Adopt an Indigo Plant in Los Angeles

May 23, 2014

...being relatively easy to grow. All it needs is lots of sunshine, plenty of water, and some food. As an experiment, I’ve germinated a bunch of indigo seeds and want to get the seedlings into as many people’s hands as possible! I hope to spread the wonder about the fact that color can be grown, to raise the consciousness of humanity’s original sources of pigment, and to get people to exercise their thumbs, green or otherwise! The pigment can be extr...

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Worth Doing From Scratch: Corn Tortillas

Mr. Homegrown

June 3, 2014

Bread, Food

12 Comments

...from scratch is a huge amount of work and I’ve done just fine with supermarket masa harina. As I like to measure dry ingredients by weight I’ve figured out that for enough tortillas for four people you need to mix 250 grams of flour with 300 grams of water. Cook as many tortillas at once as you can. I can do three at a time on our stove. Cooking one at a time takes forever. Keep a bag of masa harina around and you’ll be ready for any tortilla eme...

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Making Tofu From Scratch at the Institute of Domestic Technology

Mr. Homegrown

June 9, 2014

Food, Food Preservation

6 Comments

...s were ground up in a blender and the slurry was boiled in a pot with some water. The mixture was poured through a cloth to produce soy milk. The cloth was gathered up and squeezed to get out every drop of milk. Nguyen showed us three different ways to create blocks of tofu with everything from a simple colander to a plastic tofu kit, to a beautiful Japanese wooden tofu form. The next step was to coagulate the soy milk using nigari crystals (avail...

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Is Purslane the New Kale?

Mr. Homegrown

June 27, 2014

Food, Foraging, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

29 Comments

...in unappetizing locations: usually the gutter (I think it needs a bit more water than what falls naturally from the sky here). You can eat the whole plant: stems and leaves. It has a salty and slightly lemony flavor reminiscent of New Zealand spinach. There’s always a huge bin of it at Super King, our local Armenian supermarket. In Armenia it’s gathered in the wild and used either raw in salads or lightly sauteed. There’s even a World Cup tie-in....

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005 Amy and Vince of Tenth Acre Farm

Mr. Homegrown

June 25, 2014

Gardening, Permaculture, Podcasts

10 Comments

...nce describe the trial and error process they went through to perfect this water harvesting system. We also discuss the beautiful result you see above–a front yard that combines edibles as well as flowers that both please the neighbors and provide habitat for beneficial insects. The magic extends out into the parkway which is planted with a cherry tree guild. Amy and Vince go on to discuss how belonging to a CSA inspired them to cook from scratch...

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