New range of Light & Medium Waste Water pumps with following features,
a) Equipped with automatic reset protector
b) Heavy duty bearings
c) Double side Mechanical Seal
d) Float switch for on/off operations
e) Inbuilt capacitor for single phase pumps
f) Inbuilt contactor for three phase pumps
From Kazu Kibuishi, the creator of our son’s favorite Amulet series [Amulet 3 is apparently in the final stretch of production, whoo hooo!], comes the “definitive collection” of his webcomic about a boy named Copper and his droll best friend, an adorably spotty dog named Fred.
“The first Copper image and text – [‘a scared little boy and his equally scared-looking dog’ designed onto a t-shirt] – was reflective of a time in my life when things weren’t working out so well,” writes Kibuishi in his introduction. In two days, he had to deal with his troubled parents, lost his job, his apartment, and got “attacked by a crazy guy in the street who told me to go back to my ‘home country.’” But Kibuishi’s trials and tribulations eventually helped him set his priorities straight: “All of a sudden, my cartoons mattered to me more than ever before.” Cartooning became his profession,and Copper and Fred got a regular gig. Pushing fear aside, Copper “became an active participant in the world … and walked ahead with his ideals, undeterred.”
Living in Bolt City, Copper and Fred have no end to adventures. When Fred’s hungry, he thinks about leaving, but Copper knows he just needs to feed his canine buddy. They both have a penchant for Aunt Koko’s melon bread but sometimes bananas will just have to do. Fred’s all about asking the bigger questions in life – he worries about missing out, that everyone hates him, then no one cares about him. But even when he’s a bit of a doom-and-gloom naysayer at the start, he never says ‘no’ to the fun and tries to be the voice of reason at least part of the time.
At collection’s end, Kibuishi includes a step-by-step guide to how he brings Copper and Fred to life. He makes it sound and look so easy, although I’m with Fred thinking “I can’t, I can’t …” Thank goodness Kibuishi can. “If I did my job correctly, the reader will not be thinking too much about the making of Copper and simply enjoy this story.” Yup, equal enjoyment for all ages right here.
Now about that Amulet 3 …
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2010
(This guest post originally appeared at the author’s blog)
We continue our 2010 outlook series with the latest from UBS. The European bank has an outlook that is dissimilar from two of the European teams we highlighted over the last few weeks (CS here and MS here). They do, however, have many similarities with the majority of banks we have covered which are bullish about 2010. The UBS outlook can best be described as a transitional recovery. Despite recovery, they believe the risks are numerous and will likely result in a more risk averse investment community. Investors will move out of the risk trade:
Over the last two years, markets have been driven primarily by the ‘risk trade.’ We see this trend moderating and anticipate a more balanced performance at both the sector and stock level as investor focus returns to fundamentals and valuation. We believe this should make 2010 a more investable market from a fundamental perspective, and we recommend investors seek out ‘quality’ in their stock selections.
This transition will result in a search for yield as investors move into higher quality dividend paying names (see our 8 high quality global dividend payers here) and out of the high beta names that performed so well in 2009.
UBS is not concerned about the value of the markets despite concerns that the markets have gotten overheated. They believe the earnings rebound in 2010 will justify the current levels:
We continue to see equity markets as fairly valued, noting that the rise in multiples reflects investor expectations for earnings recovery. However, we also see structural challenges limiting further multiple expansion. This balance suggests that gains in equity markets will need to be driven primarily by earnings growth. Despite modest GDP growth, both top-down and bottom-up estimates forecast a year of robust earnings growth in 2010. This growth, along with higher margins and strong balance sheet conditions, provides a solid backdrop for equity markets.
Like JP Morgan, they favor emerging markets over developed markets:
Our base case forecasts call for a continued, gradual recovery in demand from
developed markets, with emerging economies faring better.
