CombODDnation: Baby 'Mater Sauce

We've had a couple of cool days here.  Downright chilly at times, it's almost as bizarre as it was having summer in April.  If it lasts more than a few days, it may be more so on the unusual factor.

This week, my favorite Lego Yogurt flavor is clove and cinnamon, by the way.  Last week I was using honey instead of brown sugar, which was so different, almost savory.

So yesterday I made sauce from the zillions of baby tomatoes that are growing in the rear plot.  These little guys are volunteers so I don't know what variety they are, probably some cross breed.  And I will note that it's a little odd to fire up the canning supplies for 16 ounces of can-ables (which is different than cannibals entirely) but that's what I did and it wasn't as much of a fuss as I thought it would be.  But I think I should have added lemon juice for the acidity, and didn't, so we'll see how well the sauce holds in storage.  And you remember the lemon juice, okay?

It's seedy, but it's delicious.  Not exactly your Italian grandmother's sauce, but freaking yummy.  And who wants to be wasteful with all the amazing harvest, afterall?  Oh, and the first cayenne grated into the mix, wizard.  Could have used two, it isn't that spicy.  My fingers were spicy, though, oh my!

And I cooked and cooked on the smallest burner at the lowest heat setting.  Which worked because, as I said, it was darn near cold that day.  August got lost, November took up duty for a day or so.

When it was way cooked down I spooned it into two jars just like the ball book says to do, and gave them the canning bath.  The result is in my cupboard.

And I ATE the rest on some chicken.  Yummmmmmmmm.  :)  There was less than an 8 oz jar left after, which looked like dinner.  Here's dinner!

I love being not wasteful.  :)  Need to eat the rest of that cabbage head in the frigger.  It's early for cabbage coming ripe, you know.  Maybe I can plant another stand of them?  Maybe.

EatNote: Almond Milk

So it turns out I'm backwards; Almond milk makes me ill.  But I gave it a good solid try before switching back to cow and had a few thoughts to share with anyone who is giving it a try.  I have a different but equally not-fun response to soy milk.  I can handle little bits of either, and tolerate them better when they have been heated than when cold, but over all, it's a failure. 

But for starters, I want to ramble.  See, I have this theory that the generations of milk and dairy farmers going back through my family have caused me some unique evolutionary traits.  Seriously.  I'm not kidding. 

Why?
Well.

It is incredibly common to those with Gluten problems to also have milk problems.  Cow milk problems.  I can literally live off of nothing more than cow milk... for days.  I have done.  It works fantastically.  Also unique to my existence is just how quickly the elimination of red meat from my diet triggers anemia for me.  I need cow products.  Seriously.   If I start to feel dizzy on a regular basis, my first thought is "when's the last time I've had cow meat?"  And I add it to the grocery list.  One day when I have money I really would like to start buying organic cow products for my health.

There still are cow farmers in the distant family, still in the same region as great grandfather and all his lineage had.  About 15 years ago they switched from milk to beef because of cost.  I got quite the instruction as to costs involved in cattle rearing based on product desired once that I visited.

So, yeah, there's that. 

However, during a couple months of trying to use Almond Milk while trying to determine why I was unhealthy more often than usual, I learned a few things.

First, it doesn't need heat for as long, can stand higher heat temperatures, and isn't going to end up with that gross skin on the surface that happens when you overheat cow milk.  Basically, microwaving 1 cup of cow milk for 3 minutes at 80% is the same as 1:45 minutes at 100% with almond milk.  In the oven and on the skillet, shorter and hotter cooking times are also applicable.  Up by 25 degrees and down by 15% of the total cook time is about right.

It doesn't turn your coffee as light a color.  Don't base your expectation of the creaminess of your coffee on the color of the mixed liquid.  It will be creamier than it looks.

It's dryer.  I needed greater quantities in baking than the amount of cow milk being called for in the recipe.  Like 1/4 cup more.  Or an extra egg.  Things dried out in the oven if treated normally.

So there you are.  Almond milk tips.  Considering how poorly I handled it, these will be the only tips on the matter from me.  I don't like being ill.  The whole I'm-fine-when-it's-heated thing really made it difficult to point to what was going wrong, glad that's sorted and I'm back to healthy me. 

Yay!

