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Hot Hot Hot

If you’re a hot head and enjoy a good fiery chilli from time to time, its interesting to know the relative heat of your favorite food essential ingredient.

The following are measured in scovil units:

Jalapeno has 8,000 units

Serrano has 22.000 units

Habanero has 325,000 units

Ghost Chilli has 1,000,000+ units

Burn Baby Burn.

Paint It Black

If you’ve used cast iron pans you’ll know just how good they are for cooking. If you haven’t, ask yourself why.

Cast iron pans have great heat distribution and retention. You can take cast iron from the hob and transfer it straight to the oven.

Cast iron cookware lasts years and improves with age, unlike modern non-stick pans which deteriorate with usage as the non-stick coating gets thinner and thinner.

One of the few drawbacks with cast iron cookware, is it takes a little more work in preparing them for first use, and then keeping them in a clean usable condition. Cast iron cookware is definitely NOT suitable for the dishwasher. You need to clean by hand.

Seasoning Cast Iron

From new, cast iron pans have to be seasoned, before they’re usable or the cast iron will rust, souring your food and causing discolouration. To season cast iron pans can take a little work. The process of turning the gun metal grey into a black beauty takes time and patience.

Brand new pans, often come coated with a light protective coating, to prevent rust during transport. The coating must be cleaned and removed before the seasoning can begin. Use a scouring pad and detergent to scrub the new pan and completely remove all traces of the protective layer to get back to gun metal iron.

Next, preheat the oven to 500 – 550 deg F (260 – 290 deg C). While the oven heats up, fire up a gas burner and place the cleaned pan on it to ensure it is fully dry. Let it stand for a couple of minutes for the heat to dry it out.

Once the pan is dry, lightly coat it with a thin layer of Olive Oil. Make sure there are no gaps or misses in the oil layer you applied. If you don’t have Olive Oil, you can use corn oil or sunflower just as well.

Place the pan in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes. Caution. The pan will be VERY HOT. Use oven gloves to the take pan out the oven and wipe off any excess oil that has pooled in the pan.

Put the pan back into the oven, upside down (inverted). This will allow any excess oil to run off the pan and prevent pooling at the bottom, which will not harden and remains tacky for a long time, spoiling your smooth, non-stick surface.

Leave the pan in the oven for 2-3 hours. This process will cause a lot of smoke. So ventilate the kitchen, by opening doors and windows to get a through draft, before you start.

To properly season a new pan you need to repeat the process at least three times. Finally cook the pan in the oven for another 3-4 hours without adding any oil. This will bake/harden the final coating. When your done, the pan should be black or near black in color.

What we are trying to do is build up a carbon layer to protect the cast iron. The carbon layer will resist rust and provide a natural non-stick coating way better than any commercial product on the market.

Cleaning Cast Iron

Don’t use abrasive cleaning pads or detergents on the pans, as they will remove the carbon layer you are trying to build up.

To clean your pans, use hot water and kitchen towel to remove excess oil, fat or any other deposits. If you need to use a soft brush with the hot water water from a running tap. Don’t immerse the pan in water. That will only only lead to rusting of your pans.

Storing Cast Iron

After cleaning, oil the pan lightly with vegetable oil and store away from water or moisture. The little effort it takes to look after Cast Iron Cookware, is repaid ten fold. The pans give years of excellent service and as an added bonus, they are great to cook with.

Overview

Let’s have a quick overview of what the process does, and what we are trying to achieve.

Here’s a brand new cast iron pan. Its gun metal gray. It contains little or no carbon.

Here’s a piece of coal. Its black. Coal contains a lot of carbon.

Here’s carbon fibre. Its black. Carbon fibre contains a lot of carbon.

Here’s a seasoned cast iron pan. Its black. Seasoned cast iron pan contains a lot of carbon in the coating.

Your probably getting the idea about now.

The whole idea of seasoning Cast Iron Cookware is to lay down a good thick, even, hardened layer of cooked on black carbon. The seasoning process converts the oil to a beautiful black non-slip carbon layer.

The seasoning process lays down carbon on the iron surface. The carbon that has non-stick properties and provides a degree of rust protection.

Now you know!

There’s One Born Every Minute

I came across this online ad. The ad tag-line states: “Don’t Waste Your Money On Weight Loss Products That Don’t Work.” It should also say, “Including This One!”

Here’s the URL to the site: www.weightlossproductreviews.co.uk

On first viewing, the advert appears genuine, but further inspection reveals some unpleasant facts hidden away. For example it states in the top right hand column “As Featured On: The BBC, The Telegraph and The Sun ”. One could easily take this to mean the product has featured on a BBC program or as a feature article or advert in the The Telegraph or the Sun newspapers. This is not true.

