Slow Cooker Giouvarlakia – Meatballs in Egg-lemon Sauce or Soup

Tags

avgolemono, crockpot, egg lemon sauce, Giouvarlakia, Greek, lemon, meatballs, minced meat, potatoes, slow cooker, soup, vegetables

For a while now I’ve been meaning to try and adapt this classic Greek recipe for preparation in the slow cooker. It’s one of those things I usually remember at the wrong time, like when I haven’t defrosted the minced meat. Finally, on Saturday I remembered to take the meat out of the freezer, buy parsley, and properly plan my experiment for Sunday. This had to be a weekend endeavour for me, as I knew the meatballs wouldn’t need all day in the slow cooker, and my working hours have me away from home for at least 9.5 hours on weekdays.

Giouvarlakia are meatballs made with rice in the mixture, cooked in water or stock and served (traditionally) in egg-lemon soup (Avgolemono). If you don’t fancy soup, this version makes the juice just thick enough to act as a sauce (albeit a runny one), ideal for being mopped up with fresh crusty bread. Chips (French fries) are also good vessels to use for plate cleaning in this case. The resulting meatballs are similar to the insides of these stuffed courgettes, but are much easier to make.

I started by prepping the veg, cutting it into fairly small pieces to cook quicker, and getting it going in the Crockpot. I then made my Giouvarlakia, slightly on the large side so as to delay cooking time a bit and allow enough time for the potatoes and carrots to soften. They were bigger than golf ball size, with about 3-4 level tablespoons of mixture in each one. The amounts stated below gave me nine meatballs. I used a 4 quart Crockpot and the meat, perched on top of the veg, was partially submerged in the 3 cups of water.

Slow Cooker Giouvarlakia

Serves 3

Ingredients

1 medium sized potato, cut into smallish pieces (approx. 3-5 cm or 1-2 inches)
2 small carrots, sliced
1 celery stick cut into chunks
3 cups of water or stock
500g minced meat (I used a mix of beef and pork, you can use just beef if preferred)
1 small onion, chopped finely
2 Tbs parsley, chopped finely
5 Tbs rice for risotto (Arborio or similar)
2 tsp salt, divided
¼ tsp pepper (I used white)
1 tsp olive oil
2 eggs
1 large lemon, juice

Instructions

1. Place potatoes, carrots and celery in the bottom of the slow cooker insert and pour in the water. If you want to help things along and maybe shorten cooking time, you can use boiling water. I used 2 cups cold, 1 cup boiling. Sprinkle one teaspoon of salt over veg and water. Turn on slow cooker to low.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the meat, onion, parsley, rice, 1 teaspoon salt, pepper and oil. Mix well with your hands till it comes together, but don’t over mix so the meatballs aren’t too dense.
3. Shape the mixture into meatballs and place on top of the veg in the slow cooker. Some won’t be completely submerged, that’s fine.
4. Leave them to cook for about 6 hours and check for doneness. You can use a thermometer or break one in two and take a peek. I find that the thermometer is best, as sometimes meat in the slow cooker keeps a sort of pinky colour, even if it’s well over the required temperature. Mine were in for 6 ½ hours on low and were done, as was the veg. During cooking (after about 3 hours) I also turned them upside down once, using barbeque tongs, but I’m sure they would have been fine even if I hadn’t disturbed them at all.
5. When the meatballs are ready take them out of the slow cooker with a slotted spoon (keep them warm as best you can, but don’t worry too much). In a mixing bowl beat the eggs and lemon juice till well combined. Place the bowl next to the slow cooker, and using a ladle, slowly add small amounts of hot juice into the egg mixture, beating continuously. Start with about one tablespoon at a time, and gradually increase the amount of juice added to the bowl. This is called tempering the eggs and it needs to be done so they don’t scramble. When most of the juice from the Crockpot has been transferred to the egg mixture, and the bowl feels warm to the touch, pour the mixture back into the insert. Take the insert out of the base and move it round a bit, so the sauce goes all round the veg, and place it back into the slow cooker.
6. Put the meatballs back into the sauce (or soup!), cover and leave for about 5 minutes till it’s all warmed through again. Keep an eye on it so the egg doesn’t misbehave!
7. Serve with fresh crusty bread and feta cheese.

