Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Frogger
Had the urge to draw last night so I drew what I saw. On the headboard of my bed there is a little plushy frog that has magnets in his feet so he can hug things. I got him for Christmas many many years ago and ever since I got this bed he has hugged the bars and watched over my at night. So I decided to draw him. It's not very good but i figure if i keep drawing what I see eventually I will draw something worth seeing.
~(' ')~
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Knight Rider
So for my birthday one of my friends got me a soldering iron so I was finally able to dismantle a bunch of LEDs that Talia had given to by several months ago. The fun part was that this gave me enough LEDs to do my next electronics project. It was another fairly simple project that just turned on one of 10 leds in a row producing an effect similar to the one for the knightrider car KITT (yes, I'm that old).
Code:
int ledPins[] = {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11};
int currentLED = 0;
int dir = 1;
int ledDelay = 65;
void setup()
{
for(currentLED = 0; currentLED < 10; currentLED++)
{
pinMode(ledPins[currentLED], OUTPUT);
}
currentLED = 0;
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPins[currentLED], HIGH);
delay(ledDelay);
digitalWrite(ledPins[currentLED], LOW);
currentLED = currentLED + dir;
if(currentLED == 9)
{
dir = -1;
}
if(currentLED == 0)
{
dir = 1;
}
}
Code:
int ledPins[] = {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11};
int currentLED = 0;
int dir = 1;
int ledDelay = 65;
void setup()
{
for(currentLED = 0; currentLED < 10; currentLED++)
{
pinMode(ledPins[currentLED], OUTPUT);
}
currentLED = 0;
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPins[currentLED], HIGH);
delay(ledDelay);
digitalWrite(ledPins[currentLED], LOW);
currentLED = currentLED + dir;
if(currentLED == 9)
{
dir = -1;
}
if(currentLED == 0)
{
dir = 1;
}
}
Nothings really that complicated. Used an array to save all the pin numbers, and an index to point to the current led. Sadly I didn't have enough wires to connect things properly (I really need to get some wire strippers and a big spool of solid core wire) so I improvised a little with the ground wires :)
~(' ')~
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Dash Dash Dash Dot Dot Dot Dash Dash Dash....
So I was reading through a new arduino book (Beginning Arduino Michael McRoberts) that I found online through my school library and the second project they talk about is an SOS morse code blinking LED. Pretty simple. I'm not a huge fan of simple, I like interesting times. So I decided to skip what the book wanted me to do and make my own general morse code blinker.
First, the circuit. Its pretty simple, just an LED connected to pin 2 of the arduino, it has a 220 ohm resister to protect the led.
The fun part was the code. I wanted it to be able to display any message typed into the computer. So first I defined what a dash and a dot are. Thank you Wikipedia :) Then its some quick and dirty letter conversions and a loop to read in data from the serial port and we are off
Code:
/**
* Author: John Stemberger
* Date: December 18, 2011
* Description: A morse code blinker. This will blink a sentence in Morse code. The sentence will either be the defualt sentence (SOS) or a sentence read in from the serial connection if one exists
**/
char sentence[255] = "SOS\0";
int ledPin = 2;
int counter = 0;
int dotLength = 100;
void setup()
{
// set up the pin
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// setup serial connection to the computer to read the sentence
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void dot()
{
Serial.print("DOT ");
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
delay(dotLength);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
delay(dotLength);
}
void dash()
{
Serial.print("DASH ");
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
delay(3*dotLength);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
delay(dotLength);
}
void displayLetter(char letter)
{
// 1. a dash is equal to 3 dots
// 2. the space between parts of the same letter is eual to one dot
// 3. the space between two letters is equal to three dots
// 4. the space between 2 words is equal to 7 dots
switch(letter)
{
case 'A':
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'B':
break;
case 'C':
dash();
dot();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'D':
dash();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'E':
dot();
break;
case 'F':
dot();
dot();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'G':
dash();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'H':
dot();
dot();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'I':
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'J':
dot();
dash();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'K':
dash();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'L':
dot();
dash();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'M':
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'N':
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'O':
dash();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'P':
dot();
dash();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'Q':
dash();
dash();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'R':
dot();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'S':
dot();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'T':
dash();
break;
case 'U':
dot();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'V':
dot();
dot();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'W':
dot();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'X':
dash();
dot();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'Y':
dash();
dot();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'Z':
dash();
dash();
dot();
dot();
break;
case ' ':
// spaces will have 3 dots before it, and 2 dots after (from the pervious letter and the end of this letter) so the space will need 2
extra dots to make a total of 7
delay(2*dotLength);
break;
default:
Serial.print("unknown letter [");
Serial.print(letter);
Serial.println("]");
}
delay(2*dotLength);// the space between letters is 3 dots but the end of the last part of the letter will have a 1 dot delay (to finish that letter) so
e only do 2 dots here.
