GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

  • Potato Bazookas and Catapults with William Gurstelle GF Radio

    William Gurstelle, author of the newly updated DIY book Backyard Ballistics, joins Eric today to talk about what makes us want to make stuff, how William came to writing DIY books, and how civilized we are today compared to just a few hundred  years ago.

    Eric and William talk about catapults and how they may have been one of the ways the Plague was spread through Europe, and how they were state of the art weaponry for hundreds of years. More on the subject of catapults, also known as siege engines, can be found on Wikipedia.

    Our video on how to make a potato bazooka, aka potato cannon, was inspired by his Backyard Ballistics book, this and Bill’s other books are full of cool projects that do fun things and explain the science behind them as well. The new updated version of the Backyard Ballistics book contains a bazooka powered by dry ice with a new burst valve built with stuff from your kitchen. neat.

    William’s Propane Flame Cannon, from his Practical Pyromaniac book, is on my to do list now. Make big balls of flame from plumbing parts. fun.

    Below are some of William’s books and links to buy them:

    Buy Practical Pyromaniac from Indie Bound Here

    Buy Practical Pyromaniac From Amazon Here


    Buy Catapult Book From Indie Bound

    Buy Catapult Book From Amazon Here


    Buy from Indie Bound Here

    Buy From Amazon Here

  • Get Rid Of Slugs with this homemade slug trap

    Here’s a great way to get rid of slugs organically in your vegetable garden. This DIY slug trap was sent to us by Laurel who has slugs on her vegetable plants. Great way of practicing organic slug control.

    I enjoy what you do, and love the dogs… Now that strawberries are ripening, there are always slugs. I have a trap that I like, and you might like it too. It’s easy.
    Take an empty small coffee can to start. About 1/3 of the way down, drill 3 or 4 holes that measure  3/4 to 1 inch. Spray a little bit of oil on the inside.. Now, bury it, just to where the holes are. Then you pour about 1 inch of beer in the can and top it with the plastic lid.
    Voila, a slug trap, with “no chemical or dyes”, just beer. Slugs like beer, they go in and down to eat, but have a hard time getting out because of the greased sides. Have the dirt come up to the hole so it’s easy for the slug to crawl through.
    You are like a friend that comes into my house

    homemade slug trap
    DIY slug trap

    How neat, super simple way to deal with slugs and you get to drink some beer too! Do you have a way to get rid of slugs? Let us know below:

  • Supersedure Queen Cells – Beginning Beekeeping Video

    I found these supersedure cells, sure sign of a queenless beehive, yesterday. Supersedure cells are a beehive’s way of raising an emergency queen. Something has happened to the queen, either it died, or the workers killed it because it was injured or not laying well, and the honeybees are raising a new queen. There were no signs of freshly laid eggs in this hive, and very little capped brood.

    Supersedure cells are different than swarm cells. Swarm cells are queen cells that the hive is raising to create a new queen to take over the hive after the hive swarms. When a hive swarms, the current mated queen leaves with the swarm, leaving the new queen raised from the swarm cells to take over.

    This hive had already swarmed, and I was thinking the new queen probably wasn’t well mated, considering we only have two hives in the yard here, and there is only one other hive nearby of Italians that I know of – there are probably feral hives nearby as well.

    How do bees raise a new queen? They take some freshly laid eggs, usually 1-3 days old, and place them in these enlarged queen cells, and feed the larvae a diet of royal jelly. They don’t feed these larvae anything else, and the 100% royal jelly diet causes them to develop into queens rather than workers.

    I happen to have just raised a new queen in my queen nuc, so I pulled out the frames with the supersedure cells on them, placed them in a nuc with some honey frame and workers, to make new queens.

    I then took the nuc with the mated queen I just raised, and did a hive combine of the queenless hive and the mated queen nuc. I shot some video and we’ll be posting a video of that soon.

    Added: Beekeeping nomenclature can be vague and confusing, because there is no one beekeeping terminology authority, here is a description of supersedure cells from my favorite beekeeper, Rusty, of HoneyBeeSuite.com :

    A cell hanging off the middle of the frame somewhere is usually a supersedure or “emergency” queen cell. A cell hanging off the bottom of a frame is usually a swarm cell.

