Instapot Review - Thank You Canada

Among Rat's accessories is an Indian pressure cooker. I loathe it. Among it's many offenses it doesn't even whistle, so I have no idea when food is actually done; this has resulted in such sad recipes as Bisi Beli Burnt. It hisses and spits at me and likes to ooze foamy goo onto the stove top burners.  And I'm always afraid it's going to blow up in my face. If Rat did not love using it so much, I would throw it out. 

So when our new Instapot electric pressure cooker arrived, I set it up to cook some, rice all the while keeping my distances and eyeing it suspiciously. But it had none of the behavioral issues of the Indian pressure cooker. It was silent excep when it made a pleasant little chime to let me know the rice was done. Since I could set a timer, I didn't have to wonder when the rice was done or worry about it burning. And Instapot didn't squirt out messy goo from its valve.

The Instapot is a nifty gadget from Canada.  It is one machine with many functions: it is a rice cooker, a pressure cooker, a slow cooker, a yogurt maker, and less impressively a sautér, steamer, and warmer. As a bonus the cooking pot is not made with poisonous non-stick coating, it is stainless steel. I have been lusting after the Instapot for three years now. They are a bit pricey and I could never justify the cost while we still had a working rice cooker, but our Proctor Silex Rice Cooker passed away a few weeks ago, after serving us well for three solid years, so it was time to buy a new kitchen toy, and it is awesome!

I never ate rice too often before I met the Rat.  In fact, I used to make *shudders* boil-in-the-bag Minute rice. I know, I know, all I can say in my defense is no one taught me how to cook. However, since meeting the Rat my Indian food - and therefore rice - consumption has increased to the point where a rice cooker is a necessary kitchen appliance.  I have gone through several of them, each leaving behind a plastic rice paddle and soup spoon as their grave markers. My favorites have been ones like the Proctor Silex, where the rice bowl and lid are removeable and dishwasher safe. Why you would make a rice cooker without a removable lid or rice bowl is beyond my comprehension, but there are many out there.

Rat brought home one such abomination when one of our rice cookers died. I loathed the thing. The lid was permanently hinged on and someone (I'm not saying it was the Rat, I'm just saying it wasn't me) would always close it up with rice still in there and the next time I went to make rice (usually a couple days later) I be greeted by a pink putrid blob when I opened the rice cooker lid.

The Instapot performs the main job that I bought it for exemplary. It makes awesome rice. So far I have tried basmati and jasmine. The rice comes out tasting and looking like the rice you get at restaurants. With all our other rice cookers (or using the stove top method) our homemade rice has always been a bit mushier than restaurant rice. Also we always end up with a layer of dried out rice stuck to the bottom of the pot. With the Instantpot, as long as I put a light coating of butter or oil on the bottom, the rice does not stick to the bottom of the pot. It is so nice not to end up wasting a quarter cup of rice every time I make it.

As a pressure cooker, I have been quite happy. Although it doesn't always reduce recipe time, it allows for passive cooking: no need to keep stirring every few minutes, no worries about something burning, nothing boiling over onto the stove top and making a mess. I infact, prefer to use the Instapot over our crappy apartment electric stovetop for most cooking tasks.

Besides rice, I have made cheesy grits, fennel egg curry, steel cut oats, and the easiest to peel hard boiled eggs. Seriously, pressure cooking your eggs is the way to go; it creates a pocket between the egg white and the shell while cooking, so when you go to peel them the shell practically falls right off ( no more ugly pock-marked eggs). Recently, I tried the yogurt making function with some regular thermophilic yogurt, and it set quite nicely in eight hours.

I am loving the many benefits of cooking with the Instapot, especially now that the temperatures are in the 80s and 90s, it keeps the kitchen nice and cool. Basically, it's like a slow cooker on crack. I can dump things in and not worry about them burning, and best of all I don't have to wait 6 to 8 hours for the food to be done.

Dirty Laundry - How to Wash Cloth Diapers

One of the biggest concerns of people when considering cloth diapering is how to clean them. If you don't have to consider cleaning them they are just as easy as using disposables. Since many of us were diapered using disposables, we haven't had the generational wisdom passed down to us on how to launder diapers, and are pretty clueless.

The good news is if you are exclusively breastfeeding you don't have to worry about doing anything with the poo. You just throw the soiled diaper in your wet bag and wash it because breast fed poo is water soluble.

The bad news is once you start on solids or if you are formula feeding you need to shake off the poo into the toilet before watching. Using flush-able diaper liners or a diaper sprayer can be helpful with this. I have heard of some people having a designated "poop spatula", but this method is not for me.

