Do-it-yourself with Redecker
Do-it-yourself with Redecker
… then I just do it myself!
Is this already a movement or still a trend? More and more people are realising how satisfying it is to create something with their own hands. From beekeeping to your own bread baking, from preserving to your own line of care products - there is much more to it than just "DIY". Nobody has to go straight to self-sufficiency, but: The distrust in industrially produced goods and the "staying at home" last year have further strengthened this trend. We would like to look at some of the possibilities around the home where we can help with typical Redecker products.
Raised beds and planting products
Gardening. A timeless hobby.
If you´ve never planted your own fruits or vegetables, you should definitely give it a try. A great way to grow chard, carrots or lettuce is using raised beds, which have become increasingly popular in recent years. But why actually? In addition to its comfortable working and harvesting height, a raised bed - if properly installed - keeps pests of all kinds away without using chemicals or poisons: Slugs can be easily deterred with copper tape or coffee grounds, and rodents can be kept from reaching the bed with rabbit wire. Those who take raised bed sustainability seriously use tools made from sustainable materials for gardening, such as the Redecker planting wood or the pricking stick made from untreated beech wood. All enthusiastic gardeners will be happy - even with-out a raised bed! - about the new planting clips and planting plugs. Everything you need for a great time in the garden with the right tools!
Meeting place, forum, place of enjoyment: the village baking oven
Everything used to be better. No! Of course not! But a few things...
Building a large clay wrapped pizza or bread oven in the yard is not that difficult - the internet is teeming with instructions. In the past there were such big ovens in the centre of the village, mostly near the village well. After the oven was heated up, many families could bake their bread there and exchange news and experience a lot of community. Why not revive this wonderful tradition? Build an oven in the garden! Heat it up! Invite all your neighbours and friends to bake delicious breads, pizzas, cakes and much more in the once-heated oven! The thanks and many tasty samples are certain.
Professionals use the Redecker oven slider, the oven broom and - to coat the breads with water or the pastry with butter - of course the Redecker baking brushes. Have fun!
Bee-striker and world saviour: The beekeeper
More and more people in Germany, even in the big cities, are learning and practising beekeeping again.
The situation for the bees has therefore already improved on a small scale, but pesticides, monocultures and the Varroa mite are still affecting the colonies. The right Redecker product for all beekeepers is the bee broom, which has been tried and tested many times in daily use, with which the bees are carefully "stroked down" by the wax plates pulled out of the hive. If you do not necessarily want to become a beekeeper, you can also use the brush for dusting large areas ...
Vegetables in the Redecker kitchen: raw vegetables with the digestibility plus
Oven vegetables? We have them all the time. Pumpkin soup? Tried it out in all its variations. What else can you do with fresh vegetables, possibly even from your own garden? We're on a fermentation kick.
Fermentation: a healthy vitamin kick for thousands of years
Fermented foods have been part of our daily diet for thousands of years. Wine, beer, sourdough bread and cheese are probably their most prominent representatives. But "preserved" vegetables such as sauerkraut are also among the fermented delicacies and are still far too seldom homemade - yet it is so easy! The sauerkraut bought in the supermarket is usually mixed with spirit vinegar and pasteurised (highly heated) - unfortunately, this means that the positive effects of the probiotic bacteria that are produced during fermentation are lost. The "good" living lactic acid bacteria help us to keep our intestinal flora healthy. Vegetables can be easily turned into delicious, wholesome raw food through lactic acid fermentation - and can even be kept for a very long time through fermentation.
How do you do it? Cut a fresh organic white cabbage or pointed cabbage into quarters and slice into not too thin strips with a vegetable slicer, cutting out the stalk generously and wedge-shaped beforehand. Place in a large bowl and mix with natural sea salt (preferably not industrially produced vacuum salt or salt with anti-caking agents!) (1 teaspoon of salt per kilo of vegetables). The salt is now worked in vigorously by hand until the cabbage has drawn water and no more grains of salt can be felt. Now use the Redecker potato masher: Fill a previously sterilised preserving jar (our jar 857061 is perfect) with layer after layer from the bowl and compact each layer with the potato masher. Alternatively, our jar attachments 857038 or 857044 can be used to shave and mash vegetables with a little salt directly into the jar.
If the vegetables were fresh, so much liquid is produced that they are covered with a layer of brine in the jar and nothing peeks out. This is important - otherwise the wrong bacteria will win and everything will spoil. Within 2-3 days, the exciting process begins that turns cabbage & co. into delicious sauerkraut: friendly bacteria come out of nowhere and turn the liquid into adelicious pickling brine that preserves the vegetables and makes them digestible even raw; carbon dioxide is produced in the process. Depending on the fermentation activity, the screwed-on lid should therefore be opened from time to time so that it can escape. After about 2 weeks, the sauerkraut is ready and can be cooked with bay leaf, a clove, a spoonful of honey and a dash of white wine or sparkling wine. Unfortunately, we don't do this because we have already eaten the healthy snack raw. The best thing is that this works not only with various types of cabbage, but also with almost all root vegetables, even courgettes or carrots can be refined in this way and enjoyed raw or cooked. They keep for weeks!
Now that we have used our new potato masher for this purpose, we would like to point out its original purpose: It mashes cooked potatoes with butter and milk in the pot to silky mashes, but can also be used for raw dumplings: The raw grated potatoes go into our dumpling bag, the masher is used to "drive out" moisture and starch. The grated potatoes can then be further processed into raw dumplings or potato puffs. The starch that settles at the bottom of the liquid goes back into the dumpling batter. Alternatively, you can also use the "bag masher" to juice berries... All in all, our new masher is quite versatile, isn't it?