Serial Cooking – Sausage Chilli Con Carne
This chilli con carne is another Lindsey Bareham recipe.
I made a double portion and served it with rice. So the rice was Uncle Ben’s but I was short for time.
I think next time, I’ll use some chipolatas though! The cocktail sausages were a bit disappointing.
Searching For Gluten-Free Cocktail Sausages
I finally tracked down some of Marks and Spencers gluten-free cocktail sausages in their store at Eastfield.
They have also opened up a new gluten-free section for chilled goods, like fish cakes.
South West Trains Messy Tea
The picture says it all.
South West Trains Messy Tea
If I was the boss of ATOC, I’d offer a prize for the design of a tea system that was simple for the staff and customers alike, but didn’t leave any mess.
Serial Cooking – Cinty’s French Fish Pie
This fish pie is another Lindsey Bareham recipe, that is an ideal two portion dish.
It is easy to do and I suspect that the completed dish could be prepared earlier and left in the fridge for most of the day.
The one here, gives me two portions for two suppers or a meal with a friend.
A friend of mine does this recipe a lot. She says it is easy to modify for however many are turning up for supper. She also says she doesn’t get complaints.
Stourbridge And The Parry People Mover
I went to Stourbridge to see the Parry People Mover that is used on the branch line between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town.
But as the pictures show, I also found a well-thought-out solution to the problem of how do you create an integrated transport hub in a town.
It was one of the first bus interchanges I’ve found outside London, where if you’d been dropped to get to X, you could have found the way without asking anybody.
One thing the pictures don’t show, is that on both trips the number of people on the train was more than you generally see on the Class 153 between Ipswich and Felixstowe.
I would also recommend the Coffee Collective. It is a short walk from the bus station and is obvious, when you exit the subway.
But having ridden in the Parry People Mover or Class 139, what do I think of it?
The first thing I would say, is that if you look at the pictures, you’ll see it is a genuine step-free entrance and exit. A lady pushed a baby in a buggy into the people mover, when I travelled, and it was as easy as any train I’ve ever seen.
You could say, wouldn’t it be cheaper to use a quality bus at Stourbridge to link Stourbridge Junction with the bus station in the town. Obviously, London Midland hasn’t done this. But, when they did this in the past, they brought back the Class 153, so perhaps this connecting train is a great traffic generator for services to Birmingham.
Other than that, it just did what you would expect a train would do and transported the around twenty passengers to the other station without fuss. The vehicle had a feel somewhat like the Docklands Light Railway, although it was a lot smaller.
As it is powered by a flywheel driven by a small internal combustion engine, this type of vehicles could have a range issue, but it won’t be as severe as that of a battery-powered one. In this section on the future of the Class 139 in Wikipedia, this is said.
This will entail an articulated unit, with a pair of PPM60 variants at either end of a fixed passenger unit—the whole unit will be capable of accommodating up to 220 passengers and travelling at up to 60 miles per hour (100 km/h) on railways or 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) on tramways.
If a double vehicle could move even 100 passengers over a distance of fifteen miles, then the branch line I know best; Ipswich to Felixstowe, could be run by such a people mover. It probably isn’t much slower than the Class 153, so it shouldn’t give too many problems with scheduling amongst the freight trains.
Two vehicles would probably be needed for the line, but it would seem likely that the frequency of passenger trains could be increased.
A special version of the vehicle could be designed for tourist branch lines such as the one at St. Ives, with space for bicycles.
How much extra traffic would shiny new trains, running more often, generate?
Having seen this first use of a simple energy-efficient people mover, I think that in a few years time, vehicles based on similar principles will become commonplace. Just as London’s new Routemaster, has shown that buses should be hybrid with flat floors and lots of entrances/exits, we will see a series of rail vehicles, where flywheels or batteries are used to create efficient hybrid drive systems and stylish modern vehicles sized to the traffic.