Since college I knew that I wanted to cloth diaper. But it remained a nebulous idea, until I became pregnant; then I realized if I was actually going to cloth diaper I was going to have to do some research and educate myself on it. I spent a lot of time researching cloth diapers, and consider myself an expert on the topic now, not just because of research, but because now one year into raising a cloth diapered baby, I have experimented a lot and learned what works and what doesn't.

One option you can keep in mind is having a diaper service, they will pick up your soiled diapers and drop off cleaned diapers. Personally, I could never get on the used diaper bandwagon - it just grosses me out putting something on my daughter that other babies have pooed and peed in.

If you can't afford or don't want to use a diaper service there are certain steps you can add to your washining routine to sanitize your diapers. Though I had read up on other peoples diaper washing routines and had decided that cold water rinse, hot water wash, cold water rinse, dry in the dryer was the way to go, I noticed after we started solids that the diapers would stink when I was drying them in the dryer, a nasty fishy smell. Some sites said that if this is happening then it is probably a problem with the detergent, either you are using too much and the detergent is not being fully rinsed out or you are using to little and it is not enough detergent to fully clean the diapers. At the time I was using Rockin Green Classic Rock (yes I had done a water hardness strip test to select the appropriate formula for my water). In desperation, I  switched detergents to Charlies.  This improved the situation a little, but the diapers were still smelling.

So if you are suffering with stinky diapers, here are a few things which have worked for me:

Vinegar
Use vinegar in the final rinse (warning you want to remove any PUL covers or AIO diapers with PUL). You could also use bleach, but it is hard on fabric and will decrease the lifespan of your diapers.

Sun
Sun your diapers. The ultraviolet light from the sun kills germs. Also diapers take a really long time to dry in the dryer; you could cut down on your electricity bill by sunning them. I like to do this every few washes to sanitize mine.  The sun also helps remove some of the poo stains; it is especially effective with EBF poo.

Hot water
If you have control over your water heater you could also increase it so that the hot water gets to 140-150 degrees (the temperature required to kill germs). Although, this route could be dangerous when you are bathing the lil one. Heating some hot water in an electrical kettle and adding it to the washing machine is another option.

In case you are interested in my diaper laundry routine here it is:

1. Do a cold water rinse to get rid of any poo or pee that was not rinsed off. 
2. Hot water wash with two tablespoons of Charlie's laundry detergent.
3. Remove the PUL diaper covers at this point (vinegar breaks down their absorbency so I just line dry them)
4. Run a final rinse adding between 1/2 to 1 cup vinegar (depending on load size) to the rinse water and let it soak at least one hour and sometimes overnight.
5. Hang outside on clothesline in the sun to dry.
6. Finish up with 10-15 minutes in the dryer to soften the diapers up.

Sometimes I skip step 5 if I am in a hurry to dry my diapers and sometimes I am lazy and skip step 6 and just deal with diapers that are a little stiff. 

Water Kefir Grains are Reproducing!

Well, it has almost been 6 weeks exactly, and now my water kefir grains have started to grow!

I started out with 3 tablespoons and now I am up to 4; a modest increase, but at least they are increasing. I am hoping to have an extra 3 to 4 tablespoons to take with me to share with family when I visit Michigan. I had read that sometimes kefir grains take 6-8 weeks before they start reproducing. Seems to be true.

I have been constantly making kefir since I received my grains. I feed them 4 tablespoons of sugar and culture them in a quart mason jar for two days, then I strain out the grains and start the process over. The strained liquid I mix with some juice or tea ( so far I have tried cherry, grapefruit, cranberry, Concord grape and hibiscus tea) and culture for another two days on the counter top and then move it to the refrigerator if I haven't drank it all by that time. I have also started adding either a teaspoon of molasses or a pinch of pink Himalayan salt for minerals.  

I notice that non-concentrate juices seem to get more fizzy. Also I have noticed some decrease in my appetite since I started drinking kefir.

Since it has been getting hotter here (90s), I am starting to move from two days of culturing to one.  This will also give me a buffer if I forget about  my grains for a day. On a couple occasions now, I have forgot and let the grains go three days in between their feedings. I was scared that I might kill them, but they seem to be doing fine.  I hope they keep on reproducing. I will be happier once I have some back up grains stored away just in case something goes wrong.

Instacart Review

I tried Instacart last night and it was great.  Delivery to my zip code in San Jose only became available in the last few weeks.  I wish they had this service available when I was pregnant.

