Yumminess - Baked Ricotta

From sevenspoons comes this bit of tastiness:

Savory Baked Ricotta
In testing for doneness, the cheese should not be completely dry in the middle. Similar to baking a cheesecake, the ricotta will swell slightly and retain a lazy wobble when set. As it cools, it will firm up some more, so keep that in mind while baking. Individual rounds can be made in muffin tins, and are pretty platemates to a simple salad.

Ingredients
1 garlic clove, a fat and juicy one is best
Olive oil for greasing the dish
8 ounces fresh whole milk ricotta
1/4 cup grated Grana Padano cheese
3 tablespoons minced mixed fresh herbs, I used (in order of most to least) chives, parsley, thyme
Zest from half a lemon
Pinch of red pepper flakes or minced red chili (optional)
Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 large egg white, lightly whisked

Preheat an oven to 350°F (175°C). Cut the garlic clove in half horizontally and rub the cut sides against the interior of a 1-cup capacity ramekin. Use a pastry brush to lightly coat the inside of the dish with oil. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together the ricotta, Grana Padano, herbs, lemon zest and chili (if using). Taste, then season with kosher salt and black pepper. Stir in the whisked egg white. Spoon the ricotta mixture into the prepared ramekin and place on a baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven until the cheese is puffed and almost set in the centre, and beginning to brown in spots, around 35 minutes depending on the dimensions of your ramekin. Remove from the oven and cool at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Serve either in the dish or run a knife around the edge of the cheese and invert onto a serving plate with crackers or bread alongside. And maybe some wine too. Surely one with bubbles. Best warm or at room temperature.

Makes 1 baked round, serving 4.

Haiti

A long piece on the NY Times site that is well worth reading. Basic premise is that whatever aid that comes is only the start of what needs to be done.

Using Our Military Might For Right

From Gin and Tacos.

So, Haiti. Tens of thousands dead, and all of the nation's hospitals destroyed. The international aid agencies, specifically Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross, are out of supplies. Both the port and the airport in Port-au-Prince are destroyed, hampering any effort to bring in more. The Pentagon, like the iPhone, has an app for this.

Here is a piece of military hardware to get Ed all worked up: the USNS Comfort. It is a hospital ship with a helipad so it can serve areas without ports or airstrips. It is as large as a supercarrier and has the facilities to rival any hospital on Earth. Beds for 1000 patients. 12 fully equipped operating rooms. Four distilleries to make 300,000 gallons of drinking water per day. A complete pharmacy and radiology lab. Complete labs for dental, optometry, and trauma patients. Two oxygen-producing plants.

This sounds like a good idea to me.

Music Night - 27 Club

To be honest, I don't think that there is a real statistical spike in musicians dying at the age of 27. It does make a good story though.

Tonight's songs are:

1. The Drifters - Up On The Roof
2. Robert Johnson- Crossroad
3. Echo and the Bunnymen - Killing Moon (live on The Tube)
4. The Gits - A Change Is Gonna Come
5. Minutemen - This Ain't No Picnic
6. Inner Circle - Boom Shaka Lakka
7. Janis Joplin - Cry Baby (live in toronto 1970)
8. Rolling Stones Lady Jane + Paint It Black 1966
9. Uriah Heep - Wizard
10. Badfinger - Day After Day
11. Grateful Dead - Truckin'
12. Canned Heat live at Woodstock
13. Light My Fire - The Doors Light
14. Jimi Hendrix - Stages - Hey Joe (live, San Diego)
15. Manic Street Preachers - Suicide Is Painless
16. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

But why would you want to?

This stuff was made during the winter of 2007/2008 as a hobby project.

Features:
- ZiLOG Z80 CPU @ 4MHz
- 32 kBytes of RAM
- 32 x 32 char B&W alphabetic display adapter
- 1 kBytes of Video RAM
- Full stroke keyboard
- Built-in monitor program

The machine consists of two boards (CPU and video) and a keyboard, just connected to each other via ribbon cables.
The character geneartor and the system ROM was burnt into two 27C256 UV EPROMs. For the character generator, the best way seemed like downloading the C64 character set and burning it into mine. For OS programming, I used the ECAL Z80 assembler.
Unfortunately, the schematic diagram of the video board is still not drawn, but the CPU board plans are downloadable.

Now if they had done something like this I would been much more interested.