GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Author: Eric

  • Best Flowers for Honeybees : Woodland Asters

    Best Flowers for Honeybees : Woodland Asters

    What are the best flowers for honeybees? What kind of flowers do bees like? How do i attract honeybees to my garden?

    Honeybee attractant flower – Asters

    Being a beekeeper, I pay a lot of attention to what flowers honeybees are attracted to, and in the late summer and fall, the forest edges of my yard are full of Woodland Asters, and these flowers are full of honeybees. Woodland Asters bloom late, and keep their flowers quite a while into the cold days of fall. They are an edge of forest plant, they wont grow in direct sun, and are inconspicuous before they bloom, then all of a sudden, they are there in front of you. Full of honeybees too. Asters are one of the best plants for honeybees in the fall.

    The flower world calls these White Wood Asters, my neighbors call them Woodland Asters, the experts call them Eurybia divaricata, which is a mouthful. The name Aster comes from Greece, meaning ‘star’. The name fits the flowers, these have white petals that shoot straight out with a yellow center. This particular aster is considered threatened in Canada, but it grows in pockets around my area. According to Wikipedia, it is common in the Appalachian Mountains.

    Project Native, a cool group up in Massachusetts, sells several seed mixes that have different native asters, I’m thinking most of the asters are honeybee attractant plants – flowers.

    Honeybees are all over the asters in our yard

    If you have asters in your yard, but don’t see honeybees on them, just wait. Honeybees focus on a particular plant for a while, then move on to the next plant species that is ready for them. The honeybees in your area may be working another kind of flower, like Goldenrod, and when they are done with that, they’ll move on to the asters. Honeybees don’t hop from one aster to another goldenrod, they focus on one flower type, then shift to new plants.

    What flowers do you see honeybees on in your yard? Let us know below:

     

  • Foraging for Edible Plants: Purslane GF Video

    Foraging for Edible Plants: Purslane GF Video

    Learn how to forage for edible wild greens and identify edible plants in this Foraging for Purslane video. Edible plants like Purslane are sometimes considered weeds, but you can eat them, watch and learn here in this GardenFork foraging video.


    Purslane grows all over the place, ( it grows well in compacted and dry soils ) so all you urban homesteaders rejoice, here’s a free salad green that grows like a weed. Purslane is considered a succulent, it kinda looks like the leaves of a jade plant, that whole family of plants. We have purslane volunteering in our garden, so if I run across it, I usually just let it grow and harvest it before it takes over whatever plants are next to it.

    From the Purslane Wikipedia entry, I learned a lot about purslane. Purslane is eaten all over the world, just not here in the states. The leaves and stem are edible, not sure about the taproot. It is eaten raw and cooked, and it has a ‘mucilangious quality’ it is also cooked into soups and stews and can thicken dishes.

    Greeks fry the leaves with sage, in Turkey it is cooked like spinach, and again, here, we pull it out as a weed.

    What I found cool is that it has high levels of Omega 3 fatty acids, which few plants have. One usually has to eat fish to get high omega 3 levels. This edible wild green also has antioxidant properties.

    Do you eat purslane? what is your favorite wild edible green?

     

  • Potato Bazookas and Catapults with William Gurstelle GF Radio

    Potato Bazookas and Catapults with William Gurstelle GF Radio

    William Gurstelle, author of the newly updated DIY book Backyard Ballistics, joins Eric today to talk about what makes us want to make stuff, how William came to writing DIY books, and how civilized we are today compared to just a few hundred  years ago.

    Eric and William talk about catapults and how they may have been one of the ways the Plague was spread through Europe, and how they were state of the art weaponry for hundreds of years. More on the subject of catapults, also known as siege engines, can be found on Wikipedia.

    Our video on how to make a potato bazooka, aka potato cannon, was inspired by his Backyard Ballistics book, this and Bill’s other books are full of cool projects that do fun things and explain the science behind them as well. The new updated version of the Backyard Ballistics book contains a bazooka powered by dry ice with a new burst valve built with stuff from your kitchen. neat.