Meowcellany: License Plate Media Holder

Okay, so I made this thing for my new kindle and cell phone:

Out of this stuff and some screws:

I spent 99 cents on a set of small hinges.  That's it.

I wanted to share how I did this, because I put great value in having a connection to my possessions like this.  As a society, we are so dependent on buying things, I think we've lost touch with the ideal of making our own unique and very personal possessions, things that tell a story of our life.

My very first car had the plate number CAP 9706 and when they issued the new plates I was distraught that my number had changed to DKD 7434.  I'd had the old number memorized, and was convinced I'd never remember the new one.  I was also quite upset that when pronounced, it phonetically came out to basically sound like "dicked 7,434."  What an atrocity, I had been wronged by the DMV in a very tangible way.  Clearly.   It may have even been an intentional encroachment on their part.  Don't you agree?

Here we have these plates.  My history, regaining a place in my daily life.

I don't care that I could sell these.  I'm not up for commission.  Just for the record, I want to say that.  I'd rather see others bringing their clutter to a better daily use and thinking creatively about their belongings.  I'd much rather see that.

So what do we have?  2 license plates, a 1x2x3 or so peice of lumber, and some foam from shipping (I order apple products as part of work, these boxes are packing from the Apple Superdrives which packaging I brought home instead of sending to a landfill.)

You'll also need: a drill, saw, various screws, 2 hinges, and some combination similar to a gated hook, a chain, tiny nuts/bolts/washers, and a picture mounting clasp.

And here's how I came up with the idea, because if the shoe fits....

So I drilled several holes in plate #1, then measured, cut and mounted the wood, leaving something like an extra 1/8 to 1/4 inch give space between the devices and the slats.  I'm lazy and have a large collection of tools, so I used a circular saw (I had 7 types of saws to choose from).  You can use whatever saw you have, thin wood like this isn't much of a problem.  Most normal drill bits will put holes in the license plate metal no problem.  Drilling pilot holes into the slats is a darn good idea with wood this thin, otherwise you're very likely to split it with the screws.  It's also recommendable to take a rasp to all the rough edges of the wood.  Or sandpaper.  Whatever you got.  The rasp made very quick work of it.

An afterthought - save the plate you most prefer for the next step.  The plate used above doesn't show as much in use as the one that becomes the door flap below.  I'm still "dicked 7,434."  The DMV still wins, over a decade later.  Oops, this time it's my fault.
So then I started scraping foam off of cardboard with a pancake lifter from my kitchen.  It worked.

I cut the foam to dry fit in all the places.  And put hinges on the bottom of the casing.  I didn't end up using those clamps.  Thought I'd need them, but really I didn't use them at all.  They're still sitting on the table looking lonely right now.  I also got the glue (goop brand) out of the freezer at this point, could have stood to do this sooner.  Goop keeps best in the freezer, it's completely crazy like that.

Then I got the front door to go on.  I used sharpie marker to see where the hinge screw holes should go.  I needed a bigger drill bit so that the little nuts would fit in the license plate holes I drilled.  Washer, bolt, washer, nut through each hole.  That holds it on great.  The shorter and tinier the bolts the better.  You can also see that I attached a picture backing hook in a similar way to the side that opens.  This is the eyelet that the hook goes through to hold it closed.

So then I put glue on the wooden parts and smooshed foam into place with books.  My bookshelf has lots of stuff about gardening and herbs and natural medicine.  Can you tell?

And the next day I placed the foam to line up with the indentations, held it in with painters tape to test the alignment, glued it down, and put books on again.  You can see the painters tape there.  And my growing mess.

So you can see that I measure the openings in the wood to gain access to charge ports and power buttons, here is the microUSB port on my cell phone showing.  Turns out that between this gap and the metal, the sound of the ringer and the vibration setting carry BETTER than the phone would just on it's own.  It's loud!

Here's a view of it closed before I put the carry chain on.    You can see the screws I used to affix the back license plate to the wood slats, and you can see the hook that holds it shut.  This is the gated type of hook that has a spring to hold it shut, otherwise it's just a normal gate hook.  The spring is fancy and a little clumbsy to operate, so if you have a better idea, have at, and comment for me to let me know what you do with this.

The chain is held on by wire strung through the original holes at the top of the CAP 9706 plate.  Wish I would have thought of that before it was all constructed, but it wasn't too hard to just slip the wire in there after all is done.

