Bill Farmer

Raspberry Pi Wifi

When I got my Pi some months ago I bought a wifi adapter for it, as you do. But I couldn’t get it to work reliably in Raspbian, and I didn’t even try in Arch Linux. So I tested the adapter on my windoze box, and it worked just fine, and I tried it with Linux and it worked just fine, so I put it in the ‘too hard’ box.

Python

I’ve studiously avoided Python up till now, even though it appears to be fairly popular, because it violates the first law of compiler design: ‘Blank space shalt not be significant except to separate tokens where necessary.’. That’s why you can minimise a lengthy JavaScript script like jQuery to one enormously long line and it still works just fine.

But, she-who-shall-be-ignored (self categorisation) decided she wanted to enter an advent calender competition which involved checking a web page to see if your name has come up and sending an email if it does. So I thought that’s an ideal little job to run on my Raspberry Pi. So I installed the ssmtp package and attempted to test sending an email. After several days of faffing about with no joy I gave up.

Clementine Cake

This is an adaptation of a Marguerite Patten recipe dated 1963. As adapted by She-who-shall-be-ignored, with additional chutney technique.

Ingredients

Cake

• 7oz self raising flour
• 1/4tsp Baking powder
• 5oz margarine or butter
• 4oz golden granulated sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 3 clementines, chopped up into small pieces and any pips removed

Icing

• 3oz Icing sugar
• 2oz margarine or butter

Method

1. Put the sugar and the chopped clementines in a small saucepan on a gentle heat. stir occasionally until you have a thick marmalade.
2. Turn on the oven, about 175 degrees.
3. Meanwhile, sieve the flour on to a plate with the baking powder, beat the eggs in a bowl, and weigh out the margarine.
4. Zizz up the marmalade with a blender until the peel is incorporated. Keep some back for the icing.
5. Beat the margarine and most of the blended marmalade together with a little flour in a mixing bowl.
6. Add about a dessert spoonful of flour, and about half an egg’s worth of whipped egg mixture to the mixing bowl, Then add another dessert spoonful of flour and mix it up.
7. Keep doing this until you have incorporated all the whipped egg.
8. Add about half the remaining flour to the mixing bowl, and incorporate gently with a spoon.
9. Repeat with the rest of the flour.
10. Divide the mixture between two sandwich tins and place in oven for about 30 minutes until done.
11. Meanwhile, Put the sieved icing sugar, margarine and left over blended marmalade in to a bowl and incorporate with a fork.
12. When the cake halves have cooled down, spread the icing on the bottom half, stick the top half on top, dust over a smidgeon of icing sugar and enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

Doug’s Seafood Risotto

This is my interpretation of my brother’s risotto. This is in no way a conventional risotto recipe, but it works nicely. Hearty dinner for four.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of risotto rice
• Three or four onions, depending on size
• Three cloves of garlic
• A red pepper and a green pepper
• A punnet of mushrooms, approx 200g
• 350g approx of seafood selection
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Oregano
• A chicken stockpot
• Butter
• Water
• Olive oil

Method

1.  Warm up a large saucepan with a good glug of olive oil in it.
2. Chop up the vegetables and add to the pan.
3. Sprinkle over a generous amount of oregano, a good grind of black pepper, put the lid on, and let it sweat for a while.
4. Add the rice and the stockpot, give it a good shake and put the lid back on for a bit.
5. Add about the same quantity of water as rice, or slightly less. Stir well. Do not add more, water as lots of liquid cooks out of the ingredients.
6. Add the seafood when it begins to bubble.
7. Let it simmer gently with an occasional stir to prevent sticking until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
8. Add a generous lump of butter and stir in.
9. Turn off the heat and let it sit for a few minutes.
10. Serve.

Spanish Frittata

Another not so light lunch for two.

Ingredients

• Two largish onions
• Four or five eggs, depending on size
• Chorizo, sliced
• Cheese, sliced
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Oil for cooking

Method

1. Warm up a large skillet or frying pan with some cooking oil in it.
2. While the pan is warming slice the onions into rings and place in the pan.
3. Whip up the eggs and grind some black pepper into them.
4. When the onions are nicely browned, turn the slices over and pour over the eggs.
5. Decorate with slices of chorizo and cheese.
6. Pop under the grill to finish. Take care if the pan has a plastic or wooden handle.
7. This may be difficult to get out of the in one piece, depending on how non stick your pan really is.
8. Serve with crusty bread.