Borax

This is part of a series describing the basic supplies you need to in order to clean your home, the natural way. They include distilled white vinegar, baking soda, lemons, hydrogen peroxide, salt and, optionally, borax and washing soda. I will start with borax, since my aunt specifically asked about it.

Borax. What is it? I’ve always known, vaguely, that people used to use it to clean things, but I didn’t know the first thing about using it, where to buy it, or even what the packaging looked like.

Now that I’ve determined to switch to natural cleaning products (bringing as many of my family and friends along with me as possible), I decided a little research was in order. A lot of the following information was taken from Wikipedia's entry on borax.

What is borax?

Borax (a.k.a sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate) was discovered more than 4000 years ago, and is a naturally occurring mineral salt that is mined commercially, primarily in Turkey, California and the southwestern U.S., Chile and Tibet. It can also be produced synthetically.

What does it look like?

Borax is a white solid, normally available in powder form. The powder dissolves easily in water.

What is it used for?

Borax has many wide-ranging applications. It is an ingredient in many detergents, as well as in enamel, pottery, glass, ceramics and makeup! In Europe, it is used as a food additive. It is also a flame-retardant and insecticide that kills ants and fleas.

Insecticide? Is borax safe?

Just because something occurs naturally doesn’t mean that it is harmless. Exposure to high levels of borax can cause respiratory and skin irritations. Ingesting it can cause abdominal pain and nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. In severe cases of borax poisoning, a dark, red skin rash may appear.

However, borax is not considered acutely toxic. You would have to be exposed to quite a large dose for it to be harmful. In laboratory experiments with rats, the LD50 of borax was 2.66 g/kg (and 2.66 grams of a powder is quite a lot).

[The LD50 for a substance indicates how much of the substance was required, in laboratory tests, to be lethal to 50% of the experimental population. Often, rats are used.]

Where can I find it?

Believe it or not, most supermarkets across the country carry borax in their laundry detergent aisle, although you may never have noticed it before.

One national brand is 20 Mule Team Borax. Their website includes lots of hints and recipes for using borax in numerous applications.

Should I use borax? How should I use borax?

Considering borax is not 100% non-toxic, is it necessary (or even worthwhile) to keep it in the house at all? You can probably clean your house, possibly your entire house, without using borax. Many natural cleaning formulas don't call for borax and, by all accounts, still work very well.

I have never bought or used borax, myself. However, many of the recipes that I have seen for tougher stains or cleaning jobs require borax, so it seems that it does boost cleaning power a lot. So, if distilled white vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda and salt don't seem to be doing an adequate job, you may want to turn to borax before reaching for a store-bought, chemical-laden conventional cleaner.

In any case, keep borax away from young children and pets. Wear gloves when handling, and avoid inhaling any of the powder (you might want to wear a face mask, and/or work outside).

You can look at this website, and this one, to find out more about borax, how you can use it, and some recipes for home cleaning agents.

Just to get you started, here is a basic recipe for a laundry detergent with borax.

Laundry Detergent

1 part borax

1 part washing soda

Mix together the borax and washing soda (both are powders). You can use this like regular laundry detergent, and this mixture will keep indefinitely.

Next time, I will talk about washing soda, which is not the same as baking soda. Also, stay tuned for information about soap nuts, which a reader of this blog told me about. They are absolutely amazing!

Happy Bread

I baked bread today. Nothing extraordinary or new or peculiar happened that made me post this picture. I just like looking at happy bread, and I thought that I might share my food porn. It really came out beautiful, smelling sweet and warm, and ENORMOUS. It sprang to double the size of the pan. And now I am happy thinking of how it will taste with some butter spread on it.

Is sewing for the birds?

I'm going to try to get my act together and use these new-fangled "tags". I've never successfully caught on, and since I post so rarely, I was stuck on the original design of this blog, in which we had to post to the separate food/gardening/books blog first. Anyways, I've been dabbling a bit in sewing recently. My sister, planning to upgrade to a Singer, gave me her old sewing machine a while ago. It didn't have a manual and it wasn't threaded, so I never used it. Even though my mom is a seamstress and deals with sewing machines day in a day out, I didn't want to bring it to her. But thank goodness for my crafty friend Rita, who figured out how to thread it and even sewed up some birds for my birthday party guests and me.


