GardenFork viewer Rich sent us this photo of the paper seed pots he made after watching our how to make paper seed pots video. He’s got a ton of them here. Great to see people making cool stuff for starting seeds! thanks to Rich for sending this.
Category: Articles
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Kimcheejeon: A Korean Buckwheat Pancake Recipe
These kimchee scallion buckwheat pancakes (kimcheejeon) were drop dead easy to make. Kimcheejeon is a very traditional Korean dish that’s served as a side dish (panchan) or as the main meal. It has a sweet and savory flavor that complements so many foods. It’s probably better if you made your own batter, but I used a good off-the-shelf buckwheat pancake mix. It’s easier to make these with a non-stick pan (Teflon works well) or a well-seasoned cast iron skillet. The buckwheat batter has a very soft texture that’s more like a crepe; it brings out the sweet quality in the scallions.
Kimcheejeon in Buckwheat Batter
- 1/4 cup Napa cabbage kimchee, slice into thin strips
- 1/2 cup scallions, cut into 3″ long pieces
- 1/4 cups onion, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup Arrowhead Mills organic buckwheat pancake mix
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 tbsp kimchee juice or 1 tbsp Korean chili paset + 2 tbsp water
- cast iron or non-stick skillet
- canola oil
Mix buckwheat pancake mix, sugar, salt, water and kimchee juice together in a bowl and let it sit for 10 minutes. Add sliced kimchee and onion to the batter and mix well. The batter should be thin enough to pour but not as thin as yogurt. If it’s too thick add a little water. Bring your skillet to medium heat and grease with a little oil. Arrange scallion pieces loosely in the pan and let them sear for about a minute. Carefully spoon in kimchee buckwheat batter and cover scallions evenly. When the batter start to form bubbles along the edges (around 3 minutes), lift edges slight to make sure they don’t stick then flip. Flip and cook until the pancakes are evenly browned on each side. Serve hot!
Although this dish is vegan, the sweet and savory flavors goes well with leftover shrimp and crab meat. Experiment with your favorite ingredients, it’s a great way to move some leftovers. Serve it with dipping sauce as a dinner appetizer or have it with eggs at breakfast.
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Tartine Bread, First Loaves
I got the Tartine Bread Book a while back, and got real excited about it. I was thinking this is the new No Knead Bread, the next new thing to come to bread baking. Buy Tartine Bread on Amazon
Buy Tartine Bread on IndieBound
First Loaf with 3-4 hour rise Tartine’s method is based on starting your own ‘starter’ or leaven batch that sits on your counter, and you feed everyday to keep it viable. I tried to make a starter, and it didn’t start. Then I got distracted for a few months.
Then I again picked up the Tartine Bread book. Its a beautiful book, clearly the authors and photographer worked hard on this. I decided to try once again to make the starter, which would allow me to make amazing bread.
This time I followed the instructions [ if all else fails, read directions ] and the starter started! So I read the first part of the book a bunch of times during the week, determined to bake Tartine Bread on the weekend.
The slow rise local leaven dough takes a while to become bread, there are two rises, the long one being either 3-4 hours in a warm place, or overnight in the fridge. The basic bread recipe makes two loaves, so for one loaf I did the 3 hour rise, and the second loaf i did the overnight fridge rise.
Constantly re-reading the directions, I actually baked bread, the first loaf was not bad, as shown in the photo, but the second loaf was pretty amazing.
Loaf with overnight refrigerator rise We’ll be posting more posts on making bread with the Tartine Bread Book, and eventually a video too. I have a bunch of photos of starting the starter for the next in our Tartine Bread posts here.
Do you use a starter for your breads, how does it work for you? Let us know below:
Buy on IndieBound -
Fix Overheating Steam Radiators Yourself
Is your apartment too hot winter? Learn how to fix overheating steam radiators yourself below.
If your radiators are hissing or leaking, its time to replace the radiator vent, aka radiator valve, on your radiators. Radiator valves have a finite life, and its probably been too long since they have been replaced.
Replacing the radiator vent valve with an adjustable valve allows you to control – to a point – how much heat that radiator puts out. This is a great way to balance the radiators in your home, so the radiators heat the house evenly.
This is an easy DIY Home Improvement project for those of you with older homes.
