GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Category: Cooking TV

  • Easy Spaghetti Meatballs Recipe – GF Cooks Video

    Easy Spaghetti Meatballs Recipe – GF Cooks Video

    What’s not to like about this easy spaghetti meatballs recipe? Bake the meatballs, cook the pan sauce, add pasta and eat. Simple and easy to do, and you could use this recipe to make meatballs sandwiches as well. Nice.

    Our simple recipe uses meatloaf mix and a bunch of italian seasonings. We buy about 1.5 pounds of meatloaf mix, which around us is half pork and half ground beef. The beef I bought for this project was 90% lean, and I’d rather have it around 80% lean. You could toss in a few tablespoons of bacon drippings or butter to amp this up a bit. It all works.

    A key thing here is to not over mix the meat mixture, it will make the meatballs tough. You can use your hands or a spoon to mix it all up, use what you got. Be sure to wash your hands after handling meat.

    This is different than in the video, but I have found out that I like the cheese to be coarse grated with the large holes of a box grater instead of the fine grating of the microplane. It just tastes better, and i think the cheese stands out more, you run across pieces of cheese in the meatballs, which I like.

    easy-spaghetti-meatballs-recipe-gf-cooks-video-2

    Easy Spaghetti Meatballs Recipe

    1.5 pounds of meatloaf mix, preferably 80% lean beef and pork

    4 tablespoons Italian seasoning herb mix

    3 ounces of tomato paste, half a small can

    1- 28 oz can of crushed or pureed tomatoes, buy a good quality brand.

    1 large yellow or sweet onion chopped up

    2-3  cloves of garlic

    2 slices of bread toasted and ground up in a mini chopper or similar gizmo

    1/2 cup milk

    2 eggs

    2 cups coarsely grated pecorino romano cheese

    Preheat the oven to 375F

    Boil up a pound of your favorite pasta.

    Put the onion in a large pan or pot with good slick of oil on the bottom of the pan. Its best to slow cook these onions, but do what you can. Golden color on the onions is best for flavor. Chop up the garlic and add in to toast for a few minutes at the end of the cooking.

    Add half the onion to a bowl with the meatloaf mix, 2 tablespoons Italian seasonings, eggs, ground up toast, milk, cheese, some salt and pepper.

    Add the can of tomatoes and paste and seasoning to the pan with the cooking onions and simmer the sauce while we make the meatballs. Halfway through the simmer, at about 15 min, add a half cup of water and some sugar to taste.

    Mix the meatball ingredients together, don’t overmix the meat!

    Roll the meatballs into about  1.5″ diameter balls and put in a baking pan or sheet. Put in the oven for about 20 minutes, check with a thermometer, 145F is done.

    In a perfect world, this all comes together at about the same time, so you an assemble the dish and sit down, but you can cover the meatballs with foil while prepping the other stuff.

     

     

  • Pumpkin Cornbread Recipe – GF Video

    Pumpkin Cornbread Recipe – GF Video

    A cornbread recipe that adds in pumpkin to change it up. This will go great with chili, stews, or as a Thanksgiving side dish recipe. I love cornbread already, and when I saw pumpkin puree on sale at the store, I started to think of ways to use it, and there you go: add it to a cornbread recipe!


    A couple of key things here, I use a sectional cast iron pan for this, you can use a cast iron fry pan or an 8×8 or other square baking pan as well. A glass baking dish will make the best crust, I think. If you are using cast iron, put the fry pan in the oven and then preheat the oven and the cast iron. Do not oil the cast iron pan, just let it heat up. We will oil the pan just before we put in the batter, OK? You can buy the cast iron cornbread pan here. This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but I earn a commission from. Thx!

    If you are using a baking pan, put 2 tablespoons of butter in the pan, and put it in the oven to melt just before you are ready to add in the batter. Take care not to burn the butter, this is a bad thing. If the butter burns, get a clean pan out and start over with that process.

    This is basically a quick bread recipe, so take care not to over mix the batter, the milk helps everything come together pretty well, but don’t beat it into a mess. If you want more pumpkin flavor, add in more puree, and dial back on the milk. It will be an experiment, but I think it will come out fine. Let me know how you use pumpkin in the comments below.

    pumpkin-cornbread-recipe-gf-cooks-video2

    Pumpkin Cornbread Recipe
    Recipe Type: Bread
    Cuisine: American
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 8[url:1][img:1]
    Cast Iron Corn Bread Recipe gets a flavor upgrade with Pumpkin for Thanksgiving or any time.
    Ingredients
    • 1 1/2 cups Cornmeal
    • 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour
    • 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
    • 1 teaspoon Salt
    • 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
    • 1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
    • 2 Eggs
    • 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
    • 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
    • 1/2 cup Milk
    Instructions
    1. Preheat the oven to 375F and preheat the cast iron pan if you are using one.
    2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in medium sized bowl
    3. Crack the two eggs into a small bowl and scramble them together, then add to the dry batter.
    4. Add in the puree, milk, veg oil.
    5. Mix the ingredients together, but don’t over mix, OK?
    6. If using a baking pan, put 2 tablespoons of butter in it, and place in the oven to melt.
    7. After butter has melted, swirl it around in pan and then add batter.
    8. If using cast iron, take pan out, swab vegetable oil all around and add batter.
    9. Bake for about 30 minutes and test for doneness. Its not the end of the world if cornbread overbakes a bit.
    10. Let cool for 1o minutes then pop out of the pan.
    11. This tastes great with maple syrup.