    William’s Propane Flame Cannon, from his Practical Pyromaniac book, is on my to do list now. Make big balls of flame from plumbing parts. fun.

    Below are some of William’s books and links to buy them:

    Buy Practical Pyromaniac from Indie Bound Here

    Buy Practical Pyromaniac From Amazon Here


    Buy Catapult Book From Indie Bound

    Buy Catapult Book From Amazon Here


    Buy from Indie Bound Here

    Buy From Amazon Here

  • Get Rid Of Slugs with this homemade slug trap

    Get Rid Of Slugs with this homemade slug trap

    Here’s a great way to get rid of slugs organically in your vegetable garden. This DIY slug trap was sent to us by Laurel who has slugs on her vegetable plants. Great way of practicing organic slug control.

    I enjoy what you do, and love the dogs… Now that strawberries are ripening, there are always slugs. I have a trap that I like, and you might like it too. It’s easy.
    Take an empty small coffee can to start. About 1/3 of the way down, drill 3 or 4 holes that measure  3/4 to 1 inch. Spray a little bit of oil on the inside.. Now, bury it, just to where the holes are. Then you pour about 1 inch of beer in the can and top it with the plastic lid.
    Voila, a slug trap, with “no chemical or dyes”, just beer. Slugs like beer, they go in and down to eat, but have a hard time getting out because of the greased sides. Have the dirt come up to the hole so it’s easy for the slug to crawl through.
    You are like a friend that comes into my house

    homemade slug trap
    DIY slug trap

    How neat, super simple way to deal with slugs and you get to drink some beer too! Do you have a way to get rid of slugs? Let us know below:

  • Supersedure Queen Cells – Beginning Beekeeping Video

    Supersedure Queen Cells – Beginning Beekeeping Video

    I found these supersedure cells, sure sign of a queenless beehive, yesterday. Supersedure cells are a beehive’s way of raising an emergency queen. Something has happened to the queen, either it died, or the workers killed it because it was injured or not laying well, and the honeybees are raising a new queen. There were no signs of freshly laid eggs in this hive, and very little capped brood.

    Supersedure cells are different than swarm cells. Swarm cells are queen cells that the hive is raising to create a new queen to take over the hive after the hive swarms. When a hive swarms, the current mated queen leaves with the swarm, leaving the new queen raised from the swarm cells to take over.

    This hive had already swarmed, and I was thinking the new queen probably wasn’t well mated, considering we only have two hives in the yard here, and there is only one other hive nearby of Italians that I know of – there are probably feral hives nearby as well.

    How do bees raise a new queen? They take some freshly laid eggs, usually 1-3 days old, and place them in these enlarged queen cells, and feed the larvae a diet of royal jelly. They don’t feed these larvae anything else, and the 100% royal jelly diet causes them to develop into queens rather than workers.

    I happen to have just raised a new queen in my queen nuc, so I pulled out the frames with the supersedure cells on them, placed them in a nuc with some honey frame and workers, to make new queens.

    I then took the nuc with the mated queen I just raised, and did a hive combine of the queenless hive and the mated queen nuc. I shot some video and we’ll be posting a video of that soon.

    Added: Beekeeping nomenclature can be vague and confusing, because there is no one beekeeping terminology authority, here is a description of supersedure cells from my favorite beekeeper, Rusty, of HoneyBeeSuite.com :

    A cell hanging off the middle of the frame somewhere is usually a supersedure or “emergency” queen cell. A cell hanging off the bottom of a frame is usually a swarm cell.

    Supersedure cells are often begun after the eggs are laid. The bees, knowing they need to replace the queen, begin feeding royal jelly to a young larva they have selected. They build a supersedure cell around this larva (or several larvae) and it hangs down from the face of the comb. Swarm cells, however, are built in preparation for swarming and are not intended to replace the queen, but to raise a second queen. This way, there will be a queen for the part that swarms and a queen for the part that stays.