In our current apartment, when the heating season started, we got loud hissing on 3 of the radiators, and this told me it was time to replace the radiator vents. Without going into a dissertation on how steam boiler heating systems work, the radiators have to be able to vent out the air that is in a steam system when the system is cold, to allow the steam coming up from the boiler to enter the radiators.
You may not realize this, but if you have what is generically called a one pipe steam system, you also have steam vents or valves at the end of the steam riser pipes. These valves may be above the ceiling, if the steam riser pipe juts into the ceiling.
drain tongue sticks out of old style radiator vent My mode of operation is to replace all the steam valves at once, if possible. Steam vents are not cheap, but if you replace them all at once, you solve a lot of problems, i think. Another benefit of replacing all the valves at once is you can balance the vents at the same time. New vents either have specific vent ratings, or are adjustable – in other words, you can adjust how much venting each vent does.
I use the adjustable vents – link to buy them here – they are much better, I think than the pre-set valves.
This is important, as large radiators need to be able to vent more air than smaller radiators, and this helps you attain the goal of steam heat getting to all the radiators at one time. I use radiator vents that are adjustable, they have a small tang that juts out that you move to adjust. Other companies make a series of vents that have different vent ratings, each vent lets out a certain amount of steam.
Adjustable Steam Radiator Vent Your local hardware store will sell radiator vents. I suggest the adjustable ones, and don’t cheap out when buying them, you get what you pay for.
Most of life is like that, good things cost money, and these radiator vents are worth it. Many times the steam radiators are wedged behind furniture or whatever, and just getting to the radiator is a pain, so do them all at once and get it done with.
So there you go, a DIY home improvement project that is do-able and will improve your heating system.
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Simple Vegetable Soup Recipe aka Fridge Soup
I like Jacques Pepin. I don’t know him personally, but I watch his cooking shows, and his cookbooks. His style is GardenFork: a lack of pretention, a desire to share and teach.In his book, Fast Food My Way, [ Amazon Link
, IndieBound Link ] there is a recipe for what he calls Fridge Soup. Jacques looks in the fridge, pulls out whatever leftovers there are, and makes a soup. Hence the name, Fridge Soup.What I found neat was his use of grits in this soup. ( we talked about making grits with my neighbor Charlie on this episode of GF Radio here ). Jacques uses instant grits as a thickener for the vegetable soup.
Lightbulb moment for me, the un-expert in the kitchen.
We live quite a way from the nearest grocery store, and I avoid making a trip just to buy a few things, so for dinner this weekend, I decided to apply the Fridge Soup Methodology to a real world situation.
In our fridge we had carrots – we always have carrots, horse people, you know – cabbage left over from a fermentation experiment, onions, and a sweet potato.So all this went into the pot. I started first with the onions and olive oil, added some crushed garlic. Then in went the carrots sliced up. ( Charlie Pup knows when you are slicing carrots, and will arrive to take care of the top of the carrot for you; Henry won’t eat carrots ) I like to try to get some browning on the carrots, not sure if it makes a difference, but I do it. Then the cabbage and sliced up sweet potato ( skin on , BTW ).
I added water to top it off and let is simmer. You could also do this in slow cooker. I did not add any vegetable stock or boullion; basically the ingredients were the stock, was my thinking.
I had some thyme from the garden that I hard harvested before the last big snowstorm, and it was slowly drying in a bowl in the kitchen, so in it went, though technically it wasn’t in the fridge.
Some wayward egg noodles from a half open bag were thrown in when I served the soup, and there you go: Fridge Soup .
I’ll have to experiment with using grits as a thickener for soup, neat idea. What do you do for simple soups from the fridge? Let us know in the comments below:
Click Here to Buy Fast Food My Way From IndieBound Here
Click Here To Buy Fast Food My Way From Amazon -
Simple Pizza Dough Recipe : GF Video
We’ve been making a bunch of pizza oven videos and how to make pizza videos, so I thought we should show how to make easy pizza dough using your food processor.
You can make this pizza dough recipe and put it the fridge for two hours, but its much better if you mix it up the night before and refrigerate the pizza dough overnight. I had some extra pizza dough after making a bunch for the video and put it in the dutch oven as a round loaf and it baked up great.
3 cups Bread or All Purpose Flour
1 tsp active yeast about 1/2 packet of yeast
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp coarse salt
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup warm water
Put all the dry ingredients in your food processor and turn on the food processor for a few seconds to swirl the ingredients together.
