Euro Dinner Set..... Oven Baked Baby Potatos with herbs and olive oil...

This section of the blog would introduce the Oven Baked baby potatos in herbs and olive oil.
Wash and cute up about 10 baby potatos. Then proceed to cut them up into 8 equal pieces by cross section.
Next put all the potatos into a large mixing bowl. Next pour in 1 cup of olive extra virgin oil. Add a little teaspoon of salt and pepper for seasoning.
Next chop up some thymes . sage. rosemary and parsley. Add them into the oil mixture of the potatos and olive oil.
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees cel. After 10 ,om upon reaching the right tempreture, please put the tray of the potatos into the oven to back. First 15 mins please use 200 degrees C, next add in the potatos into the oven and cook for 30mins straight.
Once the potatos are easy to be handled by a normal dinner fork. It is ready to to be serve

Euro Dinner Set ..... Chinken Stew in Grape Fruit sauce herbs and sausages..

As promised, this is 1st part of 3 on how I prepared a full course EURO dinner for 8 peeps.

I first want to introduce the Chicken stew in herbs with sausages and carrots.

This actually not a difficult dish to prepare as its rather straight forward.

First prepare 1 quarter of full cream butter of a normal bar. Cut that bar of butter into a 7 inch deep saucepan.

Bring it to a simmer and add in your chicken. The amount of chicken for 8 servings would be about 1KG of chicken breastmeat. The breastmeat need not be marinated at all. Just add and let it cook for 8 mins to 10mins.

next once it has turned slight brown we can add in about 500 grams of sauages. Note its better to buy the sauages that has some pepper in it and not to use the normal ones from the canned variety. The ones you buy from the Gourmet corner tend to have more flavour and adds to the stew richness in taste.

Now once the meats are cook for about 15mins, remove all the sauces and the meats into a bowl.

Next add about 1 table spoon of butter and let it simmer. Then add in 1 Yellow Onion fully diced to small chunky bits. Next add in about 2 full sticks of carrots. Be mindful to cut up the carrots into nice 20 cent size chunks too.

Add in the spices , 1 stick of Thymes , 1 stick of parsley, 1 stick of sage 1 stick of chives and 1 stick of rosemary. 2 sticks of cinnamon sticks.

All the above herbs could be purchased from ColdStorage outlets. Next bring all of that to a simmer with 2 cloves of diced Garlic. Once the vegetables are cooking, bring to boil about 5 measuring cups of water and add in 2 cubes of chicken stock cubes. Bring to a slow boil.

Once the chicken stock is ready.. mix the vegetables with the meats and slowly stir. Add in the hot chicken stock 1 cup at a time, 1 cup is like a cup of tea , slowly simmer and add some flour to it to thicken the stew. As you finished the chicken stock, grate 1 Grape Fruits skin, take care not to grate too much into the white part of the GrapeFruits skin, as its bitter taste would not help with the flavour. Once you add in the grated GrapeFruit skin, you may add in 1 qaurter cup of White Wine. As the mixture is brought to a slow blow, you may add the glass of GrapeFruit juices from the original grated GrapeFruit.

Next add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of grinded black pepper. Bring the whole saucepan into a slow boil for about 20 mins. After that you will server the Stew within a large bowl.



Once you have cooked the mixture for 20 mins you may serve the Stew in a large bowl

Darth Vader used to say... The Force is strong with this wan..... then heavy breathing follows ....

This is has to be the only think you cannot go diving without… seriously and of cause the most complex equipment yet
Yes we are talking about the regulator set.. The Regulator set is infact a combination of a number of different components
Each components can be swap out and change about with different brands too…

From the picture you can see my selection. The Primary Stage or 1st Stage is the top most metal component..That is by Apollo Japan. They make pretty decent recreational equipment.. and its balanced. Meaning it would give me the same demand and delivery of Air Supply at Any recreational diving dept up to 45 or 60 meters.

My regulator or 2nd stage is the Black piece with the silver trimmings. Its so far had been performing well for me but can be a little bit noisy Lol , hence the Darth Vader Joke … Its the same make as the 1st or Primary stage. The SPG or Air Guage is from Cressi, its the cheapest in the market and comes with a dept meter too in meters.

My Aux or Octos is the bright yellow Oceanic. I choose that model because of its low profile see the picture below.

The main reason why we divers have 1 breathing components is because the yellow colored ones are for emergency air supply support to your dive buddy. A dive buddy is who you have been paired off which every single dive. It could be someone you know or not.. the system works in a way PADI diving schools encourages recreational divers to always dive in pairs.. that way it dramatically reduces the chances for underwater accidents.
Now you would ask? what if theres not enough air to go around?? usually when the Dive leaders try to assign dive buddies they would pair the stronger diver with the not so strong diver… meaning if you havent had a constant dive buddy travelling with you , if you have good air consumption ratio , you usually get paired with someone who consumes air pretty much faster then you do. How we measure that is by the below device at the end of every dive.

The first dial displays the dept you are at and at the surface the red marker shows how deep you went. It is reading that my last dive was over 20meters. And when we climb onboard the boat , the dive masters would record how much air we have left on the bottom dial. Usually the red areas 50 bar and below are considered dangerous to continue diving… its best practice to be already ending a dive when you have touched 50 bar…
On average, a normal Guy can finish a deep dive profile of 10 mins below 25 meters , 15 to 20 mins above 20 meters and finally 20 mins above 15 meters. The reason we have different time limits for different depths is because compress air behaves very differently at every 10 meters.
At every 10 meters , the air and your body is taking on another level of pressure. The air we breath is compressed further so , technically you are breathing more of the air thats been compress to a lesser volume hehe… not very encouraging I know.. wish we all could grow gills then eh??? me too.
Still even we carry a significant low supply of AIR, there are strict rules to follow that makes us very safe too.
Number 1 rule of diving is actually rather ironic too… Never ever hold your breathe. Even when the regulator is knocked out of your mouth by accident , you are not suppose to ever hold your breathe… you must immediately allow small bubbles of air leak out through your lips. The reason is when air is in your lung and you are going up , the air you had taken in at higher water pressure at deeper levels slowly expands outwards. Therefore filling your lungs up more. So imagine you hold your breathe and it expands further? yes you will burst like a balloon for your lungs. Thats the most common type of fatal accident that can happen. Its very rare , so rare its safer to dive then to drive hahaha.
Ok thats all for now.. Take care and happy diving !!!

