GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Author: Eric

How to make yogurt : more info and use

Inspired by my friend Brian, I have been making more of my own yogurt. And after making our How To Make your Own Yogurt video, and our Solar Oven Yogurt Maker, i was thinking of how you could use at hand items to make yogurt.

Then I saw one of my neighbors had thrown out a styrofoam cooler, the kind that Omaha Steaks uses to ship people their frozen steaks. I took it home and saw that a heating pad blanket fit in it quite well. I cut a notch in the wall to allow for the cord.

steak cooler as yogurt fermenter

It works really well.

heating pad fits nicely in this

AND, I bought some yogurt starter, Yogourmet is the brand, to see if it was any better than just using some leftover store bought yogurt. And it is much better. The yogurt is much firmer, and i think tastes better.

Yogourmet works better than just using yogurt as starter, i think.

Wikipedia tells us about the origins of yogurt:

There is evidence of cultured milk products being produced as food for at least 4,500 years. The earliest yoghurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus native to and named after Bulgaria.

The oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder who remarked that certain nomadic tribes, including the Bulgars, knew how “to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity”. The use of yoghurt by medieval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the 11th century. Both texts mention the word “yoghurt” in different sections and describe its use by nomadic Turks. An early account of a European encounter with yoghurt occurs in French clinical history: Francis I suffered from a severe diarrhea which no French doctor could cure. His ally Suleiman the Magnificent sent a doctor, who allegedly cured the patient with yoghurt.Being grateful, the French king spread around the information about the food which had cured him.

What are your yogurt recipes and tips? how do you make yogurt? please tell us below:

March 11, 2010
Winter Fondant Feeding – Beekeeping 101 Video

In late winter, when you have a warm day, say 44-50 F, its a great opportunity to quickly check your honeybees and beehive. In this beekeeping 101 video, we show how we open the hive and place some fondant and a grease patty in the hive to get the bees through the last bit of winter. Links to more of our beekeeping videos at end of this post.

Note: Since making this video, we have changed our methods and are no longer using the styrofoam outer covers or fondant, but its still a good video on caring for your bees in winter. Watch our dry sugar feeding videos here.

Your honeybees may or may not have enough food stores to make it thru this last part of winter, but I am of the mind that it pays to put in some fondant. Other beekeepers will have differing opinions on this and many other practices related to beekeeping. It is too cold to feed your honeybees sugar syrup in late winter, feed them fondant.

We have produced this series of Beginning Beekeeping Videos to document our first years of beekeeping to show people how fun it really is and to demystify it, and to spread the word on raising honey bees. We are not beekeeping experts, we are still learning. Tell us your experiences below and we can all learn more.

Bee fondant and Grease Patty recipes are based on information from Cass of WVBeekeeper’s Blog and the BeeSource forums . A big thank you to Cass for his writings.

Fondant from WVBeekeeper:

Fondant Bee Candy

Fondant bee candy can be fed directly to the bees once cooled. Fondant is a good food source for mini-mating nucs because there is no drowning involved when you have a small amount of bees. It is also common to use this recipe in small quantities to plug the hole on a Queen Cage.

> 4 parts (by volume) white sugar
> 4 parts (by volume) 2:1 Syrup or HFCS
> 3 parts (by volume) water

Boil water and slowly add the syrup and sugar until dissolved. Continue heating until the mixture reaches 238°F (114°C). Without mixing allow the solution to cool until it is slightly warm to the touch. Then begin to mix and aerate the solution. As you do this the color should lighten. Pour into shallow dishes or mold and save for later use. I prefer to make the fondant thin enough to where I can work it into an empty frame of drawn comb.

Grease Patties:

I made my own based on reading thru the Bee Source forums and WVBeekeepers blog.

2 cups vegetable shortening – NOT butter or other flavored shortening

4 cups white sugar

10 drops of food grade pepperment oil or wintergreen oil

1/4 cup mineral block – this is a mineralize salt lick you can get at a farm – ag supply store. break off a chunk with a hammer.

mix this together and form into 4″ wide patties, they have to be thin enough to be placed between hive supers.

you can wrap these patties in wax paper , put in a freezer back and freeze for future use.

Read more of our beekeeping posts here and watch beekeeping videos here. Thx!

March 9, 2010
I washed my USB Flash Drive, now what?