Turn on the food processor to high and pour in the olive oil
Start to slowly trickle into the food processor the water. The goal is to get the dough wet, but not real wet
Once the dough forms into a rough ball, turn off the processor, gather up the dough, and put it on a large piece of plastic food wrap.
Wrap the dough with the plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least 2 hours, overnight is better.
When rolling the dough out, if it shrinks back, allow it to rest a few minutes and then roll it again. -
Labrador Mij has passed away
Mij with Henry in the background Mij, our Labrador Henry’s brother, who lived down the road from us and appears in many GardenFork shows passed away this weekend. He had developed an enlarged heart.
Mij was the tennis ball obsessed alpha male of the Labradors who congregate in our yard. He would let Charlie Pup and Moose act like the goofs they are, while he and Henry sat in the yard or on the couch and watched. He was a great pup.
Mij in my Ford F150 
Mij and Henry as newborns -
Braised Short Ribs Recipe Fail
Why do my short ribs blow?
Short Ribs ready to be oven browned So this is one of those where I had some short ribs in the freezer, I defrosted them, and cooked them pretty much how everyone else does, and the short ribs come out tough, not fork tender.
I’m not a huge cookbook collector, but I have few general go-to reference cookbooks, and the braised short ribs recipes are all pretty much like this:
Sear the ribs in dutch oven or in a baking pan in the oven, add liquid, cover and cook for hours on a low flame.
Short ribs browned in oven I did try the browning the meat in the oven method, because I think the short ribs can get cooked to fast when searing them. Or maybe this is all just in my head and not real food science…
Thinking this was one of those dishes I could safely ignore, I got sucked into the world of tweaking the GardenFork.TV website, and then realized how long it had been since I started cooking the ribs. I got up and turned them in the dutch oven, and let them cook longer.
I even cooked these in the afternoon, and then pour off the liquid, threw that in the freezer to separate the fat out – which worked, BTW.
I gently reheated the ribs which I had cooked with onions, carrots and about 2 cups of liquid, half red wine – half water.
But the ribs were tough, which bummed me out a bit, as they looked great when i first opened the package. Food guru Chris Kimball has taught me that meats like short ribs will turn tough if cooked too long. The proteins lock up and don’t allow any liquid in, thus being tough to chew.
Braised Short Ribs look great, taste tough So many recipe give a time and oven temp to cook meat, but what I think recipes really need is a temperature to attain, and then the meat is done.
Have to work on this more. What are your thoughts on overcooking meat, especially things like short ribs? Let us know below:
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Toilet Repair how to replace a broken toilet flange
Is your toilet wobbly? Learn here how to replace a broken toilet flange. If your toilet wobbles and is not solid on the ground, it could be that the toilet flange is rotted or broken. fun. Let’s see how to repair the toilet.
You can fix this. I did. And if you follow our how-to toilet repair photos here, you’ll be a DIY home repair expert, or at least you’ll be able to replace a broken toilet flange.
Rusted toilet flange, this one separated completely from the waste line. 
First remove the toilet. Turn off the water line, flush the toilet, and remove the water line from the bottom of the toilet tank. Have bucket handy, as water will come out of the tank. Sponge out as much water from the tank and bowl as you can. A handyman trick is to use a wet dry shop vac to suck all the water out of the bowl and tank.
Remove the nuts on each side of the base of the toilet. These nuts-bolts attach the toilet to the flange. You may have to use a saw to cut the nuts off, which is ok, because you are going to put in new toilet bolts and nuts. The flange, when brand new, is attached to the waste pipe. Many times it rusts or snaps off. Tilt the toilet on its side and move out of the way. Have a helper assist you in moving the toilet, they are heavy and bulky.
Use a putty knife to remove the wax ring residue from the exposed flange and inspect the flange and surrounding area. What is key here is if the wood subfloor is rotted. If this is the case, you will have to cut out the surrounding subfloor and replace it with new plywood, then fix the flange.
Thankfully on this home improvement project, the subfloor was fine, just the flange fell apart. Go to your hardware store and buy a Super Ring Replacement Toilet Ring. There are several models by different suppliers, don’t buy the cheapest one, its your toilet, remember…
Also at the hardware store buy new toilet mounting bolts, they usually come in a package with the nuts and washers.
use wax from the wax ring to get them to stand up straight Put the toilet mounting bolts in the flange pointing up, and use some wax from the old wax ring to hold them in place. Place the super ring replacement toilet ring over the waste line, making sure the mounting bolts are in the same place as the original bolts were, one bolt on each side of the flange.