Sewing in action!
If you look closely at Rita's sweater in the top left corner,
you'll see that it's printed with balls of yarn, needles, and
thread. Awesome sweater!

These little stuffed birds are adorable and so easy to make by machine or by hand. I'm still a little clumsy with the machine, so I don't mind handsewing. In fact, handsewing these cuties while watching tv (in a well-lit room, obviously) or listening to music is what I call a relaxing evening. It's great for beginners and for using up fabric scraps. And hey, instant gratification!





The pattern is available here. If I make enough, I may create that sweet mobile.

Healthy Decisions

My uncle passed away recently, after battling cancer for the past five years. He, and my aunt and cousins, were much braver through all of this than I think I could ever be. But he is not the only member of my family who has been touched by this illness. I heard a recent statistic that said that one in every three people will develop cancer.

Perhaps it is the undeniable proof of our mortality, and my belief that it may be due, in part, to the various toxins and pollutants that we are exposed to in our daily lives, but I have been worrying about my family's health, and anxious to make sure that we all do everything we can to live as healthily as we are able.

The first thing we can do, of course, is to try to buy organic produce as much as possible, and to avoid processed foods. To that end, I am a full supporter of buying locally from farmer's markets, taking advantage of any natural food supermarkets, joining CSAs, and growing your own food organically.

Green Clean

Recently, however, I have been thinking a lot about house cleaning. Women used to clean their houses without the dozen different cleaners that we keep in our cupboards today, and they used to clean them with things that we could safely eat. I've decided that I want to switch back to natural methods of cleaning, and I did some research at the bookstore for books that could help.

Green This!

If you want to read about why it's a good idea to return to natural cleaning products, and what kinds of nasty chemicals and toxins are contained in most commercially available cleaning products, I would recommend this small volume, Green This!

Green Housekeeping

Green Housekeeping contains lots of "recipes" for making natural cleaning products that are quite simple, along with generally good advice on how to make your house cleaning more environmentally friendly.

Better Basics For the Home

And, if you are interested in finding the right recipe for every possible cleaning application, as well as homemade skin-, pet- and everything-care recipes, Better Basics For the Home probably has everything you could want, and more. You can also check out the author's website.

Although I think each of these books is useful in its own way, and there are many other similar titles available, since I'm living in a small apartment and don't have that much time (or space) for mixing a large variety of cleaning recipes, I chose the well-organised but fairly comprehensive (and stain- and water-proof) Green Clean (pictured above). None of the books is very expensive, and I figure that the money I will save in cleaning products will quickly recover the cost of purchase.

And it's so simple. All you really need to clean most things in your home are:

1. white vinegar,
2. baking soda and/or washing soda,
3. hydrogen peroxide,
4. lemons,
5. salt, and possibly
6. borax

That's it. I will still buy environmentally friendly dish soap (I am currently using Sun and Earth dish soap, although other brands might be Seventh Generation, Ecover and Method) and laundry detergent (I am currently using Biokleen's powdered detergent, which is available in a cardboard carton, instead of in a plastic bottle).

I am thinking of sending weekly e-mails to my family members with recipes and information I can glean from the book I ordered, others at the library, and the numerous organic/natural cleaning websites. There are so many advantages to switching over (it's healthier, less expensive, more environmentally responsible), I hope that they will all be interested in and able to do it.

Of Mice and Men: Summer Resolutions

The summer is half gone, and I have yet to announce the summer resolutions that have been simmering in my mind since the end of last semester. Of course, I was away in Hong Kong. Then, my uncle passed away while I was there and, within a week of coming back to Albany, I was flying out to L.A. again for the memorial service.

I had decided that I needed summer resolutions because I never seem to be able to do anything about New Year's resolutions. You make those over the winter break (if you're a student, as I am), but then the spring semester begins, and you're way too busy to stick to them. Therefore, I think it is a better idea to make summer resolutions. Even though I will be busy this summer, too, I stand a better chance of making a good head start on these. I also have concrete objectives, rather than just a number of vague goals, by which to measure my success.


