Advantages of Dehydrating Foods for Short or Long Term Storage, with Instructions

This is the time of the season when fruits and vegetables are really ramping up production and we have more than we can eat but not enough to justify getting out all the canning apparatus.  You know, ten tomatoes a day, a quart or two of figs, six or seven cucumbers, an armful of basil, a half bushel of squash.

In past years I’ve tried freezing these small bits and although it's quick and easy, it degrades the flavor of some things, like tomatoes.   Freezing also requires a lot of apparatus:  freezer bags are usually single use; plastic containers are, well, plastic, and jars take a lot of space.  Obviously, you'll need a freezer big enough to hold what you freeze and electricity to keep it going.  Sad and busy is the day when electricity goes out for more than a short while (as it does occaisonally in our neck of the woods) because then you've got to try to find ways to use or alternatively preserve all that hard won garden produce.

Canning requires a lot of apparatus and time. Jars need to be sterilized, water boiled, syrups made, processing tended.  Especially if you have small children running around underfoot, it can be hard to carve out a chunk of time  when everyone will be safe from boiling liquids.

Dehydration has a number of advantages as compared to freezing and canning:

1.  Dehydration can be done in absentia.  Just wash, slice, pop in the dehydtor and go about other business.
2.  Dehydration often improves the flavors of foods.  Tomatoes become richer and more intense.
3.  Dehydrated foods store compactly.  A bushel of dehydrated tomatoes can be stored in a couple of canning jars.
4.  Dehydrated foods are easy to use.  Ever tried to make tomato paste from canned tomatoes?  Prepare to be at the stove all day as they cook down.  Ever tried to make tomato paste from dehydrated tomatoes?  Soak in water, then blend.  That's all.

By the way, the instruction part of the title of this post is a little joke.  There’s really nothing to know, no real instructions needed to dehydrate fruits or veggies.  Just wash and cut produce in more or less even pieces and then dry until you’re satisfied.  The drier the food, the longer it lasts.  But don’t overdry herbs. 

Easy Homemade Laundry Soap

The simplest, most effective, least costly soap I know of.  It takes a minute or two to make, works in any type of washer, is safe for all washable clothes, is non-toxic, and stores indefinitely.

Chopping the bar soap before adding it to the food processor

Ingredients

You’ll need some kind of bar soap.  I prefer my own homemade soap, but just about any kind will work.  Fels Naptha and Zote are especially nice because they were designed for laundry (Zote is also hot pink and makes a very pretty laundry detergent J), but I’ve also used Ivory, and once in a pinch, I used a handful of tiny hotel soaps.

 You’ll also need washing soda and either borax or baking soda.  I prefer baking soda because it’s non-toxic and does a nice job deodorizing.

A note about the ingredients:

Washing soda or sodium carbonate: It removes dirt and deodorizes.   I’ve found it in the laundry isle of my grocery store and also at Ace Hardware.

Baking soda or sodium bicarbonate:  It also removes odors. 

Borax:  Also a deodorizer but a whitener as well.  It’s a great ingredient but I don’t use it anymore since I had kids.  It’s a little more toxic than I like to have around my kids.

Finished Laundry Soap

The Recipe

 Actually, it’s so simple it can hardly be called a recipe.  First grate the soap. (I chop it roughly first and then finish the grating in a food processor.  You can also use a cheese grater.)  Then mix one part soap, one part washing soda, and one part baking soda (or borax).  Store in a container with a lid and it lasts indefinitely.  Use about 1-2 teaspoons per load of laundry.  Yes, that’s right: 1-2 teaspoons.  This soap has no fillers or liquids and you don’t need very much.

Why go to the trouble of making your own soap?

1) So, so much cheaper. By my rough calculations, this recipe comes out to about a penny a load.  Seriously, a penny.  Even the cheapest commercial soap costs far far more.

2) Less waste: no enormous plastic containers to end up in landfill.  No filler ingredients had to be manufactured either.

3) Easier.  Takes about a minute to make enough to last a month or more.  No toting heavy containers from the store.

4) Non-toxic ingredients.  I feel better about using it for my own laundry, my children’s laundry, and my pets’ bedding.  I’m not worried about the fumes created when it is dissolved in hot water, nor about storing it in my household.

