouldn't order food there (if it even serves food).
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    Hilarious if Sunak wins.

    Not that it is going to happen, but real cat amongst the pigeons stuff!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    Crispy duck

    1) Stuff the duck with a couple of oranges with the peel sliced off.
    2) Score the skin
    3) Oven at 110c
    4) Five hours in the oven. Drain the fat off from time to time.

    Serve with cucumbers, Chinese pancakes etc….
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
    Yes, that is really NOT a roast. That's a TV dinner. Ugh
    The limited effort in doing it from scratch more than pays for itself. A bit of work on the meat, roasties, gravy and yorkshires and, sure, you can short cut the minor veg and boil and/or steam them together.
    Aunt Bessie was a lazy old tart in life clearly. Too busy shagging the mill owner to cook a proper dinner for the family
    This is why people who love to cook and people who don't like to spend a lot of time cooking can talk past each other.

    Aunt Bessie style food isn't microwave muck and if you're not interested in spending lots of time in the kitchen then putting that in the oven to roast is far superior to putting a frozen meal in the microwave.

    Oddly the first time we went for a full Aunt Bessie style roast was for Christmas dinner in 2020 during lockdown. My wife and I decided that since it was just the four of us we'd still like to have all the trimmings but wanted to spend the day with the girls and not in the kitchen.

    Others may look down upon that but it was not a choice I regret at all. Since then we still sometimes go through the faff of par boiling etc but most of the time don't bother. I cook the Sunday Roast most weeks and the family like it and its more time as a family doing other stuff instead of in the kitchen.
    If youre not interested in cooking then sure. I've once tried her yorkshires. I wasnt impressed. I enjoy cooking though.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 2,800
    TimS said:

    My pressure cooker will be getting lots of use this winter. Not only excellent for making quick soups, broths, stocks and so on but also a decent way albeit not perfect of replicating the slow cooking of joints way cheaper than most other ways of cooking outside the microwave.

    I finally got round to buying an 'Instant Pot' in spring. Excellent bit of kit. Really just an electric pressure cooker - but being able to just put '30 minutes - high pressure' with a couple of buttons then leaving it to do it's thing is great.
  • eristdoof said:

    Today I learned that in Canada there's a newspaper called Prince Albert.

    https://paherald.sk.ca/

    Are you still at Junior School?
    Mentally I never left.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
    Yes, that is really NOT a roast. That's a TV dinner. Ugh
    The limited effort in doing it from scratch more than pays for itself. A bit of work on the meat, roasties, gravy and yorkshires and, sure, you can short cut the minor veg and boil and/or steam them together.
    Aunt Bessie was a lazy old tart in life clearly. Too busy shagging the mill owner to cook a proper dinner for the family
    "roasties"

    Oh dear. Roast potatoes FFS.
    Parsnips join them. Cover your bases. Check and mate. Thanks for playing.
  • Foxy said:

    Hilarious if Sunak wins.

    Not that it is going to happen, but real cat amongst the pigeons stuff!

    I will die laughing.

  • Watching the BBCs coverage of the grand reveal, I'd just like to say I'd love it to be Rishi. Not because I think he'd be better, but just because so many of the presenters are assuming it'll be Truss. We'll need to double national electricity consumption to cook the omelette made from all the egg scraped off their faces. ;)

    But it'll be Truss...
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,841
    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til
    the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    Not sure if this is quick and easy enough for you but I get the cloves I’m using, place them on chopping board and smash with the side of a heavy knife with your weight on the other side of the blade.

    The skins then come off easily as broken and the actual clove is already largely split reducing the amount of chopping.

    If you don’t want to cut at all just keep using the side of the blade to grind into a paste using hand pressure on the upper side of blade.
    That's interesting! I'll give it a go when I get home. Also sounds pleasingly dramatic
    If youre going the paste route, adding some sea salt makes it much easier
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Christ


    “Life in Blackout Britain: Experts warn energy rationing this winter could see people told not to cook until after 8pm, pubs close at 9pm, 'three-day-a-week' school, care homes cancel outings for residents and swimming pools left unheated”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11173211/Life-Blackout-Britain-Experts-warn-energy-rationing-winter.html

    Think I really will eff off to bangers

    Well, its not for the first time that you seem to need to change your undies about some Daily Mail madeuppery... Just remember that like all writers/journalists, 90% of the time they don´t know what the f&%& they are talking about and are just looking for a story tag.
    Talking of which;

    A front-page article in the Telegraph earlier this week incorrectly used new analysis to claim that working from home will add more than £2,500 a year to energy bills, and said this meant commuters would be likely to save £1,500 by going out to work instead of staying at home.

