Type of course: Desert
Serves: 8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Total time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

• 200g self-raising flour
• 200g caster sugar
• 250g softened butter
• 50g cocoa powder
• 2 large eggs
• 150ml sour cream
• 2 tsp real vanilla extract
• 100g icing sugar
• 175g milk chocolate

Method

1. Take all of the ingredients out of the frige and let them reach room temperature.
2. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4/180c and line two 8 inch cake tins with removable bases.
3. Add 175g of butter and 200g of caster sugar to a large mixing bowl and cream together until light and fluffy.
4. Beat the two eggs together and put 200g of self-raising flour into a sieve.
5. Add a drop of the beaten eggs to the creamed mixture in the mixing bowl along with a sprinkle of flour and fold into the mixture. Repeat this step until you have no egg or flour left.
6. Sieve in the cocoa powder and fold into the mixture.
7. Add 150ml of sour cream and 2 tsp of real vanilla extract and mix well getting lots of air into the mixture. Use an electric whisk if needed.
8. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins.
9. Put the cake tins in the oven for around 35 minutes or until a cake tester, or a thin skewer, comes out clean. It is wise to check the cake after 25 minutes.
10. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes then remove from tins and place on a wire rack allowing to cool to room temperature.
11.  Add icing sugar and the remaining butter to a mixing bowl and cream together until light and fluffy.
12. Add 175g of melted chocolate to the mixture and mix throughly.
13. Spread the butter icing on top of one of the cake and place the remaining cake on top.
14. Serve with vanilla ice cream and mint leaves for decoration.

Type of course: Starter
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Total time: 60 minutes

Ingredients

• 250g Cod (or fish of your choice)
• 500g potatoes
• 1 small chilli
• 2 spring onions
• 125g breadcrumbs
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tbsp double cream
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1/2 pint milk
• Seasoning (to taste)
• Sweet chilli dipping sauce

Method

1. Peel and dice the potatoes and boil for 10 minutes.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, lightly poach the fish in milk for 5 minutes. Strain and put aside to cool.
3. Finley slice fresh chilli and spring onions.
4. Beat the two eggs together in a bowl.
5. Put 125g of bread crumbs into a bowl.
6. Strain and mash the potatoes using a potato ricer if available.
7. Mix in 1/4 of beaten eggs and 1 tbsp of double cream to the mashed potatoes  then season to taste.
8. Flake poached fish (check for bones!) and add to the potato along with chilies and spring onions. Mix throughly.
9. When cooled, shape into 5cm cakes. Chill the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes.
10. Remove cooled cakes from the frige and dip into the remaining beaten egg.
11. Coat the cake throughly with breadcrumbs.
12. Heat 2 tbsp of sunflower oil in a shallow frying pan and cook fishcake until golden brown on both sides.
13. Place on absorbing paper to remove excess oil.
14. Server with sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Type of course: Main
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 giant tiger bay prawns
• 1 tbsp plumb jelly
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• Garlic (to taste)
• Fresh chilli (to taste)
• 1kg Sirloin steak
• 4 large Mushrooms
• 1 large red onion
• 500g egg noodles
• Garlic (to taste)
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil

Method

1. To make the marinade for the prawns, mix together 1 tbsp of plumb jelly, crush garlic, fresh chillis and 2tbsp light soy sauce in a plan and warm on a low heat until the plumb jelly is melted.
2. Once melted, place to one side to cool slightly.
3. When cool, place washed, cleaned tiger bay prawns into a sealable food bag and pour in the marinade from the pan. Leave the marinade for 1 hour.
4. Slice the sirloin steak into 3cm wide strips.
5. Thinly slice the red onion and mushrooms.
6. Remove the prawns from the sealable bag and cook under a grill for 10 minutes. (5 minutes each side)
7. While the prawns are cooking, heat 2 tbsp sunflower oil in a wok and add the left over marinade from the prawns.
8. When the wok is hot, add the beef, onions and mushrooms and cook till the beef is tender. (aprox. 5 minutes)
9. Add cooked eggs noodles to the wok and heat.
10. Place sweet chilli beef noodles onto plates and lay cooked tiger bay prawns on top.