    Supersedure cells are often begun after the eggs are laid. The bees, knowing they need to replace the queen, begin feeding royal jelly to a young larva they have selected. They build a supersedure cell around this larva (or several larvae) and it hangs down from the face of the comb. Swarm cells, however, are built in preparation for swarming and are not intended to replace the queen, but to raise a second queen. This way, there will be a queen for the part that swarms and a queen for the part that stays.

  • Grease Trap Back Up! GF Radio

    Rick and Eric talk about the power of the individual, arduino controllers for beehives, and why Eric was offline for a week. And what to do when your friend calls about his flooded basement. Plus viewer mail!

     

    Show Notes:

     

    Grease Trap: 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Beehive Weight Project:

    Arduino controller boards

    GMOs, Microwaves, & Podcasts

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Ben Zen  – cider, soaps, homemade deodorant

    Earth Eats podcast – Raw okra salad & History of the Ball Jar 

    Raw Okra Salad With Southern Indiana Vinaigrette

    Ingredients

    • 1/2-1 cup tomatoes (variety of colors and types)
    • 1/2-1 cup red onions
    • 1/2-1 cup tomatillos
    • 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
    • 2-3 cayenne pepper rings
    •  Lemon zest
    • 3 tablespoons vinegar
    • 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
    •  Salt and pepper to taste

    Cooking Directions

    1. Choose small, young okra. They get more fibrous and are less ideal for raw dishes as they get larger.
    2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss. Serve immediately

    Gardenfork Podcasting:

    •  skype
    • skype call recorder ecamm
    • —–split conversations with modules for editing in WAV or AIF, avoid editing in MP3, but MP3 is fine for final output
    • soundflower – Mac utility that allows you to expand inputs via MIDI utility
    •  Final Cut
    • Garage Band
    • Quicktime Pro
    • iMovie
    •  Microphones
    • blue Snowball usb
    •  Plantronics dsp 400 – we’ve discovered that I’m overdriving my mic, despite what the control panel tells me, thus the “clipping” of some of my audio. Eric tried to fix as much as he could in post production. – rick
    •  waterfall sounds – a bit of artful post-production editing covers up a lot of errors, one reason I run a waterfall sound through all my videos is that it covers up a lot of mic bobbles and production problems. It’s also soothing, like here – rick

    Gardenfork Videos:

    wordpress site

    plug-in powerpress blubrry

     

     

  • Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe GF TV Video

    Easy Cherry Tomato Recipe served over pasta, rice, or quinoa. Here’s a recipe for all those ripe cherry tomatoes in your garden. Roast the tomatoes with some garlic and the like, and its amazing.

    My friend Bill gave me this cherry tomato recipe; he’s been making it a few times a week. Its a great midweek dinner, or weekday dinner recipe, super simple.

    I make this with all yellow tomatoes, but you can ‘ use what you got ‘ cause that’s the GardenFork way, after all. The yellow cherry tomatoes have  lower acid content, and are sweeter, I think, than red cherry tomatoes, but that’s just my opinion.

    If you have a recipe for cherry tomatoes, please share it with us below, be great to hear from you.

    Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe
    Recipe Type: Pasta
    Cuisine: Italian
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: 4
    Cherry Tomato Pasta recipe to deal with all the tomatoes you have in the garden.
    Ingredients
    • 2 pints cherry tomatoes
    • 1/4 cup olive oil
    • 4 large cloves, coarsley chopped garlic
    • 1 cup oil cured black olives – optional
    • 1 cup cubed feta cheese
    • 1 lb pasta, preferably whole wheat
    Instructions
    1. pints cherry tomatoes
    2. /4 cup olive oil
    3. large cloves, coarsley chopped garlic
    4. cup oil cured black olives – optional
    5. cup cubed feta cheese
    6. lb pasta, preferably whole wheat
    7. Cooking Directions
    8. Preheat the oven to 375F
    9. Wash and dry the cherry tomatoes. arrange the tomatoes in one layer in a 9 x 13 pan.
    10. Coat with the olive oil and distribute chopped garlic over tomatoes.
    11. Roast in oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cherry tomatoes start to burst and brown slightly.
    12. If using black olives or feta cheese, add these after tomatoes are roasted.
    13. Cook pasta while tomatoes are roasting. Drain cooked pasta and divide between 4 bowls.
    14. Pour roast tomato mixture over the pasta.

