Rick and Eric talk about the GardenFork Labrador Photobook Kickstarter Project, driving with your in-laws, removing grease from a ceiling before painting, how to hang a TV on a wall, outdoor cast iron dutch oven cooking, beekeeping classes, and viewer mail!
The First Aid Companion for Dogs and Cats Book:
Buy The First Aid Companion from Amazon
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.
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.
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!
How do you use cast iron? for fireplace cooking? charcoal cooking? Let us know below:
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.
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
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.
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.
We talk with co-directors Casey Parks and Aubree Bernier-Clarke about their documentary video they are raising funds for on Kickstarter here. We also talk about how you can use kickstarter to fund creative projects and some tech tips on shooting a video documentary.
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.
GardenFork viewers have asked for a tour of the yard, so we walked around a bit to show you what is going on in the garden and yard and the kitchen, plus of course, the Labradors.
What are you doing in your garden and home? What are you plans for the winter? Lets us know below:
Cold frames have been used to grow vegetables in winter since glass was invented. Winter gardening is made possible with cold frames and hoop houses. Using a recycled window, we built a cold frame last year – see our how to build a cold frame video here – and had good success growing vegetables in the winter and starting plants early in the spring using the cold frame.
This year I took volunteer plants that had sprung up around the garden: Mustard Greens, Swiss Chard, Garlic, Chives, and parsley and transplanted these plants into the cold frame. These plants all do well in colder weather, so we’ll have some nice greens for salads in the middle of winter. How cool is that?
The key to using a cold frame to grow vegetables is controlling the temperature inside the cold frame. We use an automatic vent that has louvers that open at about 45F, letting hot air out of the cold frame. It is called a crawlspace vent at the hardware store. You can buy the automatic vent online here.
The recycled window we used is a single glaze, meaning it has only one sheet of glass, you can also use double glazed windows. As we say at GardenFork: Use what you got.
You can make a larger cold frame, aka a plastic hoop house greenhouse, by watching our hoop house video here.
Let us know your cold frame and hoop house tips and suggestions below, thx, eric.
Mike joins Rick and Eric to update us on his life, and teaching his son about how stuff works with hands on lessons on snowmobiles. And we talk about the human genome. We also read some great viewer mail.
photo by zero-silence.
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.
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…
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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…
Continued on next page
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.
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:
Learn how to deep fry turkey in this GardenFork.TV cooking video. We received a bunch of requests to make a video about how to make deep fried turkey, so just in time for Thanksgiving, here is the our simple method for deep frying turkey. We bought our Turkey Deep Fryer Kit on Amazon here
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There are a bunch of precautions when using a deep fryer, remember, the oil is real HOT and can burn you.
The secret to great deep fried turkey is temperature, you want cook the breast to 145F, then turn off the burner, lift out the turkey, drain and let it rest for 20 minutes. It will continue to cook a bit. I’ve found that if you cook the turkey past the 145F mark, it tastes dry and crumbly.
[box bg=”#FFCC33″ color=”#000000″]Be extremely careful when using a deep fryer! Hot oil will burn your skin. Follow all directions and precautions that come with you deep fryer.[/box]
We could go into the science of protein strands tightening up when they are heated too much, but we’ll leave that to America’s Test Kitchen. Just remember to check the temperature after about 25 minutes in the thick part of the breast.
Here is where we bought out deep fried turkey kit:
Rick and Eric talk about Hurricane Sandy Storm Preparation, and then move on to making hard cider, GF show ideas, Johnny Appleseed, making applesauce, deep fried turkey and more.
photo by wallyir
Part of our Foraging and Urban Homesteading Video Series, we show you how to forage for foods in your backyard. This foraging video is about the Staghorn Sumac and the tea or sumac-ade you can make from the seedhead of a sumac tree.
I remembered this drink you can make from a report I did in 6th grade, it was a cookbook of sorts of Native American foods, I think my teacher was underwhelmed by report I did, but this must have had an influence on me, in some subtle way.
In addition to the tea you can make from foraged sumac, the sumac seed pods are used in middle eastern cooking. The seeds are ground and used as a spice powder, added to dishes such as hummus and salads. neat!
According to Wikipedia, the center stem of the sumac was also used by native americans as pipe stems. Sumac also had medicinal uses in Medieval times.
Sumacs grow along forest and field edges, fence rows and the sides of the road. They are called a pioneer plant, they are one of the first bush plants to grow where a field is turning into a forest, or where the soil has been disturbed.
