Panzanella

Ingredients:

• 1kg plum tomatoes
• 2 red peppers
• 2 yellow peppers
• 1 small red pepper, deseeded and chopped
• 100g capers
• 12 olives (your choice of colour)
• 1 ciabatta, preferably stale
• 4tbsp red wine vinegar
• 5 garlic cloves, crushed
• about 250ml good extra-virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper
• handful of fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

Skin the tomatoes by putting a cross on the bottom, plunging them into boiling water for about 30 secods, then into iced water. The skins should peel off easily. Cut the them into quarters, scoop out the seeds into a sieve and press to release the juice into a bowl. Put the quarters into a separate bowl.

Skin all the peppers by either grilling them, or roasting them until black (grilling is probably easier). Put them in a plastic bag until cool -- the skins will fall off. Then deseed them and cut each into about eight pieces. Put in the bowl with the tomato quarters, then add the chilli, capers and olives.

Tear the bread into big chunks and put in a separate bowl.

Add the vinegar, garlic and oil to the tomato juice, season and whisk well, then pour over the bread and leave for about 1 hour.

Finally, gently combine the tomatoes and peppers mixture with the bread and dressing, and garnish with basil leaves.

Enjoy!

Gaming stuff for sale

OK folks, here is my for sale list. All prices are based on average prices fetched on the mighty ebay. P&P will be £1.20 for most game-shaped things (for other things I will charge at cost). N64 games are cartridge only, although I may have instruction books for a few of them. Everything else is probably complete (although I will double check for you). Things priced at £0 are things I'm not sure whether I want to sell (make me an offer and see I guess).

Red stuff is sold.
Green are new additions.

Sorry for wasting your bandwidth

Gamecube... all USA/NTSC
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3: £3.00
Super Monkey Ball: £5.00
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4: £4.00
Viewtiful Joe: £5.00
Animal Crossing: £8.00
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life: £10.00
Super Smash Bros, Melee: £8.00
The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker: £10.00
Metroid Prime: £8.00
Star Wars: Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II: £3.00
All-Star Baseball 2002: £3.00
Super Mario Sunshine: £8.00
Controller: £8.00
Controller: £8.00


Xbox... all UK/PAL
Knights of The Old Repubic: £8.00
Xbox Live Headset & Puck: £10.00
Controller S: £10.00
Timesplitters 2: £3.00
NBA Street: Vol. 2: £3.00
Tony Hawk's Underground: £3.00
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4: £3.00
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance: £5.00
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: £3.00
Panzer Dragoon Orta: £5.00
Ninja Gaiden: £8.00
World Championship Rugby: £5.00
Halo: £5.00
Halo 2: £10.00
X-Men Legends: £5.00
Console + Controller + Cable: £50.00
Official Advanced Scart Cable: £10.00
Controller S: £10.00
Controller S: £10.00
DVD Kt : £5.00

PC
Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast: £4.00
Star Lancer: £3.00
Icewind Dale: £4.00
Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace: £3.00

Gamboy Advance
GBA Arctic: £25.00
Kuru Kuru Kururin: £3.00
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2: £3.00

Dreamcast... all UK/PAL except where noted
Bangai-o: £10.00
Shenmue: £8.00
Sega Bass Fishing + Fission Rod: £8.00
Rez: £0.00
DC-X: £2.00
NTSC/US Samba de Amigo + Amigo Cha Cha Controllers: £0.00
Soul Calibur: £4.00
Jet Set Radio: £4.00
Skies Of Arcadia: £18.00
Bust-A-Move 4: £4.00
Space Channel 5: £4.00
Sonic Adventure: £3.00
ChuChu Rocket!: £2.00
Phantasy Star Online NTSC/US: £3.00
Virtua Tennis NTSC/US: £4.00

PlayStation... all UK/PAL
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2: £2.00
Tekken 3: £3.00
Ape Escape: £3.00
Brian Lara Cricket: £2.00
Pro Evolution Soccer 2: £3.00
This Is Football 2: £2.00
Console without controller: £5.00