The most common questions about this recipe are: Is it safe for HE  or front loading washers? And, does it work? Well,  I’ve been using it in my own HE washer for over five years with no problems. And I have two kids, two dogs, and a messy, messy life.  It works as well as any other laundry soap or detergent I've ever used.

Wordless Wednesday: From the Pantry and Freezer

Toad For Breakfast

Here's a happy collection: A few slices of leftover no-knead homemade bread; some fresh eggs from a friend's backyard chickens; butter I made several months ago, from local raw cream, and that had been hiding in a corner of the freezer. Quite naturally on a Sunday morning, my thoughts turned to toad-in-a-hole. Making it is simple. Use a biscuit or cookie cutter to make a hole in the middle of a piece of bread. Melt butter in a frying pan. Add eggs, cook, flip, cook some more. The best part is the little rim where the eggs meet the bread. And in my neck of the woods we eat this homemade salsa.

Black Bean Chocolate Cake, Part II: A Warning

I've been making this cake for a good while now. I've made it for Widget Man and for company. I've taken it for a pot luck. I served it at a writing workshop once and people who had just met were licking their plates. In front of each other.

You'd think I'd have the recipe pretty much down by now.

You'd think.

But here's what happened. My eighty year old dad has been living with us for a little bit and he needs a fair amount of care. And I've been a fair amount of tired. But I wanted some cake! I mentioned making a cake to Widget Man and he wanted some too. So in a fit of greed and laziness, I used canned beans to make the cake. This was not my first fit of greed or laziness, and not the first time I've used canned beans for this cake either.

But this time, something went very, very wrong. So wrong that Widget Man took one bite of the cake, put his fork down, and looked at me with a very carefully neutral expression on his face. Then I took one bite and gagged. Then he felt free to make really loud gagging noises and bulge his eyes in a dramatic fashion. And I thought that was quite enough, thank you very much. No need to be rude.

The cake tasted, not to put too fine a point on it, like a big plate of crazy. I mean, not just bad, but crazy. Crazy because it was a moist, rich, chocolate cake, with icing and pecans, infused with the most intense flavor of bacon. Wait, not bacon: overwhelmingly powerful, fake bacon flavoring.

So I blame the canned beans, although the only thing on the label that looked suspicious was the word "spices." And let me reiterate that I've used canned beans before and the cake came out fine. Delicious, even.

And just in you want to use canned beans in your cake, I should tell you I've used Progresso brand beans with complete success in the past. I hate to name names but I will, for the sake of those who might want to avoid the shrieks of grief that accompany throwing an entire chocolate cake in the compost bin.

More on Heat Resistant Armenian Cucumbers

Not only are Armenian cucumbers heat tolerant, drought resistant, tender-skinned, and non-seedy, they have the additional virtue of staying crisp for a day or so after they're sliced and drizzled with vinegrette.

We usually try to make just enough of a tomato, onion, cucumber salad for one meal, because we know by the next day, any leftovers will be a little soggy. Not these crunchy things though. And the slices look like pretty little flowers.

Recipe for a Zucchini Explosion: Spicy Migas with Zucchini

Migas are a traditional Mexican dish, and a fine way to use up leftover corn tortillas. They are, in the simplest form, simply torn or cut corn tortillas, cooked in a little oil, and then scrambled with eggs. Common variations include adding cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, salsa, or chorizo (spicy Mexican sausage).

Around here, this dish is ubiquitous and you don't need to go to a Mexican restaurant to have it served up for breakfast. It's as commonly as bacon and eggs or pancakes. And it's a favorite Sunday brunch item.

My favorite variation includes zucchini, especially at this time of year when those green squash are coming out of the garden in truckloads, and if you're not careful, the size of baseball bats.

Spicy Migas with Zucchini
2 medium zucchini, cubed
4 corn tortillas, cut evenly into strips or squares
3 eggs, beaten
olive oil
comino (cumin)
dried ancho chile powder
dried chipotle chile powder
salt
shredded Oaxacan string cheese

1. Saute cubed zucchini in a very hot skillet, with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, comino, and chile powders. I usually use about a tsp of comino and ancho and just a pinch of chipotle. Chipotle is the hottest of the two chiles, so adjust according to taste. You want the zucchini to end up slightly crisp on the outside, lightly coated with the spices, and creamy on the inside, so don't toss too much while it's cooking. Allow the squash to brown instead.

