Recipe: Root Veggie Soup

Wow, this is a really filling and comforting soup. I got it off a package of root vegetables (contents shown above), but I adapted it slightly to my liking. The original recipe didn't have much in the way for seasonings and the end product was meant to be blended to a puree. From past experience, I have not like these types of pureed soups, so I skipped that part and just added some thickener.

Ingredients:
1 medium onion
1 tsp olive oil
8 garlic cloves, minced
3 lbs root vegetables (carrots, turnips, parsnips, rutabaga, celeric, sunchokes)
* Potato (I did not use, but will try next time)
6 cups vegetable stock
3/4 cup cream
2 tsp corn starch mixed with some cold water
salt and pepper to taste

I will add here that maybe you want to add a potato as well. I think the flavor would certainly be great and it may bulk up the broth enough to omit the corn starch later. If you do use too much carrot, parsnip, or turnip the soup can bit sweet for my taste. The potato may help to counter that sweetness.




Prep all of you veggies-  scrape, clean, and cut.

Heat the olive oil- make sure to use under Medium heat so you don't scorch it. Yes, I did this, while talking to my sister on the phone. If you do scorch the oil (it will start smoking heavily and smell awful) get it off the burner and out of the house! Smoked oil is a carcinogen, you should not breath it in. But don't worry, if this happens, you will KNOW not to breath it by it's putrid stench.

OK, add the onions and cook until soft.




Now add your vegetables and cook for 10 minutes. They will not be thoroughly cooked. I also added my salt and pepper at this point, maybe a teaspoon or so of each. You can experiment with other seasonings, the recipe called for none at all, a bit odd. Generally speaking, a little seasoning goes a long way. You could try some thyme or rosemary as well.




Add stock and simmer until tender, about 30 minutes per the directions. Mine took longer. Take off the heat and allow to cool for a bit. Stir in the cream.

Now heat on the stove again and stir in the cornstarch mixture. Allow to simmer until nice and thick. Adjust seasonings as needed.




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Fiber CSA

So i'm taking a quick mental break from documenting... yes, I'm pretty busy this time of year... and I discovered something I just had to write a new blog post about.

Half of the time I blog as a way to store information for myself. I use my blog for recipes, links, and as a general reminder about things I've read or heard about. This is one of those posts, but hopefully it will be of interest to others as well.

I was reading a magazine and it had an article about starting your own fiber CSA. For those who don't know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Most of the time, you purchase a share in a CSA in return for a monthly box of seasonal produce. CSAs have expanded to include meat, cheese, dairy, flowers, herbs, fruits, honey... But a fiber share? What a dream for any knitter! Now of course I am not literally interested on purchasing a herd of sheep and starting one myself, but it did inspire me to google "Minnesota fiber share"... and I found one here on localharvest.org. I gave the contact person a call. They are a small operation but are expanding. She refered me to their website kindredspiritfarm.com and said I should also send her an email and she will let me know when she has updated prices and availablility for new members. There is also a general local harvest page for the farm Here.

Over the phone she gave me some estimates. They offer two basic types of shares, one for completed yarn and the other for raw or washed fibers and roving (for spinners). She stated that a 1/2 share of yarm would be about 6 oz of yarn every other month and that a spinning/fiber share would be about 1 lbs of fiber every other month.

So I'm very excited about this, especially since I tentatively have been OKed to purchase a spinning wheel by Equah if I can find one that is economical (under 200 bucks, these things aren't cheap!). I will have to compare prices as it is much easier to find local roving than local yarn. Also, these have rabit, goat, and sheep fibers so it would be a good way to learn to spin different fibers.

Here's to new adventures.

Cheese making: Mozzarella

So this was my first attempt at making cheese, it was really easy and turned out successfully. To make mozzarella you need milk, citric acid, and renet (I used a vegetable renet so that vegetarian friends might one day enjoy my creations.) Begin by heating 1 gallon of milk on the stove, I used whole.


Add 1 tsp citric acid to 1/4 cup of water.


Add renet to another 1/4 cup of water. I just followed the directions for the renet I had to determine the amount. The recipe I was following recommended 1 crushed tablet of regular renet.


Make sure the milk is at least 50 degrees before pouring the water and citric acid mixture in. Stir for 1 minute. The added an additional tsp of citric acid, stir another minute.


Slowly heat on low to 80-90.


I have no idea what I'm doing here...


Add the renet.


Cover and let sit undesturbed for 15/30 minutes.


When it is ready You will get a "clean break." Poke a finger in and make a line. In a few seconds the sides will separate.


Slice the curds in squares. You won't see much at first, but leave them to sit a bit and they will separate.


Apply low heat until it reaches 108 degrees. Let it sit off the heat for another 20 minutes, stir occasionally. The curds will continue to shrink.


