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Sweet Cornbread Recipe with Maple Syrup – GF Video
Maple syrup makes this sweet cornbread recipe extra special. And not too sweet either, which is the way I like it. Watch the video and check out the recipe below.

The vegetarian chili recipe video we mention in the video goes great with this.

How to make this sweet cornbread recipe

The maple syrup adds a smokey caramel flavor, I think. If you don’t have any, you can use sugar or honey, but it will have a different taste. You can also dial back the sweetness if you like. Be sure to mix the syrup into the wet ingredients, or else it will sit in the bottom of the mix.

I really like the stone ground cornmeal. It happens to be from upstate New York, but I’ve seen different brands of stone ground. This might all be in my head, but I like the feel it gives the cornbread. But use what you got, and if you have regular cornbread, then go ahead and use it. K?

I use butter in this recipe, but you can use bacon fat, vegetable oil, or lard. This fat melts in the pan in the oven, so keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn. The fat will melt faster than you think!

I prefer a glass baking dish, but I also use a metal pan with fine results. I think the bottom crust is crunchier with the glass pan. This could all be in my head, anything is possible, you know…
Sweet Cornbread Recipe with Maple Syrup

Recipe Type: Dinner

Cuisine: American

Author: Eric Rochow

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Serves: 9 pieces

This cornbread recipe is based on one by Mark Bittman in the NY Times. I use whole wheat flour and maple syrup to change it up. I’ve found the whole wheat works very well with cornmeal in baking.
Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups cornmeal, stone ground if possible

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder – make sure its fresh!

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup maple syrup – you can substitute sugar or honey

2 eggs

1 cup milk
Instructions

Turn on the oven to 375F.

Put the butter in a 8″ baking pan in the oven.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.

Put the milk into a small bowl and beat in the two eggs.

Add the maple syrup to the egg-milk mixture.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together.

Its ok if there are some lumps in the batter.

Pull the pan out of the oven – carefully!

Pour the batter into the pan – it may spatter – and put back in oven

Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.
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January 7, 2016
Best Vegetarian Chili Recipe with Butternut Squash – GF Video
Here it is, the best vegetarian chili recipe I’ve made yet. Omnivores, do not skip this chili, its great. Butternut squash adds a sweetness and a fun color to your mix. Watch our recipe video and start cooking. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Tips on the Best Vegetarian Chili Recipe

You can use canned beans or cook some dried beans – see our pressure cooker vids here. I used pinto beans, but use what you got. Northern beans, kidney beans, whatever works for you. They will all have a slightly different flavor.

Start with a small amount of cocoa! In the video I added too much, and have since adjusted the recipe. Add in the cocoa before the squash to preserve the orange color of the squash.

Cut the squash smaller and it will cook faster. I cut the squash in to pretty large chunks, if they are smaller, it less time to be done.

Chili powders can be very different. They vary in the amount of heat and smokiness, I’ve found. Start with less powder when you first start. You can add more later to boost the chili flavor if need be.

This recipe is perfect for a slow cooker. Cook down the onions, then throw everything in a slow cooker for the day on low.

What are your thoughts and experience with making chili? Let me know below.
Best Vegetarian Chili Recipe with Butternut Squash – GF Video

Recipe Type: Dinner

Cuisine: Vegetarian

Author: Eric Rochow

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 50 mins

Serves: 3 quarts

Easy chili recipe that features butternut squash. This one will appeal to everyone, and fill them up. Start with a small amount of cocoa, you can always add more. The first batch I made for the video had too much cocoa.
Ingredients

1 sweet onion, coarse chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 carrots sliced into rounds

3 tablespoons chili powder

1 tablespoon cumin

1 28 ounce can chopped or diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons oregano

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 24oz to 28 oz can kidney, pinto, or northern beans (do not rinse the beans)

1 medium butternut squashed, peeled and cubed
Instructions

Use a dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot for this chili. Turn the burner to high.

Pour a few glugs of vegetable oil into the pan, about 1/8″ deep or so. In other words, enough to saute the onions.

