Recipes/Guides/etc that are CONFIRMED to be successful

[Bitter Ashes]

Righty then.

Please do not discuss the posts of this thread on this thread. I'll keep the contents page updated. It'd be better to post it directly onto this thread than use a link if at all possible, due to the risk of dead links. Any posts that are not a guide/receipe/etc will be removed.

Contents:

Page 1:

- Homebrew cider by Hannah Kay
- Haybox cooking by Hannah Kay
- Easy-to-make/healthy/cheap/hearty/filling Jambalaya. by August West
- Banner Making by Psycho

[Bitter Ashes]

Homebrew cider by Hannah Kay

My cider was EXTREAMLY potent, fairly tasty (at least better than White Lightning) and cost me only 15p a pint to make. The only downside being that it was very very cloudy, although it's just an appearance thing with it being natural it seems.

Anyway, no specialist equipment required at all. You can get all this from your local supermarket with no fuss.

Ingredients:

2 x 2ltr bottles (I used empty cola bottles)
Cheese grater
Hammer
CLEAN canvas bag (put it through the washing machine on a high heat)
2 x balloons
a large bowl
a pair of rigging gloves (optional)
a funnel (or you could just improvise with a rolled up envelope like I did)
a bag of Apples
1 small sachet of bread yeast (check the bakery isle in the supermarkets)
Sugar


1) Start by taking your apples and washing them, removing the stalk and then cheese gratering them and putting the pulp in the bag one a time. Do not put more than one apple's worth of pulp in the bag at once.

2) Get all the pulp into the corner of the bag and give it a good squeeze over a bowl. Some juice some come out. When no more comes out, put the bag on something sturdy and give it a few whacks with that hammer. Squeeze over the bowl again. Repeat this and make sure you wring all the juice out of the pulp. A pair of rigging gloves might help keep your hands in one piece. Once you've done that, empty out the bag, grate up another apple and do the same until all the apples are gone and you've got a nice big bowl of apple juice.

3) That is the hard work over. It's all easy cruising from here on in. Divide your juice up between those two bottles. You should have about 1/5th of your bottles each filled with juice now.

4) Add your yeast and fill up the rest of the bottle to about 4/5ths of the way with warm water. If it's too cold then you won't activate the yeast. If it's too hot then you'll kill the yeast. About lukewarm's good. Now you just sit back and enjoy. It should be bubbling away nicely. Leave it overnight with the caps off the bottles and come back to it. Just in case it froths over, you should leave it in the sink or bathroom floor or something where you can clean up afterwards if you need to.

5) You've come back to it and it looks scary, right? Don't panic. That's normal. Put a pinprick in the top of each of the balloons and put them over the necks of the bottles. Leave it again, but check back on it once a day. The balloon should sort of inflate with the gasses given off, but when it deflates again you can move onto step 6.

6) Just add a little sugar. Using the funnel helps. If it fizzes, then add another few tablespoons worth, put the balloon back on and check back again tomorrow and repeat.

7) If it doesn't fizz, then it's done! All that's left to do is to get the goo out from the bottom. What I did was pour it very very slowly into another container and all the gunk was left on the bottom. Wash out the bottle, screw on the cap (no balloons anymore) and put it back in again. Leave it overnight and see if there's any more gunk. It's pretty much up to you now how much gunk you'll tolerate in the cider, but it's nasty stuff and you'd be wise to get rid of it really.

8) Stick it in the fridge and enjoy. Be very careful with it though and treat it like you would white wine, rather than cider, because it is very very strong.

Enjoy :)

[Bitter Ashes]

Haybox cooking - Creation and use

This is a cracking little invention I've stumbled across that's dead easy to make and will save you a fortune. It also makes your food extra tender.

You will need:
- A large container, such as a shopping basket or box around the same size
- Insulating material. Traditionaly, hay is used, but that expanded polystyrene you get packing your freezer works even better!
- A sharp knife

All you do is cut the polystyrene to line the sides of your container and make a roof on the top. You could just pack it with hay from the rabbit's hutch too if you wanted, but this works better and it's a good use for an otherwise enviromentaly damaging material.

Now what you do with it is simple. You bring whatever it is you're cooking on the hob up to boil and then take it off the hob and put the pan in your haybox, put the lid on top and it will continue to cook for hours! As a general rule, you cook three times longer in the box than you would simmering on the hob.

This can easily save you an hour's worth of gas off each meal for a stew and you can even deep fat fry with it (but please be very careful when moving hot oil around). The savings rack up very quickly, unless you're one of those people who live off instant noodles and baked potatoes. Noodles can be cooked in the haybox too btw.

You're also making use of packing material which would otherwise be not-rotting on a landfill and reducing your carbon footprint by using less fuel.

As a final brucie bonus, because the food is cooked so slowly, it tenderises it beautifully. I know a lot of people are veggies and vegans, but for those of us who are not, being able to turn even the cheapest, toughest joints into something that falls apart in your mouth is certainly an attractive incentive.