Screw the new flange into the subfloor. You may have to use a hammer drill to drill through existing tile flooring or cement substrate. Set the new toilet wax ring onto the flange on the base of the toilet, and guide the toilet back onto the super ring, making sure the toilet mounting bolts are lined up with the mount holes in the toilet base. The super ring toilet ring allows for you to adjust the location of the bolts.
Press down on the toilet to seat the wax ring, wiggle the toilet back and forth to get it to set down and seal. Cut off the the bolts about 1/2″ above the toilet base. Spin on the mounting bolt nuts, and tighten them, but be careful not to over-tighten, as you will crack the porcelain toilet.
Re-attach the water supply line, turn on the water valve, flush the toilet and check for leaks.
So there you go, not as complicated as you thought. The biggest red flag is if the subfloor is rotted, because then your simple home improvement project has become a much bigger deal.
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A picture of the camera operator
The Camera Operator does not appear on GardenFork.TV . You only hear her wry commentary. Some people have asked for a photo of the CO, here’s one.
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GardenFork Featured On iTunes!
The guys at iTunes Podcasts had a poll on their Facebook Page, asking people who their favorite cooking podcast was, and GardenFork got the most votes! They then featured GardenFork on the main podcast page of iTunes. How cool is that?
A big thank you to the iTunes crew. Really appreciate that!
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Pizza Oven Plans by Kathlean Video
GardenFork Viewer Kathlean made a brick pizza oven based on our How to make a backyard brick oven video, and put together this great video of how she made a pizza oven out of brick. Kathlean found the brick on freecycle.org, which is brilliant – i’m all about use what you got, and these bricks fit the bill. These bricks have holes in them, our brick oven bricks did not, but Kathlean puts the holes to good use, making the roof of the oven out of brick and black pipe that slides through the brick and supports it.
We’ve gotten a bunch of photos of back yard pizza and bread ovens, and i plan on putting together a photo gallery of the backyard ovens people have made inspired by our brick oven. Next on my list is an enhanced oven to bake bread. I need to increase the mass of the oven with more brick, and make a door to cover the front opening. Then we’ll heat up the oven with firewood to about 700F, let the fire die down, and slide in some loaves of bread. Neat.
Have you built a brick, stone, or cob oven? I’d like to hear about it, you can leave comments below:
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The Holiday Gift Guide 2012
We asked some of the GF contributors for their suggestions for Holiday Gifts, here are their responses:Monica
• I’m doing my best to buy from my local shop owners, many of which are friends. It’s a happier season all around that way. Between the Green Home Store, the Wine shop, the fancy dog treat store, we’re basically covered for everyone.• For product lovers: a Birchbox subscription.
• Tip: Hold off shopping until the last possible minute. The best deals are on or around December 22nd.
Mike
• Arduino Starter Experimenter’s Kit
($34) – This generation’s Erector Set.• A Lodge Cast Iron Skillet
($19) – The most versatile pan in the kitchen. I never put mine away.• A Bicycle Tune Up gift certificate from a local bike shop ($50 – $150 depending on the services) – Cables stretch, chains stretch, oil wears away, derailleurs get out of alignment, grease gets old, people don’t get their bikes tuned up enough, the riding difference can be night and day. Here’s an example from my local bike shop.
• Gerber Needlenose Multi-Plier 600
($43) – The pliers can be deployed one handed. That’s extra handy when holding a bass by the lip with one hand and getting the pliers out to remove a hook with the other.• Apple iPad
– I use mine for hours every day. Music, magazines, looking things up, I have electronics tools on it, social stuff, schematics, data sheets, games. Most people I know who didn’t think they’d use it much end up attached to it. (Rick agrees and adds: The older ones eyes get, the more you gravitate away from smartphones and toward tablets.)• Get someone a bunch of really boring stuff that they use all of the time – something day to day they will no longer have to worry about. Imagine if you didn’t have to buy toilet paper for 6 months.
Rick• Apple TV box ($95) – and then cut the expensive cable. You can access Netflix and Hulu through the box, then buy TV shows from Apple on a pay-as-you-go per show basis. We’re saving tons of cash and we’re watching less TV. More importantly, all the TV we watch now is meaningful, not mindless habit.