When the oil is getting hot, turn down the flame to medium and add in the onions. I like to cook the onions down to where the edges are getting brown.

Add in the minced garlic, be sure it doesn’t stick and burn in the bottom of the pan. Cook for about a minute

Add in the carrots and mix it all up. If you have time, I like to get some cooked edges to the carrots, but its not a deal breaker if this doesn’t happen.

Push the vegetables towards the sides of the pot and allow the oil to flow back into the center of the pot. Add in the chili powder and cumin and let the spices toast in the hot oil for about 30 seconds.

Mix the spices into the vegetables and pour in the can of tomatoes.

Drop in the oregano and tomato paste and salt. I usually do two squirts of the tomato paste from the tube.

Measure in the cocoa powder and mix it all together.

Add the squash and beans.

Bring this to a low simmer, cover the pot, and let cook on low. Depending on your stove, pot, and how thin the squash is cubed, this should cook down in about 30 minutes.

If the chili is too watery for your taste, you can leave the top off while cooking for part of the time.

The chili is done when you can easily pierce through the squash with a fork.
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January 7, 2016
Gentle Leader Dog Collar works for me

Our Labradors always pull on the leash, so I bought the Gentle Leader dog collar for both Henry and Charlie Pup. The pulling on leash has stopped.

I used to be able to handle it when one of the dogs pulled on the leash, but after a recent back injury, I couldn’t manage the dogs and walk. I’ve seen several dogs in our neighborhood and in the park with the Gentle Leader dog collar, so I went to our dog supply store and the manager Chris said they work.

You might think this harness hurts the dog, but it doesn’t. What it does do is get the dog’s attention, and they walk with you, rather than pulling against you. I can’t stand seeing dogs on a choke collar, and watching them pull against it and choking. This collar works much better.

You do have to adjust the collar properly, and there is a huge instruction sheet that comes with the collar, plus a DVD to walk you through the process. It took me 5 minutes. It isn’t obvious how the snap under the snout part of the collar works, I tried it a few times before I put it on the dog for fitting. The part that fits around the dog’s neck needs to be tighter than a regular dog collar.

Watch the DVD that comes with the collar, it gives important tips for acclimating your dog to the collar.

The collar comes in several sizes and colors, so double check you are purchasing the correct one for your pups.

Our Brooklyn neighborhood has some food debris on the sidewalk, plus Charlie Pup eats napkins and paper towels, so steering the Labs clear of all that stuff was a constant battle. Walking to the park today was much easier. The Labs tried to get the collar off, by rolling in the dirt, but it stays on. They’ll get used to it and I’ll be able to walk them without re-injuring my back. Money well spent.
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December 2, 2015
9 Cookbooks To Get For Yourself or Others

Every year I send out the GardenFork Gift Guide to our email list. (sign up here) This year I wanted to break it up into a series of gift guides, the first being the cookbook holiday gift guide.

I am not one for buying stuff one doesn’t need, but I do think a shelf of cookbooks is OK. If I find I am not using a cookbook, I give it away. The cookbooks below are ones that I use. I either cook the recipes as printed, or I use them as a starting point for ideas of my own.

November 26, 2015
Book Giveaway: The Practical Pyromaniac

I’ll be doing more book giveaways on GardenFork, as publishers are sending more books! Here is The Practical Pyromaniac by Bill Gurstelle, who was on GF Radio here.

We made a potato bazooka based on his previous book:

To be entered into the book giveaway, leave a comment below telling us about a DIY project you are doing or are planning this fall. Thx!

November 5, 2015
Cheater Apple Pie Recipe, aka The Apple Galette – GF Video
Simple apple pie recipe hack, this apple galette is much easier to make than a proper apple pie, and tastes and looks just as good. Call it Rustic Apple Pie. Watch the video and check out the recipe below.

We’ve done a few galette recipes already, and we’ll be doing more, as the form is versatile. Its kinda like a pie tart shell, you can put all sorts of stuff in it, be it sweet or savory. Sign up for our email newsletter to be in the know when we post them.

