Soymilk Without a Soymilk Maker, Homemade Tofu and a Soap Review

This post is long overdue and I apologize for the delay. The first time I made homemade tofu I didn’t take pictures of the steps because I didn’t actually expect it to be this simple or that it would work the first time I tried it, but it did. That meant I needed to make tofu a second time to photograph everything. Oops. ;-)

First here is what I was up to today. For some reason it is unseasonably cold now with Thursday being colder than Wednesday. It was only 41 this morning when Dan and I went for a walk before breakfast. Good thing we were moving fast or it would have felt much colder outside. On the bright side even though it was gray outside at least it wasn’t rainy and that was a very good thing.

When we got back home I made Dan’s breakfast (wild blueberry oatmeal) and packed his lunch while he got ready for work. I considered going for another walk by myself later today after Dan left for work, but I needed to warm up since it was darn cold outside this morning. Who knows I might even wear pants that go to my ankles for my second trip. It is funny that I was cold yesterday in capri yoga pants and still wore them today even though it was colder outside. Earth to Alicia, do you ever learn that you get cold? LOL, apparently I am too stubborn for my own good. ;-)

I used my TRX for a little strength training this morning which also helped me warm up. Then it was time for my breakfast. I can’t tell you how nice it is to eat whatever I am in the mood for. Can you tell I am not good at following a structured diet? Honestly I don’t know how anyone stays on them I find them to be entirely too restrictive. Not to mention why would any diet restrict vegetable consumption? I still can’t get over the fact that a diet would restrict how many vegetables someone could eat. *rolls eyes* ;-)

This morning I was in the mood for savory oatmeal, made my way with loads of veggies. Today my oatmeal included the following: ½ cup oats, approximately 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons wheat germ, 1 tablespoon freshly ground flax, approximately 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast, some cumin, some oregano and no-salt seasoning to taste, 3 cups baby spinach, salsa (about ¼ cup), marinated mushrooms (about ¼ cup). This is my idea of breakfast. Savory oatmeal you will never know how much I missed you, LOL. That assumes savory oatmeal can think but you get the idea. ;-)

For those of you that haven’t noticed I tend to eat a big breakfast. My body seems to work best when I make breakfast the largest meal of my day. I am always open to experimenting with both my food and exercise to see what works best for me. I can’t remember where I read making breakfast your largest meal works for some people and I seem to be one of those people. The concept originally made sense to me since you go longer between dinner and breakfast than any other meal. Also if breakfast is your biggest meal you have all day to burn if off. Conversely when you eat a big dinner normally none of us are very active and needs that many calories to fuel our evening of sitting on the couch. If that makes sense to anyone I hope you might give a big breakfast a try.

After I finished my savoy oatmeal and my cup of tulsi and white tea I started making another batch of soymilk and then tofu so that I could photograph the steps for the blog.

Lunch was leftover French Market Soup from yesterday. What would I do without my intentional leftovers? Seriously if I didn’t always make leftovers I could never eat a diet this healthy. Intentional leftovers come to my rescue all the time.

Next I decided to start playing around with Facebook. For those of you that just fell out of your respective chairs I am sorry for the shock. I have no idea what I am doing at the moment but according to my friend Laura Jill I haven’t made a faux pas (yet) and she promised to keep an eye on me which is good. When I feel like I know what I am doing I will post a link. It may take me a couple weeks since I am a technology dinosaur. ;-)

Dinner? Oh yeah we do need to eat don’t we? Oops … guess who didn’t plan dinner again? How we ever manage to eat is sometimes beyond me. I often get so busy doing things that I forget completely about dinner. I decided to make something easy for dinner namely a big salad. The good thing about forgetting dinner tonight is that Dan doesn’t need lunch tomorrow since it is training day at work and lunch gets brought in which means I don’t need leftovers. Thank goodness for small favors right?

Making Soymilk Without A Soymilk Maker:

The first step to making soymilk is to soak soybeans overnight in your refrigerator. I used 1 cup of organic soybeans (the only ones I will buy) and placed them in a quart mason jar and covered them with filtered water.