Instacart prices are not the same as the store prices.  I would like to run a comparison myself one day - I will update this post if I ever do - but from reading others reviews it seems they charge about 22% more than the store price. Also delivery costs $3.99.  In my case I used a referral code, so I automatically got $10 off my first order and free delivery. If anyone wants to give it a try here is the referral link: http://inst.cr/t/S8AtVx. 

I figure the $10 off would defray the surcharge costs. Not to mention the fact that going to the store costs gas or bus fare.  In my case Whole Foods is 9 miles away and gas right now is around $4.00 a gallon, so going to Whole Foods is going to cost me about $2.75, and my time, 40 minutes driving there and back, plus however long I am in the store, but I say the store time is cancelled out by the time I spend ordering online and on the phone with my personal shopper. As an added benefit, I don't have to carry groceries up three flights of stairs.  Although I don't think there is anything to force you to, you are encouraged to tip your shopper. I am not quite sure what the standard tip etiquette is supposed to be in this case, but the website drop down offers a minimum choice of $2. Other choices are $5 or $10. I only ordered 15 items, so I tipped $2. You do have to order a minimum of $10 worth of groceries too; not that that's a tough thing to do. If you plan on using the service often, they have a Instacart Express, a program where all of your deliveries over $35 are free; the program costs $99 for the year, but if you use it weekly that's under $2 per order for delivery. As a side note, I didn't get any cool reusable Instacart bags like I've seen online.  My groceries were delivered in normal Whole Foods paper bags.  I would think that they would give you a bag for your first delivery. 

I received all of my items, although three items had to be substituted: my mushrooms, my beer, and my potatos. I ordered at 4:28 and received my order by 5:32. I was supposed to receive my order between 5:30 and 6:30, so I was impressed (1 hour delivery was not available for me from Whole Foods, probably because it's a 20 minute drive away).  

All in all, I think this is a great service if you don't mind paying a little more for the convenience. It's especially worth it, if you are sick or are pregnant or have a baby. Assuming you are using Instacart Express, ordering an average of $50 of groceries weekly, and that the prices are indeed marked up 22%, it's costing you maybe $12 for delivery in an hour. I guess it all depends how much your time is worth.

Citypickers - Experiments in Urban Gardening

I've long been curious about Earth boxes and their less expensive cousin, such as Citypickers.

Using intensive gardening techniques, you need 200 square feet of garden per person to eat during the growing season. My entire outdoor growing space right now is 20 ft by 7 ft, which is 140 square feet. So even if I used every inch of our balcony for gardening (something which no doubt would displease Lord Rat), I still would not be able to grow enough produce for one of us.  Ah, the banes of apartment living (or condo or town home for that matter).

Well, I probably won't be growing all of our own food anytime soon, but today I started with almost 4 square feet of garden, by planting a Citypickers raised bed, the dimensions of which are 20 in by 24 in.  I like that the CityPickers is square and it's not that bad looking.

I'd like to see how much produce I can produce on our balcony without uglifying it too much, and whether it would result in any decrease in our grocery expenses.  Although, I suspect that the ROI on this may be in the form of fresher, higher quality produce and the convenience of being able to grab the ingredients for dinner off your balcony.

I'm not sure how long you would have to use one of these in order to see a reduction in your grocery bill.  There is the initial cost for the CityPickers planter, the potting mix to fill it, the lime, and the fertilizer, not to mention any seeds you may buy.

My initial set up costs were $50.98, not including tax.  You are supposed to add fertilizer and lime every time you replant the Citypickers, and I guesstimate the lime and fertilizer will last me a total of 4 plantings, so in four plantings I need to grow about $50 worth of produce. After the initial startup, each planting will cost about $4.25

CityPicker: $29.99
Potting Mix: $9.97
Lime: $4.98 (use 2 cups per planting)
Fertilizer: $5.98 (use 3 cups per planting)

Total:$50.98

I am hoping to get:

6 golden beets

10 cherry bell radishes

1 bunch of kale

3 bunches of Swiss chard

2 bunches of winter spinach

I am guestimating that that is approximately $20 of organic produce.  Although, Swiss chard, spinach, and kale are all cut and come again, so they may actually produce quite a bit of salad.  I will also have the beet greens and radish greens to eat. Assuming each planting produces $20 of produce, I will be in the green by the third planting.

I plan on posting on the gleanings from my little garden.  If nothing else, it will be fun to grow little treats that you can't find easily in stores, green zebra tomatos and sorrel - you can't put a price on that.

