Waves POM-105785.2 Review

I know this doesn't quite fit here, but I just bought this thing (almost wrote thong, tgf spellcheck), and I felt the need to review it. Unfortunately, the netonnet website wouldn't let me do it without publishing my email adress... So I put it here instead.

I'm on a diet at the moment, so air popped popcorn sounded like just the thing for a snack.

By the way, don't worry, just because I don't eat it, doesn't mean I don't bake it, plenty of recipes for cakes and cookies and more to come. You're free to use butter and eggs and whatnot. I was always of the opinion, better a small slice of something special, than a big slice of something average.

Anyway, I have to say I'm very impressed by this machine. It's MUCH faster than using a pot, without using any fat, and without the trans-fats of microwave popcorn. 

A minute or so, and you have a bowl full of popcorn. 

It's a bit noisy, but not too bad, and you won't need to stand it for very long (this thing is FAST). And there is next to nothing in regards to washing up.

TIP: If you want the salt to stick to the popcorn, just spray some water (mist) on the popcorn before salting it.

Netflix in Kodi on Linux

I have a previous post about this, where an addon called NetfliXBMC is used. That works just fine, and fairly seamlessly. The only thing is, I don't really use it for browsing movies. I do that on my tablet or something, add it to my list and then play it from Kodi.

The thing is that Netflix has a pretty nice web-interface (ok, so there are some things I don't like about it, but nevertheless), and we are already using Chrome to play the movie from NetfliXBMC, so why not just open Chrome to Netflix and play it from there?

There is also an added benefit to to this, which is that it is possible to use a VPN-like extension to Chrome, which would allow you to view the US content from another country. Obviously, I'm neither suggesting or encouraging anybody to do that, I'm simply saying that it is possible.

The only downside is that when you click a TV-series, you won't be able to see and select season and episode, it'll simply start the first, or if you've watched the series before, the next, episode.

Unfortunately, it's not quite as easy as just installing chrome, we also need to be able to navigate and select a movie. If you are using a keyboard and mouse to control your HTPC, then that's fine, but I'm using a remote, so some extra effort is needed. Fortunately, others have had the same issues, and have developed some extensions for Chrome which, at least partly, solves the issue.

Anyway, here's how to do it.

First, follow my guide for setting up NetfliXBMC, except for actually installing the NetfliXBMC addon.

Next, start the Chrome Launcher addon, and add Netflix to the websites list. Start it up, press Ctrl+N to open a new window, which is not in fullscreen mode. Install the addons you want/need. There are several ones that can change the look and feel of the Netflix website if you like.

For browsing the website using a remote, install the "Netflix Navigator" extension. This is made to enable you to control it using an XBOX360 controller, but it seems to work pretty well with the default buttons in Kodi. Except for one thing, which is that when you open any page, there is an overlay telling you to press a button on the controller. So in order to get rid of that, we need to modify the addon slightly.

Now, if you modify an installed extension, chrome tends to think that it has been corrupted and disables it, so we need to make a copy of it, and install that copy.

Go to your Kodi users home folder (probably /var/lib/kodi), then further into .config/google-chrome/Default/Extensions/

Find the folder that contains the Netflix Navigator extension. The folders are named as a hash on this level, so you need to look more carefully. Check the version number of Netflix Navigator from the Chrome extensions settings, and look for the same version number one level down in the folder structure here.

Copy the extension to your Kodi user home directory (or some other good place), you need the whole thing, ie the folder with the hash name.

Edit the file driver.js

Find the bit of code that looks like this:

return function() {
            if (_this.controllers.length === 0) {
              overlay = new OverlayMessage();
              return overlay.show("Please press <img src='" + (chrome.extension.getURL("assets/Xbox360_Button_A.png")) + "' /> to begin"$
            }
          };

Replace it with this (just removing a part of it):

return function() {
            if (_this.controllers.length === 0) {
            }
          };

Now go to the Chrome extensions settings page and uninstall the original extension. Then click the "Developer mode" checkbox and then "Load unpacked extension...". Select the extension that you modified by browsing to that folder, and install it.

You should now be able to browse and start movies from the Netflix webpage.
ENJOY!

Tuva

A "Tuva" is made from choux pastry, and filled with whipped cream and lingonberries, but it also has some "pate sucre" on top, to provide a bit of crispiness.

I saw these made on "Hela Sverige bakar", and decided to try it.