It's not a pipe dream. It works now and you can easily incorporate a haybox into your life. With this in mind I'm going to put this in the sticky too. :)

[Decolonize The Left]

AugustWest's patented easy-to-make/healthy/cheap/hearty/filling Jambalaya.

What you'll need:
Big pot/casserole
Small pot with lid
Knife
Wooden Spoon
Appropriate ingredients (see below)

Ingredients (as stated should feed 4 easily. Double recipe for way too much food):

1 large white onion (chopped)
5 cloves garlic (crushed or minced)
2 bunches of scallions/green onions (approx. 12 total)
1-1.5-2 cup(s) uncooked rice*
1-2 cans red kidney beans (rinsed)*
1-2 carrots (1 if really large, 2 if smaller, sliced thin)
1 bunch of kale or chard (chopped)*
0.5 head of cabbage, napa cabbage is best (chopped)*
5-10 white mushrooms (chopped)
1-1.5 lb. Italian sausage (spicy or not is up to you, buy without the casings)
~0.5 cups chicken/vegetable broth
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes with juices (ie. do not rinse/strain)
S&P
Cumin
Chili powder
Turmeric
Butter and/or oil
Small amount of flour (approx. 4 tablespoons, only if using butter)

* These ingredients are optional though I highly recommend them.
** Also note that this dish can be prepared for vegetarians and vegans. For vegetarians/vegans, omit meat and substitute vegetable broth for chicken broth. If gluten free, omit the roux all-together.

Directions:

1. Prep all vegetables.
1a. Put rice in small pot with appropriate amount of water, begin cooking rice.
2. Heat large pot/casserole to medium heat. Cook sausage until just cooked through. Remove from pot and leave on side. If using sausage fat, leave in pot, if not, remove with paper towel or drain.
3. If using only oil add oil. If using butter/flour, add butter until melted then stir in bits of flour while stirring constantly to make a roux. Keep adding flour slowly until roux is thick and golden brown, it should stick well to the spoon.
3a. Add onions, garlic, and scallions. Cook over medium heat until translucent and well worked into roux (anywhere from 5-15 minutes). Add more butter/oil if necessary so they don't burn. Stir often.
3b. Add rest of vegetables (carrots, greens, mushrooms, cabbage, etc...) and stir until well incorporated. Cook for another 5-10 minutes.
4. When you feel like the veggies are relatively cooked through, add the canned tomatoes, the cooked sausage, and broth. Stir well and reduce heat to simmer.
4a. Add spices. S&P, then a healthy dose of chili powder, a lesser dose of cumin, and a pinch of turmeric. Stir well and continue to cook uncovered on low heat.
5. Rice should be just about finished. Take rice off heat when almost done and add to big pot. Add can(s) of beans as well. Stir very well until thoroughly integrated and cover. Cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring often, until rice is cooked and has absorbed most of the liquid.

Now, stand back and remark at how much food you just made. It's a lot. It'll also stick to your ribs and fill you up good and it's pretty cheap depending on where you get your veggies. It's also high in protein and nutrients, and can keep for a couple days in the fridge. Yummy.

Enjoy.

- August

[Bitter Ashes]

Banner Making by Psycho

this is an tutorial on banner making colapunk made in dutch, i'll try to make an an usefull translation in english so everybody here can benefit.
if you have any questions, please ask them.


First: making banners is tremendous fun, and it can, if properly done, transfer a very clear message.
you can within 5 minutes make a good impro banner with a piece of fabric and some paint, you can also take 6 hours (or even longer) to make it a beautiful one.

fabric:
-It depends on where you want to use it. but for most purposes it is easiest to go to the market and to go to a merchant and ask how many meters of white fabric, or what ever color you want, you will get for a tenner (or whatever your budget is). he usually has some waste material somewhere lying arround, or if you buy bulk you get an big discount. Dont worry that you buy too much, once you get the hang of banner making you'll be doing it a lot.
Go for the cheapest non stretchy material preferably cotton.

-At construction sites you can often "find" beautiful pieces of plastic banners with advertising on the fences. they are printed on one side, but the back is very nice white. please note that you take the solid plastic ones, not the mesh, which is not really suitable.
these banners are for many things convenient, and very suitable for painting on nice and tight. They are a bit heavy to use as a walking banner, and you need the sturdy rope to hang them somewhere...
on the other hand, make some good handles on them and in an demonstration they can double as an impro baricade against (mounted) police charges and police dogs.

-At hardware stores they sell very large pieces of orange or blue plastic. these already have handy rings to atach them to something. very usefull for gigantic bannerdrops.


paint
everything is useful. I myself am a fan spraycans, because it goes really fast, can be pretty tight, and dry quickly. but any paint that stands out on your cloth is usable.
fuck, if you feel messing around with some waterproof markers, be my guest;)


Techniques
there are shit loads of techniques to get your message on a banner.
the ways that I can think of:

Duct-tape in the form of letters / paste your picture.
possible. it is quite fast, but personally I am not a fan of it.

http://peterstormschrijft.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/foto0031.jpg?w=450&h=337
ducttape banner.