Lana's Summer 2008 Resolutions

1. Do more exercise.

This includes:

• at least one 20-minute walk each week. I would especially like to walk along the Hudson River waterfront, near to which my workplace is conveniently located. Also, this would be a good way to get to know my neighbourhood, which is fairly nice for walking.
• pilates; at least 30-minutes once a week. I also plan to get at least one private lesson this summer (probably all that I will be able to afford), to make sure I am doing it correctly. For the other times, I will be investing in more exercise DVDs.

2. Do some knitting.

I didn't do any knitting this past semester. Fixing the sleeve of the department secretary's sweater doesn't really count.

• First priority is finishing up my numerous UFOs, especially Moocow's shawl.
• Use some of the lovely yarn I bought at Webs.
  

3. Do some sewing.

I have a beautiful Bernina sewing machine (which I bought used on Ebay), which I haven't used enough by far. I have a lot of sewing objectives for the summer. I want to sew at least one each of the following (in order of difficulty/time commitment):

• an apron
• a bag (I think I will make my first projects some grocery bags)
• a skirt
• a top
• a pair of pants
• a dress
• curtains for the living room
• a slip cover for the couch

I also want to learn to do the following:

• machine applique
• fit/alter a pattern, or create a sloper. If I am going to sew my own clothing, I want to make sure that it fits well!

I probably won't get through all of these this summer, but I am going to do my best.

4. Spinning

I want to take spinning lessons and learn to spin on a spinning wheel. I'm not ready to buy a spinning wheel yet, but I want to learn more about spinning, so that I can make an informed decision when I am ready to make the investment (if I like spinning).

• rent a spinning wheel
• take a couple of spinning classes

5. Dance classes

Nope, not of the bump-and-grind sort. That really isn't my style. I've taken ballroom dancing classes twice before, once in high school, and once in college. Both times, however, my partner was a female and, with both of us taking turns as the lead and trying to learn two parts, nothing really stuck.

• Take ballroom dancing classes for at least the summer, and continue if time and finances allow during the semester.

6. Masters Thesis

I probably should have put this first! I want to graduate by this December, so I MUST work on my thesis.

7. Cooking

I am helping out at the CSA again this season, so I will be getting weekly shares of vegetables. I have lots of recipes that I want to try out, but I have three things in particular that I want to do.

• Learn to use my pressure cooker, a Christmas present from my parents that has been sitting around.
• Experiment with puff pastry.
• Make more Chinese soups. In previous years, I would make healthful soups, with Chinese herbs, at least twice a month. I haven't done that at all this year. I bought two Chinese/English recipe books of Chinese soups, so I want to try the ones for which I can get ingredients.

8. Enjoy Albany

I feel as though I have been working non-stop since I came to Albany, and I haven't really taken advantage of all the cultural and natural resources available.

• Budget allowing, try some local restaurants. No chain restaurants for me!
• See an opera (I missed ballet season already, unfortunately) in Saratoga Spring.
• Go to Lake George when N comes to visit
• Go fruit picking at nearby U-pick farms: raspberries, blueberries, peaches, oh my!

9. GIS

I want to improve my skills as a GIS user. Summers are usually slower here at the DEC, so I hope to use my down time to:

• learn how to use the Network Analyst module
• complete some ESRI Virtual Campus courses
• Read and work through the Idrisi Andes tutorials, since I had to fork over the money for the 9-month license for a class last semester

10. Blog more regularly!! At least once a week. You probably won't be interested to hear about work, and schoolwork but, hopefully, with all my summer activities, there will be more interesting things to blog about.

It does seem like a lot, doesn't it? I can't relax and laze the summer away, but I still intend to enjoy it by keeping myself productive, although well-rested (I hope). I've already started on a couple of my resolutions, so I'll probably be giving an update this weekend.