Tuvas

Ingredients

Choux pastry
200g Milk
200g Water
160g Butter
8g Salt
250g Flour
400g Eggs

Pate sucre
250g Flour
100g Powdered sugar
100g Butter
1 Egg yolk
A pinch of salt
(Water)

Filling
~5 dl Whipping cream
~200g Lingonberries
~4-5 tbsp sugar

Powdered sugar (for dusting)


Start with the pate sucre, since that needs to rest.
Mix all the ingredients (except the water) together. Mine was extremely dry at this point, I think it may have something to do with the humidity. If needed add just enough cold water to make a dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and rest in the fridge for an hour or so.

Next for the choux pastry, you get quite a workout from all the stirring.
Measure out the flour and eggs into bowls/beakers. Place milk, water, butter and salt in a pot, and bring to the boil while stirring. As soon as it starts to boil, add the flour and stir to mix. While still on the stove, continues stirring the dough, and cooking it, for 3-4 minutes.
Place the dough into a bowl, and add the eggs, one at a time, making sure each one is incorporated completely before adding the next, while stirring.
Allow the mixture to cool before piping.
Pipe onto an oven tray covered with parchment paper. Each one should be about 50g (see picture below for an idea of how much that is). They rise quite a bit, so leave some room.

Take the pate sucre out of the fridge (you won't need even close to all of it). Roll it out to a thickness of about 2 mm, and cut out circles about 5 cm in diameter.
Place a circle on top of each choux bun, and dust with a little powdered sugar.

Bake in the oven, at 200°C, for about 30 minutes.

Once they have cooled completely, it's time to fill them.
The exact amount of sugar and lingonberries depends an taste.
Whip the cream, with the sugar and stir in the lingonberries. Make a small cross cut in the bottom of each tuva, and pipe the whipped cream mixture into each of them (and don't be stingy with it).

Brown Breads

First off, brown breads are not actually anything to do with bread, they're cookies, and delicious ones at that.
My grandmother makes them, and the first time I tried 'em, using a recipe from a standard cookbook, they weren't nearly as tasty. I then got my grandmothers recipe, and it really is a completely different thing.
These cookies are really fragrant and delicious, and, a small tip, I think they're actually even better frozen. The taste is the same, but the texture is better.

Brown Breads

Ingredients
200g Butter
2 dl Sugar
2 tbsp Golden treacle
2 tsp Cinnamon
100g Hazelnuts
2 tsp Bicarbonate
4-5 dl Flour

Grind the hazelnuts, and dissolve the bicarbonate in a small amount of water.

Place all the ingredients, directly onto the table, and mix by hand until it forms a uniform dough. It should not be sticky, if it is, add a little more flour.

Form the dough into 1 or more (I think 3 makes it easy to handle) rectangular "rolls", about 4 cm in height and depth.

Cut the "rolls" into slices, about 1 cm thick, and place on a baking tray covered with grease proof paper. Make sure to leave plenty of room, as they will expand quite a lot.

Bake in the middle of the oven, at 175°C, for about 15 minutes.

Gingerbread Toffees

Every year, for quite some time now, I've made gingerbread toffees around this time of year.

Until now, I've always made them in the microwave oven. This year though, I decided to make them the "normal" way, in a pot. The downside is that it's a bit trickier, but on the plus side, I can make more at once, eliminating the need to make several batches, and I have much more control over the consistency of the resulting toffees.

125°C gives me a toffee with the perfect texture, hard enough to handle easily, but soft enough that it melts and goes soft in the mouth.

Ingredients

50g Butter

3 dl Whipping cream

1,5 dl golden syrup

3 dl Sugar

6 ml Cinnamon

6 ml Cloves (ground)

6 ml Ginger (ground)

First of all, this recipe requires a few utensils, best to get them out first. You'll need a large(ish) pot to cook the toffee in, the best is a large, fairly wide one (wilde so that it heats faster, large so that it doesn't boil over). I used a 5 liter one. You'll also need a thermometer that goes up to more than 125°C. Finally, prepare a "mold" to pour the toffee into once it's done, I used a 20x20 cm one, but slightly smaller or larger isn't a big deal. Cover the mold in baking paper.

Tip #1: scrunch up the baking paper and smooth it back out a few times first, it'll make it softer and easier to fit into the mold.

Tip #2: Keep a bowl of water next to you, the toffee is VERY hot, and unlike water, it'll stick to your skin. If some gets on you, cool it down quickly.

Place all the ingredients into the pot, and turn the stove to medium-high. Stir a bit while it melts.

Once it has melted, turn the stove down to medium and let it come to a boil. Measure the temperature constantly, stirring occasionally, it'll darken a bit after a while. Once the toffee reaches 125°C, it's done, remove from the heat and stir vigorously until it stops boiling. 

