Solar Power

I thought it would be cool to do a project with solar panels so I bought this kit. It's a solar charger that connects to a USB and has a battery bank in the form of 2 AA batteries. I picked up 2 3,000 ma rechargeable batteries for it. It also is housed in an Altoids mint containers. Remember those?

It was a fun and simple project that anyone can do. I can't quite get the solar panel to fit in the Altoids tin with the top completely shut unfortunately, and not sure how many applications it has, but at the very least it should be able to recharge double a batteries using solar. Might work as a power bank for some less sophisticated electronics.

I also saw a motor online that I can hook up to a solar panel. Might try to jump off from there. Miniature solar power plant. Mini solar car. Who knows?

Link

(Pictures to come)

La Flama Blanca

 

So, the white habaneros are starting to ripen (pictured in the lower left hand corner, obviously).  I thought it would be cool to make a white hot sauce.  So, I got some white habaneros, garlic, white onion, and a white nectarine.

 

Grilled them up on a cast iron skillet on the stovetop.  

And blended it with vinegar, water, and salt.

And here it is, white hot sauce.

Today was the first time I learned about HORTA

http://www.outsideonline.com/1930581/how-forage-your-next-energy-bar

Harvest, Garlic

Joined a Makerspace

I joined the newly opened Makerspace in Nashville. More to come later?

I Mofongo'd

I recently was in Puerto Rico for an academic conference. It was beautiful, warm, green, lush, and economically depressed. While they are a part of the US, they are considered OCONUS (outside the continental US) for per diem reasons. Anywho, they had amazing food. Tacos, burritos, ....that's Mexican hombre. We're talking about afro/spanish/taino food. Plantains are a staple here. Have you ever even had one? They look like monster bananas but are more starchy and potato like than their little yellow cousins. One dish I loved there was "Mofongo." It can be served several different ways, but it always consists of a mashed plantain bowl/mound, meat, and a sauce. Since I returned, I have been experimenting with plantains in order to Mofongo (here used as a verb) myself. Let's Mofongo!

Here are some things you'll need:

Cilantro, garlic, bacon, spices, vinegar, green onions, poblano pepper, and plantains! (not pictured bouillon)

First we need to make a sauce. First roast that garlic in the oven for a while. Mash it up in some chicken broth to get things going.

Then add some onions, chipotle and adobo spices, some of that white wine vinegar, and go ahead and throw in some bacon grease you've been storing in the fridge. When the sauce has simmered for a while, sprinkle in some chopped cilantro and poblano pepper.

Now let's get ready to boil our plantains. On the island they deep fry them and then fry them again. We're skipping that first part. Here are 4 green plantains, 2 of which I have let sit out for two weeks and they have gotten much more yellow and soft.

So I boiled the green ones for 15 minutes or so and the yellow ones for 5. Heres what happened when I took them out.

The peels are splitting off and the plantains have gotten softer. The color difference between the older and younger plantains is obvious. Now chop them up and toss them in a cast iron skillet.

In this skillet you've left a whole bunch of bacon drippings! Oh no! Well, just go ahead and cook the plantains in the bacon fat. We'll survive.

Cook them for 5 minutes...maybe longer. I don't know. Start mashing them eventually. The starch will absorb the fat.

Now toss in green onions and bacon that you've chopped up. Mix it all up. If the mixture seems too dry to make into a mold, add a bit of water and vinegar.

Use your favorite double-old fashioned glass to serve as a negative for your mold. We're almost at mofongo! You want a solid structure to hold all the sauce we'll add.

Next add some roast pork that you've already painstakingly prepared and then crisped in the oven. Put this in the bowl we've created.

Now add the sauce, serve with beans, and toss on some bonus cilantro cuz we can.

This was pretty awesome for my first mofongo. The plantain bowl absorbs the liquid and all of its flavor. The yellowed plantains added a sweetness to this mofongo that I had not experienced in Puerto Rico. I liked it. This is definitely a must add player in my distressed peoples cookbook.