I am famous for this kind of thing. Its always when I hear the clunk of some foreign object bouncing around the clothes dryer that I realize I’ve done something un-smart.

This time I discovered the problem early. I learned I had put my two best largest USB Flash Thumb drives in the washing machine when I was emptying the washer.

I was not pleased. One of the drives is a 16 gig flash drive that I use to transport GF video files around. And there might be a bunch of photos from our Canon EOS Rebel that don’t exist anywhere else on that drive.

After getting over the initial ‘Doh!’ moment, I remembered a NY Times article on what do to for electronic gadget emergencies. The article suggested putting the flash drives in a bowl and covering them with rice. ( I can’t find the article online right now, so no link )

So I did this. I used brown rice, as that’s what we had in the cabinet. Don’t cook and/or eat this rice afterward.

Rice will absorb water out of electronic devices

I let it sit for a few days, and then plugged the drives into a laptop.

They both turned on. wow.

Every once in a while the wind tilts in your direction.

Have any Doh! stories of your own? tell us here:

March 5, 2010
If I ask, then I wont find what I’m not looking for. GF Radio

Why do we like to wander around hardware stores? Find the answer to this and life’s questions on this week’s Gardenfork Radio. Today Eric and Mike talk about windmills, bees, home water damage, and snow. And more stuff. You just have to listen.

A very simple how to on calibrating your TV:
http://www.flat-screen-tv-guide.com/how-to.html

A much more detailed one:
http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/lcdtv/lcd-tv-calibration.html

I’m pretty sure this is the wind farm we drove through. I don’t know if I said this, but the red lights on top of the wind turbines flashed in unison. It’s a really amazing thing to see at night:
http://www.earlparkindiana.com/windfarm.html
This is a short video explaining computer virtualization. It’s a little commercial but it’s the simplest explanation I’ve seen of virtualization:
http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/esx/esx3i.html –> Click “Watch Demo”

Harold McGee’s NY Times Article: Better Bread with less kneading

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/dining/24curious.html

what do you think? let us know below:

March 2, 2010
Fireplace Grilled Salmon : Eric’s Recipe

Grilled Salmon done with Fireplace Cooking, neat. Fireplace cooking means you don’t have to fire up the stove and your house doesn’t smell like fish or steak the next day. Watch as we grill salmon steaks with this simple recipe .

Do you cook in your fireplace? Please come tell us about it below!

Fireplace Grilled Salmon Steak Recipe:

4 Salmon Steaks, as fresh as possible

Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper

Start a fire in the fireplace a few hours before cooking, allow the wood to break down into coals, kinda like charcoal.

Place your cooking grill over the coals in the fireplace – be careful doing this.

Allow the grill to heat up and clean the grill with half an onion rubbed over the grill.

Drizzle olive oil and then salt and pepper to each side of the steaks.

Place the steaks on the hot grill, and let each side cook about 5 minutes. This time may vary depending on how hot the coals are.

Flip the fish, and check in a few minutes for done-ness. The flesh will flake easily when its done. Ideally you will take the fish off the grill just before the desired done-ness.

Please let us know your fireplace cooking recipes here:

March 2, 2010
Your dishwasher and indoor pollution

Seventh Generation, the company that makes all sorts of eco-smart and recycled products for your home, asked me if I’d like a box of their products to check out.

We already use Seventh Generation products, so why not say yes to some free stuff?

Charlie likes to eat paper towels and tissues.

Seventh Generation is rolling out new natural disinfecting wipes, and as part of their goal to get the word out about these wipes, they sent some to me.

It had not occurred to me to think about what might be in regular disinfecting wipes. I still don’t know exactly. But knowing this company, their wipes don’t have mystery chemicals in them.

Seventh Generation's new disinfecting wipes

What I like about Seventh Generation is that their products work and make sense. I think I first bought a roll of their paper towels, and what got me to buy them was some of the info on the wrapper, such as:

The natural color of these paper towels comes from the mix of colors in cardboard, office waste, and other paper materials recycled into this product. These materials often end up in landfills because there is insufficient demand for them. By reusing them in our products, we put them to work, not in the ground, and we help ‘close the loop’ to encourage more recycling less waste….

I wouldn’t use these, or write about Seventh Generation here, if I didn’t like their stuff.

