After reading about the bacon explosion in the New York Times, I had to try this. The BBQ Addicts make this thing that defies description . so watch Eric try his hand at it.
Author: Eric
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Mom’s meatloaf recipe
OK here it is, the secret mom meatloaf recipe. meatloaf is one of those classic comfort foods for me, yum. watch here and share your meatloaf memories and recipes. ( i’ll post the recipe as soon as i finish the site )
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How to pickle beets and a pickeled beet recipe
I am big into pickling and canning these days, and beets are a natural for pickling and canning. Watch the show here and let us know what your thoughts and ideas are. I’ll post the recipe in full after we get this new site set up.
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How to repair cracks in concrete floors and walls
We’re at my sister’s house again, and as usual she puts me to work. hmm.. BUT you might learn a bit about how to repair cracks in basement floors and walls, and how to use hyrdraulic cement.
Do you have some tips or tricks you can share with us? Let us know below:
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How to make Yogurt in a solar oven
Solar oven cooking is very cool. Take a box, take some milk, and make yogurt using solar energy to cook the yogurt. neat. Solar ovens are not super efficient in New England, but in summer you can use one. I think this is a good thing for kids to work with, they make their own food and learn about solar energy as well.
Have you used a solar oven, or have you made one? let us know below.
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Mom’s Banana Bread Recipe: a GF video and recipe
Mom makes banana bread, Eric eats it. yum.
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The Gardenfork.tv Banana Bread Recipe by Eric Rochow
2 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 handful walnuts
3 really ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
1 stick of butter unsalted
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup yogurt, buttermilk, or milk with 1-1/2 teaspoons of white vinegar added – let the milk/vinegar sit for 5 minutes, then add to batter.
This is the one bowl method of Banana Bread.
Preheat the oven to 350F
Melt the butter -if using a microwave it helps to cover the bowl with wax paper. Save the butter wrapper and bowl used to melt butter to grease the loaf pan.
Add the mashed bananas, melted butter, eggs, and yogurt to a large bowl and mix well.
Then add each dry ingredients. The trick here is to not over mix the batter, which can cause the bread to not rise well.
Add the flour, baking soda, and salt.
Then toss in the walnuts. You can use chopped walnuts or pieces. (don’t toss in the walnuts before this, or they will be coated with dry flour )
Grease the loaf pan with the butter wrapper and the butter left behind in the bowl what was used to melt the stick of butter.
Place in a 350F oven and bake for 55-65 minutes. When a clean knife is inserted and comes out clean, its done. My oven always takes longer than most to bake things, so check the bread at 55 minutes.
Allow the banana bread to cool for 10-15 minutes then run a knife along the edges of the pan and turn out onto a cooling rack. Let the banana bread sit for a bit, it will slice much easier that way. copyright eric gunnar rochow
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How to dry herbs with these easy methods – GF Video
Drying herbs does not need to be complicated, and i wanted to try my hand at it. see what happens. How do you dry herbs? let us know below:
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How to hang a mirror on a wall
My sister needed a mirror that was glued onto a wall removed, and a new mirror installed in her bathroom. Watch the fun as my sister and I try to work together and make a video. fun. maybe…
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How to make hard cider and apple cider
OK, here is my attempt at making hard cider. Keep in mind I am not the expert here, so please watch with that in mind. This show has generated a lot of email….
some emails:You don’t mention it but did you use any campden tablets? They are used to kill any wild yeast that may be on the fruit at the time of picking. It’s pretty much guaranteed that there is wild yeast and bacteria on the fruit including the little bugs that make vinegar. This is probaly why your cider had a vinegar taste. Also if it was me, I would have added sugar to boost the abv (alcohol by volume) Just a few ideas.
try coring the apples first – we find when we make apple sauce that its the seeds & core that make it bitter. Nice color on the cider though, that’s why I’m thinking it was the seeds instead of it being vinegared … I would have thought it would have been more cloudy had it been vinegar. There are several recipes online for making home-made apple cider vinegar in a reused plastic bottle right on your own countertop.
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How to replace a circuit breaker
I helped a friend of mine replace some circuit breakers in his electrical panel that needed replacement.