FINS ....... DO WE REALLY NEED THEM ..

The thing is if you want to dive without FINS , then you need a size 30 feet with webbings like a duck feet between your toes to function as a FIN.
There are 3 types of fins in my point of view. POWER FINS , JET FINS and BIO FINS.

well dunno why but in the diving community they love to flam peeps who support alternate types of FINS but their own….

And there are the ever stylish freakishly high-tech FORCE FINS. I will be talking bout my FINS , the POWER FINS. Picture below



Yes they are the same ones used by US Naval Seals 20 years ago. Why change something thats not broken right? its very simple and easy to use. Plus its shorter in length infront so walking around with it is not as hard as try to walk with the normal 1 meter length ones.

From the next picture you noticed that its 1 single piece constructions. No high tech manufacturing techniques at all. Thats why its been said to last you a lifetime.

Now you will need one of these below to use my type of fins. Its called a dive boot.

This is because my Fins design is called open Sole type. There are full Sole fins out there that is like a huge slipper with fins

That type of FINS you dont need to have to wear dive boots. The reason i found having Dive boots really is sometimes the dive boats are a couple of 100 meters away so you need to walk there on foot , just imagine the hot sand or the odd rocks or sharp corals along the way??? hehe get the idea right.

Now for the other fins you can go google it with the names I supplied earlier on. Make sure to try on the FINS with the BOOTS as there are different cuttings to a boot and materials like normal shoes. It has to be compatible to your FINS. Its must be a comfortable fit with both on and the end of the fins should be touching your ankles. Thats very important as if you are too far behind your ankles , that means the fins are too big for you and you cant power it under water. If its too short infront of your ankles , that means its too small and you will be wasting alot of your strength using it underwater.

Finally just a note on how to use fins in the water. When you swimming normally on the surface of the water, try to put as much of the fins into the water and not lift it out of the water as it will be wasting alot of time and energy to push it back into the water again each time you kick. I usually just lay on my back instead of my front to kick towards the pickup boat hehe …. Also when under water, bear in mind its not the upward stroke of the fins that gives you the force to push you forward. Its actually the downward stroke that does the pushing. So conserve energy while doing the upstroke and put more effort in for the down stroke or kick. Try not to use your knees only to kick , use the largest muscle to do most of the work hehe and that would be your Thigh muscles and buttocks





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IF ONLY I AM A FISH !.... THEN I DONT NEED THESE

Today I going to talk about MASK !
Its one of the major part of the scuba diving sports , but has been a favorite debate subjects…
some would even go to war ! defending what they feel is the best type of FINS … or MASK.
There are generally 3 Types of MASK in my point of view. Please dont flam me if you dont like my selections hehehe.
There are for MASK, FRAMED MASK, FRAME LESS MASK and PARA MASK.
FRAME LESS MASK.

The reason why its frame less is becos as you can see the plastic or rubber is moulded around the glass part of the mask. This in turn gives it a lower profile. The reason for my choice is the closer the glass is to the face of the user, generally you can get more viewable area hehe, think about tunnel vision.
Since if it was a framed mask, its plastic frame would be thicker, you will experience less field of vision. Also the lower the amount of air between your face and the mask, the less chances you can feel the suck out effect. This is due to the air been compressed by the water around you when you go deeper into the sea. That can be usually balanced out by blowing a little air out of your noses when you fee; the face squeeze hehe.
Now there are 2 points when you are buying and preparing a mask.


See the picture above. This is how you been testing a mask when you look right into it. Now without putting the rubber band around and over your head just lightly place the mask over your nose and eyes.
Next just inhale slightly through your nose and let go of the mask while your head is looking straight down. If the mask is a good fit on your face profile or type , it should be able to stay in place on your face and wont drop off by itself after 20 secs. If it has a bad fit around your face, the air around you will seep into the mask and cause it to slowly peel off. Thats the simplest rules to test the fitting of the mask on your face.
Now to prepare the new mask for use, its a bit more tricky, some might ask you to just put tooth paste on the inside of the mask glass parts and leave over night and wash it off with a tooth brush and running water.
The reason is all new mask comes with some kind of chemical coating on the inside of the glass part of a mask. Its a factory default. Therefore you need to peel or wash off that layer to prevent the mask from foggin easily while using it underwater.
What I learned is a bit more effective but needs a steady hand. I would prepare my mask by using a small lighter, the type you can buy off the tobacco or cigarette counters. Then slowly warm the inside of the glass part surface, as you do that you can clearly see the heat from the small flam slowly but surely burning off and evaporating off the chemical coatings with all new Mask. Once you got to heat off all the glass surface inside the mask, you maybe leave it to cool for 10 mins and then wash off the inside with tap water.
Now all you need to do is to spit saliva into it and wash it off with sea water and you are guaranteed clear vision through out a 1 hour dive hehehe . Of cos some more civilized divers unlike myself would still prefer to use commercial anti fog products on the inside of the treated mask glass part instead hahahaha.
Thanks for reading this blog and take care.