GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Author: Eric

  • Workshop Bench from recycled Kitchen Cabinets & Counter RWG Video

    Workshop Bench from recycled Kitchen Cabinets & Counter RWG Video

    Recycling old kitchen cabinets into a new workshop bench on this Real World Green show. Upcycling or repurposing kitchen cabinets that would have been thrown out, we make these into an upcycled garage or basement workshop bench and storage cabinets. This how to re-use kitchen cabinets video shows one way to recycle construction materials, or materials from deconstruction of a kitchen renovation.

    These kitchen cabinets are from my parent’s house and we made them into a work bench for my sister’s basement workshop. There are all sorts of ways to re-use kitchen cabinets, they make great storage units in your basement or garage, and  if you don’t like the color, you can clean them with a grease cutting cleanser, sand them lightly, then paint them. Use a foam roller for best results when painting kitchen cabinets.

    When deconstructing a kitchen with the plan to re-use the old cabinets, be careful when removing the cabinets. Many times they are screwed in without the thought of someone wanting to re-use them with lots of screws. Kitchen counterops are usually screwed in from  underneath, but there may be construction adhesive holding them in as well. Use a pry bar, aka wonder bar, and gently wedge it between the lower cabinet and the countertop.

    How have you re- used kitchen cabinets? What ideas do you have to put cabinets and counters to a second use?

  • Workshop Organization is not genetic

    Workshop Organization is not genetic

    While visiting my family I am always in the workshop fixing something. My dad’s workshop is like mine, semi-managed chaos. There are many projects scattered in various stages of completion, some have been there a few years. There are bits and parts of things you can’t bear to throw away, thinking you might be able to use them for something one day. There are still things in dad’s workshop from when I was a kid, a pair of garden tractor tires for some sort of cart we have yet to build, but those tires will be good for something.

    Then there is my sister’s workshop. Immaculate and organized, one project at a time on the workbench, which is a recycled kitchen countertop and cabinets. [ we made a Real World Green video about making this work bench here ] The shelves have nails and screws in plastic storage bins with the actual screw length information present. The screw gun’s batteries fully charged, tools on the pegboard.

    Sister's workshop

    I still struggle with organization. I’m close to hiring someone to come in and organize the place. The trick is to keep it that way. Its hard to part with stuff that may have a use some day. The anxiety of knowing that a year from now I will need those small ikea counter brackets left over from a job to hold together some wood frame i’m building, but I already have a ton of brackets.

    What do you do to deal with the workshop chaos? Are you the organizer or the keeper of stuff?

  • Compost Tumbler DIY Composter

    Compost Tumbler DIY Composter

    I saw this simple compost tumbler made out of recycled materials at a gardening display at the St Louis airport. This easy compost maker is made of 2x4s and a used barrel. Wondering how to make compost? This barrel composter makes it easy.

    Compost piles need to be turned and aerated, compost that sits in compost bin needs to be turned upside down, basically. This compost tumbler does that for you,  so you don’t have to break your back bending a lot. The limitation is the size of the barrel, but i’m thinking this would be a great kitchen composter. It would be even better to have two of these composters in the yard, fill up one, and just turn it every few days to allow it to cook down, and use the other one for your fresh compost materials.

    I’ve found it helpful to use some compost ‘starter’ in a new compost bin. All this is is some finished compost from one of your other bins, just throw a shovel full into the newest material to jump start the composting process. Fresh manure also works well as a compost starter, be sure to let the manure cool down before using that compost in the garden.

    This barrel composter uses a few pieces of pipe to attach the barrel to the stand, but other than that, I bet you could get all the materials out of a dumpster.

    Have a barrel composter? let us know how it works for you, maybe share a picture?

     

  • Bee Swarm Capture Video – GF Video

    Bee Swarm Capture Video – GF Video

    Honey bee swarm capture, or bees swarm rescue, or hiving a swarm caught on video. Capturing a honeybee swarm is a neat experience. Bees swarm in the spring, and then they move to a tree limb to start looking for a new home. This is when we can capture the swarm.