Crockpot Caramel

Did you know that you can just fill your crockpot with water, submerge a can of sweetened condensed milk in the water, and set the crockpot on low for 8 hours and BAM! Caramel! Or for those of you who are picky, "dulce de leche" technically, or über-technically "manjar". Whatever it is, it's yummy to dip your apples in.

I removed mine from the can and put it in a mason jar, since I read that there is a slight chance the can could burst (I do not need another incident like the cherry kefir incident earlier this week). Some recommended putting a slight puncture in the can to avoid this risk, but I was also leery that heating the can might cause extra BPA to seep into the milk. 

This project combined two of my loves, the crock pot and Mason jars, and it turned out quite nicely, especially for the minimal amount of effort required. It was a beautiful caramel color, the texture was more gelatinous than caramel, more like a pudding. I dipped some Annie's pretzel bunnies in it, and the combination of sweet and salty was delicious, I had to stop myself before I ate the whole bag. I am looking forward to enjoying the rest as a snack with apple chips this week.

I can imagine this being a nice and easy hostess gift: take a basket and fill it with apples and place a jar of homemade caramel in the center, maybe tie a little red bow around it.

Salad Shooter - A Review

In a previous life I owned a food processor. It was not the food processor that I would have chosen for myself. In fact, it was supposed to be for my mother-in-law, but when Rat was packing his bags, he couldn't fit it in his luggage, and so I inherited it.

It was nice when I had large shredding or slicing jobs to do, but it was so bulky and difficult to wash that I hardly ever wanted to use it. A lot of things I would rather hand grate than have to pull down that monstrosity of a machine and have it take up one level of the dish washer afterwards. After a couple years of use, one of the plastic pieces cracked and the lid would no longer click in place, so that you had to hold the lid on with one hand when using it. I used it less and less, and hated the space it took up in my cupboard. It got sloughed off in the next move, and I was happy to be rid of it.

However, every time I would make Gajar Halwa (which requires a lot of grated carrot), I would long for some gadget that would make the grating go quicker and less painful. I knew I didn't want another bulky food processor, but all of the mini food processors seemed to only be capable of chopping and grinding; I wanted something that could shred and slice. Finally, I came across the salad shooter. I liked it's small size and that it had multiple discs available that could slice, shred, and even ripple slice.  I got the regular model with the slice and shred cones. I use it mostly for shredding and it has been awesome for making my own hash browns, shredding my own cheese, and shredding carrots for Gajar Halwa. I would like to get the ripple slice cone someday and make my own rippled beet and potato chips. Best of all, the parts take up hardly any room in the dishwasher, and the whole contraption fits in a small kitchen drawer.

Last night, I made Maamidikaaya Annam (raw mango rice) for dinner and fell in love with my Salad Shooter all over again; it quickly shredded the two mangos and a whole coconut.

Save Money on Spices

When I first started cooking for myself in college, nothing burned a hole in my wallet faster than picking a recipe that required me to buy a new spice. And when you are just beginning cooking in life, just about every recipe requires that you acquire a new spice. 

One trick I wish I had known about at the beginning of my culinary endeavors, is buying spices from the Indian store. Indian grocers sell spices in large quantities and for a fraction of the price that you will pay at your local grocery chain store. Spices in Western grocers are generally sold in 1-2 oz bottles, whereas in Indian grocers, they are generally sold in sizes vearying from 1/4 lb to 1 lb, often for the same price that you paid for that measly 1 oz at Star Market or Kroger. I swear Indians must be laughing themselves silly when they see American spices. The downside is not all spices will be available at the Indian grocer, but you can count on Turmeric, Cinnamon, Cardamom, Nutmeg, Mace, Cumin, Mustard Seed, Red Chilis, Fennel, and Fenugreek, among others. Side note: Indians also use a lot of nuts, so this can be a great source for pistachios (pista), almonds (badam), cashews (Caju) and Peanuts (groundnut). 

Another trick is to buy fresh herbs or herb plants from the market and dehydrate them yourself. If you are like me, you find yourself constantly throwing out some slimey parsley or cilantro. Next time throw half of the bunch in the dehydrator right away (you know you aren't actually going to finish it all, don't kid yourself). Often times you can find a potted herb at the store for $2 or $3, so don't spend $4 on that 1.2 oz bottle of McCormick Rosemary, buy the plant and dehydrate your own. As a bonus with perrenial plants, such as rosemary and sage, if you can manage to keep the plant alive you will have a nearly indefinite supply and realize the savings many times over.

Besides the cost savings, there are many other benefits to making your own spices. It allows you to be creative: Buy a chocolate mint plant or pineapple sage plant, dehydrate it, and add it to your arsenal of spices. These spices won't be available from the grocery store and can add a new twist and personal touch to your recipes. Making your own spices also allows you to have fresher and more potent spices. To maintain optimal potency, spices should be replenished every six months. You have no idea how long that ground cardamom has been sitting on the store shelf, make your own and enjoy the freshness. Also organic spices can be difficult to find and expensive to procur. Making your own can save money and keep pesticides off your table.

Sloppy Jill's

I would spend much less time cooking if food manufacturers would quit stuffing everything full of HFC and hydrogenated oils (also artificial flavors and colors, what the hell is Yellow 5 Lake?!).

Lately, I've been doing a lot of back to basics cooking: spaghetti, tacos, stroganoff, etc. One of my favorite dinners is Sloppy Joes. I have fond childhood memories of Sloppy Joes. One of the great things about Sloppy Joes (which I didn't appreciate as a kid) are they are so simple to make. Get your can of Manwhich, some ground beef (which there was almost always some in the freezer), and some buns and you were in business. Some cheese to go on top was also awesome, but not necessary.

Then I became vegetarian, and I had to relearn how and what to eat. The hamburger in Sloppy Joes was replaced with the slightly costlier, but still tasty and convenient Veggie Crumbles (Morning Star being my brand of choice). ***Side note: Light Life Smart Ground does bad things to my digestive tract, I highly advise staying away from that stuff, especially if you are just trying on the vegetarian lifestyle.

Then I decided to try and eat healthier, avoiding HFC and hydrogenated oils. So Manwhich was out the window. I am sure that there is a healthier Sloppy Joe mix out there, but if there is it is not widely and easily available. I did not eat Sloppy Joes for a long time, I just gave the cans of Manwhich the same wistful glances that I had been giving the Smuckers Uncrustables.

Well, after tinkering with various recipes, I have come up with my own version of Sloppy Joes. It's not quite as convenient as using a can of Manwhich, but it's made in a crockpot so it requires little hands on attention. It also freezes well, so you can still enjoy those lazy dinner days.

Ingredients

    8 hamburger buns 

•     8 oz cheddar cheese (optional), shredded 
•     pickles (optional) 
•     1 Onion 
•     1 Bell Pepper 
•     1 cup TVP 
•     1 1/2 cup Vegetable Broth 
•     8 0z Tomato Sauce 
•     3 oz tomato paste 
•     1 T Brown Sugar 
•     1 T Onion Powder 
•     1 tsp Salt 
•     1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes 
•     1/2 tsp Garlic 
•     1/4 tsp Celery Seed 
•     1/4 tsp Chilli Powder 
•     1/4 tsp Mustard 

 

Directions

 

Finely chop onion and bell pepper.

Sauté onion and bell pepper in oil over medium heat for about five minutes.

Add all ingredients to crock pot, stir and cook on high 3-4 hrs.

Scoop filling on toasted buns and top with shredded cheddar and pickles if desired.

Old-Fashioned Marshmallows, Take One

Marshmallows, much like soda, used to have medicinal value. They were recommended to soothe a sore throat and treat coughs and heartburn.  And that's because they had marshmallow root in them.

Today's marshmallows, not only are missing their namesake ingredient, but additionally contain corn syrup, modified corn starch, and artificial flavors and colors (Blue 1, yum yum).

Even the vegan marshmallows like Dandies and Sweet & Sara contain corn syrup and don't appear to contain any marshmallow root. Is wanting a marshmallow with actual marshmallow in it asking for too much?

Unable to find authentic marshmallows for purchase, I have thought often about making my own, but I had no idea what besides marshmallow root and presumably sugar would go into an old-fashioned marshmallow. Well, lucky me, I stumbled across New Life On A Homstead's page which has two recipes for old-fashioned marshmallows. Today I attempted to make the second of the two recipes, because I have no idea what tragacanth is (sounds like the name of a Tolkein character)  and it was 13 bucks on Amazon.

The second recipe required: egg whites, vanilla extract, sugar, and ground marshmallow root. my marshmallow root was not already ground, so I ground some up the best I could with the coffee grinder.  

As far as taste, the batter was pretty pleasant tasting. I was a bit worried because if you have ever smelled marshmallow root, it is not the most appeasing of herbs, but the sugar,vanilla and egg whites managed to mellow the mallow.  I think this might make good marshmallow fluff, maybe it could be used in Rice Krispie treats.

Once I started baking, is when the trouble began. First off, the hour of cooking time is definitely over kill.  I think they should probably be pulled out at 20 minutes. I didn't follow the instructions to place the batter by the tsp onto a baking sheet. I just made one gigantic marshmallow because I had seen other marshmallow recipes which baked it as one piece and cut it up afterwards. I also stuck it in a bread pan instead of an actual baking dish because the amount of batter looked rather small and I was worried about my marshmallows being too thin. Next time, I would do an 8x8 baking pan because it seems like it does puff up in the oven. At 20 minutes mine looked like a nice soufflé and smelled amazing, but I was convinced that it had to go longer because the recipe gave a 1 hour cooking time. I pulled mine out after 35 minutes because it smelled like it were burning and it had collapsed on itself.

So they were not bad tasting (Lord Rat even ate some willingly), but they were not like any marshmallow I ever had. We did eat most of it before I could take a picture though. They were thin, a little burnt on top with a bottom layer that was a little gooey. I think the recipe has the potential to be tweaked though. 

Water Kefir

My Water Kefir grains finally arrived March 19th. I was very excited, but after reading the instructions, I realized that they needed to rehydrate in sugar water for 3-5 days. Bummer.

Making water kefir soda is about a four day process. The kefir grains need to sit in sugar water for one to two days. Then the kefir grains are strained from the sugar water solution. At this point whatever flavorings you are using (juice, tea, etc) are added to the sugar water solution. This mixture is bottled and left to sit at room temperature for one to two days. After that it is refrigerated and can be drunk at your leisure. The strained kefir grains are put immediately into a new batch of sugar water, so once you get the process started you will have new kefir soda every one to two days.

I have been constantly making kefir since my kefir grains arrived.  I went with the low end of the rehydration range, only waiting three days before I started making water kefir with them.  In retrospect perhaps I should have waited longer.  I was very disappointed with the initial carbonation results in my first four batches, which were basically no carbonation at all.  Finally in the fifth batch I started having nice carbonation, when I opened the flip top bottles there was an audible pop and the kefir soda foamed up and shot out the top.  From what I have read, it appears kefir grains need to "rebalance" sometimes when they are getting used to a new water supply.

Another thing I noticed is that the first few batches of water kefir had a stronger taste and smell than subsequent batches. I experienced the same phenomenon with my Matsoni yogurt; it tasted a little funky until the fourth batch.  I am wondering if this is always a side effect of reviving dehydrated cultures. 

I have experimented with different flavors. So far the best has been adding Concord Grape juice in a ratio of 1 part juice to 2 parts kefir. The grape flavor covers up the weird kefir taste, and diluting the grape juice mellows the intense sweetness of the grape juice.  I also experimented with "kefir lemonade", by adding the juice of one lemon after the first ferment.  I was not a big fan of this concoction, the lemon did not cover up enough of the kefir taste, but this was one of my earlier batches, so I might try it again now that my kefir grains seem to have mellowed. I read somewhere that prune juice makes a Dr. Pepper like concoction. While pleasant tasting enough, the prune juice kefir in no way tasted like Dr. Pepper to me.  I also tried Grapefruit juice kefir, even though I read that citrus juices in kefir tend to produce weird stringy things. My grapefruit juice kefir did indeed have weird stringy things in it, and I also found that the grapefruit juice did not cover up that kefir taste well either.  I am thinking that cherry juice might work out pretty well, and now that I am getting carbonation I will try ginger ale and root beer soon. Currently I have hibiscus kefir going; it will be ready tomorrow. What is your favorite flavor of kefir?

Whey: Lacto-fermentation Fail

Unfortunately, my ginger bug passed away due to neglect: I forgot to feed it a few times and sometimes just fed it sugar because I didn't feel like cutting up ginger root.  

So, I decided to try making lacto-fermented soda the easy whey (pun intended).  I drained off half a cup of whey from the most recent batch of my Matsoni yogurt (I LOVE Mesophilic yogurt cultures), and added it to some sweetened ginger tea and waited for it to become fizzy.

Five days passed and it did not become fizzy, but it did become moldy. Perhaps I should have sterilized my jars directly before (they were run through the dishwasher, so I thought that was good enough). I had poured the mixture into four different jars and three ended up growing mold in them, which leads me to believe it was a problem with the whey.  Maybe I need to use whey from Bulgarian yogurt?

I did sample some of my concoction on day three even though it was not fizzy, it had a weird milky taste, not just the slight fermented taste that I had ended up with when making soda with my ginger bug.

I may try this experiment again in the future either using different whey or sterilizing the jars directly before.  Anyone have any success with making soda using whey?

I ordered some water kefir grains finally after reading about all the crazy health benefits of kefir, so I will be attempting kefir soda in the next few weeks. Wish me luck!

