Gaz

I absolutely loved Rage but what I've seen so far gives little indication that this has the same feel. Can anyone who has their hands on it give some views on how it compares?

Beyond burgers are great. If impossible is better, I'm looking forward to trying them.

I paid £270 for mine but it looks like they are closer to £400 now. I thought I'd use mine for both, but I generally do a lot more smoking because I prefer the results.

Oh, I just checked and the one I've got is the 50cm grill one.

There are bigger versions. The thing is you are only gonna be using half the Weber for indirect, I generally use both trays in my ProQ so I can easily cook enough for a group. The extra height of the proQ meant I could smoke a whole massive turkey in it, too.

I know you are set on a weber now but.... https://www.macsbbq.com/hot-smokers/charcoal-bbq-smokers/ProQ-RANGER-elite-bbq-smoker I've got one of these and it's really good. It still works just like a weber, but it's also a big smoker.

For seitan Gaz Oakley is a good source, he's got a few videos on making different fake meats. You will want to knead it for longer than you think you need to and for way past the point where it's getting tough and hard to work with. I think in one of his videos the guy I linked to above just throws it in a stand mixer with the dough hook on for 20 minutes which seems far easier than the punching and stretching by hand I was doing. I've never used it in a sauce - I've just boiled it and then pan fried or cooked in the oven. I expect after boiling it you would want to let it firm up in the fridge before adding it to a sauce.

I couldn't find any thread on this but I've got into using 3D Pens recently and wondered if anyone else used them? Someone I know picked one up as a sort of cheap introduction to 3D printing and so I started looking at a few videos to see what it was all about and was really impressed - so far my own creations haven't been great but it's very relaxing work and it's quite gratifying to have an object at the end of it. I do a lot of doodling usually and it's similar but I end up with some weird creature I can put on my shelf at the end of it.

I've got two or three old machines sitting around in my loft I was going to throw out but I might see if I can get them up and running with emulation now.

I only really drink scotch and water when I'm at a bar that doesn't have any decent beers or mixed drinks. At home 90% of the time ill make sours, and then it's almost always a daiquiri or a margherita I'm currently trying to dial in a recipe on a a daiquiri with Paranubes rum. It's a sugarcane rum from Mexico which has an Agricole sort of feel but is really unique, the aroma and taste is really savoury with notes of tomato, black olive and pepper I tried a 10:3:2 ratio last night but even with that little sugar I wasn't getting the crispness I wanted. I'm going to mix up a new batch of simple before I try again so that I can make sure it's at the right sweetness.

Try a Last Word with a peaty scotch and you might be converted - I think that one is in the Death & Co book actually (Pete's Word) - there's something about scotch and chartreuse which really works. And it is 3 competing flavours - but it becomes greater than the sum of it's parts. It's from a book called Beta Cocktails which is full of drinks that push the boundaries like that.

Union comes ground for cafetiere in waitrose - check the ground on date for a recent bag.

I can second that, I've eaten two packs in the last week.

I've been trying out quite a few of the M&S bits recently (and I've eaten so many greggs sausage rolls) The "Dirty Fries" were one I was sceptical about, not a huge portion for the price and it's just patatas bravas really but it was very nice, probably the nicest thing I tried from the range. The Margherita Pizza with the cauliflower "house sauce" is really good, surprisingly cheesy and overall a decent supermarket pizza. Cashew Mac is good, I think it could do with a smidge more sauce but overall the flavour was there. I think my cheese sauce which I've posted about in here somewhere is better though. Tikka Masala is really nice. Big chunks of "chicken" and a decent masala, just the right amount of spice and a good sauce to rice ratio. Cauliflower Popcorn is great. This is something that is so easy to make at home but it's a messy process so these are good to just throw in the oven. Really crispy, could probably do with a creamy sauce as well as the spicy dip - I had some vegan mayo on the side.

The new Vegan Range stuff in M&S looks amazing, has anyone tried it? I had the Greggs Sausage roll the other day and it was good, I want them to make a Vegan Steak Bake though.