This doesn’t mean the markets are without risks, however. The broader macro trends of an end to the government stimulus, high unemployment and continued deleveraging will hang over the markets:
But just as the investment landscape looks better than it did 12 months ago, new challenges await. To that end, we expect 2010 to be a year of transition where cyclical and structural forces meet and the strength of the recovery is tested. For one, markets will be forced to consider the impact of government ‘exit strategies,’ where the Fed and other central banks begin a process of stimulus removal and interest rate normalization. Other concerns center on high unemployment, further de-leveraging and balance sheet repair, increased
regulation, and funding of large fiscal deficits.
How to play it? UBS favors tech, consumer staples, and energy. They are underweight consumer discretionary, telecomm and industrials. They are neutral on financials and materials. Globally, they prefer emerging markets, neutral on US and Europe and underweight Japan.
Read more market commentary at The Pragmatic Capitalist >>
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Outside of its US operations, the UK market is the biggest revenue earner for Google, yet the company doesn’t pay any taxes whatsoever in the country. Instead it reports all revenue from the UK, from all over Europe in fact, in Ireland where the company has its headquarters for the continent. Thanks to the much lower corporation tax levels, Google can avoid paying as much as £450 million in the UK alone. And the savings can be significant, taxes are as two to three times lower in Ireland.
Google does have an affiliate in the UK, but it only files expense reports in the country which add up to about £177 million for 2008. It also reports a revenue of just £150 million meaning that, as far as the accounting is concerned, Google is running at a loss in the UK. However, if the company’s financial statements paint a rather different picture, the UK is the second biggest revenue earner after the US bringing in £13.5 billion ($21.8 billio… (read more)
Technically it’s not the final vote, just one of these key procedural votes, but it was the one where they needed every single last member of the caucus to vote ‘aye.’
Next step: an official vote sometime this week int he Senate, and then a reconciliation between the Senate’s version of healthcare reform and that from The House.
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HDblog.it have published this video of the latest leaked 2.01 ROM for the HTC HD2 which shows the latest enhancement to HTC’s Sense UI.
Shown in the video is the documents tab, which actually does appear useful and responsive. Also demoed is improvements to the music library page, where one can now see songs by artist directly from the artist page, and songs in an album directly from the album page, without having to switch pages.
Read more at HDblog.it here.
It’s a pretty tiny market still, but there is actually trading in carbon permits. In some countries, where they have emissions limits, they actually have value. And if there ever is a cap & trade scheme put into place in more places, what’s worthless now may actulaly end up being valuable.
Well, here’s how you know the Copenhagen summit was a total joke. The cost of emitting carbon just plunged 8.7%.
Bloomberg: European Union carbon permits fell the most since February on the European Climate Exchange. The U.S., China, India and other nations attending the two-week Copenhagen summit that ended at the weekend agreed to voluntary, rather than binding, targets to reduce emissions. The accord isn’t enough to boost demand for permits, said Trevor Sikorski, an emissions analyst at Barclays Capital in London.
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Following Psystar’s big loss to Apple over selling PC’s with Mac OS installed on them, the company’s website has gone dark. However, Psystar claims that it’s going to stay in business and try to sell PCs with other operating systems and its $50 Rebel EFI software, which is what can apparently be used to allow individuals to install MacOS on their own. However, Apple still contends that even Rebel EFI is infringing. Again, this doesn’t make much sense if you think about it. Why should a piece of software that lets you run another piece of legally purchased software be illegal?
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The last ten years have been good to guy movies. You want sex and violence in equal measures? You’ve got hundreds of films to choose from.
But which are the very best guy movies of the decade? Here’s our take. These movies had to appeal primarily to guys, but did not have to be your typical crash-em-up, blow-em-up blockbuster.
10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee’s martial arts epic stands up to multiple viewings, even years later. The story is compelling, the acting is stellar, and the direction is fantastic.
9. Borat. Unbelievably crude and inappropriate. Unbelievably funny from almost start to finish.
8. The Bourne series. In Jason Bourne, Matt Damon creates a new kind of action hero – smart, controlled and deadly. Some of the best chase scenes around.
7. The 40 Year Old Virgin. The movie that made Judd Apatow, not to mention Steve Carell. The 40 Year Old Virgin proved that romantic comedies could actually appeal to guys.
