test please delete

[ladymuck]

Afternoon all

Cloudy with sunny gaps. Dry. Breezy. Currently 19 degrees and that's the high for the day. Slight chance of a shower later. Barometer at 1019 mBar.

Sunrise 05:03; Sunset 20:54 BST

Took yea olde jalopy to the garage for a look-see at the clutch / clutch pedal. Like all good car owners, I'd done some reading around the topic and waffled about clutch fluid and slave cylinders at the mechanic who most likely inwardly sighed at yet another numpty telling them how to do their job. Turns out I was right! The slave cylinder was completely dry and the clutch fluid was old and nasty. So they've flushed it all out and replaced with shiny new.

Some minor prep work done ahead of returning to the coal faces tomorrow, to make sure that there are no major surprises.

I did intend to do laundry but that'll give me something to tomorrow while I'm on billing time.

[xoggoth]

Group walk this morning folowed by meet at the pub. Been doing a bonfire this afternoon, smell of smoke, need a shower.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been BBQ beef short ribs and chips

Rather than braise the ribs as I usually do, I decided to experiment a bit. So I browned them and chucked them in a roasting tin with a carrot, onion, and some garlic cloves, covered it all tightly with foil, and stuck it in the oven at 100°C for about five hours. Then I made a glaze: some cherry tomatoes, mustard, red wine vinegar, sugar, honey, smoked and plain paprika, chilli flakes, thyme, bit of Cajun seasoning, dash of soy, dash of Worcester… probably some other stuff too. Boiled that lot up and reduced it till it was a nice thick sauce, then got the ribs out. Chucked the veg away, took the meat off the bones in one piece (well, two pieces), added the juices to the sauce and reduced that a bit further, then poured it over the meat and stuck it all back in at 180°. Turned the meat a few times and brushed the sauce over as it gradually turned into a glaze, until it was nicely browned and sticky. It turned out very well; I shall try that again

Though TBH I tried a fragment of just meat and fat that was left behind on the chopping board after boning, and that tasted really nice on its own! So I could have saved myself some faffing around and still enjoyed it