Spoon curds into a colander lined with cheese cloth.


Let whey separate from curds.


Microwave for 30-45 seconds, then gently separate whey using your hands or slotted spoon. Microwave another 15 seconds and repeat. Microwave 20 seconds, then salt the cheese (who knew it was so sweet at first?) and knead like it were bread.


When it turns shiny, you are done kneading. Now cut it in half. You can eat it immediately or throw it in the fridge. Eat is soon though, because it will go bad in couple weeks. The cheese you see below made it onto a yummy homemade pizza and was perfectly gooey and delicious.


iPhone

Simple Soaps

This is a soap I got at the winter farmers market a few weeks ago. The brand is Simple Soaps and they are from a local lady who uses her own goats' milk in the soaps. I know goats milk soap is pretty popular, so I was curious to try some. They have a variety of scents to choose from, both based on essential oils and others using synthetic fragrances. The essential oil fragrances are very well constructed and very nice, not something all EO enthusiasts are able to pull off. Some people like synthetic fragrances, others avoid them, but you have to admit, they often smell a lot better. I think it just takes a keener scent sense to make an appealing EO blend.

At first I used this just as a hand soap, but lately I've been using it in the shower since I've been running low on my own soaps. It smells very nice, mine is a blend of peppermint, basil, and ??? I would say it is a bit too drying for me to continue to use on my skin, probably only because I'm so sensitive to fragrances. So I think I will return it next to the sink... It will last longer there anyway.

I visited the website for Simple Soaps today and it looks like they just opened a shop in Dover MN. I think that might be worth a visit once the roads shape up. For now, you can order them online, they even do custom batches of 15 bars or more... How nice would that be for wedding or birthday gifts? Check them out atsimplegostsoaps.com

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Recipe: Thyme Potatoes

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Location:7th St NE,Rochester,United States

This one is too simple.

Cut up 6 large potatoes, with or without skin. Drizzle about 1-2 Tbsp olive oil on them. Sprinkle with course salt and thyme. Bake at 350 until tender.

I'm not sure this is even a recipe per say, but I'm the type that adds way too much butter and sour cream to her potatoes, and this is much healthier and soooo yummy! Enjoy!

Recipe: Green Beans and Cream

Another simple recipe, this one was a win. Admittedly, there are no local green beans right now. But the cream and onion are local and the chicken broth I made.

Ingredients:
1 lbs green beans, trimmemd
1/2 onion, chopped thyme
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/3 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 1/2 Tbsp cream
Salt and pepper to taste

First, boil the beans in salted water for 10 minutes. The submerge in ice water.

Heat the oil over medium heat, then add the onions. Cook until translucent.


Add the green beans a cook a bit in the onion. Then add the stock and cream. Season with salt and pepper and allow liquid to reduce.


Haha, uh no final picture... They were gobbled up in minutes!

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Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

Perfected lotion!

Sometimes the devil is in the details. Of all things, do you know what was wrong with my lotion? Why it was seperating? I was adding the water to the oil. Thats how I had read to do it, but in fact it works MUCH MUCH better to add the OIL to the WATER. Ah-hah! There we go, perfectly blended lotion without any beads of water. :)





So the new recipe is:

1 cup water
3/4 cup olive oil
3 Tbsp Bees wax

Melt the bees wax and oil in a water bath. Put you water in the blender, start blending and slowly add in the oil, no problemo!

One good thing about blogs is you can learn from other people's mistakes. You just got one handy tip above, now in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you another. I hated my Cocoa Rose lotion. Yep, sad face all the way. It did smell nice, if a bit faint, but the thing is, when you get to adding ingredients that aren't assisting in the intended use for the product (smelling vs moisturizing), well, it's pretty much a crap shoot if those ingredients (fragrance) will go on to ruin the whole thing. I wouldn't say it ruined it, but I didn't like it as much. It smelled pretty... but must my lotion smell pretty? My regular lotion, without scent, doesn't smell bad- it doesn't smell much at all.

See my simple olive oil and bees wax lotion is a super good moiturizer, and all ingredients won't clog pores. Truly, you could open up a jar and eat it... if you wanted. It was soooo nice. I used to have terrible skin... I would buy every more expensive face lotions, and a seperate eye lotion, and a night cream, and a sperate (cheaper) body lotion, then a special lotion  for my feet.... you get the picture. My lotion is simple and can be slathered head to toe, around my eyes, on my face. It banished my acne and I came to realize it was responsible for my lashes growing super long (who knew?).

My scented lotion was not as moisturizing, but did fine for my face and body in general. I had to take great care not to get it near my eyes... when I did it hurt. Plus, the fragrance oils are the most expensive part. I wouldn't say I've sworn off scents, but for now, simpler is better.