Pour into the mod and let cool. Then cut into bite-sized pieces, with either a knife or scissors, and wrap in pieces of baking paper.

Netflix on standalone XBMC in Linux

For a long time, getting Netflix working on Linux was really tricky. On a standalone Linux XBMC HTPC system, it was virtually impossible, so much so that I didn't even try it. Now though, with Chrome supporting HTML5, it's a lot easier.

I used NetfliXBMC + Chrome Launcher. NetfliXBMC lets you browse the content in XBMC, and can then launch the selected content to play in Google Chrome.

I'm using Arch Linux, with XMBC, without a desktop environment, you may be able to skip some of these steps, or adapt them according to your configuration.

Anyway, here's how I did it.

Update: Edited to reflect that there is a new repository and a new thread for NetfliXBMC on the Kodi forums.

Update 2: In Helix, it is not possible to start/stop openbox at launch/close of chrome, it must be started before Kodi does. So I have updated the script and added step for how to do this.

Get Chrome and NetfliXBMC up and running

1. Install the XBMC repository for Chrome Launcher, you can find a link to it on the Chrome Launcher Kodi forum thread
2. Install Google Chrome (need at least version 37, AUR has version 38, and that's the one I installed)
1. Download the package file from AUR
2. Instruction for how to install from AUR can be found here. Make sure to use the -s argument when you do makepkg, since it includes dependencies.
3. Install Openbox window manager and xdotool: sudo pacman -S openbox xdtool
4. Edit your kodi startup script (probably /usr/bin/kodi-standalone), and add "openbox &" (without the quotation marks) as the first instruction in it (immediately after the copywrite stuff). OBS: It seems that this gets lost when you update the Kodi package, so it needs to be redone when that happens 
5. Create a script for launching Google Chrome (I simply called it chrome.sh and placed it in the xbmc home folder). It moves the mouse pointer off screen and starts Google Chrome.
   

   #!/bin/bash
   xdotool mousemove 0 740 &
   /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome $*
   

6. Make the script executable: chmod + x chrome.sh
7. Set Chrome launcher to start using this script
1. Go to Add-On Settings
2. Toggle "Use custom chrome/script path"
3. Select "Chrome/script path", browse and select your script
8. Install NetfliXBMC, you'll find it in the repository here
9. In the Add-on settings for NetfliXBMC, enter you Netflix username and password, the rest of the settings are up to you

Video settings

My system runs natively at 720p, but XBMC runs at 1080p, this means that it'll change to 720p when Chrome opens.

1. To fix this issue, I placed a config file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ (actually I added to one I already had, named 20-intel.conf):

   Section "Screen"
       Identifier             "Screen0"
       Device                 "Intel Graphics"
       Monitor                "PANASONIC TV"
       DefaultDepth           24
       SubSection             "Display"
           Depth              24
           Modes              "1920x1080"
       EndSubSection
   EndSection

Audio settings

Looking at the forums, there seems to be a lot of users that have a problem with this.

While audio works fine in XBMC, it didn't work at all outside of it (ie in Chrome) for me. Having looked around the forums on this, there seems to be many for which this is the case.

1. In XBMC, set "Settings -> System -> Audio output -> Keep audio device alive" to "Off"
2. Install alsa-utils: pacman -S alsa-utils
3. From command line: alsamixer
4. Unmute and raise volume for the channels that you are using
5. You need the card and device numbers for the soundcard that you are using (even if it is built in): aplay -l
6. Create a file (if it doesn't already exist) in the xbmc home directory (for me, /var/lib/xbmc), called .asoundrc, and place this info in it (replace card and device numbers with your own found above)
   
   
   pcm.!default {
       type hw
       card 0
       device 3
   }

Controls

If you are using a remote control, you'll want to assign one of the buttons to Esc or Alt+F4, in order to close Chrome when you are done watching something.

Aside from that, both Enter and Space work as play/pause, and since I use Enter to select a movie to play in XBMC anyway, that works out. The left and right arrows step back and forward in the movie, so they work kind of like rewind/fast forward (actually, I prefer the steps).

I kind of wish that I could access the sound/subtitle settings as well, but I haven't yet found a (good) way to do this.

Finally, if you absolutely feel that you want to use "p" (ie the same as play button in XBMC) to play/pause, there is an extension for Chrome that can make this happen called Flix Plus.