2. When the squash is brown, add tortilla pieces. There are two schools of thought about how tortillas should be cooked for migas -- some like them crisp, like a chip; others like them soft and chewy. I'm from the soft and chewy school myself.

3. Add eggs and scramble lightly.

4. Top with shredded cheese. Take pan off the heat and allow the residual heat of the dish to melt the cheese.

5. Serve drizzled with your favorite salsa.

A word about the spices: Comino is the most important spice in many Mexican dishes. Ancho and Chipotle just happen to be two of my favorites and are always at hand. By all means, adjust the spices to your taste and to what you have available.

Also posted at Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays!

Hot and Cool Summer Salsa

When my good friend came back from a trip to El Paso and brought with her some amazing homemade tamales, I knew we needed a side dish worthy of their deliciousness. Just the ticket is something light -- the best homemade tamales are filling, dense, and intense.

Here is one of my favorite fast, easy ways to make a quick salsa cruda (a salsa made with raw ingredients). It combines the hot spiciness of raw serrano chiles with the cool, sweet smoothness of cucumber, avocado, mango, and of course, fresh-from the garden tomatoes.

Hot and Cool Summer Salsa
2 or 3 fresh serrano chiles
5 or 6 ripe tomatoes
1 large avocado
1 small mango
1 small sharp onion
1 large cucumber
a splash of olive oil
juice from 1 lime
salt to taste

Chop first 6 ingredients; toss together with olive oil, lime juice, and salt to taste. That's it! Of course, you can use a milder or hotter chile, according to your taste. You can even use a canned, picked chile for an even milder salsa. And by all means, remove the seeds and white membranes of the chile's to take some of the bite out. I don't have an extremely high tolerance for heat, so that's what I do. And the sweet, cool tomatoes, avocado, and mango seem to take some of the bite out of the chiles. Also delicious with fish and chicken.

On a related note: It might seem counter-intuitive, but hot spicy food is perfect for hot weather. It provides a strangely cooling, almost euphoric experience. All the finest world cuisines from hot climates are hot and spicy, after all.

This post part of Real Food Wednesday.

Mouthwatering Black Bean Chocolate Cake. Yes, Really.

A friend of mine, who grew up in China, shudders at the way we eat beans here -- salted, with bacon, in chili con carne. In short, we eat beans as a savory dish. To her, they are a dessert. She likes them made sweet, in puddings, cakes, and as a pastry filling.

When you think about, beans really are a neutral tasting vegetable, and depend a lot on how we season them. So when I was looking for a way to make a gluten free cake, I wondered about beans as a flour substitute. Beans have a few distinct advantages over white flour:

-- they're a high protein, whole food.
-- they're high in a kind of soluble fiber that helps stabilize blood sugars. This is great for everybody but especially for diabetics and pre-diabetics.
-- in my area, they are grown locally, while wheat is not. So since I try to eat locally and in season, I'm trying to cut down, and perhaps eliminate, flour products.
-- they're great for people with gluten intolerance.

I've made this cake three times and even served it to company. It's dense, moist, and rich with no hint of "beaniness" at all. There are no weird, non-food, chemical ingredients -- all simple, whole foods. And it is extremely easy and fast to make.

Mouthwatering Black Bean Chocolate Cake

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

To prepare the cake pan:
Grease a 9" cake pan with butter, then dust with cocoa powder. Line pan with parchment paper cut to fit bottom of pan.

To prepare the batter:
In a blender, combine 1 and 1 quarter cup rinsed black beans, 3 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp salt, 6 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Blend until there are absolutely no lumps.

In a bowl, whip until smooth, by hand or with electric beater, 1/2 c honey and 7 tablespoons butter. Add 2 eggs and whip until smooth.

Pour butter mixture into blender with bean mixture and blend until incorporated.

At this point, the batter should look glossy and smooth and very much like any traditional chocolate cake batter.

Pour batter into pan. Thump pan on the counter several times to smooth batter and dissipate air bubbles. Bake for about 45 minutes.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for ten minutes, invert onto a plate, and then turn over again onto a cooling rack.
Allow the cake to finish cooling completely on the rack -- the longer it cools, the better the texture will be. I usually cool mine overnight.