I call this a cheater apple pie, because its similar to an apple pie recipe, but is less fussy. Roll out dough, drop in fruit, bake, done. Apple pie seems more involved, but we’ll make those too. Now I have ideas for pie in my head. Do you? Let me know below.

This galette is a low sugar version, a sprinkle of sugar is all I added, and it was fine. I used dried cranberries and learned that its best to have the cranberries tucked under the apples on top of the galette, else they get too crunchy from the oven heat. You could use other dried fruits, but I think we need to eat more cranberries.

Don’t sweat the pie crust! It’s not rocket science to make a decent crust. Be sure to put the pie dough in the fridge for a while to let it set up. A key ingredient in my pie crust is sugar. It adds a bit of sweetness and crunch to the crust, this same crust would make good rugelach, you know. Have to work on that one. My grandmother made those every Christmas.

The apples in this galette get soft, but don’t break down and go mushy, its baked apple slices and cranberries, and goes well with a bit of vanilla ice cream. Some liquid may leak out the side, but that’s ok. Best to bake this on a lined cookie sheet or a greased cast iron flat skillet just in case.

I used Fuji apples for this, and use my fav apple corer, it makes the prep go fast, I think.
Cheater Apple Pie Recipe, aka The Apple Galette

Recipe Type: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Author: Eric Rochow

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Serves: 1 pie

A simpler version of apple pie, the apple galette is a open faced rustic crust pastry that you can add all sorts of fruits to. Today we use apples and cranberries
Ingredients

3-5 apples cored and sliced – if the apples are small use more apples.

1 cup of dried cranberries

1-2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

lemon zest

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 stick of unsalted butter – cold

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 tsp salt

ice water
Instructions

If possible, make the pie crust a few hours beforehand, or the day before:

Cut the stick of cold butter into 1/2″ cubes, and place in food processor.

Add the flour and sugar and salt.

Pulse the processor until the flour and butter have cut together. it looks kinda like lumpy cornmeal. if you’re not sure, make sure all the butter cubes have been mixed into the flour.

Put this dough in to a bowl, and add ice cold water a few tablespoons at a time. mix the water into the dough until the dough can form a ball. Don’t add too much water and make the dough sticky. If you do, add some more flour to the dough.

Place this dough onto some plastic wrap, shape it into a large hockey puck, and put in the freezer for 10 minutes, or the fridge for 30 minutes. The longer it is in the fridge , the better the dough gets, I think.

Combine in a bowl the apple slices, lemon, sugar, zest, cornstarch, and cranberries. Mix together.

Roll out the dough on a floured board, you want it about 14″ in diameter, about 1/4-1/8″ thick.

Place the pie dough onto a greased cast iron pan or cookie sheet.

Pour the apples into the center of the crust and pull up the sides onto the pile, pinching the dough together to hold it up. Slip any exposed cranberries underneath some apples.

Bake at 400 for about 35-40 minutes. The apples will not break down, but will be soft.
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October 27, 2015
Ikea Kitchen Island You Can Build

Here’s a DIY Ikea kitchen island I built out of butcher block counter top and base cabinets. The design is simple and does not require expert carpentry skills. If you can use a screw gun, and a circular saw you can build this.

How To Build An Ikea Kitchen Island:

The first step is to determine what type of countertop. Ikea has several types of butcher block counter top available. This is an oak wood top, but you may prefer another style. Oak does have some open grain to it, woods such as maple or birch have a tighter grain. Some people think the open grain can catch more stains, etc. but I’m fine with the oak.

The length of your Ikea kitchen island determines which butcher block to purchase. Right now Ikea sells two lengths, 74″ and 98″. You can easily cut these down to whatever size you need. Cutting the length shorter is easy with a circular saw.

If you need to make the counter top narrower, you will need to do what is called a rip cut, which is harder to do with a circular saw. If you don’t use the correct saw blade, you can start to burn the wood while cutting it. Pay attention to which side is marked “DOWN” that side faces down.