6. Kill Bill. Quentin Tarantino’s wacky take on martial arts films. While not for everyone’s tastes, the fight scenes are hard to beat.
5. Gladiator. Russell Crowe at his manly best. An excellent cast conveys the intensity and gore of gladitorial combat.
4. The Departed. The best Scorcese film of the decade starred Leonardo DiCaprio in a role that was actually not annoying. Add in Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon and you’ve got a top-notch gangster drama.
3. There Will Be Blood. Now, one could argue that this is not strictly a guy movie. But it is about manly men doing manly things like drilling for oil, so it makes the list. The great Daniel Day Lewis does it again with an unflinching performance as a consummately evil man that is beguiling nonetheless.
2. Casino Royale. The best Bond movie of the decade and one of the best ever. Daniel Craig brings us a newer, manlier James Bond – one who can show emotion and still look great in a tux.
1. Memento. This is a truly great movie that many people forget about. It follows Guy Pearce as he pieces together fragments of his memory. A kaleidoscopic film about the all-consuming need for vengeance, this movie is the most original and entertaining of the last decade.
This list won’t make everyone (anyone?) happy, but what’s what lists like this are for – to encourage debate and get you thinking. So what would you add or take away from this list?
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Bond market expectations are changing pretty fast. The market for Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) no longer prices in the deflationary expectations it used to.
Bloomberg: The gap between yields on Treasuries and so-called TIPS due in 10 years, a measure of the outlook for consumer prices, closed above 2.25 percentage points four days last week, the longest stretch since August 2008. That’s the low end of the range in the five years before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, and shows traders expect inflation, not deflation in coming months, said Jay Moskowitz, head of TIPS trading at CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Connecticut.
…
The securities pay interest on a principal amount that rises or falls based on the consumer price index. Inflation- protected bonds due in 10 years yield 2.29 percentage points less than Treasuries. That gap, known as the break-even rate, has risen from 0.04 percent in November 2008. It averaged about 2.42 percentage points in the five year’s before Lehman went bankrupt.
Given massive investor flows into bond funds this year, and their relatively blind nature (average investors looking at past bond performance, then simply ticking ‘bonds’ for their retirement allocations), expect the bond market to have a lagged response if signs of inflation, rather than deflation, pick up.
Combined with the prospect of higher interest rates, it seems bonds have only one way to go… unless of course you believe the U.S. will fall back into a deflationary recession (it must be both).
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A network of cameras deployed around the Arctic to understand the trigger mechanism for the beautiful light display called the aurora borealis – also known as the Northern Lights – has discovered that sometimes the vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, producing a stunning outburst. The reason no one on Earth has ever noticed these collisions before is that they occur on such a vast scale it takes a network of sensitive cameras spread across thousands of miles to get the whole picture…
Tags: Cameras,
Electromagnetic,
Explosion,
NASA,
Plasma,
Polar,
Satellite,
Solar,
Space,
Spacecraft,
UCLA
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Wireless technology is moving fast, and here’s a reminder of just how fast. At the beginning of 2009 we were reporting on Australian Telco Teltra achieving a world record network speed of 21Mbps, now Ericsson has demonstrated its latest mobile broadband technology, HSPA Evolution, with lightning speeds of almost 42Mbps…
Tags: Mobile,
Network,
Wireless
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9. Kanye West at the VMAs
The music world’s biggest egomaniac surpassed himself at the MTV Video Music Awards. As country music singer Taylor Swift accepted the award for Best Female Video, West interrupted her to explain that Beyonce should have won instead. The resulting wave of derision – even Barack Obama called him a “jackass” – led West to issue an apology.
Source: The Telegraph
Q: Where can I find a green toaster (other than the one by Bodum…)???
Sent by Shoshana
Au sommaire cette semaine,un stop-motion génial à la Starsky & Hutch,l’inévitable Chevy Volt,qui continue de s’enfoncer,le non-moins évitable Ken Block chez Top Gear,un squelette au volant,le skieur Audi à SF,et un pub kitsch au possible pour la Rover Metro.
