Enegy Consumption: Correctly Scaled Power Supply

One of my main goals of the NAS project was to make it as low power as possible while still functioning.  For me that meant a system that was largely in standby mode and that when running consumed as little power as possible. My first step was the use of low power hardware (motherboard, disk drive, etc) and then my latest step just this week was to move it to a case with a much more efficient power supply.  In this brief post I want to focus on the power supply overhead I saw in my project.

I had an opportunity to look at the impact on badly matched power supplys in my stepwise process of building my home server.  I first built it in a standard ATX case with a standard ATX power supply (350 W I think?) but I used low power Atom board and hard drives (1 2.5″ PATA and 1 3.5″ Green Series WD)  running Windows Home Server 1.0.  After using it in that configuration I moved it into a Chenbro ES34069 with a 120 W power supply that was more efficient at lower loads.  I took advantage of that opportunity and took some notes about energy consumption.  The following are the measurements in 4 different power states, the energy consumption of the 2 configurations, and the percent change between the two:

	ATX	Chenbro	% Change
Off	3 W	2.5 W	-16.5%
Standby	3 W	2.5 W	-16.5%
Running – Load	42 W	32 W	-23.8%
Running – Idle	39.5 W	28 W	-29.1%

In all states the power consumption decreased.  In the off and standby states the drop is really negligible but in the load and idle states the reduction is fairly impressive considering the only thing that changed was the efficiency of the power supply in the setup.  After looking at the numbers I wondered how they compared to if I was to run a desktop in the similar setup.  So I measured the usage of my 1 year old Dell Vostro 220 system to throw into the mix.  I did the same measurements but unlike the other two setups the consumption was highly variable.  To account for that I decided to use the consumption specifications that dell provides because they were right in the range I was measuring.  Here is the beautiful graph I made…

Graphical Representation of Measured Energy Consumption

Eventually I’d like to take this data and expand it to energy usage in 1 year but for now here are the immediate measurements and comparisons.

Software Redux: Boxee

Yes I’m using Boxee now.  The reason? I got ‘new’ hardware.  I inherited a used machine with a working onboard video card that was enough for Boxee to run.  So I installed Boxee and overall really like it.  It’s nice to be able to watch The Daily Show on Saturday morning when I don’t even have cable.  But I do have one major qualm with Boxee: the inability for it to sleep. My only annoyance with Boxee is that if I have my media sources set to a network share and set to scan daily… if that network share isn’t available it REMOVES all the media that previous was in there.  Not a big deal if the network share is always on but mine isn’t.  My eventual build has a WOL packet sent to my server every time windows logins in to prevent this but it was annoying at first.

Power Saving Boxee Box: Is it really this hard?

Goal: To have a media center box that goes to sleep while it’s not in use and comes back on quickly when needed.

Boxee doesn’t make that easy, or at least not that I can find.

Problems with Boxee and Power Savings:

1) It overrides Window’s Power Settings so you can’t just set the box to go to sleep after a period of Idle time.  This process worked fine for the old setup but not for Boxee.

2) It doesn’t include anyway to do this within Boxee. It does have a sleep mode but that only goes for the monitor it is attached to.

3) Boxee does NOT come out of sleep well.  In face it basically freezes and after a Ctrl+Alt+Del kill it will work again.

Solution:

1) Don’t use sleep; use shutdown instead.  I set the computer to auto login (with Tweak UI), wake the server, and auto start Boxee with each boot so its easy. It takes a little longer than sleep but not terribly long.

2) AMP WinOFF — I tried a few other shutdown apps to monitor on network traffic, etc but none of them seemed to really fit my needs.  I had to change directions and this one came up amazing. I set it to immediately start a 3 hour countdown to shutdown when the computer boots. I hide the window and when that 3 hours are up it pops a window with 2 options:

a) Restart Timer – It will start another 3 hour countdown from that point and repeat the cycle
b) Cancel Shutdown – This stops the timer and the computer will be on until you turn it off

If neither of those options are chosen it will shutdown.

For an apartment of 2 people it means AT MOST it will be on for 6 hours a day IF someone turns it on walks away and someone else is using it mid 3 hour point.  The likelihood of that happening with its usage is very small in my living situation. Most days it doesn’t get turned on and when it does 95% of the time it will turn itself off in 3 hours. Not a perfect energy-saving plan but better than the alternative of leaving it on all the time accidentally.