Hong Kong trip: A Belated Tale

I was away in Hong Kong for two weeks at the end of May and in early June. I must say, I think it was a mistake to bring my big, clunky SLR-like digital camera; I was forever finding excuses not to take it out and about (the main excuse being the rain, which was almost unceasing the entire time I was there), so I don't have very many pictures to show for the time I spent there.

How quickly the body forgets 90-plus degree weather and 99 percent humidity! I lived there for 10 years, but it took some readjusting. It saps the will to be active; my brother was like a wet dishrag for most of our stay, perky only in the presence of air-conditioning.

My family and I had had plans to make a little side-trip somewhere, such as to mainland China, or Vietnam, or even nearby Macau. With the heavy rains, which seemed to blanket the entire region, and the situation in China, however, we decided to stay in Hong Kong.

I did get to meet up with a number of good friends from high school, not the least of whom was Kea. That, in my opinion, made the whole trip worthwhile. And, when I was tired of the dearth of home-cooking (my grandparents, with whom we were staying, never dine in) Kea and her SO invited me to their place and we cooked up a simple but delicious meal. I learned to make Vietnamese meatballs (yum!!!), we had lots of choi sum sauteed with garlic, and we also bought some fresh scallops, which we served steamed in the shell with loads of minced garlic and scallions. We chased that with freshly made lime soda, and lychees and mangosteens for dessert. I think that was one of the best meals I had the entire time I was there.

I'm Not the Worst Garderner In the World!

Remember last year when I was complaining about killing off mint? Well, I'm still killing off mint. I don't understand. I moved it to a less sunny spot and it was doing so well through this winter, and now it's gone all scraggly again. As you can see here, almost all the lower leaves have turned brown and dropped off. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the fact that it's been raining for a month (I did my best to keep it shaded). I know it isn't root-bound because I re-potted it recently. Oh well, maybe mint's just happier in cooler weather. But everything else is doing much better.

I managed to grow a lot of things from seed this spring, which is a first for me.

Thai and Italian basil:


Well, the green pot on the right was a gift, but the others I grew from seed.

Now I have more basil than I can possibly eat.

Marjoram: inexplicably stringy-looking, but otherwise healthy.


Parsley: I didn't know parsley grew this big.


And check this out. I planted bell pepper seeds from a bell pepper I ate, not really expecting anything to come of it, and I actually got a mini bell pepper. It was amazing to watch it grow on the stem (I swear it got bigger overnight), but it only reached a couple inches diameter when it dropped off. I have no idea why. Still tasted decent, if a bit bitter. I made hummus with it. If I'm lucky I'll get a couple more peppers before winter.





Meanwhile, I've been keeping my thyme alive. The one in the middle was a gift from Ceddy and Char at my housewarming party. I nearly killed it and for months only a few little sprigs on it survived, like the last holdout strands of hair on a baldie in denial. It would die, it would grow back, it would die again. More water, less water, made no difference. I called it the Zombie Thyme. Eventually I re-potted it in a half-gravel half-potting soil mix, and it made a miraculous recovery.



You sure learn some odd things on gardening sites. Who knew that chamomile tea and cinnamon are anti-fungal agents? That's how I prevented my basil seedlings from keeling over from damping-off disease this time around.

I also learned that commercial potting soil is usually too heavy. You've got to mix a bunch of perlite and vermiculite into it. So now I joke about spending my money on not just any dirt, but executive dirt.

My experiment with soil-less hydroculture was also an abject failure. Unless you stick to water-loving, abuse-proof houseplants, you have to go pretty high tech for it to work.

So maybe by now, I deserve promotion to World's Second, or possibly Third Worst Gardener? Because I'm still killing mint.

Sour Cherry Jam Update

So I tried the jam mixed with blueberries over a vanilla panna cotta with granola (for crunch) and, well....WOW! You can really SMELL those cherries in there. Next year I think I shall make a double batch!

