Next up is a fantastic dish from Jeremy Keith, author of books including HTML5 for Web Designers, the man who built Huff Duffer, and bouzouki player for Salter Cane.

Ingredients

Serves one person.

• One pork chop, preferably bone-in for extra flavour>
• A little bit of flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.
• About three chopped anchovies.
• Some capers.
• A bit of chopped garlic.
• Some olive oil.
• A bit of butter.
• Some lemon juice.

Method

1. Take your lovely pork chop and give it a bit of a dusting in the flour.
2. Heat up some olive oil in a frying pan and fry that sucker till it’s nice and brown (you can poke a knife into the chop to see when it’s done). I like to begin the frying process by holding the chop on its side so that the fat gets rendered and goes nice and crispy.
3. When the chop is done, take it out and put it to one side. Throw the anchovies and butter into the pan and swish them around.
4. After a minute or two, add the garlic and capers, and swish them around too.
5. Finally, squeeze in that lemon juice. You now have a lovely sauce to pour over your pork chop.

Jeremy’s notes

To be honest, I don’t get the chance to cook very often. Not that I’m complaining: my wife, Jessica, loves to cook and is very, very good at it. But if Jessica is away, then I get to break out my chops. Literally.

My go-to meal for one is a pork chop recipe from TV chef Valentine Warner. He presented a programme called “What To Eat Now”. There was an accompanying book, which is very good, but for some reason, this recipe wasn’t included.

I know it *sounds* weird to have anchovies and capers with pork, but trust me: it is absolutely delicious. Serve it with some mashed potatoes and a vegetable of your choice—I’m quite partial to purple sprouting broccoli. Have a glass of hearty Shiraz (or maybe a Grenache-Shiraz mix). Enjoy!

Next up is a warming feast from David Sloan, researcher at the University of Dundee School of Computing, project lead of the Digital Media Access Group, and member of the W4A steering committee.

Ingredients

Serves 6 people

• 1Kg diced venison meat.
• 2 or 3Tbsps seasoned flour.
• 75 or 100g pancetta or bacon, cut into small pieces.
• 2 or 3 carrots, chopped.
• 2 sticks celery, chopped.
• 2 onions, finely chopped.
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, crushed.
• 50g dried cranberries.
• Rind of 1 orange.
• 10 or 15 juniper berries.
• 2Tbsp redcurrant jelly (or IKEA lingonberry jam).
• 250 to 375ml red wine.
• Small glass of port.
• Few drops Worcestershire sauce.
• 2 bay leaves.
• 2 sprigs thyme.
• 150g mushrooms, sliced or quartered.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 130c.
2. Put the seasoned flour in a food bag, then add the diced venison and shake until it’s fully coated.
3. Heat up some oil in an oven proof cooking pot, brown the venison in batches, and then set aside.
4. Add some more oil to the pot, and sauté the pancetta (or bacon).
5. After a couple of minutes, add the celery, onion and carrot, fry until softened, then add the garlic and fry a little more.
6. Return the venison to the pot and add all the other ingredients including the liquids. The less liquid you use the richer the sauce will be, but make sure you cover the meat.
7. Put a lid on the pot and stick it in the oven for a couple of hours, checking occasionally to give it a stir and add a little water if it starts to dry out.

Dave’s notes

This is a terrific recipe for feeding lots of people – particularly good as a rich, warming winter meal, but tasty in summer too! It’s a great way to use up left-over booze, or an excuse to open a new bottle.

This recipe is adapted from (I suppose I shouldn’t say steal, should I?) one by Antony Worrall Thompson, but the figures are approximate – feel free to experiment with quantities. It’s a long list of ingredients, but only the meat, veg, stock and red wine are absolutely essential…

It tastes particularly good the next day, so you could freeze the casserole, and save it for later. Sometimes I make some dumplings to go on top – add them 45 minutes before the end of cooking time, and turn the heat up to 160 C.