The cake is great on its own, but I my family likes it best with honey sweetened whipped cream and a sprinkling of pecans. And, I confess, I've also iced it with traditional powdered sugar chocolate icing -- not all that healthy, I know, but company was coming and I panicked.

One more note: I've recently been seeing recipes using beans as a flour substitute all over the internet. Many, if not most, use some form of artificial sweetener instead of honey, and many also use oil instead of butter. Other use no fat at all. I suppose this is an attempt to reduce calories or carbs, but because I'm not crazy about fat free recipes, and because I'm not crazy about artificial sweetener, I haven't tried any of these versions.

**Also posted at Real Food Wednesday**

Hot Pink Salad

For some reason, no one I knew ate beets when I was growing up. I think the first time I saw a beet was a pickled version at a Wendy's salad bar during the happily short-lived salad bar craze of the 80's. (Mmm...wilted lettuce and mayonnaise salad.)

I don't know why we didn't eat beets, especially since it turns out they're so easy to grow here. And beautiful. And delicious.

One of our favorite ways to eat them is a variation of a salad I make with potatoes, which is itself a variation of a dish we tried in Paris.

Ingredients for 2 very generous, main course portions
For the vinaigrette:
Whisk about 3 parts good olive oil to 1 part vinegar, 1 part water, and 1 part Dijon mustard
Add sea salt and fresh pepper to taste

For the salad:
Clean and chop or tear into small pieces about 2 dinner plates worth of mixed greens, some sharp and some sweet or whatever is in the garden at the moment. Basil makes a nice addition too.

For the beets:
Puncture 3-4 large beets and microwave until soft but not mushy. While they're still pretty warm, cut into thick slices and place in a bowl. Add about a tablespoon of flour (I like semolina, which gives a nice nuttiness), plus salt and pepper to taste. Quickly sear in a hot pan with a little olive oil, just until a nice, light crust is formed.

For the finished dish:
Quickly, before the beets get cold, toss lettuce, beets, and vinaigrette. Serve right away.

There's something about the contrast of the warm beets and the cold greens, the sweetness of the beets and the tang of the vinaigrette, that is just right for a summer supper.

And by the way, you may notice that the photo above is of sliced, raw beets, and in this recipe, I cook the beets whole, then slice, then sear. Well, I guess a confession is in order. I made the dish, and we ate it before I remembered to take pictures. The photo above is from several nights ago, when I was slicing beets to add to a mixed veggie roast. So now you know. We were too greedy to wait.

Also posted on Real Food Wednesday.

Recipe for a Garden Surpise

I've been boo-hoo-ing all summer because I can't seem to locate seeds for my favorite squash. When I was growing up we called it calabacita, which means "little squash." It's also called tatume, in grocery stores and on seed packs.

Let me sing its praises:

1) It's delicious -- sweet, tender, and meaty. And it won't go bitter in hot weather like zucchini can.

2) It's extremely drought tolerant. Last summer an unplananed event kept us away from home for 3 weeks. When we came back everything was dead except the peppers and calabacita. They were a bit shriveled, but still had fruit, and as soon as I gave them a drink of water they sprang right back, like nothing had ever happened.

3) It's extremely pest and disease resistant. In our area, the squash vine borer is endemic. Almost everyone gets hit by this creature sooner or later and once you've got it, forget about growing yellow squash. I had it in my garden in Austin and would get maybe two squash before the borer appeared. It attacks the vine at its base (by laying eggs that become huge slug-looking things) and kills the whole thing seemingly overnight. I keep hearing rumors of cures but I've never known anyone to be successful. And calabacita? The squash vine borer doesn't seem to like it.

So like I said, lots of moping around here when I couldn't fine any calabacita seed this year. Then, this volunteer appeared in the spot where I had last years compost pile. I ignored it, dragged hoses across it while I was watering other plants, stepped on it occaisonally rather than walk around it, but it persisted in living. Now I see this fruit which looks exactly like a calabacita. I don't know that it actually is my favorite squash; the vine looks different than the one I'm familiar with. But I live in hope.

Meanwhile, if you have access to calabacita seed, especially if you live in a hot, dry climate, you won't be sorry f you plant it. If you have access to the fruit itself, you won't be sorry if you eat it now.

