Slow cooked lamb

This recipe is based on the mutton in a pot in this episode of Italy Unpacked. I have converted it to a slow cooker recipe, but it could be done in a casserole in the oven or in a earthenware pot next to a wood fire. Some of the ingredients are a compromise, for example Giorgio bought a kilo of rocket in the market. I couldn’t have got all that in the pot. Not all those tomatoes or chillies either.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

I haven’t worried too much about search engines since I set this site up. I registered it with Google initially, and after a few days it appeared in the results, so that was good enough for me. If you search for Old Shoreham Buccaneers, or a subset of that, the Buccaneers site appears high in the results, job done.

Since I published a recipe based on the BBC TV programme Italy Unpacked about a month ago, I have been getting a lot of hits on the Recipes page. When I finally got around to checking I found that this is due to it being the only actual recipe directly attributed to the show in the search results. It’s currently fourth now second in the listing if you search for sausage and lentils recipe Italy Unpacked on Google.

Fast Fourier Transform

I wrote a java tuner app a few years ago, so I needed a Fast Fourier Transform to do the frequency detection. I found a fairly simple implementation in java on the web somewhere, can’t remember where, tried it, and it worked fine. The frequency detection algorithm comes from The Dsp Dimension.

A few years later I ported it to windows, added a few gizmos for tuning accordions and put it on Google Code. I was concerned that the FFT implementation was simplistic and did more research online to find better implementations. However, when I actually checked the performance with a profiling tool, I found that the spectrum display code was the bottleneck and the FFT was not significant. I tried a few different FFT implementations anyway, but they didn’t make a significant difference. I then ported the app to OSX, which has a built in high performance DSP library, so no problem there.

Sausages with Green Lentils

This recipe is based on the sausages with lentils in this episode of Italy Unpacked on BBC 2. This is enough for three or four, depending on the number of sausages. You will need a medium sized pan to cook the lentils, and a large deep pan for the sausages, onions, and everything else.

Ingredients

• One cup green lentils
• Two sticks celery, chopped
• Large garlic clove or two small, chopped
• Six or eight good quality sausages
• Two large onions, chopped
• 500g carton passata
• Olive oil

Method

1. Put lentils, chopped celery and garlic in a pot, cover with water, boil for five minutes, then simmer for about 30 minutes until tender. Add more water if necessary. The idea is for the lentils to absorb all the water.
2. Fry sausages in a deep pan until nearly done.
3. Remove sausages and replace with chopped onions.
4. Fry the onions until golden, stir to release the bits of burnt on sausage.
5. Add passata and heat through, stirring.
6. Replace sausages, add lentils.
7. Cook gently until done, add some olive oil before serving.

Transfer contacts from iPhone to Android

I’ve been using an old iPhone 3G, and I’ve got myself a new Android phone. First off, I googled DuckDuckGo’d how to transfer my contacts and found lots of suggestions. First, I tried My Contacts Backup, but it wouldn’t install on the iPhone.

So I synced the contacts with my Hackintosh using iTunes, exported the contacts to a vCard file, transferred it to the phone by email and imported the file to the Contacts app on the phone. You need to ensure that all the contacts are selected when you export them. And delete the one for Apple that got in there at some stage.