Thursday, May 18, 2006

Corn & Shrimp Chowder

This rich and tasty soup makes a delightfully satisfying meal on a cold night. We save time by boiling the potatoes while the bacon-and-onion mixture cooks. Buying cleaned shrimp is a time-saver too.

Serving: Yields: 10 1/2 cups or 6 main-dish servings
Total Time: 30 minutes



1 pound red potatoes (3 medium), cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) chicken broth (1 3/4 cups)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 packages (10 ounces each) frozen whole-kernel corn
2 slices bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound shelled and deveined large shrimp
1 cup half-and-half or light cream
Fresh chives for garnish





1. In 4-quart saucepan, heat potatoes, broth, salt, pepper, and 1 cup water to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to medium; cover and cook 10 minutes. Add 1 package frozen corn and cook 5 minutes longer or just until potatoes are fork-tender.
2. Meanwhile, in 12-inch skillet, cook bacon over medium heat 5 minutes. Add onion and cook 10 minutes longer or until onion is golden and tender. When bacon is browned, transfer to paper towels to drain; break into pieces when cool.

3. Add 1 cup water and remaining package frozen corn to skillet with onion; heat to boiling over high heat. Add shrimp and cook 4 to 5 minutes or until shrimp turn opaque.

4. When potatoes are tender, remove 2 cups potato mixture to blender. At low speed, with center part of cover removed to allow steam to escape, blend mixture until pureed. Return pureed mixture to saucepan. Add shrimp mixture and half-and-half; heat through (do not boil or soup may curdle). Top with bacon, and garnish with chives.

Each serving: About 370 calories, 23 g protein, 39 g carbohydrate, 15 g total fat (6 g saturated), 3 g fiber, 138 mg cholesterol, 915 mg sodium.


©1995-2006 iVillage. All Rights Reserved.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Home stereo - There's a "thump" when I turn off my system

This is not a Halloween scary-tale. In fact this thumping does happen with some regularity.
There are usually two reasons for this: The amp has a large power supply and its design doesn't shunt energy in a path that is outside the speaker output circuit. Let's look a bit more closely at both.

First, a power supply's job is to filter and store energy until the amplifier circuitry needs it. Most good amps have power supplies that store several thousand microfarads or even Joules of electrical power in capacitors. Thats a whole lot of stored electrons!! And its part of the reason that these amps sound as good as they do. But when you turn the system off, that energy has to go somewhere. The "thump" you occasionally hear is the power supply capacitors dissipating the energy.
While its sometimes annoying, it's not dangerous at all. In fact, it's just another sign that the amp won't run out of steam when you really want to reproduce loud transient sounds.
Sometimes amp designers employ what are known as output relays that shunt and dissipate the excess energy as soon as the power is turned off. Many other designers think that these relays degrade the purity of the audio signal so they don't include them. Thus, the excess energy is passed to the speaker outputs in one big burst.

As one high-end equipment manufacturer puts it: "Look at it this way: The "thump" is the same thing as a high performance automobile's rumbling exhaust. The sound alone tells you there's something serious under the hood, right?"

From Anthony Armstrong

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Do’s and don’ts for home theatre setup

Setting up a home theatre can be pretty daunting. There are professionals out there for this kind of thing. Good thing us DIYers have resources like eCoustics.com. Yesterday they posted a great introductory article on setting up a home theatre.

They cover a wide range of do’s and don’ts, including sticky issues like HDMI vs. DVI.

Your new HDTV and DVD player may also have HDMI or DVI connectors, single multi-pin cables that keep the video in its digital form, rather than converting it to analog, which is what Component Video connections carry. You can try the HDMI or DVI connectors but you may or may not see any difference in video quality over the component video connections. Use whichever connection yields the best picture on your TV display. Note, however, that some new receivers that offer HDMI switching may not process the HDMI signal correctly so that it will display on your TV.

by Lifehacker posts

Monday, May 08, 2006

How to play Roulette and game rules.

Roulette is one of the most popular games played in modern Casinos. It is also one of the oldest Casino games. Roulette is somewhat unique amongst modern table games in that it employs a mechanical device as the key element of the game. The mechanical device is the large and very distinct Roulette wheel that is mounted horizontally on the end of the table. The hollow of the wheel has numbered pockets ranging from 0 to 36 - and 00 in American Style Roulette.

In Roulette the bets are placed on an area of the table marked with separate boxes, with each box containing individual numbers. This marked area is called the game layout, and you may place bets on any particular number, any 4 adjacent numbers, a column or a dozens bet.

The wheel is used to determine the outcome of a game of Roulette. Once the bets have been placed on the table, the wheel is set to start spinning and a small - usually metal or ivory - ball is spun onto the wheel in the opposite direction to that of the spinning wheel. The ball will lose speed and eventually stop in one of the numbered pockets in the Roulette wheel. The number the ball stops on is the winning number.