Also, on the plus side, my Etsy account is live... er, sort of. So if you are interested in what I make, but don't want to do it yourself, you can check that out. Now that I have a lotion worth standing behind, I plan on putting that up too. Right now there is just one lowly chapstick on my account. My plan is to "purchase" it myself in order to findout just how the process works. I will post my Esty account once I truly have things for sale on it.





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Location:7 St NE,Rochester,United States

Flaxseed Styling Gel

Ok, this one is easy.

3 Tablespoons flaxseeds
1 cup water

Combine and simmer on the stove until the liquid reduces by half. Then strain. I used a nutmilk bag, next time I will use a fine mesh strainer, it was a little hard to squeeze all of it out, but it was the best thing I had at the time. It will thicken more as it cools.

I've read to keep it in the fridge, but I haven't had a problem with it spoiling. Just make it in small batches. In any case, it costs pennies to make, so if it does spoil, I would just make a new batch. This makes a nice light gel that also nourishes your hair.


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Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

Cocoa Rose Lotion

I'm on a roll this week. Over the weekend I made another batch of soap, now I'm at it again tonight with two projects: lotion and styling gel.

I love my lotion, but I will admit I'm still not getting consistent results. This is the first scented lotion I've tried, which just boils down to adding essential oils to my basic olive oil recipe. I used essential oil of cocoa and rose (mixed with jojoba). I tried to find real, true, pure rose Otto oil, but it isn't sold anywhere in Rochester. I do know that the Wedge in Minneapolis used to carry it. This is where making your own bath products get fun, because rose oil is supposed to be great for the skin, but at a whopping average of $1 a drop (yes, a DROP), commercial products containging it tend to be 1) rare 2) fakes or 3) extremely expensive... We're talking the $100 4-ounce bottles here. Adding it yourself isn't gunna be cheap... Add 10 drops and now you have a lotion that costs over $10 to make. Still, walk up to a Clinique counter and you can easily find an inferior product for more money.

Note, my rose oil is not pure.... It is a mix, so it was far cheaper than that... But isn't it nice to know you can choose to treat yourself to some of life's niceties every once and a while?


Start filling you double boiler with .5 oz of beeswax (I have also use a tin can for this)...


Add 1/2 cup of olive oil...


Heat until the beeswax dissolves. Then, remove from heat and add essential oils. For this batch I did 10 drops rose oil (in jojoba) and 5 drops cocoa.


While the mixture of oil and wax is heating, be sure to fill your blender with very hot water. This prevents the oil and wax mixture (what does that make class? Oh yeh, lip balm!) from solidifying when it hits the cool glass.

There are certain steps I never get a picture of just because I am involved in actually doing them. The next step is to dump out the hot water, then add the hot oil and wax mixture to the blender. Cover the blender, but leave the small opening open to add water in. Add in a thin stream of 1 cup warm water. Stop every once in a while to scrape down the sides.... Blend blend blend! Until it is finally mixed.

So, if you really think about it, lotion is basically a lip balm with water added to it. The beeswax acts as an emulsifier. In fact, there was a little bit of oil mixture left to cool in the double boiler, and it makes a great lip balm.


I have to admit, this is still a trial and error process for me. I always end up with a great product, but every single time I get little bits of water that stay in my lotion... I haven't quite perfected the technique yet. I looked it up online and it sounds like I either need more wax or I need to add in the water much slower. It's still a work in progress at this point. I would like to try sell some on Etsy, but I don't think I can do that until I've perfected how to get the emulsion perfected as each would be made to order. Here's to learning as you go!

A note about the essential oils... They turned out a bit light, I may even try doubling them next time. Also, just a side note that they will act as a preservative (woohoo for good preservatives!) for you lotions, so this one should last longer.

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Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

New lip balm recipe

Lip balm is very easy to make. That said, this is my first large-batch attempt at it. I'm going to attempt to make 50 tubes today. Each tube is .15 liquid oz, so in total I need to make 7.5 liquid oz of lip balm.

To get the balm stiff enough for a tube you need a 3:1 to 4:1 oil to wax ratio. I am shooting more for around 3:1, since with the addition of the flavored coconut oil I am not sure how the result will be affected. So I need about 5.6 oz of olive oil, and 1.9 oz of bees wax. I am starting with the addition of 2% of flavoring (stevia coconut oil) so that would be .15 oz. Mind you lip balms are NOT exact and even if you just winged a recipe you would likely get a decent lip balm. And if you didn't, you simply melt it down and add more of what ever you need. Other products like soap and lotion are not so forgiving.

Sweet Balm #1 Recipe:
(In liquid ounces)

5.6 oz olive oil
1.9 oz bees wax
.15 oz Stevia flavored coconut oil.