Sour Cherries and Sweet Jam

I'd never had fresh sour cherries before. This year, I realized by accident that sour cherry season is upon us and so, in spite of my DH's grimaces at having to wake up early on a Saturday morning, I dragged us halfway to West Virginia to Hartland Orchard in Markham, VA. Unlike the more popular sweet cherries, which had already sold out, the sour cherries were selling for just $1/lb at this u-pick farm. (Not such a deal when you consider th $20 we spent on gas just getting there, but hey, where else was I going to find fresh sour cherries? There haven't been any at our farmer's markets, that's for sure.) When we got there, the only other people picking the fruit were speaking Russian and Italian, but boy, did they know what they were about. One guy even brought his own ladder and chatted on his cell phone while plucking choice cherries from the top of his tree.


Now, what does one do with three pounds of sour cherries? When life throws sour cherries at you, make jam!

Wisely, I used up the rest of a Williams Sonoma gift certificate on a nifty cherry/olive pitter, which made short work of my pile. I had changed into a dark-colored, old t-shirt just in case, but this fancy pitter, by OXO, has a little shield to keep cherry juice from splattering all over the place. It worked, and I stayed nearly spotless.

For the recipe, I followed the instructions inside the SureJel package of pectin I'd purchased. I didn't realize until recently how difficult it is to find pectin at a grocery store. Either they don't stock it, or they're sold out, or they have the wrong kind. (Pectin comes in full-sugar dry, low-sugar dry, no-sugar dry, and liquid forms.) I went to four stores before I finally found the regular kind of pectin I wanted. For some unfathomable reason, that store had placed it next to the ZipLock containers.

After you stem, pit and wash the cherries, you throw them into a deep pot (because the jam will spit at you when it starts boiling) with all the pectin. Bring it all to a rolling boil, then add all the sugar at once. Return to a rolling boil for one minute, skim off foam if necessary, and then ladle into sterilized jars. (Hartland does not claim to be an organic farm, but after an hour of picking, our hands did not have any of that sticky pesticide residue that I've experienced at other farms, so that was a good sign. The other positive sign was that there was no scum to skim off the jam. Being a novice jam-maker, it may be because cherries give off less scum than other fruit, but I still appreciated being able to skip that step.)

This is where I got into trouble. Since I didn't have a pot big enough to keep my jars in a hot water bath while I cooked the jam, and my stove didn't have enough space for that many pots anyways, I went with some advice I'd read on the internet about putting the cleaned jars on a towel-lined sheet pan in a hot oven. That was a good idea, until I set the towel on fire.

The smoke detector went off, but I thought it was just angry at me again for turning on the oven. Then I heard a cackling noise coming from inside the oven, just like the noise a fireplace makes. I opened the door and my towel was ablaze in the back corner. Of course, all this happened right at the moment my jam had reached the final boil, when it should be stirred constantly and vigorously for ONE MINUTE ONLY. I ignored the jam for the moment and yanked the sheet pan, jars, burning towel and all, out of the oven. I set the blazing pile in the sink and tried to put it out using my nifty All-Clad oven mitt (free with each outrageously expensive purchase). That mitt will never be the same again, but it didn't do the job. I didn't want to turn the tap onto the hot glass (which would shatter) and my hot, shiny sheet pan (which would warp), so I calmly moved all 7 jars off the pan, dragged the fiery towel into a corner of my tiny sink, shoved the sheet pan back in the oven, and turned the tap on. In retrospect, the oven method isn't a bad idea, but I really should've used a Silpat instead. The towel extinguished and my smoke detector still going, I finished making my jam, which only turned out to yield 2 1/2 jars.
After all that, I have only two aspirations for my first, botched attempt at jam-making. One, I hope it doesn't kill us, and two, I hope it tastes good.

Getting Acquainted with EZ

I purchased a copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop almost a year ago, but what with going to pastry school and working, not only did I have no time to knit, but my hands were too tired and cramped from whisking, stirring and lifting to hold my needles for more than a few minutes at a time. Since I've left the kitchen and gone back to a desk job though, the urge to knit has kicked back in, and my hands are, after a four week rest period, up to the task again.