    The Telegraph appears to have multiplied by 12 the expected energy savings in January 2023, as estimated by the price comparison website Uswitch. This calculation is flawed because energy usage is much higher in January than in an average month.

    Uswitch’s estimate may also not be reliable, for instance because it makes assumptions about the way that people use their heating that are different from official data on the subject.


    https://fullfact.org/economy/telegraph-working-from-home-energy-costs/
    Journalist + Numerical Data == Bullshit.

    The typical Journalist has the scientific training of @Leon

    So, it is all yada, yada, yada, aliens are coming, yada, yada, yada, AI is coming, yada, yada, yada, the End of Times is coming.
    Yes he’s so dumb that right now he’s being paid to sit by a pool in Portugal, or so I hear. Just down the coast from me

    If only all of us could be so “unscientific”
    Issue: Journalists being misleading to the public in areas of science and bluffing.
    Response: Yes, but it's profitable for the person in question.

    That doesn't really make it better.
    But it's nonsense. If a journalist consistently writes bollocks they will get found out, and called out, by readers - and then by the editor. Eventually they will get the sack, or, if they are freelance, they won't get any more commissions. It might surprise you how seriously editors approach this issue. Accuracy

    Even in my 2nd job writing travel for the Knapper's Gazette, the editors are quite prickly about this. There is no sense of "oh this'll do", you have to get the RIGHT price for the hotel in midsummer, and use the photo of the actual beach you describe, not the one next door, and so on

    If you get this wrong readers get (justifiably) irritated, and make their irritation known. Indeed with the internet providing instant and often hostile feedback, as well as plentiful competitors to the newspapers, the pressure to get it right is probably greater than ever

    Do journalists make mistakes nonetheless? Of course, they are human and often hard pressed

    I would add one caveat, the one place I do see lots of inexplicable errors is British TV news journalism, especially in the BBC. I dunno why. Lack of competition?
    Nope; if journalists write bollocks and their audience enjoys it, why would they stop? Only if it directly affects them - so a travel journalist writing bollocks can, as you say, get found out. Someone writing on economics, or politics, or especially a scientific area - where are they going to get called out by the readership?

    The criterion is whether or not it sells, not whether or not it's accurate. Pandering to prejudices gets sales, so if a journalist finds a home where their own prejudices chime with the readership, they're home and hosed. If pandering to prejudices causes obvious issues (travel journalist), then they will have to adjust. If it's an area where they can just keep going, they're just going to keep going. Even if it's harmful misinformation.

    Accuracy is out to one side.

    The article in question - if people look in and work out whether or not it's accurate, then they might raise issues. How many of the Telegraph's readership are going to do that? The retired ones won't be affected. Those working might simply believe it without checking. Hell, we've seen things circulating online and outright believed where simply clicking through the link disproves it, and the vast majority never even bother with that.

    To get sales and readership: Make it simple, put in a bad guy, try to get a three act structure and, for God's sake, say what your readership want to believe.
    Indeed: the on-line news organisations like Slate or the Washington Free Beacon (and even frankly, the NY Times and Fox News's websites), all run off a business model where journalists are graded in real time on how many times their stories are tweeted, shared, etc. Engagement is in. Facts are out. You make more money from riling up your supporters than being accurate.

    But you're not a journalist and I am, and I spend half my time with other journalists - and I do not recognise this, at least as regards UK newspapers

    Editors care about accuracy, still. Quite a lot. You'd be surprised. They hate getting a reputation for sloppiness and they will crack down on hacks that are sloppy. Professional pride

    But of course mistakes are made, constantly. Journalism is the first draft of history

    I suspect you are referring more to think pieces, op eds, columns, which are opinions (sometimes opinions gussied up as facts); there you are right. You are definitely encouraged to be as clickbaity as possible, and the truth is much less important. But that was always the case. The Daily Express of the 1930s - the best selling paper in the world- was full of daft but provocative opinions
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,618
    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    I found that if you use a really heavy duty garlic crusher, you don’t need to peel the garlic. While clove goes in, crush, open, flick the skin etc out with the tip of a knife…

    Needs a bit of strength, though. And will destroy a flimsy garlic crusher.

