Search Results for: label/cooking

139 results

Bean Fest Begins!

Mrs. Homegrown
Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
24 Comments
...d to be spiced to perfection with some sort of rare cumin. It was delicious beyond describing. The cook had mastered the hidden art of beans. As homey and friendly as beans are, they can be tricky. Make a couple of misteps in cooking and you end up with bland hippie slop. These days I get it right more than I get it wrong, but I’m always looking to improve. So I’m crowd-sourcing my bean quest. Let’s celebrate the humble bean and...

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Scarlet Runner Bean Stew

Homegrown Neighbor
Appropriate Technology, Food, Gardening, Recipes
RLeave a comment
...choice. In fact, my neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Homegrown, grow them every summer.  I’ve never had scarlet runners as a dried bean before. But having lived in co-ops in Berkeley for many years, I am pretty experienced at cooking dried beans, other legumes and whole grains. When it comes to dried beans I almost always do the overnight soak method. To soak beans overnight, simply place your beans in a large pot. Rinse them and pick out any sto...

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Bean Fest, Episode 4: Frijoles Refritos

Mrs. Homegrown
Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
7 Comments
...fairness, that real, home cooked lard from well-raised pigs is not such a bad fat. For what it’s worth. To make refried beans you just need to have some cooked beans on hand, the classic choice being pintos.  In Tex-Mex cooking the pintos meant for refritos are first cooked with onion, garlic and a pork rind. Considering that refritos are fried in a bath in oil, garlic and onion, you could theoretically start with very plain boiled beans. B...

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Handmade, Homegrown Apron Contest

Homegrown Neighbor
Miscellaneous
4 Comments
Homegrown Evolution reader Pam Neuendorf has offered fellow readers a chance to win one of her handmade aprons. She sells her wares through Etsy, a website where crafters and artisans can sell their goods. You can see more of her aprons here. She has an ordinary day job but is a maven of craft by night. Pam says, “I love making aprons. They make me happy.” I am a big fan of aprons. They are useful for cooking, gardening or just lo...

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Our Rocket Stove

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness, Rocket Stove
65 Comments
...decided to build a permanent one just off our back deck for entertaining and as a backup to our gas stove should an emergency take out our utilities. The rocket stove was developed for use in poor nations where wood used for cooking has led to the vast, wholesale, deforestation of large swaths of the earth’s surface. Rocket stoves can be built out of metal or masonry and consist of a L shaped tube, at the bottom of which you place your woo...

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Pot o’ Goodness: Low, Low-Tech Water Conservation

Mrs. Homegrown
Water and Power, Water Conservation
16 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: Continuing on the greywater theme, on big cooking days, when I’m doing a lot of boiling, steaming, soaking and rinsing, I collect all that used water in a big pot and take it out to the garden to water the plants. It’s full of nutrients, and won’t cause any blackwater* problems as long as you: Use it immediately. It will turn foul if left to sit too long. Pour it straight into the soil–don’t s...

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Deadly Nightshade vs. Black Nightshade

Mr. Homegrown
Foraging
16 Comments
...m from our lack of  intimacy with plants in the West. The use of Solanum nigrum by indigenous peoples is actually a bit complicated. Different soil conditions can, it turns out, produce some toxic alkaloids in Solanum nigrum. Cooking eliminates the alkaloids.  Jennifer M. Edmonds and  James A. Chweya, writing for the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, describe the uses of Solanum nigrum and end up advocating for its widespread use a...

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Another Panel Solar Cooker

Mr. Homegrown
Solar
3 Comments
...an also fashion a sunshade alone into a solar panel cooker, I’ve found that they don’t stand up well in even a moderate wind. Plans for Poyourow’s cooker can be found here (pdf). She also has a list of solar cooking resources here. And yes, for most North Americans this is the wrong time of year to be blogging on this topic since, as the sun gets lower in the horizon, solar panel cooking season is almost over. But I’ve got...

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Summer of Solar Cookin’

Homegrown Neighbor
Solar
11 Comments
...the day. It came with two round 3 quart pots, so it can cook up quite a lot of food. Summer is here and it is nice and sunny in Southern California. And way too hot to turn on an oven. So I am embarking on a summer of solar cooking fun. I’ve made a few peach cobblers in the solar cooker, but mostly I use it to cook beans. I love beans. They are inexpensive, hearty and filling. I keep my pantry stocked with at least two or three different...

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Introducing the Dehydrated Kimchi Chip

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food, Food Preservation
3 Comments
...l wrapped into one new discovery? That tasty snack breakthrough could very well be the dehydrated kimchi chip. Oghee Choe and Connie Choe-Harikul of Granny Choe’s Kimchi Co.’s just won the Good Food Day LA cabbage cooking contest with their kimchi chip over the weekend. I got to taste one of those kimchi chips and I can say that they deserved the award. Why make a kimchi chip? In a press release Harikul says, “We always have loa...

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