    This honeybee swarm was in Carroll Gardens Brooklyn, where there are a lot of urban beekeepers. In the spring the honeybees swarm, half of the bees leave the hive with the queen to form a new colony in a hollow tree, ideally. The swarm bees will cluster on a tree limb while their scouts fly out and look for a new home.

    Beekeepers can take advantage of this cluster to create a new beehive. The bees are very docile while they are swarming, they have no hive to defend, so they are not out to sting you.
    Luckily, these bees here on a low hanging limb that i was able to get to with a ladder. You take a bucket, place it below the swarm, and thump the branch on the bucket so the bees drop into the bucket.

    bee-swarm-capture-gf-video

    Next time i should have a helmet cam on, it was a very cool thing to watch. This video shows the view from down on the ground. It was neat, to say the least. What is key here is I had an empty hive on standby for a swarm call like this.

    You can also drop the bees into a cardboard box that has large vent holes covered with screening. The bees NEED lots of air or they will overheat.

    We leave the swarm box on the ground for several hours to let all the bees fly into the box, ideally you will move the box in the evening, when its cooler and the bees are calmer.

    Check out some nice photos of a swarm capture by Phillipe here.

    In Brooklyn, honeybee swarms have become a regular occurrence, and people will walk right by without even looking sometimes. Check out all of our how to raise honeybee videos here

  • Simple Rain Barrel Plans

    Simple Rain Barrel Plans

    Neat rain barrel DIY system here using recycled materials from our neighbor Priscilla. She had two large water tanks that were not being used, placed on on top of the other, directed the rain water in to the tanks with a piece of leftover rain gutter. You could do the same thing with a rain barrel.

    rainwater collection DIY system

    The tanks holding the rain water are slightly higher than the vegetable garden, and attached to the bottom of each tank is a spigot. Attach a garden hose to either tank and you have a gravity fed soaker hose system.

    Watch these soaker hose drip irrigation videos:

    DIY Soaker Hose Drip Irrigation for a Vegetable Garden

    Soaker Hose Drip Irrigation for Rooftop Container Garden

    I imagine one of our math enabled contributors, maybe Rick or Mike, could figure out how much water rains down on a particular roof during a rainstorm of x inches, and then we would know how much water this can collect. But rainwater collection math is beyond me.

    One thing to watch out for with this kind of large open system is mosquito breeding, you can buy these small discs that float in the water and take care of the mosquito eggs, covering such a large tank with screening might be impractical.

    Are there other was to keep mosquitoes at bay? What other ways could you improve this rainwater collection system?

    Let us know your thoughts below:

  • Combining Hives – Beekeeping How-To

    Combining Hives – Beekeeping How-To

    Last week I discovered one of our honeybee hives had lost its queen, we had a drone laying worker in the hive. A laying worker is a worker bee who, after the queen of the hive dies for some reason, starts to lay eggs in the hive. The eggs of a worker bee are unfertilized, so they are all drones. Learn about a drone laying worker hive in this GF Post.

    Newspaper placed over top super of strong hive

    There are few remedies for a laying worker hive. One is to combine the hive with a stronger queenright hive. This laying worker hive was very weak, and its population low, so we decided to combine the hive with a stronger one next to it.

    To combine two beehives, first you want to get as many of the bees in the weak hive into one super. I did this by smoking the bees down into the lower brood super. The remaining few honeybees in the upper supers I brushed into the bottom super.

    Super from weak hive is placed over newspaper

    Then open the top of the strong hive you are going to combine the weak hive with. Place a sheet of newspaper across the top super of the strong hive, and cut a few slits in the paper with a knife or hive tool.

    Place the super of bees from the weak hive on top of this newspaper, put a notched inner cover on top of the weak super and then the outer cover of the hive, and leave it alone for a week. Be sure the super being added has the upper entrance a notched inner cover provides.

    Combined Hive. Strapping is part of our bear defense plan

    The newspaper allows the new worker bees to get acclimated to the strong hive’s queen scent, and allow the strong hive to slowly accept the new worker bees. The bees will slowly open up the newspaper sheet, and in the process, accept the new worker bees. After a week you can remove any remaining newspaper.