Martha Argerich:
Argerich rose to international prominence when she won the seventh International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1965, at age 24. In 1965, she debuted in the United States in the Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series. In the same year, she also made her first recording, including works by Chopin, Brahms, Ravel, Prokofiev, and Liszt, which received critical acclaim. In 1965, she recorded Chopin’s Scherzo No. 3, Polonaise, Op. 53, and other short works in the later years. Argerich is widely recognised as one of the greatest pianists of her time.

I will be going with Harold to see Argerich perform on the 24th March. She is playing with the St Petersburg Philharmonic and will be playing Shostakovich Symphony No 7 ‘Leningrad’ and a piano concerto which has not yet been confirmed. However, I suspect it will be the Ravel concerto in G major.

Here is an audio clip of Argerich playing the 2nd movement of Ravels concerto in G major:

Martha Argerich playing the 2nd movement of Ravels concerto in G major.

Here is a video clip of Argerich playing Bach Partita No. 2:

Yuja Wang:
Wang comes from a musical family. She entered Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music at age seven and studied there for three years. Wang moved to Canada at age 14 to learn English and study at the Mount Royal University Conservatory in Calgary.Starting at age 15, she studied for five years with Gary Graffman, who was also Lang Lang’s teacher, at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated in May 2008. She is increasing the number of concerts she is playing, and has “developed a novel reputation” of replacing sick pianists, yet going on “to deliver a knockout performance”. Yuja Wang sprung to fame when she replaced an indisposed Martha. Maybe it will happen again!

I will be going with Harold to see Wang perform on the 25th March. She is playing with the London Symphony Orchestra / Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and will be playing Glinka Overture: Ruslan and Ludmila, Bartók Piano Concerto No 2 and Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade.

Here is an audio clip of Wang playing the the first movement of Petrouchka:

Yuja Wang playing the first movement of Petrouchka

Here is a video clip of Yuja Wang playing Bartók Piano Concerto No 2, movement 3:

The new aquascape is a junge type planted tank, which is why I will be calling it “The jungle”. I will be changing the substrate from sand to black sand or fine gravel. Lighting will stop the same as it is now, 2x 40w T8s. The plants are as follows:

A) Microsorum pteropus
B) Bolbitis heudelotii
C) Vallasneria americana gingantea
D) Crinum natans
E) Crinum calimistratum
F) Aponogeton boevinianus
G) Aponogeton crispus ‘Red’
H) Echinodorus ‘Ozelot’
I) Echinodorus ‘Rubin’
J) Echinodorus quadricostatus
K) Sagittaria subulata
L) Hygrophila pinnatifida
M) Anubias barteria var. barteri
N) Limnobium laevigatum

The plants will be arranged as this diagram shows:

The new stocking will be as follows:

30x Thayeria boehlkei
30x Paracheirodon innesi
10x Corydoras aeneus
10x Hyphessobrycon colombianus
2x Cleithracara maronii (1 male and 1 female)

So, here is a picture of how it should look and some pictures of the stock that is going in it!

The jungle:

Thayeria boehlkei:

Paracheirodon innesi:

Corydoras aeneus:

Hyphessobrycon colombianus:

Cleithracara maronii:

Images: “The jungle”, “Thayeria boehlkei”, “Paracheirodon innesi” and “Hyphessobrycon colombianus” are copyright to Tropica.
Image: “Cleithracara maronii” is copyright to Kat.

Since my last few years in school I have been working hard to set up my own company. The first idea I tried was web hosting. Because I was still trapped at school, I needed something I could run from a mobile phone. A web hosting company was perfect! The company was called “iDevil Hosting”. However, it didn’t really last, there was so much competition; I was on a tight budget so couldn’t market the service.

I eventually gave up on iDevil, but I didn’t stop there. As my GCSE exams approached, I saw a potential new product that could change the way people revise for their exams. That is when I invented the idea of Swots! Swots is a novel application which helps people who are studying to plan and coordinate their revision work, whether they are in schools, colleges or higher education. Wherever and whatever you are studying, Swots will make learning happier and easier.

