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My garden 2013 – a review

December 17, 2013 Chris Malme 0

It hasn’t been a very productive year this year. It was nothing to do with the weather, or soil conditions; it was simply a case of procrastination and laziness, and not getting things into the earth when I needed to. It’s true that the late spring threw me, but I have nothing to blame but myself. I’ve just annoyed myself by walking around the garden, and thinking what I could have planted to over-winter.

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Quick and tasty beef stew

December 7, 2013 Chris Malme 0

I am working this afternoon, and having got back from the shops I have only an hour to have lunch and relax before starting a job that is not going to give me much time for breaks for the rest of the afternoon, and possibly the day.

This is how I cook

December 3, 2013 Chris Malme 1

There has been some conversations amongst my Facebook friends recently, about slow cooker recipes. Although I follow recipes for bread and cakes and similar, for slow cooking (and to a certain extent, BBQ) I tend to wing it. This is how I cook – my culinary life runs on substitutions, approximations and lots of “that will probably work”.

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Another slow cooker

November 27, 2013 Chris Malme 1

I love slow cookers, they are a very easy way to turn cheap cuts of meat into deliciousness, and because the cooking is so gentle, it is almost impossible to spoil something by overcooking it.

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A brush with danger

November 14, 2013 Chris Malme 0

It is important to keep your grill surface clean. I used to use a wire brush, like most people, but it seemed to me that they soon got very tired and flat looking. For the last year or two, I have instead used a ball of ordinary alumunium foil. It gets the grill grate nice and clean, and you just throw it away afterwards.

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Cold Smoked Olive Oil

October 29, 2013 Chris Malme 0

In May, I tried smoking some olive oil, using oak. I poured a 500ml bottle into a very shallow bowl, and placed it on the bottom rack of my cold smoker, while I also smoked some cheese and butter. It was probably smoking for 6-8 hours.

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AllTheCooks App

October 20, 2013 Chris Malme 0

I’ve been playing with the Android allthecooks recipe app over the weekend, and it looks quite fun. Thousands of recipes, and an easy way of turning recipes you select into shopping lists.