    Let us know any suggestions or comments below. How do you combine hives?

    Remains of weak hive on left, strong hive on right

     

  • Lawnmower Tune Up and Oil Change Tips

    Lawnmower Tune Up and Oil Change Tips

    Time for the lawn mower tune up. I pulled the lawnowers out of the garage today, ready to change the oil and do a tune up on both mowers. We have several how to tune up a lawn mower videos on GardenFork ( links are below ), here are some photos and tune up tips as a refresher.

    Lawnmower Oil Change and Tune Tips:

    • Change the lawnmower oil at least once a season
    • Replace the Air Filter every year, more if its a dusty environment
    • Change the spark plug each summer
    • Sharpen the mower blades when the grass cutting suffers
    • Remove debris from under mower deck after each use
    Add and Drain mower oil here.

    The Lawnmower Oil Change is crucial to the mower engine. The oil lubricates and cools the engine, and the oil slowly breaks down and loses it ability to do this over time. If you use your lawnmower more than the average person, consider changing the oil more than once  season. I change the oil in the mowers twice a season – i’m a firm believer in the idea that regular oil changes prolong the life of your lawnmower. Most mowers drain the oil through the same tube where you add oil.

    Always recycle your waste oil, bring it to a car repair shop or oil change shop. Some towns offer used oil recycling.

    Make sure the gas cap is tight first.

    Replacing the air filter is something many people don’t do, but it should be changed or cleaned when you change the oil. Air filters are not that expensive, and easy to change out. We show you how in our How To Tuneup Your Lawnmower video here.

    Use a spark plug wrench to remove the spark plug

    If your mower is hard to start, it may be because the spark plug is failing. The spark plug provides the ignition in the engine cylinder, and if its failing or dirty, the engine runs poorly.

    Sharpening the lawnmower’s blades is crucial to cutting the grass, dull blades tear the grass leaves. You want the blades of grass to be cut cleanly. Its not rocket science to sharpen mower blades, we show you how in this How to Sharpen Lawn Mower Blades video.

    Sharpen blades and clean mower deck

    Clean out all the cut grass from under the mower deck. This will help the mower last for years. Wet grass clinging to the underside of the mower allows the deck of the  mower to rust out prematurely. It only takes a few minutes to scrape the underside of the mower, put the clumps of removed grass in your compost pile.

    Watch our Lawnmower Repair Videos:

    How to change the oil and tune up your lawnmower

    How to sharpen lawn mower blades.

     

  • Foraging: Garlic Mustard & Nettle Pesto Recipe : GF Video

    Foraging: Garlic Mustard & Nettle Pesto Recipe : GF Video

    Foraging was on our minds this weekend, seeing some edible wild plants in our yard, after listening to this NPR story on eating and cooking wild foods like edible Garlic Mustard and Nettles.

    Yes, you can eat nettles, despite the fact that the stems of the nettle plant have tiny barbs that sting if you grab Nettles without gloves. The secret is blanching before eating the nettles.

    Garlic Mustard is an edible wild green, its leaves have hint of Garlic taste, though the mustard leaf taste is more prominent. Garlic Mustard is a non-native invasive plant that crowds out woodland native flowers like trilliums, bloodroot, etc. When harvesting Garlic Mustard, be sure to remove the entire root base, so it doesn’t grow back.

    Our Wild Edible Plant Pesto Recipe made with Stinging Nettles and Garlic Mustard is inspired by an NPR interview of Leah Lizarondo whose food blog is Brazen Kitchen. A big thank you to Larkin Page-Jacobs of NPR and Leah.

    Please tell us about your foraging recipes and tips below the recipe, thanks.

    Foraging Videos & Edible Plant Identification:

    Here are other plant identification foraging videos we have done:

     Dandelion, How to find, forage, and cook Dandelion Video

     

    Lambsquarter, Foraging and Cooking Lambsquarter Video

    Click for photos of Garlic Mustard and Stinging Nettles for plant identification.

