Bad luck :(

Red kidney beans are the ones with toxins (and quite nasty too) , but they are perfectly safe if cooked.

 

With the amount of stuff you've been doing, I wouldn't describe you as lazy John, probably more in the region of " I NEED A HOLIDAY, I BEEN WORKING MY DONKEY OFF FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS AND THEY HAVEN'T EVEN NOTICED"

Anywhere near the mark ?

You and me both bro.

 

Well I've learned a couple of new things today.

I don't like kidney beans anyway, so no danger there. For other beans, I always soak them overnight, then throw away the water and rinse thoroughly. They then get boiled for at least 20 minutes before adding any other ingredients.

Sometimes my dad gives me fresh beans from his allotment. These have too much flavour to be boiled to oblivion, so they tend to go in the wok on full heat for a few minutes, along with other ingredients of a stir fry, so although they taste raw due to the fact that they were cooked so quickly, I guess they pick up enough heat to destroy the toxins.

I didn't know about the haybox thing. I might have a go at building one. It kind of fits in with another idea I had (ok, someone else had the idea and I just pinched it). Some school kids beat all the top scientists and engineers when in a competition to find a cost effective way to reduce food poisoning cases in poor countries. The winning entry was a cardboard box lined with tin foil and cover with clear polythene. A cooking pot was set inside the box, and then it would be left in full sun all day. Enough heat built up inside to safely cook meat. This was for Africa where they get a tad more sunshine than us, but I bet they haybox and the solar oven could be combined to make a free way to slow cook food that doesn't require too much heat. It would only work in the summer, but still, given that the cost is negligible, and the construction is so simple, I reckon it would be worth a try.

 

Thanks for that Marley. I've just had a quick look, and bookmarked both sites. I must admit when I bought the slow cooker I expected to use it for curries and stews, but it seems I can use it for so much more than that.

The grand plan is to fill the cooker to capacity each time, thus making far too much for one meal, and then freeze it up. That way neither the wife nor I have to do much cooking during the week.

 

Ten minutes boil is enough to destroy the toxins Dave, especially if you change the water.

I built an experimental solar panel a few years back & was getting 111c in direct sunlight. My solar drier was getting too hot at 45c, it started to caramelize the fruit.

 

That's a good result. A slight modification with a cooling fan and some very basic electronics would regulate the heat. I'd love to know more about your experimental solar oven.

 

Sorry Dave,
That was 2 separate projects, I should have elaborated:DOH:

The solar dryer was an insulated plywood box built so it would sit on a south facing window sill, half inch gap at top and bottom so an air flow went thru. One side was open so it sat snuggly against the double glazed window.

Inside, I put bamboo poles hung on cup hooks. I could thread cored apple rings.

I learned to move it slightly back from the double glazing on full sunshine days, to increase air flow.

The other solar panel was to drive a turbine to produce electricity direct from sunlight without all the expensive solar photovoltaic panels.

The idea was to produce steam in the panel, drive the turbine & then run it through a condenser before going back into the panel and so on.

Built it, realised i'd need a pressure vessel to stop it exploding, googled that & then found the germans had already built the system :DOH:

 

Gosh, it's amazing what you can learn on here

 

Guess what else has happened. At about 10:45 last night we had a power cut. The wife and I were still up at 2AM because we'd had a few tinnies, when an electricity board engineer knocked on the door, having seen us through the window. He came in to check our meter. I said 'its not just us, about six houses are affected'. He replied, 'they were, but we got all them back on, your's is the only one still out'. They had to dig the road up to fix a broken cable, and we didn't get power back until about 3PM this afternoon.

By about 1PM I cracked under the pressure of tea withdrawal, and went to me mam's for about 10 cups of tea in a row.

 

[size=large]There was a solar panel catching fire on the aquarium roof in Rotterdam a couple of days ago...you didn't build that one, did you?


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:D No, when I build them, they tend to explode rather than catch fire.

As i've mentioned before, my present system has got a big pressure vessel incorporated, which would take the pressure if the system boils. Tested upto 174c & no problems. There is also a pressure & temperature relief valve on the hot water tank, but the hottest the hot water has got so far is 70c in mid summer.

If we went away during the summer (Which I can't imagine for some years yet:DOH Then we would put the back boiler pump on, so that the excess heat would get dumped in the house,rather than the tank getting hotter & hotter.


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Oh yes, we gardeners cover it all :D

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Nitemare Dave !

Glad its all sorted now.

Power cuts at zigs place :

Mains power goes out, emegency light automatically comes on in kitchen, next to cooker in case anyone is cooking.

No oven, but the hob is LPG so can still boil kettle for tea

Switch solar striplights on in living room (Also got them in kids bedrooms)

When laptop battery runs out, use in line adaptor to plug into 12v DC sockets (2 points in each room)

Of course, the wifi goes down with the mains outage, but at least you can do some work or watch a dvd.

 

:D:D:D

 

From my wife's copy of The “Pudding Lady’s” Recipe Book 1917:



The local Guides have been shown how to use them at meetings & at camp (by a Guider, not by O.H.).

We also use a Kelly Kettle for brew ups.