Homemade Laundry Soap

Since the economy has taken it's very ugly route, we, as a family have joined efforts to save energy, money and in turn, the environment. I found this recipe for laundry detergent from another blog and tried it out myself. The results were awesome!!!

All you will need are a few easy to find ingredients.

Borax - 4lb box $2.89

Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (NOT Baking soda)- 3lb 7oz box $3.89
Fels-Naptha Soap - (3) 5 1/2 oz bars $1.29/each. Totaling $3.89

Total investment $10.67

Additional things you will need:

5-gallon bucket w/lid

Long wooden spoon

Cheese grater

Each batch makes aprox. 4-1/2 gallons @ $3.56 each and there is enough to make 3 batches (15 gallons)

Mix together the following:

2-Cups Borax

2-Cups Washing soda

1-Bar of Fels Naptha soap grated

Pour the Borax and the Washing Soda into the 5-gallon bucket. Using a cheese grater, grate the Fels Naptha soap completely on a plate. It will look exactly like cheese. Fill a minimum 2 quart saucepan about 2/3 with water and add the cheese (soap). Heat on medium until the soap has dissolved completely. DO NOT walk away from this process. I can't even imagine what burning soap smells like and for how long. Add the hot soapy solution to the powder in the 5-gallon bucket. While stirring with the wooden spoon, add about 4 1/2 gallons of hot tap water leaving 4-5" of space from the top. Stir until powder is dissolved then leave overnight. Soap will turn to gel as it cools. Leave the wooden spoon with the soap for an occasional stir.

The scent is very light. From reading about this detergent, it is like "Dreft" a very mild, hypo-alergenic soap. It does not leave any residue and my clothes have come out very clean. My whites are whiter than with store bought soap. You only need to use the same cap full as you did from previous containers. There are no suds like store bought, but you should know that suds are artificially added to commercial soaps, it doesn't do anything more but leave residue. If you like scented laundry, you can add essential oil to the detergent or fabric softener. Mix 1 tbsp of vinegar and water into a Downy Ball for the fabric softener. It actually breaks down previous soap and softener residues and leaves your towels soft and absorbent.
HAPPY LAUNDRY!

Colorado Bounty - Roasted Vegetable Salsa

Here in Colorado, with the coming of fall, pepper roasters start showing up on roadsides and farmer's markets - and the smell in my kitchen while roasting the peppers was very similar. The smell reminds me of last fall - my first fall back in Colorado. It isn't a smell I remember from my childhood, instead it is a smell I now associate with being at the Farmer's Market and being VERY pregnant. I didn't try any peppers last year due to unfortunate heartburn.

But - this year, I decided to be brave. So I bought a couple poblanos, a handful of bell peppers and a jalapeño. I also picked up tomatoes, onion and corn. I roasting all of the veggies in the salsa - and to do this I put them on a cookie sheet in the oven. It fills the house with the delightful smell of the roadside pepper roasters - enjoy!

Roasted Vegetable Salsa

• 3-4 Bell Peppers (whole - use different colors - I recommend Red, Green and Purple)
• 1-2 Jalapeño (whole)
• 1-2 Poblano (whole)
• 4-6 large Tomatoes (heirlooms are fun, remove the stem)
• 1-2 Corn on the cob (shucked and whole)
• 1 Onion - sliced in large coins (I use a large sweet onion - like Walla Walla or Vidalia)
• Sea Salt
• Pepper
• 1 Lime
• Ground red pepper (to taste for spice)
• Cilantro (optional)

Instructions:

• Turn on the broiler on high and place a rack at the top of the oven. On a dry cookie sheet, place the peppers. Roast the peppers until the skins are black and papery on all sides. Turn the peppers often and remove them individually once roasted. (Note - you want to get the skin nice and black as it will be easier to remove)
• Once peppers are all removed, put the corn, tomatoes and onion onto the cookie sheet. You can dry roast or roast with a little bit of olive oil on the skin of the onion. As it roasts, turn the corn and onions so they can roast evenly. Remove the corn when it has some black - but before it has completely blackened. Remove tomatoes oven when tomatoes are bubbly, the skin has split and it is a little black. Remove onions when they are slightly blackened at the edges.
• Peppers: Once cool, remove the skins, seeds and hull of the peppers (once cool enough to handle). Roughly dice the peppers and save in a large glass bowl
• Tomatoes: Once cool, remove the skins and roughly dice. Add diced tomatoes and juice into glass bowl
• Onions: dice and add to the bowl
• Corn: Slice the kernels off of the cob and add to the glass bowl.
• Once all of the vegetables are chopped and in the bowl, stir and add sea salt and pepper to taste.
• Squeeze 1/2 to 1 lime over salsa. Taste!
• For a saucier salsa - puree half of the salsa and blend back into the bowl.
• Add diced cilantro at the end.
• Let it mellow for at least 15 minutes to allow the flavors to blend
• Salsa lasts for up to 2 weeks

Enjoy!

