I made a new batch of soap on the weekend.  It's the olive, rice bran, coconut oils mix I usually make but soap may be made with many different oil blends so be guided by a soap making book, if you have one, or any number of the excellent soap making sites on the web.  Once you find a blend that works well for you, stick with it; I am sure that soap will serve you well for many years.

One thing I always find when I write about soap is that while many people know how to make good soap, there are always a large number who want to, but hesitate, saying the danger or caustic soda is their stumbling block.  On Friday, Helen said that after googling caustic soda she found it is used as paint stripper so she doesn't want to use it.  Let me say this plainly: ALL soap, even the 'natural' soaps you might buy for five dollars a bar are made using lye or caustic soda.  You cannot make cold pressed soap without using lye or caustic soda.  Lye and caustic soda are the same thing and when they go through the process of saponification, they are neutralised and turn into soap.  I use Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) to make bar soap and Potassium Hydroxide (KOH) to make liquid soap - both substances are caustic.  I will write more about the small danger associated with making soap tomorrow, but for now, let's concentrate on the process.  The recipe I used and the process are the same as that in my tutorial, which is here.

I have broken soap making down into a few different parts:

You need to prepare the area you'll work in.  Caustic soda can burn you, your bench tops or anything else it comes in contact with when it's wet.  The granules of caustic soda are fine until you add water, even a moist hand will start a burning reaction.  Please follow these steps:

After you reach trace, pour the mixture into a suitable mould.  It can be a plastic resin cake tin, such as the one I use, or small moulds for individual soaps, or a clean milk carton.  Don't use aluminium.  At this point, try to retain the heat in the soap by wrapping it up in towels.  It should be ready to unmould the following day and then you can cut the soap into the size bar you would like.

  

Soap making is a very useful skill that I encourage you all to develop.  Even though it has elements that might be dangerous, with care and concentration, you will be able to do it.  When you've made one batch, you'll understand the dangers and realise it's straight forward and easy, as long as you prepare well and follow the steps.  Tomorrow I'll be writing about how we have been removed from old homemaking skills and scared into believing we have to rely on commercial enterprises to 'save' us.  It's an important topic so I hope you'll come back to read it.

It will surprise few of you to know that I don't spend much money on moisturisers and skin care.  I don't see the need when I have more than I need in my kitchen cupboards.  My two mainstays are my home made soap and pure organic olive oil.

I use the soap for washing my hair, I don't need a conditioner because the soap conditions as it cleans. Commercial soap is robbed of its glycerine, which is the part of the soap that moistures and conditions skins and hair.  This glycerine is then sold separately for more that the soap and the leftover depleted soap is sold cheaply, after being hyped up with perfume and lathering chemicals.  Yuck.  My tutorial for soap making is here.  Despite what others may say you do not need a separate set of bowls, mixers and spoons to make soap.  A thorough washing after your soap making session will restore everything as clean as a whistle. I use my regular kitchen appliances and utensils and have never had a problem.  Soap making is a wonderful skill to have and it will supply you with excellent everyday soap and help you make beautiful gifts as well.

Below is a tiny glass bottle, formerly used for French vanilla extract, that now holds my cosmetic organic olive oil.  I use a few drops of that oil to remove eye makeup and a few more drops to moisturise my face.  It works perfectly.  I am happy that it's organic so I know there are no nasty chemicals hidden within.  Your skin is the largest organ you have, you must be careful what you put on it.

You do not need to spend a lot of money to keep your skin in good condition.  If organic olive oil can keep my wrinkled 62 year old skin in good condition, then it will do the same for much younger skin too. When you go into a store selling beauty products, have a look on the containers to see what they contain.  It's scary.  Simply your beauty routines as well as your life, you'll be healthier for that one little change.  If you need a skin boost half way through winter or summer, use your own homemade yoghurt as a face mask.  Just apply a layer of yoghurt to clean skin - washed thoroughly with your homemade soap, place two slices of cucumber from the garden over your eyes, and rest for 15 minutes.  You'll be surprised at the difference this makes.

