A little sun hat for your tea

Ok, that sounds a bit mad, but hear me out. I love our glass pitcher that holds my gorgeous ruby coloured tea, but I don’t like putting it in the fridge without a lid. Not sure why really. What if something falls in it? What if it absorbs odours from food? What if it all evaporates?

The pitcher came with a plastic lid that sealed it off but if you twisted it to the open bit you could pour out of it. Does that make sense? But it was always stained and I had this real worry like it wasn’t getting clean as it had about a million nooks and crannies for gunk to get caught in.

After every pitcher of red tea (and even more staining Lebanese tea --made with black tea, lemon, pomegranate molasses and rosewater) I was scrubbing it out with an old toothbrush…Rubbing a spent lemon rind all around it to bleach it…but it never felt as clean as I would like.

The other day I was washing it when I could spy some gunk in these slits on the side. I tried the toothbrush and a butter knife to pry it out with no luck. So I went and got some dental floss and figured I’d floss it out. Well I did. And it was a bit “hasten Jason grab the basin” in its grossness. There was no way I was putting that lid back on my red tea.  But I really wanted a lid. What could I do?

I tried putting cling film over it, but wasn’t terribly happy about it. Condensation built up on top since it wasn’t breathable and I was worried about plastic particles migrating into the drink. The only reason I have cling film in the first place is that after you get a tattoo they ask you to wrap it in cling film for a couple of hours. So what’s a crafty grrl to do but invent something?

I decided to make a wee elasticised hat that I could pop over the top of the pitcher from stuff I had in my sewing basket. I modelled it on the mob cap I currently wear in my plain Quakerness. I know how to do those so I just found 2 circular objects to represent the outside and the inside rings, traced them onto fabric, stitched a casing for the elastic, added the elastic, said the magic words-- a la peanut butter sandwiches!  and 15 minutes later I had a wee hat. Check this out:

This is fabric I love--it has a beautiful, variegated pattern and it is soft  brushed cotton, but it wrinkles like hell and so I have never used it for clothes. But this works perfectly. I made 2--one to wash and one for the pitcher to wear.

So far it has worked fine. 48 hours later the tea seems fresh and clear. The hat is cold but not wet. It protects the drink but also allows a bit of respiration so it doesn’t sweat. Perfect.

And bloody cute as well.

(un) Kool Aid

We all grew up on Kool Aid. It was red and sweet and made you hyperactive. Remember that huge pitcher who would crash your through your wall and make life even more fun? Nobody cared that he'd just destroyed your house because he brought Kool Aid with him! It was meant to be a healthier drink than soda. All those moms in the commercial saying, "With Kool Aid I can control the sugar." Well, in reality each cup of Kool Aid has 5 teaspoons sugar--that's 20 grams--about 80 calories. Not so cool now are you, Kool Aid? No wonder childhood obesity is sky rocketing.

 How Kool Aid is *actually* made

 therealsneakers.deviantart.com

As an adult I moved onto to Crystal Lite.

This stuff tasted like Kool Aid but was sugar free so it was healthy, right? WRONG. It contains the artificial sweetener aspartame which is linked to some controversy.  Read about why here: :www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/5-reasons-aspartame-is-bad-for-you.html

Now-a-days I drink cold red tea with lemon and sweetened with stevia. Not red from Red Dye number 40, red from hibiscus. Not sweetened with sugar or artificial chemical sweeteners, but sweetened from stevia which comes from the leaves of a plant.

I make up a pot of red tea before bed, let it steep overnight and then in the morning I squeeze out the tea bags, add the juice of one lemon and stevia to taste and put it in the fridge to get cool. That’s it. It tastes lovely and fresh.

Stay tuned for the craft activity –a sun hat for your tea jug!

If they only knew

I saw this on  Oh She Glows blog today and it really struck me. It made me laugh, but it made me cry as well. The way we speak to ourselves can be so mean and hateful--we would never speak to others like that. So why do we say these things to ourselves?



I'm much better these days at loving myself but sometimes harsh words still creep up on me and whisper in my ear. I am working hard to tell them to GO AWAY.

I am loved.
I am lovely.
End of story.

BBQ Pizza

We’ve been doing the pizza thing for the last couple of Fridays ranging from our standard pizza (red sauce, onions, peppers, mushrooms, olives, pineapple and cashew cheese) to white pizza (hummus in place of sauce, onions, mushrooms, smoked tofu and thinly sliced cooked potatoes and nutritional yeast/almond parmesan cheese) to Mexican pizza (black beans, salsa, sweet corn and cashew cheddar) to Posh pizza (olive hummus, caramelised onions, mushrooms, walnuts, tomatoes marinated in agave, fennel seeds, chili flakes and topped with rocket) to this creation last week-- BBQ pizza. With smoky BBQ sauce, caramelised onions and mushrooms, cashew cheddar and smoked tofu this was down home country good. The smoked tofu we like is Taifun smoked tofu with almond and sesame. It rocks and tastes good straight out of the packet.