Et on commence avec ce petit film,réalisé image par image (stop-motion) et très bien fait,qui nous replonge dans les années 70, « The fastest yellow & red »:
On continue avec un type ingénieux,qui fait conduire sa caisse par un squelette.Effet garanti!
Il est partout,on ne voit que lui,et il était cette semaine l’invité de Top Gear; l’excellent Ken Block,le champion du monde du buzz Auto:
Elle est partout elle aussi,mais pour se moquer d’elle.Les déboires de la com de la Chevy Volt continuent,et après la « Chevy Volt song » (voir ici,mais…c’est pas une obligation…),voici la ridiculissime « Chevy Volt Dance »,avec la chanson derrière,bien sur.Ou comment plomber la carrière commerciale d’une voiture pas encore sortie,et pourtant très intéressante:
Le nouveau lauréat du Festival International du Film Publicitaire Automobile de Clermont-Ferrand est signé de l’agence Kampertrautmann,pour Audi,et se nomme « Urban carving »:
Et on termine par cette vidéo incroyable,ressortie par Carscoop sur Youtube,et JJO du Blogauto nomme fort justement “Vite, Robin, à la bat-poubelle!”:
Nouveau: pour profiter facilement et rapidement des notifications de nouveautés sur le site,pensez à vous abonner via Twitter.Chaque modification,nouvel article ou nouvelle vidéo sur notre chaîne Youtube,fait l’objet d’un Tweet immédiat!
Dear Colleagues
Your writer is in Hamburg Germany for next two weeks. within his humble capacity he tried to bring together an overview of Energy Generation in Hamburg and environment. Below article is collected from Vattenfall internet site press releases.
The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg played a major role in establishing Vattenfall Europe as Germany’s third-largest producer of electricity and the largest supplier of district heat. Today, Hamburg and Berlin are the main centres of Vattenfall’s German business activities.
Vattenfall opened a representative office in Hamburg in 1996, two years before the German electricity market was deregulated, and began working in the German market. Through the next few years Vattenfall acquired HEW, and from that base went on to establish Vattenfall Europe as a major German energy company.
Today, Vattenfall produces electricity and heat for the industry and citizens of Hamburg, operating both the local electricity distribution network and the large district heating grid. Hamburg is also the centre of the Vattenfall group’s strategically important energy trading unit.
Sustainable development
Vattenfall’s task as an energy company is to provide its customers with energy; but we also see our role from a broader perspective. All energy generation has an impact on the environment and the operations we conduct have a major impact on society – globally, regionally and locally. Vattenfall supports sustainable development in society by managing the balance between secure energy supply and environmental and social consequences in a responsible way.
Vattenfall’s goal is to be a climate neutral company by 2050. For 2030 the target is to halve our CO2 emissions per kWh from energy generation compared with 1990. In order to achieve those goals, CO2 emissions from existing operations must be reduced while generation of electricity with very low CO2 emissions is being dramatically increased. The new electricity generation capacity needed to realise the climate vision will be derived from three sources: renewable energy (such as wind power, bio energy, ocean energy), coal power using the new CCS technology, and nuclear power.
Renewable energy
Waste incineration has delivered steam to the district heating system in Hamburg since 1931 and in 1953 a consortium in which HEW was a member initiated an early wind power testing plant. Today, Vattenfall is in the vanguard in the development of applications for new technologies based on biomass, wind and hydro power.
In Hamburg, the authorities have been faced with the problem of handling waste and sewage sludge from the city’s 1.7 million inhabitants along with waste from the city’s industries. The city also had to deal with the problem of having a high amount of unused and treated wood. In the search for a complete solution with broad and high social acceptance, located close to the city, the city came across a solution from Vattenfall.
Commissioned by the city of Hamburg, Vattenfall Europe (under the aegis of Vattenfall Europe Waste to Energy, formerly HEW Entsorgung) built two incineration plants in accordance with the highest environmental standards to handle waste and a sewage sludge and digester gas plant to handle sewage.