  • Grease Trap Back Up! GF Radio

    Grease Trap Back Up! GF Radio

    Rick and Eric talk about the power of the individual, arduino controllers for beehives, and why Eric was offline for a week. And what to do when your friend calls about his flooded basement. Plus viewer mail!

     

    Show Notes:

     

    Grease Trap: 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Beehive Weight Project:

    Arduino controller boards

    GMOs, Microwaves, & Podcasts

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Ben Zen  – cider, soaps, homemade deodorant

    Earth Eats podcast – Raw okra salad & History of the Ball Jar 

    Raw Okra Salad With Southern Indiana Vinaigrette

    Ingredients

    • 1/2-1 cup tomatoes (variety of colors and types)
    • 1/2-1 cup red onions
    • 1/2-1 cup tomatillos
    • 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
    • 2-3 cayenne pepper rings
    •  Lemon zest
    • 3 tablespoons vinegar
    • 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
    •  Salt and pepper to taste

    Cooking Directions

    1. Choose small, young okra. They get more fibrous and are less ideal for raw dishes as they get larger.
    2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss. Serve immediately

    Gardenfork Podcasting:

    •  skype
    • skype call recorder ecamm
    • —–split conversations with modules for editing in WAV or AIF, avoid editing in MP3, but MP3 is fine for final output
    • soundflower – Mac utility that allows you to expand inputs via MIDI utility
    •  Final Cut
    • Garage Band
    • Quicktime Pro
    • iMovie
    •  Microphones
    • blue Snowball usb
    •  Plantronics dsp 400 – we’ve discovered that I’m overdriving my mic, despite what the control panel tells me, thus the “clipping” of some of my audio. Eric tried to fix as much as he could in post production. – rick
    •  waterfall sounds – a bit of artful post-production editing covers up a lot of errors, one reason I run a waterfall sound through all my videos is that it covers up a lot of mic bobbles and production problems. It’s also soothing, like here – rick

    Gardenfork Videos:

    wordpress site

    plug-in powerpress blubrry

     

     

  • Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe GF TV Video

    Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe GF TV Video

    Easy Cherry Tomato Recipe served over pasta, rice, or quinoa. Here’s a recipe for all those ripe cherry tomatoes in your garden. Roast the tomatoes with some garlic and the like, and its amazing.

    My friend Bill gave me this cherry tomato recipe; he’s been making it a few times a week. Its a great midweek dinner, or weekday dinner recipe, super simple.

    I make this with all yellow tomatoes, but you can ‘ use what you got ‘ cause that’s the GardenFork way, after all. The yellow cherry tomatoes have  lower acid content, and are sweeter, I think, than red cherry tomatoes, but that’s just my opinion.

    If you have a recipe for cherry tomatoes, please share it with us below, be great to hear from you.

    Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe
    Recipe Type: Pasta
    Cuisine: Italian
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 4
    Cherry Tomato Pasta recipe to deal with all the tomatoes you have in the garden.
    Ingredients
    • 2 pints cherry tomatoes
    • 1/4 cup olive oil
    • 4 large cloves, coarsley chopped garlic
    • 1 cup oil cured black olives – optional
    • 1 cup cubed feta cheese
    • 1 lb pasta, preferably whole wheat
    Instructions
    1. pints cherry tomatoes
    2. /4 cup olive oil
    3. large cloves, coarsley chopped garlic
    4. cup oil cured black olives – optional
    5. cup cubed feta cheese
    6. lb pasta, preferably whole wheat
    7. Cooking Directions
    8. Preheat the oven to 375F
    9. Wash and dry the cherry tomatoes. arrange the tomatoes in one layer in a 9 x 13 pan.
    10. Coat with the olive oil and distribute chopped garlic over tomatoes.
    11. Roast in oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cherry tomatoes start to burst and brown slightly.
    12. If using black olives or feta cheese, add these after tomatoes are roasted.
    13. Cook pasta while tomatoes are roasting. Drain cooked pasta and divide between 4 bowls.
    14. Pour roast tomato mixture over the pasta.

