Monday, July 7, 2014

Cashews und Kerosene

I am not sure what is happening but I have tried to leave comments on several blogs and they disappear.  I log in to Google, write my comment and click submit . . .  and nothing.  It's frustrating

Anyway last Friday night we were visiting friends and we brought a box of goodies.   Little did we know that the box would be a house for a little cutie.   She saw the empty box and moved right in


She was a bit playful and I got a few resultant scratches


Saturday I rode my bike to breakfast again.   It was threatening rain but I was without my commuter car as I left it in Surrey about an hour south.   My friend has all the tools and a 4 post lift to work on my Corvette to get it ready for a long trip coming up later in the Summer.   My car has been there for weeks it seems as we hit a snag . . .  and he also discovered a problem with the harmonic balancer and it had to be taken to a specialist.

I like to try new things so we bought a 2.27 kg bag of uncooked (raw) cashews


I spread the cashews out on a baking sheet


and I was preheating the oven to 350°F so I could roast them.   After they were roasted,  approx 20 minutes as I like them browned, I put them in a large wok so I could add a bit of vegetable oil so the salt could adhere to the cashews.    I know we shouldn't eat too much salt but I don't find unsalted nuts to be very


tasty.    I also wanted to try and candy some of them so I took a couple of scoops and put them in a stainless steel pot in a mixture of water and sugar.   Not too much water and put the pot over high heat so that the water could be evaporated.    Soon after the mixture turned brown (sugar carmelized) and I kept mixing them with my wood ladle to make sure the cashews were coated with the sugar solution


Then I spread them out on top of waxed paper to cool.   Mmmm good if I don't say so myself


There we are.   The salted cashews on the left and the "candied" cashews on the right.   I like cashews the best

The skies look threatening with dark clouds and soon we started to get torrential rains but luckily I finished cleaning my bike just in time.   Having a dirty bike was bothering me, especially the wheels (rims)


I still had a container of kerosene so I wet my rag and started to clean the underside of my Vstrom



Not a real thorough job but good enough.  Notice how shiney the rim is ?


and here is the right side.   I also cleaned the front rims and fork housing .   When I get time I will have to get out the soap and hose and clean the topside of the bike which is covered in 2 years of dirt


26 comments:

  1. Bob, here I thought I was just being clumsy. Maybe Google is stuffed with too many comments and is starting to balk at eating more of them.

    Hopefully she gets a bigger belly and a better brain soon.

    Nice job on the Strom.

    Is the flux capacitor holding up on the 'Vette? Neither my Civic nor my Vespa have harmonic balancers. Susan's X3 has a ton of super smart German contraptions luring in it. When you just unlock it it has a little routine of humming, clicks and whirrs, worthy of a Star Wars android waking up in the morning. I'm sure there must be a harmonic balancer in there somewhere.

    Nice job on the cashews. Those caramel cashews are waistline expanders.

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    Replies
    1. David:

      My 'Vette has been in repair mode for the past month and not in my possession most of the time. GM should have done a recall because of all the failures and this would have caused a problem on my trip and I would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere

      I guess you noticed that I love cashews. The carmelized ones were tasty too

      Delete
  2. Fat fingers... 'lurKing'.

    Here's a tip. Copy your comment before publishing.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. David:

      Sometimes I copy it first before I hit submit but not the past few times. My comments disappeared on a few other blogs, even after multiple tries

      Delete
  3. Sugar, fat and salt. The greatest US gift to the world.

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    Replies
    1. Mr Conchscooter:

      Finally, we got you to come into Canada. The worst things to eat are the tastiest. I am sure you could have stayed a few days with David.

      Delete
  4. Salt is good for you in hot weather, prevents heat cramping by your muscles.....

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    Replies
    1. Dom:

      When I worked at the Mill, they had dispensers of salt tablets. This gives me an excuse to carry salted cashews on my next travels

      Delete
  5. What's to go wrong with a harmonic balancer aka crankshaft pulley? The rubber insert deteriorating?

    I like the cat in the box shot. You like to clean the wheels with kerosene? Do you need a solvent due to grease from the chain?

    My problems with Blogger comments seem to have started when they were pushing Google+ integration. As far as I can tell, Google+ is about as worthless as Facebook.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Richard:

      The rubber insert deteriorated causing the serpentine belt to track "out of the groove" and was rubbing on the timing chain cover. Eventually it would rub through and cause a big problem. It's not something a backyard mechanic can do because of the high torque required to bolt it back into position as it also stops the engine from torquing under hard acceleration.