}
void loop()
{
if(Serial.available())
{
counter = 0;
while(Serial.available())
{
// get the new sentence
sentence[counter] = Serial.read();
if(sentence[counter] >= 'a' && sentence[counter] <= 'z')
{
sentence[counter] = sentence[counter] - 'a' + 'A';
}
if((sentence[counter] < 'A' || sentence[counter] > 'Z') && sentence[counter] != ' ')
{
Serial.println('non valid letter, replacing with space');
sentence[counter] = ' ';
}
counter++;
if(counter > 254)
{
// we have hit the limit of our sentence so abport
Serial.println("Sentence is too long, ignoring the rest.");
break;
}
}// end while we have available data on the serial port
sentence[counter] = '\0';
Serial.flush();
}// end if
// if there is nothing available (we havent gotten anything) then display the currect message
// echo it out to the serial port
Serial.print("Displaying code for: ");
Serial.println(sentence);
counter = 0;
while(sentence[counter] != '\0')
{
Serial.print(sentence[counter]);
Serial.print("- ");
displayLetter(sentence[counter]);
counter++;
}
Serial.println("\nEnd message");
delay(500);
}
First, the circuit. Its pretty simple, just an LED connected to pin 2 of the arduino, it has a 220 ohm resister to protect the led.
The fun part was the code. I wanted it to be able to display any message typed into the computer. So first I defined what a dash and a dot are. Thank you Wikipedia :) Then its some quick and dirty letter conversions and a loop to read in data from the serial port and we are off
Code:
/**
* Author: John Stemberger
* Date: December 18, 2011
* Description: A morse code blinker. This will blink a sentence in Morse code. The sentence will either be the defualt sentence (SOS) or a sentence read in from the serial connection if one exists
**/
char sentence[255] = "SOS\0";
int ledPin = 2;
int counter = 0;
int dotLength = 100;
void setup()
{
// set up the pin
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// setup serial connection to the computer to read the sentence
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void dot()
{
Serial.print("DOT ");
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
delay(dotLength);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
delay(dotLength);
}
void dash()
{
Serial.print("DASH ");
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
delay(3*dotLength);
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
delay(dotLength);
}
void displayLetter(char letter)
{
// 1. a dash is equal to 3 dots
// 2. the space between parts of the same letter is eual to one dot
// 3. the space between two letters is equal to three dots
// 4. the space between 2 words is equal to 7 dots
switch(letter)
{
case 'A':
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'B':
break;
case 'C':
dash();
dot();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'D':
dash();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'E':
dot();
break;
case 'F':
dot();
dot();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'G':
dash();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'H':
dot();
dot();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'I':
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'J':
dot();
dash();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'K':
dash();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'L':
dot();
dash();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'M':
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'N':
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'O':
dash();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'P':
dot();
dash();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'Q':
dash();
dash();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'R':
dot();
dash();
dot();
break;
case 'S':
dot();
dot();
dot();
break;
case 'T':
dash();
break;
case 'U':
dot();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'V':
dot();
dot();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'W':
dot();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'X':
dash();
dot();
dot();
dash();
break;
case 'Y':
dash();
dot();
dash();
dash();
break;
case 'Z':
dash();
dash();
dot();
dot();
break;
case ' ':
// spaces will have 3 dots before it, and 2 dots after (from the pervious letter and the end of this letter) so the space will need 2
extra dots to make a total of 7
delay(2*dotLength);
break;
default:
Serial.print("unknown letter [");
Serial.print(letter);
Serial.println("]");
}
delay(2*dotLength);// the space between letters is 3 dots but the end of the last part of the letter will have a 1 dot delay (to finish that letter) so
e only do 2 dots here.
}
void loop()
{
if(Serial.available())
{
counter = 0;
while(Serial.available())
{
// get the new sentence
sentence[counter] = Serial.read();
if(sentence[counter] >= 'a' && sentence[counter] <= 'z')
{
sentence[counter] = sentence[counter] - 'a' + 'A';
}
if((sentence[counter] < 'A' || sentence[counter] > 'Z') && sentence[counter] != ' ')
{
Serial.println('non valid letter, replacing with space');
sentence[counter] = ' ';
}
counter++;
if(counter > 254)
{
// we have hit the limit of our sentence so abport
Serial.println("Sentence is too long, ignoring the rest.");
break;
}
}// end while we have available data on the serial port
sentence[counter] = '\0';
Serial.flush();
}// end if
// if there is nothing available (we havent gotten anything) then display the currect message
// echo it out to the serial port
Serial.print("Displaying code for: ");
Serial.println(sentence);
counter = 0;
while(sentence[counter] != '\0')
{
Serial.print(sentence[counter]);
Serial.print("- ");
displayLetter(sentence[counter]);
counter++;
}
Serial.println("\nEnd message");
delay(500);
}
~(' ')~
pizza pizza
So last night Talia requested some pizza and I was more than willing to provide. Until last night pizza has always been a several hour endeavour because we always made small personal pizzas which each take 15 minutes to cook and even longer to decorate so I wasn't really feeling like that much work. I also had a new recipe for pizza dough that I wanted to try out so I was excited. This recipe is almost the same as the old one except I add 4 Tbsp of olive oil to flavour the dough and I let to prove for an hour. Also, there was no added sugar because the yeast had time to prove the dough.
When I rolled out the pizza dough it was much bigger than the pizza pan I had so decided to make it a cheese stuffed crust pizza
In total the dough recipe made 2 full pizzas, a calzone and I have dough in the fridge for 1 more full pizza :)
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Reduce, Recycle, and of course.... REUSE!!!!!!