 (soybeans with hulls)

 (pouring hulls off the soybeans)

(soybeans without hulls)

The next morning drain the water from the soybeans and move them to a large container (one you can easily get a hand into), hopefully this container will have a spout. Now use your hand to smush the beans between your fingers like you are making bean burgers or meat loaf. This smushing action will release the outer skin from the beans. Now add water to the container and the outer skin (hulls) will float to the surface and you can pour them out of the container. Continue to do this until you have removed most of the hulls which will take about 5 minutes. Removing the hulls isn’t absolutely necessary but it results in a soymilk that has less of a bean taste.

(straining okara from the soymilk using a jelly strainer)

Drain the hulled soybeans and place them in your blender (I used a Vitamix) add 4 cups of filtered water to the blender. Now process the hulled soybeans and water on high for two minutes. Pour this thick liquid into a large pot and cook until the mixture foams then strain the solids form the liquid. I used a jelly strainer and that works faster than the strainer that came with the soymilk maker. While the soymilk is straining clean the pot ,the milk will have formed a tough film inside the pot no matter how low the heat and how often you stir. Return the strained milk to the clean pot and bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes to make the soymilk digestible.

If you are fortunate enough to have a soymilk maker use that to make your milk because it makes for much easier clean up. You need to strain this like you are making soymilk since that is the first step.

Making Tofu:

No matter which method you use now you need to heat the strained milk to 180 degrees then turn off the heat.

(nigari to coagulate soymilk)

(curdled soymilk)

While you are heating the milk combine 1 teaspoon of nigari with ¼ cup of water and heat to dissolve the nigari. Pour the nigari and water into the milk and stir once or twice to combine then leave the milk alone and let it sit for 8 minutes. You will see the milk curdle and the whey begin to separate.

You can use a strainer lined with three layers of cheesecloth to make your tofu which will result in a round tofu.

Or you can use an old tofu container that you punch holes in with a knife and line that with cheese cloth (3 layers). Be sure to put this inside another container so you don’t end up with whey in your refrigerator.

(coagulated soymilk after 8 minutes)

(soymilk solids before being pressed) 

(homemade tofu in water ready to be refrigerated)

Pour the curdled soymilk into the cheese cloth. Fold the cheesecloth over, press out any water, put a weight on top of the “tofu” and place this in the refrigerator for 1 ½ to 2 hours. Remove the tofu and store it in filtered water in a covered container in your refrigerator. Homemade firm tofu is that simple. 

The best part of homemade tofu is the taste which is subtle and fresher tasting. For those of you that ever made fresh ricotta cheese and remember how different that is from the commercial stuff fresh tofu is very similar.  It will be very tough to use the commercial stuff now that I have had homemade. Fortunately I only have a few packages of the commercial stuff in the freezer to use up.

Now that I have made soymilk in my blender and in my soymilk maker I definitely have a preference. When Dan first wanted to buy me the soymilk maker I thought it was extravagant and unnecessary. Here is where I have to eat those words and admit that my husband was right, and therefore I was “less right”. Okay I was wrong, but I hate to say it out loud since he will never let me forget it.

The problem with making soymilk without the maker is the clean up. Each time you cook the soymilk it scorches on the bottom of the pan and is a pain to clean. If you plan to make your own soymilk you will say a lot of time if you have a soymilk maker. I can safely say that I am now very happy to have my soymilk maker. Thank you Dan for insisting on buying it for me even though I wasn’t sure it was necessary. Mea culpa, LOL.

Angelic Soap: A Review

As all of you know I haven’t been very keen to accept products for review in the past because I didn’t want to appear biased. However when Teresa contacted me about reviewing her soap there was something in me that immediately said yes which was completely out of character. I am not sure if it is because Teresa is a blog reader, or because I am not fond of commercial soap but either way I am very happy that I said yes. Now I need to give you a little background before I get to the review, please bare with me.

Back in 2005 I came across a book “Toxic Overload” and read it cover to cover with great interest. This was interesting to me because the doctor had said the cancer was probably due to an exposure to a toxin. When I pressed him for what type of toxin could we possibly have come into contact with the doctor explained that it could be something simple like artificial flavors, preservatives or something in our environment like cleaning products. Given my propensity to go at something 100% I tried to educate myself regarding where these toxins were lurking in our life. This book was a great primer on what I should be avoiding. Reading the section of the book that talked about beauty products was simultaneously enlightening and horrifying. After reading that book I became much more conscious of the things that came into the house. This resulted in my eliminating many items that were previously always in our house.

