seasamgo

Broths and Kitchen Scraps

2021-04-22T00:00:00-04:00

Soups, stews, broths and stocks are a great way to reduce kitchen waste and stay warm in the winter. And though the perpetual stew isn’t feasible for most people to keep going in their homes anymore, perpetually making broth as a base for soups and stews is relatively easy. In order to keep waste at a minimum, I use only leftover kitchen scraps and keep them frozen until ready.

Supplies

Vegetable scraps
Slow-cooker, pressure-cooker, or stove with a pot and extra patience
Optional: meat/bone scraps, spices

Frozen scraps, preparation and leftovers.

The core ingredients of a vegetable broth are carrots, celery and onions in 2-2-1 proportions. I also like to add other common scraps, like potato peels, mushrooms, wilting spinach and lettuce, but mostly for the nutrition as these don’t add much for taste. Some kitchen scraps, like tomatoes, can easily overpower the flavor of other ingredients and should be used sparingly. Chop everything into small pieces to increase the surface area and maximize extraction of both nutrients and flavor.

Leftover meats can be added, as well as bones to make a thicker stock. For the former, I like to cut or pull the meat into small pieces and sauté with the carrots, celery and onions in olive oil. I roast any bones in the oven for an hour to increase the broth’s flavor. This works well with meats like chicken or beef, fish can simply be included as is.

Spices are entirely optional and depend on your purpose for the broth. If you just want to drink the broth, you may want to consider adding pepper and salt to taste. I also like to add a couple bay leaves, and sometimes chili flakes for additional heat. If you plan to use it as a base for multiple dishes, then you may wish to keep it simple and include spices corresponding to those dishes as they’re made.

Mix your ingredients in your cooking device of choice and add as much water as you want broth, up to the maximum fill line. Cooking time will depend on the contents, as well as the device. Using a fast pressure-cooker, vegetables and fish can be done in under and hour; chicken meat, about an hour; and chicken bones, at least an hour and a half. If using a stove top, simmer for twice as long, a crock pot may take 4-6 hours or even be left overnight. Broth is forgiving but, if left too long, will turn out bitter.

Steaming end result.

When done, strain the broth through a wire mesh or colander and enjoy! The strained leftovers are mostly just fiber and/or collagen, if cooked long enough, and can be discarded or used as compost. They can also be included with the broth as part of a soup or stew, if desired. The broth can be stored in the fridge for several days, or freezer for much longer, but be careful not to overfill glass containers.

Platform Style Bed

2019-11-24T00:00:00-05:00

Graduation and a new job brought me to a new apartment in San Francisco. I gifted my old bed to a colleague as a graduate student care package with the intention of starting completely fresh. This last one was a queen-size platform bed I’d built out of pine and fir and I wanted to maintain the general aesthetic but upgrade to a king mattress with a stab at redwood. I modified the plans for a full platform bed here to fit a king-size bed, reduce mattress slippage and fit my personal preferences. The final product was even better than I’d imagined and incredibly comfortable, with the soft redwood providing some extra spring and sound dampening qualities.

Supplies

Wood
- 2x8x8 (4)
- 2x6x8 (3)
- 2x4x8 (1)
- 2x2x8 (1)
- 2x4x8 (2)
- 1x4x8 (12)
Hardware
- Pocket-hole jig (I used the Kregg 310)
- Box of 2 1/2’’ pocket-hole screws
Tools
- Saw
- Drill
- Tape measure
- Hand square
- Paint brush
- Finish of choice

I selected the wood pieces from a local lumber yard, picking among the dry deck heart as I like the look of knots and filtering each piece of wood for aesthetic and warping. As I’d moved without a vehicle and the yard was 3 miles from my apartment, actually getting the wood would have been difficult, but it was inexpensive to have the yard ship it over as if I was a job site.

In progress photographs: the shipped redwood, trimmed planks, and loose arrangment of the final pieces.

Assembly

The actual measurements would depend on the specific mattress, I trimmed each piece to the following after sizing my king:

Width
- 2x8x8 (2) → 77”
- 2x6x8 (1) → 74”
- 2x2x8 (1) → 85”
- 1x4x8 (12) → 74”
Length
- 2x8x8 (2) → 80”
- 2x6x8 (2) → 85 1/2”
- 2x4x8 (3) → 80”

Assembly photographs: setting the pocket holes with the jig and the final assembly.

The pocket-hole setup works by setting the stopper length on the jig for 2 inch boards (actually about 1 1/2 inches), clamping where desired and then pre-drilling discrete holes. I spread these at equal intervals of 7-10 inches across the width and length of the base pieces to fit into the top platform pieces. I also added 2-4 equally spaced pocket holes into each of the ends. The platform was then fit together first, upside down on the floor, followed by the base and the base finally screwed into the platform pieces.