N64... all UK/PAL
Rakuga Kids: £10.00
International Superstar Soccer 64: £1.00
Goldeneye 007: £3.00
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron: £3.00
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: £12.00
Mario Kart 64: £0.00
Donkey Kong 64: £8.00
Perfect Dark: £5.00
Jet Force Gemin : £4.00
Diddy Kong Racing: £4.00
Lylat Wars: £0.00
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time: £0.00
Super Mario 64: £0.00
Super Smash Bros: £5.00
1080 Snowboarding: £2.00
Console + 4 controllers: £0.00

Misc
Stepdown converter suitable for US GC/PS2: £6.00
MJ-D707 Minidisc Player : £60.00
Edge Magazines from 1999 to present: £0.00

Avoca Pizza Base

I promised my brother that I'd post this, so here is the pizza base recipe from the pretty damn awesome Avoca Cafe Cookbook. The original recipe is in plain text, my annotations are in italics.

Ingredients:

• 15g/0.5oz fresh yeast (although you can use a single sachet of the instant stuff)
• 1 dessertspoon honey
• 250-350ml/8-12fl oz tepid water (definitely not boiling as this kills the yeast... probably cooler than it comes out of a hot tap)
• 450g/1lb strong flour (I've made it with both white and wholemeal strong flour... white tastes nicer, wholemeal is better for you)
• A good pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

To make the dough, cream the yeast and honey together in a bowl and then add 250ml/8fl oz of the warm water. Stir until dissolved abd leave for 10 minutes in a warm place. It will bubble up slightly which tells you the yeast is alive and well. Place the flour amd salt in a large bow - it must be large enough to allow the dough to rise to twice its original size. Make a well in the centre and add the olive oil, then the yeast mixture, stirring with your fingers (messy!) to combine it with the flour. Add the remaining water if necessary to make a smooth dough that comes away from the sides of the bowl. Knead either by hand or with a dough hook until the dough is elastic and bounces back when you prod it with your finger. Return it to the bowl and coat with a thin film of olive oil. Cover the bowl with cling-film and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Knock back the risen dough, divide it in two and roll out each half as thinly as possible, into a circle roughly 30 cm in diameter. At this point you can freeze the dough, rather than roll it out. I normally make double the amount specified so that I can have a couple of bases ready in the freezer for days when I'm hung-over and craving naughty food.

Spread the sauce and topping over the bases and bake for 20 minutes in an over preheated to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. It's best to have a hot baking sheet or pizza tray in the oven, then if you have a pizza paddle (or are very dextrous), you can slip the the pizza on to it to cook - the blast of heat from the baking sheet ensures a crisp base if you want that sort of thing. Alternatively, just put the rolled-out pizza dough on a baking sheet and put it into the hot oven. I usually cover the baking sheet with olive oil to make sure the pizza doesn't stick.

Drummer wanted for Birmingham indie band

I'm part of a recently formed band hailing from Birmingham in the UK. We're currently searching for a drummer to help us write original material. Our influences include Pavement, Built To Spill, Guided By Voices, Weezer, Ted Leo and lots of other good US & UK indie (see my profile!).

Are you a Birmingham drummer with good skills, and a desire to contribute to the creative process? Do you know someone that fits that description? If so, please PM me on audioscrobbler or contact us here.

Mind the mess

Just a quick note to say that I am slowly importing old content from my old (abortive) blog, monsterlives. Anything on here from before December '04 is from the old place. Some of it is pretty embarrassing too ;)

You're delicious

Just trying out a few things. In the mean time, checkout some del.icio.us links.

Stencil Revolution

I've always fancied making my own t-shirts, so I was totally gon-smacked when I found Stencil Revolution. Basically it answers all the questions I had about technique and materials, and it does so with a fairly bad attitude. And it's arty... in a borderline good way. I have to admit that I didn't stumble upon this by chance. Instead it appears here via the new, and wonderful, Preshrunk. Who'd have thought reading about t-shirts could be quite so interesting? Me neither.