     

  • Buttermilk Orange Scone Recipe

    Who doesn’t enjoy a hot a flaky, buttery scone with jam? This recipe uses orange essence to complement the tart flavor that the buttermilk lends to this British party. Much like a good southern biscuit, it’s important not to overwork this dough. It’s best eaten within a few hours after baking. Frankly I don’t know what they’re like the next day, there’s never anything left

    Yield: about 12 to 14 biscuits (not sure, I keep eating the dough)

    • 2 cups all purpose unbleached all-purpose flour
    • 1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
    • 3 tbsp sugar
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
    • 1/2 cup dried currants or small golden raisins
    • 1/2 cup melted butter

    Orange Slurry: Mix these together and chill

    • 2 tsp orange blossom water, or 1/2 tsp orange essence
    • 3/4 buttermilk
    • 1/4 cup ricotta cheese

    In a large bowl whisk flour and dry ingredients together, except for currents. Add chilled butter cubes to bowl and coat them well with the flour mixture, use your hands to break up clumps. Then incorporate using a pastry cutter until the texture resembles gravel and sand. If you use a food processor, pulse until you get the gravel and sand texture. Add chilled orange slurry. With a rubber spatula add currents a tbsp at a time and mix to form a loose dough. Transfer dough to lightly floured board and knead a few times but do not over work. Refrigerate and let dough rest for 20 minutes.

    Preheat oven to 450°. On lightly floured surface roll dough into a circle that is 3/4″to 1″ in thickness. With a long knife or a pastry scraper divide into 8 pie-cut wedges. Note that cutting method is important. You must push straight down without a dragging the knite to create a clean edge. This type of edge allows the scone to rise on the cut side. Brush tops with melted butter and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until tops brown and scones have risen.

    USING A BISCUIT CUTTER:
    Roll out a large rectangle that is 3/4″ thick. Dust biscuit cutter with flour and push straight down into dough. Dust biscuit cutter after five cuts to maintain a clean edge. Cut biscuits closely, and separate from the outer areas minding the cut edges. Transfer to a cool ungreased baking sheet. Roll leftover dough into a sheet and punch more biscuits. Carefully brush tops with meted butter and bake. Note that round shaped cutters (fluted or straight) create a biscuit that rises straight up. Angular or long oval shapes tend to create a loaf shapes as the rising point is more at the center.

    If you’re making a whole mess of scones keep the dough refrigerated until you’re ready to cut. You can make the dough in advance and freeze it for use later. Just let it thaw over night in the refrigerator and roll it out when you’re ready to cut and bake.

  • Easy Native Pollinators

    Just a short “bonus” video from Rick this morning on Easy Native Pollinators. He’s been guarding his dill and fennel patches in the front yard from the Perfectionistas’ in the neighborhood (and inside his own house) all season long. The result is this somewhat seedy but extremely prolific butterfly habitat, a Motel 6 for Monarch Butterflies headed for Mexico in successive waves new hatchlings.

    Rick also covers up his innate laziness in not getting a spring garden planted in a side bed by showing off his stand of Buckwheat. It grew from seed to super pollinator attractor in less than 3
    weeks.

  • Making Hard Cider, Brewing Beer, Making Soap GF Radio

    How to make hard cider, how to brew beer, and how to make your own soap are the topics on GF Radio. Ben joins eric to talk about hard cider and how homemade hard cider is made, and what not to do when making hard cider. what yeast should you use when making hard cider? wild yeast or a cultured yeast? eric used a champagne yeast the last time he made hard cider, you can see his how to make hard cider video here.