BE VERY CAREFUL
IF YOU’RE NOT SURE, STOP AND CALL AN ELECTRICIAN
TURN OFF THE MAIN BREAKER
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Eric’s Screwball Cake Recipe
Screwball cake is one of those formative things in the life of Eric. It was one of the first recipes I ever made as a kid. This screwball cake recipe is close to what I remember making, but i’m sure time has clouded that memory.
Anyway, watch our show and learn how to make screwball cake and enjoy the recipe.
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Heres’ the recipe for screwball cake. do you have a recipe for this cake? would you post it here? thx.
I found this version posted in a bunch of places
3 cup Flour
2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Cocoa
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Soda
2/3 cup Oil
2 tbsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups of boiling water
Sift the dry ingredients together and put in a greased 9 x
13 pan. Scoup out 3 holes, 1 for each liquid ingredient.
Pour boiling water over all and mix well. Bake at 375~ for
25-30 minutes.
A viewer, Paige, sent me this comment:
It was great! FYI to all, I divided the recipe in half and made a smaller cake and it turned out just fine. It’s moist and rich, but it’s not too overwhelming. The frosting worked out really well, too. Here’s the recipe if any are interested:
2 c. confectioners sugar
1/4 c. shortening
1/4 c. butter (1/2 stick)
1 tb. water
1 tb. corn syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
dash of salt
Combine all with an electric mixer on low speed, then increase speed to medium and beat for 5 minutes.
This is a light, fluffy icing that goes well with a rich cake. But, I think vanilla ice cream on just a plain piece of screwball cake would be great too.
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Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe – GF Video
My Bread and butter pickles recipe that’s easy to make and i love them. These are great to can and store for the winter. I love it when i open a jar in the snowy winter and crunch on summer. neat. Check out this bread and butter pickle recipe and video on canning pickles.
Eric’s Bread and Butter Pickle Recipe
This recipe will fill 4-5 8 oz canning jars, it depends on how packed the jars are.
About 6-8 medium cucumbers, sliced thinly
1 large sweet onion, cut in half, sliced thinly
4 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup sugar
Pickling spice
Put a big pot of water on the stove to boil, the water should be high enough to cover the jars.
salt cukes and onions in a colander with kosher salt
place the colander in the sink or in a bowl
let sit for an hour, then rinse off salt, shake the cukes and onions to dry.
put the vinegar and sugar in a saucepan and heat to dissolve the sugar.
when pot of water reaches a boil, place jars in water to sterilize, and simmer the canning lids in a small saucepan, do not boil the lids.
put a tablespoon of pickling spice in each canning jar.
pack the jars with cukes and onions so they reach 1/2″ below the top of the jars
then pour the vinegar – sugar mix into each jar up to 1/2″ below the top of the jars. the liquid should cover the cukes and onions.
place lids on each jar, making sure the tops of the jars are clean. secure with the screw-on bands. the bands does not need to be super tight, just barely tight.
place the jars in the boiling water, the water should completely cover the jars.
boil the jars for 10 minutes,
set them to cool on a wire rack.
the next day, check the lids to make sure they sealed. push each lid down, if the lid pops up and down, the jar is not properly sealed. You can either refrigerate this jar and eat the pickles within a week or put on a new jar lid and boil again for 10 minutes.
©2008 Eric Rochow photo from MorgueFile
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Rhubarb Recipe : a simple rhubarb sauce
When people think of rhubarb, they think of rhubarb jam recipes, or rhubarb crisp recipes. Here I make a simple rhubarb sauce recipe for all sorts of uses. Watch and then leave a comment on how you use rhubarb or post a rhubarb recipe.
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How to make a compost bin – GF Video
Its easy to make a compost bin like this. I’m all about simple when building compost bins, these wire screen compost bins are easy to make and work well for leaves, garden waste and kitchen scraps.
If you want to make a compost bin like this, you can use any screen you have. Or maybe your neighbor has a roll of stuff they want to get rid of. This is one of those projects where checking out what your neighbor is throwing out can come in handy.What you don’t want is screen that has large holes, as your compost material will fall out of it. Avoid what looks like wire fencing for chickens or goats, it usually has rectangular openings and are too big.