  • Foxy said:

    Hilarious if Sunak wins.

    Not that it is going to happen, but real cat amongst the pigeons stuff!

    I will die laughing.

    Please don't do that !!!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    The perfect five minute meal is the egg and cheese sandwich I posted the other day.

    Two eggs. Whip Em and add a bit of salt and pepper. Put them in a frying pan. Let them turn into an omlette.

    While that's happening, butter the tops of two slices of bread. Put one of them on top of the omlette so the butter side is facing up.

    Now flip the omlette so the buttered side of the bread is in the pan.

    Place some nice gruyere (grated or sliced) on top of the egg over the bread. Fold the omlette in, so it covers the cheese.

    Put the other slice of bread (butter side up) on top.

    Turn it over when the bread starts to brown.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ECnhswAnxc
  • Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    I squash the clove under the flat side of the knife so that the skin comes off easily, cut off the hard bit at the bottom, slice once or twice through the thinnest dimension then lay flat and slice lengthways then, holding it together loosely, slice across. I guess the only "technique" here is to slice it along the dimension requiring fewest cuts first and the one needing the most cuts last. This gives you diced garlic pieces about 2mm cubes. It is fairly quick.
    If you are doing absolutely loads an alternative is to crush in a pestle and mortar. This is what my wife does if she's making curry, for instance. Remove skins first, obvs.
  • I've spared you all my tomato reports for a couple of weeks, but all of this food talk's got me going.. The red plant has slowed down a bit, but the orange and yellow are still going strong. I picked another kilo this morning, and yesterday cooked three kilos of tomatoes with two kilos of beef short rib, a litre of beef stock, a kilo of onions and two bulbs of garlic and loads of oregano and black pepper. This is it before I took the bones out



  • boulay said:

    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til
    the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    Not sure if this is quick and easy enough for you but I get the cloves I’m using, place them on chopping board and smash with the side of a heavy knife with your weight on the other side of the blade.

    The skins then come off easily as broken and the actual clove is already largely split reducing the amount of chopping.

    If you don’t want to cut at all just keep using the side of the blade to grind into a paste using hand pressure on the upper side of blade.
    It is a gimmick, but these tube things really do peel garlic easily and almost instantaneously: https://www.procook.co.uk/product/procook-colourpro-garlic-peeler-green?gcshp=1&fo_c=1344&fo_k=0a477c998d04094c3de525df904da383&fo_s=gplauk&gclid=CjwKCAjwvNaYBhA3EiwACgndgsLlUp-GNVgJRA_AXIEnSfiX11k456N2HIT_2onM33QRpkaA_ME1OhoCR9gQAvD_BwE

    But yeh, for chopping, flat of the knife then chop it up for me.

    I have the *best* *ever* *tin-opener* btw:

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Can-Opener-Ever-Industrial/dp/B07WLKR7R6/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1DZKMJ8DGHV0Q&keywords=tin+opener+best+ever&qid=1662376941&sprefix=tin+opener+best+ever,aps,116&sr=8-6

    It actually opens the tin the way the tin was made, unpeeling it so you're left with a top that goes on like a lid, no sharp edges either on lid or tin (so you can lick your lid if the fancy takes you). Buy one.

  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kjh said:

    Well that was fun last night landing in fork lightning and the most enormous hail storm and turbulence and flying around in it for ages while the pilot plucked up the courage to land.

    And for Leon's benefit we saw a whole fleet of aliens at the same time. Dozens of red dots neatly lined up vertically and horizontally in the sky in the distance. Took awhile to work out what the hell it could be. Decided we could not actually tell where the horizon was in the dark and flying around low it was much higher than we thought and that these were the lights on the top of windmills in the distance out at sea. Really looked odd. They looked quite high up in the sky.