  • Grilled Tomatoes with Spinach and Cheese, an Easy Tomato Recipe – GF Video

    Grilled Tomatoes with Spinach and Cheese, an Easy Tomato Recipe – GF Video

    An easy tomato recipe to use up some of those giant beefsteak tomatoes that doesn’t involve making a salad or a BLT. Grill big tomato slices, make a cream sauce, add in spinach, top with cheese, and you’ve got a nice appetizer or side dish. This recipe comes from GF viewer Marcus, who sent us a nice note about his friends food blog, Cheater Chef, and this recipe.


    Be sure to oil the grill grates after preheating your grill, take a paper towel with vegetable oil and use tongs to apply the oil from the towel onto the grates. I use a propane grill for this easy tomato recipe, be sure to heat it up, mine takes a while, mbe your grill doesn’t. A charcoal grill will heat these up quickly.

    You can also use the broiler of your oven to make these, ideally one would put a grate into a baking sheet so the tomato slices sit above the pan. I think many people forget about the broiler function of their ovens, restaurants use the broiler all the time, we should use it more too.

    The original recipe calls for using heavy cream, and this appetizer or side dish is quite rich with the sauce, I think you can use half and half or even whole milk and dial down the richness a bit, the tomatoes will do just fine. I like a sharp cheddar for this, but use what you got, Mozzarella would work, but also some drier cheeses too, like Emmenthaler.

    easy tomato recipe

    Easy Tomato Recipe

    Grilled Tomatoes with Spinach & Cheese, based on the recipe by Cheater Chef

    1 large beefsteak tomato, nice and ripe.

    1 bag or large bunch of spinach, about a 1 pound bag would work

    small onion or half of a larger onion, chopped up fine

    1/2 cup half/half or whole milk, your choice

    1 clove garlic minced, depending on how much garlic you want.

    Butter for the pan

    2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

    • Preheat your grill

    • Slice the tomato into half inch slices, oil the grill grates carefully, and place slices on grill, close grill cover

    • Chop spinach, discarding large stems, and microwave on high for about 3 minutes, you want it to wilt, but not overcook.

    • Melt butter in fry pan,  and add chopped onions, cook them down until starting to brown.

    • Add garlic, be sure to get the garlic to grown a bit too.

    • Go check on slices grilling, turn them when they are starting to have grill marks

    • Add half/half or whole milk to the pan and let it thicken, don’t burn it like I did.

    • Toss in cooked spinach and bring cream sauce out to grill

    • Turn slices if you haven’t done so already, and place a big spoonful of the cream sauce on each slice

    • Top with cheese, and close grill to allow the cheese to melt. Don’t walk away from the grill right now.

    • When the cheese is melted, the dish is ready.

     

    Do you grill tomatoes? Let us know below:

     

     

  • Cherry Tomato Recipe: Make Pesto! – GF Video

    Cherry Tomato Recipe: Make Pesto! – GF Video

    A cherry tomato recipe that is a new one to me: Cherry Tomato Pesto. I heard about this from Lidia Bastianich, who was interviewed on ATK Radio and mentioned it. I was surprised at how well it turned out, never had I thought of making pesto this way before. What fun to have a new and unique cherry tomato recipe just in time for the tomato overflow from the garden.

    Another interesting ingredient in this pesto recipe is the use of almonds, which i had not thought of before but now seems so obvious. One thing I did learn while working on this recipe was that the almonds need to be ground up in the food processor before adding in the rest of the ingredients. Just dumping them in with the tomatoes doesn’t work, as the almonds are still pretty chunky when the rest of the ingredients have been mixed together.

    Basil does play a role here, but you could also use parsley, both work well when paired with tomato. I imagine you have both growing in your garden somewhere near the cherry tomatoes, do a mix of the two if you like.

    And do not use cheap olive oil for a pesto recipe, use the best you can get, or almost the best. There are a lot of adulterated olive oils out there, you can check out Truth In Olive Oil for a list of good olive oils you can buy in your area.

    cherry-tomato-recipe-make-pesto-1

    Not your usual Cherry Tomato Recipe

    Cherry Tomato Pesto Recipe  based on Lidia Bastianich’s recipe

    • 1 pint cherry tomatoes, not the super sweet kind, a mix is good.
    • 3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese, buy a wedge and grate it yourself
    • Approx 1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    • 3/4 cup raw almonds, not salted or roasted, but you could use the salt-roast kind in a pinch
    • 1 medium clove of garlic, smashed or minced
    • 1 small handful of basil leaves and young stems
    1. Mince of smash the garlic and let it sit out while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
    2. Put the almonds in a dry saute pan on the stove, and toast lightly. Be careful not to burn them. The almonds will click when its time to turn them.
    3. Grate the Pecorino Romano cheese with the large holes of a box grater.
    4. Pull the basil leaves and young stems from the woody older stems.
    5. Put the toasted almonds in the food process and break them down to small chunks and some powder
    6. Add the cherry tomatoes, cheese, garlic, basil.
    7. Turn on the food processor and mix this all together, be careful not to over process, you want this to have some texture.
    8. Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the food processor as it mixed the ingredients together. The pesto will thicken a bit.
    9. Test for salt, it may or may not need some.

