A pipe dream

Jan 14, 2012 by Ben

I love this bookshelf.

I don’t know where I’m going to put it yet, but I will have one…someday.

You can buy this on Etsy or I imagine it wouldn’t be that hard to build yourself.

Ben…

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How to Grow a Revolution in Your Own Backyard

Nov 3, 2011 by Ben

Here is a wonderful video by Roger Doiron about our growing food supply problem (pun intended)

I planted my garden for a lot of the reasons he goes over in the video.  I have access to fresh food that is good for me and tastes good and it saves me money.   All things I really like.

Watch the video and let me know what you think.

Ben…

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A simple marinara sauce – plus zucchini noodles!

Sep 24, 2011 by Ben

Been doing a ton of traveling lately and came back home recently to find my tomato plant overflowing with tomatoes.  Were talking TONS of bright little red cherry tomatoes.  I planted some beef stake tomatoes too, but those did not grow for some reason.  In fact I only got one single tomato plant to grow.

But boy did it grow.

So we’ve been eating tomatoes like crazy.  Caprese salads, on regular salads, an on anything else I can think of.

I decided to try my hand at a marinara sauce and it turned out quite well

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 3 Tablespoons basil
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 3-4 cups of tomatoes
• Salt, pepper, & dried oregano

The zucchini are for the noodles I made, Lets get started making the sauce

dice up your garlic

Cut up your onion and throw it in a large deep pan with some olive oil.  Add the garlic and saute for a few minutes

dice up the basil and throw it in with the garlic and onion.  This will smell delicious!

throw the tomatoes in your food processor and pulse them up good

add to pan and throw in the tomato paste

add in a healthy pinch of salt, pepper and sprinkle liberally with oregano.  Lower the heat and let it simmer for a while.  You want all the flavors to mix together.  I let mine simmer for an hour.

While that is simmering you can make these awesome zucchini noodles.

You’ll need a mandolin slicer or a peeler that will also slice into little noodle strips.  I have a mandolin slicer so I set the blade for 1/8th and add the julien blade and slice the zucchini on all four sides until you reach the seeded part in the middle.

You will get a nice pile like this. Use your fingers to separate the strands and place them out on some paper towels to soak up the moisture.  I also add a pinch of salt over the top to help draw out the moisture.  When you are ready to cook these, place another paper towel on top and get any excess moisture out.  You can either boil these very quickly or throw them in a pan with a little olive oil.  That is what I did.  Either way you only need to cook these for a minute or two, nothing more.

I also cooked up some sliced zucchini and threw it all in a bowl with the noodles and covered with the sauce with was awesome and a very good use for all of my tomatoes.   I’ll definitely be making this again.

Got any good recipes for tomatoes, please send them my way.  My garden still overfloweth.

Ben…

 

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I dig this greenhouse

Sep 23, 2011 by Ben

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a small greenhouse to start some plants in. Then I saw this greenhouse.

 

Get it?  Toying?  See what I did there?

Its a greenhouse made entirely of Lego’s.  About 100,000 legos.  Made by designer Sebastian Bergne, and unveiled at the London Design Festival, this thing is just awesome.

Now I want this greenhouse.  All I need is 100,000 Lego’s.

Ben…

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Do big scary things

Jul 28, 2011 by Ben

I finally started working on my project car again the other day.  I get caught up in work or home projects and haven’t been working on the car much lately.

I’m working on building a 1959 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite, but with A LOT of custom modifications.  Pretty much everything will be custom made on this one.

And that freaks me out.

But its OK. Actually its good.  I think everyone needs to have at least one big scary project going on at any given time.  We need to stretch ourselves beyond our limits.  No one should live inside their comfort zone.

This project keeps me on my toes and learning as I go because on many aspects of it, I really don’t know exactly what I’m doing.

I can work on cars, and fix most things, and I’ve even built a car before, but that was more of a restoration and not a complete custom build like this one.

This one I’m going a little crazy and installing an engine that should have no place in a car like this.  Because I’m doing that I am then going to have to completely design and fabricate a new front end and rear end suspension system.  And I don’t even want to think about the electrical wiring on this thing yet.

And that’s where I lose my motivation.  Thinking about all of the things I “don’t know” or all of the things that lay before me in the project.

But then when I stop, and just work on the next thing that needs to be done, it all goes away.

I move forward.  I make progress.  I get things done.

And then I can look back and see that I’ve already rebuilt and fitted this engine that would not, should not fit inside this car.

I’ve modified it from a transfers to rear wheel drive engine by fitting a different transmission on there.

I created my own motor mounts to make this fit. etc

Big scary projects are big, and scary.  Its easy to get bogged down in all of the details and thousands of things you need to do.  Sometimes its hard to know what to do next.  For me its important to try to break it down into areas or steps and just try to keep moving forward.  Forward momentum helps make it seem not so scary.  Seeing progress helps.  Also looking back at all the work you’ve done is also very helpful.  Another trick that helps is getting a friend to come over and work with you.  Getting that extra energy and momentum from a friend can help keep you going when you get stuck or just lose motivation to keep going.

I think everyone needs a big scary project in their lives.

What is your big scary project?  Let me know in the comments below.

Ben…

P.S. for my 1AW for weeks 28 and 29, since I didn’t post last week, are some misc car parts from this project.  When I took on this project I actually bought two cars.  One was the shell of the Austin Healey, the other was a Ford Taurus from which I got the engine and everything else that came with it.  I’ve parted out the Taurus, but kept some parts I thought I’d use.  I’ve since been slowly getting rid of those parts I haven’t needed them.  Saving some space in my garage and making some cash on craigslist at the same time.

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Backyard Scrabble

Jul 23, 2011 by Ben

I like Words with Friends on the iPhone, its a fun game to play while standing in line at the store.  But I love this backyard scrabble idea.

Get together with your REAL friends and play a game in your backyard.  Awesome Idea.  I want to do this in my backyard.

Ben…

via Sunset

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