Courgetti Pollocknese*

*does not contain Pollock**

** unless you want it to.

This is a recipe I originally put up on a popular recipe site, but they changed a few bits, including the name, so here it is again...

This is a dish the kids love - particularly the name of it. Courgette with Sardines in Tomato Sauce is not going to set their taste buds tingling. It's a very loose version of Spaghetti Bolognese (bearing as much resemblance to  Spaghetti Bolognese as "Spaghetti Bolognese" does to the true Italian Ragu). The kids enjoy my normal bolognese, but I wanted a version which was healthier for them. As a result, it has no meat, and instead uses oily fish. It is low on carbs (except for a spoonful of sugar to tone down the tomatoes), replacing the pasta with julienne or spiralised courgette. 

If you don't like sardines, try another oily fish. Salmon will work (cook it first, flake it up, and add it after the passata and before the courgette to re-heat it).

Pollock may also work. So I'm keeping the name. (They don't have a similar problem with Toad in the Hole or Spotted Dick.)

I would say this serves 2 adults, and in total takes around 25 mins to prepare and cook.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, sliced

2 anchovy fillets (in oil)

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

3 tins sardines in olive oil, drained

500g passata

4 medium courgettes

1 handful fresh basil leaves, torn

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon sugar

Black pepper 

Method

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan, and add the sliced onions. Gently cook until they start to soften or become translucent.

2. Add the anchovies and stir to break them up. Let them dissolve. Anchovies in oil have already been filleted, which is why I tend to use them. Add the garlic and stir for one more minute.

3. Add the sardines to the pan, breaking them up, then add the passata, basil leaves, oregano and sugar. Leave to gently simmer while you prepare the courgette.

4. Using a julienne peeler, peel the courgettes down to the seeds to produce long thin pieces of courgette, resembling spaghetti. Pat them dry if necessary.

5. Add the remaining oil to a second frying pan, and add the courgette spaghetti. Stir fry it for 4 to 5 minutes. Once it's ready, add it to the tomato and sardine mixture.

6. Heat it for a few more minutes combining it with the sauce, add black pepper to taste, and serve.

Practika MTL3 - results

I've finally got round to getting the film developed from my tests with the camera, and the results were very good. Using the replacement battery (a 1.5V V625 from Maplin), and the built in light meter produced a whole film of shots with pretty good exposures. Nothing was under or over exposed.





Unfortunately Jessops completely arsed up the developing of this (and four other films) leaving scratch marks and (inexplicably) fingerprints all over the negatives. As a result I may have more luck, with some of the photos, scanning in the print rather than the negative. A few of the photos towards the end of the spool showed signs of light leakage, so this is something I will have to look into a bit more closely with the MTL3.

MTL3

I've been cleaning up the Praktica MTL3 I purchased on eBay sometime in 2007. It had a quick test at the time, but owing to the fact that the battery had run out I was unable to use the in-camera TTL light meter. As a result I used an old Russian Leningrad 7 light meter, which being a selenium meter, does not require batteries.



The results of the test weren't too bad and I got some passable photographs. The mechanics of the camera are sound, which is not too surprising. the MTL3 might be around 30 years old, but East German Prakticas were built to last, using metal shutters which still give a hefty clunk when operated. The problem with the battery is that since it is a mercury battery (a PX625 1.35V button cell) they aren't produced anymore.



I've found, however, that Maplin are selling what they call a PX625 replacement: the V625 alkaline. It's not necessarily a direct replacement. The PX625 is 1.35V and the V625 is 1.5V. The metering circuit in the MTL3 is a bridge circuit, so I'm pretty confident that this will balance itself and be voltage independent. The best way to find out is to try it, so I've loaded up some 400ISO black and white film (normally use Ilford, but Kodak was on offer) and I'll see what results. If the film comes out over or underexposed, I should be able to knock the ISO setting up (or down) a few stops to compensate.

Mark Thomas: It's the Stupid Economy

I've been listening to the Mark Thomas podcasts for the last few months, which discuss the state of the economy, the inequality of taxation (i.e. the rich pay accountants to get out of it, and us mugs at the bottom pay for it - or they just move to Switzerland and only come to the UK to test a fast car and winge), and how in his words the UK is "up a Creek called Shit". The podcasts feature interviews with a range of people who actually know what they are talking about, and are worth listening to. All kinds of interesting snippets come up, such as the fact that the Inland Revenue rent their building from a company registered offshore, who therefore do not pay the IR any tax. Only this government could manage that.

We went to see his show at The Stables last week, and it was a thoroughly entertaining evening. The general premise of the show revolves around him creating a People's Manifesto: each audience comes up with a policy, and he tries to push it through (within limits: the fluorescent additive in dog food to make glow in the dark dog crap, to help avoid nasty nocturnal night-soiling of your shoes, did not make it in).