And for those of you who are using those disgusting nail shops to have your nails done or for false nails, stop going.  Anything that smells so bad, any job that requires its operators to wear masks all day, just isn't right.  I first saw one of these stores at our local mall a few years ago and now they're in almost every shopping centre I go to.  Limited experience I know, but I wouldn't enter such a vile smelling place and I don't want you to either.  Develop a taste for simplicity in all things, including nails nicely manicured by yourself.  I'll get off my soap box now.  :- )

Have a lovely day and enjoy the weekend ahead.  I thank you all for your visits this week and for the wonderful comments you continue to leave.  They are beautiful, just like you.

Jill writes: "About me :) My name is Jill, I live in the United States in Fredericksburg Virginia. I love my job, but I also love to do homey things. Right now I am painting a few rooms in my house. I'm really happy with my color choices. Always good, right? My favorite hobby is gardening. I'm hooked. I've dabbled with gardening here and there over the years, but this is my first time going all out. I have a squarefoot garden, into my second year. Here is my blog about my garden http://jillsgardenblog.blogspot.com/ I am married and have three kids ages 20, 16, and 10. The photo attached of my garden was taken just last Thursday. Fun!

Now about my work :) My work space is outside, all day long! I am a pet sitter. It's such a great job. My clients LOVE me and they are so cute, furry and fun! They are always happy to see me. I walk them Monday - Friday while their owners are working. I get to wear tennis shoes everyday, shorts and jeans. I try to look nice but in a comfy way to stay cool or warm. I wear sunscreen and a hat most of the time. I walk dogs in snow, ice, sleet and rain...oh and sun. It's sunny most of the time, that is good. So that is my work space, outside all four seasons. I enjoy them all!!!

I made this video about two years ago for my clients, just for fun. It's of me driving all around my town and visiting my clients. They're great! I have known them many years now, some of them since puppies.
http://www.youtube.com/user/harrisonfivehere#p/u/19/mzeeooMcfag"

 

If you would like to be part of this series, please send me two photos of where you do most of your work - rhondahetzel@gmail.com. Reduce the size of the photos down to about 25% before sending to save me reducing them.  Add two paragraphs describing you, your work and how you use the space.  I am featuring the photos in the order in which they arrive.  Thanks!

Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts for Bernadette and I.  I spent a short amount of time with her yesterday because she was too weak for more and as she asked for a visit from a priest, I arranged that.  I'll go back this afternoon after work.

Getting back into my work here made a big difference to my frame of mind but I couldn't clean the bathroom out properly as Hanno was still working in there when I returned from my visit.  I watched a free DVD with Tricia instead.  A French film, Amelie.  We both loved it.  After that I picked vegetables for our tea and prepared a feast of sweet potatoes, turnips, cabbage and a pork chop each.  Dessert was creamy rice pudding with stewed apples.  A hearty dinner enjoyed by us all.  It is very gratifying to eat organic food picked from the garden that is cooked and on the plate a couple of hours later. While I wandered around the garden, I noticed the potatoes are growing well out there, the tomatoes and cucumbers too; it's only a matter of time before they are on our plates.

I wrote about warming winter soups last week so to balance the equation, I thought I'd remind our northern hemisphere friends about cooling summer drinks.  I was prompted to do this because in our front yard, a pineapple is growing.  Many of you will remember the pineapple I grew in the backyard.  Well, we transplanted it when we cut the pineapple to eat, and planted it in the front yard.  Pineapples are slow growers and take up a fair amount of space - we needed it out of there. It took its own sweet time but true to form, the pineapple produced its second fruit.  When this pineapple is ripe and picked, the plant will have done it's job and will be pulled out.  Home grown fruit - it's organic and the sweetest fruit you can imagine.  We also have oranges, lemons and passionfruit growing at the moment. If you have a bit of land, I encourage you to grow whatever fruit is suited to your area.  Fruit trees take some time to establish but when they are they're relatively easy to grow and produce such wonderful crops.