It seems second nature to me now but I was initially shocked when I realized now many chemicals and known carcinogens are found in beauty products. Before you think it doesn’t make a difference since you aren’t eating them think again. Many items you put on your skin are absorbed into your body. Think of nicotine patches to stop smoking or birth control patches. Once you think about things being absorbed through your skin it is difficult to put carcinogens on your body. What are some known carcinogens in beauty products: coal tar (shampoo), benzyl violet 4B (shampoo and moisturizing body bar), formaldehyde (shampoo, sunscreen), phthalates (moisturizers), parabens (moisturizers, sunscreen, foundation, etc.), sodium lauryl sulfate (shampoo, body wash), and resorcinol (shampoo) to name a few. I could have listed many more items but I think you get the idea. I started using the Environmental Working Group website to select the healthiest products for us to use. Finding soap that we liked was extremely difficult. I tried Dr. Bronner’s and using our organic shampoo as body wash but nothing was quite right. I always had it in the back of my head to try making soap for us to use but it seemed a little scary and I never got around to it.

When Teresa suggested that she would like to send me some of her homemade soap to try I thought this was marvelous. I will admit that had no idea what to expect when I said yes. Then I went to her website and I was blown away. Not only is the soup made using old world techniques but each of them is a little work of art. When I said that to Teresa she told me she has a Master’s degree in Fine Art and think that is very obvious in the look of the soap.

I image you are thinking being beautiful is great but how does it work? From the first time I used the soap my skin felt hydrated and soft. I can’t say I understand how this is possible exactly but it is true. Teresa explained that her soap has a high fat content and is made from the highest quality ingredients. Additionally Teresa explained that her handcrafted soap retains all the natural vegetable glycerin which increases the humectant factor. All I know is that I love her soap which is more than enough for me. It is gorgeous to look it, smells wonderful, doesn’t include anything I that don’t recognize and it leaves my skin feeling smooth and soft. If you haven’t checked out her website please do. Other than a few obvious items which contain goat milk or honey her products are vegan. I have been completely blown away by the quality of her products. In fact I don’t think that I can go back to any commercial products again.

You can find out more about Teresa's products at her blog and her etsy shop.

Happy Thoughts:

• It was great to get up early enough this morning that Dan and I could go for a walk together before breakfast. This needs to happen more often at our house. With spring there is lots of rain in the forecast but hopefully that will prompt us to the go to the gym together on days when rain is scheduled for the morning. *fingers crossed*

• It was great to be back to my food, woo hoo! I had no idea that I would miss it so much. Before the diet guinea pig project started I expected to be able to do it a week which would give a good idea of the diet. Little did I know I would get so cranky on that diet. I suppose this proves that willpower alone is not enough. However I will say I am happy that things turned out the way that they did. I firmly believe that only permanent lifestyle changes are what any of us should be making. I realize that we are all in a different place when it comes to nutrition but I hope my attempt to use myself as the experiment helped at least one person think about lifestyle changes versus a diet and what that means.

• Today I made soymilk using my soymilk maker which means I am very thankful for it today. I am also thankful for my wonderful husband who insisted on buying the soymilk maker. Love you!

• I decided to confront my Facebook fear and jumped into today, hopefully not head first. I am proud of myself for just doing something. Also I am thankful for Laura Jill who graciously volunteered to keep any eye on me to hopefully keep my stupid mistakes to a minimum, LOL.

• We had another beautiful sky this evening. I love to watch the sunset each night. Do any of you do that too?

• We are having dinner with some good friends tomorrow which I am very much looking forward to. I can’t wait to hear all about Deirdre’s new life as a student since she bravely checked out of the work world and went back to school full time to follow her passion. Walid always makes me feel appreciated and his wife Jackie is one of the funniest people I know. Doesn’t it sound like it will be a great evening? As you can tell I am really looking forward to it? ;-)

Signing out:

Even I can’t believe I wrote this much today. Sorry for the long post. I hope you have a good sense of how to make soymilk and tofu. I also really hope that you check out Teresa’s soap it is amazing.