Milton Keynes opted for:

To replace organ donor cards with an opt out scheme. It will automatically be assumed that people consent to donating their organs on death and those who do not wish to do so should carry a card or sign a register to indicate their wishes.

Much as I like this, I prefer Huddersfield's:

Margaret Thatcher should pay for her own funeral.

...although that does spoil my wish to see her to be shot out of a cannon into the Thames...

The shows look like they will be a run up to a Radio 4 programme, so I look forward to hearing the full range of often weird and sometimes wonderful suggestions. We met Mark after the show for a book signing and were pleasantly surprised that he's actually a nice bloke, very chatty, and happy to rant with the wife about banks. It's also nice to find someone who is passionate about correcting injustice. His website is worth a look through, and if you get the chance to (and have something to say about the current state of affairs), go to the show.

Spicy Goat

We finally got hold of some goat, from the garden centre of all places (which apparently is branching out into sourcing a lot of local produce). It is apparently a very healthy cut of meat, though that wasn't especially clear from the cuts we got. Still, if the meat proves popular, they may get a better choice of cuts in. The meat tends to come from Woburn, and they always have a nice range of gamey produce, and the cheaper cuts make a really nice stew. With the goat though, I figured I'd do a curry. The recipe I used was pinched from the Cumbrian Goat Experience; I halved it, adapted it slightly to what was in the fridge, and did it in the slow cooker (8 hours on high) rather than the oven.

Ingredients:
2 Chops of Stewing Goat (bones removed, and roughly diced)
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
0.5 tbsp ground cardamom
0.5 tsp ground ginger
0.5 tsp hot paprika
1" cinnamon stick
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 sliced carrot
1 diced onion
1 sliced leek
100ml white wine
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Water
Salt and pepper Vegetable oil.

Guidelines:

1) Coat the goat meat with the spices. Turn the slow cooker on high.
2) Fry the garlic, onions, carrots and leek for a few minutes until softened.
3) Add any left over spices and fry for a couple more minutes.
4) Transfer to your slow cooker.
5) Brown the goat meat quickly in it, in small batches and add to the vegetables.
6) Pour the wine into the frying pan to de-glaze, then add it to the meat
7) Add the chopped tomatoes and some water.
8) Cook for around 8 hours on high.

The recipe worked well, and tasted fantastic. In future I would use half the cardamom, and add a teaspoon of turmeric. I'd also not add any water, and thicken with tomato purée about an hour before serving. Eight hours is easily sufficient to make the goat meat very tender, and It just fell apart. I served it with cous cous, and it is something I will definitely try again.

DIY Polariser

I've been getting bored with some of the macro shots I've been taking recently. After I built the ringlight I was able to get some really cool close ups with some interesting lighting patterns. With this in mind I put together a really simple cross polariser. The result of my first set of shots with this setup is below - a photo of a CD tray.



The making of this photo is incredibly simple, and all you need is two polarising filters. One is on the camera, and relatively speaking this is the cheap one. The other goes behind the object you are photographing, with a fairly bright light source behind that. So, the polariser between the light source and the object needs to be bigger. Polarising film is not too cheap, but luckily I was given an old broken laptop a while back.

An LCD screen uses polarised light in order to work, and therefore has a polarising film built in. I stripped away the casing and was left with a bare screen made up of several bits of plastic (LCD screen, a few clear magnifiers etc, a clear piece of nice solid acrylic); unfortunately the polariser was stuck to the LCD screen, and as shown in the photo below needed to be pulled away...



After removing the polarising film, I did spend a while trying to remove the sticky residue and flatten it out, before realising it would be much simpler to stick it down to the nice and rigid piece of acrylic which also came out of the screen.



After that, it was just a quick job to set up a bright light below the polariser, and take a few photos of various bits of plastic.

Lake District

Back after a short break to the Lake District. We drove up to Ambleside on Thursday, aiming to have a quiet relaxing time. After Jane fell down the stairs the other week, damaging her ankle ligaments, and I'm only recently recovered from the ME, we took it easy at first by climbing the 482m peak of Wansfell Pike, which is currently topped with a nice example of rock balancing.



Owing to a slight bit of confusion as to who was taking the food, we only had a packet of raisins and a nutrigrain each. Still - we were up and down within about 4 hours, still not especially hungry but thankful we took plenty of water and warm clothing. In the town it was warm, and at the top (even at such a low level) it was bloody cold.

The following day consisted of an attempt to walk from Ambleside to Windermere. Although it is a relatively short distance (of the order of 6 miles), it proved so unpleasant due to the car fumes, bad state of repair of the pavements, and obnoxious arrogance of pavement-cyclists that we turned back after 3 miles. Much of the lakeside on this route is on private land, and the roadway you pretty much have to follow deviates from the water.

That was the only disappointment though - and hopefully we'll go back sometime soon and climb something a little bigger.