Of course the best drink anyone can have in all kinds of weather is spring water or tap water that is filtered.  We have filtered tap water here and I try to drink about two litres/quarts of it every day.  Some days I'm better at it than other days, but I get close most of the time.  Throw in a lemon wedge of a squeeze of lime with a few ice cubes and you have a drink any visitor would be happy to be offered.  If you want to go a bit further, or if you have children who prefer soda or soft drink, maybe one of these recipes will tempt them.  They will still be drinking a bit of sugar (although not as much as any fizzy drink or pack of commercial juice) but there will be no preservative, artificial colourings or flavours, and no chemicals whose names you can't pronounce.  All it is is the juice of whatever fruit you have on hand, mixed with a sugar syrup.  You control the amount of sugar in the syrup.

This is just equal amounts of water and sugar.  So if you mix 2 cups of water with 2 cups of sugar you'll have one litre/quart of sugar syrup.  Just add the amounts to a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer, stirring, until the sugar dissolves completely.  Allow it to cool.  BTW, if you want to make a weaker syrup, go for it.  That is one of the benefits of making your own summer drinks, you decide how much sugar goes in.

Here are some of my recipes for cool summer drinks.  Please note that if you can't find citric or tartaric acid at the shop, leave them out.  They are natural fruit acids that help with storage of the cordials but aren't necessary for the taste.  Because off the sugar content, the cordials can be stored in the fridge for at least a week.

Remove the top (if you have a garden, plant it) and skin from a ripe pineapple.  Cut it into pieces and add to the blender.  Add about a cup of sugar syrup and blend.  When the pineapple is crushed, add cold water and more sugar syrup to suit your taste.  Serve with ice cubes.

If  you have children who like fizzy drinks, serve them ginger beer.  When you make this you're entering into the wonderful world of fermentation.  This is a healthy drink that most of our grannies would have made.  My post about ginger beer is here.  Adults will enjoy ginger beer too.  An article about homemade ginger beer.

So, there you have it.  A range of fruit and spice drinks to serve your family and guests.  With the addition of tea, coffee and water, you'll be able to offer refreshments you'll be proud of that contain no hidden additives.

Despite being at home surrounded by what should be my housework, lately I've slipped out of my daily rhythm and life has become a disorganised and frazzled. My good friend Bernadette is gravely ill now, I've been visiting her in hospital and my sister Tricia, is visiting us so we've been talking, knitting, sewing and socialising and apart from a bit of cooking and washing, not much has been done here.  Everything is upside down.  Right now, Tricia and Hanno are awake and watching TV!  Usually when I rise to write, the house is as quiet as a mouse, but can I hear the sounds of the world cup on TV and I know if Australia scores a goal  there will be cheering and clapping. Uh oh, Germany scored. 

It's a public holiday here today - we have this ridiculous holiday for the Queen's birthday, it's not her birthday and even in the UK they don't celebrate this.  I'm not working today so I'll try to get back into the rhythm of my normal day.  It's easy working to a rhythm - you start with one familiar thing, others follow in a flow one after the other, you don't need to think about much and the work is done.  But as easy as it is, it doesn't take much to stop that flow, just one thing needs to be out and I'm lost.

Today's plan is to make the bed (I changed and washed the sheets yesterday), make breaksfast, get bread on to rise, clean up the kitchen, sweep the floor, water the garden and the plants at the front of the house.  Funnily enough, bread seems to be the stabilising influence in my routine.  When bread is rising, all  the other chores just fall into place.  Later this morning, I'll visit Bernadette, who is now at home.  It was her wish so her son took her back  home yesterday.  Later in the week the rest of her family will arrive so if I go today, I'll have some quiet time with her without getting in the way of family things.  I'm not quite ready to say goodbye yet.

When I come home, I'll clean up the bathroom.  It's a bit of a disaster at the moment because Hanno did a major repair in there.  There had been an unseen leak which seeped into the wall cavity, rotting the timbers in the door frame.  Hanno took them all out, replacing the rotting timbers, and then covered it all in again.  Cost of the repair was $19.  He had spare timber in the shed, got the gyprock free from the supplier (they were offcuts) and just had to buy sealer and anti-mould.  It was a big job, it took a week to complete, but now the bathroom is operational again - it just needs a good clean.

I haven't had time to take photos lately but hope to do a few this afternoon.  Apart from that, all I have to do is cook dinner and things will be back to normal - at least for today.  I wrote a post a few years ago call The Familiar Rhythm of the Unremarkable and that's exactly how I feel about my daily routine.  It's like an anchor.  It holds me firm when I get pushed this way and that and it shows me that while life has many changes and ups and downs, much of my home life remains the same; small moments, ever constant and a safe haven from the unspeakable.