     

  • Making Hard Cider, Brewing Beer, Making Soap GF Radio

    Making Hard Cider, Brewing Beer, Making Soap GF Radio

    How to make hard cider, how to brew beer, and how to make your own soap are the topics on GF Radio. Ben joins eric to talk about hard cider and how homemade hard cider is made, and what not to do when making hard cider. what yeast should you use when making hard cider? wild yeast or a cultured yeast? eric used a champagne yeast the last time he made hard cider, you can see his how to make hard cider video here.

    Beer Brewing comes next, both Ben and Eric homebrew beer; Ben talks about making up your own beer brewing recipes, brewing beer from grain instead of from malt extracts, and how to brew beer in a studio apartment in brooklyn. Eric prefers recipes for malt exract brewing, there is less to mess up that way. making lager beer, or lagering, is a goal for Eric. Making a lager beer is harder, you have to control the temperature more better, from what we understand.

    Next up is making your own soap and deoderant. Ben is now making dishwasher soap, shampoo, deoderant, and dish soap for his family. its not hard, he learned from a class at work, but you can learn online. we’ll have to make a video about how to make soap soon, it sounds like even Eric can make soap.

  • Viewer Mail, English, and Aquaponics : GF Radio

    We read a nice note from Alice and reflect on what is GardenFork?

    And a big thank you to Christina of FelineDesignInc.com , check out her site if you need web and graphic design work.

    Kevin takes us to task for mispronouncing words like Propolis, for Rick, english is a second language.

    Gardening for the fall season, what vegetables do you plant to harvest in the fall? Kale, spinach, lettuces, mesclun, radishes. Rick brings up a few gardening apps, Mother Earth News has a few good ones for gardening.

    Rick tells us about grafting tomatoes. neat. And the importance of providing water for your honeybees.

    Rick also tells us about a black light flashlight that he uses to find tomato hornworms on his tomato plants.

    Then we talk about olive oil, is it adulterated? Rick tells us a few olive oils that were recommended by a consumer magazine.

    Related to the olive oil talk, we talk about how to make your own balsamic vinegar dressing in this video and if you want to make your own balsamic vinegar reduction, or the balsamic vinegar hack, watch the video here.

    For the salad dressing recipe, its not necessary to use a metal bowl, i just like to use a metal bowl.

    And finally, Rick liked Eric’s Porchetta Recipe Video, watch it here.

     

  • Melissa Bee Farm Honey Tasting GF Radio

    Melissa Bee Farm Honey Tasting GF Radio

    Producer Sarah and Eric do a honey tasting in Brooklyn of Rick’s Melissa Bee Farm Honey . and a thank you to Christina of Feline Design for designing Rick’s honey label.

    you can get the Vitamix Sarah has here:

  • Porchetta, Roast Pork Shoulder Recipe

    Porchetta, Roast Pork Shoulder Recipe

    This Porchetta recipe is a great use for a pork shoulder or pork butt. I fell hard for porchetta after having the porchetta sandwich at the amazing Porchetta restaurant in the East Village in NYC. Then I got Anne Burrell’s cookbook, Cook Like A Rockstar, and right there was a recipe for Porchetta. yum.

    I like Anne Burrell, her book, and her approach to life; down to earth like GardenFork, no pretension, just being who she is.

    We were recently at the Brooklyn Flea in Brooklyn, NY and Porchetta was selling pork sandwiches and they were awesome.

    Our Porchetta Recipe is based on those that have come before us, like Porchetta’s recipe here, and Anne’s recipe in her cookbook.