So here's my favorite way to fix it. It's an old San Antonio, home-style, Mexican dish -- easy, quick, fresh, and comforting:

1) Take several bone-in pork chops and cut them into stir-fry size pieces. Leave the bone attached to one of the pieces.
2) Cut calabacita into inch-thick half rounds.
3) Remove corn from cob.
4)Cook pork in a large heavy skillet (a wok is great), at a very high temp (think stir fry temps).
5) When pork is cooked all the way through, add calabacita. Cook until tender. Don't stir too much. You want the outside of the squash to carmelize.
6) When the squash is cooked, add corn. Just cook it long enough to heat it. The corn should remain crisp.
7) Remove from pan, add a little water to the pan to deglaze juices, pour juices over pork, squash, and corn.

The idea is very much like a stir-fry -- food is cooked quickly at high temps and the veggies get a dark, carmelized glaze. The corn adds a sweetness and the squash should be slightly crisp and carmelized on the outside, creamy and soft on the inside. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Some people add comino but I like the pure flavors of the foods themselves.

Easy Roasted Veggies

Now that lettuces are slowing down and getting bitter, salads are no longer the main event at our house. Instead it's vegetables, cooked a thousand ways. Easiest of all is drizzling with a little olive oil, some sea salt, and chopped rosemary. Bake at around 350 until tender.

Here's the catch, though. The oven heats up the house -- precisely what we don't want to do when it's high nineties outside and humid as the tropics.

Fortunately, I have an electric roaster/steamer, bought many years ago when I was under some delusion that I'd be able to make tamales all on my own, like my mom did from time to time. One attempt at lone tamale making was all it took for me to recall that Christmas tamale making always required an army of aunts and cousins as well as my mom and grandmother. How my mom managed to whip up a batch on her own I don't know.

So I'm glad to have a use for the electric roaster, which I put out on the deck while the veggies are roasting. It's already as about as hot as the surface of the sun out there anyway.

Toasting Chili Powder

We know that roasting veggies intensifies their flavors, mellows bitterness, and carmelizes the sugars. This is especially true for hot peppers. But what if you're not using whole peppers? What if all you have on hand for a recipe are dried, commercial chili powders?

Well, you can get much of the benefit of roasting by a quick toast in a dry, hot pan. What I've got going here, which I'll add to a pot of beans, is a mixture of ancho and cascabel powders. Even a commercial chili con carne chili mix is improved by a quick toast in a pan.

Just start with a heavy, dry pan. When the pan is hot, add the chili powders and stir. Keep the chilis moving so they don't burn. They're ready when they've darkened nicely.

That's it!

Favorite Pickling Blend

Favorite Pickling Blend

5-10 peppercorns

10-15 coriander seeds

1 Myrtlewood leaf

A goodly sized sprig of dill

1. Drop spices and herbs in the bottom of each jar.

2.  Use a proportionately upsized amount of herb and spice blend in the cooked pickling liquid + salt and dash of sugar to taste.

I normally use this blend for jalepenos, but this time I was making watermelon pickles.  

About that mytlewood leaf:  Of course you could use basil, but I discovered this leaf on a trip to Oregon and love the flavor.  I used up the supply I bought in Oregon and ordered more online -- I think it was a couple of dollars for a large package.

Spring Harvest, Tonight's Supper, and an Almost Oops

On the menu tonight is chicken soup, made with the first of the yellow squash, zucchini, the very first bell pepper, some onion and herbs, all from the garden. I was going to add potatoes and carrots from the store, plus some chicken broth I'd made and frozen several weeks ago.

Instead, I came this close to adding potatoes, carrots, and frozen banana/coconut smoothie I'd made and frozen last week. Must make labels clearer.

Cheaper, Better, AND Faster: Homemade Deodorant

My sister, who used to be a marketing exec, told me that in product marketing they say there are three basic attributes you can use to sell something -- cheaper, better, and faster. But you can only pick two. The idea is that nothing can be cheaper, better, AND faster.

I don't think this is true. In fact, when I play around with making things from scratch I insist that it be all three things. Here's the recipe:

Homemade Deodorant
1 part baking soda
1 part unrefined coconut oil
10 drops tea tree oil

Mix. Use.

I've seen some variations of this recipe all over the internet. Many call for more precise measures; some call for an addition of cornstarch, which is supposed to help absorb moisture. I doubt if this would help much for profuse sweating and when I used this version, it left white streaks on my black sweater. With just the baking soda, no streaks at all!