Here is the work space of one very busy lady, Rebecca.  It never fails to amaze me how we all live in different countries where expectations and conditions are not the same, yet we share similar values and a desire to live simply.  Those values and desires unite us and therefore when I look at Rebecca's workplace it it familiar to me.  I feel like I could walk in there and start helping her with the children and garden and although it's thousands of miles from my place, I'd feel at home there.

Rebecca writes:  "My name is Rebecca and I live in the Netherlands. I am a childminder who works from home and so this is my work space. 

 

Since I am watching 1 yr old twins, the huge play pen is very handy indeed. The children get to play safely and when they have been picked up again by their parents, it folds up and stores away in a corner. It was quite hard to get a good overview picture of my living room but in the foreground you see a small part of our dining table. It is the biggest we could find in Holland. (2 mtrs 40 long and 90 cms wide) Since we have 5 children ourselves and always eat together at the table we needed one that was big enough. It also serves as folding surface for laundry, sewing table, crafts table etc. We do have central heating but we prefer to use the coalheater you see on the right.

The second picture is taken from the front of my house. It is where I grow as much veg as I can possibly get away with. There's brassica's under the netting, lettuce, beans, beets, kohl rabi and well quite a bit more. It is all the space I have available and it makes me so very happy to potter about in the soil and to feed my family fresh food.The neighbours think I'm nuts but I don't really care.

On the right you catch a glimpse of our Canadian Canoe. We just love to take that out onto the water and make trips with it. It is great family time and wonderful exercise too!

Rachel asked about making soup from scratch, so here are my thoughts on soups.  I have two regulars  I make frequently over winter that are made in large amounts and are either frozen to eat later or will feed Hanno and I for about five or six days.  These are vegetable soup and pea soup.  Both are based on bone broths and both can be made without bones, using just vegetables.  I used to be a vegetarian until I read Nourishing Traditions.  That book convinced me that I should eat certain types of meat and these soups are the ideal recipes for those types of meat, and bones.

NOTES ON VEGETABLE SOUP

The vegetable soup recipe is here,  I wrote about it in Winter 2008.  Soups are very forgiving and are ideal recipes for new from-scratch cooks because you don't have to be precise with the quantities.  However, in the soup recipe I use a stockpot that holds about 8 litres/quarts and it results in about 7 litres of soup.  When you put the bones in the stockpot, cover them with water - that's about 2 - 3 litres, but it doesn't matter precisely how much water you use.  You just have to make sure you leave enough room for the vegetables.  If you don't have enough water in the soup, you can always add more as you go along.

To make the non-meat version of this soup, simply leave out the bones.  You could use a vegetable stock you made earlier but the soup makes its own stock as it cooks.  Add herbs just before you serve it to boost the flavour.

NOTES ON PEA SOUP

My pea soup recipe is here.  The same rule about water applies here.  Cover the bones and cook the stock, add the peas and if you need more water, add it.  You can use yellow or green peas or a mixture of both, or if you're growing pigeon peas, use them.

There are a number of soups you can make that you can whip up quickly and have on the table in less than an hour.  Some of these follow:

PEA SOUP RECIPE from NOURISHING TRADITIONS

This soup serves six and uses fresh or frozen peas

2 medium onions, peeled and chopped

3 tablespoons butter

2 pounds freshly shelled peas or frozen peas

1½ quarts chicken stock  (plain water will do here if you're vegetarian)

½ teaspoon dried green peppercorns, crushed

sea salt and pepper

piima cream or creme fraiche

BEETROOT SOUP from NOURISHING TRADTIONS

Serves six

6 medium beets

4 tablespoons butter

1 quart filtered water

sea salt or fish sauce and pepper

2 tablespoons finely chopped chives

piima cream or creme fraiche

Peel beets, chop coarsely and sauté very gently in butter for ½ hour or until tender.  Add water bring to the boil and skim.  Simmer about 15 minutes. Puree soup with hand-held blender. Season to taste, garnish with cultured creme.