    Beer Brewing comes next, both Ben and Eric homebrew beer; Ben talks about making up your own beer brewing recipes, brewing beer from grain instead of from malt extracts, and how to brew beer in a studio apartment in brooklyn. Eric prefers recipes for malt exract brewing, there is less to mess up that way. making lager beer, or lagering, is a goal for Eric. Making a lager beer is harder, you have to control the temperature more better, from what we understand.

    Next up is making your own soap and deoderant. Ben is now making dishwasher soap, shampoo, deoderant, and dish soap for his family. its not hard, he learned from a class at work, but you can learn online. we’ll have to make a video about how to make soap soon, it sounds like even Eric can make soap.

  • DIY Grow Light PDQ

    We don’t have a lot of space at Casa Cairn, so we have to make a lot of stuff do double duty. And why not? Most of our stuff is really used very infrequently. I’ll bet it’s pretty much the same at your house.

    Today we’ll take a two bulb florescent light from the garage and press it into it’s twice a year role as a grow light. Note that you don’t have to buy special –and expensive– grow bulbs, but your light should have two florescent bulbs, one in the Daylight or Cool spectrum (toward blue around 6,000 K) and one in the Warm end of the spectrum (toward red, around 2,500 K). Many door growers are using red and blue LED lamps, but those are expensive (although cheaper to run than fluorescents) for a home project.

    Here’s your materials list:

    • 16 ft of 2″ x 2″ lumber. The longest piece needs to be about 4’6″ long (about 3 inches longer than your fluorescent fixture). The uprights need to be equal length, around 3 foot long or so. The feet should be at least 1 foot long. As I note in the video, the controlling issue for the uprights is usually your ceiling fan.
    • 4 – plywood triangles, about 8″ on each side. Cut up some scrap.
    • 2 – screw in hooks to hold the light
    • A fist full of wood screws, about 1″ long.
    • 2 – cleats or some way to secure the light and keep it from crashing down on your seedlings
    • 1 – 24-hr timer. You light should be on for 18 hours off for 6 hours. If plants don’t get rest, they can’t generate the hormones and enzymes they need to grow.
    • a length of line so that you can raise and lower the light. Note: the closer you put your light to the plants, the less “leggy” they will grow.

    This video was edited, including voiceover, on my iPad. Not quite as smooth a job editing as I’d like, but power was out for much of the project.

  • Beet Smoothie Recipe

    In our honey tasting episode, I described one of my favorite smoothies – one made with beets– that subsequently caught some Twitter flack. I should have noted that the beets should be roasted, and since this is a snack I really do love, I thought I’d elaborate on the recipe and perhaps provide a disclaimer.

    Actually, let’s cover the disclaimer first: This smoothie is for the beet-lover. If you are in the camp that beets taste like dirt or if you are on the fence regarding this vegetable, this will not be the preparation to convert you. Still interested in a taste? Alright then, let’s go…

    The natural sweetness of apples and roasted beets plus a stealthy dose of spinach make this smoothie a great way to start your morning or to sip on as an afternoon pick-me-up. Even its fuchsia hue it uplifting. Bonus: It can also be served as a cold soup.

    Roast the beets ahead of time so they have an opportunity to chill in the fridge. Use whatever apple variety you’d like, but I highly recommend Pink Lady – its tart sweetness makes the smoothie a little special. The recipe is easily doubled, tripled, etc.

    Beet Smoothie
    1 serving
    Ingredients
    •    1 medium beet, roasted, cooled and peeled
    •    1 apple, cored (Pink Lady is best)
    •    handful spinach
    •    kefir, yogurt, milk, or water as need (I use kefir)
    Cooking Directions
    1. Blend the beet, apple, and spinach on high in a blender or powerful food processor until smooth.
    2. Add liquid as needed to bring to desired consistency.

  • Viewer Mail, English, and Aquaponics : GF Radio

    We read a nice note from Alice and reflect on what is GardenFork?

    And a big thank you to Christina of FelineDesignInc.com , check out her site if you need web and graphic design work.

    Kevin takes us to task for mispronouncing words like Propolis, for Rick, english is a second language.

