Breaded Cornmeal Sole w/Tarter Sauce and Brussel Sprouts

Mel and I made this beautiful dinner together. These are Dover Sole Fillets breaded with cornmeal and fried. The brussel sprouts are butter steamed and lightly sauted, veggie cous cous and a delicous tarter sauce made on the fly! Yum!

The Hamm's Bike Gets a New Pipe!

Since I've started working at A & A Cycles, it has allowed me more time to practice some of my other interests. Two of these interests are welding and mopeds. On July 4th, I spent a few hours of my holiday working on Mel's bike, the Hamm's bike.

I started by putting the new pipe next to the old one. I wanted to figure out where the new one was going to best fit. I think ideally you would want to figure out how far the expansion chamber should be from the engine/exhaust port, for optimal perfomance. I did not do this not only because I do not know how, but also because I was not increasing the size of the stock exhaust header. I kinda figured that with this bike, anything would greatly improve its performance. This bike is a Peuguot 102 SP. No performance kits are available for this bike as well as no specific pipes.

Once I decided where the pipe would best fit, I marked my spot and welded on the new pipe (Boss pipe). Before welding on the new pipe, I cleaned up all the seams that I was going to be welding. I also made a bracket that I would weld on later to attach the pipe to the bike for added support.

Once the new pipe was welded on to the exsisting exhaust header, I made marks for my support bracket and tack welded it on. From here I was able to test out the support bracket and correct its angle to the pipe and bike.

The previous pipe's support bracket was perfect for putting the nut into, however in my bed frame support bracket design, this would be nearly impossible to hold the nut while trying to screw the bolt in. Instead I bent out the bracket (while it was still only tack welded) to put the bolt into. Sure it will be harder to replace the bolt if anything should ever happen to it, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Of all the improvement projects I carried out on a moped, this one, so far was the funnest. Previous projects that included welding, ususally had to be done by someone else, either because of lack of skill or facilites. This time however I did everything from putting the bike on the table to crafting a bracket. Being able to weld and to continue to improve my skills has been one of the most freeing experiences since my moped hobby/way of life began.

Vegetarian Pizza

Last night I made this pizza. It is a vegetarian pizza with a peanut pesto, eggplant, olives, grape tomatoes and sauteed red onions and broccoli. Not only delicious, one of the most colorful and beautiful pizzas I've made. I've made plenty of pizzas between the last blogged about pizza and this one, however I think I'm finally getting the dough just right. This time I had little trouble transferring the pizza from the cutting board to the pizza stone in the oven. Below, I packaged up some slices on Mel's pizza plates.

Adventures with a Long John named Margret

I did some neighborhood scavenging a couple of weeks ago and stocked up on lots of wood. Since then I have been drawing up plans for lots of new projects. The first one is a captin's chair for the long john.

Right now the back and bottom rests are removable, as we will be adding our own custom cushions and upholstery to them. Also, I'm on the lookout for two small speakers, about the size of computer speakers, that can be hooked up to a battery. If you look hard, you can see a speaker bungee corded to the frame behind the basket. The one I carry around now is not amplified, so it only plays as loud as my ipod will go. With amplified speakers, I think I will actually be able to hear the music that comes out of them while I ride. I plan on building little speaker boxes in the back of the captin's chair, that will be amplified and hook up to some Dewalt power tool batteries that I have. This should provide me with enough juice to last a 20 mile ride. I also plan on re-doing the arm rests, as they ended up shorter than I expected.

Beautiful Avacado

Mel got this and two other beauties from one of the guys that are also in her program. This was the first one I cut from the three. I couldn't pass up taking a photo. I've been trying to sprout the avacado seeds, but no luck yet. Someday, Mel and I hope to own some property of our own and have a wide variety of fruit trees and as well as an extensive garden. The avacado tree will no doubt be a part of this.

Ricotta Sun-Dried Tomato and Pepperoni Pizza

This is pizza is: sun-dried tomato tapenade with ricotta cheese, pepperoni and sauteed onions and tomatoes in regular and white balsamic vinegar and wine. I've got to find a better way to transfer these pizzas from my work surface to the pizza stone in the oven. Some of the crust came unrolled on part of this pizza. The end result is that where it unraveled, the crust was dry. On the other half that didn't unroll, the oils from the tapenade seeped into the crust and kept it oily and moist.

A & A Cycles- Custom Bicycles

Two friends of mine are starting a bicycle company. A & A Cycles in San Jose, building custom long john bicycles. This bike can carry up to 225 lbs, not including the rider. This is Margret, the second bike built and also the company bike. Last week I used this bike to complete a wide range of errands.

One day I used it to make two runs down to the recycling yard. In my first load (pictured above) I took an old tv and some bottles. The second load I carried bags of cans and plastic bottles. During both trips, the bike handled beautifully and got lots of cheers from passerbys.

Another day I used it to take my air compressor to my friends shop. Also on another run, to pick up a table saw that the same friend was giving away. Awesome.

Burritos

I made these puppies last night! Oh and were they delicious. Tofu seasoned with chorizo in mind, spanish rice, whole beans, zucchini, onions, roasted garlic and jalepenos with fresh tomatoes and avacado. Oh yeah, you know it...awesome!

Lavash Wraps

I made my first wrap last night for dinner. As far as presentation goes, I could have arranged these differently for more eye appeal. In any case, the wraps came out really good. I started out with whole wheat lavash bread wraps, mayo, whole grain dijon mustard, hard and soft salami, smoked gouda cheese, mixed greens, onions and roasted jalepenos.

Stormy Sundays

Storms and Scrabble go hand in hand on Sundays!