    Gatwick? If so that’s the Rampion wind farm.
    Yes Gatwick. It was one hell of a storm last night. The M23/25 was scary also. Short lived though.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    Alternatively, just stuff a chicken with the whole garlic bulb....
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Leon said:



    @NickPalmer may have come up with the most controversial opinion of his PB career. "I never bother cooking for more than 10 minutes"

    !!!!

    I don't think I've ever cooked anything. Food is just fuel for cycling and to be highly optimised toward that end.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,246

    Leon said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    I was so chastened by the harsh PB critique of my pre-grated Parmesan habit, I went and bought a grater

    True story

    I actually quite enjoy the grating rigmarole now, and do it with a certain Italian flourish, like I am head waiter at the Gritti Palace

    As a man ages, he must take his furtive pleasures where he can

    You can tell a man is single if he can grate a big block of cheese in under 10 seconds.

    I reckon you can grate a big block of parmesan under 2 seconds.
    I was watching a cookery youtube video a while back and the chef put the box grater flat on the surface (open end away from him) then started grating by just pushing the cheese against it. Half the effort and twice as quick.

    I guess a similar principle to below. Probably the oldest thing in my kitchen (apart from me) and still works a treat.


    If you - or any PB-er - can give me a quick easy way to peel and slice/crush garlic I will fiercely support Scottish independence til the end of time. None of the gimmicky tricks work, and garlic crushers don't do it properly, and are messy and annoying. Jamie Oliver says prepping garlic is his least favourite task, and reminds him of nightmare hours doing it as a trainee chef at the River Cafe

    I know what he means
    I squash the clove under the flat side of the knife so that the skin comes off easily, cut off the hard bit at the bottom, slice once or twice through the thinnest dimension then lay flat and slice lengthways then, holding it together loosely, slice across. I guess the only "technique" here is to slice it along the dimension requiring fewest cuts first and the one needing the most cuts last. This gives you diced garlic pieces about 2mm cubes. It is fairly quick.
    If you are doing absolutely loads an alternative is to crush in a pestle and mortar. This is what my wife does if she's making curry, for instance. Remove skins first, obvs.
    Definitely need to try this knife-crushing thing. Ta. It's the skin peeling bit that drives me nuts. You get papery-sticky bits of garlic skin on your fingers. Drives me nuts
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    Watching the BBCs coverage of the grand reveal, I'd just like to say I'd love it to be Rishi. Not because I think he'd be better, but just because so many of the presenters are assuming it'll be Truss. We'll need to double national electricity consumption to cook the omelette made from all the egg scraped off their faces. ;)

    But it'll be Truss...

    I'd imagine the shock would be similar to 2016. I'll never forget turning on the TV the morning after the ref, and the shock was still obvious on the BBC journo's.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited September 2022

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    eek said:

    This is a rough(ish) guide to energy costs assuming the October prices take effect
    Usages costs at 52p per kwh

    I'm surprised the oven uses less energy per hour than a hob ring. I guess things usually take longer in the oven tho. But if you can fill it with meals you can microwave later that could make savings.
    Oven pretty low energy draw once it's up to temperature, I should think (which takes, what, 10 minutes or so?). At that point the thermostat cycles the element on and off as needed, so there are quite some periods when the energy draw is near zero. We've got a new oven in last few weeks as part of kitchen/extension work and it really is almost cool to touch even in use - as with everything else I guess the insulation has got much better. Of course, the thing being cooked is an energy sink too.

    Traditional hob is losing energy to the air (or to the pan which loses it to the air) all the time. Induction similar, although without the direct hob to air energy transfer.
    You can transfer a lot of stuff done on the hob to a microwave with little effort.