Pumpkin and mushroom soup

Here in New Zealand, a cold wind has slammed the door shut on the mild false spring of recent weeks. As the storm built up, I made comfort food: my favourite pumpkin soup. This time I used half a grey skinned Crown pumpkin, bought already cut from the greengrocer. I often use butternut or buttercup pumpkins. In NZ the big orange pumpkins that Americans make into jack'o'lanterns are not so common, and I seem to remember them as not being so tasty as our little NZ varieties, but its been a long time since I was over there in pumpkin season!
Don't freak out at the whole head of garlic, once roasted it is mild, sweet and subtle; nothing like the intensity of sauteed garlic. For stock I usually use Rapunzel organic herbal stock cubes. They are delicious and don't have any of that chemical aftertaste of most stock cubes.

I'm pretty sure this is as original as one of my recipes can be. It has evolved over many years in response to my dislike for the taste of pumpkin, but respect for its affordable nutritional value.

Pumpkin and mushroom soup

half a medium size crown pumpkin, or whole butternut or buttercup
whole head of garlic
2 yellow onions, chopped pretty fine
bag of mushrooms, sliced pretty fine
1.5 litres of stock
1 teaspoon ground cumin
(other spices optional: coriander, garam masala, cinnamon or cloves,even some curry powder, can each add something lovely to this soup, )

Scoop out the pumpkin seeds and slice off the pointy end of the head of garlic so the ends of the cloves are exposed. Place pumpkin skin side down, and garlic root side down in a roasting dish and cook in a hot oven until they are soft and fragrant (about 45 minutes). Cool and then peel out of their skins (its so much easier than when they are raw). Puree in a foodprocessor til smooth.
Meanwhile, saute the onions in a soup pot with a little oil until they are soft but not brown. Add the mushrooms and saute until they are limp then add the hot stock and pureed pumpkin/garlic. Simmer until thick and silky.

Skillet Raspberry Jam

Hello everyone! Look who is standing!

So - I know it's been a long time...and who knows if anyone is still checking this - but I do have plans for a comeback of Nourish Us and much more. Stay tuned.

Tonight, I'm bringing to you my favorite homemade jam - a skillet raspberry jam. It is posted in celebration of summer and my friend Erin's beautiful raspberry bushes. The recipe originated in a beautiful issue of Gourmet from August 2004. Every time I think about this recipe - my mouth instantaneously waters. I am hoping this helps to bring forth this season's raspberries in Colorado...I've been waiting for them very patiently.

A couple notes: I have found that this jam does really nicely with raspberries or blackberries. It isn't a serious canning jam. I just put the jam in a nice air-tight jar in my fridge...I have found it can stay good for up to a month- if it lasts that long. It is very tasty as a spread on toast, topping on dessert...or on a spoon.

Skillet Raspberry Jam (try also Blackberry, Strawberry or Schnazzberry)

makes about 1 1/2 cups

1 lb raspberries (4 cups)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons powdered fruit pectin (not the liquid or low-sugar pectin)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

->Mash raspberries with a fork in a large bowl
->Stir together the berries, sugar, pectin and lemon juice in a 12-in nonstick skillet. Boil the mixture and stir occassionally, until slightly thickened - about 7 minutes
->Transfer jam to a large shallow bowl and chill. Cover the surface with wax paper. Let it rest until it is softly set - about 30 minutes. (Note: Jam will set further if it is chilled longer).
->Transfer jam to a jar...and try not to eat it with a spoon out of the jar. :)

Hippy Cooking

See how happy Gluten Roast can make you?

Here's a couple of odd recipes I've made this week. I improvised the rice crackers and they turned out to be very yummy. And the Non-cheesy Cheese Sauce I found in a garage sale find of a 1970s cookbook from The Farm, a hippy commune with a soya bean obsession.

Personally I try and avoid most soya bean products except miso. The research I've done into soya isn't entirely conclusive, but the indications seem to be that soya maybe implicated in some kinds of hormonal problems, such as nasty menopause and other women's health issues. I reckon better safe than sorry. Soyabeans are hidden in lots of different processed foods including lots of 'junk foods', but dodgiest form seems to be tofu and soymilk. The least troublesome is miso due to its fermentation process.

Anyway, the recipe that made me shell out 50c for The Farm cookbook doesn't have any soyabeans in it. It's similar to a recipe I used to make when Louise was little and had a dairy allergy, but I lost the recipe in my travels since then. Finding it last week was like being reunited with an old friend, just when I've had to give up my love affair with sugar.