Note: If you want to enjoy this as a soup, I suggest you use 4 cups of stock instead of the 3 cups of water.

Slow Cooker Meatball Mania!
Slow Cooker Meatballs with Orange Marmalade, by The Chic Life
Slow Cooker Asian Meatballs, by Taste and Tell
Apple, Turkey and Cheddar Meatballs Crockpot Recipe, by A Year of Slow Cooking
Almost Dukan Friendly Slow Cooker Turkey Meatballs, by On Top of Spaghetti

Stuffed Courgettes (Zucchini) with Egg Lemon Sauce – My Slow Cooker Success

Tags

avgolemono, courgettes, crockpot, egg lemon sauce, Greek, slow cooker, vegetables, zucchini

A couple of weeks ago I decided to experiment with another slow cooker adaptation. I had prepared myself towards a possible flop because after all, I was trying something quite tricky. I started by looking for a traditional recipe for this dish as it wasn’t something I knew off by heart. I’d only ever made it once, the regular way, a few years ago. I found one I liked the look of, and kept the quantities to a minimum, just so that if it was going to be a disaster, I wouldn’t end up hyperventilating at the waste of good food! Well. I needn’t have worried! After the first taste test I was high fiving myself, punching the air and doing a little victory dance round the house. Yes, I was mighty proud of myself, and I still wear a bit of a smug expression when I look at the pictures!

So, Stuffed Courgettes (or Zucchini if you’re reading from the US) in an Egg Lemon Sauce. Delicious. Ok, I admit, anything in egg lemon sauce is delicious for me, but this dish really is good. Here in Greece, up until a few years ago, you could only get the long green courgettes. Recently though, you see these really cute variations that have the same colour and taste, only they look like they’ve swallowed a tennis ball! Seriously, I find their almost perfect round shape hilarious, I don’t know why. When I saw some in the supermarket I thought right, I am going to try these stuffed, in the slow cooker. Actually they are ideal for stuffing as they have so much flesh, thus lots of room for filling, once the flesh is removed.

Now I must warn you, this isn’t a throw-everything-into-the-slow-cooker-and-turn-on type of recipe. It takes some prepping. But it’s worth it, and you do avoid the whole palaver of trying to boil the stuffed zuckes with an upside-down plate lying on top of them (yes, I know, weird – I think it’s to stop them moving around).

I’m not big on taking photos of each step when trying a recipe, usually because it’s what’s for dinner and needs to be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Also, more often than not, I’ll forget to snap a step or two and then it’s all messed up anyway. This time however, I couldn’t resist a couple of extra photos during the preparation of the courgettes – they are just so pretty. And I thought it might help readers to visualise certain aspects of the process (i.e. gutting the zuckes). And they’re so pretty.
So, here they are. See I told you they were cute (ok, sorry, I’ll stop now). You start by slicing the tops off, to make little lids. Keep them aside. To get the insides out I suggest the following tools: a knife (smallish, you want good control) and –ideally- a melon scoop (at least I think that’s what that is). What a useful contraption. It came in a set of three, a citrus zester, an apple corer and this spoon-like thing that looks like a mini ice cream scoop with a hole the middle. I gather it’s for making little balls of melon or watermelon. It’s great for scooping out the courgette flesh because it’s sharpish around the edge and you can position it at a good angle inside. So, you start scooping leaving a wall around the bottom and sides of the veg. You want them to be sturdy enough to hold, but you also want room for a decent amount of filling. I left just under one centimeter of flesh. It’s a good idea to lift the courgettes and hold them in your hands while scooping; this way you can sort of feel how close you’re getting to the sides. If you’re using regular, long zucchini you might find an apple corer useful, at least in the beginning. After you get the first chunks out continue with a small spoon.

Remember you need to keep the flesh. Some of it goes in the recipe, some of it you can keep for something else. I made the most unbelievable zucchini bread and was planning on doing a double post today; then I promptly ate the two last pieces before I’d taken any photos of it. I do that often, I think I’d have twice as many posts up already if I remembered to take pictures of all the things I make. Aaanyway. The two round zuckes gave me 1 ¼ cups of flesh. This of course largely depends on the size of the vegetables.