     

    Garlic Mustard & Nettle Pesto Recipe
    Recipe Type: pesto
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 2 cups
    A simple pesto recipe made from foraged edible plants, Garlic Mustard, Stinging Nettles and Dandelion
    Ingredients
    • 1 cup Blanched Nettles
    • 3 cups Garlic Mustard Leaves
    • 1 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese, grated
    • 1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    • 1 cup Dandelion Leaves ( optional )
    • 1/2 lemon
    • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
    • 1 cup toasted walnuts
    • 2 medium cloves garlic
    Instructions
    1. Wash all greens in a salad spinner – wear gloves when handling stinging nettles.
    2. Take 2 large handfuls of nettles – wear gloves! and blanch in boiling water for 5 minutes, drain in a colander.
    3. Grate 1 cup of cheese using the large holes on a box grater, don\\\\\\\’t buy the pre-grated cheese, it tastes awful.
    4. Toast the walnuts in a fry pan on the stove, keep an eye on them, the burn easily.
    5. Place the greens, walnuts, cheese, garlic in a food processor, pour olive oil over the ingredients in the food processor.
    6. Add lemon zest and the juice from half a lemon.
    7. Turn on the food processor and watch the fun, you want the greens to become a roughly chopped paste, but not turn to mush.
    8. Serve this over pasta ( whole wheat pasta goes well with these flavors ) or in white bean soup, or on bread, its great.

     

     

     

  • Garlic Mustard Plant Identification & Foraging : GF Video

    Garlic Mustard Plant Identification & Foraging : GF Video

    Garlic Mustard is an edible wild plant food. Here is video on how to cook garlic mustard, we made a great pesto recipe. You can forage for the leaves, but you can also eat the flowers and the seeds.

    Other names for Garlic Mustard are Jack-by-the-hedge, Poor Man’s Mustard, Garlic Root, Hedge Garlic, Jack-in-the-bush, Penny Hedge, Sauce-alone.


    This wild mustard is a non-native invasive plant, its just plain bad to have it growing in North America. It takes over the growing areas of trilliums, bloodroot, and other slow growing woodland and hedgerow plants, taking up sunlight, nutrients, water. Deer do not eat Garlic Mustard, btw. When you harvest it, be sure to remove the entire plant, including the roots. I bring along a garden trowel or forked digging tool to remove the whole plant and roots.

    The plant is a biennial, it grows over 2 years, the first year the plant is a low to the ground rosette, the second year the plant grows up and flowers. The leaves are spade shaped with ridges and about 2″ across. After the plant flowers, the seed heads are upright, they look like small string bean pods, about 2″ high and green. You want to remove the plants before they go to seed, as spreading the seed is a bad thing.

    Garlic mustard

    So until we eradicate this mustard green from North America, lets enjoy as what I call ‘free food’. In other words, yet another plant we call a weed yet is actually a nutritious plant that should land on our table. According to Wikipedia, mustard plants in general are a rich source of vitamins A, C, & K. I didn’t really think about the vitamin value, I just think its always good to have more greens in your diet. Maybe we can add this to some sort of power smoothie? What do you think? Let me know below.

  • Nettles Plant Identification & Foraging

    Nettles Plant Identification & Foraging

    Nettles, aka Stinging Nettles are a wild food that is edible. Here is video about how to cook nettles for a pesto recipe we made. Foraging for nettles is easy, they grow like the weeds they are considered, and are easy to harvest. Nettles have hairs along the stem that will sting you if you grab the plant, so wear gloves. The key to eating nettles is to blanch the leaves and stems in boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain. Nettles taste like spinach, and have been used to treat numerous ailments.

    For some reason I associate Nettles with medieval times, not sure why, it just seems like the people of that age would use Stinging Nettles to treat ailments in addition to harvesting nettles to eat.

    The nettles that grow in our area are perennial, and have squarish stems, like mint does. It grows up to about 3 feet high in summer, and spreads by rhizomes. Stinging Nettles are native to North America, but I don’t think harvesting them for personal use will put a dent in the number of them in our world. To harvest nettles you can cut the stem or pull out whole plants with the roots. You can transplant young nettle plants into your edible medicinal plant garden if you like. The plants will spread, so you might want to keep the roots contained.