The company also sent me a copy of Naturally Clean, The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy Non-Toxic Cleaning. The book is chock full of footnoted information. I learned some things I was not aware of about my dishwasher:

…Researchers at the EPA and the University of Texas recently documented the dishwasher’s role as a leading cause of indoor air pollution. Pollutants released by dishwashers, include chorline .. chloroform.. radon .. and other volatile contaminants… When these materials are exposed to the piping hot water that circulates through your dishwasher as it cleans, they are easily ‘stripped out’ and evaporated into the air.

OK. Did not know or think about all that last time I turned on my dishwasher.

This book is full of info like this. Its almost too much. The modern home has lots of stuff in it that is not great for us to breathe or absorb. Makes me want to go live in a yurt. But the book does give you pause about the sorts of materials we have in our home, and what they might be doing to us.

What I like about the book are all the footnotes, most ‘green living’ books don’t cite sources.

One of our Real World Green shows talks about recycled toilet paper, and it features me juggling toilet paper. Check out the video and tell us what you think below.

February 28, 2010
“Well You Should Be Watching the GardenFork Podcast”

yes, you should. Some kind words from Life Adorned a yarn – crafter who watches GardenFork, AND also spins her own yarn, makes yarn based things, and sells them on Etsy. In other words, someone who would of course watch GardenFork.

my 2 favorite things about this podcast:

(1) eric is a trial-and-error kind of guy. many of the episodes start out with “i’ve never done this before, so let’s give it a try and see how it goes.” and, he’s not afraid to admit to imperfection. he includes all of his mistakes so that we can learn from them too.

(2) the gardenfork labradors! these cute, friendly, playful pups are featured here and there throughout the videos, and are a viewer favorite. look, they’ve got their own book!

Life Adorned hand crafted knit hat

Check out her fun blog of the craft items she makes , her flickr page, and her etsy page. Its great to see people making and doing things.

February 24, 2010
Re Queening both our hives this spring

After reading a glowing article in Bee Culture about Jennifer Berry and her excellent queen rearing program, we have decided to replace the queens in both our hives with queens from Jennifer Berry.

Why requeen? What is most important to me is the bees display what is called hygenic behavior. This means they keep the hive clean, and because of this hygenic behavior, the varroa mite population is lower.

Many beekeepers requeen every year or every two years. Queens don’t last much longer on their own. The BeeAnonymous blog lists a few reasons:

* Older queens are more prone to swarming
* Replacing a failing queen
* Better stock traits like pest and disease resistances
* And in my case, improving bad attitudes

Our hive at the Maple Knoll Farm did amazing for its first year, giving us a few frames of honey to harvest. We opted to leave the majority of the honey in the hive, and also fed both our hives a lot of sugar syrup to get them through the hard winter we have up here in NW CT. Our bees are not aggressive, but we do want a to improve the stock of our bees, as we don’t want to have to use miticides to combat the varroa mite and tracheal mites.

Feeding bees sugar syrup in the fall to prepare them for winter

The hive that is in our yard, which is in a shed to protect it from bears, did not do nearly as well last year as our hive at Maple Knoll Farm. I checked on them last month and I think I heard them in the hive. This hive will benefit from a new queen.

The hive in our shed, wrapped with a insulating blanket and a polystyrene outer cover

Our hive at Maple Knoll may not need a new queen. The hive was great last year, and we saw them doing cleansing flights in 38 F degree weather. And whenever we went to check on them, the hive was alive with energy, tons of bees coming and going.

So I am thinking that we may split this hive. A split is where you take some of the bees from a healthy hive, some frames of brood, eggs, and pollen, and place them in a new hive with a new queen. A split allows you to populate a new hive without buying a package of bees, and it allows you to choose where your queen comes from. I’ve been reading up on how to divide or split a hive and I think we can do it.

Maple Knoll bees on cleansing flights

I do believe the queen in the Maple Knoll hive has been replaced by the bees. This may be a natural thing, or it may have been due to us being clumsy when working the hive. We weren’t always good at pulling out the first frame, making room to pull the other frames up and out. We may have killed the queen, as we did find what we think were opened queen cells on a few frames in the middle of the summer. Finding this queen will be a challenge, since she was not raised by humans, she is not marked on her body for easy identification.

Finding the queen in thousands of bees can be hard

To requeen a hive:

• Find and remove the existing queen.