After I made the filling and stuffed the two courgettes I discovered that I had quite a bit of filling left over. I rummaged through the produce drawer in the fridge and discovered this lovely white aubergine (eggplant), so out it came. The two zuckes fit perfectly in my slow cooker (it’s only a small one), leaving no room for anything else. So now I also had to employ the services of my second slow cooker! Now that the extra room issue was solved I decided to plop some potatoes and carrots in with the aubergine as well. All set.After they cooked for about 5 ½ hours on low and were pretty much ready, I decided to make the egg lemon sauce. This is easy, but needs some attention when it’s transferred back into the slow cooker. I tempered the eggs (for more details on this see my Egg Lemon Chicken Soup) and then poured the sauce into the slow cookers with the veg and left it for about 5 minutes on low. I then tested the sauce with a food thermometer and it was well over 140F which is the minimum for cooking eggs, so I turned the cookers to warm and served shortly afterwards. The total cooking time was about 6-6 ½ hours.

Result? Gorgeous. Really tasty. And I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t fall apart when I took them out of the slow cooker. The courgette skins had cooked to a perfect consistency. Not pull-apart-with-your-fork soft but cut-with-the-side-of-your-fork soft. The eggplant was also just right, as were the potatoes and the carrots. Success!

Slow Cooker Stuffed Zucchini in Egg Lemon Sauce
Serves 2-3

What you need:
2 large or 3 medium round courgettes (zucchini). You can use long ones, I’d say probably 4 large (I suggest you have one or two extra on hand in case you end up with lots of leftover filling. Don’t gut the extras till you know you need them, to avoid waste)
200g minced/ground meat (I used a combination or beef and pork)
½ medium onion, minced
2 Tbs fresh chopped parsley
2 Tbs fresh chopped dill weed
¼ cup risotto rice (like Arborio)
Salt and pepper
½ tsp dried thyme
1/3 cup olive oil
1 ½ cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 egg
Juice of ½ lemon

What you do:

1. Slice off the top of the courgettes in order to form little lids. Scoop out the insides as described above, leaving a wall of flesh around the inside of the veg.
2. Keep ¼ cup of the flesh and chop it up. Put the rest away in the fridge till you find a good recipe for it.
3. Heat half the olive oil in a frying pan, over medium heat. Gently cook the onion being careful it doesn’t brown or burn, till it’s translucent.
4. Add the meat to the pan, and turn up the heat to medium high. Break up the meat clumps with a wooden spoon and keep stirring till you don’t see any more pink bits.
5. Add the parsley, dill weed, courgette flesh, rice and salt & pepper, turn down the heat a bit and continue to gently sauté over a medium heat, for about 2-3 minutes, stirring continuously.
6. Add ¼ cup water to the pan, and let it reduce, stirring the meat mixture frequently.
7. When the water has reduced almost completely, take the mixture off the heat and leave to cool slightly. Use a spoon to fill the vegetables with the meat mixture, leaving a couple of centimeters space from the top.
8. Replace the lids on the vegetables and put them in the slow cooker.
9. Add 1 ½ cups of vegetable stock to the slow cookers, so that the liquid comes up the sides of the courgettes by about 1/3.
10. Turn slow cooker on and cook on low for about 5 ½ hours. We have mostly cooked the meat, so the only thing that needs cooking really is the rice.
11. After 5 ½ hours try prying open one of the lids, and lifting out some filling. You will see it will have increased in volume and may now reach the top. If the rice is cooked and soft you can go on to make the egg lemon sauce.
12. Beat the egg and lemon juice in a medium/large bowl. Slowly add spoonfuls of the cooking liquid into the egg mixture, one at a time, being careful that the egg doesn’t scramble.
13. As you add the warm liquid you can slowly increase the size of the spoonfuls. When the mixture in your bowl is quite warm, with lots of the juice in it, take out the insert of your slow cooker and set it somewhere heat-safe. Carefully pour the egg lemon mixture back into the slow cooker, lift it and swirl it around to mix it.
14. Put the insert back into the slow cooker and leave on low for about 5 minutes. This should do it in terms of egg cooking time.
15. If you want to be sure, test the sauce with a thermometer; it should be over 140F.
16. Take out the veggies, spoon some sauce over them and enjoy with fresh bread and feta cheese.