    Do you have a favorite cherry tomato recipe? Let us know below!

     

  • Thaw Meat Quickly How To – GF Video

    Thaw Meat Quickly How To – GF Video

    Learn how to thaw meat quicky, defrost steaks, chicken breasts, fish and other smaller pieces of meat with this simple method. No longer does one have to defrost meat in the fridge overnight. No when you get home from work, you can thaw meat quickly and have it for dinner that night.

    The information presented here was first published in the NY Times in a article by our favorite food science writer, Harold McGee.

    The science behind how to thaw meat quickly

    Liquids transfer heat more efficiently than air, so if you want to change the temperature of an object, putting it in a liquid instead of the fridge will cause the objects temperature to change faster. Putting a frozen steak in the fridge overnight, the steak is surrounded by slightly warmer air, and over time, an equalization of temperature happens.

    Putting that same frozen meat in a warmer tray of water, the temperature equalization will happen much faster. The warmer water will cause the meat to warm up, and the water will lose of of its warmth, both the water and steak come to an equilibrium eventually.

    For a long time, we’ve been taught that you can run cold water over a piece of frozen meat to thaw it. But this still takes some time and lots of water, despite the water running at a trickle. Now we’ve learned that you can use warm water – I use about 100F water – to defrost meat quickly.

    A few rules here:

    • One must cook the meat right after defrosting it
    • This works only for small pieces of meat- steaks, fillets, breasts, etc.
    • The meat must be fully submerged in the water, weigh it down with something heavy.

    An alternative to the hot water running over the meat is to fill pot with 125F water, and put the meat in it. Stir the water occasionally, and the meat will defrost. Its important to stir the water. This method saves water too.

    thaw-meat-quickly-gf-video
    Chicken Breasts can be thawed quickly with this method

    What do you all think? Let us know below:

  • Dr Pepper Pulled Pork Slow Cooker Recipe – GF Video

    Dr Pepper Pulled Pork Slow Cooker Recipe – GF Video

    Pulled Pork is a GardenFork favorite, and I’ve heard of adding soda to the slow cooker, so here is our Dr Pepper Pulled Pork Slow Cooker Recipe. I like how the soda adds some sugar-caramel flavor, plus that raspberry taste that Dr Pepper has. Plus it was just fun to put this together to see what happened. What did happen was a great pulled pork. Add a side of our easy coleslaw recipe and you are good to go for a summer BBQ. Yet another great slow cooker recipe

    We used a smaller pork shoulder for this recipe, but you can use a large one if you have a large slow cooker. The cut of shoulder we use is also called a Pernil, you might see that on the label at the butcher. We like skin on and bone in, but you can use a boneless pork butt if that is what you have. Use what you got. The skin, aka fat cap, adds flavor, and you peel it off after the pork shoulder has spent its time in the crock pot.

    Dr Pepper may sound like an odd choice, but I like it. I do not drink a lot of soda, but Dr Pepper has that cola taste with a touch of raspberry that makes me want to try it with this. Colas in general have sugar and caramel, which work well for slow cooking meats, I think.

     

    A key tool to have here is a gravy separator, which I did not own until recently, but I’m glad I have it. After the pork is cooked, pour the cooking liquid into the gravy separator, and add some of this braise liquid back into the pork after it is pulled apart. I’ve seen a bunch of recipes that toss this cooking liquid, not sure why.

    Cole Slaw is a must for pulled pork, and we have a companion video with an easy Coleslaw recipe here. I like apple cider vinegar in my slaw, and sweet tomato BBQ sauce in BBQ pork.

    Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork Slow Cooker Recipe

    3-4 lb pork shoulder, bone-in, skin on

    1 bottle Dr. Pepper

    1 medium onion, chopped into rough chunks

    This is one of those throw it all in and turn it on pulled pork recipes. Some people brown the pork before braising it, and we have another pulled pork slow cooker recipe where you can do a dry rub overnight here. But this is super simple

    Take all three ingredients and put them in the slow cooker. You want the Dr. Pepper to cover about 2/3 of the pork shoulder.

    Put the cover on the slow cooker and turn it on Low and let it go for 5  hours, check it with a fork. If the pork is not falling apart tender, put the lid back on and let it go longer, check again in an hour. Repeat.

    Once cooked, remove the pork, and pour the braise liquid into a gravy separator. Remove the fat cap and shred the pork with two forks.

    Pour the braise liquid over the pork, using the separator to avoid adding the liquid fat back into the pork.

    This is best when put in the fridge overnight, but you can dress it right away with BBQ (sparingly) and have at it.

    The accompanying Coleslaw recipe is here.

    cole slaw vid

     

  • Grilled Pineapple – GF Video

    Grilled Pineapple – GF Video

    Are you grilling some food tonight? Then try this Grilled Pineapple Recipe while you’re at it. I like the idea of making dessert outdoors, one less thing to heat up the house with.

    We’ve touched a bit on grilled fruit before, with mixed results, but this one works well and is easy to do. Its a good way to get your kids acquainted with grilling and the payoff is a healthy dessert. Nice.

    Grilled Pineapple How To

    At its simplest, we take pineapple, slice it up, and place it on an oiled hot grill and keep our eyes on it. Half inch pieces work well for us, any thinner and they burn quickly and can be hard to lift up off the grill. Learn from my experience.