What do you want under the counter? For this project, we put in a dishwasher and two base cabinets with a top drawer and 2 door cabinets. Ikea is very modular, and with a mix of different cabinets, you can get pretty close to your ideal.

Screw the base cabinets together in 3 or 4 places. Drill pilot holes so the cabinet wood doesn’t crack. 3/4″ screws work well. Ikea gives you some screws to join cabinets, but they are difficult to use, I think.

To finish off the back sides of the cabinets, you can buy a sheet of backing material from Ikea. You will have to cut this to length, take your time and be careful. Put down blue masking tape right over where your cut line will occur, and mark the cut line on the tape. The tape helps make it a clean cut.

Be sure to seal the butcher block before installing it. We use the sealer from Ikea, and give it several coats, top, sides and bottom. If you are putting a dishwasher under the top, put some extra sealer in the area above where the dishwasher will go. Your dishwasher will come with a foil strip, attach this to the underside of the counter top where the vents of the dishwasher will be located. The strip helps keep the moisture from the dishwasher affecting the butcher block.

There will be some angle brackets in the box with the counter top to secure it to the base cabinets, screw these into the solid parts of the cabinets and then into the counter top.

You cant’ see it in the photos, but I bought some white outside corner molding to cover up where the cabinet backing meets the side of the cabinet. Tack it on with several small nails.

Buy the adjustable floor levelers for the base cabinets, this makes it much easier to level the kitchen island. Best to do this with the counter top in place, the weight of the top helps make it all solid. So there you go, an Ikea kitchen island you can DIY.

October 6, 2015
Dishwasher Installation Hooked Up To Cold Or Hot Water?

I often get asked, “Does it make any difference if the water supply line is hooked up to cold water line rather than hot?” To understand this fully, first watch this video on how to install a dishwasher.

If you have to pull out the old machine, watch this video on how to remove a dishwasher.

Are you not sure which water pipe you hooked up the dishwasher to? Or are we just figuring out which water valve we need to connect the dishwasher supply hose to before we start the install. For either one, we need to understand dishwasher soap to grasp the whole picture here.

The new formulations of dishwasher detergent have gotten very good at cleaning dishes, and its now common practice to not rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Yes, knock off the large stuff, but just put them in. Rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher is a waste of water and your time.

Make sure the dishes face toward the center of the machine. If you have a large pan that needs cleaning, put it face down so the spray jets can do their best cleaning. Plastic items and glasses should go on the top rack. Consumer Reports has found that the detergent pods are the best detergents right now.

Most dishwashers have a water pre-heat function, sometimes it is a feature you can turn on or off, but leave it turned on. Dishwasher detergent, and your dishwasher, work best with very hot water. And when you first turn on your dishwasher, the water in the hot water supply is probably not very hot. The dishwasher pre-heater brings it up to a higher temperature, allowing the detergent to work at its best. The pre-heater supplements the water coming in from the hot water line, don’t think you can hook it up to the cold water line and rely on the pre-heater.

This is why, for dishwashers, its always the hot water supply line.

When doing a dishwasher installation, I have found the existing water supply line hooked up to the wrong pipe. Check under the sink that the dishwasher line is actually hooked up to hot water pipe. If it is not, you will have to switch out the valves under the sink to you can attach the washer line to the hot water pipe. Here’s a good book on basic plumbing that I learned a lot from.

How To Remove A Dishwasher – DIY GF Video

How To Install A Dishwasher – GF Video

September 20, 2015
Honey Harvesting Made Easy With Honey Uncapping Roller
Honey harvesting has always been labor intensive, but with a honey uncapping roller, its a lot easier. This is the second harvest we’ve done with the comb roller, and its much easier to use than a hot capping knife.

With a capping knife, its easy to gouge out large chunks of honeycomb, exactly what you want to avoid in the first place. The idea is to remove the beeswax caps on the honey cells, but not damage the cells themselves. Its an ideal that we don’t achieve often. When you only do honey harvesting twice a year, you don’t get to practice much with the uncapping tools.

