Andrew Siwko’s Blog #2

Here’s a good description with instructions for changing the range: http://www.ncftpd.com/ncftpd/doc/misc/ephemeral_ports.html

My garage doors are 9′x7′ wooden single car garage doors.  Last week the torsion spring on one of them broke.

After reading about the effort involved in replacing a torsion spring (http://truetex.com/garage.htm) I called a few companies in the Richmond area for quotes.  The prices ranged from $150 to $189.  The $189 price included garage door opener service. 

Old Dominion Door Sales included door lubrication in their $150 and they could come out the next morning, so I chose them.  I was really pleased with the work.  The fellow was very nice.  He replaced the broken spring on one door, lubed both doors, and replaced the nuts.  He did this in about 30 minutes.

From /usr/share/ssl/certs:

tar -cvf certs-working.tar *
rm -f imapd.pem
make imapd.pem
(enter certificate details)
openssl x509 -in imapd.pem -out imapd.crt

import imapd.crt by double-clicking on it in Windows.

I’ve been using WSAD to write J2EE apps for several years.  Recently I installled Windows XP on my laptop next to Windows 2000.  WSAD is installed on the Windows 2000 side and won’t run because it can’t find the license.  Rather than reinstalling I started to run eclipse (V3M8).  I was working on a web application for my children and wanted to make a simple change.  I copied the WSAD project into eclipse and created a simple ant build.xml with a war task.  Well, what do you know, it worked!  I was able to deploy it to tomcat 5 through the manager app with the greatest of ease.  So now I can write servlets and JSPs with eclipse with no special plug-ins.

I feel like I’m entering the J1EE age.

(Note for those who don’t get the joke: the servlet API predates Java 2 and J2EE.)

Heat until bubbles form:

1/2 cup milk

remove from heat, add

1/3 cup Rapadura (sugar)
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter

stir until melted, cool to lukewarm.

Sprinkle

2 packets active dry yeast

over

1/2 cup warm water (105-115 degrees F)

in a bowl.  A pinch of sugar may help the yeast grow.  In a mixer bowl, put the milk mixture, the yeast mixture and

4 egg yolks
2 cups of whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons rum

Mix for 2 minutes until smooth then add up to

2 cups of whole wheat flour

until dough comes clean off the side of the mixing bowl.  Let rise at 85 degrees F for 1 hour until doubled in size.  Pound/kneed 10 times (until smooth) on a lightly floured surface.  Roll to 1/4 inch thick.  Cut out 3 inch rounds.  Divide the rounds into two sets.  Put

1/2 teaspoon jam (jelly, etc)

in the center of one half of the rounds.  Brush the edges of the other rounds with

egg whites

press the rounds together to seal the jam in with the egg whites.  Cover the panczki and let rise to double the size (45 minutes).

Heat 2 inches of oil to 350 degrees F.  Cook 3-4 panczki at a time.  Turn when risen and turn once more (4 minutes total).

Dust with

powdered Rapadura (sugar)

Eat hot or cold.  They’re good for days.  If kept covered the sugar can glaze nicely.

Notes for next time:

1. Putting the panczki at the top of the water heater closet worked well,
2. but cover them with plastic because the top side dried out.
3. Initial doubling time was about 90 minutes
4. The second rise time was 2 hours but 1 hour was spent at the bottom (closer to 75  degrees).
5. The egg white worked well, but the press had to be quite firm to get a good seal.
6. With the oil at 365 degrees at close to 4 minutes, the panczki came out very dark.

2012 Notes:

We made two batches this year with great success.  This year we tried to reproduce my babcia’s filling method.  It was easier and produced superior results.  Here’s the method:

Pinch off a piece of dough.  Form it into a ball.  Push a hole for the filling with your thumb and work the ball into a little cup with a small hole at the top.  Using a syringe (I cut the top off a cod-liver-oil syringe) fill with jam.  Close the hole behind the jam neither letting jam out nor leaving air in.

The other change was to leave the first rise overnight and to do the second rise in a warming drawer at about 100 degrees F.

Watch the flour level carefully.  Our second batch was too wet and made flat panczki.  They were still good but harder to handle and not round.

I’ve been experimenting with tortillas lately.  Here’s the current recipe:

2 cups whole wheat flour
some butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix up in a mixer and add

1/2 cup of warm water with
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon of Rapadura mixed in (this bit’s the latest experiment)

I did cut the water in half since the last time.  I left out the sugar and added oil this time with good results.

Divide into 12 balls.  Press dough in a tortilla press.  I find that oiling the plates before pressing helps.  Oil a wooden pizza board and a wooden roller.  Roll out the pressed dough rounds into 10 to 12 inch tortillas.  Cook on an oiled fajita pan.  The best way to do this is to have the tortilla dough balls ready and to get the children to press the dough and flip the tortilla.  This will free you to concentrate on rolling out the dough.  Work the edges with the roller to get a nice round shape.  Cook untill there are a few broen spots on both sides.  Final cooking can be done when the tortillas are made into burritos or quesadillas.

Last time I divided into rougly 2oz balls and got about 16.  I got smaller tortillas about 8″ in diameter.

right over left

Starting point: http://www.recipegal.com/chicken/Chick-Fil-A-Chicken-Sandwich.htm

Made some modifications and got this:

Peanut oil to fill the deep fryer
1 egg
1 cup organic milk
1
cup whole wheat flour
2-1/2 Tablespoons Rapadura sugar
1/2
teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons salt
2 Skinless, boneless chicken
breasts, halved

Heat the oil to 375F.

Whisk the egg/milk.

In a blender turn the sugar / salt to powder then add the flour and
pepper.

One bowl for egg mix, one bowl for dry mix.

Cut the chicken up into strips and nuggets. Thin strips cook fast and
maximize the batter to chicken ratio.

Soak the chicken in the egg mix. Coat the chicken with the dry mix and
fry. Thin strips will cook easily in 2 minutes.

When the chicken’s cooked mix some of the egg mix with the dry mix.
Slice an onion to get rings. Coat the rings in the batter and fry. The
resulting onion rings remind Naomi of "The Varsity" in Athens, GA.