Search Results for: label/solar cooking

197 results

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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Emergency Supplies: It’s all about the lids

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus, Preparedness
15 Comments
...(For more on composting toilets, see this post of ours  or go straight to the source, The Humanure Handbook.) The green bucket holds enough preservative-filled, ready-to-eat food to hold her for a day or two without access to cooking water or a stove. I deliberately chose foods that she wouldn’t be tempted to eat prior to the natural disaster/zombie attack. Not gross things–you don’t want to be challenging your stomach in an eme...

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Candied Grapefruit Peel

Mrs. Homegrown
Food, Recipes
13 Comments
...d orange, would need less. And maybe a “lite” version is possible. Try and see.)  Cook the peels over medium heat. They will soften and turn transparent. Meanwhile, the sugar syrup will thicken and reduce. Keep cooking until the sugar syrup is so thick and so reduced that its mostly just coating the rinds, and the rinds themselves are golden and clear like tiny stained glass windows. Be sure to stir lots at the end so it doesn̵...

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Notes on Mark Bittman’s “Behind the Scenes of What We Eat”

Mrs. Homegrown
Events, Reviews, Thoughtstylings
3 Comments
...daily choices. Our actions drive policy at the higher levels. So what can we do?  A lot of it I’m sure you, dear readers, are already doing– just like us. You’re trying to support local farmers. You’re cooking from scratch and eating whole foods. You’re trying to source ethically raised dairy products and meats. You’re growing some of your own food. All of this is important. Michael Pollan’s advice–...

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Essential System #8 – Nutrition (Extra Food)

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
RLeave a comment
Continuing our countdown of the ten essential systems we get to the food category. In our grab and go bags we have a few Clif Bars – they taste alright, don’t require cooking, and have a relatively long shelf life. The problem with Cliff Bars is that they prove tempting when we have the occasional sweet tooth attack. This is why some people keep MREs (meals, ready to eat) on hand, because they taste so foul you won’t be tempte...

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Plantago coronopus, a.k.a. Buckhorn Plantain, a.k.a. Erba Stella

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
2 Comments
Cruise down the produce isle of a supermarket in the United States and you’ll only find highly domesticated foods. Thumb through the pages of the Silver Spoon (the Joy of Cooking of Italian Cuisine) and you’ll discover entire chapters devoted to the use of wild or semi-wild plants. This summer I grew one of these semi-cultivated Italian vegetables, Buckhorn plantain (Plantago coronopus) also known as Erba Stella and Barba di frat...

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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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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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Build a Rocket Stove

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
6 Comments
...y a goth dude named “vavrek”:Other Rocket Stove Designs The Aprovecho Research Center, a non-profit organization devoted to improving conditions in third world countries through the development of low cost, simple cooking and heating technologies have developed a number of rocket stoves that you can build for your urban homestead. They have a simple model called the VITA Stove made with sheet metal (note the better soundtrack music on...

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Our favorite way to cook zucchini

Mrs. Homegrown
Food, Recipes
26 Comments
...17;t care. I can’t begin to tell you quantities–we’ve never measured. Just guesstimate. It will work. The one rule of thumb I can offer you is that you will lose about half the volume of the zucchini through cooking, so grate up more than you think you can eat. The central idea here is to cook off all that water. This can’t be emphasized enough. That’s what makes this dish taste good. The zucchini will release a lot...

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