RustyRaven

I don't think I could choose between them.

Mountain

Temu. It seems fairly robust, although not as good quality as my other small (lidless) tin I got for $3.50 from and op shop years ago. I know exactly how much that one cost because they wrote the price directly onto the tin with a permanent marker that lived up to its name and never came off 🤣

This one is great because it is small enough to fit inside my toaster oven, and with the top on I don't need to worry about the dough rising too high and hitting the top. It should be a perfect fit for the pre-sliced cheese which is very handy too. Being able to finish one loaf in the toaster oven also meant I could start a fruit loaf while that one was finishing rising/cooking.

I think my next step is to sit down with a calculator and work out some different recipe sizes. The 400g is great for a small loaf in the breadmaker, but a touch too big for this tin and makes 5 rolls, when either 4 or 6 would work better. Its a good time to do it, as I've just used the last of my pre-measured 400g containers.

Just a fraction too much dough.

Next time I think 350g instead of 400g flour to start and see how that goes.

I'm testing my new sandwich loaf tin (the type with a lid to keep it square). I think I might have used too much dough, but it's hard to tell when you can't actually see how much it has risen. I guess I'll find out in about half an hour!

Mine went in very late, then they grew really slowly but are now covered with fruit. I'm just not sure I'll get much in the way of ripe tomatoes or if I should just plan for a ton of green tomato pickles.

I've just done a pumpkin headcount and (depending on how many are properly fertilised and continue to grow) it looks like I could end up with a dozen pumpkins this year. That's a lot of pumpkin for a single person. Hopefully they don't get too big.

There are also a lot of fruit on the tomato plants, but I still don't have any ripening.

Always fresh vegetables. The sauce I usually do is a base of stock powder and tapioca flour (which could be substituted with cornflour) mixed with water. I'll pretty much always add a little bit of soy, sesame oil and fresh ginger. Then a selection of oyster sauce, sweet chilli sauce or cooking wine depending on what I feel like, plus extra ingredients to give specific flavours - like the black pepper and honey tonight.

The power failure was a good chance for me to test the UPS I just bought. I identified two problems. The first was that I'd plugged the NBN box into it, but not the actual modem. So that was at least an easy fix.

The second problem was that the UPS is set to have a really loud intermittent beep when it runs on battery backup. Mr Woof evacuated to the backyard to avoid it and it was slowly driving me batty too. I did some research and found that it could be turned off, but you have to download software and connect it to the computer. So I downloaded the software, installed and connected everything, and it wouldn't open the interface. I could get to the menu options but the one I needed was greyed out. Eventually I decided it might be because I'm using Windows 11 and it only listed up to 10 in its compatibility list. Running in compatibility mode didn't work, so I dug out my old laptop, downloaded the program onto that and it worked perfectly. So the infernal beeps have now been silenced and I have uninterupted internet available.

Oh dear, the power has gone out. It looks to be a big area.

And now it's back on. Everything seems so bright now!

Stir-fry was my staple meal when I moved out of home, I'd have it probably 4-5 times a week. Very affordable on student benefits - lots of rice and veg, a little bit of meat.