Pig and Pea Soup

It's my turn in the Kitchen today. Well, this afternoon actually, and because it's a bit miserable outside, it seems a good idea to assemble a soup. Of course not any old soup will do. The packet variety are okay if you're in a hurry, but a good gut filling warming soup needs a bit of attention.

My favourite , is Pig and Pea Soup, and so, that is what everybody is getting for supper.

I made my pig and pea soup a while back, but it seemed just a tad plainish, so, a few minor alterations are in progress...
I used about two thirds of a packet (340g) of split peas, and about half a packet(250g) of soup mix. I put those on to soak in water this morning. On our way to school we need to stop off at OK in Cambridge, to see if there is any smoked eisbein. There had better be, or I'm in deep shit.

Bit later: okay, I did get a chunk of the smoked eisbein. The butcher at the OK, Vernon, smokes it himself, and it’s always been very good.

Back home, it was pot time. Three biggish onions were peeled and sliced, and tossed into the pot. I had pre-heated about 2 teaspoons of oil, just to stop the onions from catching. While the onions were hissing and spluttering (like a herd of REALLY pist off geese), I sharpened Hog (my favourite knife), and then attacked the eisbein. It was just under a kilogram and once most of the meat was cut off the bone, the larger pieces of meat were cut into bite size pieces.

While cutting the meat I stirred the onions around every now and then. I wanted them soft and just just brown on some edges. Not caramelized. I did move the pot off the stove for a few minutes.

With the meat cut and ready, I put the pot back onto the plate to get the onions annoyed again, and washed a few dishes quickly.

Meat was tossed in and swooshed around with the onions. I left the onions and smoked pork while I drained the water off the split peas and soup veg.

Back at the pot, the onion pork stuff was stirred up again, and then the drained peas and soup veg were tossed in! Stir, stir, stir. Throw in the bone. Add about 750ml water, and wait for it to boil. As soon as it starts boiling, add 750ml water, and turn the stove plate down to mark 4. I wanted it to boil, but not boil dry, as I had to leave it unattended for a while.

When I got back, I squeezed some of the pea and veg stuff through a sieve, to help thicken the soup. I added another cup of water, and turned the temperature right down. The soup was now on its own until supper time.

To serve.
We were in a hurry at the OK, so I didn’t grab a loaf of their freshly baked crusty bread. Dammit.
Anyway, 2 slices of normal bread each, on a plate.
Then, soup into mug.
Then, add a generous dollop of fresh live culture Bulgarian yoghurt, and a splash or several of Worcester sauce.
Soup mug onto plate, spoon onto plate, and serve.

Even if I say so myself, damn good!

Maybe next time I’ll take a photo, it looks good enough to eat, and tastes good enough to gorge on!

Lekka vreet!

A new auction site for South Africa

The past few weeks we've been quite busy with the re-design of a new online auction website.

Our client has been busy with this project for about 4 years now, and it just doesn't seem to get done. Until now.

After spending a small fortune to date, finances were becoming an issue, and rather than start from scratch with a totally new design approach in .php (instead of the existing half-hearted .asp), we scratched around a bit, and came across WeBid, amongst a few others which are not getting mentioned. A fair amount of time went into the script selection, as it is imperative that whatever is used, needs to work properly. What tilted the scales for us in favour of WeBid is the fact that although still in Beta, there are several sites running with no hassles, and then of course, the support forum is active, and helpful.

We took a screenshot of the existing site, which was designed for 800px width monitors, and widened it to 990px, in line with the major auction sites. Some surgery to the basic design followed, chopping and widening, importing graphics to the new theme, creating graphics for the new theme, and then the painful bit started.

The WeBid default theme was the starting point, as it has all the pages needed. There are 61 files there that need to be tarted and tittivated, and bent out of and into shape to fit into the design parameters of the new theme. A major part of the website design process was in converting the original table based design into a css based design, for forward browser compatability, smaller file load sizes, and to keep the hidden parts of the design lean, mean, and Search Engine Friendly.

The bulk of the work is done, and we need to add one or three items into the website coding. We'll be loading the test site to our servers later this evening, so, if you have any comments or ideas, please feel free to let us know.

First Post!

Boooring!

So I have to tell you what this blog is about? Read the description.

My pet hates currently are local politics, laziness, and people who don't like chocolate.

My passions? Bitching about local politics, which I won't do here (I think), bitching about laziness, and bitching about peple who don't like chocolate. I also enjoy website design and learning more about it, writing is cool, watersport, excepting anything that involves swimming, is great.

Pretty much I want to use this blog as a stress relief, and to get my thoughts together, as I generally tend to either focus too intently, or go off on a wild far-ranging tangent that will never find its way back to where it started.

Daily life, duh, like I'm going to post every day, not...

Lots of website design shit. I'm always trying to improve what I do, and I have founds tons of solutions to website design problems that I reckon would help many people. I also enjoy using little known alternative website design related software packages.

We're, okay, Terry, is constantly adding to everything we do, and maybe I should help a bit. :) This blog is gonna increase her workload...

Some of the shit we cover, apart from our main website and blog, is small business ideas, working from home, and trying to get around to working on Sunburst International, and Claybrick Trust. The latter are severely neglected.

Just to play around a bit, this post is now closed so I can do another one!