The first part shows a young oriental girl with before and after photos. You can see she has lost weight. The copy suggests the oriental girl lost weight drinking the wonderful tea and using the effective colon cleansing product.

Further down the page a section marked Reviews suggests 14 individuals contacted the company with comments or questions. Once again this is not so. Its all fabricated.

Scroll down to the bottom of page and check out the small print under “Terms And Conditions”, which I have reproduced here in full:

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

* We are not affiliated in any way with BBC, The Telegraph or The Sun and are all registered trademarks of their respective owners. All trademarks on this web site whether registered or not, are the property of their respective owners. The authors of this web site are not sponsored by or affiliated with any of the third-party trade mark or third-party registered trade mark owners, and make no representations about them, their owners, their products or services.

* S&H charges do apply. Results will vary by person, and the special offers may only be available for a limited time. Some of the products described on this site have terms regarding continued billing after the trial period ends. This is referred to as negative option, or continuity billing. Therefore, it is important to ensure that you are fully aware of the terms associated with each product before you order. To make this easier for you, we have included links to the billing terms for each of the products below. Please keep in mind that these are separate companies and we are not the best source for information about orders or specific policies. Because these companies control their own policies, shipping and other fees may change periodically. We have linked away from our website directly to their terms and conditions pages.

* Please also recognize that the story and comments depicted on this site and the person depicted in the story are not real. Rather, the story is based on what some people have achieved with these and other similar products. The results portrayed in the story and in the comments are illustrative, and may not necessarily be the results that you achieve with these products. This page does receive compensation for purchase of products featured on this site.

Did you get that?

“The story and comments depicted on this site and the person depicted in the story are not real”.

As you can see its all fabricated to sell the products.

Here’s a shot of weightlossproductreviews site:

Here’s a screenshot of the Terms And Conditions taken from the site:

If you now check out the products referred to that helped this fictitious girl lose 5 stone and 4 pounds in under 15 weeks, you will see the two products will cost you way more than you bargained for.

The colon cleanse costs £65 + £65 = £130 (around $202 at today’s exchange rate).

Here’s a shot of the Advanced Colon Cleanse site:

The wonderful Cho Yung Tea costs £60, and you will receive another month supply each month till you cancel.

Here’s a shot of the Cho Yung Tea site:

These two wonderful products with extremely suspect marketing will cost you the princely sum of £190 for one month’s supply.

If you don’t cancel the Wonderful Cho Yung Tea order within the 14 day trial period and allow it to run for 12 months it will only cost you: £720.

Add the cost of the Advanced Colon Cleanse: £720 + £130 = £850.

Yes it totals a staggering £850.

Believe.

He’s Making A Killing

Lord Of War is an excellent film. It blends a good story, a sprinkling of humour with a powerful morality tale. The film moves at a fast pace and Cage produces on of his strongest performances. The cinematography is excellent. The visuals superb. Fast crisp dialogue and tight editing.

Nic Cage is Yuri Orlav and he sells guns to anyone who pays, and any form of payment will do. Cash, drugs, diamonds, whatever you got.

Cage is excellent in the lead as the gun runner with no morals, who thinks fast on his feet in tight situations. Jared Ledo in a support role as Cage’s younger brother is excellent too. Ethan Hawke is the agent chasing Cage. Ian Holme is an opposite gun runner.

Excellent movie. Highly enjoyable.

Go get it.

“The first and most important rule of gun-running: is never get shot with your own merchandise.”

“The second rule of gun-running is always ensure you have a foolproof way of getting paid, preferably in advance, preferably to an offshore account.”

“Third rule of gun-running is never pick up a gun and join your customer.”

“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That’s one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?”

Runtime: 122 mins

IMDB Info

El Secreto De Sus Ojos

An Argentinian film in Spanish with English sub-titles and tells the story of an unsolved murder case that still haunts the main protagonist, played by Ricardo Darin, many years after he has retired.

He returns to his work place requesting help and permission to revisit and re-open the case. His request is declined and told to forget about it. Ignoring this advice he doggedly presses on with his investigations anyhow.

A thoughtful well-crafted movie with excellent performances, that are balanced, restrained and believable. Superb direction, a tight script, and excellent dialogue.

Brilliant.

Go get it. Watch it.

Runtime: 127 mins

IMDB Info

Prevaricate

I just deleted a truck load of spam comment from the blog and asked myself “Why people do it?” The comments are not real and the content, lies.

The comments have no basis in reality. They contain no fabric of truth.

Why do it?

Money!

Material gain.

Lie. Steal. Cheat.

People do it for money.

They have become… money’s bitch.

They look in the mirror and fool themselves this is a good way to live.

How foolish? They’ve lost any semblance of dignity or self-respect.

No one is born bad. No one is born a liar.

People’s lives are shaped through their thoughts, through their words, through their actions.

We ourselves make what we become. We alone are responsible.