Fix That Creaky Cabinet

I had a Duh moment today as I was searching for WD40 on Google Shopping Express.  

For months the top pantry cabinet has had an awful creak. During the day, it doesn't bother me that much. However, at night it turns into a loud-mouthed tattle tale, informing everyone in the house if you are doing any late night snacking. 

Creaky hinge. I knew what I needed: WD40. It was a hard-coded response. I didn't even consider anything else. So, I kept on making mental notes (usually during a midnight cookie forage) to pick up some WD40, but somehow it never made it on to my actual to-do list.

I came this close to ordering some today. Then I started reading over the description, "...harmful or fatal if swallowed..." I shuddered at bringing another dangerous item that I would have to stoway far from the baby. I've had to move all my cleaning supplies from under the sink to the top cabinets. I use mostly natural cleaning products, but I still think it's not good if you chug down a bottle of Mrs. Meyers.

Anyway, I thought about it, and I'm like it's just a fine mist of oil.... I have oil...in fact, I have a Misto! So I got the Misto out of the cabinet and gave it a few pumps and sprayed away at the cabinet hinge. I swung the door open, the creak had notably decreased. A few more sprays and it was gone! Excellent, for a few cents worth of safflower oil, I had saved four bucks and had avoided bringing toxic substances into the home. I felt very accomplished. 

It's interesting to think how many "product needs" are just brainwashed into us. I wonder what else I don't need.

Ginger Snaps Back: A Girl and her Gingerbug

I'm sure your first question is, What on earth is a ginger bug?  It's just a culture of beneficial bacteria, similar to a sourdough starter, except instead of using it to make bread, you use it to make lacto-fermented soda (so much better than what it sounds). 

For a long time, I have dreamed of making my own rootbeer.  I love soda, that is real soda without high fructose corn syrup, or aspartame, or artificial flavoring.  I want the real McCoy. One particular pet peeve of mine is root beer marketed as"Old Fashioned" that contains HFC or artificial flavors.

True old fashioned root beer was lacto fermented.  There appears to be several ways to do this, using whey (that liquid leftover when you strain yogurt), a kefir culture, or using a ginger bug.  

I decided against the kefir as it seemed to require a significant initial investment (spending  $27 plus shipping) on the kefir starter packets.  Why I didn't try the whey method first, I don't know.  Maybe I wanted someone to keep Captain Trips (my sourdough starter) company on the counter.  Of the three methods, creating a Ginger Bug requires the highest level of patience and initial time investment.

I've seen numerous recipes for how to make a ginger bug with varying instructions on the amount of ginger, sugar, and water to add.  I don't think the amount of water matters very much.  What I decided on was 1 tablespoon each water, sugar, and finely chopped ginger added each day.

After 1 day it smells like ginger and sugar.

After 2 days still smells mostly like ginger, but starting to get a faint alcoholic smell with a sort of lemony undertone.

After 3 days the alcoholic smell has intensified a bit.

After 4 days smells like lemony ginger hooch.  No bubbles.  No sound.

By the end of day 5 the smell is the same, but if I look closely, I see some small bubbles.  Still don't hear anything though.

Day 6.   Still smells like ginger hooch, there are a lot of bubbles and the ginger bug snaps and hisses at me.  I think it is ready for soda making.

I'm pretty certain I have a successful ginger bug starter.  So I should have some posts pretty soon on my experimentations with lacto-fermented beverages.  I plan on making a stab at Ginger Beer first to make sure ginger bug actually works, as Root Beer requires finding and buying a bunch of obscure herbs.

Matsoni - A Mesophilic Yogurt

Inspired by some delicious homemade yogurt at a friend's house warming and my New Year's resolution to consume less processed foods and more natural ones, I set off on a mission to make my own yogurt again.

I have made yogurt in the past a few times, but have never kept with it because my end product has always been a little disappointing.  A major problem has been that I have frequently ended up with a grainy texture.  So this time I wanted to do a little research before starting.  That's when I learned about Mesophilic yogurts.

Unlike the thermophilic yogurts that you buy at the store, Mesophilic yogurts do not require an elevated temperature to culture milk.  Instead, they culture at room temperature or between 70 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit.  Also they do not require you to heat your milk first.  Making Mesophilic yogurt is as easy as dumping milk in a jar adding in some yogurt starter and letting it sit on the counter for 12-48 hours.  Nice!  Why had no one told me about Mesophilic yogurt before?

I selected Matsoni as the Mesophilic yogurt that I would try.  I ordered from Cultures for Health, which I highly recommend.  My order came a day early and their customer support has been truly awesome.