After this jar runs out, I may try this without the baking soda. This is because I think the coconut and tea tree oils are the key ingredients. Coconut oil is a gentle antibacterial (and antiviral!), will keep skin soft, and acts as a carrier for the tea tree oil. Tea tree oil is a more potent, though still gentle, antibacterial. And it's bacteria that make for smelliness, not sweat.

I think the reason that people are adding baking soda and cornstarch, besides the idea that they may ever so slightly inhibit the appearance of sweat, is that they want to mimic the appearance of a solid roll-on deodorant. I suppose this has the advantage of allowing people to reuse old solid deodorant plastic containers for storage. An easier solution is to reuse a small jar.

I was skeptical about this recipe, believe me. I'm as uptight as it comes about body odor -- not even remotely sophisticated or crunchy on this issue. But it has worked for over two months now, perfectly, 100% of the time -- in hot steamy weather, after hours in the garden, in stressful situations. And, because of my super-sensitive, cry-baby skin, I'd been looking for something that doesn't leave my skin all sensitive and bumpy, which all commercial formulations, even the so-called natural ones, do. This does the trick.

By the way, tea tree oil has a kind of medicinal, camphor-like smell, but it dissipates in just a few minutes. A possible alternative to this might be lavender, which is also anti-bacterial, though I haven't tried it yet.

Best Homemade Shampoo and Conditioner

There are all sorts of recipes out there for all- natural, homemade shampoos and conditioners. I'd say, off-hand there are about eleventy million of them. I would hazard to say I've tried them all. Why, when so many commercial versions are available, in all price-points, from super-industrial better-living-through-chemistry types, to supposedly all-natural, are so many people interested in making their own? Before I hazard a guess, let me list the versions I've tried:

1. Skipping shampoo, also known as no-poo. Ha ha. Slightly funny name. Allegedly, after anywhere from six weeks to six months, hair and scalp readjust and find their natural equilibrium. Maybe that does happen. I don't know since I start looking more than a bit feral after about a week. And that's as long as I've made it. A less radical version is to use only conditioner. This makes sense because commercial conditioners contain a small amount of surfactant which allows them to rinse out. So using conditioner only is like using just a tiny bit of shampoo. Of course, whatever it is that people are trying to avoid in shampoo is still present in conditioner plus some other stuff we might want to avoid.

2. Wheatgrass juice -- Hair smells lovely and fairly clean, skin feels great. But a big pain to make a fresh batch each day (it doesn't store more than a day or so in the fridge), and unless you grow your own wheatgrass, it costs about $4/day. And how do you wash your hair when you travel?

3. Various fruit juices, like orange or grapefruit -- smells nice, but that's about it.

4. Soapwort -- I grew my own for awhile and it did make a nice shampoo but then a freeze killed it all off and it didn't come back. Plus, same problems as with all fresh concoctions. You must make a fresh batch every day and then what do you do when you travel?

5. Honey -- a terrible choice, that some people are curiously in love with. It does smell nice and feel nice. It rinses out fairly easily, but never seems to get my hair very clean. And honey is a humectant. It draws water to it. That's why it's a common ingredient in homemade skin products. The last thing we want is to for our hair to be waterlogged. That's called frizzy hair.

So why the search for homemade, natural shampoos? Because virtually all commercial shampoos contain skin irritants. Seriously. Even the so called natural ones. Even if they claim to be all vegetable derived. And because they really do strip hair of natural oils, so we have to replace them with bizarre lab-produced oils, including the most common and favored conditioning ingredient, silicone and silicone derivatives. Which are seriously hard to wash out of hair. So we use harsh shampoos. Which strips our hair. And so on.

I have two other reasons to want a homemade shampoo. I have the most sensitive scalp on earth. So does Widget Man and so does Widget Man's mom. Anything with sodium laurel sulfate or its vicious relatives immediately makes our scalps break out. Even the most "natural" shampoos eventually get us.

Reason number two is I hate throwing away shampoo bottles. What good is clean hair if I also create a filthy earth?

So here's the recipe. It's so simple I'm embarrassed it took me so long to try it. I've been testing it for a month because I didn't believe anything so simple (and inexpensive) could really work.

In a bottle, mix about 1 part baking soda to 5 parts water. You want a thin slurry.