The last of the city’s problems – the large amount of contaminated wood – called for a biomass solution. In the vicinity of Hamburg’s harbour, Vattenfall designed and built a waste-to-energy facility on the site of the Müllverwertung Borsigstraße waste incineration plant. The biomass plant has a capacity to produce 80 MW heat and 20 MW electricity based on recycled wood, and can also handle treated wood.
Combined heat and power (CHP) plants, that is, plants that co-produce heat and electricity, preserve energy resources by using the fuel in a most efficient way and thereby decrease emissions per produced kilowatt hour. Up to 90 per cent fuel utilisation can be reached.
Hamburg’s currently largest CHP plant is Tiefstack with its recent addition, the new gas and steam plant (180 MW heat; 125 MW electricity). Biofuel or waste fuelled CHP plants in the Hamburg area also include Rugenberger Damm (70 MW heat; 7 MW electricity) and VERA (10 MW heat; 8 MW electricity).
Wind power
Powerfully investing in renewable energy production, Vattenfall has positioned itself as one of Europe’s leading generators of wind power, both offshore and onshore.
Its German wind power projects include the construction, jointly with other companies, of the “alpha ventus” offshore wind farm 45 kilometres off the coast of Borkum, the “DanTysk” project, with 80 five-megawatt wind power units 65 kilometres off the island of Sylt, and the “Borkum Riffgrund” offshore wind farm together with the Danish company Dong Energy.
On land, Vattenfall is cooperating with partners in replacing first generation wind power machines with more modern and higher capacity ones in already existing units, mainly in Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg.
Fuel cells
Fuel cells is another technology that may play an important role in the future. Vattenfall started early to test and evaluate stationary fuel cells for small combined heat and power plants, including a large (220 kWel/170 kWth) state-of-the-art fuel cell in Berlin, followed by a similar test in Hamburg. These fuel cells showed a high electrical efficiency, good heat utilisation and high availability and reliability levels. However, before a broad market introduction is possible, plant lifetime has to be higher and investment cost lower.
Coal remains essential
Renewable energy sources alone, however, cannot provide enough energy to cover the needs of society. Coal and nuclear power remain essential to cover the total need for electricity and heat. Germany’s decision to withdraw from nuclear power makes coal an even more essential source of base load power.
Vattenfall’s opinion is that coal is needed, but carbon dioxide emissions must be drastically reduced through continuously increasing the power plants’ degree of efficiency and utilising the new CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology as soon as it becomes mature enough. When CCS technology is ready for commercial use, CO2 emissions from coal-fired generation will be radically reduced.
One of the world’s most modern and efficient power plants for the supply of electricity and district heat (1600 MWe) is currently being built in Hamburg-Moorburg. It will replace the existing power plant in Hamburg-Wedel, which was built in 1962 and is planned to be shut down in 2013. Hamburg then needs a new base for its electricity and heat supply to secure energy supply for its citizens as well as for already established major industries and the city’s ability to attract new business.
Located on the Elbe River on a site that has been used for electricity generation since 1974, the Moorburg 1640 MWe coal-fired plant will make use of the latest available technology in its construction.
This new units A and B of the Hamburg Moorburg power plant will have an electrical output of 2 x 820 MW and will achieve an efficiency of 60 % at maximum district heat extraction.
Once in operation, the plant will meet roughly 85% of Hamburg’s electricity needs and 40% of its district heating needs. The plant is designed to incorporate CCS technology in the future.
Nuclear power plants
Vattenfall’s nuclear power plants Brunsbüttel and Krümmel have remained offline following scrams in 2007. The reasons for the scrams were remedied the same year, but as a result of time consuming refurbishments and modernization work as well as new demands that have been raised, Brunsbüttel has not yet been restarted. Krümmel was restarted in June 2009, but a new fault occurred in one of the two transformers that transmit the electricity from the plant on to the grid. Power production in Krümmel will now remain halted until both transformers have been replaced with new ones.
