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Posts for year 2025

Experimental Braised Cabbage

Inspired by the Fallow Chefs’ confit caramelized cabbage, I made a vegan braised caramelized cabbage for dinner tonight, with pearl barley and split peas then finished in the stock. The recipe was improvised and not recorded exactly but the results were amazing.

The cabbage came out very sweet and caramelized, like the confit method appears but less buttery. Texture was nice, soft enough that the inner layers could be cut with a fork but not mushy.

I’ve written up the process below as best I can remember it.

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Microwave Baked Onions in Tomato & Basil Sauce

This is an easy recipe that can be a side dish as half an onion, or the main meal with more halves and the addition of some extra grains/pasta/etc to soak up the sauce. No animal products or gluten required.

Serves 3-6 (half or a whole onion) and costs about AU$2 (as of November 2025).

Based on the “Baked Onions” recipe in an old Family Circle Kids Microwave Cooking book I had as a kid.

Microwave Baked Onions in Tomato & Basil Sauce

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didyouknowthatyoucanhaveonlysixty-threecharactersinadomainlabel.net is moving to didyouknowthatyoucanhaveonlysixty-threecharactersinadomainlabel.dylanleigh.net

To save US$20 per year on a domain name for a 20 year old joke, I’m moving the three sentence index page at http://didyouknowthatyoucanhaveonlysixty-threecharactersinadomainlabel.net/ to a subdomain of this site, http://didyouknowthatyoucanhaveonlysixty-threecharactersinadomainlabel.dylanleigh.net/ . There’s a redirect in place at the old site for now, but I’ll probably let the domain expire when it is due for renewal.

How to extract an Android APK off an old device and install it to a new one with ADB

The old OpenIntents shopping list app I have used on my Android phones since around 2011 is no longer available on either the Google Play Store or the F-Droid FOSS Android Repository. I’ve tried several alternatives since getting a new phone earlier this year but much prefer the old OI app so was quite annoyed that it’s gone.

After a few months of struggling with inferior alternatives, today I realised I could simply pull the app off an old phone with ADB and put it on the new one.

The Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is a commandline tool for debugging Android apps, but can also be used for backups, file transfer from PC to/from phone, a remote shell from PC to phone and other purposes.

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Little Note re Vegan Egg Substitutes

Most “egg substitutes” only work well for a specific use case of eggs, and not for others. E.g:

  • Aquafaba (chick pea water) whips up like egg whites and can be used to make sponge cakes, merengues or similar fluffy sweets.

  • Chia or flaxseed/linseed are a good replacement binder for muffins and denser cakes (and good for fibre and protein too).

  • Tapioca starch and baking powder can also work to give a bit of leavening for muffins (McKensie brand vegan baking egg subtitute is this).

  • Ground cashews and/or avocado can be used for some richer desserts like mousses.

  • Kala Namak, a dark sulphurous salt which adds the smell and flavour of egg yolk, but doesn’t add texture like the above stuff.

  • Tumeric is often used to add a bit of yellow colour to make vegan omelettes and scrambles look like eggs.

I haven’t yet seen any subsitutes that are a straight drop in for all purposes of eggs, usually you have to use several depending on the recipe.