• Flashing LED front and rear lights for a bicycle to use day and night. The front flashing light has saved me a couple of times when people started to left turn in front of me and across my path.
• Lewis N. Clark WaterSeals Waterproof Pouch
($16) – A waterproof swim pouch with waterproof earphones for an MP3 Player. I slip an old cheapy MP3 player loaded with quality podcasts (like Gardenfork) and swim without fear.• Jabra STREET2 Bluetooth Stereo Headset
($58) – Allows me to carry my iPhone on my belt but have the headset cord in my shirt and out of the way while gardening. It’s pretty much impervious to heavy sweat.• Becoming Jefferson’s People
by Clay S. Jenkinson – The most Gardenfork-y book I know of: self reliance, gardening, cooking, education, optimism, citizenship, philosophy.• What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)
by David Deardorff, Kathryn Wadsworth ($17) – One of the most helpful gardening books I own. The books is a flowchart with logic gates – starting with stem, roots, leaves, fruit, or flower – and then follows a branching logic tree to a diagnosis.Tony
• In the DIY vein, make a printed certificate for some task that you can do, and give it to someone who’s not so capable, or who may not have much time. Some ideas: paint a bathroom, make a four course roasted duck dinner (or something else nice they wouldn’t normally make), organize a garage, or hang shelving unitsSarah
• OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner
($30) – For anyone who is a member of a CSA, has a vegetable garden, or otherwise eats a lot of greens. It makes cleaning greens so easy that it’s well worth the real estate it takes up in the kitchen.• Mr. Beer Home Microbrewery System
($33) – A great introduction to how to brew. Buyer beware: May instigate lifelong obsession with homebrewing.• Knife sharpening services – This is one of those things I don’t get around to nearly as often as I should and am always so happy when I do. A sharp knife isn’t just safer, it’s also far easier to use.
• Vitamix 1782 TurboBlend, 2 Speed
($380) – The theory here is you can go through five $100 blenders that don’t meet your expectations or invest in a Vitamix upfront. My husband and a handful of family members went in on one for my birthday one year and we use it often throughout the week to process soups, puree winter squash, make baby food, and even grind our own flours.• Framing a sentimental photo – In the digital age we take so many pictures but rarely look at them months later. I love the idea of restoring an old photograph so that visual memory is not lost.
photo by mconnors
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Cast Iron Cooking Outdoors with Charcoal
With our recent Superstorm knocking out power to large parts of the East Coast, I wanted to share with you a way to cook food outdoors with cast iron.
Here are some photos demonstrating how to do campfire cooking in your backyard with charcoal. You can use a campfire if you are camping, or if you want to camp in your backyard, but charcoal works well here.
What I like is this kind of cast iron dutch oven, called a chicken fryer, I believe, can be used as a shallow pan or a deep dutch oven. Either way it makes a great outdoor baking setup. Here we are making Toad In The Hole for a GF Video, but you can use this for baking breads, cakes, whatever you use your oven for, you can use this outdoor cast iron cooking method for. We used this in our GF Video on baking banana bread in a cast iron dutch oven here.
Browning sausages before adding batter I use balled up foil to create a heat proof space below the dutch oven, and i place 5 or 6 charcoal briquets under the dutch oven. You could also use pieces of fire brick or other heat proof material.
Much like making a stew or other dishes that require browning, I browned the sausages first, then added the batter. Keep in mind how hot this cast iron can get. Start with a few briquets and add more if you want more heat.
You don’t need a lot of briquets, they get hot and stay hot. After the meat is browned, I place the other half of the dutch oven in place and add more coals. Use tongs and oven mitts, the coals are hot!
Click here to watch us make Toad in a Hole How do you use cast iron? for fireplace cooking? charcoal cooking? Let us know below:
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Hang a TV on a brick or concrete wall
Hang a TV on a brick wall, or hang a tv above the fireplace? Here’s how to do it right. Below the how to photos is a video of how to drill into brick or cement and links to other DIY articles.
Sleeve or Wedge Anchors are best for cement or brick walls Working in older buildings, many times I’m asked to hang a TV on a brick or cement wall. In brownstones, many times people want to hang a HDTV or flat panel TV over the fireplace. Most of the fireplaces no longer function, being old coal or gas fireplaces. Be sure not to drill holes into the chimney of functioning fireplace. If you’d like to hide the wires, like we did in the top photo, we use plastic raceway molding.
