Summertime Favorites: Fried Eggplant

Enjoyable even without Parmesan

With summer here, there are plenty of delicious vegetables available, whether it be from a farmer's market or your own garden. Whenever I get my hands on some good zucchini or eggplant, one of my favorite ways to prepare them is pan frying. It might not be the healthiest way to enjoy them, but it certainly is one of the most delicious ways to eat your vegetables.

A New Home -- Garden Relocation

The first cucumber!

It's been a long 3 years at my old apartment, and a good 2 having the garden there. But with my lease expiring and old roommates also moving out, it was time for me to leave. I couldn't afford to bring my whole entire garden with me to the new place, but I was able to bring a few of the bigger/more important plants with me.

Bottling Day: World Cup Victory Cider

It's cider bottling day. After 3 weeks of fermenting/aging, World Cup Victory Cider was ready to bottle. It finished with a final gravity of 1.000, resulting in an ABV of 9.30%. I chose to bottle the cider up mostly in 22 oz bottles, along some larger bottles and a few 12 oz.

Ready to fill!

One cider was bottled in a sparkling wine bottle. Due to the way sparkling wine is made, the lips of the bottles are designed to take beer caps. That being said, they must use different cap sizes in some wineries since I was only able to cap 1 of my 4 bottles. Regardless, that one will only be saved for a special occasion, as it is a lot of cider to drink at once.

5-C Collet Cloture - Part 2 - The Draw Bar

See part 1

The purpose of the collet draw bar (or in normal cases, draw tube) is to thread onto the collet tightening it onto the lathe spindle and thus securing the stock to be machined.  On a normal sized lathe, the draw tube/ bar thing would be a hollow cylinder with a 1.238" - 20 ID thread on on end, and some sort of locking mechanism.  Examples of locking mechanisms include lever or pneumatically actuated ones, simple hand wheels (see picture) or more fancy gear driven hand wheels that are closer to the collet circumventing the need for a long tube.

This picture shows an example of what a normal 5C lathe spindle configuration might look like:

Hard Cider #4: World Cup Victory Cider

To commemorate Germany's victory over Argentina in the World Cup Finals, I decided it was time to make some more cider.
(Ok I lied about the World Cup being inspiration. Chat at work was the real inspiration.)

It's Cider Time!

I decided to pull out the old Safale US-05 I had in my fridge. Despite it being a year old, I think it'll still do the trick. The starter I made from it appeared active before I pitched it, so I'm hoping for the best.