Roast pork belly

 A few times I have been asked for my recipe for cooking pork belly. 

Basically I have taken a recipe that I saw the hairy bikers do on BBC Saturday kitchen and simplified it.

The link to the BBC recipe is Here - BBC hairy bikers recipe

I only do the pork belly, I leave out the oranges and sometimes the cloves. I sometimes add ginger and often a lot more cinnamon, this is to suit the taste preferences of my household and my parents. 

I will often be using a much bigger piece of pork belly and find the method very forgiving with regard to extra time in the oven (one time I was over an hour late getting home).

The way I check it out is done.... find one of the bones, hold the end carefully between thumb and finger (use a piece of kitchen towel to protect the fingers from heat and to help with gripping a greasy bone), grip firmly, twist and pull. If it comes out clean the pork is done. 

Once the pork is lifted off strain the liquid out of the apple and decant into ramekins for instant apple sauce. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cinnamonandapplepork_93116

Onion and tomato salad

 recipe for onion and tomato salad.

Ingredients
Onions
Tomatoes
Clear or pale vinegar (e.g. cider vinegar)
Olive oil (other oil like rapeseed or grape seed oil can be used)

Method
Into a bowl
Cover the bottom with a layer of onion slices
Then do a layer of tomato slices
Repeat alternating between onion and tomato.
Every few layers douse the contents in approximately equal amounts of vinegar and oil.
Stop layering when bowl is full or you feel you have done enough or you run out of ingredients.

Jerk pork recipe

For a few years now I have been asked for my jerk pork recipe.
I have given it out verbally a few times and people have always reported back that the results aren't as good. In a recent discussion I got asked a question I had not been asked before and the answer may explain this.
After describing the method I then got asked how long I put it in the over for... I don't. I cook it all in a wok.
 I have just typed it up for someone to try on a camping trip and I may come back to tweak this later but the recipe is as follows...

Jerk Pork

Timings –

10-20 minutes to start marinade

45 minutes-2 hours for cooking depending on heat levels and humidity of environment

Tools:

Large bowl (to marinade in)

Large wok or saucepan

Heat source (e.g. fire or hob)

Spoon (to stir marinade in)

Wooden or plastic spoon (to stir fry with)

Ingredients (based on amounts last used)

1 Kg pork in cubes

(belly preferred but

250Kg pack shoulder precut from supermarket basics range works well)

1/2 jar of jerk seasoning (more for more spicy flavour)

8 scallions or spring onions

soy/Worcester sauce

maple syrup/agave syrup/golden syrup or something sweet

bottle of stout (e.g. Guinness or dragon stout)

Method:

Cube meat (approx 1inch pieces) if not already cut

Coarsely cut 4 spring onions (approxe 1/4 inch pieces)

Put meat and cut onions in bowl stirring through with 1/4 jar of  jerk sauce (or more depending on how hot you want it).

Add a drizzle or 3 each of soy/Worcester

Add a drizzle or 5 of sweet syrup

Ensure mixture is stirred through and then leave to marinade for a while, overnight works well depending on refrigeration facilities.

When ready to cook heat a little cooking oil (not olive) in pan and then pour everything from bowl, meat and marinade together, into pan and start to cook through – stirring as frequently as you like to try and ensure all meat is cooked.

During the stirring add 1/4 (or more) of jar of jerk seasoning.

Keep cooking (and stirring as you feel needed) until you are sure that pork is cooked through. Feel free to cut into a piece to find out.

Any liquid may reduce down but it doesn’t matter at this stage.

Coarsely cut remaining spring onions, these can be added now or just before serving.

When sure that meat is cooked through add the entire bottle of stout.

Simmer and stir and let reduce until there is no liquid left and there is a sticky coating on everything.

Serve however you like.

Some photos from Salehurst Road Big Lunch 2011

ntp synch for windows

Not done a massively thorough amount of research with this so far...

Blatent plug link from the software website
Atomic Clock NTP Client Software - Freeware NTP Client utility from TimeTools to periodically synchronise time to a NTP Server.

I know someone who has issues with time/date on their windows machine. They are non-technical enough that they don't notice that the date has changed by several years and several months. Having said that they are aware enough to flag a security risk when their browser said it did not trust a secure website (certificate invalid) and took all necessary precautions including reporting the issue to the relevant people.
In fact it was the date/time issue causing the problem (certificate valid for a date range that starts in the future as far as the PC is concerned).

I have tried using the windows time settings but this does not seem to make much difference. I am looking (albeit not very hard) for a quick and dirty fix that I can just leave on the machine and forget.
This might fit the bill but I may need to look at running as a service perhaps?
hiding it from the end user in case it confuses them.

Barcode labels for tapes

Something I've been thinking about for a while but never got around to researching...

http://www.bedroomlan.org/tools/dlt-label-creator
http://www.bedroomlan.org/coding/dlt-labels