Use whatever crust you like. I make my own GF one that is quite hardy and whole grain. It is really good and wholemeal-y but not as doughy as a white bread crust would be. Do what you like. Use a store bought crust to make it go quicker. Whatever. But follow the directions for baking it on the label. Because I make my crust from scratch it has to bake 15 minutes on its own before you add the toppings.

BBQ Pizza

1. Before you start putting the crust together, start to slow cook a thinly sliced white onion for about 20-25 minutes and for the last few minutes add some thinly sliced mushrooms to the pan to wilt them.

2. If you are baking from scratch , bake crust 15 minutes then add the toppings. If you are using a pre-made crust, then just add the toppings.

The toppings:

1. Spread your favourite BBQ sauce where the red sauce would be (I make my own because I’m a smarty pants)

2. Add your previously caramelised white onion and mushroom

3. Dot with cashew cheese

4. Then bake for about 5 minutes. You don’t want to bake the smoked tofu too long or it can burn. Ask me how I know. No, don’t as I think you can already guess.

5. Remove pizza from oven, add smoked tofu and cook 5-7 more minutes.

That’s it. Easy peasy and a new take on pizza.

Vanilla Sugar

I got 20 vanilla pods in my order so I decided to make some vanilla sugar as well. I saw a small pot at the shops--it would probably make 2 batches of baked goods and it cost £7!!!!! I can beat that easily. Plus the wee pot had the vanilla beans removed meaning you could not continue to make batches of vanilla sugar so you‘d have to buy another outrageously priced pot, sneaky bastards.

I like Demerara sugar as it has a caramel-y taste and is less refined than regular sugar. I’m trying an experiment with some stuff I’ve been baking with called Tate and Lyle’s Light at Heart Brown Sugar and Stevia blend.   It is made with Demerara sugar, but is twice as sweet due to the stevia so you use half as much. In my recipes for  brownies, blondies, gingerbread, duck flaps and our newest creation shut ups (made with black eyed peas, geddit?) I can use ¼ cup and get the same sweetness (but half the calories) as ½ cup sugar.   

 Here is my container of sugar. I have labelled it vanilla and Spiderman helpfully relabelled it “Light at fart”--thanks darlin’.

To make vanilla sugar you need….wait for it….vanilla and sugar. Duh.

 Like you did in the vanilla essence, slit the bean and then push it down into the sugar. You may need to cut each pod in half to fit in the container.

 Then  close it up and wait about a month in infuse. In my experience the sugar goes a darker colour after a few weeks, but it is too soon to tell with the one I’ve just made.

top up with sugar to get them submerged

 I like to have 2 containers going at the same time.

Use Container A while Container B matures.

Finished Container A? Add sugar and store away to mature then crack open Container B.

Finished Container B? Add sugar and store away to mature then crack open Container A.

Just make sure when you add more sugar to push the beans deep inside (don’t let them sit on the bottom of the container) You can go on making vanilla sugar with the same pods for several years --the pods will dry out and go stiff, but keep using them. In my experience, they still have life in them.

 Now go and make your own.

Peachy Keen Vanilla Bean

I mentioned earlier in another post how easy it is to make your own vanilla essence (vanilla extract to my American peeps.) Vanilla is an essential part of baking but real vanilla essence can be pricy. Plus if the overblown price isn’t insulting enough it often comes in a teency-weency bottle to screw you twice. If you go for the cheaper kind it can have propylene glycol in it---also found in antifreeze. Um…no thanks.   Here is how you can solve all that. Make your own for cheap. The added bonus is that the same vanilla pods will keep releasing they vanilla-y goodness for a couple of years, just keep topping up with vodka.

 

First you need to get some vanilla beans. I hadn’t had to make a batch in several years as I had been reusing my vanilla beans, but they were getting a bit old so I went on a quest to find some beans at a decent price. I went to my local supermarket and found this ridiculous, overpriced over packaged monstrosity.

£2.50 for one bean shrink wrapped and packaged in a glass bottle with a plastic lid???? I was sure I could do better. Enter the internet. A quick search led me to a shop called Vanilla Mart who sold their products through Amazon. You could get 20 (count ‘em, 20) vanilla pods for £6.50 plus free shipping. I was sold.

The vanilla beans arrived and they were really good quality--all flexible and bendy not dry and brittle like old pods. Hooray! Now to make the good stuff.

1. You need some vodka. It doesn’t have to be the really good stuff either. I bought this Sainsbury brand triple distilled 35cl bottle for about a fiver.

2. Use a sharp knife to slit about 4-5 beans down the middle and then open them out gently to expose their vanilla seed paste.