    This grilled pineapple can be cooked on a gas or charcoal grill, or you can use the broiler in your oven. In the summer I’m all about keeping heat out of the house, so if we are already grilling some meat or vegetables, I automatically think about grilled fruit. One could also make this in the fireplace with a grate like the one we use in our fireplace cooking videos here.

    Variations on grilled pineapple

    There are a lot of recipes that say to put the pineapple in a marinade or glaze it with oil or sugar. I don’t see the need for this, but go ahead and try it with honey or brown sugar. We drizzle some of our balsamic vinegar reduction on it (video here), and sprinkle on cinnamon or nutmeg. Chunky salt flakes are good too for that sweet – salt thing.

    A few thoughts on cutting up pineapple here. You can add the skin and top to the compost pile, but it will take a while for the top of the thing  to break down. Its kinda like a cactus or spiny aloe vera plant with thick leaves. One GF viewer suggested saving the skin and cuttings and put them in a juicer, had not hear of that one.

    Let me know your thoughts below on how to make grilled pineapple.

     

  • Garlic Scape Recipe, A Scape Frittata – GF Video

    Garlic Scape Recipe, A Scape Frittata – GF Video

    Here’s a garlic scape recipe that my friend Georgina sent to me, and I immediately wanted to make it. I had given Georgina a bunch of scapes we had harvested from our garlic plants, and she sent me a photo of the scape frittata she made. Hence this video.

    What I like about this garlic scape recipe is it moves scapes beyond the usual sauteed garlic scapes, which we have a video of here, into an area i had not thought of. But then it became obvious to me that garlic scapes can be substituted into many recipes that call for scallions or chives.

    Raw, garlic scapes have a bit of a bite, but when cooked, they mellow out. We use them in a pesto recipe raw, but I usually cook them down in a pan with some olive oil when used in other dishes.

    When harvesting garlic scapes, be sure to get them before it uncurls. That’s when the stem gets woody. You want the young immature flower and stem. If you grab them when it unfurls, you wont like the taste or the hard stem. If you don’t grow your own garlic, you can usually find garlic scapes in your Farmers Market in late spring and early summer. If you belong to a CSA, there’s a good chance you will find them in your allotment box at some point.

    To get the garlic smell off your hands after handling scapes, or garlic in general, grab a stainless steel spoon or similar tool, and rub your hands over the spoon under running water. Not sure how it does it, but the stainless steel removes the garlic smell from your hands. We’ll have to find out what that happens.

    Below is our Garlic Scape Recipe, let us know your thoughts and suggestions for more scape recipes!

    Egg Frittatta Garlic Scape Recipe

    5 or 6 eggs

    1 cup of chopped garlic scapes, 1/2″ long

    2 slices of bacon – optional

    Parmesan Cheese to taste

    2 tablespoons of milk

    If using, cook the bacon in an 9″ oven proof fry pan, set the bacon aside and drain off most of the bacon fat, leave about a tablespoon.

    With the pan still hot, toss in the garlic scapes and cook  them down to your liking. I like them brown

    Put the scapes in a bowl and crumble the bacon into the bowl.

    Add a few glugs of olive oil into the pan, and pour in the eggs. Add the scapes and bacon on top of the eggs. Don’t touch.

    Turn down the heat and let the eggs cook slowly. It should be 5-6 minutes, mbe more depending on how many eggs.

    Fire up the broiler and place the pan under the broiler to cook the top of the Frittata, I like to brown the top, but careful not to brown it.

    Slice the frittata into wedges, and sprinkle with some cheese or add dollops of goat cheese.

    Serve warm or cold.

  • Bake A Cake : Outdoor Cooking with a dutch oven – GF Video

    Bake A Cake : Outdoor Cooking with a dutch oven – GF Video

    Outdoor cooking recipe to bake a cake in a dutch oven. Great camping recipe or to keep you house cool in summer, outdoor baking is the way to go. We use this basic cake recipe and add in whatever fresh fruit we have in the summer months. Its a fun way to bake a cake that doesn’t heat up the house, or when you are camping, this is a super simple cake recipe. Its easy to change up the recipe to suit whatever ingredients you have.

    How To Bake A Cake Outdoors

    You need to have a fireproof safe place to do this. We use our grill, it works well because it is a good height, and is already built for fire. Or you could use some other fireproof material, but be careful, you will be using hot charcoal to do this. In a camping situation, you can use the coals from a campfire, but you will have to pay more attention to the coals, probably adding a few during the baking process.

    If you do not have some oven-proof bowls of some sort – we like to use ramekins – you can use balled up foil to raise the dutch oven above the coals. You do not want the bottom of the dutch oven to touch the coals, this can burn the bottom of the cake. If your dutch oven does not have a flat lid, you can make a ring of foil that will keep the coals from falling off the top of the dutch oven.

    bake-a-cake-outdoor-cooking

    To Bake a cake this way requires some experimentation, its easy to burn the cake if the coals on the bottom are too hot. There is some trial and error here. And wear oven mitts or heat proof gloves, this stuff is hot!

    Easy Cake Recipe:

    1 cup self rising flour
    OR 1 cup all purpose flour + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt

    1 stick of butter

    1 cup milk

    1 cup sugar – you can use less sugar, this cake is pretty sweet

    1 can of peaches, drained, light syrup preferred, 20-24 oz

    Preheat the oven to 375F

    Put the stick of butter in a 9×9 baking dish, preferably a glass dish, and place in the oven to melt the butter.

