SOAP! Yes I'm doing that now

Making home-made soap isn't something I thought I would ever do. From a money perspective, it’s hard to look at savings on soap to justify the effort if you don't have any extra time. Furthermore, it isn't easy to get the sodium--- to make lye at home thanks to the meth heads (whom we can also thank for not being able to buy enough Sudafed to last the winter). It's the Congresspeople who took away our rights to these things, not the meth producers, I know, but it pisses me off, whoever is responsible. I even didn't write the whole word because I've heard the web bots are out looking.

Not that you need lye to make soap anyway. It's much less messy or time consuming to let the industrial manufacturers deal with that step and skip right to using glycerin, which is what you have if you make candles and soap using lye. Skip the lye and in the time it takes to make jello, you could also have a six-month supply of soap, that feels and smells just how you'd like it to. (Jello is made with gelatin, not glycerin, btw. Just want to be clear! Do not make jello with glycerin unless you need a laxative, badly!)

Have you ever looked at a label on a natural home-made soap where it read "saponified coconut"? That's vegetable glycerin, which for soaps, usually is made from coconut oil and lye.

Glycerin is a great moisturizer for sensitive skin. I buy liquid glycerin to put into rose water for a home-made skin refresher, and am chipping away at a huge 25 lb. block of clear, solid glycerin make my own soap. In the end, what I spent for the supplies in bulk, is what I figure I would spend in a year on soap. Except these supplies will last 3 to 5 years. (The white glycerine blocks have goat's milk in them, which I can add myself.)

I like the look and feel of glycerin soap, too, it has a candy-like quality. The main reason I like to make my own soap, though, is because I want charcoal in it. It removes any odor -- such as, from petting cats and dogs, and leaves my skin feeling exceptionally clean.

This recipe also has anise oil, goat milk powder, organic avocado oil and shea butter in it. Basically, what you can buy in a health food section at a good grocery store or online.  It’s a great way to use up what oils might be sitting around unused. And the clean-up, well -- everything is just covered with glycerin, which is soap! So, just rinse and you’ll see it form a nice lather and then it will be clean…any dried glycerin sticking to anything can be removed with a damp sponge or just gently scraped off.

This recipe would work without the charcoal and you could add herbs and flowers and oats too, whatever you’d like in your soaps. 

Charcoal and anise soap

What you need:

Cleaned yogurt and cream cheese containers or other small containers/molds you like.

Clean, sharp knife

Clean cutting board

Clean plastic storage bag or container for storing extra pieces of glycerin if you cut too much

A spray bottle with rubbing alcohol in it (make sure you label this so no one thinks it could be water!)

Pyrex four-cup measuring cup.

Microwave

Paper towel

Soap Ingredients:

2 lb block of vegetable glycerin

1 Tbsp Charcoal powder

2 Tbsp Goat Milk Powder

Olive oil for coating containers

I Tbsp shea butter

1 Tbsp cocoa butter

1 or 2 cups of avocado oil 

   (You can use any food-grade oils that are great for skin like Avocado, coconut, olive, and almond – I add a cup of Apricot kernel oil in the winter for extra moisturizing)

20 drops of a scented oil - I prefer anise with the charcoal. It's a classic combination, for soap and even taken internally for heartburn relief!

Procedure

1. Coat inside of cleaned containers with olive oil and spread out onto a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan.
2. Fill a 4-cup measuring cup to the top of the cup with 1” sq. pieces of glycerin (about 2 lbs).
3. Cover with paper towel and melt in 30-second to 1-minute increments in microwave, removing to check and stir when it starts to melt.
4. When the gelatin is nearly done melting, add 1 Tbsp each shea and cocoa butter, cover with paper towel and continue melting and stirring until done. This should give you around 3 cups, melted.
5. Add some avocado, apricot kernel and/or almond oil, up to 4-5 cups to finish. You may wish to heat again for 30 seconds to mix.
6. Add 20 drops of anise oil. 
7. Sprinkle ½ to 1 Tbsp charcoal powder and 1 scoop (2 Tbsp) goat milk powder over the top of the oil/gelatin mixture, and stir to combine. Note: if it's your first time, 1/2 Tbsp charcoal in this recipe with 4 cups of the glycerine/oil combo will give a nice scented soap, that smells and feels like commercial charcoal and anise soaps. 
8. Pour mixture into containers to the height you want for your soaps, and spritz with rubbing alcohol (this will prevent bubbles from forming).
9. Let cool for 2 hours. When ready to remove, gently push on the bottom of the plastic containers to pop them out.

Date-Walnut Granola

I may be in my 40s but – and this may shock you – I don’t eat bran cereal. Hard to believe, right? Isn’t bran a required supplement for people over 30?

Not if you have flax.

Obviously, bran cereal is not gluten free. Also, very sweet. Not that I don’t like it. It’s just, pour a flax/nut mix onto what you’re eating – yogurt, oatmeal, granola, etc. – and fiber, here we come. It does the same thing that we all eat bran for (which I don’t need to write here). Yep, a tablespoon of whole or ground flax seed into muffins and bread, and boom! All taken care of.

Yet there is something about Raisin Bran, that sweet commercial bran cereal from childhood that attracts me. Which is why I love this granola recipe from my sister Rose. It tastes like a somewhat less-sweet version of Raisin Bran.

My other granola recipe is simple and fresh tasting. It doesn’t clump together like commercial granolas do. If you like clumpy, crunchy granola, try this.

The reason it clumps is, you don’t add oil. The fat is added simply by making a paste combining walnuts with dates, grade-B maple syrup and water, which nutritionists say is a better way to get your fat, rather than oils. Getting it from the walnut directly provides a higher dose of vitamin E, and heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and can even decrease cholesterol. You also get phytonutrients that are lost in the process of extracting oils.

All you need is a Vitamix or other high-powered blender to make a good paste. Note: When making a paste in one of these blenders, it’s important not to turn it to high speed until the stuff is pretty well mixed, maybe use it up to 7 or so, until the paste starts to form.

Rose’s Granola 

Ingredients:

For the Granola

1½ lbs. rolled oats (I recommend Cream Hill Estates Lara's Oats)

½ cup hot water

¼ cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1½ teaspoons almond extract

1 cup pitted dates

¾ cup walnut halves

½ cup dried coconut flakes

Raisins

For the Vegan Rice/Coconut Milk (optional)

4 cups water

1 cup short-grain brown rice

1 cup unsweetened, dried coconut flakes

To make the granola:

1. Preheat oven to 225F. Put 1½ pounds of rolled oats into a large mixing bowl with ½ cup of chopped raw almonds. (If you can only get roasted, add them at the end of cooking, do not add them now)

2. Place into Vitamix or other blender in the following order:

½ cup hot water

¼ cup Grade B maple syrup

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1½ teaspoons almond extract

1 cup pitted dates

¾ cup walnut halves

3. Whiz at a low speed, up to 7, until it forms a paste.

4. With a rubber spatula, mix the paste into the oats/almond mixture until it is well incorporated.

5. Pour granola onto one or two cookie/jelly roll pans and bake for 5½ hours. DO NOT EXCEED 6 HOURS! Flip and rotate trays every half hour.  Mix with a spoon every two hours. Important: The last half hour is crucial – do not overcook. (You can add the coconut during the last half hour if you like it to be a little toasted.)

Let cool. Add raisins and coconut. If you couldn’t find raw almonds, add chopped roasted almonds at this point as well. Store in tightly sealed glass jars for best texture.

To make Rose’s Vegan milk:

First, make Rice Milk:

Blend 2 cups water with 1 cup short grain brown rice and strain twice through fine mesh strainer, discarding the pulp.

Second, make coconut “milk”:

Blend 2 cups water with 1 cup shredded coconut and strain twice through fine mesh strainer, discarding the pulp.

Third, combine the milks together, and add maple syrup to taste

Is Your Olive Oil Deodorized?

Deodorizing and coloring olive oil sounds like something food producers would do in the 1950s, doesn't it? 

But wouldn't you know, in the 1950s, not only did they eat organic produce, but also, their olive oil was REAL. 

Olive oil is the big thing in food these days. Ever since NPR’s Fresh Air  reported the bad news that imported extra virgin olive oil is, in some cases, not extra virgin at all, but lighter oils flavored and colored to taste like they're fresh-pressed. Sometimes other vegetable oils are added or substituted, even. As Tom Meuller says in this report, you could be eating lamp oil!

Yep, shopping in a U.S. supermarket, if you don’t buy extra virgin olive oil produced in the U.S., it might be a fake. That’s not to say if you happen to be in Spain, Italy or Morocco, you can’t get the genuine article. It’s just that, if you buy the imported stuff here in the United States, it might not be genuine at all.

This is important. For most recipes, Filippo Berio or Colavita (whatever oil they are selling in those bottles) work just fine from a flavor perspective. But you can only get the fantastic health benefits from the extra virgin oil, not the lighter oil. Indeed, from a naturally occurring ibuprofen to lowering risk of heart disease, olive oil is one of the reasons the Mediterranean diet is considered one of the healthiest on the planet.

The recipe that follows is best if you have a really good extra virgin olive oil. For this, I would recommend buying a decent one produced in California, just to be safe – not least because you will need a lot of it. (Although, when we go to the grocery store we’ve tried Chilean olive oil and it looks and tastes like the real thing, so just use something you like and trust, I guess.)

Since my mother was not a fan of seafood or fish, I hadn’t learned how to make Brandade de Morue until attending a class in basics at The French Culinary Institute and it has since become one of my favorite comfort foods. Basically, mashed salt cod with Idaho potatoes, some milk or cream, garlic and olive oil. You can eat it nice and hot as-is as peasant food with some steamed kale on the side, or put it into a baking dish, top with cheese and/or breadcrumbs, and brown it under the broiler for a gratin, scooping it up with some French bread toasts.

Living in a neighborhood predominately Italian and Portuguese, we get bags of salt cod (bacalhau) for pennies at the supermarket. Sure you can buy a stiff codfish in a box but that will take days to reconstitute and you have to remove the bones. So, I just buy the boneless one-pound bags that are partially reconstituted. They last for several weeks to a couple months in the fridge until I need something comforting to eat for dinner.

To reconstitute it before making the dish, I just follow the directions on the package – place the fish into a dish under 6 cups of (filtered) water and keep it in the fridge. I change the water every 6 hours until 24 hours is up, and it’s ready to use.

This recipe is just a guide. You could add up to 4 oz. more potatoes, and a little more milk or cream if you like, reducing the oil accordingly. 

I vary the amount of oil every time. The first time I did it at home, I used way less olive oil and it came out delicious. After that I thought, what the heck, and started adding the traditional amounts. 

There is a lot of oil in this version, which you will find in older cookbooks like I Know How To Cook, (that's a French cookbook published in the 1930s and recently re-issued in English). Today, though, Jacques Pepin says it’s just as good with a lot less. You decide. Go to town, it’s your comfort food.

Brandade de Morue a la Scarlet

1 lb. boneless salt cod, the one where directions say should be soaked in water for 24 hours in water changed 3 times

6 good-sized cloves garlic, chopped

12 oz peeled or partially peeled Idaho potatoes (could go to 16 oz.)

¾ cup milk or ½ and ½ milk/cream

300 ml extra virgin olive oil (about 1 1/2 cups!)

   1. Soak the cod for 24 hours, changing the water 3 times.

   2. Cook the potatoes until fork-tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and mash with a fork.

   3. Cut cod into pieces and cook in water at a low simmer for 8-15 minutes, until it flakes easily. It's important to cook at a low simmer to keep it from getting tough, apparently.