This casserole goes well with mashed potatoes and some kale or spring greens on the side; serve any leftovers with tagliatelle and some parsley chopped over the top.

Next up is a fabulous outdoors recipe from Jared Smith, associate director of WebAIM, member of the Web Standards Project, and co-instigator of the CSUN tweetup.

Ingredients

Serves 8 to 10 people (or 5 hungry boy scouts).

Weights and measures conversion information.

• rashers bacon.
• cups cheddar cheese, grated.
• Lawry’s seasoning or salt and pepper.

Method

1. Line the bottom of a 12″ dutch oven with the bacon, then place over coals or in an oven until the bacon browns slightly on one side.
2. Break the bacon into small bits, and layer it together with the potatoes and onions.
3. Add plenty of Lawry’s seasoning, salt and pepper to taste, put the lid on the dutch oven and cook at 375f for about an hour or until the potatoes have begun to soften.
4. Add small amounts of water and stir occasionally to ensure tenderness and even cooking.
5. Sprinkle two cups of cheddar cheese over the mixture, stir lightly and continue cooking until the potatoes re tender.
6. Just before serving, sprinkle remaining cheddar cheese on top and allow to melt.

Jared’s notes

It’s hard to pick a favorite, and admittedly, I’m a bit of a meat and potatoes out-doorsy type of guy, so here’s one of my favorite recipes, which incidentally contains both meat and potatoes and is typically eaten outdoors!

Narrator is much more configurable under Windows 8. Under Windows 7 you can choose Narrator’s voice, and alter its speed, pitch and volume. It’s rudimentary at best. Narrator under Windows 8 has many of the configuration options you’d expect to find with an old school desktop screen reader.

General settings

Like many other desktop screen readers, Narrator uses a modifier key (or keys to be specific). The Windows and alt keys are used in combination with other keys to create a suite of Narrator specific keyboard commands.

Under “General” settings you can choose to permanently turn on the Narrator modifier keys. This saves you from having to include the Win and alt keys before each Narrator command. You can toggle the modifier key lock on/off at any time using one of Narrator’s many new keyboard commands (Windows alt c).

You can configure Narrator to start at logon, and to start minimised. There is an option to turn keyboard keystroke echo on/off, and you can also toggle this setting on the fly (Windows alt f12).

There is an option to enable visual highlighting of the Narrator cursor, and this is on by default. Particularly helpful if you’re working on something alongside sighted people. The final setting under “General” lets you choose how long Narrator notifications are retained for reading.

Navigation settings

You can choose to enable reading and interaction with a mouse, useful if you have enough vision. If your device supports a touch interface, another option appears that lets you make the same choice about reading and interaction via touch.

Narrator is a lot more sophisticated when it comes to cursor modes. By default the Narrator cursor follows the keyboard cursor, a setting you can set within the “Navigation” settings. You can also route the Narrator cursor to the keyboard cursor (Windows alt g) or to the mouse pointer (Windows alt t).

You can choose between two Narrator cursor interaction modes (Flow and Advanced). It isn’t entirely clear what the difference between the two is, so that’ll take a bit more investigation (and probably another blog post). The setting can be toggled on the fly as well though (Windows alt a).

Voice settings

The settings here remain largely unchanged from Windows 7. You can select the voice that Narrator uses, then set the speed, pitch and volume it uses. It must be said that the voices available under Windows 8 are much better though.

On a desktop computer, Microsoft David is the default. It’s a pleasant American voice that’s easy to listen to. The desktop alternative for people in the UK is Hazel. It’s another voice that’s easy on the ear, this time with a British accent.

Windows 8 voice samples

Windows 8 voice samples

Command settings

Narrator has 59 keyboard commands (as of the consumer preview version released at the end of February). When Narrator is running you can call up a list of available commands (Windows alt f1). Within the “Commands” settings you can change the keystrokes required to invoke any particular command.