 3. Stick the beans in to the vodka.

4. This is the hardest bit--Wait. This photo was taken 2 days later and you can see the vodka is already a  lovely amber hue.

The best thing to do is wait about 3-4 weeks for it to “mature” and then it is ready for use. I like to have two bottles.

Use Bottle A while Bottle B matures.

Finished Bottle A? Add vodka and store away to mature then crack open bottle B.

Finished Bottle B? Add vodka and store away to mature then crack open Bottle A.

You get the idea. These make great holiday gifts for someone who likes to cook.  

Coming soon: making vanilla sugar! Yum!

Posh Pizza

We’ve been doing the pizza thing for the last couple of Fridays ranging from our standard pizza (red sauce, onions, peppers, mushrooms, olives, pineapple and cashew cheese) to white pizza (hummus in place of sauce, onions, mushrooms, smoked tofu and thinly sliced cooked potatoes and nutritional yeast/almond parmesan cheese) to Mexican Pizza with black beans, salsa, sweet corn and cashew cheese to this creation last night which was like the kind you’d get at a posh restaurant. It is a white bean and olive hummus, topped with caramelised onion, mushroom and toasted walnuts. Then topped with fresh, ripe tomatoes marinated in agave syrup (or honey if you’re a beegan), fennel seeds, mild chilli powder and red pepper flakes. Then dotted with cashew cheese made with nutritional yeast and then garnished with rocket (arugula for my American peeps)

click on me to see me in my full delicious glory

To make Posh Pizza you need to make the “hummus” ahead of time.

To make the olive hummus:

Mix in a food processor the following and blend until thick and creamy.

1 ½ cups white beans (like haricot or navy)

1 small garlic clove

2 spring onions, chopped

1 TB olive oil

1TB tahini

Juice of 1 lemon--about 3-4 TB

1/3 cup olives

¼-½ tsp seasoned salt like Herbamare

Refrigerate until ready to make the pizza.

Use whatever crust you like. I make my own GF one that is quite hardy and whole grain. It is really good and wholemeal-y but not as doughy as a white bread crust would be. Do what you like. Use a store bought crust to make it go quicker. Whatever. But follow the directions for baking it on the label. Because I make my crust from scratch it has to bake 15-17 minutes on its own before you add the toppings.

 Part 1:

1. Before you start putting the crust together, start to slow cook a thinly sliced white onion for about 20-25 minutes and for the last few minutes add some thinly sliced mushrooms to the pan to wilt them. Also throw in about 1/3 cup broken walnuts to toast in the last few minutes. Set aside.

2. Chop 3 ripe tomatoes and stir over 1 ½ TB agave (or use what I used which is called Sweet Freedom and is low GI and is a syrup made from grapes, apples and carob. Who knew?)

Add 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 tsp mild chilli powder, ½ tsp red pepper flakes. Let marinate while the crust is cooking.

3. If you are baking from scratch , bake crust 17 minutes then add the toppings. If you are using a pre-made crust, then just add the toppings.

 Part 2:

1. Spread olive hummus where the red sauce would be

2. Add your previously caramelised white onion, walnuts and mushroom

3. Add the tomato mixture making sure to pour over any sauce in the bottom of the bowl

4. Dot with cashew cheese

Then bake for about 10 minutes. When it comes out of the hot oven sprinkle on some torn rocket leaves.

That’s it. Easy peasy and a new take on pizza.

Docs in Crocs

Spiderman found this hilarious photo of Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann at the Collectormania festival last weekend. The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is coming up and much discussion ensued.

Spiderman noticed that two of the Docs were wearing Crocs shoes. I am part of the comfort over fashion brigade and therefore love Crocs. Spiderman doesn't do fashion, but also doesn't do "barbie shoes" either.

However, as a joke he mentioned that Docs in Crocs sounded like a book written by Dr Suess and so we spent the evening making up silly verses. Here are some of the best.

Docs in Crocs
Crocs on docks
Fly the TARDIS in your socks.

Docs in blue Crocs
Docs in red
Fly the TARDIS from your bed.

Docs in green Crocs
Docs in pink
Fuel the TARDIS with some ink.

Docs in orange Crocs
Docs in yellow
Tom Baker is a silly fellow.

You get the idea, now go and make up your own!

EasiYo

chrisjefferies.co.uk

EasiYo. It sounds like a rapper doesn’t it?

 

I acquired an EasiYo Yogurt Maker recently and have been attempting to make my own yogurt in it. The Easiyo maker is technically designed for cow’s milk yogurt, but I read somewhere on the internet that you can do soya milk yogurt in it and I wanted to have a go. I like the idea of adding more yogurt in my diet for these reasons|:

1. Calcium. Being vegan and not consuming dairy means I need to get calcium from other sources--I use leafy greens like broccoli and kale as well as sesame seeds in tahini. Now-a-days you can also get calcium fortified non dairy milk.