      Kerosene is inert so it is good for cleaning wheels. I used chemicals before on my mags and if you leave it on too long, it causes dis-colouration, but kerosene dries out what it touches so afterwards I need to wash of the film with soap and water, which I have not yet done. I intend to wash the top half of my bike soon.

      Didn't clean the chain this time otherwise I would have to relube it. I think some of the lube flings onto the rims causing dirt to stick

      Delete
  6. Pretty kitty. Beautiful eyes.

    Cashews and kerosene - quite a combination.

    If I have to sign in with google+ or some other entity I don't comment. I find some of my comments disappear, but try to copy before posting in case I need to re-do it. Fuzzy posted a while back and said she could not comment anymore on people's blogs that had embedded comments on their pages, they had to be a pop-up window. I looked in my settings and thought I'd try it, but it doesn't have the 'reply' feature for each individual comment so I never changed it.

    Hmmm.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trobairitz:

      I knew you would like the kitty. I liked the kitty too and I could see having one someday.

      For some reason my comments disappeared on 3 different blogs. Never happened before and I use Firefox at work. Even tried chrome and it didn't work either. I like the idea of having separate replies for each comment

      We used to buy roasted cashews but we started to roast our own. You know they don't last long at home. I grab a few handfuls every day when I get home . . .

      Delete
  7. Hey Bob,

    I love those cashews treats. I might try that one of these days.....:-).

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    1. Pat:

      anytime. I like them a bit more crunchy, so I bake them a bit longer. Also you can control the amount of salt, or none, whichever you prefer. We can get you a deal on a 2.27 KG bulk pack if you want any. Almonds too if you like those

      The candied one I followed Martha Stewart's recipe, simple . solution of water and sugar and then boil off the water and the sugar carmelizes and goes brown. Just keep stirring. I put boiling water into the pan to clean off the carmel.

      Delete
  8. Obviously we all seem to have the same issue with leaving comments. These days I copy them before I publish, but before I was getting angry and didn't leave a comment anymore. Hope that this will go through.

    Love cashews, a great snack when on the road. Don't waste your time on cleaning the bike... ride it.

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    Replies
    1. Sonja:

      This morning on "Toad Mama" I tried several times. I copied before I clicked and my comment disappeared. I tried again and again, and each time Wordpress gave an error message that it was a duplicate comment, except that it was not showing. Now Kathy is going to think I don't visit anymore. I must be on the Ignore List

      I still have iMBC2012 Hell's Canyon dust which has to be washed away

      Delete
    2. In the same boat as Sonja was. I tried, and tried, and finally got fed up. Last thing I could possibly deal with right now. :)

      Kitty is cute! Sorry about 'vette! Nice and shiny rims!

      Delete
    3. Lori:

      I just posted another comment and it didn't show up. I'm getting discouraged. Post a new blog entry and don't put me on the ignore list. I want to make a comment

      The 'Vette is now ready to roll. My friend had to go on the Corvette forums and try to figure out how to bypass the error codes.

      The rims on my Vstrom have been dirty since riding to Oregon back in 2012. It was looking grungy so I broke down and finally cleaned them up. Remember that I didn't use my Vstrom much last summer. My R is still sitting there with the recall notice but I am not going to ride it until next Spring, when I plan to have the recall taken care of

      Delete
    4. Sonja: I'm with you on riding instead of cleaning, but once a year or so the urge strikes and nothing beats S100.

      Delete
  9. Ed:

    I have enough to make another batch, but with less salt this time. The box of salt dumped too much on the last batch. I should have used a measuring spoon instead of pouring directly . . .

    ReplyDelete
  10. I thought the nut encrusted cows ice cream cone was good .... now I want cashews!

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    1. Karen:

      I remember the Cows. Just down the hill from the Camp with the Cow along the side of the parking lot. I had the Best Ice cream in the world the night you went to the Party. Now I'm craving Ice Cream (I already have the cashews)

      Delete
  11. Hmmm, interesting note about the comments. As you may notice, I leave comments everywhere and have never recently lost a comment. Using iOS on iPhone and iPad, Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), Chrome and Safari on OS X, Chrome and IE 10 on Windows 8, and on my Chromebook. Believe it or not, I end up using all of them on a regular basis these days. The Wordpress blogs want me authenticated and I'm usually logged into one of my Google Apps accounts on just about any browser so the comments go right through. I wonder what the problem is?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I had nothing but trouble until I switched to Open ID for everything.

      Delete
  12. I like cashews and I'm certain that I'd really like yours!

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    1. Coop:

      easy peasy to roast the cashews. You just have to find some at a reasonable price. If I brought a bag I'm sure they would all be eaten up before I got to MN, in fact I don't think they would last the first day

      Delete