    Gardening for the fall season, what vegetables do you plant to harvest in the fall? Kale, spinach, lettuces, mesclun, radishes. Rick brings up a few gardening apps, Mother Earth News has a few good ones for gardening.

    Rick tells us about grafting tomatoes. neat. And the importance of providing water for your honeybees.

    Rick also tells us about a black light flashlight that he uses to find tomato hornworms on his tomato plants.

    Then we talk about olive oil, is it adulterated? Rick tells us a few olive oils that were recommended by a consumer magazine.

    Related to the olive oil talk, we talk about how to make your own balsamic vinegar dressing in this video and if you want to make your own balsamic vinegar reduction, or the balsamic vinegar hack, watch the video here.

    For the salad dressing recipe, its not necessary to use a metal bowl, i just like to use a metal bowl.

    And finally, Rick liked Eric’s Porchetta Recipe Video, watch it here.

     

  • DIY Solar Beeswax Melter Video by Rick

    Solar Wax Melter plans here. Rick built this DIY solar beeswax melter out of a cooler and stuff you probably have in your garage.

    Beeswax is made by the honeybees, and when you harvest honey, the cappings on the cells of the honeycomb are cut off, and you can save these wax cappings, melt them down, and make candles, soap, and all sorts of beeswax products. In this how-to video you’ll see how honeybees make beeswax, and how they build honeycomb in a beehive.

    A solar beeswax melter will melt and clean beeswax without using electricty. Its very hands off, you don’t have to do much with it, just leave it in the sun and the solar power takes care of it. This wax melter uses a cooler and a piece of glass, its important that the glass not be double glazed, according to Rick. A few pans from the store and you are good to go.

    With the melted and cleaned beeswax, you can make all sorts of beeswax based products. Some of the most popular are candles, soaps, and lotions.
    Some interesting facts about beeswax: bees eat honey from their hives to produce beeswax, and the ambient hive has to be between 90 -97 degrees F.

    Do you use beeswax? let us know how below:

  • Melissa Bee Farm Honey Tasting GF Radio

    Producer Sarah and Eric do a honey tasting in Brooklyn of Rick’s Melissa Bee Farm Honey . and a thank you to Christina of Feline Design for designing Rick’s honey label.

    you can get the Vitamix Sarah has here:

  • Porchetta, Roast Pork Shoulder Recipe

    This Porchetta recipe is a great use for a pork shoulder or pork butt. I fell hard for porchetta after having the porchetta sandwich at the amazing Porchetta restaurant in the East Village in NYC. Then I got Anne Burrell’s cookbook, Cook Like A Rockstar, and right there was a recipe for Porchetta. yum.

    I like Anne Burrell, her book, and her approach to life; down to earth like GardenFork, no pretension, just being who she is.

    We were recently at the Brooklyn Flea in Brooklyn, NY and Porchetta was selling pork sandwiches and they were awesome.

    Our Porchetta Recipe is based on those that have come before us, like Porchetta’s recipe here, and Anne’s recipe in her cookbook.

    We bought a deboned picnic shoulder from our local butcher for this recipe. You could remove the bone yourself, but your local butcher can do it in about 2 minutes, and its fun to watch too. We did not score the pork skin, but that is a classic method when making porchetta, it makes more of the skin crackling, if you know what I mean. We used a mix of white wine and chicken broth cooking the vegetables and basting the pork, but you can use what you got and it will be fine.
    Porchetta, Roast Pork Shoulder Recipe
    Ingredients
    •    1 Pork Shoulder, deboned
    •    1 cup chopped chives
    •    3 stems fresh rosemary
    •    1 cup chopped parsley
    •    4 cloves garlic, mashed or fine chop
    •    1/4 cup virgin olive oil
    •    1 bottle white wine
    •    1 cup chicken broth
    •    1-2 quarts chopped root vegatables, onions, potatoes
    Cooking Directions
    1. Take the pork shoulder out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature for an hour.
    2. Preheat the oven to 475F
    3. Cut up the herbs, mix and mash together in a bowl with the olive oil, season with salt and pepper.
    4. Roll open the pork shoulder, place the herb-oil mix in the meat, roll the shoulder up and tie with butcher\’s twine as best you can.
    5. Chop up your root vegetables, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, winter squash, parsnips, whatever you got, into bite size pieces and lay them in the bottom of a roasting pan. Add a bottle of white wine, you can also use red if that\’s what you got.
    6. Lay the stuffed pork shoulder on the bed of vegetables, insert a meat thermometer.
    7. Put in the oven at 475F for 30 minutes, then turn down the oven to 350F and cook until the center of the pork is 145F. this will depend on how large your pork shoulder is. Approx 1 – 1.5 hours.
    8. Allow to rest for 30 minutes then carve and eat.