Their leaves are an easy way to identify the plant, especially in the fall, as they have a great red-yellow color to them.
Be sure to know the difference between Staghorn Sumac and Poison Sumac. The names of the plants are similar, but the plants do look quite a bit different. Staghorn sumac has a very unique upright seed head, usually red in color. Poison Sumac looks much more like poison ivy, and its seeds hang downward.
What can you add to our knowledge of Staghorn Sumac and foraging? Let us know below:
We rode out Hurricane Sandy in Brooklyn and came out unscathed. Many of our neighbors weren’t so lucky. Those in lower lying areas near the bay got flooded. Here are a few photos from Park Slope Brooklyn
The latest project in my head is to make and cure home made sausage. I signed up for a how to make sausage class at The Brooklyn Kitchen taught by Ben Turley, an owner of The Meat Hook who shares space with The Brooklyn Kitchen to learn phase one: how to make fresh sausage at home.
FYI, we have a bunch of how to cook videos here if you’d care to check them out.
I’ve never taken a cooking class before, and was kinda ambivalent the day of the class, but I knew it would be good when I showed up at the classroom and was handed a cold beer by Valerie, who assisted Ben with the class.
Rather than one of those cooking classes where you just sit there and watch; we were going to learn how to make sausage by making sausage, guided by Valerie and Ben.
Ben first gave a short talk, and what stuck in my head was his goal of transparency in the food they sell, and their recipes. The sausages were to make were two types of sausage they sell at the Meat Hook, and we had in our hands the actual recipes they use to make them.
The common wisdom is when many chefs publish their recipe for a signature dish in a magazine, they leave out crucial details. Ben didn’t leave out any details. He laid out exactly how to make good tasting sausage.
The key to making homemade sausage is the ratio of salt and spices to fat and protein, and Ben wrote it all out for us in grams. How cool is that?
We then broke into two teams and prepared two different sausages, while Valerie and Ben offered suggestions and guidance.
A few key things I learned about making sausage:
To make sure the meat and ingredients have been mixed properly, and the salt has been kneaded into the meat, make a thin patty of the sausage meat, put it in your palm, and turn your palm upside down. Then count to 5. If the patty is still stuck to your upside down palm when you get to 5, the meat is mixed properly.
Each person got to take home two sausages from the class project. The next day they tasted amazing.
We’ll be making a how to make sausage video soon. You can sign up for cooking classes at the Brooklyn Kitchen here.
Do you make sausage homemade? Any suggestions or tips? Let us know below:
With the impending Frankenstorm, Rick wanted to relate some of his experiences dealing with storms while stationed on Guam. We also talk about the great response of people to Eric asking people for video ideas.
Monica asks about cooking lamb shanks, Rick’s cairn terriers nesting habits, Traces of lead found in backyard urban chickens according to this NY Times article
Eric and Rick discuss the benefits of Compact Fluorescent bulbs putting less mercury in the air, arsenic in rice and arsenic in apples.
Arsenic in Rice – Consumers Reports
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/11/arsenic-in-your-food/index.htm
Preparing your garden for winter
Azomite for garden prep http://www.azomite.com
Leaf Composting
https://gardenfork.tv/dont-dump-me-bro
https://gardenfork.tv/free-leaf-compost-thank-you-neighbors-ricks-column
http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/lasagna-gardening.html
viewer questions about stripping paint, gutters overflowing,
Eric is making hard cider for a gardenfork video you can watch our first how to make hard cider video here.
Eric talks about the sausage making class he took at The Meat Hook & Brooklyn Kitchen
photo by kahle
Living each day to its fullest is hard. I think a better way of looking at this is one put forward by John Sexton in an interview with Bill Moyers, the idea to make each day as transcendent as possible.
You have to make sure that you live every day as a transcendent day to the fullest of your ability, because you never know when you’re going to have a chance to live it again.
This is kinda related to ‘being in the moment’ of everyday life. When i walk the Labs in the park or the woods, I sometimes have to stop my brain from thinking too much and just realize how neat it is to be on a walk with the pups.
This somehow works better as operating instructions for daily life. Living life to is fullest can be exhausting, always running around to all sorts of stuff for the sake of doing it.
But even today, I ran out of time before I ran out of stuff I need to do. I looked at the clock and it was 4:30 already, and I barely got done what I wanted to.
Is that OK? It has to be or you’ll be cranky all the time.
What do you do? How to live in the moment? Share with us below:
