FlicFloc Flak

...$30 USD. I had one of these crackers for years (it’s headed to the thrift store on account of our recent decluttering). I’ve never liked it. It’s poorly made. The hopper never fit onto the rest of the unit. It must be disassembled to clean. Most importantly, here’s the difference when flaking oats between my inexpensive grain cracker and the FlicFloc: On the left are some oats run through the cracker versus oats, on the right, run through the Fli...

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How to make hot sauce

...eally easy to fall to temptation and just buy a bottle of something at the store. So here’s a confession: we’ve fallen into sin around here, and haven’t made our own hot sauce in a good while. We dodge the homemade when we know better. We know a thousand times better. And yet it happens. The jar ends up in the cart, and then in the fridge, and then in the back of the fridge, and eventually in the garbage. What is appealing about the jar on the she...

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My Big Fat Greek Squash

...cy winter squash galette recipe is here on MSNBC along with a video of him making it. I’ll note that the online recipe is different from the one in the book which calls for a longer baking time. My galette was in the oven for over an hour, but I did not cook the squash as long in the frying pan as Bittman does in the video. I’m sure either way will work, and this has to be, seriously, one of the best things I’ve ever cooked. It would make a great...

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Straw Bale Gardens

Tasha Via’s straw bale garden. Michael Tortorello (who profiled us when Making It came out) is one of my favorite writers covering the home ec/gardening subjects we discuss on this blog. He had an article last week in the New York Times, “Grasping at Straw” on straw bale gardening. We’ve very tempted to give the practice a try in our backyard. Why? We have lead and zinc contaminated soil so growing veggies in the ground is questionable. We live o...

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043 Growing Vegetables with Yvonne Savio

...vegetables. How to harvest vegetables. How to prepare a vegetable garden. Making compost. The problems with municipal compost. Raised beds vs. growing in the ground. Where to buy soil. Testing soil. How to irrigate vegetables in a drought. Buried buckets for watering vegetables. Seeds vs. seedlings. Succession planting. How to plant seedlings. The website and calendar that Yvonne is putting together. Grow LA Victory Garden Program You can reach Y...

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