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Nourishing Traditions - can be purchased in most countries

Women's Weekly Country Cooking - for Australians and possibly UK

Commonsense Cookery Book - Australians

Forgotten Skills of Cooking - Darina Allen

Ad Hoc at Home - Thomas Keller - I recommend this book because Thomas owns and cooks at The French Laundry, which is the one American restaurant my sons and I would like to visit.  This is his home cooking book.

From scratch cooking is usually called Country Cooking in the publishing world.  So if you're looking for a from-scratch book, look for Country Cooking.


Thank you for your visits and comments this week.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend doing things with those you love.

Back in the day, before the invention of supermarkets, most of our food was unpackaged and much of it was fresh.  I remember a time when there were little grocery shops on suburban corners which sold a wide variety of food.  We'd go there, the shop owner knew us by our first name, and we would buy just a small amount of food that we would eat that day.  Many of the people who shopped at these little stores also had a vegetable patch at home so tomatoes, potatoes, salads and green leaves were grown and eaten fresh from the backyard garden.

When we bought meat, it wasn't an unidentifiable slice of flesh on a polystyrene tray covered with plastic wrap that was plucked from a refrigerated open case.  We walked into butcher shops onto a floor that was covered with saw dust that contained a few drops of blood fallen from the carcasses hanging in plain view in the shop.  We recognised the animal our meat came from, we knew how the animal was cut up and we knew our pork, beef, lamb and chicken cuts.  I still buy meat from a butcher who buys local meat carcasses that hang in the store in full view.  I wouldn't buy anything from a butcher who buys meat in boxes and vacuum packs - that food has been processed in an unseen location.  Choice has been taken away from me.

Take back control of what you eat.  YOU be the person who chooses every part of your meal - stop buying fast food or convenience.  These foods take away that choice - if someone else is cooking your food then someone else is making important decisions that you should be making.

I really love the advice given by Michael Pollin and I heartily agree with it:

It's quite a complicated process to unwind yourself from supermarket shopping.  Buying all your processed and pre-made favourites makes shopping a breeze - you know what you want, you don't have to think about ingredients, you buy and off you go.  But as you're unwinding yourself from the quagmire of supermarket food you should be reading labels, cutting out anything that has preservatives, artificial colourings and flavourings and buying food that is as unprocessed  and fresh as possible.  For instance, you'd think that buying oats for your porridge would be easy and straight forward.  Nope!  Rolled oats or oatmeal have been processed - or rolled and steamed to make them easier to cook.  That is acceptable to me, but quick oats aren't.  They've been further processed and if you apply the great grandma rule, you'd steer clear of quick oats but keep eating rolled oats.

Of course, all this depends on time and inclination.  If you're working outside the home, you might not be able to make your own bread every day, but if you bought a bread machine and set it to have the bread ready when you wake up, you're fine.  If you're someone who works in your home you might be prepared to make tomato sauce but are you going to make tomato paste?  It's all a question of time and whether you want to do it.  The reason you pay so much for processed food is that you're paying for someone else's time and energy to prepare the ingredients or an entire meal for you.

I tend to go with what I know.  I make similar meals to those I had when I was a child.  I change things around at times, I substitute ingredients that I don't have on hand, but basically it's similar food.  We eat butter not margarine, full cream  not low fat, sugar or honey not sweeteners.  If you're still buying lots of snack foods or prepared foods, stop buying them and replace them with home baking.  If you can afford organic ingredients for your baking, that's great. If you can't, it's still much better than the supermarket versions of that food.

If you're not a cook now, I want to encourage you to learn how to cook good, simple food. And when I say 'cook' I mean a wide variety of uncooked food as well, like salads and good dressings. If you are cooking, I encourage you to go back to basics, get rid of processed food and regain the choice of what you eat.  Part of the process of cooking should be learning how to select good food and for some, to start growing it as well.  Nothing will teach you more about fruit and vegetables than growing them yourself.

I am happy to share more recipes and to write about the process of cooking.  If you need help, ask.  We might be able to get a few  more people cooking at home.  This is part of the revolution was was writing about here.  This is important and empowering. Welcome to the revolution!