Lord of the Flies Inspired Bike Rack

May 18, 2009

Bikes

...bviously it was designed to celebrate the market, where meat, produce, spices, nuts and almost any imaginable type of ethnic food can be found. The top is adorned with two pigs’ heads. The corners have fruits and vegetables in them. I think it is kind of grotesque but very eye-catching. I also like that it has four posts, allowing a lot of well spaced area to lock your bike to....

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A Purple Dragon Carrot

Mr. Homegrown

February 13, 2009

Food, Gardening

17 Comments

...r reminiscent of the domesticated carrot’s wild ancestors, which were probably tamed in what is now Afghanistan. Wikipedia identifies the purple hue of these carrots as anthocyanin a possible source of antioxidants and a common pigment in many red-hued fruits and vegetables. Also note all that foliage. It’s edible. I tossed the carrot tops in with some couscous, olive oil and balsamic vinegar for a tasty dinner. The carrots themselves were served...

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Why it’s Better to Pressure Can Tomatoes

Mr. Homegrown

October 30, 2014

Food, Food Preservation, Gardening, Tomatoes

8 Comments

...ed and less acidic foods that need to be canned in a pressure canner. Most fruits have a lower, i.e. more acidic pH and can be water bath canned. Tomatoes, on the other hand, are often near the 4.6 pH level and USDA tested recipes will call for adding either bottled lemon juice or citric acid (I prefer citric acid as the taste is more neutral). I used to think that this issue was because different tomato varieties vary in their acid content. It tu...

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Freezing Meat With Freezer Paper

Mr. Homegrown

February 4, 2013

Food, Food Preservation, How-to

21 Comments

A good question came in on Friday’s post about freezing fruits and vegetables about how to freeze meat products without using plastic bags. I don’t know of a way to avoid plastic with meat products, but you can use freezer paper instead of ziplock bags. The University of Georgia Extension Service has a handy info sheet on how to wrap meat with freezer paper: Freezing Animal Products. Correction: an earlier version of this post was entitled “How t...

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Growing Watermelons

Mr. Homegrown

September 4, 2008

Gardening

10 Comments

...While we’ve got a very long season here in Southern California for summer vegetables, with almost no chance of a fall freeze, I’ve begun in the past year to plant early varieties of most vegetables simply because there is less time for bad things to happen. 3. Watermelon is a living mulch. Watermelon, an enormous vine, makes an excellent living mulch, snaking, as it does, amongst our tomatoes and okra. I’ve laid down a layer of straw as mulch, bu...

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