    We bought a deboned picnic shoulder from our local butcher for this recipe. You could remove the bone yourself, but your local butcher can do it in about 2 minutes, and its fun to watch too. We did not score the pork skin, but that is a classic method when making porchetta, it makes more of the skin crackling, if you know what I mean. We used a mix of white wine and chicken broth cooking the vegetables and basting the pork, but you can use what you got and it will be fine.
    Porchetta, Roast Pork Shoulder Recipe
    Ingredients
    •    1 Pork Shoulder, deboned
    •    1 cup chopped chives
    •    3 stems fresh rosemary
    •    1 cup chopped parsley
    •    4 cloves garlic, mashed or fine chop
    •    1/4 cup virgin olive oil
    •    1 bottle white wine
    •    1 cup chicken broth
    •    1-2 quarts chopped root vegatables, onions, potatoes
    Cooking Directions
    1. Take the pork shoulder out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature for an hour.
    2. Preheat the oven to 475F
    3. Cut up the herbs, mix and mash together in a bowl with the olive oil, season with salt and pepper.
    4. Roll open the pork shoulder, place the herb-oil mix in the meat, roll the shoulder up and tie with butcher\’s twine as best you can.
    5. Chop up your root vegetables, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, winter squash, parsnips, whatever you got, into bite size pieces and lay them in the bottom of a roasting pan. Add a bottle of white wine, you can also use red if that\’s what you got.
    6. Lay the stuffed pork shoulder on the bed of vegetables, insert a meat thermometer.
    7. Put in the oven at 475F for 30 minutes, then turn down the oven to 350F and cook until the center of the pork is 145F. this will depend on how large your pork shoulder is. Approx 1 – 1.5 hours.
    8. Allow to rest for 30 minutes then carve and eat.

    Have you made porchetta? what is your favorite pork shoulder recipe? let us know below!

     

     

  • Intelligent Puppies, New Cars, Stolen Plumbing GF Radio

    Intelligent Puppies, New Cars, Stolen Plumbing GF Radio

    Monica joins Eric to talk about what Monica has been up to lately. We talk about her new rescue pup, and the trouble the younger dog can get into, but also the fun too.

    Monica uses the laser pointer to exercise her dogs, its a good exercise tool when its too hot to go outside.

    Twitter is discussed, Eric uses twitter a lot to keep up with people, using TweetDeck, Monica likes it for fast access to news events.

    How to cope with hot weather? Stay hydrated. Monica removed the grass from their yard and put down pavers, the pups had torn up all the grass anyway.

    you can follow Monica on Twitter: @Stuccolow

  • Cardboard Bikes, Plywood Boats, and Pork Chops GF Radio

    Cardboard Bikes, Plywood Boats, and Pork Chops GF Radio

    Mike and Eric talk more about cycling, with Mike’s first group ride with a bunch of people older and healthier than he is. If you wnat to find a cycling group in your area, we suggest a web search for ‘cycling club’ in  your area. Keep in mind that we all start from somewhere, so go join a club and get riding. Then tell us about it.

    We talk about the Cardboard Bike Mike read about, here is the link

    We cannot overstate the importance of wearing a helmet when riding a bike. Bike helmets might look weird at first, but they can save your brain and your ears, the same ears that you use to listen to this fine program, GardenFork Radio.

    Mike’s new recipe is for Pork Chops with Savory Apple / Carrot saute , getting his daughter to eat carrots, which is a rare event, we are told.

    Plywood Boat Plans and how to build a plywood boat: Eric responds to questions people have asked about how to build a plywood boat, what kind of paint to use, how thick the plywood should be, etc.

    Eric’s latest video, how to make a balsamic vinegar dressing, is discussed, Mike tries to poke fun but it doesn’t quite work, but that’s ok. Our goal is to get people to stop buying poorly made salad dressing and go make their own. The balsamic vinegar reduction hack video is here.

    Loft bed plans – Eric posted photos and plans for a loft bed for kids, and mike has some suggestions. Eric then talks about why you should not use drywall screws when assembling this loft bed.

     

    photo by alvimann

  • Simple Loft Bed Plans DIY

    Simple Loft Bed Plans DIY

    This is a loft bed a friend of mine made for his kid’s room. The bedroom is narrow, so building a loft bed with a desk underneath made the best use of a small space. You could use these plans for a loft bed in your tiny house plans as well.

