How to Make Stock

...ut them in the freezer if you don’t have time to make stock at the moment. Making fish stock is pretty much like making chicken stock with a carcass. Gather all the fish bits or shells you have and add them to the basic ingredients for veg stock. Skip the mushrooms and potatoes, though. Maybe add a little more onion. Parsley goes well with fish, so try to use that if you can. A bit of thyme is also very nice. White wine is a traditional addition t...

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Lila Downs Video Showing Tortilla Making in Oaxaca

...ngeles Bread Bakers sent me a link to this music video that shows tortilla making in Oaxaca. The song is “Palomo Del Comalito” (Dove of the Comalito) by Lila Downs. Note the huge corn tortillas, proof of the regional diversity of Mexican cuisine (and one of the many details I got wrong in my tortilla press post–thanks for the corrections Gloria). Lyrics in English after the jump. The beautiful people of this land Grind corn A miracle of their hand...

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New Project: Making Bitters

...I’ll share the recipes I develop as I follow this path. In the meanwhile, making your own bitters is really easy. You may be able to throw a few experiments together just using things you find in your spice cabinet. Since these are flavoring, not medicine, you don’t have to be as careful with the quantities and timing as you must be when tincturing herbs for medicine. Yet at the same time, it’s a great introduction to that essential herbalist’s c...

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Is it safe to use cinder blocks or red bricks in stoves and ovens?

...ts off a firestorm of incoming Google hits. An old blog post on a “Redneck Rocket Stove” made out of cinder blocks prompted many to suggest that the cinder blocks would explode due to heat. Leon, of the blog Survival Common Sense, does a good job of refuting this notion in a blog post, “Build a brick rocket stove: Is it safe to use concrete blocks?” The short answer is that those concrete blocks are not going to explode. But if you want something...

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Appropriate Technology

...well. Here’s three of our favorite appropriate tech ideas and websites: 1. Rocket Stoves: our brick rocket stove and a link to a video on how to make a simple metal version. 2. The glorious Solar Cooking Archive which has links to dozens of simple solar cooker plans that you can build yourself. We built our cardboard and aluminum foil Pavarti cooker with plans from the solar cooking archive. 3. AfriGadget. The subtitle of this blog says it all, “s...

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