    Mix together the dry ingredients, then add the milk and mix.

    Pour the batter into the heated baking dish with the melted butter, then add the can of peaches.

    Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes. The cake is done when a knife comes out clean.

  • 2 Ingredient Cake Recipe – GF Video

    2 Ingredient Cake Recipe – GF Video

    Bake a simple cake with our 2 ingredient cake recipe. Yes, it works. Super simple cake recipe, just watch our video and follow along.

    This cake recipe succeeds because ice cream has the same ingredient as most cakes:

    • Eggs
    • Dairy – in this case cream and milk
    • Vanilla or some sort of flavoring


    The addition of self rising flour makes for a true 2 ingredient cake. I have found if you want to get a high rise, use a narrow loaf pan. And in true “use what you got”™ GardenFork style, we had some dried cranberries on hand, so we tossed those in. You could add in walnuts or raisinss, dates, etc.

    The choice of what kind of ice cream opens up all sorts of possiblities. Want to make pistachio cake? Buy pistachio ice cream. I think a chocolate chip mint ice cream cake sounds great. That and   cup of coffee makes dessert easy. I also like this style of simple cake recipe because it gets kids interested in cooking. I’m thinking they will be curious about how ice cream can become cake.

    I like to have ice cream along with most quick cakes, and our 2 ingredient cake work well with additional ice cream in its original form alongside the cake. Now i’m wondering if someone makes banana ice cream, and whether it would work , and how it would taste. With the endless flavors of ice cream available, you will busy with the cake recipe.

    If you like easy cakes, consider trying out our 5 minute microwave cake, decadent and done in 5 min. nice.

    2-ingredient-cake-recipe-gf-video

    If you don’t have self rising flour, you can make some. For each cup of self rising flour needed, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt to one cup of all purpose flour

    2 Ingredient Cake Recipe
    Ingredients
    • 1 pint high quality ice cream, vanilla to start
    • 1 1/2 cups self rising flour
    • handful nuts, dried fruits, whatever you got
    Cooking Directions
    1. Preheat your oven to 350 F
    2. Oil and flour a 4 x 8 cake pan or similar loaf pan
    3. Put the ice cream on counter to melt.
    4. When its kinda thick but liquid-like, pour the ice cream into a bowl.
    5. Add the flour and mix, but don\’t over mix.
    6. Pour into cake pan
    7. Bake for 45 min, until knife comes out clean.

  • Simple Apple Crisp Recipe : GF Video 12

    Simple Apple Crisp Recipe : GF Video 12

    A simple apple crisp recipe that you can make for a quick dessert with minimal effort. We visited our local pick your own orchard, Riiska Orchard in Sandisfield, Mass, and picked way too many apples! This is our go to recipe for a quick dessert. You can use store bought apples, but we’re all about local when we can, so please consider supporting your local orchards.

    We usually add a lemon juice or orange juice to the sliced apples for flavor. The juice also keeps the slices from browning, but this isn’t a big deal for us, because its going to be baked anyway. We like to use the apple slicer gizmo – link here – but you can also just use a knife to cut them up. Thinner is better, but the apple slices don’t have to be wafer thin, just thin, OK? I have found it handy to use an apple corer when slicing the apples with a knife, this round handle device cuts out the core of the apple, saving time. Yes it is one of those uni-tasker tools, but I have one.

    apple-crisp-recipe-1

    Avoid using the instant oatmeal in this apple crisp recipe, its cut too thin, and I like the big flakes of the rolled oats, aka old fashioned oats. You can use different nuts, again use what you got, I like walnuts, but pistachios would be neat in this, or almonds or whatever you have.

    This is for a 8×8 pan, but works for something slightly larger. Glass or metal pans work fine. Glass might produce a more crunchy apple crisp along the sides and bottom, not sure why. We served this with our homemade ginger ice cream, but it tastes great alone as well. You can dial back the sugar more , but not too much or the topping wont work as well, I think.

    Simple Apple Crisp : GardenFork.TV
    Ingredients
    • 4 sliced apples
    • 1 tablespoon lemon or orange juice
    • 1 tablespoon lemon or orange zest
    • 5 tablespoons butter
    • 1 tablespoon sugar
    • 1 cup rolled oats
    • 1 handful walnuts
    • 1/2 cup sugar
    • 1/2 cup flour
    Cooking Directions
    1. Slice up your apples, not paper thin, but not chunks either. Use the slicer rig or a knife. Either way core the apples.
    2. Put the slices in a bowl and mix with 1 tablespoon sugar and lemon or orange juice and zest. If you like it sweet, you may add more sugar. Keep in mind a little zest goes a long way with flavor.
    3. Put the oats, flour, 1/2 cup sugar, walnuts, and butter in a food process and give it a few whirls. You want to cut in the butter, but not over mix it.
    4. Grease an 8×8 pan, and put the apples in the bottom.
    5. Top with the flour-butter mixture, and bake in a 350 oven for 45 minutes or when the top starts to brown and a bit bubbly

  • Triple Chocolate Cake Recipe – GF Video

    Take our chocolate cake recipe, add chocolate chips and chocolate icing, and make a triple chocolate cake! Based on comments viewers made to our original simple chocolate cake video, we added a few things to amp up the cake, and it tastes amazing.

