Author Archives: Arjen Lentz

Arjen’s Chilli Chocolate Shortbread

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Ingredients

A batch of Arjen's Chilli Chocolate Shortbread cookies

  • 250g baking butter (variety with salt and cream), softened
  • 2/3 cup icing sugar
  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 1 cup gluten free flour (contains tapioca as well as rice flour), this will create a nicer texture compared to the usual plain rice flour!
  • 1 tbsp cacao
  • 1 tsp chilli powder

Instructions

  1. Mix all ingredients together until the texture of the mixture resembles breadcrumbs – food-processor or hand-held electric mixer work best.
  2. Form dough by pressing together.
  3. Roll a decent chunk of the dough out on board dusted lightly with flour (approx 5mm thick, but more will work fine too although it may affect baking time).
  4. Cut out shapes, transfer to baking tray(s) also lightly dusted with flour. Works best if you grab the off-cuts from the outside rather than from the side of the shapes.
  5. Recycle off-cuts (via step 2) until all dough used.
  6. Bake at 160’C for about 30 minutes. Cookies should be dry and firm but not gone dark.
  7. Cool on wire rack.
  8. Keep in a metal cookie tin to keep fresh – although I’m quite sure they won’t last very long ;-)

Notes

  • Quantity: number of cookies of course depends entirely on shape, size and thickness.
  • Vegan: use vegetable based butter (such as Nuttelex) – you may need to add a pinch of salt.
  • Gluten-free: substitute the regular flour with same amount of gluten free flour.
  • Recipe neatly in line with Arjen & Stewart’s essential food groups ;-)
  • Best not nibble the dough, uncooked tapioca (cassava) contains toxins. It’s fairly dry anyway, so quite unlike cake mix it won’t really stick to the processing equipment. Just bake and enjoy!
  • Creative Commons Licence This recipe is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Phoebe Card Solitaire

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I showed Phoebe card solitaire on her laptop last night. She asks “can we play it with real cards?” so I got her a deck, showed her how to lay it out, and off she goes. I like that… from computer to the real world, often preferred.

Coal Seam Gas: By The Numbers – ABC

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/coal-seam-gas-by-the-numbers/

Coal seam gas has emerged as a major industry in Australia in little more than a decade.

The scale and speed of its growth has been nothing short of astonishing: billions of dollars have poured into regional areas; new jobs have been created; state and national coffers have swelled; export contracts have been signed and sealed; massive liquefied natural gas facilities have been approved for construction at regional ports.

Farmers fear they are losing control of their land. Miners and some politicians say coal seam gas offers a much greener energy choice. Environmentalists and other politicians have cast doubt on those claims.

The ABC’s data journalism project has pulled together information from dozens of sources to provide an insight into the promise and the dangers inherent in the coal seam gas rush.

Anki – friendly, intelligent flashcards

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http://ankisrs.net/

From a lightning talk by Paul Fenwick @ OSDC 2011 Canberra. Awesome tool and available for most platforms including mobiles.
You can create your own cards and there are heaps of libraries. You can use it to learn new things, or to efficiently not forget stuff.