So I spent the better part of this morning carefully taking Talias old laptop apart to see if I could salvage any parts. Her laptop died a while ago (the graphics card melted) and she has wanted to take it apart for a while.
So I kept all of the pieces and screws, now I just have to figure out how to connect to all of these pieces. As an example of the times of pieces I salvages...
I'm going to slowly try and map out what all the pins are. I think I know which are the ground wires (there are 3 from what I can tell) and the LED wires, but I'm not 100% sure about them. I cant seem to find which cables are connected to the buttons but part of the problem is that my multimeter broke so I have to go and get it fixed before I can do much more :(
P.S. the LEDs are all blue
So I kept all of the pieces and screws, now I just have to figure out how to connect to all of these pieces. As an example of the times of pieces I salvages...
Wireless card. the black/white are where the antenna cables connect. You will see them in a bit
The bluetooth card. Cause everything is better with bluetooth
The monitor and several of the cables. The thick one is the monitor cable, I forget what the one above that is, but the top most cable is the antenna for the wireless
The power button circuit board. This is the smallest and simplest part so it is what I am going to be starting with.It has 12 cables, 7 LEDs, and 2 Buttons (a black and a grey one)
I'm going to slowly try and map out what all the pins are. I think I know which are the ground wires (there are 3 from what I can tell) and the LED wires, but I'm not 100% sure about them. I cant seem to find which cables are connected to the buttons but part of the problem is that my multimeter broke so I have to go and get it fixed before I can do much more :(
P.S. the LEDs are all blue
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Motor 1
So the other day I went out and bought a a couple of motors and servos to play with. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to play so today is the first day I got to.
I started off wanting to connect the motor to and h-bridge to let me run it in both directions but to do that I am told I need a capacitor and a diode which I unfortunately don't have. But I did have a transistor (NPN) so I could turn it on and off. To isolate the motor from the arduino I used an external power plug that is rated at 4.5V but when I tested it ran at 6.6V. The motor I got is actually a 12V motor but again, when I tested it the motor ran fine, if a little slow. So I wired everything up and found that I got.... NOTHING :(
So I started looking into why it wasn't working and it turns out that the transistor is chewing up too much voltage to run the motor (I think). When I measured the voltage coming out of the transistor it was only 3.3V. I'm not 100% sure about this because I also went and connected the power directly to the motor but with the multimeter in serial to the motor. It measured 6.6V but the motor still wouldn't run. So maybe its an amperage problem? I don't have any specifications on how much amperage the motor requires to run :(
~(' ')~
I started off wanting to connect the motor to and h-bridge to let me run it in both directions but to do that I am told I need a capacitor and a diode which I unfortunately don't have. But I did have a transistor (NPN) so I could turn it on and off. To isolate the motor from the arduino I used an external power plug that is rated at 4.5V but when I tested it ran at 6.6V. The motor I got is actually a 12V motor but again, when I tested it the motor ran fine, if a little slow. So I wired everything up and found that I got.... NOTHING :(
~(' ')~
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Zap Zap
So I have been drooling over this open source micro controller called the arduino for 2 weeks, and last night I finally went out with talia and got one :) along with a whole bunch of goodies like LEDs, resistors, and transisters
I spent a good 2 hours playing around with it and getting some LEDs to turn on and pulse and stuff.
First I simply wrote a piece of code to turn on the on-board LED every second for 1 second, then turn it off for 2 seconds
Code:
// this will be the pin for the onboard led :)
int ledPin1 = 13;
void setup()
{
pinMode(ledPin1, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPin1, HIGH); // turn the led on
delay(1000); // wait for 1S
digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW); // turn the led off
delay(2000); // wait for 2S
}
Then I plugged in an external LED into the same pin as the on-board LED and watched it blink along with the on-board LED (no pics, sorry)
Then I wanted to plug a whole bunch of LEDs into a breadboard and blink them using a different pin than the on-board LED. This required the addition of a resister. In this test I had 3 LEDs, the first is connected to the on-board LED and the other two are connected to 2 other pins using resisters. I wanted to explore what the difference would be with different resisters so I had 1 LED connected in series with a 470 ohm resister and the other with a 4.7k resister
Code:
// this will be the pin for the onboard led :)
int ledPin1 = 13;
int LEDPin2 = 2;// this will be the led with a 470 ohm resister
int LEDPin3 = 4;// this will be the led with a 4.7k ohm resister
void setup()
{
// set the onboard led pin to an output pin
pinMode(ledPin1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LEDPin2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LEDPin3, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPin1, HIGH); // turn the led on
// I want the new resister leds to blink out of phase with the onboard LED
digitalWrite(LEDPin2, LOW); // turn the led on
digitalWrite(LEDPin3, LOW); // turn the led on
delay(1000); // wait for 1S
digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW); // turn the led off
digitalWrite(LEDPin2, HIGH); // turn the led on
digitalWrite(LEDPin3, HIGH); // turn the led on
delay(2000); // wait for 2S
}
The final thing I wanted to do was have an LED pulse its brightness. I did that using a pulse width modulated digital pin which alters its voltage based on the the value you give it.
code:
int PMWLEDPin = 3;
void setup()
{
pinMode(PMWLEDPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
for(int i = 0;i <= 255; i = i + 10)
{
analogWrite(PMWLEDPin, i); // turn the led on
delay(10);
}
for(int i = 255;i >= 0; i = i - 10)
{
analogWrite(PMWLEDPin, i); // turn the led on
delay(10);
}
analogWrite(PMWLEDPin, 0);
delay(100);
}
I don't have pictures for that last one but it worked very nicely.