   

   4. When cod is cooked, drain. Heat ¾ cup olive oil in cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.

   5. Add cod and mix into oil with a wooden spoon, working until it forms a paste.

   6. Meanwhile, heat milk/cream just to boiling and remove from heat.

   7. When the cod has been mashed into a good paste, remove it from the heat, add potatoes and garlic and mix well. Add milk/cream and olive oil alternately, until you achieve a good smooth mash. (N.B.: Now you know why those old European grandmas have such strong arms! Jacques Pepin and Cooks Illustrated both use food processors, btw)

   8. Season to taste and serve.

Sketti For Dinner? Might As Well Eat Twinkies

I just saw a clip of Honey Boo Boo’s mother making a pasta dish she calls “Sketti,” implying that without road kill, they won't have enough money to get real food from the grocery store this week. Sketti consists of white spaghetti noodles, coated in a sauce made from butter and ketchup.

Right, I say to myself. You are earning a boat-load of money from doing this reality show, which means you have loads of dough in a trust for the children, which can be removed to purchase things like healthy food for them, with 10% of that going to you as Honey Boo Boo’s agent, but you still don’t have enough money to cook a meal with nutritious minerals, vitamins and fiber?

Apparently not.

Not being a cable subscriber I don’t watch Honey Boo Boo's show myself, but have watched clips of the family online. From what I can see, the mother is an intelligent, thoughtful person. She treats her children in a way that they have respect for themselves and others.

But do they eat nutritious, fibrous foods and exercise? Not on TV. The little exercise consists of games (which they call “redneck” games) that include putting on a blindfold and smelling each other’s breath to guess whose it is.

I know no one would tune in to watch Honey Boo Boo learn to be a healthy, responsible contribution to society. Wouldn’t it be neat, though, if they lulled Americans unconcerned about nutrition into watching their show and then got healthier and healthier -- for example, refusing to drink soft drinks that contain high-fructose corn syrup -- and in the end, helped to cause a sea-change in the eating habits of American society?

But if a person isn’t as rich as Honey Boo Boo and really does need to eat pasta and sauce for a meal with nothing else, here’s what I would recommend to replace Sketti: Spicy peanut sauce on buckwheat noodles. The combination of the peanuts and buckwheat makes a complete protein. It’s also gluten-free (or lower gluten, if you  prefer the type that has some wheat flour), full of fiber, and delicious.

Why peanuts, with all the allergy complaints about them these days? I mean that you should use organic peanuts of course. Peanuts, like soybeans and raisins, are the most heavily pesticided crops in the world (or were, the last time I checked). No wonder everyone’s allergic to them! Personally, I get sick from eating non-organic peanuts. (I even get sick from eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups!) So, I only buy the organic ones and I have no problems.

I make my own, fresh peanut butter in the Vita-Mix (It takes 30-60 seconds) with roasted and salted organic peanuts. But you can buy organic peanut butter in most stores these days, because of all the problems people have with regular brands.

Spicy Peanut Sauce

Adapted from The Natural Gourmet

¾ cup organic peanut butter

3 tablespoons grade B maple syrup

3 tablespoons Tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon cumin

Optional: 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper or if available, ground szechuan peppercorns

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

¾ cup water (or to consistency desired)

Cayenne pepper to taste

Chopped scallions and chopped organic peanuts to garnish

1.  Combine peanut butter, maple syrup and tamari, and mix well.

2.  Heat oil until hot in a small frying pan; add garlic, cumin (and if desired, ½ teaspoon ground Szechuan peppercorns or black pepper). Saute for 20-30 seconds, just until cumin releases its fragrance, and remove promptly from heat. Immediately add to peanut butter mixture. Add a pinch of cayenne pepper, or more if desired.

3.  Add water, a little at a time, mixing after each addition, until it is the consistency you desire.

Serve over regular or gluten-free buckwheat noodles, garnished with chopped scallions and chopped organic peanuts.