Yogurt Attempt 3. Success. Labneh Attempt 1...

Hopefully, I don't kill any more gallons of milk trying to do this.  I know I will.  It happens.

I am not a master yogurt-maker by any stretch of the imagination.  Streptococcus thermophilus (as the name suggests) loves heat.  But if you get it too hot, it will die.  This last batch, instead of trying to play it safe at the low end of thermophilus's temperature range, I cranked it up and started working with the high end of the bacteria's heat tolerance.  My thermometer kept fogging up, so I kept having to rinse it and restart my measurements.  Which meant I was far hazier than I would have liked on the exact temperature of the milk and the heating bath in the cooler.  (I got a cooler this time, because I was tired of making perfectly good yogurt and letting it sit in a too-cold house overnight.)

But it survived.  I'm pretty sure if I do it all over again, I'll run the risk of killing my starter, but in a few more batches I think I'll get good and comfortable with it.  (As an added bonus, everyone in the family will have enough sour cream substitute, soup thickener, fro-yo, and smoothies to last them a lifetime.)

Who ever thought that cooking up a batch of bacteria could be so exciting?  (Or stressful?)

So, here comes recipe #2.  Labneh.  Hopefully, this won't prove to be as tricky as yogurt was for me.

I'm going to copy the recipe down in my journal in case anything ever happens to that beautiful, wonderfully informative website.  (Have you ever noticed, it's always the websites with the best info that suddenly seem to shut down when you most need to find that recipe/chunk of information?)

Anyway, after copying that.  I'm gonna pull out my newly purchased gentleman's handkerchief and make myself some yogurt cheese.  Blue cheese, here I come!

PS: So I started making the labneh, and it looked so pretty sitting in the fridge, surrounded by veggies and healthy-type things, that I totally had to show it off.  So, here you go: Labneh!  (I still don't know how to pronounce the word... oh well.)

Yogurt. Attempt 2. Fail.

I can cook.  I'm not too terribly bad at cooking, even.  But for some reason, my yogurt is a complete fail.  And it bothers me.  I follow the directions.  I do what I'm told to do, and the yogurt fails.  I try again, I do what I'm told to do.  Again, a fail.

And I know what it is, too.  I can't seem to keep my yogurt warm enough for the bacteria to thrive in the milk.  The problem is, I don't really know what else I can do to keep it warm.  I stuck it in the stove with a bunch of boiling hot water.  Still not warm enough.

I'm pretty sure I shouldn't even attempt to make cheese until I've got yogurt down.  I'm trying to make a yogurt cheese, but because my yogurt's so runny, it just seeped right through the cheese cloth.  Another fail.

It doesn't help that every website I read up on says things like, "It's practically fool-proof" and "don't worry, this isn't rocket science!"  Tell that to the two gallons of milk I've ruined so far.  I suppose I need to buy a cooler, line it with blankets and then put a kettleful of hot water in a jar in with them just to make sure they stay warm enough.

Because we've got an early summer and every air conditioning unit in the house is going at full throttle, it's probably cooler in here now than it is in the winter.  And yogurt likes warmth to grow.

I'm tempted to dump this batch.  I suppose it'll work well enough in a smoothie.  I just don't know where to go from here.  I'm frustrated.

I'll try again.  Eventually, I'll get this right.

Journal, Cheese, and Goats.

So, yesterday was my official "end of stripping" cut-off.  It ended with a whimper and not a bang.  I guess I'm glad.  I don't know what a bang would have been like.  Probably unpleasant, considering the nature of the job.

Anyway, I am no longer a stripper.  Or at least, I no longer consider myself a stripper.  Which isn't saying much. I haven't considered myself a stripper for some time now.  I haven't worked in... a while.

I saw going to post something to mark the occasion, but as it turned out, I had a to-do list as long as my arm.  And other things just seemed more important.  For example:

I was researching cheese-making.  I knew I really wanted to do it, and I figured getting cozy with yogurt-making would be a good way to break into cheese.  But this was something I assumed I wouldn't be able/ready to do until I had my own livestock.  I particularly wanted goats.  I don't know why.  I just like goats.