Topsy Turvy Planter

Do those Topsy Turvy planters really work? Has anyone tried them? Why, yes I have.

I received a Topsy Turvy planter as a gift and put it to the test. 

I will mention that I planted a yellow pear tomato in it, so I'm not sure what happens when you plant a big beefy tomato variety in one. 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's like 10,000 words:

First night planted. I think your better off planting a small plant in these, since you have to thread the plant though a hole to plant it.

First day planted and already reaching for the sun.

Full disclosure, these are from a couple different plants, including the Topsy Turvy one.

Kumato/Campari Update

Has anyone ever tried to grow a Kumato or Campari tomato from the grocery store? Why, yes.

Back in November of 2015 (check blog post history) we saved some Kumato and Campari tomatoes purchased from the grocery store.

These tomatoes have produced fruit now and the tomatoes resemble the parent. Some camparis were smaller and some bit larger, so they seemed to have more variation. The kumatos all appeared to resemble the kumatos as seen at the store.  Here are the pictures:

Neil Cicierega

I just came across this dude who mashes songs together. It's incredible. Apologies if you've already heard of him. If you haven't heard of him, do yourself a favor and click through more of his stuff. You can also download both mashup albums here and here in beautiful FLAC.

Pokemon?

So, "Pokémon GO" just went live in the U.S. recently and I think I'm going to introduce it to the kids today. They've already stumbled on the whole Pokémon thing already. I showed Eoin the trailer yesterday and I think he's sold.

Basically, it uses the GPS on your Android/iOS device and you walk around to find pokemon in the real world. The concept follows along with one I've liked for a long while. It's sort of like geocaching. Have any of you ever tried that? There used to be this other game where you'd install a bit of dittle app/plugin to your internet browser and it would create an extra layer to all of the web where each individual website and some other what-not was a virtual sort of battlefield where you could lay traps for other players or do some other sort of treasure hunting. I cant't remember, and I never got into it.

this is a short series of tagged, related articles: http://kotaku.com/tag/pokemon-go

Cub scouting with son

Eoin (OH-IN, OH-Wen) is eight years old and will be entering the third grade in the fall. My wife put in the legwork to find a workable spot where we are also in a decent school district. This will be his first year at a public school. We had him attending a private catholic school for his years of kindergarten, first, and second grades. We found the school to be exceptional. The cub scout 'pack' there was also exceptional.


I've gone as far as to figure out where the council boundaries are in this much more major metropolitan area. It doesn't seem like the grade school the kids will be attending has a group of scouts operation out of it, however, we do seem to be free to join on to any one we find. It's just a manner of making the meetings.


I'm excited for the upcoming year. Eoin is going to be a Bear scout, and with that it will bring several neat things:

- He'll work with and be instructed in using a pocket knife. We're going to carve some soap!


- Tying and learning a Hitch Knot, demonstrating it, and explaining it.


- Learn to read a barometer and thermometer and log the readings for a week.


- a variety of outdoor life observation things


- Composting!


- Planting something!


- Making carnival games


- We're going to build a toolbox.


- Go fishing, and get our game oh-so right


- Make a drum, learn about some Native American things, and do-a-little-dance


- Animal Care


- Elementary Physics! Pulleys, Levers, Rube Goldbergs, and a hard to explain popsicle weaving thing where one observes the force carry through the sticks after quickly lifting one end. The whole thing explodes. Popsicle sticks.


- The Fine Art of competitive Marble's playing


- Robotics. We'll also make a cardboard powerglove.
- The Scientific Method


- Make ancient-ey type instruments


-Boating basics

Dustin's Farm Update

Harvest #1

Hot Sauce: How To

This is the third time I've made a batch of hot sauce. The first batch was habanero, the second was mango habanero and this is a verde sauce with jalapeño and tomatillo. 

The process is the same, but you can pretty much add whatever you like and add as much peppers as you want.

Step One:

Get some hot peppers (maybe 14 habaneros or jalapeños), onion (1 medium), garlic (3-5 cloves)and tomato (1 or 2) (or carrot or mango or whatever else your into.

