The Grand Romantic Video

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Tom Green

The first part of “The Grand Romantic Gesture” is now available to view, just click on the link above. This sets out the reasoning and takes you through to the finish of a wood carving which is the basis of the Grand Romantic Gesture. Part 2 which is available in a few days time demonstrates how to take a silicon mould of the carving which can then be used to make all manner of things, giving you years of presents from a single piece of work.

Originally I had intended to make this a two part series, but the more sleepless nights I have the more ideas I come up with for additional things I can make with the mould, so I am there is a possibility of a third. Those who have seen the first are very complementary but I become very conscious that it becomes a bit of a monologue, so I am tempted to make the third one a Mime. What do you think?

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How to make a Silicone Cake Tin

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Tom Green

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If you have come across my work before you will know that I like to video my projects and post them on my you tube channel “heritagecraft”.

My latest project is entitled AGrand Romantic Gesture. I take as my starting point that one of the most romantic sections of society is middle aged men, we are just misunderstood by middle aged women. Therefore in order to restore the Status Quo every now and again you need to make a Grand Romantic Gesture. Now if you lucky you have inspiration, but its more likely that having been in a relationship for many years you have run out of inspiration – sound familiar? Its a good think that heritagecraft is here to help.

The video starts off by showing you to carve a Lilly in a frame out of wood, which just happens to be a favourite of my own beloved, and you could stop at that point you would have a very successful present. However you could take it a couple of steps further and get at least four more presents out of this and solve your present problems for at least a year.

The first step is too make a mould of our artwork for which you need Food Safe Silicone. You can buy this from Special effects suppliers. I brought mine from http://www.backstageshop.co.uk who are good customers of mine so its good to give them an opportunity to get some money back. imageYou will find there are several too chose from however I choose Bluesil RTV which is the food safe version, along with a silicon colour. You will also need some accurate scales, a disposable pot to mix it all together in and a stirrer. Best not use the stuff from the kitchen if your trying to improve marital harmony.

First of all I mounted the carving on a backing board, and made a wooden frame to go round it. If your going for a more free flowing shape you could use modelling clay to create the barrier.image

Before screwing it down give everything a good spray with mould release spray.

The silicon comes in two parts, the silicon and the hardener, which you have to mix together in accurate proportions. For this product You need to mix 10 parts of silicon with one part of hardener, by weight, hence the scales, then add some colour. The proportions do vary so check the manufacturers data sheets. If you do this commercially you would then put the mix into a vacuum chamber to suck out the air bubbles, however as I don’t have one, then the technique is to add the materials together gently, and stir it together gently, that way avoiding air bubbles to start with. Once mixed you have to move quickly so get everything ready first.imagePour into the mould and leave overnight to set. The next day your ready to take the mould apart and see if it worked.

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Once you have given the mould a wash its ready for use.imageAs mentioned earlier there is a video and that will be posted on the Heritagecraft you tube channel in the near future, so press the follow button to keep up to date and you will get the link as soon as it happens, you will also find out how I get at least two more presents of this. Where will it end I hear you cry.

So now we have done relationship advice who knows where we can go next. thanks for reading

Tom

 

 

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A New Superfood

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Tom Green

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Recently I was demonstrating #enfieldfoodfestival and as part of my demonstration I was demonstrating how to make your own bacon. I maintain if you did a cost benefit analysis, balancing the amount of effort required ( very little) against the end result, home made bacon wins against any other home produced food. Certainly if you look at my recent videos on the subject, the link for which is below you will see just how easy it is.

However @enfield food festival I was really demonstrating my new Food Dehydrator / smoker drying some tomatoes, which I then turned into smoked tomato powder. This was really a stop gap whilst I waited  for the Hungarian Peppers I have been growing to ripen so I can make paprika. Having discovered smoked tomato powder I have to say it has transformed our cooking at home, and its set us off trying to powder all sorts of fruit and veg. Anyway working on the theory that Bacon and Tomato are a classic combination I decided to add smoked tomato powder into the bacon cure. In the excitement of the moment I was perhaps slightly heavy handed, and rather a lot went in  but who cares.

A week has passed, the Bacon has now cured, then it was smoked for 14 hours over apple wood, and finally it was ready. Smoked Tomato infused bacon. The picture doesn’t do it justice, we ended up with beautifully pink bacon, succulent, with a hint of the acidic tomato cutting through. truly something to savour.  I think we have discovered a new Super Food. When I was slicing it up I was thinking to myself all the people I could give some too, but having tasted it, what they have never had they wont miss. Its too good to share. Don’t you love it when an experiment works

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Have I lost the Plot?

Posted on August 30, 2017 by Tom Green

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I have reached a cross roads and I need some help. I have just finished my last video project, and so its what to do next.

I have become known for a diverse range of projects, although there are linking threads if you dig deep enough. I tend to work with the same group of materials and techniques, which can all be traced back to wheelwrighting and carriages, I work in timber and metal well that’s obvious that’s wheels, leather, comes from harness making, Traditional Upholstery = carriage seats. So you can see there are links.