For ideas on what to do with the leftover zucchini flesh, take a wander over to Kalyn’s Kitchen. She has lots of lovely recipes for this wonderful veg, including these gorgeous Whole Wheat Zucchini Muffins with Green Chiles and Cheese. I’ve made these and they’re yummy.

Pork Lemonato and a Blogger’s Nightmare

Tags

crockpot, lemon, lemonato, pork, slow cooker

Pork Lemonato, on antique English porcelain courtesy of The Collector

It seems I’ve fallen into a nice little routine of posting a new blog post every Sunday. However, this week I’m getting in an extra one(um, I was supposed to have this uploaded on Thursday. Saturday instead of Sunday isn’t quite breaking the routine!). Anyway.

The past week has actually been a bit of a food blogger’s nightmare. First came a recipe I hoped would rock, but it turned out mediocre (will try it again before posting). This was Monday. Two days later I had a minor disaster when I forgot to turn on the slow cooker before leaving for work in the morning, and a whole turkey breast sat waiting for me all day to get home and cook it some other way (thank goodness it’s still cold these days, otherwise it would have ended up in the bin and that would have been a crime). In the end I tried two different ways, since there was a lot of meat to use up. One of these ways was a turkey korma, with a ready-made sauce (*gasp*). Sometimes shop-bought is just the best option. We’re only human. The other way however, well, that was absolutely gorgeous! But the third and most annoying disaster of the week was that I forgot to take photos of it. So I’ll just have to make it again before telling you all about it. Soon, very soon.

Finally, and having remembered to both plug in the slow cooker and turn it on this morning last Thursday, I have a dish to talk about, complete with photo (antique plate an’ all – thanks Collector!).

I’ve been wanting lately to try out a few traditional Greek recipes adapted for the slow cooker. Greek cuisine has many stew type dishes, which are called “of the saucepan” (katsarolas) because they are –surprise- cooked in a saucepan on the stove top. These are all good candidates and I’m slowly working my way through some of them, so I can share them with you here.

This dish is called Lemonato, which means “lemony”. It’s basically meat, cooked in stock and lemon juice with a few herbs and is usually made with pork, beef, chicken or rabbit (yeah, sorry about that). Mine is pork. Lemonato is mostly served with french fries or rice, or potatoes that are cooked in the pan with the meat and sauce (we had it with mashed potatoes, which is probably unheard of here!). It’s lovely with any of these, but to eat it like a true Greek, you need to also have some crusty bread on hand to scoop up the wonderful lemony sauce. So, here goes.

Pork Lemonato
Serves 3

You’ll need:
700g pork, cut into portions or chunks
2 carrots, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
½ cup water
juice of 1 ½ lemons
1 medium onion, minced or chopped
1 tsp mustard
1 sprig of rosemary (about 7-8cm/3in)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper (or to taste)
1 Tbs corn flour (to thicken sauce at the end – if needed)

What you do:

1. Put the carrots and onion in the bottom of the slow cooker
2. Put the pork pieces on top
3. Mix the liquids and mustard together and pour over the meat
4. Add salt & pepper, bay leaf and rosemary
5. Cook on low for 8 hours
6. About half an hour before the end of cooking time check your sauce. If it’s too watery for your liking, use a cup to take some of the liquid out of the slow cooker (you want about ¾ of a cup). Mix in the corn flour, and stir well until it has completely dissolved. Then pour it all back in and cook for a further 30 minutes on high.

(Writing instructions for slow cooker recipes is brilliant)

Due to this being a work day, mine was on for about 9 ½ hours. I think there is a point after which meat becomes a bit tough again in the slow cooker. I’m not sure about this, so I’m going to experiment, but it’s happened a couple of times with some of the recipes I’ve tried, including this one. If you have any idea whether this is the case, please let me know!

This was a really nice dinner, and made even nicer leftovers, but next time I would start checking for doneness after about 7 hours (providing I’m not stuck in my office). I might also omit the rosemary (it was a teeny bit strong for my taste) or maybe replace it with some dried oregano (½ tsp at the most).

Hope you like it!

Fried Meatballs And A Lack Of Inspiration

Tags

beef, fried, ground, meat, meatballs, minced, pork

Check out the beautiful plate! Old French porcelain, on kind loan by The Collector.