Narrator commands

Under Windows 8, Narrator can be used to interact with content much more Intuitively. For example it has commands for reading the current/next/previous paragraph, sentence, word or character. It can read the column or row header from a table, the entire row or column, as well as the cell content itself. In fact many of the basic commands you’d expect from any screen reader are available.

Narrator has clearly acquired many more features under Windows 8. Only time and use will tell whether the experience of using it has similarly improved. In the meantime it does seem as though Narrator might finally be considered a screen reader, instead of a last resort when your primary screen reader dies.

Next up is a tasty fondue recipe from Dennis Lembree, the developer behind Easy Chirp, creator of the Web Axe podcast, and talented web professional.

Ingredients

Serves three to five people.

Weights and measures conversion information.

• 1 cup cheddar cheese, grated.
• 2 cups swiss cheese, grated.
• 1 cup beer (ale is best).
• Half clove garlic.
• 1 tbsp flour.
• French bread, cut into medium to large sized cubes.

Method

1. Rub the garlic on the inside of a fondue pot.
2. Mix the cheese and flour together in a bag.
3. Heat the fondue pot, add the beer and wait until it starts to bubble.
4. Slowly add the cheese and flour mixture, stirring continuously until it has all melted, adjusting heat as nescessarry.
5. Remove from the heat, dip the bread and enjoy.

Dennis’ notes

A simple, fun, and tasty appetizer. My family has used this recipe for almost 30 years!

Tip: Strong arms required for all the stirring. Alternatively, just take turns. Goes great with football games!

Next up is a tempting vegetarian dish from Gez Lemon, the man behind Juicy Studio, member of the Web Standards Project, and creator of the Jucy Studio Accessibility toolbar.

Ingredients

Serves two people.

>200g wholewheat pasta.
• 125g broccoli, cut into florets.
• 1 handful chick peas.
• 1 handful soya beans.
• 1 garlic clove, peeled.
• 1 fresh chilli.
• 1 large bunch spinach (optional).
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon.
• 1.5tbsp walnuts, broken into pieces.
• 1tbsp oil.
• 1.5tbsp cheese, grated.

Method

1. Boil pasta according to packet instructions.
2. Meanwhile, blend together the chick peas, soya beans, garlic, chilli, spinach (if included), lemon zest and juice, and oil. The mixture should be the texture of runny porridge. If it’s too thick, add a little water to thin it out.
3. Steam the broccoli for 4 minutes, then when it’s cooked slice it into smaller pieces.
4. Mix the blended ingredients into the broccoli to make the pesto, then add to the pasta along with the cheese, walnuts and seasoning.

Gez’s notes

It was tough getting it down to one, but in the end I decided on Broccoli Pesto Pasta. I discovered it in BBC Good Food Vegetarian Christmas 2007 magazine, and thought it would be a good one to try. The original recipe was quite simple and tasty, but over the years I’ve changed things so that it hardly resembles the original.

I particularly like this recipe as it’s very healthy, lemony, and despite having had it regularly for the last 4 years, I still absolutely love it.

Next up is a fabulous chocolate pudding recipe from Wendy Chisholm, co-editor of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, co-author of Universal Design for Web Applications (with Matt May), and Wonder Woman of the HTML5 Super Friends.

Ingredients

Makes four servings.

Weights and measures conversion information.

• 5 avocados, peeled and pitted.
• 1 cup raw agave nectar.
• 1/4 cup raw cacao powder.
• Pinch of sea salt.
• Seeds from 1 vanilla bean.

Method

1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor.
2. Blend the ingredients to a creamy consistency. Stop and start the machine, scraping down the sides as necessary.
3. Pour the mixture into a bowl. You can eat this right away or refrigerate it to thicken for 1 hour.
4. Alternatively, cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days.

Wendy’s notes

I recently began eating more raw foods and have fallen in love with Alissa Cohen’s Raw Food for Everyone. This recipe has been the biggest surprise. I had no idea how good it would taste. I like it better than regular pudding. So, for the surprise factor and the simplicity, I’ll call it my “favorite of the moment”.