So, I went online and finally looked up cheese-making.  I got this lovely site right here.  And I can't wait to try out their recipes.  The thing that got me laughing though, was that they use goat milk.  From their goats.

So, then I was researching goats.  So now I'm all kinds of excited about having goats someday in the future.  I've wanted goats for forever, but now I have another reason to want goats.  I now have recipes for cheese.  That I can make myself.  With milk from goats.

I guess I get manic about weird things.  Anyway, in order to do any of these things I so very much want to do, I need to figure out how to make yogurt without destroying gallon after gallon of grocery store milk.  If I can make yogurt, I can make lebneh.  If I can make lebneh, I can try to make... yeah, just visit the link above.

In all of that confusion, I got myself a journal at the Walgreens.  A cheap thing.  The cheapest I could find.  It is now my new bestest best buddy (after my fiance).  I spend a massive amount of my spare time visiting websites for all kinds of information.  How to make relaxing bath salts.  How to make your own soap.  How to make your own cheese.

So, that's great and all, but the problem is that I usually have to re-read most of each of these lengthy articles to get the ingredients and steps of preparation of a lot of these things.  A good writer adds entertaining anecdotal whatnots to their article, and most of the articles I read are written by excellent writers and bloggers.  So, I find myself wasting lots of time fishing through my massive bookmarks collection for the right page that has the right recipe.  Having done that, I have to scroll through the entire article to find the right ingredients.  And then there's always the danger that I'll miss a step.  "You mean you needed flax seed flour for that?  But you didn't mention flax seed flour with all those other ingredients in paragraph six!"

See my problem?  So I went through and copied down all my favorite recipes and cures into this journal which I now find myself using for everything.  Wanna de-flea the cat?  Journal!  Wanna make the beet hummus you can't stop eating?  Journal!  How do you plant garlic?  Journal!

So far I've copied twenty pages of information into that thing, and I'm nowhere near to stopping yet.  How do you make cheese?  This must go into the journal.  What do goats eat?  Journal!

I love it.  Everything in there is scattered in this disorganized hodge-podge.  And at the same time, because it's all hand-written, I remember where everything is just by the feel of the pages.  (It's weird, but I'm like that with stuff I touch.  Particularly stuff I write.)

At some point, I do want to write an index on a piece of loose-leaf and shove it in there.  And I think I'm going to print out the cheese-making instructions, because those are very detailed and my hands are already cramping.

But I'm very happy today.  I'm also very energized, because I couldn't sleep last night and I made up for it with lots and lots of coffee.  So, I'm typing all this a mile a minute, and feeling perfectly wonderful with Everything while I'm doing it.  Oh, blissful euphoria of coffee.  My only drug.

So, I'm making a tincture (?) of rosemary and mint in vinegar.  I know it's supposed to be used for cleaning, but I'm thinking I might use it to wash my hair.  I've been using the vanilla/clove/vinegar spray in my hair and its worked out wonderfully.

But now I've got to run off and do more errand-y kinds of things.  If anyone's reading this, I hope you're having a good day.  I will be until the coffee filters out of my system. :)

Well, We Ripped Out the Floor

So I altered the title.  Because most of my entries in here seem to be about our conversion to an off-grid way of life.  Maybe now when people read this, they'll know what most of it is about.

So, yesterday, Randy and I tore up the floor of the gypsy wagon.  Randy sawed up large chunks of it; I carried the chunks out and cleared out the insulation underneath.  The previous owners, upon realizing that their floor was rotting out, simply covered it in glue and lay a new floor on top of it.  How very... special of them.

Of course, our gypsy wagon's changed hands plenty of times.  Maybe they just did the quick fix to get it sold to the next unlucky pair of hands to take charge of it, before it was then transferred several more times before we got a hold of it.  I know I need to fix virtually everything about it, but I still like it.  For now at least.