    I love this cake for its simplicity. But then, I love making everything as simple as possible, life is complicated enough as it is. So with a few additions, you can amp up the decadence of the chocolate cake and it still takes almost no time to make.

     

    triple-chocolate-cake-recipe
    Adding chocolate chips on top of the batter makes this decadent.

     

    Snooki said in her comment that her family makes a similar chocolate cake recipe and adds chocolate chips across the top of the batter, so we did that. Simple and done. You could mix the chips into the batter, but this cake doesn’t need it. I like how the chocolate chip layer is on the top. If you wanted to switch it up a little, you could use white chocolate chips, or peanut butter chips. Either one would be a great addition.

    Cathy suggested the chocolate icing or glaze. ( Not sure if its called icing or a glaze, let me know your thoughts below ) Take a half stick of butter, melt it, add in cocoa and powdered sugar and spread across the top of the cake. You could do this just before serving, but I like to do it beforehand and let the glaze settle into the cake a bit. I like the word unctuous, and it fits here really well. Now while writing this i want some cake, and its not even lunchtime yet.

    Do you guys make a cake like this? Let me know in the comments below, we can make a third and fourth version of this going forward

    Check out our original simple chocolate cake recipe video here.

    Triple Chocolate Cake Recipe – GardenFork.TV
    Ingredients
    • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
    • 1 cup sugar
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 3 tablespoons cocoa
    • 1 teaspoon baking soda
    • 3/4 cup veg oil
    • 3/4 cup water
    • 1 tablespoon vinegar
    • 1 cup chocolate chips
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla
    Cooking Directions
    1. This is based on our simple chocolate cake recipe, amped up with more chocolate
    2. Heat Oven to 350F
    3. Put all the dry ingredients in an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 pan.
    4. Mix together well, using a whisk or fork if you like
    5. Make a well or hole in the middle of the dry ingredients
    6. Add the wet ingredients in to the well.
    7. Mix the wet into the dry until it looks like chocolate cake batter
    8. Smooth the top of the batter, and scatter across the top the chocolate chips
    9. Bake on the middle rack of the oven. Check at 25 minutes, you want it moist, not dry.
    10. In our oven, this bakes in 30 minutes, a convection oven may be faster.
    11. Mix up the chocolate icing recipe, pour across the cake, and let it cool.

    Simple Chocolate Icing
    Ingredients
    • 1/2 stick – 4 ozs butter
    • 2 teaspoons cocoa
    • 1/4 cup milk
    • 1 cup powdered sugar
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla
    Cooking Directions
    1. This icing was suggested by one of our viewers, and its great on chocolate cake
    2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan.
    3. Turn off heat and add milk.
    4. Stir in cocoa
    5. Add in powedered sugar
    6. Mix well and then spread over the cake.
    7. Smooth it out if you want and allow cake to cool.

  • Simple Chocolate Cake Recipe – GF Video

    Simple Chocolate Cake Recipe – GF Video

    Fast and Simple Chocolate Cake Recipe, a perfect last minute dessert or for when you want chocolate cake and want it fast! Mix this cake in the pan, put it in the oven for 30 minutes, and you’re done. Nice.

    This cake recipe is also called screwball cake, or crazy cake. Its a great cake recipe for kids, its not complicated, and its fun to make. You can’t really mess up this cake, except for I almost messed up this chocolate cake while making this video…

    simple-chocolate-cake-recipe-gf-video

    This was was the first cake I ever made, I remember a neighbor gave us this recipe, and I liked how you could make it all in the cake pan, no extra bowls, etc. The other neat thing is it uses vinegar and baking soda as a rising agent. Not something you see too often in chocolate cake recipes.

    Things to keep in mind when making Chocolate Cake

    Make sure your sugar doesn’t have lumps in it

    Mix the dry ingredients together well. Use a whisk if you like, or a fork.

    You don’t have to grease the pan. Not sure why, but it works.

    Don’t overbake the cake, you want it moist.

    This cake recipe is pretty flexible, I’ve made  it a bunch of ways, and you can ramp up or down the amount of oil or sugar. Add more water if you take out some of the oil. My oven bakes this at 30 minutes, if you have a convection oven, or one that isn’t from a camper trailer, test the cake at 25 minutes, it might be done already.

    You can frost this cake, but I’m not big on frosting, I find most frostings too sweet and gets kinda crunchy after a day. At 1 cup of sugar in the cake, that’s enough sweet for me.

    Does your family have a Screwball Cake Recipe? let us know in the comments below:

    Simple Chocolate Cake Recipe – GardenFork.TV
    Ingredients
    •    1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
    •    1 cup sugar
    •    1/2 teaspoon salt
    •    3 tablespoons cocoa
    •    1 teaspoon baking soda
    •    3/4 cup veg oil
    •    3/4 cup water
    •    1 tablespoon vinegar
    •    1 teaspoon vanilla
    Cooking Directions
    1. Heat Oven to 350F
    2. Put all the dry ingredients in an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 pan.
    3. Mix together well, using a whisk or fork if you like
    4. Make a well or hole in the middle of the dry ingredients
    5. Add the wet ingredients in to the well.
    6. Mix the wet into the dry until it looks like chocolate cake batter
    7. Bake on the middle rack of the oven. Check at 25 minutes, you want it moist, not dry.
    8. In our oven, this bakes in 30 minutes, a convection oven may be faster.

