Mussels with Sweet Chilli & Lager

A live mussel has so much flavour and character that it doesn't need to be messed around. Let it be what it wants to be. A juicy, succulent, mouthful of the sea that cannot be compared to any other. We are not talking the vacuum packed, flavourless mussels here. We are talking live and kicking, well, shell moving, mussels. There can be no comparison, live mollusc's are in a different class. Don't be scared, mussels cook so quick and easy you'll wonder why you didn't do this years ago!

I know you may look at this title and think I'm mad but as they say, don't knock it until you've tried it. Mussels and lager/beer/ale are actually really good friends. You choose your poison, this works just as well with  bottle of Bishops Finger as it does with a can of Carling! I have tried the usual recipes for moules mariniere with garlic, wine/cream but on the evening I came up with this recipe this was what I had available.

This is my very simple and quick recipe.

Tesco Mussels, Carling Lager, Blue Dragon Sweet Chilli, Red Onion

You will need:

1kg of LIVE mussels.
1 Can of Lager or Ale
1 Bottle of sweet chilli sauce
1 Red or White Onion and a
1 Red or Green Chilli

Empty the mussels into the sink and rinse through. Take care to clean the mussels well. removing all mussels that are cracked and remain open when tapped on the side. As the mussels are alive, they should close when tapped on the side. If it doesn't... bin it! On the left is an example of some bad mussels. The waste ratio can be high in especially in lower quality, older stock. Get as fresh as you can. I usually find that in a kilo I lose about 10-15 mussels.

Once the mussels are rinsed remove the 'beards' by pulling them. They can be quite difficult to remove but just grasp them between your fingers and pull. Scrape off any baracles with a knife and rinse them one last time.

Either dice or slice the onion depening on how you like it and de-seed and slice the chilli.

Put a big saucepan on a meduim heat and add a drizzle of oil.Sear the onion and chilli. Pour in about 300ml of lager and then a good helping of the sweet chilli sauce. This is dependent on your tatse. Stir together.

Add all the mussels, place a lid on top and raise the heat. Leave for 3 minutes and then give them a stir. The stock should be boiling and the mussels will have begun to open.

Place the lid back on and leave for another 2 minutes. By this time the mussels will have opened and be ready to eat. Pour the mussels into a large bowl or plate and enjoy hot. I have this dish with crusty bread and skinny fries using the bread to soak up all the lovely juice that has been created.

If you come across any mussels that are not open once cooked, these must be discarded. Do not force them open.

Enjoy!

How to change a mk6 Fiesta rear brake bulb

I noticed that my partners brake light had stopped working the other day. Being the generous and thoughtful person I am I said "Don't worry babe, I'll change it for you". So off I popped to Halfords to buy a bulb set. Halfords 380 in case you need to know. "Would you like help fitting that sir?" asked the girl at the checkout. "No thanks" I replied. How hard can it be to fit a rear bulb to a Mk6 Fiesta? Fitting FROM £3.99 it said...

I got home and investigated the car. I noticed 2 star bolts. I thought undo them, take off cover and change bulb. Simple.

Oh no... this was NO five minute job for someone who does not know how to change the bulb. There was no way I was giving up. I decided to consult google as there was bound to be a tutorial or something to help right? Wrong. All I could find were forums of contradicting posts all asking my exact question, I have removed the 2 star bolts but what now? The light assembly simply will not budge. A few said yank it, a few said remove another bolt. But what other bolt? I can't see anything.

After an hour of trying to work it out and worrying if I would break something I did eventually manage to change the bulb on the left. It took less than 5 minutes for the right side. Easy when you know how!  I decided to put this on my blog (with pictures) in the hope that someone else will find this exact how to and not the unhelpful discussions I found.

Changing a Ford Fiesta rear brake bulb. Here's what I did:

Step 1. Remove these star bolts

Step 2. Remove this WINGNUT - Yes there is a wingnut and this photo is proof. You need to fiddle a little but its there. It took 50 complete turns too so don't give up! It's up behind the light, there is a small hole you can put your hand in. Easier for smaller hands!

(Sorry for the poor quality of this photo)

Step 3. Pull the light assembly, it may need a little force as there is a push fitting. Be careful because there is a connector on the back. Remove the connector by pressing the little 'tooth' down and pulling. It may need a little 'jiggle'.

 Step 4. Unclip the Circuit strip board and remove the whole thing. At this point you could choose to replace all the bulbs in one go.

Clips run up the sides of this housing

The bulbs simply push/twist to fit - The brake is the top bulb with 2 filaments

Step 5. Place everything back together carefully and fit back to the car. 5-10 minutes. Easy when you know how!

Powerline

I was recently given a challenge to try to connect some interactive museum display panels so they could be updated from a central location. As it turns out, these display units are actually XP embedded touch screens with integrated network cards. Simple I thought, install a few wall ports and run the cat6 through to the data cabinet where an existing ADSL router had 3 available ports. I then proceeded to get a quote from our usual cabling company. Thousands! This is down to the fact it's a listed building yada yada...