Stepping across those beams felt a little bit like being in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I was relatively sure I'd go plunging through the floor at any minute.  But anyway--

I reread the instructions for yogurt making and I'd like to give it another try.  Wish me luck.

I also read this article on glass jars which suddenly makes me want to get my hands on even more mason jars than the ten or so I've got right now.  So far, I've used glass jars as--

~drinking glasses
~vases
~containers for many random collections of objects/insects
~yogurt-making jars
~tincture-making jars
~containers for perfume
~sprout-growing jars

But there are so many other uses.  I'm particularly excited by the idea of using them to hold leftovers, since plastic containers can make the inside of a fridge get so ugly so fast.

I'd really like to get my hands on a notebook to write down all my recipes and ideas, too.  Computers (and websites) always seems just a little bit unreliable.  It's too easy to lose a web-page in the massive overflow of information.  Or have my computer break down.  Or anything else I haven't thought of yet.

But now, I'm rambling.  I'm going to read up on making something interesting, artistic and useful.  And I'm going to crochet something while I'm doing it.

Sprouts! (And, of course, nice-smelling hair.)

So the thyme and the Italian and Genovese basil sprouted yesterday morning.  I was shocked, because I'd expected a much longer waiting period after planting them in the little egg carton I had them all nestled into.  By the end of the day one of the oregano plants was peeping its tiny head into the world as well.  I'm very excited.

Yesterday was definitely a day of... something.  DIY-ness?  Crunchy-ness?  Sadly, I haven't really researched what people call what I'm doing so much as I've just been doing it.

For example.  I've been doing the no-shampoo thing for perhaps a month so far.  But I missed the way my hair used to smell when I poured half a gallon of conditioner into it every morning (and never rinsed it out).  So yesterday morning, I researched the ingredients of my one of my two homemade air fresheners a little before spraying the stuff directly into my hair.  Now, my hair smells awesome.  (And it's a pretty color, too.  See?)

So then, since I was feeling inspired (and my skin had been dry for days) I tried using coconut oil in place of lotion.  I honestly think it works better.  No, that's not just my "it's good for you, so it must be better" side talking.  I mean that I always hated lotion.  It left this sticky residue stuff on my skin that left me feeling like I needed a bath.  But the coconut oil just seemed to absorb into my skin, leaving it smooth and soft and healthy-feeling.

Yay.  And then, because my mother-in-law had a bag of kale that was going to go bad, I made mixed berry/orange/ginger/kale smoothies.  And those were pretty good.

So yesterday was a good day.  I did healthy things.  I tried new things.  And my plants started sprouting!  All totaled, it was a very good day.

That evening, a final thought crossed my mind before bed: in our purge of excess belongings, I've been careful to keep a hold on a single bag of stripper gear.  A just-in-case bag.  One pair of dance shoes, a few outfits, some makeup.  I realized now's probably the time to go through that bag and let of the final vestiges of my stripperdom.  I think that stage of my life just might be done for good.

My new job will be to publish my (damn) novels and garden organic food so as to save us money by cutting our grocery bill as much as possible.  Knock on wood, but I don't believe I'll be returning to the strip club.

Honey and the Proto-Potty

So I made a toilet.  I got tired of not having a composting toilet, and I haven't been able to build one yet because I haven't had the materials I always thought were necessary to build a composting toilet.  I had the five gallon bucket, and I had a toilet seat we'd salvaged from the trailer, but I didn't have any wood to build a box to put the toilet seat on top of.  So on Friday (I think) after my fiance left for work, I went through several scraps we'd saved from the trailer, looking for something-- anything-- that could be used to build the box for a toilet.