Eventually, I think we’ll see this type of train on a branch like Romford to Upminster, which is only about six kilometres long and has a speed limit of only 30 mph. If they are the only traffic on such a branch, this would remove the need for electrification. You probably wouldn’t take it down, but you’d switch it off. On the other hand this would make it easier to nick!
But because this type of vehicle doesn’t need electrification or other expensive infrastructure, it also opens up the possibility of adding new services and even lines. Go back to Felixstowe. The town used to have a station at Felixstowe Beach, which is close to the port and still served by the Felixstowe branch. It might at some point be thought to be a good idea to restart this service. It would be so much easier to do this with a vehicle like a Class 139 or a successor.
There are also quite a few heritage and freight-only branch lines connected to the main UK rail network. Could vehicles like this be used to run commercial services to connect passengers to the network? It would all depend on the branch line, but some companies are looking at possibilities.
Once one scheme is successfully up and running, I feel others will quickly follow.
Serial Cooking – Ham And Leek Gratin With Emmental Mash
Ham And Leek Gratin With Emmental Mash is another of Lindsey Bareham’s recipes from The Times
Again I chose it becauses there could be a break before putting it in the oven. I also made a half quantity for myself. Lindsey’s sizes were double mine for three.
I had one portion cold and it was delicious.
Serial Cooking – A Good Cauliflower Cheese
This is another Lindsey Bareham recipe, that I cooked serially like the Sausage and Bean Casserole a few days ago.
It is easy to do and I suspect that the completed dish could be prepared earlier and left in the fridge for most of the day.
An Experiment In Serial Cooking
According to many people I’ve met, including my secretary, Jane, men are not good at multi-tasking. She put it down to the caves, where the man had to be single-minded enough to go off and kill that buffalo, so they didn’t all starve. The woman meanwhile was left at home with all the problems, like the kids, collecting firewood, nuts and berries, and perhaps trying to grow some crops.
I am not the best multi-tasker, although with tasks I used to do in the past, like software bug-fixing, I would do them in related groups.
One of the problems in this house, is the small, but extremely-badly designed kitchen. I deliberately have a smaller two-oven Zanussi cooker, but the kitchen has only one sink with a low tap, cupboards you need a torch to get things out of and no freezer.
So often if I cook something, I get piles of washing up everywhere and have nowhere to put anything.
Some recipes I use, like Cinty’s French Fish Pie are what I could call serial cooking, in that they are a series of tasks. That recipe also has the advantage that you can make it in the morning, leave it in the fridge all day and cook it in the evening. I usually, make two, when I’m cooking for myself and leave one for the supper after next.
So as an experiment, I decided to see if one of my favourite meals, Lindsey Bareham’s sausage and bean casserole could be cooked as a series of tasks. Normally, it needs a casserole and a frying pan to cook the sausages, so instead of that, I cooked the sausages first in the casserole and then started the meal in earnest.
I was also able to leave the casserole on top of the cooker all day, before I cooked it in the evening.
A Novel Way To Serve Strawberries
I found this presentation in a list of simple recipes in The Times yesterday. It’s called Yoghurt-Dipped Strawberries and is from the Total Greek Yoghurt Cookbook by Sophie Mitchell.
All it needs is an appropriate amount of strawberries and Greek yoghurt. I used my all-purpose yoghurt, which is Rachel’s yoghurt with honey which serves as my breakfast with cereal or as a pasta sauce.
I lined a square plate with baking parchment.
The instructions say beat the yoghurt in a small bowl until smooth, but I just used my Little Chopper.
I then dipped the berries into the yoghurt and laid them out on the plate, before putting them in the freezer.
I served them straight from the freezer after about three hours.
These pictures tell the story.
They were delicious, but I think next time, I’ll give them less time in the freezer.
A High Street Without A Coffee Shop
In this day and age this would seem incredible. As I emerged from Wembley Central station, I asked the staff and they said there is only McDonalds.
But he was right and I couldn’t find one.
Given that this station is one of those for Wembley Stadium, this is very difficult to understand.
The Anonymous Widower 