I was so excited, I filled a quart mason jar with some organic whole milk and stirred in my freeze dried yogurt packet and even stuck the jar in an insulated cooler with a hot water bottle incase the nightime temperatures fell into the 60s.  After a day, nothing had happened.  I took comfort that at least it still smelled like milk and not rotten.  After 34 hours it looked like it might actually be starting to change into yogurt, but it was still pretty sloppy.  It most certainly was not pulling neatly away from the edge of the jar when tilted like in the video.  It was also starting to smell like a pungent sheep cheese.  I was a little alarmed.  I contacted customer support through their live chat option and described the situation.  

The chat representative said that the Matsoni culture could smell a little strong at first.  She then asked me what milk I used.  I told her whole organic, and she asked whether it was ultra-pasturized.  I checked, and sure enough it was ultra-pasturized. She explained that ultra-pasturized milk was so "dead" that one would not be able to make yogurt with it, and if it actually did make yogurt that I should switch to just pasturized milk right away.

I hoped against hope that my yogurt would turn out.  It did look kind of "yogurty".  Maybe this would be a rare instance where it worked.  I waited until it had been out 48 hours.  It hadn't firmed up much in the 14 ensuing hours.  I tasted it.  It tasted like a mixture between strong sheep cheese and an old shoe.  I put it in the fridge.  The directions had recommended cooling in the fridge for 6 hours once the yogurt had set.  I had no idea how it would work, but somehow I was hoping cooling in the fridge would improve the taste.  I tried it again after it had been in the fridge a while.  It still tasted like strong cheese and an old shoe and the texture was very clumpy.  I decided I would strain it, now it was thick clumpy cheesy shoe yogurt - still not edible though.   I stashed it in the fridge,  just in case I  could use it to culture new milk.

Luckily, they provide two packets of freeze-dried yogurt culture in each order, so I didn't have to resort to trying to use the cheesy shoe yogurt yet, but I was down to my last packet.  I had to get things right this time, so I was back to customer support running my game plan by them.  I would use organic whole pasturized milk, heat the milk to 165 degrees first, after it cooled to room temperature
I would add my starter packet and hope for the best.  I also only used 2 cups of milk this time, in case things didn't work out.

This time, after 22.5 hours, I had yogurt.  It pulled neatly away from the sides and didn't taste or smell at all like a shoe.  This mother batch was still a bit cheesy tasting to me, and if you are expecting it to be exactly like the store bought yogurt, you will be disappointed.  It is more mild tasting, lacking that characteristic sourness, and the texture is more loose and watery.

The Gen 1 batches which I made from my first batch tasted less cheesy, perhaps due to the shorter
culturing time.  They only took 15 hours to set.  Next, I am experimenting with using half whole milk and half cream.  I also want to experiment with heating the milk for the future batches and see if this will affect the thickness.

I don't think this will be a good substitute for the yogurt we use in Indian recipes, but I have been making 2 cups of Matsoni daily and am enjoying the very simple process of filling my pint mason jar with milk, stirring in a couple tablespoons of yogurt, setting the jar on top of the refrigerator, and letting the magic happen.

I Actually Read a Book

***spoiler alert***

Reading is one of my favorite ways to relax and unwind.  However, since the birth of my daughter, I have not actually finished reading anything.  I did start the Steve Jobs biography, but I only made it half way through.

Well, as of yesterday that finally changed: I finished Chivalry is Undead (Just Another Zombie Love Story). It was far from great writing, but it was a somewhat entertaining and quick read.  I don't feel it's deserving of its five star review on Amazon,  but I would give it a solid three.

I used Amazon Prime's lending service, so it was actually free, which is good, as I would not deem it buying worthy.  The characters were pretty flat and uninteresting.  There wasn't much plot and very little conflict.  I know, the Zombie Survival genre isn't known for it's compelling plots - it's pretty much avoid getting eaten.  The protagonist, Stephen, saves a local bar maid, Jessica, and then they both go on a trip from San Antonio to Houston to pick up his friend Paul, his wife and two kids.  Along the way he saves a few other people and they all decide to shack up in this farm house.  Jessica, Stephen's love interest just about falls into the his lap and there is tons of cheesy "I am yours" dialogue.

This novel landed on my radar due to the advertisements on my podcast: "We're Alive: A Story of Survival", which is actually a really awesome radio drama.  I was hoping "Chivalry is Undead" would surprise me like "We're Alive" had, but it was amusing and it gave me the thrill of actually finishing reading something.