Ok, then, Wireless. I'll get some dongles, plug them in, grab an address and Robert is your brothers mother! Instant network. So, off I went, thinking I had cracked it. I grabbed my laptop, setup a quick wireless network and started to floor walk with the usual ping -a to the gateway. It dropped very quickly. The problem is the walls. They are old and very well built. The signal on the run of the meal router was not good and to install more access points would be messy and costly. That put an end to that idea.

I was beginning to think that I had no choice but to fork out for the professionals until it hit me. I recently discussed the use of Powerline adapters with a colleague of mine who had used them once before. I was very sceptical. I always thought that you should not run Cat5/6 shielded twisted pair along side power cables. That's why they shield the cables! Interference.

To avoid unnecessary cost I borrowed a pair to test the theory. I was using the ZyXEL PLA-401 model and they cost about £50 a pair. They promise throughput speeds of up to 200mbps and can handle streaming media and voice data. Lets give them a go.

I plugged one into the spare power socket next to the display unit and in turn connected this to the network interface card. Across to the datacab room where I plugged the other into the wall and then that into the router. 3 lights appeared and bingo! The unit had an ip address and was online! I could not believe how easy that really was. I then purchased a few more units and strategically used existing power and cat5 cable runs to my advantage.
The final result was all units connected together and now able to look at a single source for updates.
Overall verdict.. Excellent! I would highly recommended these devices. When you are next considering extending the network, giving these devices a thought maybe one of the best things you did.
Now to create the FTP scripts for automated file transfer.....

Slow PC Startup

If I had a pound for every time I heard the phrase “my PC is slow” I think I would be rich. Honestly. This is by far the most common gripe from a regular PC user. Slow performance is usually caused by one of a few things. They will include unwanted processes, memory hogs, malware/viruses or a combination of them all!

The next thing to ask yourself is this. Is it my PC that is slow or is it my Internet browser? As the browser is the most used app on the planet some people consider this to actually be the whole PC. If it’s just your browser, you may have been ‘high-jacked’. This is very common and there are some clever tricks the malware creators use to trick you. My favourite is the pop up that asks, “Is your PC running slow?” Click here to fix it! – It's their software MAKING it run slow! Simply resetting you browser settings back to the factory defaults can fix it. Microsoft have a great little tool to help. The Internet explorer fix it can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923737 for those of you who use IE

Here are a few simple steps you can take to seriously increase both your PC speed, and your understanding of how the start up commands are processed.
The initial boot up of the Operating system (Windows) is very quick but once this has passed over to the start up loaders the speed begins to take a knock. The longer this goes on, the more processes that are started and the more memory each process steals. I use the word steal because these processes allocate themselves memory even if they don’t need it. They also all start to ask the processor for a bit of time which in turn starts to load the processor. This causes the slow response.
For some reason, many programs all install themselves into this area and want a piece of the pie at this boot stage. Windows 7 has addressed this and you can now delay some of these processes but you have to do this manually. There are some process that NEED to run. They can be things like security products, anti virus and firewalls. Some drivers will also need software, Intel being one I can think of. These processes are fine but then you have things like Java updater, Adobe Pre loader, Printer software, iTunes,  etc… These don’t need to be running ‘always on’ and should start upon request.

OK – Now hopefully I have explained them, lets SEE them. A simple command, MSCONFIG.

Click on start (orb) run and type MSCONFIG and click OK

The system configuration menu. With a few simple clicks you can use this to carefully control the start up items. If you click the Startup tab I’m sure there will be few items in there that leave you thinking.. “What is that, do I need it?” – the chances are you don’t. The more nervous of people would think, I’m not touching that, what if something breaks? You simply put the tick back. I personally click Disable all at this menu. The 'clever' software will recreate itself there if needed.


One click. That’s all it took in the startup tab. All the gumpf disabled. But what about my anti virus and firewall? Well these are services and are processed before the startup menu. Go ahead and reboot, feel the difference! For those of you who are still nervous, you can play the long game and un tick them one by one, rebooting each time. If you find something has stopped working, it very easy to look at the program path to determine what it was.

Now click the Services tab, wow – look at all those services, all running in the background waiting for something to happen. See the little check box that says ‘Hide all Microsoft Services’, tick it. Do you need all those? The choice is yours!

I can’t tell you what services you do need, all PC’s are different. What I can tell you is that if you remove a tick and something breaks, you can start it again with a simple tick. Again, like the startup tab, most of these non Microsoft services will just be causing overhead and will start even when you do not need them! This is a very safe method of diagnosing and fixing slow PC issues. With regular checking of these processes and AV scans you can keep your PC in tip top condition.
random1624

I am random1624

Random: "Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard."

This will be a random collection of thoughts, recipes, how to’s and even the occasional rant. It always feels good to get it off your chest! The posts will be based upon my passions and many wasted hours.

Every previous attempt at a blog for me has always been focused around a particular theme or topic. These themes are related to my passions in life which include many random and unrelated topics ranging from the technology projects I work on in my professional life to the humble pie, mash and liquor I adore so much.

Double Pie, Mash & Liquor. Lovely!

Originally from the east end of London, I now live with my 'better' half and 2 children in Essex. I work for a local authority as a technical specialist.

If any of my articles have in some way made your life just that little bit easier, then I will feel that my contribution will have been worth while. I am random1624, and welcome to my blog.