How to Make Amazake

...process by boiling the mixture, otherwise you’re heading down the road to making sake, something we plan on attempting in the fall. Taking a tip from the guru of fermentation Sandor Ellix Katz, we first boiled two cups of water and added the amazake to it to prevent burning. Mix well and as soon as the amazake begins to boil remove from the heat and refrigerate. You can eat it as a porridge or cut it with some more water to enjoy as a beverage. Y...

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Prickly Pear Jelly Recipe

...of cactus fruit to deal with this season. Next year we’ll take a crack at making a batch of Tiswin, the sacred beer of the Papagos Indians of central Mexico (usually made with saguaro fruit but prickly pear fruit will do in a pinch). This August we’re making jelly. Here’s how to do it: 1. Taking reader Steven’s (of the fine blog Dirt Sun Rain) suggestion, burn off the nasty spines by holding the fruit over a burner on the stove for a few seconds....

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Our Rocket Stove

...ew small branches or twigs. Before we built the rocket stove we considered making a cob oven, a mud domed wood fired oven in which you can cook bread and pizza. There’s a trend in the eco-world to build cob ovens and we felt a certain pressure to keep up with the eco-Joneses. We started to build the base for one and then began to think about how often we would actually build a fire, especially considering that it has to burn for several hours befo...

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KRAUT FEST!!!!

...ature dish of Alsace (described to us as a ridiculous meat fiesta). 11am – Making Sauerkraut – click HERE for a list of ingredients to bring! 12pm – Making Kimchi – click HERE for a list of ingredients to bring! 1pm – Choucroute Garni presentation & sampling Participants will need to bring their own ingredients (shopping lists are linked above). You can register to make either kimchi or sauerkraut for $10, or both for $15. Registration gets you a...

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Tips on growing great garlic

...f they appear. The flowers pull energy from the plant that is better spent making big cloves. The flowers are also edible: some farmers are actually making more money selling the flowers as culinary exotics. Growing garlic in hot climates I’ve had mixed success growing garlic in Los Angeles. It turns out I was growing the wrong varieties. Most garlics appreciate cold weather, including some time spent under a blanket of snow. For hot climates you...

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