Sticky – Farcyde's Stuff

Prepping: Update on Blackout Precautions

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s about Germany, the country where I was born and raised, where I have lived all my life and that was a decent, advanced industrialized nation about just one year ago. Now, our current green-leftist government is obviously diligently working hard on passing the nation right downwards to the third world.

Effects

This includes (among much else) meanwhile even official bodies declaring large-scale blackouts well possible this winter – due to our amateurishly conducted and eventually disastrous “energy turnaround”. Not even a year ago, people articulating the exact same warnings were disparaged as “nazis” (will always work in germany), “conspiracy theorists” or simply “weirdos”. I’m proud to state that I was one of them 🙂

How to Defrost Your Freezer

May 2, 2022 farcyde

Uahhhh… 🙁 I went to the basement today and discovered this. Seems I’ll have to defrost the fridge (actually, both of my fridges) to make sure they work properly again. Here’s how to do it (this is a manly hint):

Basic Vegetable Pickling Recipe

April 26, 2022 farcyde

I wanted to try pickling, so I decided to give it a try on the weekend, but starting with only small batches. My beloved aunt Inge would vividly oppose to the term “pickling” (she’s an institution on home grown greens as well as food-preservation and she’s some kind of an old-style, longtime proficient german homesteader, not the american style 🙂 ). But I’ll try anyway.

February 5, 2022 farcyde

I wanted to recreate a traditional and well-proven method of coating metal – destinctively not using simple oil nor lacquer or other modern substances. The solution is the so-called “Japanning“. I found a very interesting and informative YouTube Video from this guy (he’s somewhat crazy and absolutely cool!) and I recreated it. It’s a lot more time-consuming than modern coating methods, but it’s fun, it works and it gives me a feeling of “traditionalism”.

Simple Cheese Brine Recipe

January 20, 2022 farcyde

Here’s the formula for my simple cheese brining solution. Easy to make and shelf-stable for an eternity.

The goal is to produce a ~20% salt solution. I only brush it onto my cheese instead of dipping the whole slab into the brine. Mix and store in an airtight container and make sure to sterilize your brush before applying.

The recipe:
– 300 ml water
– 67 g salt
– 4,5 ml white vinegar

Nice to Know: AC/DC Symbolism

December 11, 2020 farcyde

Got myself a (fairly simple) multimeter for the northern germany refuge lately.

I wonder if I will eventually arrive at a point in my life when I’ve memorized these two simple symbols without having to look them up. Every. Single. Time. 🙂

Edit: Here’s a good explanation on how multimeters work (german language – sorry).

Home Made Sauerkraut Tutorial

October 24, 2020 farcyde

Update october 2020: New sauerkraut, substantially more information added 🙂

Since I happen to be a “Kraut” by birth, I decided to home-make my own Sauerkraut. Fermentation using wild lactobacillus is an ages-old and easy way of preserving almost every reasonably hard/crunchy vegetable (read more here and here) you like. It’s easy and for our grandparent’s generation it was a perfectly common thing to do.

So what is this “fermentation thing” all about? In short: Fermentation is latin and means the decomposing of carbohydrates in foods by various bacteria or yeasts with no oxygen around. Besides improving digestability, this produces a wide variety of distinct aromatics and other substances, the most important one being acid (lactic acid in this case). Harmful bacteria cannot thrive in an oxygen-free, acidic environment, thus, our food becomes preserved.

October 8, 2020 farcyde

Edit: Now with an image, because I made some bacon today 🙂

So here’s my standard recipe for curing meat that I mostly use. It can be adjusted to personal needs in terms of herbs and spices, but I strongly recommend to stick to the directions concerning the curing salt.

Recipe (per kg of meat):
30-40 g curing salt (NOT pink salt, see below)
10 g brown sugar
1 tsp. freshly and coarsely ground black pepper
1 tsp. dried rosemary

How To: Make a Roux

September 10, 2020 farcyde

Roux – Stolen Image (allrecipes.com)

I was asked by a member of the extended family circle about a recipe requiring a roux.

So let’s make a “Roux“… Ahh… yeah, right. Sure. Of course. This is french. It’s pronounced ( /ˈruː/ ) and this sounds sooo much better than the german Mehlschwitze, which – honestly – sounds more like a sore throat 🙂 .

A roux is used as a basis for things like heavy sauces, soups or stews. It thickens them up and makes them creamy and rich. Since it’s a base-ingredient, it is very versatile and can be used for a wide variety of cooking tasks from the standard french cuisine mother sauce Béchamel up to New Orleans Gumbo. Google “roux usage” and you’ll see what I mean.

Some people find making a roux a little intimidating because, yes, you can absolutely screw it up, but if you follow these simple steps here, I promise you’ll nail it every time. It’s no magic.

Pasta Cooking for Dummies

September 8, 2020 farcyde

These are my 5 commandments for cooking italian pasta that I’ve gathered over the last years and that have proven useful. It’s not that hard anyway but not everyone is a routined chef and I would have been happy if I had known some of these seemingly plain tips in the beginning.

These basic steps and fundamentals will hopefully help you nail it as much as they helped me 🙂

If you’re still pondering with pasta to cook, have a look at Jamie Oliver’s pasta shapes guide.

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Farcyde's Stuff

Tag: Sticky

Prepping: Update on Blackout Precautions

Effects

How to Defrost Your Freezer

Basic Vegetable Pickling Recipe

Japanning

Simple Cheese Brine Recipe

Nice to Know: AC/DC Symbolism

Home Made Sauerkraut Tutorial

My standard meat curing formula

How To: Make a Roux

Pasta Cooking for Dummies

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