One of the things that I have noticed is that I have forgotten a LOT of my high school physics so I have to go and review all of that. If anyone can recommend a good webpage that goes over all of that basic stuff I would really appreciate it :)
As for the future, I have a couple projects in mind. I think I'm going to try and build a sentry gun from team fortress 2 :)
~(' ')~
I spent a good 2 hours playing around with it and getting some LEDs to turn on and pulse and stuff.
First I simply wrote a piece of code to turn on the on-board LED every second for 1 second, then turn it off for 2 seconds
Code:
// this will be the pin for the onboard led :)
int ledPin1 = 13;
void setup()
{
pinMode(ledPin1, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPin1, HIGH); // turn the led on
delay(1000); // wait for 1S
digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW); // turn the led off
delay(2000); // wait for 2S
}
Then I plugged in an external LED into the same pin as the on-board LED and watched it blink along with the on-board LED (no pics, sorry)
Then I wanted to plug a whole bunch of LEDs into a breadboard and blink them using a different pin than the on-board LED. This required the addition of a resister. In this test I had 3 LEDs, the first is connected to the on-board LED and the other two are connected to 2 other pins using resisters. I wanted to explore what the difference would be with different resisters so I had 1 LED connected in series with a 470 ohm resister and the other with a 4.7k resister
Code:
// this will be the pin for the onboard led :)
int ledPin1 = 13;
int LEDPin2 = 2;// this will be the led with a 470 ohm resister
int LEDPin3 = 4;// this will be the led with a 4.7k ohm resister
void setup()
{
// set the onboard led pin to an output pin
pinMode(ledPin1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LEDPin2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LEDPin3, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(ledPin1, HIGH); // turn the led on
// I want the new resister leds to blink out of phase with the onboard LED
digitalWrite(LEDPin2, LOW); // turn the led on
digitalWrite(LEDPin3, LOW); // turn the led on
delay(1000); // wait for 1S
digitalWrite(ledPin1, LOW); // turn the led off
digitalWrite(LEDPin2, HIGH); // turn the led on
digitalWrite(LEDPin3, HIGH); // turn the led on
delay(2000); // wait for 2S
}
The final thing I wanted to do was have an LED pulse its brightness. I did that using a pulse width modulated digital pin which alters its voltage based on the the value you give it.
code:
int PMWLEDPin = 3;
void setup()
{
pinMode(PMWLEDPin, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
for(int i = 0;i <= 255; i = i + 10)
{
analogWrite(PMWLEDPin, i); // turn the led on
delay(10);
}
for(int i = 255;i >= 0; i = i - 10)
{
analogWrite(PMWLEDPin, i); // turn the led on
delay(10);
}
analogWrite(PMWLEDPin, 0);
delay(100);
}
I don't have pictures for that last one but it worked very nicely.
One of the things that I have noticed is that I have forgotten a LOT of my high school physics so I have to go and review all of that. If anyone can recommend a good webpage that goes over all of that basic stuff I would really appreciate it :)
As for the future, I have a couple projects in mind. I think I'm going to try and build a sentry gun from team fortress 2 :)
~(' ')~
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Meringues
So as I mentioned in my previous post, I had some egg whites to use up and this was the perfect time to make some meringues. I followed the recipe from the Cook with Jamie recipe book but I cut the recipe in half (since I only had 3 egg whites left)
One thing that I have noticed with working with this book is that the size of the eggs seems to be a bit off. The recipe calls for 6 large egg whites but one of the tips was that 1 egg white should be about 1.5 oz. So this time I actually measured them out and it turns out that Canadian "Large" eggs aren't that large. They are about 1.3 oz instead.
So I modified the recipe with the amount of egg white that I had (1.5 oz egg to 1.75 oz sugar) and I started to whip the eggs.
Flash back to making mayo.... >.<
I really should get an electric mixing machine, but there is something I like about doing everything by hand the way it would have been done when the recipe was first created.
Anyway, after a good 20 minutes of whipping I finally added the sugar (with Talia's help :*) and off to the baking it went. As I write this it is still in the oven but hopefully it will taste great. It certainly looked good :)
~(' ')~
One thing that I have noticed with working with this book is that the size of the eggs seems to be a bit off. The recipe calls for 6 large egg whites but one of the tips was that 1 egg white should be about 1.5 oz. So this time I actually measured them out and it turns out that Canadian "Large" eggs aren't that large. They are about 1.3 oz instead.
So I modified the recipe with the amount of egg white that I had (1.5 oz egg to 1.75 oz sugar) and I started to whip the eggs.
Flash back to making mayo.... >.<
I really should get an electric mixing machine, but there is something I like about doing everything by hand the way it would have been done when the recipe was first created.