Get all your vegetables grilling on a cast iron pan.

Once they get soft and charred, move them to a separate pot.

Add about 1.5 cups of vinegar and 2 tablespoons of salt.

You can also add lime juice at this time and I sometimes add a couple drops of liquid smoke and a pinch of sugar.

Then blend the whole thing down, either in a blender or with an immersion blender.

I like to mix in about a 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum at this time, but that's not necessary.

I haven't messed around with cilantro yet, but I assume you would add it when you add the salt and vinegar and blend it in.

Throw it in some empty containers and call it a day.

Topping/Cutting Experiment

Here we have a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. I cut the top off to see if that will make it grow out more.

Then I planted the top in some soil. Will this grow a new pepper? Probably not, but some people can grow new plants from cuttings and I'd like to accomplish this.

Coffee

The first thing you read on money saving articles and blogs is usually to cut out the expensive Starbucks and make coffee at home, which I do. But I've got to wondering, how much do I spend on coffee?

I just bought a 12 oz. bag of coffee for $7. Let's see how long it lasts. 

Checking in 8 days later, it looks like we have 2 more days left of coffee or so. I'd say about 13-15 days worth between myself and my domestic partner.  I also bought some new coffee this week for $6.

In conclusion, we're looking at about $0.40-$0.50 per day per person on coffee.

So next time I click on some fake internet article that says we can do X for the price of a cup of coffee a day, they better mean $0.40-0.50 cents a day.

Annualized, $365 per year for two people to drink coffee everyday seems like a good enough deal when you consider how vitally important coffee is in getting you through the day. 

Compost Part 2

Found a new composter on sale at Curb Mart. This one is a drum that can spin. Let's see how it works.

Here it is.

Filled with leaves from last fall.

And now we wait.

Dustins Adopted Garden

MIddle western pickled turnips

Have you ever been to a family run Lebanese restaurant and got your falafel sammich and wondered what those purple/pink thingies in there were? They're cooling, crisp, different. What are they? It turns out they are pickled turnips. I found out they love pickled things in middle eastern cuisine. Who knew?

Let's make some. First start buy purchasing some turnips at your local grocer. Have you ever bought turnips? Ever even eaten one? Do you know what they look like? These are all firsts for me. They're not that cheap at $2.5/lb, but were easy to find. Next you need beets. Now these are readily available in canned stewed form. They smell terrible and I also have ever tasted them. Fresh beets were harder to find. I had to buy organic and it was $3.5 for three beets. Anywho, I was able to capitalism them at the local middle class grocer so all is well. Let's pickle.

In addition to the turnips and beats you'll need garlic, bay leaves, salt, vinegar, h2o, and some canning jars.

You need to peel the outer layer off the turnips and beets. My finely honed knives did the trick.

The beet is crazy. It has this beautiful layering. The color is so deep dark blood red. Wow. We probably should be eating these. Slice the beats into discs and the turnips into french-fry like cuts.

Separately boil your mason jars to cleanse them and treat them for the addition of boiling water. I then added the beats at the bottom followed by the addition of the turnips. I pushed as many into there as I could. Bay leaves were added and I pressed a garlic clove as the final addition.

Then I added the pickling solution. 1.5 C water, 0.5 C vinegar, 1/6th C salt. I brought that solution to a boil and added it to the jars.

Can you see the pink from the beets staining the turnips? Just wait a few days and they should be purple/pink goodness.

Normal, IL - Food Forest

Normal, IL has a Food Forest, which you can read more about here:

 http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/government-and-politics/public-food-forest-to-be-planted-at-one-normal-plaza/article_82ab5f36-5072-53a1-97f5-6880fdfd4472.html

I thought this was a cool idea and checked it out. So far the plantings are small, so it will be fun to track the forests progression over time.

And without further ado, I present to you Normal, Illinois' Food Forest as of Spring 2016:

Ryan Gets Overambitious: The Sequel

We decided to buy a butt ton more plants again this year. Just sticking with one 72 count seed starter. This is our layout:

We just planted them on Saturday and we already some have some sprouts