In another bottle, mix about 1 part vinegar to 1 part water.

In the shower, shake baking soda and water to remix. Squirt a generous amount onto scalp. Wait a bit, then rinse.

Now squirt vinegar over scalp and through hair. Rinse. That's it.

The baking soda removes dirt and excess oil, without stripping. And the vinegar restores the hair's acid balance. You may want a little coconut oil on the ends of hair if you have long or dry hair.

Some recipes call for a thick paste of baking soda and scrubbing it into the scalp. Personally, I think that's too abrasive and not necessary.

Eggs Poached in Chili, with Greens

I started making this dish a couple of years ago and we have it almost every week. It's based on Spanish and Mexican cooking, but I can't remember where I first tried it.

There's no recipe -- just something more like steps, or guidelines. Suggestions, really.

Start with a bunch of greens. Make it a lot. More than you think you need. Chop, then saute them with or without onions, tomatoes, or other chopped veggies.

Meanwhile, in a blender, add rehydrated chilis. Use mild chilis like poblano or ancho. Add something hotter, like chipotle (which is dried jalepeno) according to taste. Alternatively, you can use dried chili powders instead of rehydrated, whole dried chilis.

Add a little bit of tomato from some source (dried and rehydrated, canned, or fresh) to make a sauce. Don't add too much -- this is a chili based sauce and the tomato should not predominate.

Add broth, if it's handy.

Season to taste with salt and lots of comino (also known as cumin).

Blend until smooth.

Add sauce to pan and simmer until greens are tender.

Make several little wells in the greens and drop in raw eggs. Put lid on pan and poach the eggs until they're done enough for you. Obviously you need enough sauce in the pan for the eggs to slightly float. So thin the sauce with water or broth, if necessary.

Top with grated cheese, chopped herbs, and corn tortillas, if you like.

This is our emergency, fast food dish -- when we're tired, forgot to take something out of the freezer, want something warm and comforting, didn't plan ahead. It takes about ten minutes, total.

General Purpose Homemade Soap

This homemade soap is fast and foolproof. It's inexpensive to make, too. It uses vegetable shortening, which I just discovered, was actually developed as a substitute for lard and tallow, in soap making, during World War II.

I use as a general purpose household cleaner -- grated into homemade laundry soap, as a laundry stain pretreatment, blended with water for use as a dishwashing soap (not for the dishwasher, for hand washing!), and as an emulsifier in other formulas for washing counters, cabinets, bathrooms, and floors.

It's also fine as a hand and bath soap, although we usually use an olive oil and mint soap for this, just out of personal preference.

This is a huge recipe. It's easily enough to last a year, and give some away too.

The basic ingredients are

(2) 3 LB cans vegetable shortening

12 oz lye

24 oz water

1/2 oz lavender essential oil, optional

Just follow basic soap making methods:

1) melt fats, in non-reactive container (I use a stainless steel pot.)

2) add lye to water, in non-reactive container (I use a pyrex bowl with pour spout.)

3) when fats and water are about the same temp, combine

4) stir, stir, stir, in gentle figure 8 pattern, until soap traces, using non-reactive spoon or immersion blender

5) add scent, if using

6) pour into molds, wrap to retain heat (I use a plastic shoe box)

7) when soap has hardened (24-48 hours) cut into bars

8) cure for 2 weeks or so before using (I use a cake stand, to take up less space and allow for air flow.)

These are very broad stroke directions. If you've never made soap before, you'll want to read up first -- it's easy but lye is nothing to be haphazard with. All the usual cautions apply: Wear safety gear. I arm up like a 16th century samurai: long sleeves, long pants, closed shoes, hair back, elbow length heavy rubber gloves (make sure they're well-fitted so hands will be nimble!). I even wear a mask while I'm pouring the lye. I've never read any directions that require a mask, but I always wonder if breathing lye powder or fumes is all that good an idea. Also, keep vinegar handy, to neutralize lye just in case an accident occurs. Finally, keep children and pets well-away while making soap.

That said, I've never had a single mishap with lye or soap. Not even a minor burn or scratch. Which is not something I can say about any other cooking or household task. Maybe it's the National Emergency level of safety cautions I take for lye -- as opposed to the haphazard approach I take to most parts of life.