To hang a TV on a brick or cement wall, you will need sleeve or wedge anchors. You could also use lead anchors and lag bolts, but I prefer to use sleeve anchors. You will also need a hammer drill.
Hammer drills are not that expensive. Click here to see some drills you can buy online
. Or you can ask one of your friends if they have one. You’ll also need masonry bits for a hammer drill, they are also called percussive bits in some places.
Hammer drill and the dust it creates Hammer drills are loud, so use ear protection, and eye protection is of course an always must have.
Search On Amazon For TV Wall Mounts Here
Hanging a TV with a HDTV mount is one of those projects that falls into the “if all else fails, read directions” . So read the directions before trying to do this.
Attach the brackets to the back of the flat panel TV, and attach the wall mount to the TV brackets. Then get two friends to hold the TV up on the wall and find the perfect spot to mount the TV on the wall. Reach behind the TV while on the wall and with a pencil mark where the wall bracket be mounted on the wall.
Be sure the person in charge of the interior of your house is present and has a say in the placement of the TV, because once you hammer drill holes in a cement wall, they’re kind of permanent.
Put the TV down somewhere safe, and take the wall bracket, place it on the wall and line it up with the marks you made. Mark where you are going to drill holes to put in the sleeve anchors. ( see the mount instructions for how many bolts are needed for your tv )
Cover the area where you are going to drill with plastic. Brick or cement dust will come out of the hole you are drilling with the hammer drill. If you have a shop-vac, have a friend hold the hose just below where you are drilling, it will save you a lot of cleaning up.
I usually use 4 inch long 3/8″ sleeve anchors if you are hanging on a plaster wall with brick behind it, and 3 inch long sleeves if its a bare brick or cement wall. After drilling the holes, make sure the nuts are on the ends of the sleeves, and tap the sleeves into the holes.
Don’t hammer the sleeves too far into the wall, you need enough of the threaded end of the sleeve protruding out of the wall to hang the mount. You have the nuts on the end of the sleeves to keep the hammer from damaging the threads of the sleeve while tapping them in.
Wall mount attached with sleeve anchors Remove the nuts and hang the wall mount on the wall, use washers and tighten down the nuts to secure the wall mount to the wall. Then read the directions again to remember how to hang the TV on the wall mount. Then you’re done.
Here is a how to drill into brick or cement video we did to give you an idea of how to hang a tv on a brick wall:
Watch how to drill into brick and concrete here.
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Loaded Pumpkin Snack Cake Recipe
I have been consumed by (and have been consuming) all things winter squash. I love trying all the varieties the local farmers grow – noting differences in texture to determine how best to use them. This was my first year to try a cheese pumpkin, and it’s now one of my favorites. Its flesh is smooth and so savory it could almost be served as soup without even adding stock.
Despite the fun I have experimenting with various squash, I always feel comfortable falling back on butternut. Some may argue its popularity arose from its ease of transport and preparation, but there’s no denying it also has good flavor. Did you know there are different varieties of butternut squash? Nutterbutters in particular are very sweet, and conveniently grow to a medium size.
I use butternut in this snack cake, but feel free to use any pumpkin or winter squash you’re currently enjoying. Just cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and pulp, rub with a little oil, and roast “face down” on a baking sheet until the flesh is tender.
Why a snack cake? I think this is too sweet to be called a pumpkin loaf, but it’s not so decadent as to be restricted to dessert. Heavily spiced and loaded with dried fruit and nuts, I think it’s a great afternoon pick-me-up but you could easily get away with eating a slice with your morning cup of coffee. Anything you top with a dollop of yogurt is breakfast, right?
Loaded Pumpkin Snack Cake
Ingredients
• 1 stick (1/2 c, 8 tbsp) butter
• 1 c sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 c flour
• 1/2 tbsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tbsp cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 c pumpkin/winter squash puree
• 1 1/2 c lightly toasted nuts (I used a combinatin of pecans and walnuts)
• 1/2 c dried fruit (I used a combination of tart cherries and raisins)
• 1/4 c lightly toasted seeds (I used pepitas)
Cooking Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a loaf pan and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until just combined.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir until just combined.
4. Stir in the pumpkin puree until just combined. Stir in the nuts, fruit, and seeds until about evenly distributed. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. -
Hydroponics plus Fish Farm equals Aquaponics; a how to
How to build a hydroponic system, or an aquaponic system, has been a continuing theme here on GardenFork.TV . If are interested in building hydroponic or aquaponic or aquaculture systems, the following how to by GF contributors Stephen and Abbie on building an aquaponics system is full of great photos, click on the Next Page link at the bottom of each page to get to the next one. Eric.