Tomorrow is Friday *woo hoo* and I can’t wait for the weekend. Come on Friday night you can’t come soon enough. I hope the week has treated you well and that you are looking forward to your weekend. Talk to you again tomorrow. Have a great evening!!!!!

Banana, Peanut Butter, Spinach and Soy Yogurt Smoothie

Green smoothies again!

Every Sunday morning we go to the farmers market to pick up our organic goodies. Smoothies are a great breakfast when you are in a hurry.

The smoothie today is a little different from the prior smoothies due to the addition of soy yogurt. The soy yogurt is included for the probiotics, which are reported to boost the immune system. The yogurt also makes the smoothie a little thicker, and gives it a little background tang. The spinach is included for cancer fighting potential, and overall good nutrition. The banana is a great source of potassium and is good for kidney health. The peanut butter adds thickness, protein, fat and a nice flavor. The ice is included to thicken the smoothie.

Banana, Peanut Butter, Spinach and Soy Yogurt Smoothie
Serves 2

Ingredients:

4 cups of baby spinach, rinsed thoroughly
2 bananas, peeled
2 tablespoons of peanut butter
½ cup of soy yogurt
1 cup of soy milk
approximately 6 ice cubes

Directions:

Put everything in the blender and puree until smooth. Serve immediately in a chilled glass.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 326.71
Calories From Fat (32%) - 104.11

Total Fat - 12.12g
Saturated Fat - 2.26g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 194.53mg
Potassium - 1005.23mg
Total Carbohydrates - 46.66g
Fiber - 6.41g
Sugar - 24.77g
Protein - 12.77g

Comments:

Green smoothies are starting to appear more often in our house. The color is a little distracting, but the flavor is excellent. I like that it is a quick breakfast and that it is so good for us. If you haven’t tried a spinach smoothie you will be surprised at how the spinach flavor disappears behind the other ingredients.

Vegan Lemon Curd

(pictured: Vegan Lemon Curd, still quite warm)

Lemons contain limonins that are reported to fight cancer of the mouth, skin, lung, breast, stomach and colon. Lemons are also a good source of vitamin C and are anti-inflammatory. It has been reported that consuming lemons can help with joint discomfort. Overall, lemons are a good item to work into your meals whenever you can.

Lemon curd is one of my favorite desserts. What I never liked was the fat and calories in the original version. This is my version of a low calorie vegan lemon curd. It is great with blueberries or other fresh fruit.

Vegan Lemon Curd
makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of soymilk or almond milk
5 tablespoons of agave
2 ½ tablespoons of whole wheat pastry flour (shifted to remove large grains)
2 teaspoons of arrowroot
¼ teaspoon of lemon extract
1 lemon (zest and juice)
2 teaspoons of vegan margarine (earth balance)
scant 1/8 teaspoon turmeric

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except the lemon juice and margarine and whisk over low to medium heat until the mixture thickens. Then add the lemon juice and whisk thoroughly to combine. Add the margarine a teaspoon at a time and whisk thoroughly to combine. Place in a container to cool and refrigerate until needed.

The curd will become much thicker when it is completely cold. Put the vegan lemon curd into a food processor to return it to a soft spoonable consistency. Don’t process any longer than necessary to change the texture, you don’t want the vegan lemon curd to get warm.

Nutritional Information (this recipe versus the standard recipe):

Calories - 106.51 vs. 458.72
Calories From Fat - 29.64 (28%) vs. 235.78 (51%)

Total Fat - 3.29g vs. 26.73 g
Saturated Fat - 0.66g vs. 15.73g
Cholesterol - 0mg vs. 219.58mg
Sodium - 65.68mg vs. 126.51mg
Potassium - 181.1mg vs. 98.27mg
Total Carbohydrates - 15.91g vs. 53.17g
Fiber - 2.97g vs. 0.28g
Sugar - 4.72g vs. 51.06g
Protein - 3.82g vs. 5.1g

Comments:

The texture of this curd when cold and not processed is little too thick. However, the texture without processing would be perfect on lemon bars. If you were looking for a vegan lemon bar filling this one should work well.