  • Bottling HomeBrew Beer – Home Brewing 101 – GF Video

    Bottling HomeBrew Beer – Home Brewing 101 – GF Video

    Learn how to bottle homebrew beer and hard cider in our homebrewing 101 tutorial video. Eric show you that bottling homebrew beer is not hard, all you need are brown bottles and a few pieces of equipment. This same homebrew how to applies to bottling hard cider.

    Get your supplies from your local homebrew store, or consider Midwest Supplies, we like these guys:

    Make Your Homebrew Easier with this gear

    • Jet Bottle Washer: attaches to your faucet, rinses bottles quickly
    • Bottle Tree: great way to hold, dry, and move 2 cases of bottles
    • Bottle Filler: simple bottle filler makes it all easier
    • Siphon Starter: its a pain to get a siphon started without something like this

    The most important thing to remember is everything must be CLEAN that comes into contact with your beer or hard cider. You can use a diluted bleach solution, or better yet, a sanitizer. There are several types available from your homebrew supplier.

    bottling-homebrew-beer-home-brewing-101If you decide to use bleach, 1 tablespoon of laundry bleach per gallon of water works fine. Keep in mind if this gets on your clothes, it will leave white dots and patches. Not good. This is why I use sanitizer. I have ruined several pairs of pants with bleach.

    Move your fermenter bucket carefully. There is sediment at the bottom of the bucket, and you don’t want to stir it up. Its best to elevate the bucket above your work surface. Its a pain to bottle beer on the floor. Gently remove the airlock and fermenter lid.

    If you get lots of bubbles in your bottling tube, check that you have the right diameter tubing. It really helps to have 2 people doing the beer bottling, as something always spills. If you have to put down the bottle filler tube, place it in a clean bottle, so the tip does not get dirty. Remember, clean is everything with homebrewing.

    Have some suggestions? Questions? Let us know below:

  • Sweet Potato Dog Treats Recipe : GF Video

    Sweet Potato Dog Treats Recipe : GF Video

    Homemade Sweet Potato Dog Treats Recipe in this how-to video. We’ve bought sweet potato dog chews from the store, and they are expensive. Prompted by a GF viewer who sent us some sweet potato dog biscuits, we decided to try and make these.

    The Labradors Love Sweet Potato Dog Treats

    Charlie Pup Loves These
    Charlie Pup Loves These

    As you can see in the video, our dogs love the chews, and they were easy to make. I’m thinking you can also use an oven to dry the potato chews, a convection oven would do very well.

    A couple of thoughts about making dog treats here. Be very careful with the knife, don’t use a dull knife. You can also use the side of a box grater, if it has a slicer on it. Or use a mandolin, but again be careful.

    We did not peel the potatoes, and did not use any sweet potatoes that had started to get mushy. Firm good looking potatoes only.

    There were several reasons for making the home made dog treats. First was just how expensive the sweet potato dog treats cost in the store. A bag of them goes quickly, and so does your money. Second was the concerns about food safety in general, and a few things we’ve read about dog treats from other countries being made with unsafe ingredients. I don’t understand people who do things like that, but it happens more often than it should. Homemade food, to me, is just plain safer.

    sweet-potato-dog-treats-recipe-1

    We liked the dog treats that we sprayed with vegetable oil, they were a bit more leather like, not as crisp and hard, but its a judgement call on your part.

    We have more dog treat recipe video here on the site, click here to watch them. This is our first potato based dog treat, but i’m sure we’ll do more of them as we go along. Let us know your dog treat ideas in the comment section.

    Sweet Potato Dog Treats Recipe
    Ingredients
    • 2 sweet potatoes
    • 1 can vegetable oil spray
    Cooking Directions
    1. Slice the raw sweet potatoes into dog treats. You can either do round discs by cutting from the end of the potato, or cut long slices. I slice them 1/4\” thick.
    2. Lightly spray both sides of sweet potato with vegetable oil.
    3. Put in dehydrator for 24 hours. Rotate the racks halfway through for even drying.
    4. Keep in zipper plastic bags.

  • Easy Cranberry Recipe, Cranberry Jam – GF Video

    Easy Cranberry Recipe, Cranberry Jam – GF Video

    Bought too many cranberries? Here’s an easy cranberry recipe to use up those extras you bought. This jam is a simple cranberry recipe to make and you can store the jam for up to a year in mason jars by canning them.

    Easy Cranberry Recipe The GardenFork Way

    These berries are one of those superfoods that I think we should be eating year round. And by making jam and canning it, you can make a big batch of this, and have it for the rest of the year. Watch our easy canning instructions video here. How cool is it to show up at a friends dinner party with a jar of homemade jam?

    We often run across cranberries on sale at the grocery store, so buy 4 bags or so, some oranges and ginger, and you are good to go.