With the honey uncapping roller, ( buy it here ) you just roll the tool across the face of the frame several times up and down, and side to side. You have to be careful not to crush the comb, especially when extracting honey from wired foundation. ( I prefer plastic foundation, btw )

I have found that sometimes, after putting the frames into the extractor, I may have to re-roll areas of the frame, but its still so much better than using a capping knife.

Very little beeswax in the honey when using this tool

Honey harvesting is easier, here’s why:
- You get a lot less beeswax in your honey
- No hot knife that is plugged into the wall
- Most anyone can do this task
- Honeycomb is not destroyed.
You no longer need a cappings tub of some sort to catch all the beeswax and honey while uncapping. I stand the frames up in an old cake pan. While bottling the honey, the honey runs through a kitchen sieve. The amount of beeswax cappings from one super is less than a handful.

Honey Frames after Honeybees cleaned them up

I have found that at times, not all the honey is extracted from the frames, but to me its not a big deal. I put these frames back out in the beeyard and they are cleaned up quickly by the honeybees.

Watch the uncapping roller in action in this honey harvest video

So there you go, have you used the cappings roller for honey harvesting? Let me know below:

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August 19, 2015
Troy Bilt Garden Tools Built To Last

I have bought way too many cheap trowels and diggers only to have them break in the garden. Being part of their Saturday 6 group this summer, Troy-Bilt sent me a box of their hand garden tools. I haven’t broken them yet, and I don’t think I will.

First thing that impressed me was the Made In Germany label. ( I am of German descent, FYI ) A sure sign of quality workmanship. And the tools just feel good in your hand. None of that flimsy metal that you bend when you are digging out some roots.

The trowels are made from one piece of metal, so there isn’t a point of stress where the handle attaches to the blade. There are holes in the handle to help grip the trowel, plus the design looks nice too. Simple is good in the land of GardenFork. Stainless steel construction means no rust.

I also received some anvil hand pruners, the Comfort Classic Anvil Pruners. Again made in Germany and easy in your hand. I used these to prune the blueberries, which have a lot of dead wood on them. The grips don’t open real wide so its easy to grip the pruners to close them, a plus for smaller hands. The lock to close the pruners for storage works well, many times this breaks on pruners I’ve used.

And what’s not to like about a pair of big anvil lopers? Cut limbs up to 1.75″ in diameter with these. The lopers are levered so the cutting power is doubled, makes it easier to cut tough wood. Again, a well made German tool, it feels good in your hands, not like its about to break when wrestling with a tough piece of tree.

My Saturday6 friend Teresa wrote a review of the Troy-Bilt hand tools here if you’d like more info from someone who really knows gardening.

So there you go, some nice tools that will last a long time for you. You can learn more about them here.

August 11, 2015
What Happens When You Forget To Add Butter

What’s wrong here? Oh, I forgot to add the butter.

Are you sometimes on autopilot when baking. I must bake some sort of cobbler or crisp every week, and I do the recipe mostly by eye now. Not sure what was going on in my head here, but I made this whole cobbler, baked it in the oven, and then realized something was wrong. (Of course we have a cobbler recipe video here.)

The crust was just blah.

But it was time to go to dinner at the camp, and I was to bring dessert, and this was it. So I got out the propane torch and dropped some cubes of butter on top of what was supposed to be cobbler, melted the butter and toasted the topping.

It ended up being not bad, especially when ice cream was added. Just crunchy sweet stuff. Definitely a done is better than perfect moment. What have your forgotten ingredient incidents been?

August 6, 2015
Custom DIY Dishwasher Install Into Existing Cabinets

I did this custom DIY dishwasher installation so it fit into existing cabinets at a friend’s apartment. There wasn’t a space for a dishwasher in the kitchen and we made a space in a creative way. Maybe we’ll call it an unusual way, actually. If you’d like to see how to connect the electric, water, and drain lines, see my video on how to hook up a dishwasher.