In recent times I have gone slightly sideways into making food creation structures, Wood Fired Ovens, Smokers, and most recently dehydrators. These are all things I wanted in my garden, I would have built them anyway, The video is just a by product and judging by the numbers there popular.

Now some of my videos can be made fairly quickly and some take slightly longer, partly because life just gets in the way. At the moment I have two I am working on. There is a portable barbeque which can be converted into a pizza oven, which has hit a technical challenge. I think I have the solution but until we get the “bit” I don’t know. The second one is a Horse powered Ice Cream machine, which can also work off a bicycle. Construction has started, but again there is a vital bit, a stirrer which I need to make, for which I will need to create the furnace necessary to melt and then sand cast aluminium. When you see it written down it sounds bizarre, but I think I can make it work.

The issue is what to do in the short term. I have a couple of projects in mind. When I make the videos I always assume that my audience is someone like me, a middle aged man who likes pottering away in a shed somewhere, so I make the videos I would like to watch. Therefore I have the plan for a video which I am styling as “The Grand Romantic Gesture”. Its a well known fact (certainly in my shed) that the most romantic section of the population is middle aged men, unfortunately this is a fact often misunderstood by middle aged women.

My starting point is having been married for many years its hard to think of presents because after so many years of Christmases and Birthdays you have probably already brought it. Therefore a Grand Romantic gesture is called for and so instead of standing outside a shop trying to purchase something you really don’t understand, you make something in your workshop instead which can then used as the basis of presents for the next few years. This solves the perpetual present problem, delights the lady in your life who gets something very personal made just for her, whilst at the same time bestowing  upon your beloved great bragging rights with her friends none of whom have husbands who could manage such a magnificent gesture ( because they didn’t watch the video)  Clever I hear you cry.

My problem is I fear I have I lost the plot, am I leaving my comfortable world of wood and metal to far behind, and digging a big hole for myself, or is this a logic extension of what I do?  Help me out an independent opinion would be appreciated. What do you think?

 

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Tom Green Live on Stage

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Tom Green

Finally after many years I leave the comfort of my workshop, and for the first time enter the world of Live Events with an appearance at the Enfield Food Festival, where on stage I demonstrated my new Food smoker and dehydrator, make tomato powder and cure bacon in under 25 minutes. Which is pretty fast work.

For marketing purposes I have of course to say it was magnificent, and I held the audience spell bound in the palm of my hand, but you make your own mind up I am too close to it to be objective. What I can say is afterwards I had several very good discussions about points raised with a wide variety of people, and a number of people were going home to do some of what I suggested, so on that basis alone we will consider it a success. I would certainly do it again.

Now its time to leave tomatoes alone for a while and move on. I have had an inspiration for a video designed for middle aged men looking to put the romantic spark back into their relationship. It involves a cake, some silicon, and a block of wood. Am I going to far from my roots or are you interested? My dearly beloved is not allowed to comment

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The Last Tomato in Norfolk

Posted on August 19, 2017 by Tom Green

The Old Blokes Kitchen rides again. For those who have missed it I have been making a combined food dehydrator and smoker, and as always with my projects there is a video. I will put a link about its construction at the bottom, but the latest video is about how to use it.  By way of a experiment for the first firing, I decided to dry and smoke some tomato’s and then convert them into a powder which can be used in cooking. The end result, smoked tomato powder, exceeded all expectations, and created an ingredient which we would now struggle to do without. Why not have a look at the video and see for yourself

I would like to pretend that this magnificent machine is the result of years of intensive research, required vast amounts of computer power and high tech equipment to make, and needs to be operated by a team of highly trained technicians with university degrees. But if you look at the how to make it video you will see its as low tech as its possible to be, with one moving part, or two if you include the door, and can easily be operated in a garden or even on a balcony. You can use it just as a cold smoker, just as a dehydrator, or a combination of both. The hammock is optional, but recommended. You cant hurry these things

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Food Dehydrator – The Video

Posted on August 16, 2017 by Tom Green

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The latest action packed video on how to build the food dehydrator taking you through construction, the first firing, and ending up with Smoke Dried Tomato’s which I have to say were delicious; note the past tense, is now available to watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW0HZqnKqeU           tomato

The Old Blokes Kitchen appears in public for the first time with this, an assistant, and yet another new apron especially made for the occasion at the Enfield Food Festival in a few days time so if your in the area drop in.

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How to get 2kg of Tomatoes in a Jam Jar

Posted on August 9, 2017 by Tom Green

imageHow do you get 2kg of tomatoes into a jam jar? it sounds like one of those terrible maths riddles you used to get at school. The answer is to use my recently completed Food Dehydrator /smoker – I must come up with a better name, any suggestions gratefully received.

Our picture shows the intricate precision machinery whirring into action overseen by a keen and attentive highly trained operative asleep in a hammock. I have made two videos, which will be posted on my you tube channel – heritagecraft soon. The first covers the manufacture of the device up to and including the first firing, the end result of which is smoke dried tomatoes, and will I suspect when posted be very popular.