The only real trick at this point was setting the 2x4 support beams to the correct height. I chose to fix them with a 1” inset, which resulted in a 1/4” inset of the 1x4” slats. This helped reduce slippage of the slats and any raised snags for the mattress that might be induced over time by warping. These were also fastened by pocket-hole screws, although 2 1/2” decking screws would be fine as well. The slats may be fixed to the support beams via pre-drilled holes and decking screws, but I preferred to leave them free.

The finished bed with mattress.

The last touch would be to provide a finish. I plan to apply a kona stain that matches my apartment aesthetic, but will be waiting for travel over the holidays so as to avoid sleeping across from a room emanating VOC’s.

Wooden Dresser Renovation

2018-08-04T00:00:00-04:00

My landlord has a soft spot for bargains and old furniture. He also apparently has a soft spot for me because I talked him into giving me the ugly painted-green dresser in the back of his truck a couple weeks ago for free. That, or he just didn’t want to lug such an ugly piece all the way from Boston to Durham. But his burden was my new project, and it turned out to be a far sweeter deal than I’d thought.

Supplies

Paint and varnish remover (avoided those with methylene chloride)
Paint brush
Scraping blade or putty knife
Clean cloths
Hammer
Finishing nails
Sandpaper ranging from grit size 120 to 240
Naval jelly or other rust remover
Toothbrush or other small brush

The first step was to remove the ugly paint job. I slathered the dresser in the paint and varnish remover with a paint brush, and waited about an hour for the color to change before scraping each layer off in long strokes. This gets messy and I recommend keeping a cardboard box nearby to dispose of the scraps as you go — you do not want to leave them lying around when you’re done. It may take a few applications and a different wait time, depending on the weather (I was under a hot sun at 2 pm) and how much paint/many types of paint or varnish have been used on the piece previously.

In progress photographs: the paint stripped, flat surfaces sanded, and the final piece.

After washing the dresser down with soap and water to remove any residue, it was time to sand the piece down and see what sort of wood quality we were dealing with. You can use whatever grit size you want, starting low and moving higher until you’re happy with the result. I used an orbital sander for flat surfaces, with 180-240 grit size, but just the paper itself for any tighter spots and crevices with 120-150 grit size. This discrepancy was mostly because I was lazy and didn’t bother moving up to 240 by hand, but it also resulted in an appealing color contrast after staining (the difference in feel post-touch isn’t noticeable).

With only the wood left, the quality was clearly decent (much, much better than I’d hoped for) and I chose to apply a light natural finish with Danish oil. Other options include lacquer, shellac and varnish, but I particularly liked the idea of Danish oil for its penetration and lack of film, which would bring out the grain. However, this is not a great option if the furniture is likely to be exposed to liquids often. I didn’t plan on dumping many liquids on a clothes dresser so this was fine.

Cleaned fixtures and waxed drawer runners.

The last few things to take care of were the rusty metal fixtures, squeaky wooden runners and a few errant nails. The nails were easily replaced with a some 1 inch finishing nails left over from a previous project, and the metal fixtures only took a few minutes with some naval jelly, a toothbrush, and a wash in the sink. I didn’t clean them any further, as I liked the slight rustic look alongside the natural wooden finish. A little bit of furniture wax took care of the runners, wiping on with a rag and brushing off the excess, but the product is highly toxic and should be used very carefully. In fact, I plan on looking into the potential for jojoba oil if I do something like this again.

Finally, I cleaned the entire inside of the piece with a clean cloth and some vinegar water. All told, this entire endeavor took several hours and could easily be completed in a weekend. The end result was especially satisfying for a free piece and I’m looking forward to similar projects in the future.

Note: some of the tools and products mentioned here are hazardous. A mask and glasses can protect the eyes and lungs from sawdust and other particles. Paint and varnish remover, furniture wax and naval jelly are all extremely toxic and should be used in well-ventilated areas, according to their labels, and disposed of properly.

Quantly 2018 Astropreneurship Hackathon

2018-06-11T00:00:00-04:00

A few good friends of mine are especially passionate about both space travel and Russian films. These two subjects happen to coincide in Solaris (1972), where a team of cosmonauts is faced with existential crises above the cryptic planet of Solaris. Having recently watched this film together, all of our talk since had been about the advent of human space travel and its philosophical/ethical implications. These conversations eventually came to a head after a few post-midnight birthday party toasts, where we all but exhausted our lines of questioning and agreed we’d become astronauts in the next life.

Not wanting to let the topic go, the most existential friend shared a link to a space-themed hackathon and asked that I roll the dice. The alarm went off six times that morning but, four coffees later, I eventually met software engineers Alex and Frank to form Team Micro. This is what we came up with for the Quantly 2018 Astropreneurship, Space Medicine and DataVerse Hackathon at Harvard University:

We designed and demoed a biofeedback device that uses LiDAR and EEG to improve localization and orientation in microgravity environments.

Our project tied for first with the only other project being demoed: Deep Space Pulsar Navigation System (DSPNS), which can be found here.