    Have you made porchetta? what is your favorite pork shoulder recipe? let us know below!

     

     

  • Sweet Potato and Kimchi Fritters

    This recipe is one many that I’m developing for an cookbook project called Kimcheelicious. It’s about home-fermentation and cooking with kimchi that you make in your own kitchen. I’m raising funds on Kickstarter.com to get this book off the ground.

    If you like this recipe please support Kimcheelicious on Kickstarter. Fundraising ends on August 28, 2012.
    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1906123150/kimcheelicious-puts-a-korean-pickle-on-the-america

    To look at Kimcheelicious food ideas go to my Tumblr.com page:
    http://kimcheelicious.tumblr.com

    Cheers,
    Tony Limuaco
    Contributing Food Writer

    Sweet Potato and Kimchi Fritter (makes roughly 20 fritters)

    • 1 1/2 cup sweet potato, grated
    • 1 cup mashed potato (Russet or Yukon)
    • 1/2 cup Napa cabbage kimchi, well drained and minced, reserve juice
    • 1/2 cups onion, minced (white or Spanish)
    • 1/2 cup Poblano pepper, cut into match sticks
    • 1/2 cup corn starch
    • 1 egg, beaten
    • 2 tsp sugar
    • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
    • 1 tbsp granulated garlic
    • 1 tbsp salt
    • 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds or 1 tbsp dark sesame oil (optional)
    • 2 tbsp coarse Korean chili (optional)
    • high frying oil (canola or soy)

    Dipping Sauce: Mix all these ingredients together.

    • 2 tbsp kimchi juice
    • 2 tbsp soy sauce
    • 1 tsp rice vinegar
    • 2 tbsp water
    • 1 tsp honey
    • 1/2 tsp dark sesame oil
    • 1 clove minced garlic

    Prep: Boil potato, mash and cool. Cut pepper into matchsticks, rough 1 1/2″ in length. Drain kimchi well in a colander and press into a paper towel, and mince. Mince onion. Reserve the juice for sauce. Grate sweet potato. In a large bowl, combine all these with dry ingredients. Beat egg and mix everything well well. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

    In a wok or large pot, add oil to the depth of at least 2″. Heat oil to 375°. You can also check the temperature with the end of a wooden spoon or a chop stick. When bubbles form around end the oil is ready for frying. Be sure to cover with a splatter screen wen frying. For larger batches: If oil starts smoking or becomes very cloudy, lower heat or allow to cool and change oil.

    Scoop sweet potato batter with a large dinner spoon and pack tightly, squeeze out excess juice as you form a fritter. Drop into hot oil. Fry no more than 6 to 8 fritters at at time, allowing 3 minutes on each side or until the fritters are crisp and golden. Drain well on a rack or paper towels. If serving later keep warm in oven at a low temperature (100°). Serve while they’re crisp and hot with dipping sauce.

    You can freeze in batches for future meals. Freezing actually preserves flavor and nutrients such as vitamins A and B. To prevent them from freezing into a large boulder, freeze them individually first. Form fritters and place them onto tray with at least 1″ of space between. Put them in the freezer for about two and a half hours then put them into a large freezer bag. Deep fry as instructed above.

  • Braised Italian Meatball Recipe


    My friend Elaine’s mother is the consummate southern Italian cook. Mama Lena shared her meatball recipe with me over the phone, but I had to figure out the proportion of ingredient. After a few batches I think I came close. Lena’s meatball recipe makes roughly 50 small meat balls.

