Shan has launched a new website (and a new domain)!
Logo by Christa.
Miscellaneous
Shan has launched a new website (and a new domain)!
Logo by Christa.
The last (and only time) I posted a recipe here, was 7 years ago. Wow.
As we’re trying to eat less meat in general, we‘ve (Shan and I) been experimenting with vegetarian dishes.
This lasagna has been eaten by a few people now and every time the reviews are pretty damn good. ๐ It comes rather close to the original taste while being entirely vegetarian.
First off — we’re mostly just swapping out the regular minced pork/beef mix with Beyond Meat. There are other brands out there (i.e.: Omnimeat), each with their own taste — try to see what works for you.
The Beyond Beef is also slightly sweeter in taste — keep this in mind as I know some people (i.e.: my dad) wouldn’t like it that sweet.
This dish feeds 3 to 4 people.
This one is easy to mess up so pay attention. Clumps are bad!
Don’t worry if you have no nutmeg — it tastes perfect without as well.
In case it’s too watery, just add a bit of flour — but do that extremely slowly, as adding it at this stage will easily clump up.
Now we’ll create the actual lasagna. You can also pre-heat the oven now (200ยฐ).
Your dish and the lasagna will definitely not be the same size… And we don’t want to have two lasagna sheets on top of each other… So gently break them off into smaller pieces, and nicely fit them together. It’s puzzle time.
Most dishes fit about three layers. End with the bรฉchamel layer. So [lasagna, tomato, bรฉchamel] x 3.
And the last, top layer, would be the grated cheese. Don’t over do it, create a nice thin layer.
The oven should be hot (200ยฐ) at this point. The total cooking time is roughly 25 minutes.
If your oven allows to choose the baking mode, use the top and bottom heat (without fan).
After roughly 25 minutes, the lasagna should be done.
Let it cool down a bit, cut it up and serve.
Almost 10 years after I registered 0x04.com, it’s time to part ways.
Yesterday I finalised the sale of 0x04.com.
My company in Singapore was called 0x04 pte. ltd. and to avoid any confusion I’ve renamed to su1 pte. ltd. su1 standing for Superuser.one. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
I live in Singapore. And haze is a thing. Thanks Indonesia and burning rain forests to create palm plantations. Needless to say, so far 2019 and 2020 haven’t been great.
Anyhow I got myself a Novita air purifier ~2 years ago, and I stole received a Xiaomi purifier from Liyun.
The Novita is pretty dumb (the PM sensor goes randomly nuts and it needs to be quite polluted before it really kicks in. It also needs to be turned off/on again every so often for it to keep on standby โ if not it goes into some sleep mode).
The manual says you should consider cleaning (aka remove dust and cat hair) every 3 or so months, and replace the filter every 6 months. It’ll show a warning when the timer hits zero.
Selling new filters is how they make money I guess.
Buy a new filter (or donโt and use the same filter), reset the timer and things are back to normal.
For the Xiaomi itโs a bit harder. The โsmart filterโ is really just a HEPA filter with an NFC tag. Itโll calculate how often the purifier runs and calculate a % based on that. Iโve now hit 0% left on my filter after a haze season (September 2019) and ~8 months of normal usage (as itโs in the bedroom, it starts filtering around 21h00, and then runs in the quiet night mode until 9am next morning and then shuts off).
While the purifier still runs at 0%, it gives a big red warning both in the app and on the device itself and urges you to replace the filter.
You can tape off the NFC tag with some tinfoil, but thatโll just change the big red warning from โused and old filter, please replaceโ to โfake filter, please replaceโ.
Now I am not against replacing HEPA filters when they are used and are not actually filtering the air anymore. But I am also against uselessly replacing things for the sake of handing money to $BigCorp and ruining the planet with it.
Running a few tests with a relatively precise PM sensor (use this assembled kit if you are not into DIY) shows that for both my purifiers, the exhuast air is 0 PM1.0, 0 PM2.5 and 0 PM10. So that shows me that both are still working and cleaning the air just fine (further away in the room, the PM heads up to 10-20 on haze-free days).
Am I missing something here? Why throw away something that still works?
This is a rant.
I’ve dealt with quite a few (bad) banks over the course of my life across countries and businesses.
And I think HSBC is one of the worst.
For various reasons. But mostly for being stuck in another century.
And you’d expect a tiny (Belgian) bank to be horrible. Not one of the biggest banks in the world with branches in almost every country of the world.
But no. HSBC pretty much tops it.
I have tons of other examples how and why HSBC failed me, and by the end of the year I think it’s time to part ways.