The first thing I did was to dive into EZ's book. I wanted to try knitting a baby sweater as a first step towards sweaters in general, but had no idea where to start. Now that I no longer have my personal knitting consultant on hand (aka astraea) for knitting emergencies, I realized that I now have to learn how to navigate a pattern and figure out a gauge all by myself. (Yes, astraea spoiled me rotten!) EZ and her daughter are known to generations of knitters for the wonderful books they wrote, not just on how to knit, but how to become one that can dream up and execute her own creations. Now, I'd read many positive things about EZ's charm and style but honestly, I was not prepared to fall out of my seat laughing when, in a discussion on the merits of circular vs. straight needles on page 12, I read this:

"I have a whole jar full of straight needles, and they gather dust....Just practice and see - and no needle will ever have a chance to slide away into the upholstery, or under the car-seat, or, worse, INTO THE DRINK."

Elizabeth boozed while she knitted! Now, that's MY kind of knitter!

Her style was so straightforward and encouraging that I ended up following along for the first Lesson on how to knit a hat, in spite of the fact that I had started off with the intention of knitting a sweater. I had two balls of very nice Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair left over from knitting my DH's hat two years ago so I put those to good use, and here is the result. I had a really good time making it, too. No stress or tears or broken bamboo needles like during my first two EZ-less hats. It has yet to be blocked and I'm thinking of sewing in a fleece lining, but I'm happy with it overall and am now an EZ fan for life!

[Bumbling Bees - Food] Basil, many ways

Hooray, it's summer (well, almost)! That means basil. Lots and lots of basil. After being lured by its scent, I picked up a bunch at the farmer's market for one dollar. I would've liked a smaller bunch, but they only came in one size: GINORMOUS. I hard to start using this herb, and quick! What did I make?


Pesto, the old standby


Bruschetta


Pasta Primavera


Turkey Parmesan Meatballs

I made so much pesto and so many meatballs that I was able to freeze a good portion of each for later. And I froze the leaves themselves.


Basil cubes! I think I can
just toss these into a soup.

This is what's left of the basil after I used about two-thirds. Still a lot. Maybe I should just dry the rest. I also tried steeping it in hot water, and the tea turned out pretty nice! Any other ideas? The basil has been in my fridge for a week now, and it's not so fresh anymore, unfortunately. I tried to use it up as fast as I could!


Help me!!!

--
Posted By greeeenwithenv to Bumbling Bees - Food at 6/13/2008 06:38:00 PM

What to do?

I have all this yarn, and so many (too many!) things I want to knit, that I need some help deciding. I bought enough of the Classic Elite Four Seasons cotton to make either a tank top or a cropped cardigan/bolero. I love this blue-red colour. It isn't at all garish, and won't make me look sallow as an orange-red would.

I have shamelessly borrowed pictures from other sites/people to ask for your opinion, but I'm hoping I won't get in trouble because 1) I am not stealing bandwidth, and 2) I have given credit where it's due. So, first up, possible patterns for the red cotton. This is Sahara, available from Stitch Diva Studios. I've seen some very nice ones that other people on Ravelry have made, with modified (and more modest) necklines and beads optional.Perhaps because it's summer (or it will be, even though it is still freezing here!), I have been obsessed with cropped cardigans and boleros! I like the nice, simple lines of the Fiery Bolero from Interweave Knits, which would showcase the smooth yarn and rich colour beautifully.And then there is Stefanie Japel's Drop-stitch Lace Tank (the one in this picture knit by Lilybeth), which has such interesting textures and her signature fitted shaping.
And, at the other end of the spectrum, a light, sweet yellow cashmere, merino and acrylic blend. I have a fleece hoodie in this shade of yellow that I have literally loved to death. It is time to retire it, which is why I was so happy to find this yarn (so soft, so smooshy!) in this colour. Rowan yarns (and this one, with cashmere!) are usually out of my price range (at least, enough of it to make a sweater with), so it's quite a treat for me, and am going to be very careful about choosing a pattern.