    • 2 spicy Italian sausages (remove casing)
    • 1 lbs ground beef (80/20 fat)
    • 1/4 ricotta cheese
    • 1/8 cup grated Parmesan cheese
    • 1/4 cup unseasoned bread crumbs
    • 1/4 cup minced onion (fine)
    • 1/4 minced parsley (fine)
    • 1 tbsp each: dried oregano and basil
    • 1/2 tsp salt
    • 1 egg
    • 3/4 cup olive oil
    • 4 cups of marinara sauce

    The key to rolling perfect meatballs is a little olive oil. Also don’t crowd the pan, cook in small batches (8 at at time). Mix all ingredients well with your hands, set aside for 20 minutes. Coat the palms of your hands with a little olive oil, pinch a golf ball size portion and roll into a tight ball, make enough for the week. Apply olive oil again if the meat sticks to your hands.

    Heat a large saute pan and add enough marinara sauce cover half the depth of the meatballs. Add meat balls to the pan, cover and braise for 8 minutes. Turn meatballs over and braise for another 5 minutes. Set them aside and start a new batch. Add more marinara and a little water if the sauce becomes too thick. Serve meatballs with sauce over your favorite pasta with a little fresh parsley and more grated Parmesan. You can freeze meatballs without the sauce and reheat them in the oven for another meal.

  • Rice Noodles & Green Beans with Tamarind-Almond Butter Sauce Recipe

    To curb a budding takeout addiction, I learned how to make Pad Thai at home. Although some recipes call for a substitute of lime juice, the dish traditionally relies on tamarind for its acidity, so I purchased a jar of tamarind paste. I have since become smitten with its sour-sweet bite and am experimenting with other ways to use this new-to-me ingredient. Otherwise, that jar would wind up forgotten in condiment purgatory, better known as the door of the fridge.

    So far I’ve been sticking with riffs of Pad Thai: rice noodles, vegetables, and roughly Asian ingredients. I’m sure it’s all far from authentic, but what’s more traditional than taking what you have on hand to put together a meal? The recipe below is a recent dinner using tamarind that comes together quickly and with relatively few ingredients but is still flavorful and satisfying. If you try it out, let me know what you think. And please pass along any of your tamarind-inspired recipes – It’s no small jar!

    Rice Noodles and Green Beans with Tamarind-Almond Butter Sauce
    Ingredients
    •    1/2 lb green beans (or three large handfuls), cut into bite-sized pieces
    •    6 oz linguine-style rice noodles
    •    1/4 cup creamy almond butter
    •    2 tbsp tamarind paste
    •    2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
    •    1 tbsp rice vinegar
    •    1 tbsp honey
    •    1/2 tsp chili pepper flakes
    Cooking Directions
    1. 1. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. While waiting on the water, in a small bowl mix together the almond butter, tamarind, soy sauce, and rice vinegar, honey and chili flakes. You may need to add upward of a ¼ c of water to bring the sauce to the consistency of salad dressing.
    2. 2. Add the green beans to the boiling water. After a minute or two, turn off the burner and add the rice noodles. The rice noodles should be softened and the green beans fork tender in about five minutes. Strain the water and return the beans and noodles to the pot. Toss with the tamarind-almond butter sauce and serve immediately.
    3. Serves 2 generously

     

  • Intelligent Puppies, New Cars, Stolen Plumbing GF Radio

    Monica joins Eric to talk about what Monica has been up to lately. We talk about her new rescue pup, and the trouble the younger dog can get into, but also the fun too.

    Monica uses the laser pointer to exercise her dogs, its a good exercise tool when its too hot to go outside.

    Twitter is discussed, Eric uses twitter a lot to keep up with people, using TweetDeck, Monica likes it for fast access to news events.

    How to cope with hot weather? Stay hydrated. Monica removed the grass from their yard and put down pavers, the pups had torn up all the grass anyway.

    you can follow Monica on Twitter: @Stuccolow