The Real Know How

How-Tos, Videos, Tutorials — Ramping Up for the 21st Century

Easy Mung Bean Sprouting

How to sprout mung beans easily in your kitchen (this method doesn’t use any specialized tools – just a colander, a bowl and a pot cover). Not mentioned in the video but most people, if they plan to eat the sprouts raw, rinse their sprouts a few times in clean water and some even use a food grade hydrogen peroxide solution to rinse the sprouts.

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Purslane vs. Spurge

How to tell true purslane apart from its toxic neighbor, spurge. This video was created by someone who lives in the US Great Lakes area.

Purslane – A Common ‘Weed’ That’s a Super Food

A lot of information about the benefits of purslane aka pigweed (it’s a good source of Omega-3 fats, for example) as well as how to identify it. The narrator is growing purslane as a potherb in his garden but this is an extremely common and easy to find plant, even in urban environments.

Finding and Eating “Weeds”

A short primer on finding edible “weeds” in suburban Florida.

Stocking Firewood for the Winter

Arborist, Steve Zumalt of North Attleboro, Massachusetts fills us in on what we need to know to stock up on firewood for the winter: How to season wood and how to know when the wood is well seasoned/dry, which woods to stock (in New England), BTUs, fireplace vs. wood stove and so on…

Steve’s business is Zumalt Tree Experts.

How to Forge Steel

“Mike Blue, Randall Graham, Ric Furrer, making steel at Larry Harley’s in May 2006. Lecture and Demonstration. Filmed by Christopher Price of The Tidewater Forge. 9 minutes.”

The inputs are alternating layers of charcoal chunks (1 inch cubes) and iron ore powder. The furnace is based on a traditional Japanese design and is “sacrificial.”

How To Make Oat, Nut or Seed Milk

Nutritionist Samantha Peris shows us how to make oat, nut or seed milk. She uses oats as the main ingredient for the milk in this video.

How to Build A Foundry Furnace For Under $100

From depronfreak: “Built me an furnace ! and created a guide.
I use it to melt silver for casting purposes (max 35 ounces at one time)
Everything in the project costs less than 100 $”

How To Make Flour Tortillas

Here’s a step-by-step on how to make flour tortillas.

The poster, abrahamdiaz writes “This is the traditional recipe made in northern Mexico. Ingredient measurements should be followed exactly as shown in instructions; water quantity may vary depending on desired mixture texture. This recipe makes about 18 tortillas.”

His recipe uses vegetable shortening – since that’s a modern product – that wouldn’t be traditional. Maybe in the past they would have used lard. But he anyway, gives a substitution measurement for vegetable oil.

Here’s mszeineb’s veg oil version:

From Fruit Leather to Fruit Drink

Another use, this one quite old, for fruit leather/dehydrated fruit puree. Apparently, in the Middle East dried apricot puree is made into a refreshing fruit drink.

The fruit leather is reconstituted by soaking in warm water for several hours (overnight) – can also be put into the blender to speed things along – then it is refrigerated. You can adjust the amount of water and add a sweetener if you feel it necessary at this point.

The following videos show two slightly different techniques. A warning that the background music in both is fairly loud (I’d mute it, as there is no talking in either video, just visual demonstration).

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