Anyway, after a good 20 minutes of whipping I finally added the sugar (with Talia's help :*) and off to the baking it went. As I write this it is still in the oven but hopefully it will taste great. It certainly looked good :)
~(' ')~
Tempura
So for last nights dinner I decided to make Japanese tempura. I have never made it so it was a bit of an adventure :)
For veggies I used some of the yams that came in last weeks box as well as the remaining radishes.
The batter consists of:
2 egg yokes (leave me egg whites for meringues)
200 mL of iced water ( I actually put mine in the freezer and let it partly freeze)
100 g sifted flour
After dipping the veggies into the mixed up batter and tossing it into the hot oil (325F) they come out looking something like this
I also made my own dipping sauce for the tempura out of dashi, soy sauce, and mirin boiled up together. Talia really liked the sauce.
The one problem I have with this is the amount of oil that is used up. I used more than 2 cups of oil and I`m not 100% sure I can reuse the oil for other things. I saved it just in case and I`ll give it a try next time I need to fry something.
~(' ')~
For veggies I used some of the yams that came in last weeks box as well as the remaining radishes.
The batter consists of:
2 egg yokes (leave me egg whites for meringues)
200 mL of iced water ( I actually put mine in the freezer and let it partly freeze)
100 g sifted flour
After dipping the veggies into the mixed up batter and tossing it into the hot oil (325F) they come out looking something like this
The one problem I have with this is the amount of oil that is used up. I used more than 2 cups of oil and I`m not 100% sure I can reuse the oil for other things. I saved it just in case and I`ll give it a try next time I need to fry something.
~(' ')~
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Pasta
So I was feeling really good today and so I left school early and went grocery shopping. But that's not really that interesting. What is interesting is that I got home early and so I decided to make some home made pasta. I started with the basic egg pasta recipe from my Jamie Oliver book but I didn't want that much pasta so I cut it down.
I also looked on the web for egg-less recipes so that next time I don't need to get eggs and throughout all of my readings I noticed that it's about 1 cup of flour to 1/2 cups of liquid. So that's the recipe I used tonight. So with the eggs that I was using it was about 2 eggs to get 1/2 cups of liquid (with a pinch of salt).
After mixing is all together and kneading it for a while it looked like this
I think the pasta was a little soggy but Talia really liked it. I cant wait until I get to try again. I'm gonna make ravioli if it kills me
~(' ')~
I also looked on the web for egg-less recipes so that next time I don't need to get eggs and throughout all of my readings I noticed that it's about 1 cup of flour to 1/2 cups of liquid. So that's the recipe I used tonight. So with the eggs that I was using it was about 2 eggs to get 1/2 cups of liquid (with a pinch of salt).
After mixing is all together and kneading it for a while it looked like this
It was at this point that I made a couple mistakes. At first I was going to make ravioli but after I rolled out the pasta with my pasta machine I started to notice that the dough was getting a little dry. Far to dry of me to make a filling and then still be able to use it. So, note to everyone who wants to make ravioli, make the filling first and the pasta after.
So about half of that ball went into the compost. On top of that, I had put a damp paper towel over top of the rest of the pasta while I worked the ravioli pasta, and it decided that it would stick to the pasta. As I didn't really feel like eating extra fibre pasta I chucked that part as well. So with a little less than half the dough I started again. This time I was doing okay. The pasta was working nicely and I managed to get it nice and thin.
I put it into a plastic bag so it wouldn't dry out too much while I made a quick sauce for it. I just did a simple tomato paste sauce with some basil, thyme, oregano, and parsley. I also tossed in some TVP and veggie mix that Talia had made for lunch today. I'm not 100% sure I know what was in it over than cauliflower and carrot but it tasted good.
Another thing to note is that putting fresh pasta into a bag is not the best idea. I had some trouble separating it in order to boil it and even more in order to try and mix it with the sauce.
I think the pasta was a little soggy but Talia really liked it. I cant wait until I get to try again. I'm gonna make ravioli if it kills me
~(' ')~
Monday, 14 November 2011
box projects
So last Thursday we received our second box of veggies. This time we requested only veggies rather than fruit and veg because we weren't impressed with the fruit. My parents also got their first box so they came over that Thursday to cook with Talia. They made a delicious red cabbage casserole, celery root fries, and guacamole.
The next Friday we went up to the cottage with my parents in order to cut some wood for winter so we didn't get a chance to make anything with our box of veg. So today was the first time we cracked into it. I decided for my first recipe with this box I was going to make some okonomiyaki. The last time I made it I tried to make it vegan and failed terribly. This time I said screw it and got some eggs.
Basic recipe:
1 egg
1 cup flour
3/4 cup water or Dashi
I used dashi for mine since we have powdered dashi for miso soups.
I also added some green onions and tofu chunks for a little more flavour. Finally we had a little pepperoni on top since it was also in the fridge.
The next Friday we went up to the cottage with my parents in order to cut some wood for winter so we didn't get a chance to make anything with our box of veg. So today was the first time we cracked into it. I decided for my first recipe with this box I was going to make some okonomiyaki. The last time I made it I tried to make it vegan and failed terribly. This time I said screw it and got some eggs.
Basic recipe:
1 egg
1 cup flour
3/4 cup water or Dashi
I used dashi for mine since we have powdered dashi for miso soups.
I also added some green onions and tofu chunks for a little more flavour. Finally we had a little pepperoni on top since it was also in the fridge.