• Wait a day if you can.

• Put in the new queen ( in her queen cage) in the hive between 2 frames, make sure the sugar plug is pointing up so no dead attendants can plug up her exit, poke a small hole in the sugar plug to get the bees to eat through it.

• Leave the hive alone for a week.

Our new queens arrive in May, we’ll make a GardenFork Show when we do the re-queening. Jennifer Berry’s Queens are only available through Brushy Mountain Bee Farm.

Beekeepers: what can you add to this post? Please comment below.

February 23, 2010
Kinda Carbonara with what’s in the fridge

Tonite we drove to NYC for work tomorrow. Most nights like this, I go buy a burrito from the local tacqueria. The burritos are great, and healthy, as I opt for yogurt in place of sour cream in my black bean burrito.

But tonight, after getting a parking spot, I thought, why not see what I have in the fridge and cook something quick?

The basic ingredients on a Sunday night

A quick scan yields frozen peas, eggs, some Pecorino Romano cheese, and pasta. There was some yogurt too, but not much else in the fridge. So I think this is kinda Carbonara.

scramble the egg add the cheese

I cooked the penne pasta, mixed the egg with the grated cheese, drained the cooked pasta, saved some of the cooking water, put the pasta back in the pot, added the cheese-egg mixture, stirred it, added a bit of the pasta water, and some salt. I warmed up the frozen peas in the microwave and dropped them into the mix.

Add the egg-cheese to the warm pasta

Not bad. I added too much of the pasta water, and it could have used more cheese, but not bad for a Sunday night.

The finished dish, the peas added.

Charlie Pup and Henry were very interested in what i was eating. It was good.

What have you put together lately?

February 22, 2010
Beans and Toast Recipe : GardenFork.TV

I had Beans on Toast for the first time last month, at Fort Defiance in Red Hook, Brooklyn. After the first bite I knew I had to make the Beans on Toast recipe for GardenFork.TV .

Super simple, yet tastes great and is healthy as well. Lots of protein here, and it tastes even better with toasted multigrain bread. The recipe is below

Eric’s Beans On Toast Recipe

1 can of UK Heinz Vegetarian Beans

or

1 can of American Baked Beans

or

a pot of freshly cooked red kidney beans – i cook them with sauteed onions and cumin

Bread for toasting – multigrain is best i think

Eggs

Grated Cheddar cheese, or the cheese of your choice.

Toast your bread, and warm up the beans.

Fry the eggs, how many depends on how many people you are feeding. Sunnyside up or just slightly cooked over easy are best, as the yolks run over the beans that way.

Place the 2 pieces of toast on a plate, cover with 1 cup of beans, top with the fried eggs, top off with some grated cheese. The heat of the egg should melt the cheese a bit.

Then eat. and tell us here how it is. ©2010 Eric Rochow all rights reserved

February 21, 2010
A Drive goes perpendicular to a Street : Queens, NY Food with John Baronian

Queens is that borough of New York City that many people don’t go to or know about. ( so is Staten Island, but that’s another story )

But Queens,NY is a giant polyglot multicultural crossroads, with a very confusing street naming protocol. All this means is that there is a lot of great food.

John Baronian, a Queens resident and appreciator of food is on this episode of GardenFork Radio to tell us where to go in Queens to eat good food.

John wrote out the show notes for you all, we could not find the exact number of neighborhoods in Queens, but lets just say there are a lot :

Queens is the most diverse immigrant community in New York City and has been for a long, long time. It is a true melting pot. Remember a melting pot is not homogenous, it is blobs of matter in this case cultures, and in the X number of neighborhoods that make up Queens each has its unique set of immigrant cultures. Watching the popular Food related tv shows you will typically see a tour of just one or two of those X number of neighborhoods surrounding Jackson Heights, where you will typically see Indian, Korean, and Chinese and a smattering of other cultures. In this episode John Baronian aka johnbaloney is going to talk abut his nook of Queens: Corona, Rego Park, and Forest Hills.