Its better to make one large bin than two small ones. Because compost is all about mass. The more mass you have, the better the compost will break down. We talk about this in another one of our compost bin videos here. Mass allows more heat in the pile, which is good.
If you put screen across the top and bottom of this composter, you can turn it upside down. Its a cheater way of aerating the pile, and it works. Not sure if you want to devote the time and energy to cutting wire caps for the bin though.
The beauty of this design is how easy it is. 3 pieces of scrap wood, a staple gun, and a hammer. done. I usually cut the wood stakes 18″ longer than the screen height so I have plenty to drive into the ground. If you cut the bottom of the stakes with an angle, or even a wedge-knife point, they will hammer in easier. This cut can be done by hand or with a chop saw. Use what you got!
We have more compost bin and compost 101 videos here. Let me know your thoughts below.
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How to unclog a drain or sink
The drain in our laundry area is clogged, and I made a video showing how i fix a clogged drain. Clogged drains can usually be unclogged by mechanical means, i’m not a big fan of chemical drain cleaners. Watch here and see how i do it.
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How to make yogurt in a cardboard box – GF Video
Want to learn how to make yogurt? Here you go, yogurt video on how we make it. Making yogurt is fun, and in a cardboard box its even easier. and kinda green as well.
What i like about this is the simplicity of this and i think kids would like to do this, with supervision, of course. watch our gardenfork.tv episode on making yogurt in a cardboard box and then tell us how you make yogurt below.
The Gardenfork.tv Yogurt Making Recipe
Our how to make yogurt recipe is based on 1 quart of milk, which will fill up two 8 oz mason jars, which is what i use to make yogurt. You can use skim, part fat, and whole milk, it just depends on your preference. Whole Milk will taste better, but you know that. You can add powdered milk to the mix, which will make the yogurt thicker. Add too much and it gets like custard.1 quart of millk
1 talbespoon of plain yogurt, the more natural the better.
optional: 1/4 cup of powedered milk
Put the milk in a pot with a thick bottom, or use what I call a waffle, or heat diffuser between your pot and the burner. Burned milk is no fun.
Heat the milk to 180 degrees F, bubbles will gather around the edges of the pot when the temperature is right.
Put the pot in the fridge, or put the pan into an ice bath to lower the temperature.
When the temperature is between 90-110 F, add the plain yogurt and if desired, the powdered milk.
Pour into clean glass containers, screw on the cap, and place in your cardboard box yogurt maker. You can also use a large stock pot with the heating pad placed in the bottom of the stock pot. Make sure the heating pad is a waterproof one.
After pouring the milk mix into the jars, you can add maple syrup, honey, or other sweeteners if you like.
Let the yogurt ferment at about 110F for 3 hours, check for doneness.
Temperature is important when making yogurt, too high or too low and it wont work. Do not move the yogurt jars while incubating them, it wont end up being good yogurt if you do.
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Vampire Power, Wintering Bees, & Teaching
Its Eric and Charlie talking about Pesto, Wintering over the Bees, Vampire Power, and more
Links to things on this episode of GardenforkRadio
Vampire Power on Real World Green
Remote Controlled Power Strips
Grammar Girl : Quick and Dirty Tips podcast and website
Charlie is now a graduate student at Queens College
Thanks to Heather Gorringe Wiggly Wigglers for her re-tweet, follow her on Twitter here, check out her podcast and website here.
Coffee Art links:
http://www.yowazzup.com/coffee/images/coffee-art-01_20070509.jpg
http://www.weirdomatic.com/wp-content/pictures/coffeeart/coffee_art_02.jpg
http://very-bored.com/pics3/coffeeart/coffee-art-8.jpg
Eric really likes Gorilla Coffee and their great packaging-branding
Please write a review of Gardenfork Radio on iTunes! It helps our ranking on iTunes.
And if you watch Gardenfork.tv on iTunes, please write a review of our video show on iTunes also
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40 Garlic Chicken Recipe, the Eric version
There are a ton of 40 Garlic Chicken recipes, and of course we had to do one ourselves here. What is your recipe? how about sharing it in the comments here?