Update:

My friend Louis suggested that I post the nutritional information of a standard lemon curd recipe so that everyone could see the difference in all the categories. With the exception of a little more protein every single nutritional measurement on my recipe is far superior to the original. I had to admit I am a little stunned by the difference between the two. I knew that lemon curd wasn't a "health" food but I didn't realize how unhealthy it was.

Broccoli and Potato “Cream” Soup

(this soup is not a beauty contestant but tastes delicious)

Last week at cooking class our topic was soup. This class got my mind swirling thinking of different soups I could make that would be healthy.

Broccoli is a very popular vegetable at my house. We always have a minimum of one five pound bag of broccoli from Costco in our freezer at all times. I love the taste of broccoli and I love that this little cruciferous vegetable is a potent cancer fighter. I try to include broccoli in our meals whenever I can. Broccoli was the starting point for my soup tonight.

I added the cauliflower to the soup for additional cruciferous punch and to reduce the overall amount of potato in the soup. When the cauliflower is pureed it behaves like potato. I add cauliflower to most potato dishes I make for this reason.

I roasted the potatoes to give them a little texture. I didn’t want the potatoes to disintegrate into the soup.

The garlic oil was used to give the soup a little background garlic flavor.

I added the lemon so that the acid would lift the flavor in the dish without adding more salt. I try to keep our daily sodium level below the recommended 2200 mg’s a day.

Broccoli and Potato “Cream” Soup
Serves 5

Ingredients:

3 pounds of frozen broccoli florets
1 pound of frozen cauliflower florets
1 ½ pounds of red potatoes, cut into bite size pieces
1 tablespoon of garlic flavored olive oil
one red onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon of garlic flavored olive oil
3 cups of water
2 cups of plain unsweetened soymilk
2 teaspoons of kosher salt
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roast cauliflower and broccoli on a half sheet pan for approximately 20 minutes, until cooked through and slightly tinged on the edges. On a separate sheet pan toss potatoes with one tablespoon of garlic flavored olive oil and a pinch of salt and roast until they are done (the exact time will depend on the pieces of the potato and your oven) mine took 5 minutes longer than the broccoli and cauliflower.

While the veggies roast cook the diced onion with the remaining tablespoon of garlic oil until it is translucent.

When the cauliflower and broccoli are cooked, put them in your blender (reserving a few broccoli tops for texture) along with the water and puree until smooth. Add the pureed vegetables and reserved broccoli tops to the pan containing the onions and turn the heat to low. Add the soymilk and salt and heat soup to desired temperature. Just before serving add the lemon juice and taste the soup for salt and pepper, and adjust as desired.

Serve hot.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 309.17
Calories From Fat (24%) - 75.69

Total Fat - 8.54g
Saturated Fat - 1.13g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 914.61mg
Potassium - 2051.51mg
Total Carbohydrates - 49.8g
Fiber - 5.27g
Sugar - 4.92g
Protein - 15.87g

Comments:

This is a very thick soup, almost more of stew. It has a nice gentle broccoli flavor with a hint of lemon and garlic in the background. I liked the texture the potatoes gave the soup. If you wanted to add more textural variation you could finish the soup with a few toasted whole wheat croutons. The only thing I didn’t like was the color of the soup. I would have preferred the soup to be a more vibrant green. Next time I will add a little pureed raw spinach at the very end to brighten the green color. If you didn't mind the extra calories a little drizzle of a beautiful emerald green parsley oil would be a nice addition before serving.

Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie with Spinach

Smoothies make a great breakfast when the weather gets warmer. I love how quickly you can throw them together and get on with your day. Somehow hot food isn’t anything that I am very interested in when the weather gets warmer.

I have decided to try to include spinach in my morning smoothies for a while (basically until I get bored with it and need a change). I like that the spinach adds a lot of nutrition, and potentially helps to fight cancer.

Peanut butter is a very popular ingredient in our house. Both my husband and I love the gooey stuff. Peanut butter is packed with protein, as well as healthy fat, and calories. I buy the raw organic peanut butter that is made with the skins because it contains more nutrients.