Ultimately, I didn't find anything there.  Instead, I kept walking past this lovely old chair I'd taken with me from my hometown in North Dakota.  I think the rest of the table set it originally came from was lost in a complicated storage-space-management fiasco.  Anyway, the seat of the chair had long since been torn up by the claws of the cats who had since been de-clawed (for this and other reasons).  My fiance and I, who have been purging ourselves of unnecessary possessions (all that junk we own and never use) were just about ready to toss this chair along with the rest of our un-donateable junk in the trash.  And that was when I came up with this idea:

Isn't it lovely?  Okay, if you're thinking to yourself its one of the homeliest things you've ever seen, you won't be alone in that opinion.  However, I think it holds potential.  I tore the ripped-up cushion out of the chair and sawed a round hole in the wooden bottom of it and secured the toilet seat onto the seat of the chair.  I still need to find a way to secure the bucket in place underneath it, but for all intents and purposes, that is a primitive but functional composting toilet.

I call it the Proto-Potty. :)

Anyway, having made this, I think I have a few more ideas of how much space we'll need for the bathroom part of the trailer, which I find very exciting.  I have this idea about the sink we salvaged from the trailer that I need to try out.  It might work out.  It might be a disaster.  As with all the new ideas I try.

And speaking of new ideas.  If you haven't heard of Crunchy Betty yet, it's time I introduce you.  I've been reading her blog like crazy, and today I finally decided to try one of her blackhead treatments.  It's method number two from this page.  I steamed my face for ten minutes (because I have acne) and then decided to try patting my face with honey because I had honey on hand.

I didn't really think it would work.  I thought it would be like most of those blackhead treatments you hear about where you try it out and it doesn't work but if you think about it a lot, you realized your skin at least feels a little softer so it wasn't a complete waste.  Because that's how all these "skin treatments" generally affect me: "I guess it might've helped a little?  I guess?"

So, you can imagine my surprise-- my outright shock-- when it actually worked.  I watched all the blackheads peppering my nose burst open and drain out like magic.  I didn't have to squeeze them or anything.  I just patted tacky honey on my face and they burst.  Like Magic!

I couldn't believe it.  My face looked so beautiful afterward.  And there was an actual, genuine noticeable difference.  So, yeah.  I have to make some Parmesan flax seed crackers for my fiance and I.  We've been eating a lot of awesome vegetarian food lately.  I must post recipes.

Until then, hope everyone's doing well.  :)

I Get Craftsy When I'm Nervous

So we moved.  And moving is stressful.  No matter how organized or well-planned or easy (and this one was easy) it's still stressful.  I've even got the stress acne to prove it.

It's been wonderful at the new place, but as part of getting settled in, I've noticed myself producing a flurry of new recipes for everything under the sun.  I tried making yogurt.  That didn't work.  I've got two different times of homemade air-spray room fresheners stewing.  I made a kitty-litter air freshener out of lime flesh and salt.  I made beet hummus ( try it, it's heavenly.)  I made parmesan flax seed crackers to go with it.  And that was just yesterday.  I also made zucchini slices with pizza sauce and toppings spread over them.  Ate the last of that this morning.  I made salsa.  I'm growing scallions in my mother-in-law's window.  I made... something else.  I don't remember what.

We got seeds in the mail, so I'm probably going to go through those and figure out how much space each plant will need in our garden and how many of each plant to grow.  I think I want an indoor tomato plant, too, because I want to eat fresh tomatoes all winter, too.  Hopefully the scallions grow.

Maybe I should start knitting?  I saw a beautiful diy fire pit that I could totally make for perhaps $30.  Of course, before I do any of that, I really, seriously want to build my composting toilet.  Seriously, I want this thing.  Bad.

Right now, though, as I've run out of funds for the time being.  So... that's that for now.

P.S. Finally got some pictures up.  The first one is me draining my vanilla clove air freshener through a coffee filter.  I later ended up spraying this stuff into my hair to make it smell pretty.  It's awesome. :)

This second picture is both my air fresheners sitting in jars.  The one on the right is a citrus vodka mix that's still steeping.  (It started out smelling like vodka and ended up smelling like oranges.)  The one on the left is the vanilla clove.  I don't think the picture does it justice.  It came out as this beautiful amber liquid that shone very prettily in the morning light.