The second video will probably be very niche, and shows how to make smoked tomato powder, in which if I am honest not a lot happens, there are no car chases, no nudity, no overhead tracking shots from a drone, just a short clip of smoke wafting past 2kgs of Tomato’s and them slowly shrivelling up before being transformed into a powder which barely fills the bottom of a jam jar. In the Old days when I used to light things for a living we used to have a customer who ran a web site featuring fully clothed ladies smoking, which gets phenomenal traffic, earning him thousands of pounds every month so I just need to give the video a sexy suggestive title and perhaps I can get a whole new section of society interested in cooking.

imageWhat The video will inevitably fail to convey is what an incredible ingredient this is. The picture shows the second batch of 2kgs of Roma tomato’s transformed into an extremely concentrated smoke infused powder. The faintest touch of it seems to transform anything. Today we had Tomato bread, so you would expect that, yesterday I added it to Rosti a grated fried potato cake if you haven’t tried it and it was magnificent, and  as soon as the weather improves we get to try my new Mobile Garden Pizza oven I have been making for a while. Smoked Tomato powder on pizza, now were talking.

I set off on this journey as I wanted to try and make my own smoked paprika, and this was the method I came up with in order to do it, for some time I have been growing Hungarian Peppers on my workshop window, and when there ready I shall look forward to the end result. In the meantime I can think of all kinds of fruit and veg I can concentrate, and powder. Like every Gardener I have a glut of courgettes, it will be interesting to try drying those, the apple harvest isn’t that far away and I can see a use for apple powder. Any Suggestions, mushroom powder perhaps, a tomato and pepper combination?

As my dear old dad used to say – Life is fraught with possibilities.

 

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A Combined food dehydrator and smoker

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Tom Green

imageFinally my combined food Dehydrator and Smoker is ready for its test run.

The principle behind it is you place the food you want to smoke in the chest on the table which for the purposes of my public demonstration at the Enfield Food Festival in a few weeks time I have fitted with a Perspex door, so for this experiment I am smoking two different types of tomatoes. In the bottom of the top unit I then have a smoke cube filled with maple sawdust which gives a nice sweet smoke to give flavour. The second box on the floor contains a small charcoal fire and the heat is drawn up through the pipe by the fan on top of the upper box passing through the tomotoes and drying them out.

I am using Small cherry tomatoes which I am hoping will become smoke dried tomotoes, my version of sun dried tomotoes but with extra flavour. I then have larger brown tomotoes brought in France last week which I will dry until there crisp which I can then turn into smoked tomotoe powder. I am salivating already.

Its all been going for about an hour and the first signs are that its working but you never know. I anticipate it will take approx 6-8hours and as you can see by the hammock I am prepared to concentrate give this my undivided attention a without any thought to my own personal safety. It’s a tough job but someone had too do it.

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Success. Smoke dried tomotoes…image

 

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Waited 20 years for an Ice Cream

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Tom Green

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Here at Green Towers we are making preparation’s for our summer holiday, were not going anywhere but for a couple of weeks we put real work to one side and do something different.

We have our annual day trip to France to the hypermarkets of Calais to stock up with Brie cheese for the smoker, and tomatoes, for some reason the French supermarkets offer a breadth of choice in tomato varieties that our super markets and farm shops don’t get near, and it so happens I need a quantity of decent tasting tomatoes’  for a project, far in excess of the ones I am growing.  That’s my excuse for going to France, if we should happen to also buy a bottle of wine its a bonus.

Those of you who have seen my Old Blokes Kitchen Videos will know that I like to break food projects down into ingredients, and utensils, make as many of both that I can, and then end up with a far superior result. These projects invariably take some time to produce especially if it means I have to grow something first so there are always several projects bubbling away, in some cases literally. I do this partly because its fun and partly because a member of my family has food allergies and so unless we produce it ourselves we cant have it, and so for example whilst I can accept Peanut Butter being banned from the house, to deprive a man of ice cream is a step too far, which brings me to the subject of todays picture, fresh off the lathe today and ready for my holiday.

Our allergy sufferer cant consume the preservatives and other dodgy ingredients to be found in commercial ice cream, so we have for many years made our own using our domestic freezer, and as all things you make your self ,on a bad day you beat the commercial product. but on the days when the ingredients just work it becomes a sublime treat. There is a new Bicycled Powered Ice Cream Maker project currently being worked on ready for next summer but that’s a secret, However one ingredient through out has alluded us until now. The Ice Cream Cone.

My understanding is that commercial Ice Cream cones certainly in the UK are made from a by product of the nut processing industry. I cant guarantee that but with these kind of allergies you don’t muck about, so it means our poor sufferer for 20 years has had to make do with bowls of ice cream rather than a cone. If I am honest I have to say they don’t seem that bothered but that’s not the point of the story. I have found a way courtesy of You tube to make an ice cream cone, so whether they want it or not our poor beloved will get an Ice Cream in a cone at some point in the next two weeks.

The process is you heat up a hot plate, which then gives me an opportunity to have a fire in my new Garden Grill, and you make a thin pancake, when its cooked you wrap it around an ice cream cone shape, which I have just made,- now the picture makes sense its not an item of medieval torture, slide it off and leave it to cool. How difficult can it be, I just need to discover the secret recipe for the cone mixture, and suggestions gratefully received. As they say in all the best Radio Shows stay tuned to find out how we get on.

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