How to Play Roulette

There are two basic steps to follow to play a game of Roulette.

First you must decide on the numbers, or groups of numbers, that you want to bet on. You can place the chips on individual numbers or on the borders shared by two or more numbers..

Once you have placed your bet click the Spin button to start the game. The Roulette wheel will spin and the ball is then spun onto the wheel in the opposite direction to that of the spinning wheel. It will soon come to a stop in one of the numbered pockets on the wheel.

If the ball lands on a number that falls within the range of, or meets, any of your bets then you have won. Refer to the Table Limits and Odds section to find out more about how much each type of bet is worth.

Types of Roulette Bets
There are several types of bets that can be placed on the Roulette table:

The Straight Bet
This is a bet on any single number and odds of 35:1 are paid on a winning number.

The Column Bet
This bet is placed on any of the three columns of twelve numbers running along the Roulette table. The odds are 2:1 for a winning bet. If 0 comes up, the Column bets lose.

The Dozen Bet
This bet is placed on the outside boxes marked 1st, 2nd and 3rd twelve. The player will bet on numbers 1 to 12, numbers 13 to 24 and/or numbers 25 to 36. The odds are 2:1 for a winning bet. If 0 comes up the Dozen bet loses.

Black or Red Bet
A player can bet on either a black or red number coming up. The odds here are even (1:1). If 0 comes up the Black and Red bets lose.

Odd or Even Bet
A player can bet on either an odd or even number coming up. The odds here are even (1:1). If 0 comes up the Odd and Even bets lose.

High or Low Number Bet
The player can bet on the high box (1 to 18) or the low box (19 to 36). The odds are even (1:1). If 0 comes up the High and Low bets lose.

The Split or Two Number Bet
A player may place a bet on any line that divides any two adjacent numbers. The bet is that either of those two numbers will come up. The odds are 17:1.

The Row or Street Bet
A player can bet on the three numbers in a row on the roulette table by placing the bet/chip(s) on the outside of that row. The bet is that one of the three numbers will come up. The odds are 11:1.

The Corner or Square Bet
The bet is placed on the intersection of four numbers. The bet is that one of these four numbers will come up. The odds are 8:1.

The Six Bet
This bet is placed on the outside of the line that splits two rows of numbers. This will cover all six numbers. The bet is that one of the six numbers will come up. The odds here are 5:1.

A more comprehensive set of Roulette instructions is included with the Captain Cooks Casino software.

© Copyright 2006 | Optimised for IE5.0+ | Casino Support :support@captaincookscasino.com

Thursday, May 04, 2006

New Delhi, Royal Oak

Perhaps the only man who could have taken up the challenge was Sanjeev. Sanjeev, as in The Kumars at No 42, and his creator, Sanjeev Bhaskar.

With one of Britain's hottest Indian chefs, Rez Mahammad, Sanjeev criss-crossed the sub-continent in search of the origin of balti curry for his food series Delhi Belly.

With no luck, of course, for the joke is that balti was invented in the 70s by the Bangladeshi cooks who owned most British curry houses. It is as English as Bhaskar, born in Essex, or Kumar, in his Wembley home/TV studio.

So when a local restaurant writes on its menu, "Reckoned as the most authentic in Auckland ... fact!!!", your foreign correspondent engaged expert assistance.

Who better than Tim and Sharu: Sharu has Indian heritage and knows more than a fair bit about Asian food; Tim is English and therefore knows a decent curry when he sniffs one.

The New Delhi in Royal Oak came highly recommended. The name doesn't sound glamorous but Sharu said it reflected that the food was northern Indian. She noticed seekh kebab on the menu and thought that might hint at a link with the Punjab region, which is predominantly Sikh.

Possibly. Although the names of many dishes in our Indian restaurants are similar to traditional food, the recipes often are not. For example, vindaloo is a corruption of the Goan phrase for wine and garlic. The original has preserved pork in vinegar and garlic with some spicing to add taste, not a three-chillis-hot curry.

Then again, chicken tikka is said to have been invented in Glasgow in the 60s when a cook heated up a tin of Campbell's condensed tomato soup and added some spice to meet a customer's demand for more flavour in his butter chicken.

Certainly, the combinations of foods that we order crisscross regional, cultural and religious boundaries.

Generally, northern Indian food is heavier, because of yoghurt and creams, but cooler than the dishes from the south. This suited the three of us because we prefer to taste the flavours and spices rather than go along with that macho "mine's hotter than yours" business.

Of our entrees, seekh kebab was, alas, a rather stodgy and tasteless sausage, but a tangy aftertaste brought out the tandoori spices in which the prawns had been cooked. Vegetable pakoras were the best of the bunch, crispy and deep-fried to a turn.