Next up is a sumptious Thai dish from Bruce Lawson, web standards evangelist, co-author of Introducing HTML5, and a man with possibly the coolest tattoo ever.

Ingredients

Serves two people.

• 1 monk fish or sea bass (cleaned but with the head left on).
• 5 limes.
• 1 stick lemon grass.
• 3 lime leaves.
• 5 or 6 slices of galangal.
• 2 bulbs of garlic.
• 6 Thai small red chillies (very small, so very spicy).
• 4 tbsp sugar.
• 6 tbsp fish sauce.

Method

1. Put the fish into a dish for steaming. Then put the galangal, lemon grass (cut it in half), and lime leaves into the fish stomach.
2. Cover fish and put the dish in boiling water for 15 to 20 minutes. When the fish is cooked, take it out from the steam pot.
3. Chop the chillies and garlic into very small pieces and mix with the lime juice, sugar, and fish sauce. This sauce must have the 4 tastes that characterise Thai food: sour, spicy, a little bit sweet and a little bit salty.
4. Serve the fish with the sauce, and don’t forget to save the most succulent pieces of fish (the eyes and the cheeks) to give to your boyfriend/girlfriend!

Bruce’s notes

This is a recipe from Thailand, the home of my lovely missus and where I met her when we were both teachers in Bangkok. She teaches Thai cookeryfor a living now.

First up is a gorgeous salsa recipe from unrepentant web accessibility champion, tribe philosopher, and all round good guy, John Foliot.

Ingredients

Weights and measures conversion information.

• 20lbs Fresh tomatoes (I prefer the Roma< type).
• 24 Assorted hot peppers (ideally Jalapeño, but any hot pepper will do).
• 6 Medium sized onions.
• 12 Tomatillos.
• 4 Cloves of garlic, peeled.
• 4tbsp Salt.
• 1cup Vinegar.
• 3/4cup Olive oil.
• 1/4cup Sugar.
• 1/2cup Each of fresh cut Basil, Cilantro, & Parsley leaves.

Method

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in tomatoes to scald briefly then drain and remove skins. Chop finely and transfer to a large colander.
2. Trim
   tops off peppers and chop coarsely. Add to the tomatoes.
3. Chop onions, garlic, and tomatillos finely, add to tomatoes.
4. Stir in salt and allow to sit and
   drain for 2 to 3 hours (this reduces the water content and leaves you with more tomato ‘meat’).
5. After draining, give a few good stirs, then add the oil, vinegar, sugar and herbs. Transfer to a large pot and cook over Medium heat until it bubbles.
6. Enjoy
   fresh or pack into hot, sterilized jars and process for canning.

John’s notes

I’ve had this recipe for years now: I don’t recall exactly where it came from, but I dug it out of one of my mother’s old recipe books back in the early
’90′s.

In those days I owned an old house in the country (just outside of Ottawa, Canada) where I had a silly-sized vegetable garden – it measured something like
12 ft X 40 ft and I grew so many tomatoes and hot peppers that I harvested them in a wheel-barrow (in fact, I ended up growing all of the ingredients for
this recipe in my garden, including the garlic and herbs). Each Autumn I would settle into a production-mode weekend where I canned dozens of quart Mason
jars of this salsa – enough to supply me for the full year and also give away to family, friends and neighbors.

While the fresh salsa is great straight out of the pot, I found that the canned salsa mellowed and melded the flavors, which I preferred. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Makes two sandwiches.

• 4 Slices wholemeal bread.
• 4 Rashers back bacon.
• Marmalade.
• English breakfast tea.

Method

1. Grill the bacon under a medium heat for about 12 minutes, or until the edges are crispy.
2. Meanwhile, spread a little marmalade on to each slice of bread, and then put the kettle on.
3. When the bacon is ready, make the sandwiches and a fresh pot of tea.
4. Enjoy with someone close to you.