Now...
Please go make something cool out of stuff you already have!  Because you're awesome like that.
And comment to tell me what you made.  Maybe even send me pictures?  Because you rock.

CombODDnation: Lego Yogurt

I've made spiced yogurt, it's not too fancy, and it's quite fine.  And there is no reason whatsoever to call it Lego Yogurt except that I found this little Lego man in my cupboard when I was making it and that was fun.  Hope I'm not violating any copyright here, but considering the kinds of things I've seen the Lego name associated with out there on those webernet spaces, I'm feeling pretty safe about this.

1 Cup plain yogurt
2 Tbs dark brown sug
1/4 Tsp cinnamon
Sprinkle nutmeg + clove
Splash vanilla

Lego man

And  stir.  Yeah, poor little guy.  It's delicious.  You can use almond extract and any number of pie spices to your taste preferences.

Also, in the copious stuff I brough back from cleaning up grandfather's a couple years ago, I discovered I've brought home a little treasure, this beauty is from 1945, and it has some truely facinating recipie ideas, the kind you just don't see "these days" like tomato jelly, jellied egg salad, pinapple and cheese jelly.  

Oh my, these must be attempted and stomached for every bit of delight that might be willfully discovered.  Not doing anything with prunes, though.  But I'll substitute figs and continue as planned.

Meowscellany: Laundry Soap!

Yes, I now make my own laundry soap!  I told some friends of this development and the resounding response was "please please tell me how" so that's what this is intended to do.  The formula ends up costing about 50cents per gallon, the soap will be ready next-day.  The idea is my own modification of the recipe put forward by the Urban Homesteaders group.  (Gotta get you a link...it's on my to-do list.)

 Get out your corn boiling pot, it should do about one gallon.  Start that amount of water to boil.

 Ingredients you'll need are:

• Fels-Naptha (getting harder to find, zote soap works too.)
• Borax 
• Washing Soda (which is not the same as baking soda, and is sold on the same shelf as borax, next to your basic raw cleaning stuff near the buckets and whatnot).
• Amonia is a good idea, too.  I started using 1/4 cup amonia in each mix, also, as clothes stay fresh smelling longer with that in there.  But, it's optional.  If you use bleach in your washing, don't use the amonia.  1 cup Vinegar works the same.

In addition to the 1/4 cup measure that's show sitting on top of the laudry soda box, you'll also need this stuff.  A big bucket - this one is 5 gallons.  2.5 gallons would do, though.  Grater, slotted spoon, big funnel, sauce pot.

Grate about 1.25 inches off of the Fels-Naptha bar.  (I used a paper plate to collect it.)  If you're using zote soap, that soap bar is huge, just use half an inch of a zote bar for this.

Melt the Fels-Naptha shavings in a small amount of water (something like a cup of water or less will do just fine).

In your big bucket, pour 1 or so gallons of water you boiled earlier, then add the dissolved shavings, and 1/4cup of borax and 1/4cup of Laundry Soda.  I've now started adding 1/4 cup amonia at this point, for fresher smelling clothes.  (If you EVER use any bleach in your laundry at all, DON'T use amonia.  Use a cup vinegar as a substitute for this.)  Mix this all together evenly with that same slotted spoon.

Let sit to the next day when it will be a little bit jellied.  Use that same slotted spoon to slosh up the jelly so it's a relatively even liquid consistency.  There will be lumps (well, unless you use a big whisk, there will be) so don't worry about those, as long as they're small enough to pour through the laundry soap container spout they wont bother you any.

Pour liquid into laundry soap container of choice.  I had been saving my regular laundry soap containers so I use those.  This filled three 50 fl oz bottles perfectly.  Have an extra bottle handy just in case you end up with more.  :)  I set the bottle on that paper plate from earlier to pour, and then after I mopped the floor with the spills I had, was great.

Use something like 1/2 cup per load, it works great!

Hint: I've designated the saucepot, slotted spoon and funnel for this purpose.  I probably should designate a cheese grater, but until I can find a good cheese grater for that purpose, I'm rationalizing that the Fels-Naptha isn't liquid when it contacts that bit.  But honestly, I'm looking at rummage sales for a cheese grater, too.  I have no idea what's in Fels-Naptha, rather not leave it to chance.