    The crossbeams that support the bed are tied into the studs in the walls of the bedroom. This is house is an old brownstone with sturdy wall studs, so no need to strengthen the supporting studs. The crossbeams are tied together with screws and corner brackets, the kind used for joist hangers, which you can buy at your local lumberyard. Don’t use drywall screws, use real wood screws, drywall screws won’t support the weight.

    The platform is sized for a single bed mattress, two 2×6 studs along the width of the loft bed platform support the middle of a piece of 5/8″ plywood.

    Where the cross beams connect to the wall studs, we connected the beams and then repaired the plaster and painted the room. We found a ladder on the street that worked well for getting up to the bed. You could also buy a wooden step ladder to get to the loft bed.

    Have you built a loft bed, or have a plan for a loft bed? Let us know below:

  • Arduino Controllers, Pinball, & Burritos GF Radio

    Arduino Controllers, Pinball, & Burritos GF Radio

    Mike and Eric talk about how to use arduino controllers in pinball and beehives, how easy it is  to use them and program them. Repairing a shower mixing valve without cutting a  hole in the wall, be sure to turn off the water before you replace the mixing valve cartridge. Eric did put in a new shower mixing valve at his parents house,  the video will be posted soon. Mike talks about being overwhelmed with success of a bootstrapped pinball project, and how what was once great is now a ball and chain. Eric tells of how one of his beehives swarmed and what he did to try to capture the beehive swarm. Lacking a tall ladder to retrieve the swarm  cluster, swarm traps are brought out. Did it work? listen and learn.

     

     

    photo by ppdigital

  • Well Water Pump Repair! GF TV video

    Well Water Pump Repair! GF TV video

    The electric pump that pumps water to our drip irrigation system broke down, so its time for some electric motor repair. This pump supplies water to our drip irrigation system for our vegetable garden. We use soaker hose watering system for the garden, you can watch our how to make a DIY drip irrigation system video here

    But the pump broke. I think it got flooded with the heavy rains we had. GF Radio co-host Mike suggested replacing the capacitor, so we ordered one and we’ll see what happens in the video here.

    What we’ve learned about drip irrigation:

    Most vegetables and flowers do not have to be watered everyday. I found myself over-watering the plants when I first turned on the plant watering system. I know have the water timer set to turn on the water every 3 days and it runs for an hour. The plan is to water the soil well and then let it dry out between waterings. You don’t want wet soil all the time. If you notice moss growing in your vegetable beds, you are over watering your plants.

    Several beds have plastic mulch over the soil, we put the soaker hoses under the plastic and it all works fine. Check out the links below for more drip irrigation videos and posts

    Soaker Hose Drip Irrigation How-to Video

    Rooftop Container Garden Watering System Video

    Flower Garden Watering system

  • Season Cast Iron How To with Gary House

    Season Cast Iron How To with Gary House

    This is the third of a series of articles about how to cook in a dutch oven, dutch oven recipes, and how to season cast iron and dutch ovens by Gary House, of Cooking-Outdoors.com. A big thank-you to Gary for contributing this.

    The good news is that almost all new Dutch ovens come pre-seasoned direct from the factory. Today’s seasoning process at the factory is so good; you can use your new Dutch oven right out of the box (after washing) without going through the initial seasoning process. New Dutch ovens will still require continuous seasoning to build up the layers of protection.

    Seasoning is the process of applying thin layers of grease or oil and baking until absorbed into the cast iron. This continuous process builds up layers of “carbonized” oils, protecting the surface from rust and giving you that desired non-stick coal black patina coating.

    Vegetable oil, olive oil, bacon grease, Crisco, lard and premade seasonings are commonly used to season cast iron. I cannot tell you what one is best for you and everyone has their special grease or oil that they prefer; I will recommend you try grease instead of oil, as it is easier to see when you apply too much allowing you to remove the excess. Personally, I use Crisco these days and it works very well for me.