Sharu had been looking forward to her Goan fish curry but was disappointed. We agreed that the fish had been overcooked.

Chicken tikka masala had that familiar butter-chicken-drowned-in-tomato flavour (don't know if it was Campbell's, sorry).

The best that can be said for paneer saagwala - homemade cheese cooked in spinach, spices and herbs - is that next time Sharu does it at home, she's promised me some.

The service was attentive and friendly. Our waiter was right to steer us away from Tim's first choice, chicken biryani, because it would be overwhelmed by the other food. He was put off-stride when Sharu asked which bread would go best with our meal and said that if at home he'd have chappati. "We'll have that, then," she said. "We don't do it here," he confessed.

Which brings us back to that earlier point about "authentic" food. You're running a restaurant in Royal Oak or Glenfield. Are you going to serve food like Sanjeev's grandma makes or tweak it to suit local expectations?

Well, the locals all but filled the bright, modern room on a cool midweek night. Guess that's what you call currying favour.

Reviewed by Ewan McDonald for viva

It seemed so peaceful

''Daddy, don't go,'' Marsha, my adult daughter, told me more than once during the year before my planned trip to Egypt, and especially after last July's bombings in Sharm el-Sheik that killed 64 people, mainly tourists.

I cherished her concern for her father's well-being, but I remained determined to see the great pyramids at Giza that my own father had photographed as a teenager in 1926, 80 years before, while accompanying his mother on a trip to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land.

Perhaps my steadfast intention to go came out of naiveté or stubbornness. But it was also a recognition that terrorists can strike in New York, London or Madrid, or that the home-grown variety killed 168 adults and children along the familiar streets of downtown Oklahoma City, my hometown.

Nonetheless, the Associated Press bulletin that moved Monday struck home: ``CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Police say three explosions rocked the resort city of Dahab on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and casualties were reported.''

Then later, as more details became known, AP reported that the Al Capone restaurant, ''one of the area's most popular spots,'' had been destroyed. ''The tables and chairs have gone, there is nothing left,'' Joseph Nazir, a Dahab businessman, had told Britain's Press Association.

I had lunch at the Al Capone restaurant last month, and I still find it hard to comprehend that it's gone.

My traveling companions on that day of exploring the Sinai desert -- Harvey, Charlotte and Trudy, all from the Denver area -- had joked about the name, and we wondered how a restaurant on the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba had come to be named after a Chicago gangster who died in 1947 at his Palm Island winter home in Miami Beach.

The Dahab I saw was a beautiful beach town, some 65 miles south of Israel. To its back lay the barren Sinai desert; it fronted on the deep blue waters of the Gulf. As everywhere in Egypt, friendly Egyptians warmly welcomed their American visitors to Dahab, which means ''gold'' in Arabic. The sun shone brightly, with temperatures not unlike Miami's in March. Periodically, we enjoyed a light spray from the Gulf as we ate lunch. If we looked carefully, we could glimpse Saudi Arabia in the distance.

Afterward we drove south, stopping to swim near a lagoon filled with windsurfers and parasailors, perhaps foreign tourists or vacationing Egyptians. What a perfect setting: the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, wrapped in haze, dropping to the edge of the gorgeous blue and turquoise waters of the Gulf of Aqaba. The icy cold water belied the desert setting.

We returned to our hotel in Sharm el-Sheik after our all-day Jeep ride. Some eight months after terrorists had also shaken this Egyptian resort, Sharm el-Sheik was filled with tourists, mostly Europeans, walking the promenade between the Red Sea beaches and the hotels, restaurants and casinos that have sprung up along the desert's coastline.

Earlier on my journey I had visited the Pharaonic Temple of Hatshepsuit near Luxor, where in 1997 Islamic militants killed 58 foreigners and four Egyptians.

Foreigners have often been the victims in past Egyptian attacks. But Monday's terrorist assault killed mostly Egyptians on holiday, according to news reports. It brought condemnation from Arabs throughout the region.

On my last evening in Egypt, I made a second visit to Cairo's Egyptian Museum to see once again King Tut's gold mask and other treasures of ancient Egypt. There, outside the museum's entrance five days after bidding her good-bye, I spotted my Egyptian guide, Maha -- all the more remarkable in a city of some 18 million people.

Maha gave me a big hug and said how much fun she had had describing the wonders of her country's history to American travelers -- from Abu Simbel and the Nubian temples in Upper Egypt to the Sphinx, the Solar Boat Museum and the pyramids at Giza in Lower Egypt.

With considerable excitement, she told me she was pregnant, expecting her second child.

My prayer -- as should be the prayer of people of the East and West -- is that Maha's new son or daughter will come to know a Middle East without terrorism.

BY RICH BARD

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?