Such mishaps are, of course, most unfortunate. However, Vattenfall believes that nuclear power is needed as a stable base power source and calls for expansion of total nuclear power generation in markets where there is confidence in this source of energy. In Germany Vattenfall will utilise the production volume guaranteed by law for its present nuclear power plants.
Security always has top priority in Vattenfall’s nuclear power plants and our ambition is to secure world-class nuclear safety.
Centre of Trading
A growing share of Europe’s electricity trading is conducted on electricity exchanges, where producers, retailers, major industrial companies and financial players operate. Trading is conducted either through direct delivery on the spot market, or for future delivery in the futures market. The Nordic electricity exchange, Nord Pool, and the European Energy Exchange (EEX) in Germany are clearly the largest exchanges in terms of volume and the number of market participants.
Vattenfall Energy Trading in Hamburg is the most diverse company in the organisation with more than 20 nationalities. The company operates in the international energy markets in order to balance supply and demand, mitigate market risks, and fulfil the targets for sustainable energy. Electricity trading is a major activity, but the company trades the whole range of energy products such as gas, coal, oil, carbon emissions or renewable energy.
The trading unit utilises market-based solutions in order to reduce CO2 emissions and to strengthen renewable energies – in a cost-efficiently way and on a pan-European basis. It has a key role in securing the financial stability and profitability that constitute the basis for Vattenfall’s services to its customers.
Nature conservation projects
Finally, it may be worth mentioning that Vattenfall’s environmental foundation since many years provides considerable support for a great number of nature conservation projects in and around Hamburg. Many of these projects include environment education for children in conurbation areas to acquaint them with nature.
Your comments are always welcome.
Haluk Direskeneli, Hamburg based Energy Analyst for next two weeks
Rumors of Google acquisitions are flying around at an incredible pace these last few days and a couple of companies are said to be of interest to the search giant. The document collaboration services DocVerse is apparently being courted for about $25 million. Another possible acquisition comes in the form of Trulia, the real estate search engine, which is said to fetch $200 million, maybe even more. On the other hand, the rumored Yelp deal is now said to be dead as the startup’s CEO is now walking away despite some pretty late-stage talks.
Google has just acquired Appjet, the startup behind EtherPad, a real-time document collaboration tool similar to DocVerse. Google though will pretty much kill off the project, which has now been open-sourced, and the team behind it will go on to work on Google Wave. If DocVerse gets bought, it will be for the product itself, which enables users to collaborate on Microsoft Office documents, which Google wants to use against the threat of Microsoft’s own online collaboration suite launching soon.
In the real estate market, things are moving forward fast online and Google is certainly interested. It has introduced a couple of features for Google Maps and a number of tools dedicated to real estate listings, search and related services, but it could take a much more decisive … (read more)
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Zombie meme alert: electric cars cause cancer Or so they say. |
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Coda shares low-life battery plan You have 15 miles left on your charge. This is how your car will react. |
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REPORT: GM’s rumored 53 mpg Prius fighter canceled Was it ever seriously considered? |
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AutoblogGreen for 12.21.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Want to wear the watch that the leader of the free world sports on his wrist? It’s not as expensive as you think. It was recently revealed that Barack Obama wears a Jorg Gray 6500 watch, which retails for just $325.
The U.S. watchmaker has seen a dramatic rise in sales after Obama was seen wearing it to various campaign events. Jorg Gray now sells a commemorative edition version of the same watch worn by the president, engraved with the date of his inauguration.
The Jorg Gray website describes the watch like this:
The Jorg Gray JG6500 watch is case cut from solid steel and features a matte black dial, Italian buffalo leather strap, high precision Japanese chronograph movement, scratch-resistant mineral crystal, date display, and is water resistant to 100 meters.
The watch was originally designed for the U.S. Secret Service. Obama was given the 6500 as a 46th birthday present by a member of his security team in 2007.
You can buy yours directly from the Jorg Gray website.
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Q:I was wondering if anyone ever used oatmeal (ground or not) for baked savory things like casseroles or gratins. I figure it would be a good filler or replacement for other ingredients. I can’t find any recipes where people have done that but I would like to hear some opinions on it.
Sent by Candice