    If you do have an un-seasoned Dutch oven or skillet and want to season it here are 8 simple steps to make that process easy:
    •    Wash with soap and water.
    •    Dry completely with heat, a towel will not remove enough moisture. Place cast iron in oven for a few minutes or in the sun if hot out until it is too hot to handle with your bare hands but easy to handle with heat pads. (Cast iron absorbs grease and oils best when warm so apply your seasoning to pre-heated cast iron that is warm to the touch, no need to burn yourself. Pre-heating opens up the cast iron pores to allow the seasoning to be absorbed.)
    •    Before applying seasoning, check for rust. Now is the time to remove it.
    •    Lightly grease inside and out, you do not want the oil to pool or build up anywhere while you are seasoning your oven. Lightly means enough to change the color of the cast iron; do not apply a heavy coating that feels sticky to the touch.
    •    Place your Dutch oven upside down with the lid laying flat on the grate into a BBQ that can maintain 375° F consistently for one hour. If you use your oven in the house you could get a lot of smoke in the kitchen, consider yourself warned.
    •    Bake for 1 hour at 375° F
    •    Turn heat off, open lid and let cool.
    •    Repeat two more times for best results.

    Your Dutch oven is ready to use!

    For bests result, apply a light coat of seasoning to your Dutch oven after every use. This builds up the layers of carbonized grease every time you do this, giving you layers of protection and non-stick surfacing.

    There may come a time when you need to re-season your cast iron; perhaps it is getting a little rust, some bubbles have formed or the finish is chipping off. All caused from improper seasoning or care, but easily fixed.

    •    Place your Dutch oven or cast iron skillet in a self-cleaning oven.
    •    Turn and lock oven in the self-cleaning cycle.
    •    Run until cleaning cycle is complete. Your Dutch oven will be a light grey color when done.
    •    Let cool for a couple of hours
    •    Repeat steps 1 through 8 above.

    I will leave you with my 6 Golden rules for storing your Dutch oven

    Rule #1
    Never put away your Dutch oven dirty.
    Rule #2
    Never put away your Dutch oven wet.
    Rule #3
    Put a light coating of seasoning on your Dutch oven while it is warm from cleaning.
    Rule #4
    Air circulation prevents a rancid Dutch oven; store with the lid off or ajar.
    Rule #5
    Store your Dutch ovens in the house where the humidity is balanced.
    Rule #6
    Rotate your Dutch ovens when selecting one for a meal. The one on the bottom in the corner is all dusty is going bad on you!

    Next time we will discuss temperature control when cooking and I will have an easy bread recipe for you!

    Part Three of our Dutch Oven Cooking Series by Gary House, creator of www.Cooking-Outdoors.com; an excellent source for all things about outdoor cooking, including Grill & Smoker reviews, recipes, and videos.

    Gary is also the host of a new DVD, Taking Your Dutch Oven To The Max, using the dutch oven to smoke, grill, and even make ice cream.

    Listen to Gary on this episode of GardenFork Radio talk about how to season cast iron, how to use a dutch oven, and dutch oven recipes.

  • NYFD in action

    NYFD in action

    I was walking down the avenue to the hardware store when I saw the black plume of smoke and heard the fire engines coming. There was that burning tar smell of a roof on fire. Like half the neighborhood, I walked a few blocks closer to watch.

    What stuck with me was the  orchestration of the FDNY’s response to the fire. Obviously, they practice for this all the time, but to watch it unfold is amazing.

    The first engine on the scene has its crew out of the truck before it even stops. The driver hooks the pumper up to the fire hydrant and lines are run. Firemen are climbing up the back fire escape, others are inside the building getting people out. Two ladder trucks arrive and they are on their way to the roof.

    Then the Rescue truck arrives and 4 guys pile out with their oxygen tanks and are immediately inside the building. Several chainsaws with roof cutting discs are with them.

    The EMTs arrive and stand by with their fire gear on.

    Then in a matter of minutes the black smoke turns white, and they have extinguished the fire. Its just one of those things that I find amazing.