Friend and follow John at http://www.facebook.com/johnbaloney or http://www.twitter.com/johnbaloney or his Flickr photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbaloney

Our Sponsor

First Stop Corona.
Make your way to CityField to watch the Mets win or if you think they might not do so well better yet check out the Queens Museum and see the Panorama of New York built for the 1964 World’s Fair then for some tasty treats nearby try:
Timmy O’s Frozen Custard

Timmy yo’s frozen custard a Review that does it justice: http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2008/10/timmy-os-frozen-custard-queens-corona-nyc.html

49-07 104th Street, Corona NY 11368 (at 49th Avenue; map)
516-242-1843

Lemon Ice King of Corona
Try the Fresh Fruit Ice

Look for some of the awesome Empanada stores and stands in Corona. My guess is each has its merits.

24/6 Kosher food Vending Machine in The Queens Zoo *It doesn’t distribute on Shabatt (Thats what keeps it Kosher)

Rego Park / Forest Hills
An Easy Subway trip from Manhattan to see Rego Park and Forest Hills Foodery on Queens Blvd Starting at 63rd Drive. Take the R or V train (Change from the F or E train at Jackson Heights) to 63rd Drive

Istanbul Restaurant – Dolmas, Sarma, rice, Kebabs, Doner it’s all around awesome Turkish Food located in Rego Park, 95-36 Queens Boulevard, Rego Park, NY 11374

Cheburechnaya Inc. – Russian meat and vegetable pies, borekas *note: They observe Shabbat and are closed about 2hrs before sundown Friday to 1 after sundown Saturday so check the website for when that is. http://www.cheburechnaya.com

Bens’s Best -Brisket, Corned Beef, Chopped liver – intense and delightful http://www.bensbest.com/

Carmel Grocery Ararat jams – sour cherry pits and all, Date Jam, Fig Jam, lamajun frozenpizza, humus and Locum (Turkish Delight) that is better than you will ever get. A good set of Yelp Reviews are found Here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/carmel-grocery-forest-hills its located at, 64-27 108th St in Forest Hills, NY 11375 (* Hint an address like 64-27 in Queensspeak alludes to it is near 64th rd, drive or avenue but doesn’t typically indicate which)

My local Deli At 99-63 99th Street (it doesn’t really have a name..) pickels, breads, Boreakas, Lox and cured fish and Russian candy *They observe Shabbat

Andre’s Hungarian Strudel & Pastries Strudelby the yard! They also sell prepared Hungarian savories like Goulash etc. http://www.andresbakery.com

Knish Nosh knish, giant pig in a blanket Motzah ball soup found at: http://knishnosh.com/

Metropolitan Avenue – Forest Hills
Aigner Chocolates – “Jellied” Fruit Slices, Marzipan and other handmade Chocolates. Krause’s Candy Kitchen / Aigner Chocolates, 103-02 Metropolitan Ave, Forest Hills, NY 11375 http://www.aignerchocolates.com/aboutus.asp

johnbaloney’s Favorite Foodies

Eric Rochow
David Lebovitz @davidlebovitz or www.davidlebovitz.com

February 21, 2010
My V-Day Gift: Ad Hoc At Home by Thomas Keller

I don’t own a lot of cookbooks. I don’t think a lot of them have a voice. This one does.

ad hoc at home

I only know a bit about Thomas Keller. He is the owner of Per Se in NYC ( never been there, would like to someday ) and The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. He is a very good chef.

But often very good chefs don’t publish very good cookbooks. Thomas Keller does.

Part giant food picture book, Part you-can-cook-this, All comfort food is how I would describe it in one sentence. What I like here is the dishes Mr. Keller cooks here are super approachable.

Even I can cook some of them. I will do the short ribs recipe this weekend.

I think I heard a story Mr Keller on NPR about how he reconnected with his father after after years of not much contact, and that the elder Mr Keller moved to Yountville and in his last years he became a fixture at the restaurant. The younger Mr Keller cooked him his last meal, and ate it with him.

Can’t ask more than that from life.

February 17, 2010
Eric’s Garden Seed Choices for spring

I over-ordered. Do you?

I got my seed orders this week, and I now know I probably over-ordered. Kinda like going into Costco or BJs and buying the whole case of mayonaise.

I buy seeds from Fedco and Johnny’s . The bulk of my seeds come from Fedco, and then from Johnny’s I get some special stuff, like pelleted carrot seed.

What is pelleted seed? Its is seeds that have been coated with clay, or something like clay, to make the seed larger and easier to handle. You can buy pelleted seeds that use organic or non-organic seed coatings.