You can't really see the tofu in this picture but its there in the middle. It turned out very nice. Talia was Very happy and asked for me to make some more for lunch tomorrow. Unfortunately it never tastes as good on the second day so I'm not going to bother. Instead I am making bread. Just a basic bread, but it was a special request from Talia so how could I say now?
~(' ')~
Thursday, 3 November 2011
updates updates updates
So it's been a while since I have updated so lots of things have happened.
First off, we finished out steampunk costumes mostly on time. My vest looked really nice. The pants were epic fail the first time but Talia quickly saved them with another pattern. Thankfully we had enough extra fabric to make it or it would have been bad. Sadly, after the party friday night we were all too tired on saturday to go and take pictures. But we agreed to take some pictures in the park this coming Sunday so stay tuned for pics of that.
The steampunk party itself was kind of mhe. The people were very friendly and nice, but the music was all over the place. The most fun of the night was when the belly dancers came on to perform. Their dancing was really nice, but the one lead girl.... WOW you could tell she had a major pushup bra on. To the point where it was comical.
So next thing. Our box of random veggies and fruits came. We were kind of disappointed with it to be honest so we have decided that for next week we are only going to get the veggies and no fruit. The total contents of the box were:
2 Avocados (Fairtrade, Mexico)
4 Beefsteak tomatoes (LFP, Waterford, ON)
4 Beets (TO)
1 package Cremini mushrooms (ON)
lots of Gourmet blend salad mix (TO)
couple leaves Hearty greens medley [chard, collards, kale] (TO)
5 Yellow Onions (ON)
4 Oranges (Calif.)
4 Bananas (Fairtrade, Ecuador)
Chase really liked the box :)
So we weren't really sure what to do with all of this so Talia looked up a really nice recipe for the beets. It also involved some onion and potato and was kind of a shredded veggie pancake or sorts. It was very delicious and my parents enjoyed it very much as well (they came to visit and look at our box).
All the random leaf veg we just tossed together and are slowly eating salads with them. The nice thing about this is that we have salads with different kinds of leaves. Normally when we make a salad it will only have romaine or iceberg lettuce and that`s it.
Oh, Talia also made a nice guacamole with the avocados and one of the tomatoes. That also went over really well with the parents and me. So well in fact that I ate the last of it this evening when I came home.
To accompany all of this I also made a nice loaf of bread which turned out perfect this time. Last time it didn't really rice that much and I left it for over an hour. This time it doubled in size in less than 40 minutes. I know have the perfect place to proof the bread; on top of the fridge where its warm. works perfect. So good in fact that after dinner My parents and us ate half of the batch I made. We were all so full after that we just lay in beanbag chairs and chatted for the rest of the night.
One other thing I tried out. Tonight I tried making Yorkshire puddings... which are not actually a pudding, its more of a bread or pancake that you bake in the oven. Sadly mine didn't turn out quite right. Instead of puffing up and being light and fluffy it turned kind of heavy and dense. I think its actually the eggs here. The recipe calls for 1 egg, but I think the eggs in Canada are smaller than the eggs in the UK or something. This is the second time that something like this has happened to me. I also think the reason the mayo attempts didnt work was because of the smaller egg yoke.
But I am not discouraged. I will try it again but I will had a little more milk to make it a little more watery like it was pictured in the book.
~(' ')~
First off, we finished out steampunk costumes mostly on time. My vest looked really nice. The pants were epic fail the first time but Talia quickly saved them with another pattern. Thankfully we had enough extra fabric to make it or it would have been bad. Sadly, after the party friday night we were all too tired on saturday to go and take pictures. But we agreed to take some pictures in the park this coming Sunday so stay tuned for pics of that.
The steampunk party itself was kind of mhe. The people were very friendly and nice, but the music was all over the place. The most fun of the night was when the belly dancers came on to perform. Their dancing was really nice, but the one lead girl.... WOW you could tell she had a major pushup bra on. To the point where it was comical.
So next thing. Our box of random veggies and fruits came. We were kind of disappointed with it to be honest so we have decided that for next week we are only going to get the veggies and no fruit. The total contents of the box were:
2 Avocados (Fairtrade, Mexico)
4 Beefsteak tomatoes (LFP, Waterford, ON)
4 Beets (TO)
1 package Cremini mushrooms (ON)
lots of Gourmet blend salad mix (TO)
couple leaves Hearty greens medley [chard, collards, kale] (TO)
5 Yellow Onions (ON)
4 Oranges (Calif.)
4 Bananas (Fairtrade, Ecuador)
So we weren't really sure what to do with all of this so Talia looked up a really nice recipe for the beets. It also involved some onion and potato and was kind of a shredded veggie pancake or sorts. It was very delicious and my parents enjoyed it very much as well (they came to visit and look at our box).
All the random leaf veg we just tossed together and are slowly eating salads with them. The nice thing about this is that we have salads with different kinds of leaves. Normally when we make a salad it will only have romaine or iceberg lettuce and that`s it.
Oh, Talia also made a nice guacamole with the avocados and one of the tomatoes. That also went over really well with the parents and me. So well in fact that I ate the last of it this evening when I came home.
