Artichoke Season at the Homegrown Revolution Compound

...nd abundant crop starting with the second year. Artichokes are attractive, making an ideal choice for edible landscaping. They spread like crazy. Suckers can be transplanted elsewhere. They’re damn tasty either steamed, combined with pasta or made into an omelet. They do best in foggy coastal places but will also grow in the warmer interior where the Homegrown Revolution compound resides. In cooler locales they will thrive all year round. In warme...

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Buddy Burner

...s a huge wick. That inferno effect is what you want. Control your flame by making a damper out of a piece of aluminum foil folded into a long rectangle three or four layers thick and as wide as the can, but much longer so that you can use the excess as a handle. Slide the foil back and forth to expose or repress the flame as needed. To recharge the BB, place chunks of wax on top of the BB while it is burning. The wax will melt down and refuel it....

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How to make your soup wonderful: Wild food soup stock

...It still looks good. Pascal says this is a traditional European method of making instant soup stock, but instead of using it as a stock by itself, I’ve been using it as a finishing touch at the end of cooking up a pot of something. It really helps at that tricky moment when you’re standing over your soup pot, spoon in hand, asking yourself, What does this soup need? Somehow it improves the flavor in a subtle, magical way–and in the meantime, garn...

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Beans 101 (Return of Bean Friday!)

...ow up to the “Dollar Supper” post, this post is about is the simple act of making a pot of beans. I make beans about once a week, the goal being to always have beans in the fridge. For us, they’re an essential staple. (Readers new to Root Simple should note that we’ve done a lot of posts about beans, and have gathered favorite bean recipes from our readers. So if you’re looking for recipes, look for the Bean Fest tag. Check the recipes tag, too.)...

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Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities

...category: fun to read about but I’ll probably never do. I’d include igloo making, boat living and camouflage here. But you never know . . . And, thanks to Cool Tools editors Elon Shoenholz and Mark Frauenfelder, you’ll find a few Root Simple reviews tucked into Cool Tool’s 463 pages. And, yes, one of the first items mentioned in Cool Tools is a book on decuttering, perhaps as a caution to use Cool Tools as a guide to what is useful, not an invita...

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