    Eg, you can perfectly adequately steam/boil veg/rice with the correct tool. Much more energy efficient.
    Risotto in the microwave is dead easy and quick.
    What kind of witchcraft is this? Risotto isn't meant to be quick. It's meant to be a labour of love.
    Risotto in the microwave has two huge advantages - it's quick so I can cook a healthy and tasty family meal from scratch in 40 minutes after getting home from work. But more importantly, it really triggers precious foodie types.
    You don't need a microwave

    This is an absolutely magnificent risotto recipe which takes about 30 minutes


    https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto

    But follow the tips in the comments and amp up the flavour: add garlic and cracked black pepper at the start, chuck in a glass of white wine early on, replace spinach with cavolo nero or rocket, grate some parmesan at the end

    I also add dashi powder in my fish stock

    Honestly, it's fabulous. I did an enormous amount of cooking during lockdown, like so many of us, and this is the single best recipe I discovered, partly because it is so delish, but also coz it's so easy (but you do need to add those flavours)
    ‘grate some parmesan at the end’

    Lol
    30 minutes preparing a meal? Haven't spent more than 10 for years, except when having guests. As it generally only takes 10 minutes to eat a dish, spending longer than that preparing it just feels like a waste of time when I could be...er...posting on PB.
    Your puritan attitude to life is sometimes quite odd

    Have you not considered that cooking itself can be a pleasure? Especially if you use your brain all day, even more so if you are sitting at a screen using that brain - suddenly you are using your hands and your senses: sniffing, tasting, weighing. It's sensuous and fulfilling, and it's also fun to experiment with new dishes, ingredients, cuisines

    The other day I used whole fennel for the first time, making acqua pazza. The result was pretty crap (maybe I did it wrong) but I still had fun and learned something

    Cooking is even more fun if you add gin and tonic, and some music

    Recall that you only just discovered you quite like art and theatre. This might be another discovery
    Cooking a roast, for example, is a piece of piss. But you cant do it in 10 minutes, nor is it 'fancy'.
    In fact, unless youre living on ready meals 10 minutes is 'not enough time'
    It depends, are you counting prep time only or cook time too? Because you don't need to stay in the kitchen while food is cooking.

    It's absolutely possible to do a roast in 10 minutes of prep time.
    I suppose if youre cheating with Aunt Bessie it is, but youre not telling me that peeling, chopping, par boiling etc etc can be done in 10 minutes? And obviously youve got gravy, carving, bringing to the boil and putting to simmer etc etc
    No I'm counting Aunt Bessie etc as cooking.

    If like Nick you're not that into cooking then taking Aunt Bessie food out of the freezer and putting it in the oven means you can spend about ten minutes in a kitchen and cook a full roast.
    Yeah, its a ready meal. Its not what i'm calling a roast though. Any more than a mock tudor house was built in 1540
    Yes, that is really NOT a roast. That's a TV dinner. Ugh
    The limited effort in doing it from scratch more than pays for itself. A bit of work on the meat, roasties, gravy and yorkshires and, sure, you can short cut the minor veg and boil and/or steam them together.
    Aunt Bessie was a lazy old tart in life clearly. Too busy shagging the mill owner to cook a proper dinner for the family
    This is why people who love to cook and people who don't like to spend a lot of time cooking can talk past each other.

    Aunt Bessie style food isn't microwave muck and if you're not interested in spending lots of time in the kitchen then putting that in the oven to roast is far superior to putting a frozen meal in the microwave.

    Oddly the first time we went for a full Aunt Bessie style roast was for Christmas dinner in 2020 during lockdown. My wife and I decided that since it was just the four of us we'd still like to have all the trimmings but wanted to spend the day with the girls and not in the kitchen.

    Others may look down upon that but it was not a choice I regret at all. Since then we still sometimes go through the faff of par boiling etc but most of the time don't bother. I cook the Sunday Roast most weeks and the family like it and its more time as a family doing other stuff instead of in the kitchen.
    If youre not interested in cooking then sure. I've once tried her yorkshires. I wasnt impressed. I enjoy cooking though.
    I don't like her Yorkshire's either. In fact I don't like her brand in general, but that style of food can be good. I find supermarkets own brand premium ranges are better than that brand. But I make the Yorkshire fresh even if using pre made roasties etc

    Too many people in this country never cook. Never switch on the oven.

    Mocking Aunt Bessie's etc as not real cooking is like mocking Harry Potter etc as not real reading. For people who don't like to cook, if that gets them into the kitchen it's better than nothing, like reading fiction or fantasy is better than nothing. And it might lead on later on for more adventurous cooking or even a love of cooking later on, just as can happen with reading.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 2,995
    You gotta chop garlic. Earn it. It's not that difficult, just keep your knife sharp.

    The only way round this is when you're roasting the cloves whole.
This discussion has been closed.