Lately I’ve been a bit stripped of inspiration. It’s probably something to do with the hundred thoughts swimming round my brain. There are so many ideas, so many things I want to be doing… but 8 hours of work a day seem to be getting in the way. When I was younger I used to say that I would always want to work, even if I won the lottery. Well, I have seriously reconsidered THAT! Oh to win the lottery… (chances are minimum as I don’t actually play it) my life would be so full I wouldn’t have time to miss work. First of all I would buy a horse. Although with the number of people giving away theirs at the moment, I wouldn’t even need to pay for it. You see the problem with keeping a horse here in Greece is, well, “keeping” it. You pay through the nose for livery, farrier, dentist, God forbid vet, lessons and someone to exercise your horse if you can’t. It’s funny, because if I didn’t work I’d be able to do some of that myself (even the mucking out!) and the fees would be fewer. So if I did win the lottery my expenses would be less – how ironic is that?

The other thing taking up my time would be this blog and a couple of other internet projects. I’d really like to pour more time and energy into these. Wow, riding every day, cooking, baking and blogging about all the recipes I’ve tried. Yes, that’s how I’d like to spend my days please!

Hmm, now how can I tie all that to fried meatballs? I won’t even try, as I explained, I’m currently inspirationally challenged. So here’s a recipe for some really good fried meatballs, which we usually have with boiled greens when The Mister’s mum sends some up from the village. You could also serve them with a chopped tomato salad or salsa, Greek yogurt and warm pitta bread. Ooh I know, you could open up a Cypriot pitta (yes, they’re different) and stuff it with these babies, salsa and yogurt. Mm, good idea – hey was that inspiration knocking?

The recipe is by the Greek chef Christoforos Peskias, and is included in the book “Greek Cuisine” a Gastronomos magazine publication.

Fried Meatballs
Serves 3-4

You’ll need:
2 ½ Tbs olive oil, plus more for frying (or you can use any vegetable oil for frying)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
500g minced meat (I use a mix of beef and pork)
175g bread without crusts, crumbled (make sure it’s stale so it will crumble easily)
1 egg
juice of ½ a lemon
1 ½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp dried spearmint
salt & freshly ground pepper
flour to coat meatballs

What you do:

1. Heat the 2 ½ Tbs oil in a frying pan over medium low heat, and gently cook the onion until it is soft and translucent (confession: up until a few months ago I thought that word was trans-cu-lent! Don’t tell anyone). Remove from the heat.
2. In a large bowl, combine the minced meat, the contents of the pan (onion and oil), breadcrumbs, egg, lemon juice, oregano, spearmint, salt and pepper. Mix with your hands and knead until well combined. Set aside for about half an hour allowing for the ingredients to mingle.
3. Get two plates and put some flour on one of them. Take a small amount of meat mixture and roll it in the palms of your hands to form a ball, about the size of a golf ball. Then roll it around the flour a bit, so it’s all coated, but shake or tap off any excess flour. You want to be careful not to have too much flour on it because it burns while frying and affects the taste. Place the floured ball on the clean plate. Repeat until the meat mixture is all gone. (Um, I assume I don’t need to tell you to throw away the remaining flour, right?)
4. Heat some oil in a large frying pan (here in Greece olive oil is used big time, although it is said it’s not good for frying, so I use sunflower oil – which is also cheaper). The amount of oil used will depend on the size of your pan, but basically you want it to come to at least half way up the side of the meatballs. My pan is quite large and I used about half a litre of oil. Heat it on high and make sure it’s hot before you start putting in the meatballs.
5. Add the meatballs to the pan one by one. For me the best way to do this is with barbeque tongs. Don’t crowd them, fry in batches if they don’t all fit in at once. Leave them alone for 2 minutes and then turn them so they brown on the other side. They shouldn’t need more than about 4 minutes in total, but check to be sure. Take one out, cut it in half, and ensure the centre is no longer pink. Don’t overcook them, they just need to be golden, barely brown.
6. Remove the meatballs from the pan and place them on a clean plate (yes I know, it’s a washing up nightmare this recipe) lined with a paper towel to absorb any oil.
7. Enjoy while warm, or cold, doesn’t matter they’re just as good.