We started with a greenhouse (a rebuilt shed) ( size: 7’ wide by 15’ long ) in 2006.
Aquaponics Shed & Fish Tank We used a 300 gallon “Rubbermaid brand” stock-tank (recessed in the ground) for the fish tank.
Use 3….55-gallon “food-safe” plastic barrels, cut them in half lengthwise so you have 6 grow-beds, approximately 2’ wide by 3’ long by 12 inches deep. By the way a 300 gallon fish tank will allow 8 such grows-beds…[wide]
[wide]
Use another 55-gallon drum, cut out the top (leave the rim, for strength) this is a dump-tank for the “Flood and Drain” system. Inside the dump-tank you need a syphon, attached below, to fill line for grow-beds.
Use some PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes to run water feed-lines from the “bottom of the syphon” (of the dump-tank) to each grow-bed. I used two lines running down both sides of the greenhouse to feed the 6 beds (three beds on each side). Or you could have all beds “side by side” on one side of your greenhouse using one line. (we tried that, but they didn’t fit “in a row” in our building). Position the grow-beds higher than the fish tank. (We need the dump-tank to flow into the grow-beds and the grow-beds to flow into the fish tank).
Place a waterfall/pond pump at the bottom of the 300 gallon fish tank, and run a pipe (from the pump) up to the top (and inside) the dump-tank so it will fill the dump-tank. This pump will be the only pump in the system and it will run 24-7 (all the time).
OK, so at this point we have the water leaving the fish tank entering the dump-tank, that fills until the water level reaches the top of the syphon, which then activates, the water will start to flow through the syphon pipe, down to the feed-line going to the grow-beds, which will fill with nutrient rich water (from the fish waste/poop). OK, we’ll need additional syphons (to drain the grow-beds) and a drain-line to return water to the fish tank. The white “upright” pipe attached through the grow-bed, with a covered/capped pipe slotted on the base (allows water into the syphon), and down into the drain-lines to the fish tank…
NOTE: IF for some reason the pumps stops…. most of the water (in this system) will drain back into the fish tank… some may remain in the dump-tank… some may remain in the grow-beds… but the majority of the water will return to the fish tank, keeping the fish alive… we’ve lost electricity for three days, the fish and plants were fine. Our system is stocked with goldfish and KOI (pronounced like “Koy” …as in Roy– with a K).
The grow-beds should be dry on the surface (which is good); about 1 inch lower, it will be moist/wet.
We fill the grow-beds: We use “pea-stone” or “pea-gravel” (normal gravel that is screened to allow only pea sized rock to remain); we fill the beds up to within 1” of the top of the grow-beds…
Make sure the grow-bed syphon is installed and add pvc drain-lines from bottom of grow-bed to the fish tank. The top of the syphon should be 1 inch lower, than the gravel surface…
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A Logging Tool For Part Time Loggers
After the hurricane, there were several trees down on the road to the camp, so I rounded up a few friends and drove up to the first downed tree, a large white pine.
One friend brought along what he called a Peavey, which looks like a large tool from the 19th century, which it probably is. But its an amazing tool to have when cutting down trees.
You don’t need to be a logger to own a peavey, its super handy to have when cutting trees or clearing an area. What the peavey does is make moving logs and downed trees very easy.
The Peavey has a large hook and a pointed end, and using simple leverage, allows you to move logs or turn a tree that is lying on its side. You engage the hook on the side of the log and push up on the handle. The engaged hook allows you to turn the log, thus moving it. With practice you can turn the log with the peavey too.
Engage the hook of the peavey, then turn the log With the peavey, you can cut a downed tree into lengths. First cut 2/3 of the way through the tree at firewood sized intervals, then using the peavey, you can rotate the tree and finish the cuts without getting the chainsaw chain in the dirt. Keeping your chainsaw chain out of the dirt is very important, it dulls and damages the chain.
I have a variant of the peavey called a timberjack, its a peavey with a T bar attached that allows you to raise a log or tree up off the ground to cut it up without getting the chainsaw chain near the ground. Neat tools. To order a peavey, click here
Do you use logging tools when cutting up wood? Let us know below:
