Another Fermenting Aid

ReCAP mason jar lids

It's starting to be fermenting time again as veggies begin to appear in our summer gardens.
These lids may make it less messy to ferment veggies at home. Simply add a rubber stopper (with a hole in the center) onto the spout hole, put a fermentation lock into the stopper hole, and ferment away.

If fermenting (which actually INCREASES nutritional content in foods), just type fermenting or ferments in the search box located on the right column and it will bring up several posts I've done on fermenting.

Rubber stoppers come in many sizes. A #6 should fir the ReCAP lid.

One of several styles of airlocks from any brewing supply store.

The other good thing about these lids is their general use for mason jars used to store beans, sugars, flours or even vinegars that can be poured out through the jar opening. BPA free.

ps, I own NO stock in this company!

Where's the Sun on YOUR Garden?

Wow, what a cool app! With this Google Maps hack, you can find the path of the sun across your own garden for any day of the year. Just plug in your address in the search bar.

According to the description on the site:

    SunCalc is a little app that shows sun movement and sunlight phases during any given day at the given location.

    You can see sun positions at sunrise (yellow), specified time (orange) and sunset (red). The thin orange curve is the current sun trajectory, and the yellow area around is the variation of sun trajectories during the year. The closer a point is to the center, the higher is the sun above the horizon. The colors on the time slider show sunlight coverage during the day.

 

The default is set for the current day, but I was able to change the dates and get the trajectory for both the shortest day of the year in winter, and the longest (summer) day. Knowing the winter trajectory makes a big difference in where I should locate cold frames and a future, wished-for greenhouse. I had a good idea of the summer sun's path although I was a little bit 'off', but I was woefully off on the winter sun. Probably because I grow nothing in winter so I don't pay as much attention.

Since I have hopes of eventually doing some winter gardening a la Eliot Coleman's Winter Harvest, this little app is a treasure for planning. It gives me a great location for a possible greenhouse when I win the Lottery! Sure wish I'd had something like this when we first looked at this property... the gardener in me might have passed on buying it.

I will also use this online calculator in planning the placement of a solar collector for heating water when I can get to it as a project.

Update, just after Thanksgiving: I plugged in the shortest day and the longest day again for my house today, and took a "Grab" screen shot of them. There is a choice in the app on the upper right for a road map type image, or a satellite image, and by looking at both images on those 2 dates, I now know exactly where to plant 4-5 deciduous shade trees for optimum shading of this house in summertime. Cool, huh?

For less trouble, there is a little gadget available (photo above) that you can place in a container or garden bed for 24 hours and it will give you total sunlight hours (categorized as full sun, partial sun, part-shade, shade), although it will not tell you whether it is hot midday sun, early morning sunlight, or late afternoon sunlight. It would be handy in the garden, esp. if taller plants tend to shade another, lower plant.

2 Very Useful Kitchen Gadgets

I really LOVE kitchen gadgets, and have to be careful lest I end up with a drawer full of gadgets I seldom use. Here's a couple I plan to buy soon, and both are replacements or upgrades for what I already have.

The first is a jar scraper. It will be a replacement for one I have that is so old the silicone rubber has hardened enough to break off in tiny chunks if I am not careful. I have looked off and on unsuccessfully for a replacement one for 10 years, and finally found one at Fantes! 

The one pictured above is 14 " long with a silicone blade that measures 1" from top to bottom of the blade and almost 2" wide. Perfect for mayonnaise or peanut butter jars! It is $4.99, dishwasher-safe and imported from Spain.

On the same page is another one that appears to be almost identical but made in China; available in assorted colors, and cheaper at $2.79.

The second gadget is another beater blade for my mixer. About a year and a half ago, I posted about the new beater blade I bought for my KitchenAid Mixer. The old one works okay, but by the looks of this one, the design is highly improved. No more stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl!

Flex Edge Beater for 4.5- and 5-Qt Stand Mixers, $29.99. Coated metal with flexible edge, Dishwasher safe.

SKU# KFE5T, Fits KitchenAid models K4, K4B, K45, KSM45, KSM90, KSM95, KSM100, KSM103, KSM110, KSM150, KSM151, KSM152, KSM155

Amazon now carries this one shown above, for 6 Qt. and Pro-5 KitchenAid Mixers, $29.95.

SideSwipe for KitchenAid 6-Qt & Pro 5-Plus Stand Mixers

Note: I have no affiliation with Fantes except as a customer. They have been in business almost forever, and I have even visited their shop in Philly years ago when I lived in Annapolis. I get the filters for my Chemex coffee maker from them. I also have no affiliation with Amazon except as a customer.

Kitchen Mixer BeaterBlade

While I’m posting pictures, here’s one of my new BeaterBlade for my KitchenAid stand mixer. I LOVE this thing! It has a flexible rubber strip on the edges which conform to the bowl, so I don’t have to continually stop the mixer and scrape down the insides of the bowl with a spatula. It is one of the 3 best kitchen gadgets I have bought in several years!

This BeaterBlade is made in the USA and is great for mixing cakes, cookies, frostings, quick breads, compound butters, meatloaf, pie fillings, mashed potatoes, and other tasty foods. (Not so good for whipping anything like light cream, though; thin stuff splashes all over the kitchen. Ask me how I know!) Various sizes are available to fit most KitchenAid, Cuisinart, Viking and DeLonghi stand mixers.

It is available from Amazon.