I thought that peanut and banana sounded like a great smoothie combo today. Bananas are a good source of potassium which is essential for maintaining your blood pressure. Consuming bananas has also been associated with a reduction in strokes. Eating bananas has also been linked to kidney health and a reduction in kidney cancer. Since I have a particular fondness for kidney protection expect to see more banana based recipes in the future. Hummmm…. banana and peanut butter soy ice cream sounds good. But I will save that for another post.

Flaxseeds always go into my smoothies. Four little teaspoons of flaxseeds contain almost 100% of the daily recommended value of omega 3’s. Omega 3 fatty acids help protect you from forming dangerous blood clots. The consumption of omega 3’s is also associated with lower blood pressure.

Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie with Spinach
Makes 2 large servings

Ingredients:

1 banana, very ripe
1 cup of soymilk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of peanut butter
2 tablespoons of golden flaxseed, freshly ground
2 bunches of young spinach, about 20 leaves
1 cup of water
2 cups of ice

Directions:

Drop everything in the blender and process until completely smooth. Serve cold.

Nutrition Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 354.06
Calories From Fat (47%) 166.13

Total Fat - 19.42g
Saturated Fat - 3.35g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 262.77mg
Potassium - 1123.49mg
Total Carbohydrates - 33.96g
Fiber - 9.27g
Sugar - 13.23g
Protein - 15.71g


Comments:

The peanut butter was the dominant flavor in this smoothie. We would like this better if the banana flavor was a little more prominent. I will be adding more banana in the smoothie I make tomorrow. My husband and I are not in agreement on the spinach flavor. I wasn’t certain I could taste it, he thought he could taste the spinach. Either way, the spinach was at most a background flavor. We both thought this was a very good starting point for a recipe.

Nutritional Info updated 07.05.09

Mixed Berry and Spinach Smoothie

This morning I was moving slowly so I made a quick breakfast smoothie. I used what I had on hand, which is how I typically make smoothies.

We buy bags of frozen mixed berries from Costco because it includes three different dark berries (raspberries, blueberries and Marion berries), which are a great fruits to consume if you are eating for good health. Dark berries are packed with good nutrition. I include them in our diet as often as possible.

Most of the calories, and protein in this smoothie comes from the soymilk. Next time I may try to remove one cup of the soymilk and replace it with water and a couple tablespoons of oatmeal to reduce the calories a little.

If you are unfamiliar with flaxseeds, they are a fantastic item to include in your cereal, salads and smoothies. I buy whole golden flaxseeds at the health food store and keep them in my freezer and grind them just before I plan to eat them. Flaxseeds are very high in omega 3’s and are thought to lower cholesterol, reduce the risk of some cancers, and reduce inflammation. After reading “Eat to Live” I try to include flaxseeds in our diet daily.

The spinach was included in this smoothie for nutrition. The dark blue color of the berries masked the green from the spinach so it wasn’t obvious. However, the nutrition was the raw spinach was still there. Dark green leafy vegetables are so good for your health. Spinach is a rich source of vitamin’s K and A. Researchers have identified at least 13 compounds in spinach that function as anti-cancer agents. Spinach is a great food to incorporate in your diet whenever possible.

Mixed Berry and Spinach Smoothie
Makes 2 large smoothies

Ingredients:

3 cups of mixed frozen berries (blueberries, Marion berries and raspberries)
3 cups of soymilk
2 small bunches of young spinach (about 20 leaves)
2 tablespoons of flaxseeds (freshly ground)

Directions:

Put everything in a blender and process until smooth. Serve immediately.

Nutrition Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories -408.9
Calories From Fat (25%) 103.08

Total Fat -11.66g
Saturated Fat -1.25g
Cholesterol -0mg
Sodium -271.11mg
Potassium -1256.21mg
Total Carbohydrates - 62.43g
Fiber - 16.8g
Sugar - 35.9g
Protein - 19.32g

Comments:

This smoothie is packed with nutrition and tastes only of berries. If you are trying to get more nutrition into your diet, this is a great way to start. I like knowing that I start my day with a healthy smoothie that is packed full of vitamins and phytonutrients.

Since a few of you have asked, no I couldn't taste the spinach at all. It added nutrition but without an overwhelming spinach flavor.

Nutrition Info updated 07.05.09