To accompany all of this I also made a nice loaf of bread which turned out perfect this time. Last time it didn't really rice that much and I left it for over an hour. This time it doubled in size in less than 40 minutes. I know have the perfect place to proof the bread; on top of the fridge where its warm. works perfect. So good in fact that after dinner My parents and us ate half of the batch I made. We were all so full after that we just lay in beanbag chairs and chatted for the rest of the night.
One other thing I tried out. Tonight I tried making Yorkshire puddings... which are not actually a pudding, its more of a bread or pancake that you bake in the oven. Sadly mine didn't turn out quite right. Instead of puffing up and being light and fluffy it turned kind of heavy and dense. I think its actually the eggs here. The recipe calls for 1 egg, but I think the eggs in Canada are smaller than the eggs in the UK or something. This is the second time that something like this has happened to me. I also think the reason the mayo attempts didnt work was because of the smaller egg yoke.
But I am not discouraged. I will try it again but I will had a little more milk to make it a little more watery like it was pictured in the book.
~(' ')~
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Veggies to your door
So on Monday I managed to grab a metro newspaper on the way in to school. This is generally a rare event as there are no newspaper boxes at my bus stop so I usually only get one when I find it on the bus. But that day I was waiting for the bus a long time so I wandered across the street and picked on up.
Needless to say there wasn't much in it except for a very interesting article on Fresh City Farms. This is a company that grows organic fruit and veggies and delivers them to your door for $30.99 a week. Its probably a little more than what we are currently paying for veggies, but it peaked my interest.
So I went and forwarded it on to Talia and chatted with her. I also forwarded it on to my Mom through email and she got really excited. The cost was a big concern for Talia, but I convinced her to try it for 2 weeks and then we could compare what we got to what we usually pay for veggies.
So starting next Wednesday we are going to have veggies delivered to our door for a 2 week trial. Each week we will get a wine case of random fresh veggies. Curious to see what we get. Gonna have lots to blog about when it arrives cause we are probably gonna be making some cool random recipes
~(' ')~
Needless to say there wasn't much in it except for a very interesting article on Fresh City Farms. This is a company that grows organic fruit and veggies and delivers them to your door for $30.99 a week. Its probably a little more than what we are currently paying for veggies, but it peaked my interest.
So I went and forwarded it on to Talia and chatted with her. I also forwarded it on to my Mom through email and she got really excited. The cost was a big concern for Talia, but I convinced her to try it for 2 weeks and then we could compare what we got to what we usually pay for veggies.
So starting next Wednesday we are going to have veggies delivered to our door for a 2 week trial. Each week we will get a wine case of random fresh veggies. Curious to see what we get. Gonna have lots to blog about when it arrives cause we are probably gonna be making some cool random recipes
~(' ')~
Monday, 24 October 2011
I like the buttery biscuit base!!!
So tonight Talia and her friend are over sewing. I was sewing too but then Talia asked me to make plum dumplings that were in the freezer. While they were boiling away I showed her the recipe card from the shortbread pan my Mom got her and I told her to pick one and I would make it some time later in the week.
She really liked the sound of the lemon shortbread. So much so that she asked me to make it tonight. So off I went using the last of the butter to make shortbread. This time since I had the shortbread pan I put it in there. There was an oddness though. I added the 1 cup of flour to the creamed butter and it was still way to sort. Not dough like at all. So I kept adding flour until it was kind of dough like and then I put it in the oven. Oh, I should also mention that I don't have any vegetable oil spray so I just used some margarine to try and prevent it from sticking to the pan.
So as the bread was baking I started to think about the last time I made it using the Jamie Oliver recipe. I remembered that that recipe took half of the package of butter (I used the other half for this time) and so I looked it up and that's right, I had way too much butter. The Oliver recipe calls for 1 cup of butter and the pan recipe calls for 1/2 cups of butter. So I had twice the butter than I needed. But it was too late. It was already in the pan baking.
As you might guess it didn't quite come out correctly. But it still tasted good.
She really liked the sound of the lemon shortbread. So much so that she asked me to make it tonight. So off I went using the last of the butter to make shortbread. This time since I had the shortbread pan I put it in there. There was an oddness though. I added the 1 cup of flour to the creamed butter and it was still way to sort. Not dough like at all. So I kept adding flour until it was kind of dough like and then I put it in the oven. Oh, I should also mention that I don't have any vegetable oil spray so I just used some margarine to try and prevent it from sticking to the pan.
So as the bread was baking I started to think about the last time I made it using the Jamie Oliver recipe. I remembered that that recipe took half of the package of butter (I used the other half for this time) and so I looked it up and that's right, I had way too much butter. The Oliver recipe calls for 1 cup of butter and the pan recipe calls for 1/2 cups of butter. So I had twice the butter than I needed. But it was too late. It was already in the pan baking.
As you might guess it didn't quite come out correctly. But it still tasted good.