In small kitchens, I often see those narrow dishwashers that you don’t see in most homes. They are common in apartments, and might be good for a tiny house too. Our plan here was to remove one of the cabinets and slide in a small dishwasher.

Before the DIY installation

I call this a custom DIY dishwasher installation is because it wasn’t as simple as removing a kitchen cabinet and sliding in a dishwasher. I had to install a dishwasher into existing kitchen cabinets. The cabinet under the sink was one unit, so I had to be creative in figuring out how to make space for the dishwasher.

I did this by cutting off about 1/3 of the base cabinet. This isn’t your usual install, it was a challenge, but it was fun. Key here was cutting real straight lines, not the easiest thing to do on site. But we did pretty good

I removed the left cabinet door, pulled off the counter and sink. This involved shutting off the water in the kitchen, disconnecting the drain pipe, and the water lines going to the sink. This is always an adventure when climbing under a sink. The shut off valves don’t always work, and once you turn them, they can break. Then you are toast.

Thankfully the shut off valves were fairly new, so turn them off and then don’t look at them.

I cut the lateral supports where we were to slide in the dishwasher, and moved the side of the sink cabinet unit to the right. Basically shortening the width of the sink unit. Some brackets and screws put the cabinet back together.

The tricky part was then I moved the left side wall of the sink unit, I had to make sure the hinges on that wall were level with the hinges they were across from. Somehow this all came together fairly easily. Sometimes I am lucky. Sometimes I am toast. Today no toast.

I slid in the dishwasher, remembering to slide in the feed and drain hoses beforehand, as well as the power cord. There was an outlet behind the stove, so we were good there.

My friend was very happy, and it was fun to do. What do you think?

August 5, 2015
My Flash Drive Recommendation
This is an easy one. My flash drive recommendation has to have three things that I need to be able to work efficiently.
- Large capacity storage – I shoot in HD video
- Fast Throughput – the time it takes to copy a file
- Protection – not just a cap that falls off
I need a flash drive to be able to shoot video in the yard, copy it to my laptop and edit it, and then bring those video files back to the office and put the editing project and the media files onto one of our media hard drives.

I recently bought a PNY 128 GB Flash Drive, and its a great choice for me, and probably you as well.

This flash drive uses USB 3.0, which is the data transfer protocol I’ve switched to after having problems with Firewire 800 and some of our hard drives. 3.0 is fast! You will like it, its not like watching pain dry as you copy files, it just zooms through it.

This PNY has a sliding plastic cover to protect the USB connector, its slides up and covers it. I’ve lost a bunch of those caps that come with some flash drives. You probably realize this is an issue with me, right?

The thumb drive also has a hole in the side where you can slide it onto a key ring, a nice touch. Be sure not to let a thumb drive with a bunch of keys on it hang off a computer or laptop, OK?

I have bought other memory products from PNY and they were good purchases. No drive failures or memory issues with their products. My own memory is another story, but mbe we’ll have artificial memory capacity for our own brains soon. Insert a thumb drive into a slot behind my ear…

So my flash drive recommendation is this PNY 128 GB Flash Drive. It’s working for me, and it will work for you.

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August 5, 2015
DIY Floor Sanding – Just Say No

Floor sanding is a thankless DIY project. Avoid it at all costs. I’ve sanded several floors, I’ll never do it again. Here’s why:

Like many who read GardenFork, my mindset is: I can do this, why pay someone? Well, when it comes to floor sanding, pay a professional. There is much that can go wrong and stuff that can break, that you will probably save money by hiring a floor refinishing company.

First you have to rent the equipment. A floor sander is a beast with few, if any, safety features. It is a high horsepower motor with a spinning drum of sandpaper that can tear up the power cord, toes and wood. Have a helper wrangle the power cord as you sand the floor. You will buy many pieces of round sandpaper for the drum, as you will hit invisible nails and tear up the sandpaper regularly. Then you have to stop and attach new sandpaper.

