Choosing the Perfect Tortilla Press

...iscs. And I opted for the smaller, 6 1/2 inch press as small tortillas are used in authentic Mexican street food. Making corn tortillas is much simpler than I expected. All you do is get masa harina (a limed corn flour), mix it roughly 50/50 with water and let the dough rest for a half hour to an hour. Next, you roll the masa into little 2 inch balls and press them between a plastic bag inserted into the tortilla press. The last step is to heat th...

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De-Cluttering for DIYers, Homesteaders, Artists, Preppers, etc.

...get what you have, the processes of entropy have a way of taking care of unused things. I think Nature does not like unused things, and sends rust and mice and insects and mold and flood waters after them, in an attempt to return them to a more useful state– useful to Nature, that is, not you. Nature doesn’t care about your anxieties and abandoned projects and unrealized plans. And if I can’t convince you by appealing to Reason or Nature, I’ll inv...

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Our Rocket Stove

...e iconic palm trees that line our old L.A. street. Here’s the materials we used: 36 bricks 4-inch galvanized steel stove pipe elbow 4-inch stove pipe ash (scavenged from park BBQs) 1 tin can 50 pound bag of premixed concrete for the base mortar mix grill (scavenged) The first step was to make a small foundation for the rocket stove. We fashioned a 18 by 18-inch by 4-inch slab with 2 x 4 lumber and a bag of premixed cement. Folks in cold places wil...

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How to Make Amazake

...from the heat and refrigerate. You can eat it as a porridge or cut it with some more water to enjoy as a beverage. You can also add flavorings such as chocolate, almonds or espresso. Aspergillus orzae is also used to produce soy sauce and miso, though miso making, according to the Cold Mountain pamphlet that came with our koji, will take you between 18 to 24 months. For now we’ll enjoy our amazake....

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Ghee for the skin

...ly soothes dry and chapped skin. For instance, during my last head cold, I used it on my much-abused nose. The ghee saved my nose and my lips from a terrible case of chapping. I always keep my lips and nose balmed-up during a cold, but the ghee worked better than anything else I’ve ever used, in terms of absorption, relieving discomfort and quick healing. Since then, I’ve been using it on my face and hands to fend off the dry, itchy skin of winter...

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