I want something classic - so that it won't go out of style and I can treasure it and wear it for a long time to come - but with enough interesting details to save it from being boring. Here are my many choices: Norah Gaughan's Pink Vintage Cardigan, which would be equally pretty in pale yellow.Carrie Bostick Hoge's Little Smocked Cardigan, which is another instance of my cropped-cardigan craving. I can just imagine wearing it over a sundress.Melissa Wehrle's Wallis Cardigan, which I very much want to knit this summer, but which may do better in a drapier yarn, such as the original cotton/silk blend that was used in the photo version.Pam Allen's Flutter Sleeve Cardigan, which was originally knit in a light, drapey bamboo/soy blend yarn.Another design by Stefan Japel, the Puff-Sleeved Feminine Cardigan (also from her book Fitted Knits), here knit by Charmaine. An ultra-simple wrap cardigan by Debbie Bliss, but I don't have any wrap cardigans.

Or this very cute, swingy cardigan/jacket from Vogue Knitting, designed by Margaret O'Leary. (The one in this picture was made by mzanita.

What to do, what to do?

I went crazy at Webs

After not posting, or knitting, for months and months, I have come out of deep hibernation. It was a very trying semester, but I came through with flying colours (if not with a thesis!), and am ready to take part in real life again!

Last weekend, a coworker and I drove to Northampton, MA and went to the Webs annual sale event and, oh my, was it glorious! It is about an hour and a half from Albany, NY, and we very nearly ran out of gas on the way, but it was worth every minute.

So much yarn, so many yarn lovers, and such irresistable prices! I confess, I went a little crazy, although I did try to rein myself in there at the end. I could easily have come away with four or five times as much, which would have been a very, very bad thing. Financially speaking, of course.

So, what did I take home with me? 13 balls of the chunky weight Valley Yarns Shelburne in a light blue (above).....

6 glorious, silky-soft skeins of Bristol Yarn Gallery Buckingham in a rosy pink.....
10 buttery soft balls of Rowan Cashsoft Baby DK in the lightest lemon yellow.....
10 balls of Valley Yarns Florence, a fuzzy mohair blend....
8 skeins of this vibrant Classic Elite Four Seasons cotton yarn, in the kind of red I have been looking high and low for.....
And 10 balls of Jaeger Roma in a muted blue-grey.

Ahhh, my lovelies, I do have plans for you.

Yoghurt Attempt No. 2

My first batch of yoghurt came out kind of lumpy and gritty. The taste wasn't bad, but the texture was off. A quick search of The Internet tells me that this is the result of too high temperatures. It makes the milk curdle.

This afternoon I decided to try again. I boiled up some cheapo UHT milk (I hear that even soy milk will work), let it cool down a bit more than the other day, and poured it several times through sieve in case any lumps had formed during the boiling. I stirred in the last two tablespoons my lumpy home-made yoghurt, poured it into jars, and placed the jars into a bucket of - not hot - but pleasantly warm bath water. This time I wrapped the whole bucket in aluminum foil and a big fluffy bath towel.

That was about seven hours ago. I just checked on it. The yoghurt's smooth but still a little on the runny side, so I'm going to let it sit for a couple more hours.

Making Yoghurt

The first time I ate yoghurt was at the age of 9 or so, at a friend's house. My parents couldn't abide the stuff so there was never any in the house. My mom had always said it was disgusting, so when I finally got around to eating some, I was pleasantly surprised. I think it may have been grape flavored. But then I forgot all about it.

The second time I ate yoghurt was in Year 8 science lab. We did an experiment in bacterial cultures. Unfortunately, due to the class schedule, it stayed in the incubator for 3 whole days and by the time we opened it up, it had gone halfway to cheese. By that time I had so little memory of what yoghurt was supposed to taste like that I didn't even realize that anything was amiss until my Australian lab partner turned her nose up at it.

That episode left me with the impression that you needed all kinds of equipment to make yoghurt. Where was I supposed to get an incubator, or powdered bacteria? I don't even have a cooking thermometer. Today, I found out that all you need is a cup of store-bought yoghurt (one that says it's got live cultures), and a bucket. Or preferably a beer cooler.

First you need to sterilize a jar. And then, you need to sterilize your milk. Bring it up to boiling point, stirring frequently, and then let it cool down to a hot but not scalding temperature.

Wikihow says that the ideal temperature for culturing yoghurt is between 90 degrees F (32C) and 120F (49C). Since the human body is at around 98F (37C), that's about the temperature of hot bath water.