Case Migration – Chenbro ES34069

The day was finally here! I decided that due to reworking my living space it was worth it to officially buy the Chenbro ES34169 case.

Chenbro ES34069 Dreamy Case

That’s a lovely stock photo and perhaps I’ll get a photo of my build up there, but the key to that photo is that it is 5″x10″x10″. TINY for 4 full hot swappable drives and 1 2.5″ PATA space.  I had already speced out my parts I was using in a hope to one day upgrade to the Chenbro case I sought after so I was theoretically ready to go to just move my parts.

And it worked! On the first boot of the new case install everything came up and worked correctly. It was awesome! Many sites by this point have gone over the Chenbro case but here are a few starter things for folks who might have just stumbled across this:

1) The case is tight! To pack everything in there isn’t a lot of space for cables. For example my IDE cable for the 2.5″ PATA OS drive pretty much takes up an entire corner to wrap it around and into.

2) The case isn’t difficult to get apart but it isn’t intuitive either: read the directions.  Getting the bezel off is the hardest part and I found once I could hing it 15 degrees (as the pdf directions tell me to do) I could actually get to the tabs from the front side of the bezel with a small flat head screw driver and push them down to release.  I got one undone by the published directions (I had to google for them under “Chenbro ES34069 manual”) and then the second one I could get to release by the screwdriver method.  I’m not sure if you can do both with the screwdriver from the start but I don’t see why not.  Give it a shot.

3) Sadly the case has more fancy lights than my motherboard has headers. This isn’t a big deal but I get the standard 2 lights on the front: Power and HDD Activity. No separate lights for each NIC or a fault light.  It’s really okay as I’m sharing a bedroom with it :)

Over the next few days I’m going to try to put together a case study for the energy savings of my setup.

Goat Cheese and Herb Stuffed Squash Blossoms

 

Fried Squash Blossoms

 

 What we learned tonight…. use squash blossoms RIGHT AWAY.  Ours were a bit more wilt-y than we would have liked them. The sous chef did an amazing job of removing the stamins and stuffed them in these tough wilted situation.  We stuffed them with a mixture of goat chevre, basil, thyme, garlic powder, and white pepper.  They got battered in a simple beer batter and fried for 30 seconds on each side.  They were yummy but not blow my mind amazing. Not this time anyway… and here they are BEFORE we lathered them with goodness and dipped them in hot oil!

Stuffed but not battered and friend squash blossoms

 

Sous Chef Reports: What’s Been Cookin’

We've been eating, I swear!

Clockwise, starting with the top left:

1) chocolate rhubarb bread with pear

2) curried potato-corn burgers with avocado mango salsa

3) smoked salmon (fresh from the farmer’s market!) pot pie gloriously using up leftover fiddleheads, carrots, potatos, and with lots of dill

4) bacon, avocado & tomato sandwich; spread made of cream cheese, shredded goat cheddar and fresh garlic; toasted up like a grilled cheese

5) poached eggs on toast with avocado and tomato slices

6) lime yogurt cake, sprinkled with powdered sugar

7) sweet potatos, tomatillos, refried beans and salsa in a delicious tortilla!

8) the beginnings of a soup using purple cabbage, potatos, andoille sausage from the farmer’s market…DELICIOUS.

The Chef is once again out of town. It is my hope that he’ll put up some posts soon regarding the 1950′s bike repair project, but also – if you see him – ask him about his lemon basil iron chef adventure! If only I had access to the sorbet in the freezer at his apartment….!

Sous Chef Reports: Using the Blasted Fiddleheads

Last spring, the Chef became obsessed with fiddleheads. I can’t recall whether it was just that they were new and exciting, or he’d heard about them before and wanted to try them, or had fond childhood memories, or what the deal was. Fiddleheads are pretty cool, in theory – they look neat, and HEY, you’re eating FERNS! They taste pretty good too – reminiscent of asparagus, excellent with bacon!