Why pelleted carrot seed? Its a lot easier to plant. I’m not getting nearly as many carrot seeds, but the seeds I’m getting will more likely sprout, I think. It also means less thinning, as its a lot easier to see the seed, so I can space it better. I’m thinking about covering my carrot seed with plain sand this year.

Early Nelson carrot seed, pelleted from Johnny's Seeds

Jean Ann Van Krevelen, who appeared on GardenFork Radio, described Fedco Seeds, and the people who work there ( it’s a coop ) as having Seed Integrity . That’s a real good way to describe them.

But that is not to diminish Johnny’s Selected Seeds, which is also independently owned and they also have Seed Integrity, just in a different way.

I’ve decided to focus on growing winter squash this year. I will grow it here in CT, and on the roof of our apartment in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn roof will be a low-tech simple green roof experiment, with vegetables as the plant material.

PMR seeds from Johnny's

Why winter squash? It stores easily, and it stores for a long time. And I love the idea of cooking stuff from my own yard in the middle of winter. Plus squash is super healthy for you.

Here are some highlights:

Carnival Acorn Squash Fedco

Uncle David’s Dakota Squash Fedco

Eastern Rise Winter Squash Fedco

Metro PMR Butternut Squash ( from Johnny’s )

the PMR squash means it is Powdery Mildew Resistant. My yard is a fishbowl surrounded by woods, so we get a lot of Powdery Mildew, and I’d like to see how this squash does. Last year we lost our pumpkin crop because it was so wet all summer.

I’m also growing some PMR pumpkins from Johnny’s as we just like to have pumpkins in the yard. I like it because we let the pumpkin vines crawl thru the yard, so that means less lawn to mow.

When it comes to lettuce and mesclun, I don’t select specific seeds, I go with Fedco’s Lettuce Mixes. They blend one for each of the seasons and that works well for me. For the summer blend they pick lettuces that don’t bolt easily, for the winter mix, its cold hardy ones. You get the picture.

And since Fedco is in Maine, these seed mixes do just as well, if not better in here NW CT.

We like to eat fresh and pickle cucumbers, and I had a good crop of Super Zagross Middle East Cuke from Fedco, so I ordered them once again. I’m betting they will be even better this season if we have a drier summer.

What are your seed favorites? Tell us below:

February 16, 2010
VendrTV is one year old today

About a year ago, this guy calls me and asks if he can meet me to talk about producing a video show for the web. We met, and he talked about this show he wanted to do about street food, and how he would grow it on the web.

OK, I said, Good Luck.

Well one year later Daniel Delaney and VendrTV have a larger audience than Gardenfork.tv .

So now I’m the one asking Daniel the questions.

We’ve talked about VendrTV here before, but go check out his show here

Below are a few photos of the party I took. The club we were in was packed with street food foodies and Daniel’s friends. People from other countries flew in to be there.

February 15, 2010
The Biscuit Cutter: Twist the Cutter or Just Press Down?

While making biscuits for the Biscuits and Gravy Recipe Show, we were using a short glass to cut the biscuits.

Cut the cold butter into quarters lengthwise

The biscuits came out OK, but I was underwhelmed by the rise. Watch the video here to see the epiphany of using freshly made baking powder.

cube the butter

My food processor is not great at cutting butter into flour

But I was also thinking about the glass we used to cut out the biscuits. I was wondering if the glass, which is fairly thick, was actually kinda pinching the biscuit dough as it pressed down and twisted the glass.

On the Gardenfork.tv website, I read some comments that a thick glass does indeed pinch the biscuit and that you should not twist the cutter either, as that also binds the edges of the unbaked biscuit dough.

I thought I should go buy a stainless steel biscuit cutter, but I’m in the woods here ( in more ways than one ), and not into filling my kitchen with more stuff.

I looked around the kitchen for what was round and similar to a biscuit cutter. Online someone suggested a tuna fish can, but still it seemed the lip on the tuna can might hinder rise.

I then saw one of my salt shakers, and had the eureka moment.

Salt shaker as biscuit cutter

Here I'm just pressing down and not twisting

I pressed out my biscuit dough, and cut the biscuits with and without twisting. Its much easier the get the biscuits to cut with the twist.