    Here is picture of edible stinging nettles:

  • Simple Pizza and Bread Oven Plans GF Radio

    Simple Pizza and Bread Oven Plans GF Radio

    Stuart Silverstein joins us to talk about how to build backyard bread and pizza ovens.

    You can watch our how to build a brick pizza oven video here.

    You can buy Stuart’s book here

  • Build a simple ledge nest birdhouse GF.TV video

    Build a simple ledge nest birdhouse GF.TV video

    Here’s  simple bird house you can build that is perfect for a parent – child project using simple tools. This kind of birdhouse is used for ledge nesters, these birds are looking for a protected flat surface where they can build  nest.

    You can watch our other how to build a birdhouse video here

    You can use scrap lumber for this project; its a great way to declutter your workshop and do a good deed at the same time.

    We need to build birdhouses to provide birds with nesting sites as their habitat is changed by humans. The bird house plan in this how-to video is a ledge nest style birdhouse for birds who would normally nest on an outcropping or a tree limb. The other style of birdhouse commonly built is a cavity nest, its you typical birdhouse, a box with a hole drilled into it.

    Not all birds will use a cavity nest, so we build ledge nests too. I put the ledge nest birdhouses under the eaves of our outbuildings, so the bird nest has protection from rain.

    Ledge nest is best located under the eave of a roof

    These houses need to be put up high, 10 feet high if possible, the birds do not like to be disturbed. We have several near a dusk to dawn outdoor light, and the birds are attracted to the moths that fly around the light, free food right there.

    Do you build birdhouses or go birdwatching? let us know below:

  • Drone Laying Worker in a Queenless Hive

    Drone Laying Worker in a Queenless Hive

    When we check our honeybee hives, we first just stand there and observe them. We could tell there was something wrong with one of the hives.

    note the large drone cells scattered about

    It was quiet, the hive next to it was buzzing with activity.

    We opened it up to hear this odd low frequency hum in the hive, not something you usually hear. One look at a brood frame told us we had a bad problem on our hands.

    The queen was dead.

    And to make matters worse, one or more workers had started laying eggs in the cells, and since workers are infertile, all the eggs are drones.

    Queenless hive, signs of the drone laying worker here

     

    So how can a worker bee lay eggs? If  a hive is queenless, her pheromone is absent, and a few of the workers can then begin lay eggs. It doesn’t happen everytime a hive loses  queen, and this is the first time it has happened to us.

    You can’t just put  new queen in one of these hives, as the laying workers will kill the new queen. You have two choices, either combine the queenless hive with a healthy hive nearby, or get rid of the laying workers.

    One of our Facebook fans explained how she did this:

    Rhonda wrote: “Not good. I had this happen last year. I took the hive that had some young bees and some older bees in it and moved at about 2000′ away from the original location, dumped all the bees out onto the ground-every one of them, then took the hive body back to the original location. The younger, drone layers had not been out of the hive yet, so they could not find their way back home. I then transferred a queen cell from another hive into that hive and before long everything was good again. I know, it as a bit chancy, but the other options weren’t much better.”

    Healthy frame of brood, note the curled up larvae.

    The laying workers are nurse bees who have yet to leave the hive, so they have don’t know any outdoor landmarks or orientation to return to the hive. The older bees, who are foragers, know the location of the hive, so when dumped out of the hive, they will fly back to its location.

    This hive was pretty weak, so I’m thinking right now i’ll combine it with the stronger hive next to it, and perhaps split the strong hive in  week or two, with a new queen in the split. * we did the beehive combine, click here to see how to combine beehives

    Have you dealt with a drone laying worker? Let us know below

  • Drip Irrigation Helps This Sidewalk Container Garden Grow

    Drip Irrigation Helps This Sidewalk Container Garden Grow

    I ran across this soaker hose drip irrigation setup in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Using drip irrigation to water a container garden is great, as the soil in containers dry out fast, especially those pots made out of terra cotta. The setup shown in the pictures here is similar to the one we built for our DIY container garden drip irrigation GardenFork video here.