My enthusiasm for fiddleheads wanes when it’s time to prep them for cooking. They come with lots of “feathers” you have to clean off, and it’s not easy. You really need running water to do it effectively, and since using hot water would partially cook them, you have to use COLD water – and your fingers freeze off. Also, it’s hard to fit more than one person in front of the sink at a time, so one person has to do it solo and it takes FOREVER. I think, in general, they aren’t necessarily worth the trouble – for me, anyway.

But, it was not too much effort for the Chef, and in his excitement, he blanched a batch of these bad boys toward the end of fiddlehead season and we put them in the freezer to enjoy over the winter.

Two or three weeks ago, fresh fiddleheads returned to the farmer’s market. And the frozen ones were still in my freezer. The Chef, to his credit, hasn’t tried to buy any fresh ones yet, but I would have refused to let him – not until the ones in the freezer are used up.

Awhile ago, he suggested a fiddlehead quiche, and I latched onto this brilliant idea, and waited til the time was right. Last night, I made it happen.

CHOMP.

Over at Parsnips Aplenty, the blog where I found this post’s recipe, fiddleheads are referred to as a “recently yuppified foraging treat”. At our farmer’s market, we have one vendor that deals in foraged goods – a rotating cast of mushrooms, fiddleheads, stinging nettles, knotweed, miner’s lettuce, etc. Foraged goods just cost more in general. They are, however, mostly delicious. Parsnips Aplenty doesn’t care how yuppified or expensive they are – Parsnips Aplenty buys them anyway. (And so do we.)

This recipe is adapted from the other blog, which is funny because that recipe is also adapted from somewhere else. Sometimes cooking from internet recipes feels like a game of telephone.

One reason a quiche was a perfect idea is that it meant using the fiddleheads in something, rather than serving them alone: they didn’t survive well in the freezer after a whole year (and I wouldn’t expect them to). They were freezer burned and, after thawed, pretty mushy. NOT TO WORRY! First, we chopped them roughly and sauteed them in a pan with approximately 2tbsp of chopped leeks, then we put them in a tasty egg mixture and cooked them up in a fancy egg pie. No need for crunchy!

As far as the game of telephone goes: we used soy milk instead of half and half, replaced the cheddar cheese with goat cheese, didn’t bother buying parsley and completely forgot to put in the parmesan. And as much as I’d have loved to make it in my tart pan, I had no designs on making my own crust – thus it was baked in a store-bought pie crust.  I also added what turned out to be quite a bit of green garlic from the farmer’s market.

It was at this point that I realized I completely forgot the tomatillo I wanted to put in.

I’m a fan of the finished product. It’s deliciously garlicky and goat-cheesey. Honestly, I can’t taste the fiddleheads – they don’t really have a strong flavor to begin with, and when you start adding strong ingredients like garlic and goat cheese, combined with the fact that the fiddleheads were WAY past their prime – that’s to be expected, I think. But as a green veggie filler they were excellent. Otherwise the quiche would probably just have broccoli in it. BORING!

Additionally: I’m not sure I’d actually choose this recipe/preparation for fresh fiddleheads. They are so much damn work that if I am going to make them, I want to be able to TASTE them, rather than bury them. Although it’s entirely possible that, when fresh, they’d be able to hold their own against the garlic and goat cheese.

The chicken potholder really enhances the baking experience

Ingredient Challenge 1: Dark Chocolate

Chocolate is in all of them!

Man I’m still cooking but blogging about it is becoming longer and longer between the cooking and the writing.  The longest still is Thanksgiving of last year that isn’t done yet. So in some cases I’m starting to adopt a less verbose or detailed posting style just to keep myself moving. At the bare minimum I’ll post a final photo, a short review, and a link to the recipe if it is on the web.  So this one is about 2 weeks late but enjoy:  

What do you do when you have lots of dark chocolate bars around your apartment, a dinner scheduled with your teacher, and a teacher who weekly has been using Facebook to get her chocolate fix? You act on that idea you’d had for a while: Chocolate themed dinner.  I scoured the web for recipes that use chocolate that aren’t a mole sauce and aren’t someone boring like a salad with chocolate nibs in it. Cooking boring I guess. I wanted to have to do SOMETHING with the chocolate besides just crush it up and sprinkle.  That was NOT easy; especially for a main course. So what did I come up with? A four dish meal (and a bonus dessert!):  