~ Variation on the duct tape technology:
do the same, but you go over it afterwards with a spraycan or paint ..
then pull the tape away, and you have stains on your cloth with letters in it! : D

-freehand painting.
very quickly and it can be very nice if you can do it a bit. but even if it less tight or pretty: you do have in no time a clear message on your occupied building or for your (spontaneous) demonstration

http://www.indymedia.nl/img/2008/07/53464.jpg
freehand banner

-The use of a "banner set".
by having a font stencil set ready, you can if you need put quickly and tightly a message on an canvas.

~ Find a nice font. for example, choose Army (standard but simple) or stencil Four (difficult but beautiful, like me). please note that you are a 'clean' option, without gritty edges, and you choose one with 'stencil bridges ",

~ Download the font.
~ Make sure you get him on something you can cut out. Some people swear by vynyl or cardboard, but I find it easiest to laminate / plastification.
So: print it out on plain paper, so that a letter is almost an entire A4 sheet. If you have any photoshopskillz make sure you print only the edges and not the letter coloring. This saves a lot of ink. score an laminator and laminating covers (the device only has to cost a tenner if you search, the covers are often ten to one hundred million pieces. Check your network if anyone have such a thing, often people have one on his / her work.
and laminate all characters you want. I myself have done all 26 characters, plus 1 to 0 , plus . , ! ? . this allows you to type virtually anything you want.
~ Cut all the letters. Use a sharp craft knife, scalpel or Stanley knife. make sure you crop the right pieces, and not demolishing the bridges.
if you do do it, you can fix it with superglue and an extra piece of plastic that you paste over it.

and then it looks if its good as this:

http://i27.tinypic.com/v4v4lh.jpg


use: lay the canvas flat on the ground. put the letter on it. if you're confident and have experience with spray cans, go ahead. if your missing one of those two, then put pieces of old newspaper or something along the edges to make sure you do not spray outside the stencil.
spray anyway not too thick. the paint will pull into the fabric, and you get very strange blotchy shit.

if you spraycan is not completely full, you can have problems if you hold the canister horizontally. yet you have to do this to get your letters. my solution: If no paint comes out, hold the cansiter upright, and spray a short burst in the air. Now go again to the canvas.
an other solution is to hang your banner on the wall but then you get drips fast.

http://i25.tinypic.com/25frk11.jpg

- freehand lettering

there are some people who can freehand with an pencil very tight profesional looking lettering on fabric and then paint it in, i'm not one of them.
appertly it involves putting out scale lines first.

you then get stuff like this:
http://peterstormschrijft.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/foto0041.jpg?w=450&h=337

- the beamer method:

a method of which I am a big fan because it is a relatively simple way to make a relatively complex picture on a canvas. it is very time consuming, but the responses I've had always made the effort well spent. this is for if you go for the 'did you ordered on the Internet? " reaction :)

how to make a banner using a beamer
~ steal or make a picture. if you can gimp (open source photoshop), do that, but for those with less 1337 skillz: it is fine to do in OpenOffice (or word, of course) a nice text and a picture next to it or together.

http://i32.tinypic.com/29g1h6a.jpg

the picture I use for this example.

~ Hang your fabric nice and tight against a wall, and beam your picture on it. You can also project using a slide- or an overhead projector, but beaming it is easier.

http://i26.tinypic.com/wlf66f.jpg
~trace all the lines using an magic marker
http://i26.tinypic.com/4vnz1c.jpg
~ switch of the beamer and take a break.
then put your fabric horizontal, and paint it in (paint by numbers style). any not to thin paint will do. just make sure its rainproof paint if you ever might want to use your banner outside.
http://i25.tinypic.com/2cz8pxs.jpg
~et voila!
http://i28.tinypic.com/6hqhyx.jpg

Psycho's super secret tip:
Why use boring white fabric? any lightly collored fabric is suitable for all mentioned techniques and for a few euros more you get an super dope effect:

http://www.indymedia.nl/img/2008/12/56180.jpg
http://www.indymedia.nl/img/2008/12/56181.jpg
(some banners i made using the beamer technique)

and for the blackblock festishists, yes, you can use black fabric too!, set your beamer on the most bright function, trace the lines with clothingmakers crayon and then paint (or stencil) with wite (latex) paint.

-not really a banner, but also cool:
with an program like posterazor (http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/)you can chop up any picture in pieces, after wich you can blow up each piece to a4 size and print it. after this you can stick it to an window or sommething like that.
http://indymedia.nl/img/2008/11/56093.jpg
if you dont have time or the patience to make an banner this is also an option! also very good to make gigantic stencils.

thanx to colapunk for the bulk of the tutorial!