Non-Cheese Cheese Sauce (from The Farm)

1 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/3 cup rice flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic granules
1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
2 cups water
1/4 cup margarine


Mix dry ingredients in a saucepan. Gradually add water, stirring with a whisk until a smooth paste. Place on heat and stir constasntly until it thickens and bubbles. Let it bubble for about 30 seconds then remove from heat. Whip in the margarine. Have with vegetables or pasta or spread on pizza.

Homemade Rice Cracker Recipe

1 cup rice flour
1/4 cup cold butter
3 Tbsp parmesan
1 Tbsp garlic granules
pinch salt
generous grind of pepper
1 tsp oregano
1/4 cup (rice) milk
1 Tbsp sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 200 degree. Put all the ingredients except the milk and sesame seeds into a bowl and rub or cut the butter in as though making pastry or scones. Mix in just enough rice milk (or other kind of milk) to make the dough stick into a ball but not be sticky. Roll or press out onto a greased baking sheet and sprinkle sesame seeds on top, press into the dough. Cut the dough into squares and slide apart on the sheet. Bake until golden brown and crisp.

While on the topic of anti-junk food food, check out this YouTube Chef with her Depression Era recipes. Mmm mmm.

Reunion?

Would anyone be interested in a:

"2010 Florida Family Reunion"?

Summer, Northern Hemishere / Winter, S-Hemi

No recipe ever calls for anger; many require regret

Last weekend Norman launched two new books. The launch was a little party at Martha and Norman's house in Hamilton, New Zealand. I offered to help with the catering. Norman especially requested bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese and Martha filled a huge platter of these as bite-sized morsels. I wanted to make something else that would fit in with the book's themes.

One of Norman's new books is about secret Jews living in Mexico and the Southwestern US for the past four hundred years. I decided to evoke the secret Jew in Mexico theme by making chocolate hamantaschen. Hamantaschen are little pastries associated with the Jewish holiday of Purim which actually took place a couple of weeks ago. A sweet pastry is wrapped around a filling (traditionally a poppy seed mixture) in a triangular shape. Hammentaschen represent the ears, hat or pocket of Haman, the wicked villain in the story of Esther which Purim commemorates. Esther spends much of the story keeping her Judaism secret while living in the king's harem, until finally revealing her true identity to save her people from Haman's planned genocide of the Jews.

The chocolate filling in my hamantaschen represents the Mexican component of Norman's book of secret Jews. I mixed cinnamon and ground almonds with very dark chocolate, and if not for Martha's allergies I would have spiked it with a little chilli as well. To keep the traditionalists happy I also made some hamantaschen with poppy seed filling. Both flavours were gobbled up quickly!

The pastry was very fragile and difficult to roll and wrap. I got quite stressed out trying to patch together these little beasts that kept collapsing at every step. I remembered why, much as I love baking, I tend to avoid anything that involves a rolling pin.

A much easier kind of pastry to work with is filo, which somehow manages to be quite sturdy despite cooking to a delicate buttery, paperish wrapping. I made dozens of these Moroccan meat cigars which were easy to make and eat. Both the cigars and the hamantaschen recipes came from one of my favourite cookbooks: The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden.


The other book being launched didn't receive the same culinary attention, though in retrospect we should have served Eskimo pies. Penguins of Ice are Fools is a sweet funny little book of about 200 short sayings by Norman, illustrated with 4 wood prints by Martha. The sayings give more of an accessible insight into Norman's personality than is usually available in his books. They are funny, poignant, cynical and nostalgic. Anyone who has ever enjoyed a conversation with Norman, will like this book which only costs $10. Email him directly, (or contact Meliors via www.meliors.net) to buy your copy now.

"At a certain stage between stew and soup, a fork becomes anomalous.
Why not begin with a spoon."

"Old black-and-white films are like mashed potatoes on cold rainy evenings."

Cigares a la Viande (Moroccan Meat Cigars)
from Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food

2 medium onions
3-4 tbsp oil (plus more to brush the filo)
500g (1lb) lean minced beef
salt and pepper
1 1/2 cinnamon
1/2 ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch of cayenne (optional)
juice 1/2-1 lemon
4 tbsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley or coriander
250g filo pastry

Fry the onions in oil til soft, add the meat, crush and brown, then add all the seasonings except the parsley. Stir well, pour in ab.out 1 cup of water, cover and cook slowly for about half an hour until tender and most of the water has evaporated, Blend in a food processor until smooth then add the parsley.
Cut the filo sheets into quarters, pile on top of each other and cover with a damp towel while you work. Brush the top piece with oil. Take a walnut size piece of meat and roll into a sausage shape. Place along the short end of the filo piece and then roll up like a cigarette, turning in the ends about a third of the way along. Continue until all the meat has filled all the filo (I found the amounts matched almost perfectly).
Brush the tops with oil and bake at 325 degrees for about 1/2 hour until golden and crispy. Serve hot.