Gaz

I made my first espresso today, using some "Monsoon Malabar" beans I got from waitrose for 89p a bag in clearance. It came out nice, lovely sweet, smooth espresso but I ended up with a lot of extra water because it was leaking over the edge of the basket. Presumably either too fine a grind, or tamped too hard?

Finally taken apart the entire Gaggia and descaled the solenoid as well as replacing all the seals and now it's running nicely. Now I get to start the fun of dialling in all the settings and working out how to make a decent espresso

Yes, you absolutely can! I've got a fermented hot sauce in my fridge that's hot as fuck and very tasty. Chilli Chump on Youtube is good on this but it's basically as easy as cutting up the chillis and leaving them in brine for a week. Give it a week and you might change your mind

I'm still at war with the Gaggia and I'm pretty sure this is the problem. If anyone is going to take apart their gaggia, make sure you have all the right tools before you start. It's not complicated, but what I need to do, which is descale the solenoid, isn't possible because I needed two small wrenches to remove the magnet part. The boiler is leaking now, but still no water, so I'm going to order a new gasket and get the tools I need to pull the solenoid out then run de-scaler through the machine, which I probably should have done before I took everything apart and made it leak!

Getting good filter coffee is hard work. I'm not a big pact fan tbh, so you might want to try some other brands. I get better results from Union's supermarket stuff. I make a v60 twice a day and while at home I have a grinder, scales and a gooseneck and all sorts of shit. At work where I'm using the same pre ground stuff and a basic method I end up with a more consistent cup of coffee. - wet the filter and discard the water - bloom the grounds with some water and let it sit for a minute - use off boiling water, 90 degrees rather than 100 and don't use water that's been in the kettle for ages. - pour slowly and when it gets 2/3 up the filter swirl it to flatten the bed before adding more water

I just use the Cauldren Tofu, but the one from Holland & Barrett is fine too. The key is the freezing and thawing which gives a nicer texture. Tofoo smoked is really tasty, but it's more expensive for a smaller amount.

I'm not sure if I posted about this at the time but I've made a banging "chicken" burger with tofu. If you freeze/thaw the tofu a couple of times you get a more chicken like texture, then batter it and deep fry. Add some nutritional yeast and paprika to the batter, it tastes great. Then toss it in hot sauce / vegan butter mix.

Just had the meatless marinara at Subway and I'm really disappointed. The meatballs themselves are bland soy protein, there's absolutely no excuse at all for them to be so lacking in flavour and cardboardy and the sauce is overly sweet. I had heard good reviews so this was a real shame and a total waste of money.

I use filtered water with a special brita filter which adds calcium and magnesium or something. This Gaggia was £40 in a British Heart Foundation Furniture store and it worked, just about, when I got it but stopped after a few weeks, I have no idea how it was treated before. I've tried to take it apart and it's currently in several pieces on my worktop but I can't actually get into the boiler, I think this might have to wait until the weekend.

Thanks. I think the steam bit works, I'll check later. I've cleaned the whole group head already before I put it away so next stop is looking at the boiler, given the state of the water round here and the scale around the water tank I expect its limescale.

I've just re-claimed my Gaggia Baby Class from storage, where it was put because it wasn't working and I couldn't be bothered to fix it. There's no water flow so I'm going to have to strip the whole thing down and probably de-scale it. Anyone done this? Any tips before I start pulling it all apart?

I got a bottle of seedlip really cheap from Holland and barret and after a few too many over Christmas decided to try it out in a cocktail. 1oz Seedlip Garden 3/4oz lemon juice 1/2oz simple syrup Top with 2oz tonic Really fresh, bitter and herbal. I popped a few drops of butterfly pea syrup in the bottom for colour but that's optional.

I quite liked Cidre too, it had a sort of sweeter apple taste. I would go for something like Aspalls for a similar thing but higher quality, or just stick to Magners which is that sweet, sparkly market leader. There are apparently still some places selling it though if you don't want to compromise: https://www.drinksupermarket.com/stella-artois-cidre-apple-12x-568ml-bottle-case-4-5-abv

https://foodbysumear.co.uk/ This guy does a properly cultured vegan blue cheese.

For Cheese you can't go wrong with a trip round Borough market - there's loads in one place and they have proper aged parmesan and comte. Get one of these and bake it in the oven with garlic, rosemary and some white wine (Allsop & Walker's Lord London)