    These berries have a long  history with the Americas, they grow in the U.S. and Canada. Wikipedia has a long entry on cranberries, and I liked this early dinner reference to turkey and cranberries:

    In the 1672 book “New England Rarities Discovered” author John Josselyn described cranberries, writing:

    “Sauce for the Pilgrims, cranberry or bearberry, is a small trayling plant that grows in salt marshes that are overgrown with moss. The berries are of a pale yellow color, afterwards red, as big as a cherry, some perfectly round, others oval, all of them hollow with sower (sic) astringent taste; they are ripe in August and September. They are excellent against the Scurvy. They are also good to allay the fervor of hoof diseases. The Indians and English use them mush, boyling (sic) them with sugar for sauce to eat with their meat; and it is a delicate sauce, especially with roasted mutton. Some make tarts with them as with gooseberries.”

    easy-cranberry-recipe-cranberry-jam-1

    I find many sauces made with cranberries to be too sweet, so for this jam, I use only 1/2 cup of sugar, but you might want to increase that a bit. Taste the jam and add sugar if you want. Be careful, as the jam is pretty hot in the pan, let it cool on a spoon. Our Easy Cranberry Recipe is below:

    Easy Cranberry Jam
    Ingredients
    •    1 lb Fresh Cranberries
    •    1/2 cup sugar
    •    1 cup water
    •    1 navel orange
    •    2 inch piece ginger
    Cooking Directions
    1. Wash the orange well and cut into quarters. Then slice slivers of the orange, including the rind. How thick to make the slivers is up to you.
    2. Peel the ginger and cut into rounds, sticks, or diced. This depends on how you like your ginger…
    3. Rinse the cranberries and put into a medium saucepan with a thick bottom, or use a heat diffuser under the pan
    4. Add to the pan the water, orange slices, ginger, sugar.
    5. Bring to a simmer, you will start to hear the cranberries pop, kinda like quiet popcorn.
    6. Cover the lid, turn down the heat to low, and cook for 10-20 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
    7. When most of the berries have burst and started to break down, turn off the heat and let cool.
    8. Taste for sweetness, and add sugar if you want.
    9. Keep in the fridge in a covered container or jars for about 2 weeks, or use hot water bath canning to preserve. I processed the jam for 10 minutes with 1/4\\\” headspace.

    Have an easy cranberry recipe? Let us know below, be great to hear from you:

  • How To Make Gravy – GF Video

    How To Make Gravy – GF Video

    Easy how to make gravy recipe for turkey or chicken, for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or just dinner. Really good gravy is not hard to make, watch our gravy video to learn the steps. Chef Erica Wides joins Eric and walks us through the steps, and we learn some cool stuff about deglazing the pan and all.

    How To Make Gravy – the basics

    Here are the key steps to making great tasting gravy:

    • Have some extra good chicken or turkey stock on hand. Store bought is ok, but buy the good stuff

    • A quality white wine, bourbon, whiskey or hard cider will release unique flavor compounds

    • When adding the alcohol to the pan, turn off the burner to prevent the alcohol from turning into flame.

    • After adding the flour, bring the gravy to a boil so the starch molecules do their thing and thicken the sauce.

    • The gravy will thicken more as it cools

    In this how to make gravy video, we talk about Thanksgiving and Christmas and Holiday Cooking, you can apply this gravy recipe to all sorts of foods. If you roast meat in the oven, you can use the pan drippings and this gravy recipe to make a super cool tasting gravy to go with your meat. In other words, this is not just for the holidays and turkey.

    And again, this proves to me that you do not have to have fancy equipment or foods to make a great tasting meal. I used  store bought chicken, added some celery, carrot, and onion to make what is called a mirepoix, but is, in my mind, a bunch of vegetables underneath a chicken. But these vegetables are key to how to make gravy that tastes wow. Celery is one of those low key vegetables that is a secret flavor source for so many stocks.

    We have a number of Thanksgiving recipe videos here for you, check them out and let us know your suggestions and comments below, always good to hear from you.

    how-to-make-gravy-gf-video

  • DIY Pizza Oven Tips and Tricks – GF Video

    DIY Pizza Oven Tips and Tricks – GF Video

    Using our easy brick pizza oven plan, learn these tips for building your wood fired pizza oven and how to cook pizza in it. After using our DIY pizza oven several times, I wanted to share with you all some things I have learned about firing the brick oven and cooking pizza in it. If you haven’t watched our how to build a portable brick pizza oven, check it out here.

    Planning helps a lot to have a successful brick oven pizza night. I suggest you start assembling the oven 4 hours ahead of time, and starting the fire 3 hours ahead.

    Build the pizza oven on a strong base. Don’t use flimsy sawhorses, they will break! Again, learn from my mistakes here…

    Start your pizza dough at least 24 hours ahead of time, if possible. You can check out our pizza dough recipe videos here. If this is a spontaneous pizza night, go ahead and use the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day dough recipe. It all tastes good!

    diy-pizza-oven-tips-and-tricks

    Don’t burn green wood. Learn from my mistakes! I grabbed a bunch of kindling that I did not realize was green, and had to rebuild the fire after it didn’t start well. Oak works best, I think.

    Rake most of the coals to the back of the oven, and then throw another large log onto the coals, you need to keep the fire going for multiple pizzas.

    Our homemade pizza peel works great with the brick pizza oven, watch the pizza peel video here. Use cornmeal on the pizza peel, it helps the pizza slide off the peel onto the oven floor.

    Rotate the pizza halfway through the baking process, it helps to even out the cooking.

    Don’t pile on the ingredients, less is better in this case. Vegetables should be sliced thin. Vegetables such as broccoli are best blanched first, so they cook along with the pizza. You can also add things after the pizza comes out of the oven.

    Here is the how to build the brick pizza oven video:

    Click here to see some of the pizza ovens people have built after watching our how-to vids, have you built one? Please send us pictures:  [email protected]