Shortly after that, I left school, so work on Swots had to stop as there was no school in which to test it. As you may know, I left college one month after enrolling onto my courses since I felt I had nothing to learn there. I then decided to do an Apprenticeship in Business Administration & Law. Doing this enabled me to make contacts and build a portfolio. After my Apprenticeship ended I decided to leave employment and become self-employed. This is when Twoot Solutions came in.

Twoot has taken off very well and is slowly but surely growing. We first started off doing website design. As new clients came, demands got bigger which enabled Twoot to introduce new services. As it stands Twoot has the following services:

• TwootChoice
• TwootDesign
• TwootEducation
• TwootHost
• TwootSkills
• TwootSocial
• TwootTender

We have had some great testimonials from clients. Here are some of them:

Great to meet you today.  You have bags of Talent and will go far, that I am certain.

Thanks again for your time today, it is brilliant to meet a young Entrepreneur with vision, bravery and ability.  I suggest you join the Entrepreneurs Forum, a place where you will meet many very very successful like-minded people.  A place to network and to learn from.  I am happy to propose you if you want?  Have a look at their site: www.entrepreneursforum.net

Thanks for installing our CRM system so professionally. It was fully explained, and nothing was too much bother.

Twoot Solutions offered a fresh thinking synergy of business intelligence which was made extra special by the personal and extremely professional interpretation of my own ideas and inspirations, by MD Jamie Peterson. Jamie not only advised, designed and produced my website, business cards and flyer but also far exceeded my expectations with his level of commitment to get everything exactly right for my new venture.

Innovative, focussed, original and affordable. I would recommend to any business, whatever their size or marketplace, that they seek the services of this remarkable young entrepreneur.

I know for sure that Twoot Solutions is destined for bigger things and I’m proud that my business Serendipity in Shields has shared an experience in its early foundations.

If you would like to know more about Twoot, have a visit to its website: www.twoot.co.uk.

As Christmas approaches, things have started to quieten down with Twoot, giving me more time to focus on the things I enjoy doing. I decided to give the fish tank a clean up. I first removed all the algae from the glass. I then trimmed the plants and removed some so that the tank was no longer like a jungle! I then did a water change. Because I haven’t done a water change for around 5 months, I decided to only do a 20% change. When refilling the tank I added cold water. I did this to try and get the Corys spawning.

Anyway, have a look how it turned out!

Alborada del gracioso (“The Jester’s morning serenade”) – Dedicated to M. D. Calvocoressi, Alborada is a technically challenging piece that incorporates Spanish musical themes into its complicated melodies.

Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden plays this movement very well. The piece flows very well with each note given great detail. Have a listen!

A picture i took while out doing some photography with Matt.

I really like the picture, personally. I like it so much i want to get it printed! However, to get it printed it would cost me £140. It would be 4ft long and 1ft high.

The local news also want to show it as part of their weather program! I will post a screenshot/video of that when it happens!

What is cycling?
Cycling is preparing the fish tank so that fish are able to live happily in it. People new to the hobby often never get told about this, which results in 1000s of fish being killed every day. Before you add the fish to any tank it is vital to cycle it. Cycling produces the right environment for the fish to live in.

How to cycle?
Cycling is really easy. I look at it in 3 steps… Add ammonia, Test and keep adding till results are right (I will explain this in more detail later), then add fish! To cycle the tank without fish, you need to somehow add something similar to fish waste into the water. You do this by adding household ammonia to the tank. This will get the cycle going. The filter will covert the ammonia (which is very harmful to fish) into nitrite (which is also very harmful to fish). Nitrite is then converted to nitrate (which is less harmful to fish. This all happens in the filter.

To get started use an online calculator and calculate the amount of ammonia solution you will need to use to get the right PPM. You can get ammonia solution from Boots or most chemists. Once you know how many ml you need, add it to the water. Test the water 5 minutest later using your test kit and make sure the ammonia is around 2-4 ppm. Write down the results of this test in a diary so that you can track the progress of the tank and tell when it is cycled. The tank is cycled when the filter can get ammonia and nitrite from 2-4 ppm down to 0 ppm in less than 12 hours.

As I do the fish-less cycle, it will become clearer how it all works and how one should carry out a fish-less cycle!