Note: You’ll notice that none of my recipes include garlic. This is because The Mister detests it (note the bold italics). So I don’t even try to fool him by sneaking it into anything! You can add a clove to this recipe if you want, just mince it and cook it with the onion before adding it to the meat mixture.

On Top of Spaghetti

Tags

almond, baked, meatballs, recipe, spaghetti, tomato

Finally, I found a name for my blog. I’ve been thinking about starting this for months and months, but I hit a mental block when it came to choosing a name. I wanted something catchy, then I wanted something that would reflect my bilingual/bicultural background (Greek-English in case you’re wondering), then I wanted something catchy, then I wanted a food-pairing name like “sugar & spice” or “honey & thyme”… then I wanted something catchy. Then I gave up. I thought it would come to me. It didn’t. Today, I thought right, be proactive. So I turned to my buddy Mr. Google and just typed stuff in the magic box. Somehow this brought me to a nursery rhyme site and I got the bright idea to check food nursery rhymes. I was just about ready to name my blog Little Miss Muffet, when my eyes fell on the dreaded words… “On Top of Spaghetti”! The trembling started and I quickly grabbed the mouse to get away as fast as possible from the nightmare. Ok, I’m probably not making any sense right now; bear with me. When I was little, one of my aunties in England use to sing this to me. I hated it. It scared and depressed me, and made me cry. This, however, seemed to amuse certain members of my family! After all, it’s a song about meatballs, they were just teasing me (right?). Anyway for years since, whenever I’d hear the first few words I’d clasp my hands over my ears so hard I’d nearly squash my head flat. But today I thought this was a sign, an omen of some kind. Today I am meant to forgive the idiot who sneezed, and stop mourning over the loss of the poor defenseless meatball, whose life was so cruelly cut short. So I am facing my fear and in tribute, I am naming my blog after this tragic story.

And now, before you start recommending places with comfy couches (if you’ve even read this far), I’ll move swiftly on… This blog will be filled with recipes. Most of them will be other people’s, since I’m better at following instructions that creating things with my own imagination! The more I cook though, the more I’m getting a feel for doing my own thing, so occasionally there will be a triumphant creation or successful adaptation. There may be some flops too! I live in Greece but love all sorts of cuisines, so apart from say a spanakopita (spinach pie), I might also try a steak & ale pie. I hope you enjoy the recipes and tolerate the rambling.

My first recipe couldn’t be anything other than… “On Top of Spaghetti” (meatballs in tomato sauce). I found this on a great blog called Stonesoup, on a post with a collection of meals for a new mum (the author Jules’s sister). The idea was to make various meals ahead of Baby’s arrival, freeze, and enjoy at a time when cooking wouldn’t be an option. I found that to be one of the cleverest and most organized plans ever. There are quite a few evenings here when cooking is not an option so I made a big batch and froze half of it for a fuss-free after-work dinner another day. They froze fantastically. They are very easy to make and create a minimum of washing up. Win win!

Baked Meatballs in Tomato Sauce (very slightly adapted from this recipe on Stonesoup)
Serves 3-4
Cooking time about 1 hour

1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 Tbs olive oil
2 tins chopped tomatoes (you want about 800g)
1 tsp oregano or thyme or basil or mixture
1 tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp sugar
Salt & pepper
500g minced (ground) beef, or beef & pork mix
75g almond meal (I used no-skin almonds which I whizzed in the food processor as finely as possible)
2 tablespoons butter

1. Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium/low heat, and when it’s warm add the chopped onion. Cook gently, until it softens and becomes translucent
2. Put half the cooked onion in a big bowl
3. Add the tomatoes to the pan with the rest of the onion and turn up the heat. When it starts boiling add herbs, paprika and sugar, and season with salt & pepper. Turn heat down and simmer for about 10-15 minutes
4. While sauce is simmering preheat the oven to 200C (400F)
5. Place meat and almond meal in the bowl with the onion, and use your hands to mix. Form little meatballs no larger than a golf ball and put them on a plate
6. Place tomato sauce in an oven proof dish or baking tin. Place meatballs on top and scatter pieces of butter over them
7. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until browned on top and cooked through

Enjoy over spaghetti (of course!) or rice. Or mashed potatoes. Or even quinoa. They go with pretty much everything!

Sheesh, writing this blog is going to make me hungry all the time…