• Appetizer – Grilled Figs with Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Bruschetta
• Main Dish #1 – Catalan Beef Stew
• Main Dish #2 - Homemade Spelt Ravioli with Lemon-Soy Ricotta Filling served with a Chocolate Sauce – Naturally made with spelt for my wheat-free guest and with my homemade soy ricotta for the dairy allergic me.
• Planned Dessert – Chocolate Covered Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls
• Bonus Dessert – Orange Flavored Chocolate Cups with Orange Slices to Garnish

Sadly we didn’t get to the make the Grilled Fig with Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Bruschetta because we couldn’t get figs that particular day but we did pick up a bonus dessert! So how’d it go? AWESOME!  

Catalan Beef Stew  

Catalan Beef Stew served over Rice

Where’s the chocolate?:  There is about 2 ounces in the sauce along with orange peel and cinnamon stick! It has a great deep flavor and lovely burst of orange if you got some of the peel.  It was delightful served over rice. And for the 10 lunches afterwards. :)  

The only problem? I left the cinnamon sticks in to big of chunks and it looks EXACTLY like the beef when it starts to pull apart; only its still kinda hard.   

Homemade Spelt Ravioli with Lemon-Soy Ricotta Filling served with a Choclate Sauce  

Savory on the inside; Sweet on the outside!

Where’s the Chocolate?: In the sauce. Duh. Which is just melted dark chocolate, some soy cream, and coconut cream.   

This is a great example of tweaking a recipe so folks can eat it. Instead of normal wheat flour we used spelt to make the pasta. Instead of regular ricotta I made it with soy cream cheese and tofu.  Flavored it with lemon zest and a bit of powdered sugar per the instructions and off we went.  It turned out great! Slightly sweet on the inside but mostly savory with a sweet sauce. Totally worth it. If you make it cut the sauce in half; we still have chocolate sauce in the fridge!  

Chocolate Covered Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls  

Chocolate Inside; Chocolate Outside. What more could you want?!

Where’s the Chocolate?: Outside and inside. QED.  

These were made with spelt again and also sans egg for that whole raw-eating-not-killing-you thing.  The texture of the dough was a bit off for me but I think that had to do with the recipe being different from my normal chocolate chip cookie dough.  Next time I’ll use my standard dough sans eggs and let it chill for an hour before I roll it out. These were still REALLY good just not perfect.  

Orange Chocolate Cups with Orange Slices  

Mmmmmmmmmmm

Where’s the Chocolate?: You need to ask?  

This is what happens when you have quite a bit of melted dark chocolate left over from dipping the dough balls.  We also had 1/2 of an orange zest left so we finished that off and stirred it into the chocolate. Lined muffin tin with muffin paper cups and filled them up with what we hoped would be orange flavored chocolate.  And then we had these left over slices so we stuck 1 in the top of half the chocolate cups.  Boom! No chocolate waste.  

How’d it go over? Really, really well! Not only was the food good but the company was great and the sous chef had a good time making it; even in the day fraught with annoyances :)  

****

BONUS:  

Alternate beggining written while I was searching for recipes:  

People love to give me chocolate more than I love to eat it. Don’t get me wrong I love eating chocolate but it isn’t part of my normal craving cycle and so it often goes uneaten for a period of time. At his point I have 4-5 bars of various dark chocolate types at my house. I thought of the idea of doing a chocolate themed dinner and the time has come because one of my guests for this weekend dinner is a self proclaimed ”Not Chocaholic”… which translates to she can’t get enough.  :) So this post starts earlier in the process than usual: finding a recipe.  

Things this search has solidified for me: 1) Most chocolate recipes are for deserts 2) If they are main meals they are either mole sauce, chili, or a cacao rub for meat.  None of those mail meal options are where I want to take the meal for no apparent reason so I’m searching for something else and I’m not finding much. At all.  

I’m looking for a 3 course meal plan that in each dish the chocolate is some how incorprated in a unique way.  I’ve found salad recipes with nibs of chocolate on top which sounds good but feels more like “assembling” a meal than cooking a meal. My preference for this meal is for the chocolate to disappear into the dish or at least change forms from broken up bar.