    I like how the supply hoses are tucked away, you don’t see them unless you look closely. The supply hose runs around the end of the fencing and into the building, where its hooked up to a water timer. I can’t tell if this is a system the owner bought or they built DIY from hardware store components.

    There are brass fittings to connect the soaker hose to the supply lines between each container, which you can source in the plumbing department of your hardware store. The hose used looks like black vinyl, it works well because it disappears visually, I think.

    Putting the soaker hose system on a timer is essential, it keeps you from forgetting to water the plants, and it keeps you from over-watering the plants. Overwatering is one of the reasons plants die, one can drown their plants in water, which causes all sorts of fungus and disease.

    On the topic of container gardening, here is a good book on that:


    Buy From An Independent Bookstore Here

    Buy From Amazon Here

  • Signs of the Pileated Woodpecker

    Signs of the Pileated Woodpecker

    When we’re hiking, we often come across trees that have piles of fresh woodchips at the base of the tree, and farther up the trunk is a large hole. I didn’t know what this was, so I did some research.

    Turns out this is the work of the Pileated Woodpecker, a fairly large bird who makes these large holes in tree trunks looking for carpenter ants to eat.

    The Pileated Woodpecker is about the size of a crow, but is instantly recognizable by its bright red head. The male has a red line across its cheek, the female has a black one. According to The Audubon Society, it is the 2nd largest woodpecker in the U.S., after the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. The Pileated Woodpecker lives mainly in forested areas, but has adapted somewhat to being near urban areas.

    While you may not like the idea of a woodpecker making these holes in trees in your forest, they are looking for carpenter ants, and its likely they are excavating trees that are rotten or hollow on the inside, in other words, unhealthy trees to start with. The pileated also eats the berries of poison ivy, btw.

    Having had carpenter ants in my house, I’m not a big fan of them, so I’m glad the Pileated does eat them.

    Female Pileated Woodpecker

     

    Pileated Woodpeckers hollow out a new nest in a different tree, so they are beneficial to other cavity nesting birds. When we make birdhouses, we are basically making a space for a cavity nesting bird. ( You can learn now to make birdhouses in our how-to make a birdhouse video here. )

    I think the best field guide to birds I have is the one by Audobon, below are links to buy the book.

    Do you have Pileated Woodpeckers near you? or other woodpeckers? let us know below:


    Buy the Bird Field Guide from an independent bookstore here

    Buy the Bird Field Guide to Birds from Amazon here.

    Woodpecker photo by DI37

  • Tap Maple Trees to Make Maple Syrup How To – GF Video

    Tap Maple Trees to Make Maple Syrup How To – GF Video

    Tapping maple trees to make maple syrup in this DIY video. We tap our Sugar Maple trees to collect sap in preparation for making maple syrup. This is a DIY low tech low volume method of tapping some trees in  your yard or perhaps a neighbor’s field. Several of my neighbor’s have sugar shacks complete with large evaporators and huge piles of firewood, some use traditional sap buckets to collect sap, others use plastic lines and taps.

    For my yard, I went with plastic taps and lines, they are not expensive, and I used the food grade plastic buckets from my homebrew beer kit to collect the sap. After we collected the sap, we boiled it down, and we’ll post a video about that soon.

    The general rule of how many taps to put in a tree, according to the Conn. DEP is 1 tap for a 12″ diameter tree ( 38″ in circumference ), 2 taps for 18″ diameter or larger tree ( 56″ in circumference )

    The holes you drill for the taps should be 1.5″ deep with a 5/16″ bit. If you are tapping trees that were tapped previously, pay attention to the previous tap holes. New taps should be 6″ left or right of an old tap hole, and 12″ above or below the old tap hole.

    Sugar Maple sap needs to be stored at 38F degrees or cooler, ideally you will boil the sap the day you collect it. If the sap has turned milky and foamy, it has gone bad.