And for your listening/viewing pleasure.... Buttery Biscuit Base
~(' ')~
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Vestacular
So today I finished the vest with Talia's help. Here are some progress pics
So this is one of the front piece with the interfacing on the back
All the pieces cut out
This is actually where I left if off last night. You can see the added pockets. The top ones are for watches and accessories and the bottom ones are for tools. My character for Halloween is a steampunk engineer so thatss why I wanted to have screwdrivers and the likes. I like the idea, but I am not to happy about how I executed it. To prevent there from being a raw edge I actually cut out 2 pieces of fabric for each pocket, sewed them together, inverted them and then top stitched them to the top of the vest. This proved to be very difficult to line up with the fabric pattern. On the other hand the top pockets actually turned out fairly well. They line up almost perfectly with the vest pattern. At this point I hadn't done the lining yet. That is what I spent all of today doing
So I cut out all the lining fabric and put them all together, I even pinned the pieces to the vest how they needed to be to sew them together, but then I lost steam and just couldn't finish. So Talia was wonderful enough to sew the rest of it together. I was cooking dinner when she finished it so I couldn't try it on so Talia went and put it onto her mannequin on top of her shirt. When I saw this it looked very much like a catholic school girl outfit, but Talia said it was missing a tie... So I got a tie for it.
Finally, the nice lining which I see as brown but Talia keeps calling pigeon grey.
Now I just have to do the pants (should be easy) and a hat and I'm all good :)
~(' ')~
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Halloween time
So its halloween and that means costuming galore :)
I`m running a bit behind as usual but here are some progress pics for the first part. This year all my friends are doing steampunk outfits. Which for me means a cool vest, a nice dress shirt, some cool boots and a hat. More specifically, this is what I am trying to get done:
So We have gone out looking for everything that we need. Sadly we have to date only found the vest material, and the pant material. No shirt yet, but I still have a week (and there is always the option of just wearing one of my normal dress shirts, we aren`t going for realistic)
So I have spent the last couple of evenings (for about a week now) doing a temp for the vest. The colours are kind of crazy but here it is
The pattern pieces with the temp fabrics
and all the pieces assembled
Now I have to go and cut out the actual pieces and start sewing them together
~(' ')~
I`m running a bit behind as usual but here are some progress pics for the first part. This year all my friends are doing steampunk outfits. Which for me means a cool vest, a nice dress shirt, some cool boots and a hat. More specifically, this is what I am trying to get done:
So We have gone out looking for everything that we need. Sadly we have to date only found the vest material, and the pant material. No shirt yet, but I still have a week (and there is always the option of just wearing one of my normal dress shirts, we aren`t going for realistic)
So I have spent the last couple of evenings (for about a week now) doing a temp for the vest. The colours are kind of crazy but here it is
The pattern pieces with the temp fabrics
~(' ')~
Friday, 14 October 2011
Short bread
This is kind of an old post since I actually made the short bread on Monday, but things have been the usual crazy for me so I only have a chance to post it now. Not only that, I don't have pictures :( so this post is going be a little small.
I made Short Bread.
So this past weekend was thanks giving here and since I usually do most of my cooking creativity on the weekends I decided to make short bread at the cottage for my family. At least that was the plan. Last Xmas my mom gave Talia a really nice short bread pan and directions (very pretty with snowflakes on it) so I was goning use that at the cottage. But I wasn't feeling the best at the cottage and Talia and I spend most of the day wandering the forest looking for a good place to put a tree house (yes, we are building a tree house at the cottage :)). So long story short, I didn't make short bread.
So on Monday when we were home again I decided to make it just for talia and myself. Unfortunately in all the rush to get home Sunday I forgot the pan and the directions. But not to worry, Jamie Oliver to the rescue, lol. The cookbook that I am currently working through has a recipe for shortbread. The recipe is about twice as much as what i remember from the pan directions, and the baked result doesn't have any cool snowflakes on it but it came out very nice.
We are slowly working our way through the pan. it will probably be finished by Sunday. Very tasty, but very dry. I think that's just shortbread in general because all the shortbreads i have ever tasted are like that.
~(' ')~
I made Short Bread.
So this past weekend was thanks giving here and since I usually do most of my cooking creativity on the weekends I decided to make short bread at the cottage for my family. At least that was the plan. Last Xmas my mom gave Talia a really nice short bread pan and directions (very pretty with snowflakes on it) so I was goning use that at the cottage. But I wasn't feeling the best at the cottage and Talia and I spend most of the day wandering the forest looking for a good place to put a tree house (yes, we are building a tree house at the cottage :)). So long story short, I didn't make short bread.
So on Monday when we were home again I decided to make it just for talia and myself. Unfortunately in all the rush to get home Sunday I forgot the pan and the directions. But not to worry, Jamie Oliver to the rescue, lol. The cookbook that I am currently working through has a recipe for shortbread. The recipe is about twice as much as what i remember from the pan directions, and the baked result doesn't have any cool snowflakes on it but it came out very nice.
We are slowly working our way through the pan. it will probably be finished by Sunday. Very tasty, but very dry. I think that's just shortbread in general because all the shortbreads i have ever tasted are like that.
~(' ')~
Sunday, 2 October 2011
Sticky Saucepan Carrots
Talia requested this so here it is:
All the carrots packed into the pan
And the finished result:
They taste really good :)
Next time i think I will add a touch more salt and a lot more margarine. Also, I have to remember to swish the butter around for the last 5 minutes so all the carrots get fried up.
All the carrots packed into the pan
They taste really good :)
Next time i think I will add a touch more salt and a lot more margarine. Also, I have to remember to swish the butter around for the last 5 minutes so all the carrots get fried up.
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