So here you can see my 50 tube filled coming into action. The tubes just snap in.


Ready to be filled!


Ingredients and equipment. Olive oil (this I just got from the the bulk section at the local co-op), bees wax, stevia flavored coconut oil (not pitctured). To heat the oil and wax, I just use an old tin can (this one is BPA free). I pinch the end so it make pouring easier. A pirex measuring cup would be great, the only thing to note is that lip balm is a bit annoying, though not impossible, to wash out.


Haha.... You know how I said lip balm recipes are forgiving? Well here you are: after specifying liquid ounces ( the recipe portion of this post was written first and that is what I followed) I went and measured out weight ounces! ...but you will see later everything turned out fine. Here I am weighing out the ingredients. I forgot to mention, you can note above my olive oil is pretty light in color. Save the good olive oils for salad, the later pressings work great for balms and aren't so strong in flavor or smell.


You could try and heat the oils directly, but you run a greater risk of them degrading and scorching. I use a double boiler method using the tin can. You just want to heat it long enough to melt in the beeswax. Then I added in the stevia coconut oil... That was actually kind of tricky. The bottle it came in was not easy to get it out of (at room temp coconut oil is solid). I ended up heating it in the water a little and then just guessed at how much to add.


A note on filling the tray: the balm set up pretty fast and it was a little tricky not to get a layer of extra balm on the tray vs filling the tubes at the other end. I ended up using s Spatula to coerce the balm down. You can see four unfilled tubes, and there is a fifth that is partially filled. In total the recipe... With all it's mistakes... Was fairly close. I got 45 full tubes. I chilled the tube in the fridge to set them, but this isn't necessary.


Next was to remove the tubes and cap them. Minor gripe here was that as I pulled the tubes from the mold it flawed the tops on 90% of them.


There you are, 45 finished lip balm tubes, hopefully destined for Etsy. The sweet flavor is really light, but I like that. The texture turned out nice as well.

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Location:260th St NE,Newfolden,United States

Saturday October 15, Rochester Farmer's Market haul.

Peppers are destined for ham soup and stuffed peppers. These carrots are absolutely awesome. The mozzarella... Not so much. Sorry to say, but it tasted like sour glue, not even edible. Also some eggs, ground beef, and some canned tomatoes.


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Equah's Stuffed Peppers

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Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

Everything in this meal is local, whith the exception of the rice, olive oil, and seasonings. Even got some canned tomato goodies at the Farmers Market.

Equah's Stuffed Peppers

1/2 can tomato paste (3oz)
1/2 can diced tomatoes
3 Tbs chicken bouillon
1 1/2 tsp Equah's seasoning
1 lbs ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
3/4 cup rice (cooked)
1/2 cup water
5-8 green peppers (small) with tops cut off

Equah's seasining blend: Anise, ginger, garlic, black pepper.

Preheat oven to 350
Mix: beef, bouillon, tomato paste, diced tomatoes
Mix olive oil and onion and add to mixture (you can do this in the baking dish to grease it as well)
Add rice and water to the mixture and mix
Stuff green peppers with mixture, put into baking dish with a little water in the pan
Cover with tinfoil and back at 350 for 1 1/2 hour or until rice is done (add water as needed)

Making shampoo soap

So my olive oil/Castile soap still has a week to cure, but I figured it was high time to start another batch. Not sure of my logic... Since I really could benefit from some more coconut laundry soap... But I went ahead and bought oils for shampoo soap. Logic need not apply when it comes to my little science lab.




Above you see the majority of the equipment for making soap, plus the ingredients uses today. Really, all you need for soap is olive oil (or another fat), water and lye. Once the process is complete, none of these will exist in your soap... Just pure, simple soap. But the fats used do influence how the soap performs and depending on it's intended use, you want to very them accordingly.

So basic equipment: blender, digital scale, instant read thermometer, double boiler, Pyrex measuring cup. Plus gloves, goggles and protective clothing.




Measure the oils. Heat to 90-110 degrees.




Measure the water into Heat proof glass measuring cup. Measure lye separately. Outside: slowly add lye to water. Water will become hot and cloudy. Let settle until clear.

Next part goes fast so no photos... Add oil to blender, then lye. Cover blender with top and towel for extra protection. Blend until soap can hold memory "trace" I reached.




No fancy molds yet, I use cartons for small batches.



Once soap sets, usually the next day, cut as desired. Soap is too harsh to use at this point. Let it cure 4-6 weeks.


This is my Castile soap that has cured 4 weeks. Very simple- just olive oil, lye, and water.

So far the recipes I've used are a from a wonderful book titled "making it: radical home ec for a post consumer economy" they also run a great homesteading blog title Root Simple.


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