2. Good bacteria. I’m feeling like some friendly bacteria in my tum would not go amiss.

3. Protein. We drink Oatly brand oat milk and it tastes great, is high in calcium and vitamins but is low in protein. Protein makes you feel fuller longer and so I figured incorporating  some yogurt into my lunch/afternoon snack would help me as I tend to mindlessly snack if I am the least bit peckish.

4. I am occasionally still having some menopausal symptoms and soya is very good for that. Is it hot in here or is it just me?

I can buy plain soya yogurt but it tends to have lots of extra added ingredients like fillers and thickeners. Being a DIY kind of gal I wanted  to see if I could do it for less money and less ingredients. So I got an Easiyo maker.

In the past I have experimented with making my own yogurt but truth be told it was a helluva lot of time and work and it always came out quite runny. You had to sterilize everything, then heat your milk, the cool your milk (keeping an eye on your thermometer to get it hot enough/cool enough) then pour it into your jar, wrap it  several layers of towels, blankets etc and find a warm place like an airing cupboard to put it overnight. All that and it would turn out runny--EVERY TIME.  I have now come to understand that it is the nature of soya milk to make a runny yogurt and you just have to drain away unwanted “whey” and leave some tasty “curds” which is why most commercial brands add loads of artificial thickeners.

The EasiYo is pretty darned easy to use. No faffing about with heating the milk. Here is what you have to do:

1. Fill your yogurt container and lid with boiling water from the kettle and toss in a spoon to sterilize. Carefully tip the hot water out and dry with a clean towel. Take out your yogurt culture starter and let it be coming to room temperature. I like to dip the container in the hot water to warm it up a bit before you tip away the water.

all the bits assembled

2. Get a 1 litre UHT shelf stable carton of  UNSWEETENED soya milk (I can get one from between 59p and 79p) --try to get one that contains the least ingredients--some added calcium and vitamins are good but not too many artificial thickeners as weirdly too many thickeners can affect how the yogurt thickens. So can apple juice if it is used as a sweetener which is why you have to buy unsweetened. It needs to be room temperature as well.

3. Slosh some milk in the bottom of your yogurt container and throw in a few blops of plain soya yogurt--one with few thickeners but live cultures. I started my first batch using Alpro (doesn’t that sound like a dog food???) but plan to buy Sojasun next time I need it. After you’ve made one batch you can save some and use that for your starter for about 6 times and then you’ll need to buy a small pot of yogurt again. 

Mixing in the sugar, salt and starter

4. Throw in a spoonful of icing sugar. The bacteria needs sugar to help it get going and icing sugar dissolves quickly, unlike granulated sugar which needs to be heated to dissolve. Add a pinch of sea salt.

5. Put the lid on and give it a good old shake to mix it up. Put your kettle on to boil.

6. Pour the rest of the soya milk into the yogurt container and screw the lid on tight.

I'm baffled about the red thing

7. Push the “baffle” down as far as it will go (that’s the red thing--so called, I presume, because you are baffled reading the instructions trying to figure out what they are talking about) and then pour boiling water in to the top of the baffle.

8. Put the yogurt container in and the boiling water magically rises up around the sides, then close the lid of the insulated wonder jug and go to bed.

go to bed and let the magic insulating jug do its stuff

9. In the morning, take out the yogurt container  and open and marvel that it is indeed thicker. Then put it in your fridge and go to work.

Yo! its yogurt!

10. Come home and pour the yogurt into a clean tea towel or bandana and tie it up and squeeze gently for about 5 minutes until it is as thick as you want it. It sounds like someone having a wee in the sink so if you have bladder issues, go to the loo before you drain or the sound will make you do a wee wee dance. Scrape it back into a container and refrigerate. 

before (all runny)

My mum would say that seems like a lot of work but it isn’t really. It was when you had to do all that heating/cooling  nonsense. This takes about 5-10 minutes the night before and 5 minutes the next day--less time than it takes to walk to shops, stand in the queue and walk home.  The yogurt is creamy and thick, but not from artificial thickeners. I have noticed that each batch has been thicker with less liquid to drain away.

after ( 500g creamy goodness)

My only complaint is I was hoping that 1 litre of soya milk would make more like a litre of yogurt, but it really makes about 500ml after draining. Shame. But 59p-79p for 500ml is better than £1.50 for 500ml and full of artificial thickeners.



check out that lovely, thick yogurt



Plus, you can say “I made it myself” which is always good. So here is my rap about yogurt:

I’m EasiYo and I’m here to say

Eat my yogurt every day.

Yo, it’s yogurt,

Yogurt’s creamy

Yogurt’s cool.

I pity the fool

Who don’t eat my yo!

*word*