Then you add the pre-bought yoghurt, just 2 tablespoons of it, and then pour the mixture into your sterilized jar. Seal it, then dunk it in a beer cooler or bucket of hot bath water for 4-12 hours. Change the water whenever it starts getting cool.

I covered my bucket with aluminum foil (shinier side down) and wrapped it in several dish towels to keep it warm for longer.

When the yoghurt has solidified, pour off the excess liquid (whey), flavour it, stir, and put it in the fridge. I just added a teaspoon of sugar. Next time I might experiment with little fruit chunks. And the awesome thing about it is that it's self-perpetuating. I can use this batch to start off the next one!

I think I'm going to have some for breakfast tomorrow morning. The little spoonful I tasted seemed all right. Here's hoping that it doesn't make me ill.

My Boyfriend's buddy, who's Indian, says that his family doesn't even bother to incubate the yoghurt. They just leave the jar in the fridge overnight and eventually it yoghurtifies. I'll have to see if this really works. From what I remember of biology, the cold of a fridge doesn't kill bacteria, it just slows it down. So maybe if you leave it long enough, you'll still get yoghurt. Perhaps his family likes their yoghurt on the watery side for cooking? He says he grew up on yoghurt poured over rice. Some people are lactose intolerant; this guy's lactose dependent. He gets ill when he doesn't eat dairy products.

Say No to Silicone!

My new in-laws gave me a mountain of red silicone bakeware for my birthday last year, plus one beautiful red plastic mixing bowl with a spout and rubberized base. The mixing bowl I use almost daily and adore, but the red silicone...well, not so much. See, I have my own tried-and-true aluminum pans in all shapes and sizes. Some came from the supermarket, some from TJ Maxx, and some (like my specialty-sized wedding cake pans) came from the fabulous specialty store here in Old Town. Not only that, but I had an inherent mistrust of many of the new silicone cookware that seem to have exploded on the market in recent years. After all, why should I bake in plastic when I've never had problems removing cakes and breads using old-fashioned methods? The best way to remove a cake from a pan is to grease and flour thoroughly; then when the cake has cooled a bit, to tap its edges on the counter so that the bottom of your item is evenly unstuck. Besides, with all the scares about plastic hormones leeching into our bloodstream, why add another plastic to our lives?

Today, the dreary, suddenly cold weather and the fact that I had just purchased a 1/4 lb of blue poppyseeds from Penzy's, added up to the irresistable urge to make a lemon poppyseed cake. The only problem was that the recipe I had specified enough for a 9" cake, and the only 9" cake pan I own came as part of my gift set. I didn't feel like filling muffin cups or coming out with a loaf and a half, so I decided to try the silicone pan out. Here is the cake when it came out of the oven:
And here it is once I tried to unmold it. Obviously, tapping was not an option here, so I ran a knife around the edges and tried everything else...bouncing, peeling, twisting, all to no avail.

The stupid mold just held onto the cake like one of those plastic shower suckers that hold up your soap rack, literally ripping the bottom of the cake off.

Sigh...I won't throw the pan away. It might be good for moulding mousses or jellies, after all, but DO NOT buy this pan if you are looking to bake a cake. My neighbor's mom apparently also experienced the same problems unmoulding her cakes from a silicone pan. As for other silicone products, silicone brushes are also a waste of time. They just don't pick up enough. Silicone spatulas though, are indispensable, especially those that withstand temperatures up to 500F.

The cake itself is from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and it's a beautiful sight to behold. My DH commented unflatteringly that the densely studded cake looked rather like it'd been taken over by mold, but I thought that it was a plus. Unfortunately, the cake was light on flavor, even after my addition of lemon oil. Just one stick of butter and one cup of sugar made for one very lean cake. I also made Madison's focaccia. That had only 2 tbsp of olive oil (that's a crazy amount for an olive oil bread!!) for three cups of flour, and the bread came out so lean, it was more like a thick pizza base than focaccia. Not that it didn't taste good, but it wasn't as advertised. Many people rave about her recipes on Amazon though, so maybe I have to try a couple more.