    Do you tap sugar maple trees? What are some tips you can share with us below? Thanks for watching!

    Here is the tree identification book we like to use:

    Buy From An Indie Bookstore Here
    Buy From Amazon Here

  • Trimble Overnight Cole Slaw Recipe

    Trimble Overnight Cole Slaw Recipe

    From a GF viewer, an interesting recipe for cole slaw:

    Trimble Over-Night Slaw

    Eric, like I said, this has been a requested side for generations. Now we DO love
    our normal Cole Slaw (being from the South, it’s a MUST have with pulled pork BBQ
    and fried or grilled seafood) but this slaw recipe is GREAT and on a hotdog or as a
    side you can’t beat it. Most of all, it can be put out for hours, then re-refrigerated
    without anyone getting sick like from mayo or salad dressing slaws.
    This is a shredded slaw, not chopped and is crisp and sweet with a tang to it.
    Keeps for a week!!!

    Trimble Over-Night Slaw

    1 large head of cabbage
    1 large onion
    1 large green pepper
    1 cup white sugar
    3/4 cup vegetable oil
    1 cup cider vinegar
    1 teaspoon dry mustard
    1 teaspoon celery seed
    1 tablespoon salt

    Shred cabbage into a large bowl. De-seed/core green pepper and peel onion, then
    THINLY slice in strips on top of cabbage in bowl. Sprinkle sugar over top of
    ingredients in bowl. DO NOT STIR!!!

    In a small pot, mix and bring to a boil the oil, vinegar and dry ingredients. Remove
    from heat and while still hot pour over ingredients in bowl, Again, DO NOT STIR!!!

    Cover and place in fridge for at least 12 hours, THEN stir!!! Either serve then or like
    us, let it sit back in the fridge another few hours. It just gets better with time.

    NOTE:  To make this slaw different, we sometimes use a small head of red cabbage
    and a medium head regular, and/or use two medium onions (red and white) and/or even
    use orange, red, yellow and brown peppers. This is all for looks and a variance in taste,
    but it IS impressive if you take it to a pot luck. Try it first with the original recipe before
    you go crazy!!! : )

    photo by alvimann

  • Chocolate Cake & Truck Repair GF Radio

    Chocolate Cake & Truck Repair GF Radio

    The 5 minute chocolate mug cake recipe video how to starts off the show, as Eric and Mike discuss making the 5 min microwave cake. Eric fixed the posted recipe, hoping no one actually put 2 tablespoons of salt in the cake. Katja from Holland tells us that the Dutch use butter, not oil in their baking, and has some suggestions for making  grown-up version of the cake with espresso powder, orange liqueur, or rum. yum…

    but its the ubiquitous fork in the chocolate cake recipe video that caught one viewer’s eye, and we learn Eric may have valuable silverware in the drawer. That’s not just a for, it’s a “Kirk Repousse Sterling Silver fork” and it may be worth some cash. wow.

    we talk about the overnight cole slaw recipe, here is the link to the recipe

    Eric’s Ford F150 has a bunch of error codes from his code reader, the one that is of the most concern is the 513 PCM Int Volt Failure. Here is the full list of KOEO codes:

    117 Eng Coolant Temp Sensor below minimum voltage
    126 MAP sensor pressure above or below normal
    122 Throttle Position Sensor – replaced this one –
    112 Air Charge Temp Sensor below minimum voltage
    327 EGR valve position circuit below minimum voltage

    513 PCM Int Volt Failure
    553 Thermactor Air Diverter Solenoid circuit fault
    552 Air Management Circuit 1 failure
    565 Canister Purge Solenoid circuit fault
    556 Fuel Pump relay primary circuit fault
    558 EGR valve regulator solenoid circuit fault

    Computer Geek talk is next with a warning to Mac OSX users of a actual Apple virus, here is the article.

    Hotels and other businesses who allow you to use their wifi may be inserting ads in to the web pages you browse, Mike and Eric talk the ethics of such doings, here is the article this is based on.

    We move on to viewer mail and great note from Lauren, here is her blog, Plenty Of Words For You.

    photo by jusben