I put them on parchment, marked the biscuits sans twist, and baked them

Not a terrific rise with any of the biscuits

None of the biscuits in this batch of dough were amazing, but they were not bad. But my very unscientific test ( we’re not America’s Test Kitchen here ) shows that twisting the cutter has no difference on the rise of the biscuit. A number of the biscuits that were twisted were taller than the non-twist biscuits.

Not a significant difference between twisting and not twisting

Biscuit on left is no twist, on right is cutter with twist

I still need to work on cutting the flour and butter together. Maybe I can find a food processor at a garage sale. The bowl of mine seems too big for the blades. Not sure why, might have to embark on more America’s Test Kitchen style adventures. Where’s my apron….

Added:

Pat, who commented below, makes a good point. You can just use a pastry blender to cut together the flour and butter. But you’ve got to have a good pastry blender, like the one Pat has linked to.

February 14, 2010
Grocery Gardening a new cooking gardening book that works

Our whole show this week is a chat I had with Jean Ann about her new book, Grocery Gardening, and how much she likes Gardenfork. (right…)

here are the links to Jean Ann and her co-authors

Jean Ann Van Krevelen’s blogs: Portland Foodie Good Enough Gardening Podcast Gardener to Farmer Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JeanAnnVK

Teresa O’Connor’s blog: Seasonal Wisdom Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SeasonalWisdom

Amanda Thomsen’s Blog: HortMag Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kissmyaster

Robin Ripleys’ blog: Bumble Bee Blog http://twitter.com/robinripley

Listen to GardenFork Radio on iTunes here

February 12, 2010
How to make Biscuits and Gravy, the Eric Recipe

I love biscuits and gravy, and this recipe is super simple. First you make biscuits with this recipe, then you make the gravy with some of the leftover fat from cooking the sausages. Then you eat.

Biscuits and Gravy Recipe:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 stick of *cold* butter – 4 tablespoons

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup buttermilk, or put 1 tablespoon white vinegar into 3/4 cup milk and let sit for 5 minutes for a quickie buttermilk substitute. you can also use yogurt, but you may need to add a bit of water when mixing the dough in the processor.

* to make your own baking powder, combine Cream of Tartar to Baking Soda in a 2:1 ratio. mix well and only mix what you’ll use in a few weeks.

Preheat oven to 450

Add all the dry ingredients to the food processor, pulse to mix.

Cut the cold butter into small pieces and drop in.

Pulse food processor until the flour looks grainy like cornmeal. do not over-pulse this mixture.

Slowly pour the buttermilk into the food processor while the unit is turned on.

Mix until the dough balls up.

Turn dough out onto a floured board, and press out to 1/2″ thickness

Use a muffin cutter to cut out round biscuits, and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake about 11 minutes, until the biscuits rise and brown a bit. Cool on a wire rack.

Gravy Recipe

After cooking the sausage, leave about 2 teaspoon of the fat in the pan. Dust in the 1/2 the flour, and mix it around until the flour starts to brown. Slowly add 1 cup of the milk. The gravy should thicken nicely slowly stir in the remaining 1 cup of milk and stir to thicken.

To plate the biscuits and gravy recipe:

split open 2 biscuits and place the sausage gravy over them. Season with plenty of pepper and enjoy.

©2010 Eric Rochow

February 9, 2010
Does Eric like Guy Fieri?

On GardenFork Radio: the effects of the NYC calorie posting rule on coffee drinkers, how to wash mushrooms, does Eric like Guy Fieri, Facebook – Identity Theft – and your private life, Cable Free TV, Steve Garfield’s new book: Get Seen, Slow Cooker BBQ from Chris Prosperi, and donating to Haiti relief orgs on Guidestar.org

Links:

Starbucks gains on Dunkin Donuts

The Three Facebook Setting Every User Should Check Now : NY Times

Cable Free TV : NY Times

Steve Garfields’ new book: Get Seen

Guidestar.org Research charities working in Haiti and in general

Chris Prosperi of Metro Bis in Simsbury , creator of Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs:

spare ribs: beef back ribs

dry rub: salt pepper onion powder smoked paprika

rub on ribs

chopped onion put ribs and onion in ziplock bag

push air out of bag zip it closed

fill crock half water turn on high, put ziplock bag in crock for 10 hours

pull out, put ribs sheet pan brushed with BBQ sauce, put under broiler until crisp bubbly.

January 31, 2010