Random Thoughts of Chris Tilley

Bachelor Fare time again. My family is away for the week and I had a craving. For those of you that don't know what 'Toad in the hole' is, it is basically Yorkshire Pudding with sausages in it. The picture on the wikipedia page is the traditional way and the way my mother used to make it. I do things a little differently and use muffin tins.

Toad in the Hole (Makes 12)

Preheat oven to 450

• 6 sausages
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs (add one egg for every 1000 feet you are above sea level)

Cut the sausages in half and put half a sausage in each muffin tin. Put in the oven and brown. We want so grease out of the sausage to cook the Yorkshires in. If the sausage don't provide any oil add a little olive oil. I have a little pump spritzer for oil that works well. As the sausages cook we will mix up the Yorkshire Puddings.

In a bowl add the flour and stir in the salt. Add the milk and beat well, a minute or 2 with an electric mixer. Add the eggs and beat. Pour over the sausages, filling each tin to 1/2 to 3/4 full. Put in the oven and turn the temperature down to 400. Bake for 25 minutes.

Trying to figure out what this is a picture of?

Well it a systems that allows long haul truckers to turn off their engines when they are parked and keep warm and all their electronics powered.

Basically the big hose hooks up to a window adapter. The hose recycle the air in the cab cooling or heating as necessary and filtering it. The hose also has electrical plugs both inside and out. This allows the driver to turn off their engine during their required 10 hours rest for every 11 hours of driving or anywhere they have to wait. There are other benefits for the driver like TV, internet, phone and no wear and tear on the engine from idling.

So on the global warming side IdleAire sells carbon credits through Carbon Fund. A truck idling burns a gallon of diesel per hour. Three billion gallons are burned a year from idling. Thats equivalent to 30.5 Million Tonnes of CO2 and 10 billion dollars. Now they are not going to eliminate all the idling but they can make a pretty good dent into it. The other problem is that the electricity has to be generated from something and right now alot of that is coal but that isn't IdleAire's problem. They are solving the problem at their level someone else need to fix the electricity generation problem.

So another company that is making money helping save the environment and stop global warming.