Sanding passes made perpendicular to each other

To remove paint or finishes from a wood floor you will do several passes perpendicular to each other. Start with rough sandpaper and move down to smooth sandpaper. You will be doing this all day.

Then you have to sand along the walls with an edger, which is a smaller version of a floor sander. You are on your knees wrestling with a small beast.

The floor sander has a collection bag, but it doesn’t collect much of the sawdust, it goes into the air. Put a box fan in a nearby window and exhaust it out. Use a wet-dry vacuum frequently to remove the dust.

Don a high quality respirator that fits your face well, not a cheap dust mask. Good ear protection is a must, you will have a large motor running next to you all day. Knee pads because you are always changing the drum paper and using the edger.

Add this all up, and you will be better off, and healthier, if you hire a professional floor sanding company. Yes, it costs money, but you can spend your time doing some other DIY project better suited to your skill set.

Most professionals now use a dustless floor sander, they are nice. GF Radio co-host Rick had his maple floors refinished and the dustless floor sander did great.

So there you go, my take on outsourcing floor refinishing. Your take? Let me know below.

July 15, 2015
Homemade Metal Pizza Oven

Here is a home made pizza oven I ran across in a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Can’t remember the name of the place, sorry.

This one is interesting in that its a metal pizza oven, rather than the usual brick. I did not see it in operation, but I’m sure it works.
I do see some improvements that can be made to this home made pizza oven, and I wonder why they did some thing.
The two side openings are where one would put the firewood to fire the oven. They don’t seem large enough to build a fire that would sustain itself and heat up the oven enough. I didn’t see this rig in action, so it may work just fine, but I’m thinking not.

There is a curved metal arch over the pizza platter. I guess this is to channel the heat up over the pizza, and transfer heat to the metal arch. I’d remove the arch. The heat from the two side fires will naturally move across the roof the oven and out the center flue.
The pizza platter is too big, I’m thinking. I don’t often see fire baked pizzas that large. With a smaller platter, the whole pizza can fit in the oven, and you don’t have to turn it.
But its an interesting idea, not sure who built it and how well it works in practice. I love that someone took the time to make it. Clearly some welding and metal skills here.

July 14, 2015
Strawberry Pest Identification?

Wade from up north asked if we could help with this strawberry pest identification, so I am posting his email to us below, along with some photos.

________

Last summer we decided our hoop houses in the middle of the yard were unsightly, and just not performing that well. We tore them out and built a single (building a second next week) 3×8′ box on the north fence. I transplanted 6 sad little strawberry plants and had low expectations. All summer they thrived and shot off as many runners as they could. About 20 plants were well established and still bearing in late fall.

We had a very mild winter and early spring. The little strawberries kept trying to poke up through the snow in February!

I picked my first ripe berry Jun 2nd (last frost by almanac is 25 May) and now I have to go out and pick 3 cups of strawberries every other night! This is starting to feel like work! 😉

I’ve started to notice some berries are chewed on and caught this little guy in the act. Can you identify him, and is there anything I can do other than hose down my delicious strawberries with pesticide (this is not an option). I had chicken wire over the box to keep the birds out, but have now removed it in hopes they’d rather eat bugs than berries.

_______

Any ideas on the strawberry pest identification? At first glance, I do not recognize this caterpillar, but it clearly has a taste for strawberries. Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments below:

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June 30, 2015
Is this a Bee? Wasp Identification

I got a wasp identification email from a friend this weekend.

“Not sure if these are bees or hornets. Any thoughts? We have two nests.”

I get a lot of these ‘are these honeybees?’ photos. I am always surprised when I do get this question, because I think most everyone knows basic insect identification. But maybe I might have the same lack of knowledge when it comes to cat breed identification. They are pretty much all the same to me.

Kelly of the Root Simple website wrote about wasps recently, and that’s what prompted me to action this time. Without getting into the weeds of insect names, these are not honeybees. They are wasps. The common name is paper wasp or umbrella wasps, and if the nest is in an out of the way place, leave them be.