Speaking of haphazard, this soap is so foolproof that I sometimes measure by volume instead of by weight. Don't do that! Seriously, don't. Every book on soap making says you absolutely cannot measure by volume, or gigantic disasters will occur. And it's no big deal to just use a scale and measure by weight. I have a postal scale I use. It was inexpensive, and is a generally handy device, which has paid for its purchase many times over. So there's never, ever any reason to measure by volume.

Still, sometimes I do it, as I did this time. I don't know why. Just some kind of contrarian impulse. The worst thing that's ever happened is once my soap came out a bit soft. But still, listen to the experts and never, never measure by volume.

Homemade Bread for the Lazy & Imprecise Baker

This loaf is the happy result of combining two easy bread making techniques. The first is based on the no-knead bread technique that I first found in the New York Times, although there are versions of it all over the internet. The idea behind this technique is to make a very, very wet dough and allow it to rise 12 hours or longer. The bread is cooked in a heavy, lidded pan (I use a Le Crueset dutch oven) which is preheated in an extremely hot oven. It's amazing. The resulting loaf is something I thought only bakers could manage -- crisp, crackling crust; airy, custardlike crumb. It's as close to a baguette as I've ever seen from a home baker.

It's also incredibly easy, very forgiving of my careless measuring and timing techniques, and as the name implies, no kneading is involved. Still, sometimes I just can't be pleased.

So when I saw this book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, I thought, "Hey, I've been cheated." That other bread takes me close to eight or nine minutes to make. Maybe even ten minutes. Give me my minutes back, lousy NYT article.

Turns out the basic technique here is similar, in a more complicated kind of way. You still make a wet dough, but you make a whole lot more of it at a time -- enough for four or five loaves, usually. Then it's stored in the fridge, ready to be tossed in the oven at the lazy baker's convenience. Sort of.

I say sort of because in this version, there's a tiny, tiny amount of kneading, a few minutes to let the dough rest, and then a few minutes more for it to rise. Then there's greasing a pan, preheating a pizza stone, adding a tray of steaming water to the oven. What a production. I haven't actually timed this process but it's gotta be six, maybe even seven minutes long. No way is it five. Sheesh.

Anyway, just to be difficult, and because I can, I combined the two techniques. I generally follow the NYT recipe and it's variations, but I just multiply it by 5, and store it in the fridge.
Or, I follow one of the recipes in Artisan Bread, skip the pizza stone + steamy water production, and use the heavy lidded pan, preheated + super hot over technique instead.

This is my (sort of) recipe for a 100% Whole Wheat Bread. Naturally, it's heavier than a bread with white flour, and the crust isn't as crackling, but that's the price for whole wheat, as far as I know. It's still the closest to a baguette I've been able to accomplish without the white devil flour.

2 c lukewarm water
1 & 1/2 c lukewarm milk
2 tbs yeast
1 tbs + 1 tsp salt
1/2 c blackstrap molasses (the orginal recipe called for honey, but I was out the first time, and ended up liking molasses better)
5 tbs olive oil
6 & 2/3 c whole wheat flour

1. Mix yeast, salt, molasses, oil, milk, and water in 5 quart container.
2. Mix in remaining ingredients with a spoon. No need to knead. Dough should be soft, shaggy, and stirable. If it's not add more warm water, just a little at a time.
3. Cover lightly and leave in a warm place for yeast to develop. I often leave it overnight.
4. You can make a loaf now, or anytime in the next week or two. Store what you don't make in the fridge.
5. When ready to bake, take out a melon size ball of dough and gently shape into a loose ball. Drop it in a bowl lined with wax paper or plastic wrap, and well dusted with cornmeal or flour (I like semolina flour).
6. Sprinkle with more flour, then cover with plastic, paper, or cloth. Let rise a couple of hours.
7. About 30 minutes before baking time, put a heavy lidded pan in the oven. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
8. When oven is hot, carefully pull out hot pan. Drop dough in pan, give it a little shake to center it, and then, if you like, score loaf with knife of scissors.
9. Bake 30 minutes with the lid on the pan. Remove lid and check bread. It should be very dark brown and sound hollow when thumped. If not, return pan to oven, without lid and bake some more -- often it takes another 10-15 minutes.

That's it! You have another 3 or 4 loaves worth of dough in the oven, ready to bake with about, oh, five minutes of prep.