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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How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman

...ever see that described? Yet somehow, I feel better for understanding the making and maintenance process of these things. Now the ruff seems less like the inexplicable product of an alien civilization. Just think, someone (many someones) made that ruff and all those baubles and do-dads by hand Did you know folks could change the color of their ruffs in and out by treating them different colored starches? Or that there were colored ruffs at all? (...

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Weeds into Fertilizer

...things that plants need for healthy growth. This makes nettles useful for making your own fertilizer. They can accumulate nutrients and minerals in their biomass. When they break down in a compost pile, or in this case in the water, they release the nutrients. Many of these elements can be difficult for other plants to access in the soil. Nettles just happen to be very good at taking up nutrients from relatively poor soil. The point here is let y...

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Straw Bale Garden Part V: Growing Vegetables

...seedlings. Others, like this cucumber, I sowed directly into the bales by making a little hole and putting in the seed with some home made seedling mix. Again, the vegetables in the bales are doing better than veggies in my two remaining raised beds. The reason, I believe, is that the beds are depleted and the compost I added to them was low quality. While more resource intensive than growing in the ground or raised bed, straw bale gardening has...

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Solar Oven Triumph: Fluffy Egg Strata

...Sport solar oven. It’s an egg strata. I’ve never made a strata before, so making one in a solar oven seemed a bit risky, but I was rich in eggs and stale bread and the sun was out, so I decided to try. For those of you don’t know, an egg strata is a casserole-type dish, typically served at brunch, which is composed of bread, eggs, cheese, butter and milk. It is indeed a fat bomb. But you know what? Fat is not evil. My inspiration for this experim...

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