Wasps are pollinators and eat problem insects in your garden. Some of them also eat apples, especially fallen apples that have been split open or mashed by the lawnmower. This is a bit of a problem in our yard when we have a large apple crop. As one of our Labradors, Charlie Pup, likes to eat fallen apples as well.

Wasps, also known as hornets, generally are only aggressive if you mess with their hive. Yellow Jackets, while part of the wasp family, can be quite nasty. Quick Tip: Yellow Jackets nest in the ground or rock walls, you usually find them when mowing the lawn and you run over a nest.

The nest in the photos above will have to be removed, as it is right next to the door of the house.

Paper wasp nest start out as a paper comb of cells that looks like an umbrella, when it is small, it is tended to soley by the mated queen. As the nest grows, the hatched young take over many of the jobs of running the nest. The wasps will then start to cover the nest with a papery covering. If you’ve seen one of those giant wasps nests, its probably a bald faced hornet nest.

Bald Faced Hornet Nest

Wasps do not re-use the same nest every year, so if you find one intact after a hard frost, you can take it down and save it. They are amazing, I think.

If you need to neutralize a wasp nest, I suggested buying the foaming wasp spray that can shoot 10 feet or more. Get as close as you can while having a clear exit path, and spray the nest at dusk or at night. If you spray the nest during the day, you will not kill all the wasps, and wasps will return later in the day and buzz around the dead nest.

Unless they are right near the door of the house, I leave wasps nests alone. We get them under the gutters of the house, but they don’t bother us, and I know they are eating up insects in the garden.

Bald Faced Wasp Nest Photo By The High Fin Sperm Whale (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

June 29, 2015
Bacon Wrapped Grilled Cheese Recipe – GF Video
The best grilled cheese recipe I’ve ever made. Inspired by a BuzzFeed video, I had to make our version of this grilled cheese. It tastes wow.

Childhood memory of slices of process american cheese, unwrapped from the plastic, laid on top of white bread, and put in the toaster oven. I’m thinking processed slices of cheese like that were made for grilled cheese. I did not move on to grilled cheese recipes that used two pieces of bread for awhile. Then in college I discovered you could add ingredients into the grilled cheese. First came tomatoes.

That sandwich was in the dorm cafeteria at college. Friday was chili and grilled cheese. Its still a great Friday sandwich now.

Some thoughts on this Grilled Cheese Recipe

I made this and it was instantly my favorite sandwich recipe. You can’t eat this everyday, but you can make it in about 10 minutes. Plus it smells great in the kitchen while making it. And the dogs become very attentive during the whole process, not leaving the kitchen.

I found that square bread did better, as did thicker bread. Probably the best bread would be a thick potato bread, but I couldn’t find any, so we went with a sturdy white bread and cut it into a square.

For cheese I used a grocery store sharp cheddar. You can argue all day about the best cheese to use in a grilled cheese sandwich, but to keep it simple, we used cheddar. I have seen recipes where they grate the cheese over the bread, I used slices. Works for me.

The bread was not buttered or oiled. The bacon takes care of that plenty well. What was surprising was the bacon grilled cheese was not very greasy. You do not have to completely cover the bread with the bacon wrapping. You do have to hold the sandwich on its side to cook the side bacon. Important.

Thanks to BuzzFeed for the inspiration.
Bacon Wrapped Grilled Cheese Recipe – GF Video

Author: Eric Rochow

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 15 mins

Serves: 1 sandwich

A grilled cheese recipe better than any other I have found.
Ingredients

2 slices thick white bread

4 slices cheddar cheese

6 slices bacon
Instructions

Square off the bread slices

Insert the cheese between the bread

Wrap bacon slices around the bread. Wrap one direction, then turn sandwich 90 degrees and wrap again.

Cook in a fry pan on medium heat, use tongs to hold the sandwich on its sides to cook bacon wrapped there.

Crisper bacon yields a better sandwich.
3.3.3077
June 22, 2015