Remaining issue

My one gripe is that I only get stereo sound, rather than surround. After googling a bit, it turns out that surround sound is not supported by Netflix when using a HTML5 browser... So basically, it's Netflix's fault. Still, I think I prefer a nice and convenient interface and stereo audio, to my BD players slow-a** interface with surround. Maybe fire up the BD or Xbox if there is a specific movie that I really want 5.1 audio on.

Salted Caramel Macarons

It was my turn to bring cookies to work this Friday, and I decided to make salted caramel filled macarons.

In my search for a recipe for the filling, I came across a new recipe for the macarons themselves. I learned that the recipes that I've been using up to now were the "french version", but that there is another option, the "italian version". The difference is in how the meringue is done.

I decided to try the "italian version", and I don't think I'll be going back.

This adds a tiny amount of complexity to making the batter, but it also makes it much more stable and consistent.

I found the recipe from another blog, which linked to another blog, which had the recipe but also referred to the book it came from... No offense to other bloggers, but I'll just say that this recipe is from the book "Bouchon Bakery". If you like the recipe, buy it. It looks to have a lot of good recipes, and I'll probably be making something else from it before long.

You can leave out the instant espresso if you like, it's just a very subtle flavor and gives a slight tinge to the macarons.

Salted caramel macarons

Ingredients - Macarons
212g Almond meal
212g Powdered sugar
82g + 90g Egg whites
236g + a pinch Granulated sugar
158g Water
0,5 tsp Instant Espresso (optional)

Ingredients - Salted Caramel
2,35 dl Whipping cream
3,55 dl Granulated sugar
2 tsp Salt (preferably coarse)
220g Butter


First, to make the macarons. 

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Sift the almond meal and powdered sugar into a large bowl and whisk together. Make a well in the center, but leave a bit of almond sugar at the bottom. Pour in the 82g of egg whites, and optionally, the instant espresso. Mix together using a flexible spatula, you should get a fairly thick mixture.

Now comes the bit that makes this "italian", and italian meringue. Put the 90g of egg whites into a bowl, and get your electric whisk ready. Put the granulated sugar and water into a pot, and place on the stove over a medium-high heat. You want to bring the sugar to 120°C at the same time as the meringue reaches soft peaks... The sugar takes some time to reach this temperature, so you don't need to start the meringue until the sugar reaches 100-110°C. At that time, add a pinch of sugar, and whisk at medium speed until it reaches soft peeks. As soon as the sugar reaches 120°C, take it off the heat, and slowly trickle into the meringue while whisking. Continue to whisk at medum-high speed for a few minutes, until it's firm and glossy, and the meringue has cooled (the bowl might still be warm, that's fine).

Fold 1/3 of the italian meringue into the almond mix, then continue folding the meringue in, a little bit at a time. You probably won't need quite all of it, but most of it. You are looking for a texture, where it is still somewhat firm, but but not too firm. It should still form ribbons, but sort of "relax" into itself. The best way to think of it is probably this, we are about to pipe this onto a tray, as we do we'll get a peak, the mixture should be soft enough that the peak collapses into the batter so that we get a smooth top, but also firm enough that it doesn't go completely flat.

Pipe the batter, using a circular hole tip, onto a baking tray covered with grease proof paper. You are looking for about 4cm in diameter (they'll grow a little as they settle down, so keep that in mid as you pipe the next one).

Place in the middle of the oven, immediately turn it down to 160°C, and bake for 9-12 minutes.

As you take them out, do so gently, a bang will make them collapse a bit (not a disaster, but still).

Let them rest on the tray for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack for cooling.

Heat the oven up to 180°C again, and repeat until all the batter is baked.

Now for the salted caramel.

Cut up the butter into small pieces, and leave in room temperature.

Place the cream and salt into a small pot. Place the sugar into a wide pot (the thinner the layer of sugar, the easier it'll be).

Bring the cream to the boil, and take of the heat. In the meantime, melt the sugar over a medium-high heat. As the sugar melts and starts getting dark, it might be a good idea to warm up the cream again, it really needs to be warm when it's combined with the caramel, or it won't work.

Once the sugar has become a dark brown caramel (around 175-180°C), take it off the heat and, while whisking, slowly pour in the warm cream. Be careful! It'll bubble and spit, and you do not want this stuff on you.

Once it has cooled to a reasonable temperature (50-60°C), stir in the butter, a little at a time. Place in a shallow container and let cool in the fridge.

To finish up.

Place the salted caramel into a bowl, and whisk (by hand, it's important not to over whisk it, as it'll separate). It should become softer making it easy to pipe.

Match cookies that are the same size, pipe some caramel onto one of them, sprinkle with a small amount of coarse salt, then place the other one on top and twist until the filling fits nicely along the edges.