Doctor meeting, Internet Explorer 8 and McAfee Security Center/BT NetProtect Plus, Earth Hour

We met with the Doctor on Friday. Good news (of a sort) he is going to schedule surgery to fix the problem and he has confirmed that it isn't cancer either. We now have to wait for the hospital to get back to us with the date of surgery.

Yesterday I installed Internet Explorer 8. I had been putting it off as the McAfee website says that it does not support IE 8 as it is beta software. When I DID try the Beta version of IE 8 I got a blank screen in McAfee Security Center which made it impossible to use, so I had to uninstall the Beta version. Recently however I downloaded BT Netprotect Plus which is the BT branded version of McAfee Security Center (without the Spam filter). BT's website also said that IE 8 is not supported with NetProtect Plus. This is despite the fact that BT/Yahoo are promoting IE 8 on their home page. When I checked on Friday on McAfee's website they said there was a problem with Microsoft's software and they would not support IE 8 until it is fixed.

I raised a support query with Microsoft. They came back to me saying they could not comment on third party software but suggested I installed the software in "safe mode".

I thought "huh?" and "why?" but I went along with the instructions provided. However after downloading the install package and trying to run it in "safe" mode I was given an error and told the installation could not proceed.

After restarting in normal mode I ran the install package again. It took only a few seconds to complete.

I checked BT NetProtect Plus/McAfee Security Center and it is working just fine. IE 8 is working fine too. It still doesn't load as fast as Google Chrome or Opera but the extra functionality is on par with these two if not better in some places.

When I checked BT's website and links today it appears that they have removed the warnings now! You can download IE 8 from Microsoft by clicking here.


I cooked (shop bought) crispy duck with pancakes, and an apple and blackberry crumble (home made). All seemed to go down well. The cats liked the left over duck!


Crumble Recipe
7 oz plain flour
1 oz whole wheat plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 oz unsalted butter at room temperature
5 oz dark brown (molasses) sugar
4 bramley (cooking) apples (about 2 lbs)
4 oz blackberries (NOT blackcurrants)
1/2 oz caster sugar


Cut the butter into cubes and rub it into the flour and baking powder until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then mix in the dark brown sugar.
Peel and slide the apples, add the caster sugar, stir and microwave until slightly soft.
Mix in the blackberries.
Cover with the crumble topping.
Bake in the over at gas mark 5 for 40-50 minutes

serve with custard

Last night was "Earth Hour" - we dutifully sat in near darkness for over an hour. Luckily we were only watching TV! We watched Housesitter with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn and then part of Brokeback Mountain. We gave up on Brokeback Mountain as it was too difficult - they kept mumbling and had strong "southern" accents too.

Recipe Exchange

We got invited to join in a recipe exchange the other day. We send a recipe to a complete stranger, add our email to a list and send it out into the web to 20 "friends"/"victims".

In return we get 400 recipes back.

I was able to correct the spelling error in the title of the email and sent off our contribution: my famous prawn risotto. 

Prawn Risotto – for 4

Ingredients

2 shallots or a small white onion

1 clove of garlic

300 grams Arborio rice

125 grams of unsalted butter

50 grams of grated Parmesan cheese plus extra to serve

15 ml of olive oil

1 litre of hot chicken or fish stock

150 ml of white wine (Sancerre perhaps)

250 grams of prawns raw or pre cooked – larger ones are best (or more if you want everyone to get lots of prawns. I use 2 x 250 gram packs of tiger prawns)

100 grams of petites pois – defrosted if frozen

Salt and pepper (white pepper is aesthetically better but I prefer freshly ground black pepper)

Method

Turn on the radio or have someone in the kitchen to talk too.

Chop the shallots and crush and chop the clove of garlic

Add the olive oil and half the butter to a deep non-stick frying pan/sauté pan and heat until the butter melts, then add the shallots and garlic and fry gently for a minute or two without letting them burn or colour until soft.

Add 100 grams of Arborio rice and fry gently for a couple of minutes stirring all the time then add 150 ml of white wine and keep stirring. When the wine has been absorbed add the stock, a ladle at a time while stirring. Do not stir too hard or you end up with mush! Keep the heat low.

After 20 minutes or so of listening to the radio, stirring and adding stock you will have a creamy risotto base. If needed add at ladle of water if the rice is still firm to the bite and keep cooking until it is softer. Add the petites pois and the prawns if using raw ones, if using cooked (pink) prawns wait a couple of minutes and then add them – you only need to heat them through but the peas need to cook. Keep stirring gently otherwise it will burn / stick to your non-stick pan.

When ready to serve, add the cheese, the rest of the butter and season to taste. Stir until the butter melts through and the cheese is mixed in.

Sprinkle more parmesan over the risotto as required when served.

You can add a side salad if you want