Pumpkin seed milk

Pumpkin season is almost upon us, and I have discovered a very easy way to use up all those pumpkin seeds that are left over. Turn them into 'milk'. I used the seeds from 2 butternut squashes, this made around 550ml of pumpkin seed milk. Because the butternut seed husk is quite fine, the solid remains are going to be added to a sourdough crackers batter.

Equipment needed:

• nylon sieve or jelly bag
• blender
• container
• spoon

Method:

1. Put your pumpkin (or sunflower) seeds (cases and all) into a blender with enough water to cover them. Blend it up till all of the seeds are broken up and the water turns whitish.
2. Push this through the sieve, catching the liquid and returning the seed mush to the blender again with enough water to just cover them. Blend the mix again until the liquid turns whitish and the seeds break up into even smaller pieces. Pass through the sieve 
3. Repeat stage 2 once again
4. Bottle up the seed milk into a clean bottle, refrigerate and enjoy it within a few days

Seeds and water in blender

Straining the liquid from the solids

The end product!

Laundry liquid

I stopped using commercial washing powder a number of years ago because I tend to wash my washing at 30degrees which seems to be too cold to fully dissolve some powders, leaving a whitish residue on dark items. So for years I have been using commercial non-bio laundry liquid. A friend of mine told me that she makes her own, so when I ran out of my usual, I went to the internet and found a recipe that I adapted. It works pretty well, I have washed three loads with it and it seems to do the job for a fraction of the price of commercial.

To make 4L of concentrated laundry liquid

Ingredients

Grating soap in food processor

100g of soap (Castille is recommended, avoid soaps made with palm oil as it's production damages rain forests in Asia) (grate the soap, I used the grating disc on the food processor)
4 L of boiling water
2 cups washing soda (sodium carbonate) (available in cleaning aisle of supermarket)
1 cup baking soda (bread soda/ sodium bicarbonate)
1 cup borax (optional, is a brightener)

Method
In a pot melt the grated soap with 1L of boiling water, in the meantime,
in a plastic bucket (not aluminum as it reacts with washing soda), dissolve the washing soda, baking soda and borax in 3L of boiling water, use a wooden spoon to stir.
Once the soap is melted and the sodas dissolved, add the soap solution to the bucket. stir it up with the wooden spoon and then use a stick blender to properly mix it. Don't worry, the two solutions will separate again, in fact, they never stay mixed. Once the mixture has cooled down, transfer it into bottles. (Washed out milk bottles will do)
To use, shake it up till it is homogenised, and use 50-100ml per wash depending on soilage.

Blended soap solution in bucket

One of 4 Litres of laundry liquid

Costings:
Bar of soap < €1
Washing soda, 2 cups < 50c
Baking soda, 1 cup <50c
4L boiling water < €1
Total for 4 L < €3

Butter and tallow candles

With talk of power cuts, ones thoughts turn to candles and alternative forms of light (and heat for that matter) Here is one that Dee spearheaded. He read about making emergency candles from all sorts of things like tins of tuna in oil, cheese wax and butter etc. So in the spirit of experimentation, he set out to make a candle from butter. He put about 1/2 pound (230g) of butter into a glass candle jar and put that into a pot of hot water to melt. He stuck a wick in it and lit it once it had set, it splutters from time to time as the water present in the butter gets close to the wick. It appears to be a highly efficient candle, in 8 hours of burning, it has only used about 1/5th of itself, and it burns quite hot.

The tallow candle is made from the fat from beef or lamb that has been clarified through heating, cooling and sieving until a solid, waxy substance forms, this waxy substance is tallow, once put into a jar with a wick, it will function as a candle.

Butter candle (left), tallow candle (right)

How to quickly fix a zip

It can be really annoying when a zip's slider comes free of it's rails. This problem is typically easy to fix if you can find the slider, if not another one can usually be purchased or removed from another zip.

For this fix, you will need a needle and some strong thread (top stitching thread is ideal)

Find the bottom of the zip, (you may need to break into some of the stitches). Line them up so that both ends are at the same level, then insert each end into the corresponding groove at the widest part of the slider at the same time. This may be tricky, but keep persevering, as it will work.
Slide the slider up, and the zip should close, if it doesn't there is probably something wrong with the slider where it has warped out of shape or there is a kink in the zip.

Sew a large stopper that will stop the slider

Sew under and over the bottom of the zip

 Now you need to make a stopper for the zip so that it won't slide off. This is where the needle and thread comes in. Make a thick stopper by sewing under and over the zip a number of times. Sew the ends of the zip back in to where they should be and replace any stitches that were undone in the process.

Trouser zips can be tackled in the same way

Dandelion coffee

Let us be clear about one thing, dandelion root coffee will not give you the same kick as regular coffee, but it makes a pleasant, homemade substitute for decaf. It is also easy to make, and it transforms a weed into a pleasant beverage.

Method:

Dandelion roots

•  Dig up as much of the dandelion root as possible and as many as you can
• Wash the roots as well as possible and chop into 3cm pieces
• Chop them finely (food processor works well)
• Spread them out onto a baking tray
• Bake in a 100 degree C oven for till some of the pieces start to go dark brown (caramelly). (To be super efficient, bake and dry the dandelion and granola at the same time, to score extra green points, pop these into the oven after baking something else)
• Reduce the heat and allow the roots to dry in the oven without burning much more
• Once dry, cool the root pieces and store in an airtight container and use as you would coffee (I like to use it in the caffetier. Unlike coffee, the same "grounds" can be used 2 or 3 times,without it loosing too much flavour

You will never look at a dandelion in the same way again!

Cleaned, roots

Chopped up roots waiting to get into the oven

Getting the most out of windfall apples

I know that apple season is coming to an end, and that this post would have been more useful about 2 weeks ago, but anyway, I would like to share here how I got 4 (or 5) products out of apples that were not the best to start with.

You will need: 

• Loads of apples
• A good bit of time and a little patience
• Something decent on the telly, radio or Netflix (I recommend Lillyhammer)
• A sharp paring knife
• A bucket
• A slow cooker, or a large pot
• Jars
• Sugar and some crab apples if making apple jelly
• A small amount of sugar for making vinegar
• Nylon sieve or jelly bag
• Colander

Step 1 (Apple peels and vinegar)
Peel your apples, core them and remove the nasty bits make vinegar out of these, see post about making apple vinegar http://rerootingthefuture.blogspot.ie/2013/09/apple-vinegar.html
Place the peeled apple pieces into the slow cooker with a little water and let it simmer down till pulpy (A pot on the stove will do, just be careful it does not burn!)

Step 2 (Stewed apple)
Once you have apple pulp, drain it through a colander to get much of the juice out (the obvious juice, don't try to extract all of the juice as you don't want dry stewed apples). Spoon the stewed apple into clean, scaled pickle jars. (Pickle jars should provide enough apple for making pies or for breakfasts for a family, smaller jars such as peanut butter jars would do two people for breakfast with yogurt and granola (yumm)) So now, you need to can the jars of stewed apple, see post about canning for more details, because the jars are fairly wide, heat it water to 77 degrees and keep it there for 40 mins to ensure that all of the jar's contents are sterilised. http://rerootingthefuture.blogspot.ie/2013/09/elderberry-cordialsyrup-and-elderberry.html There is no added sugar in this, so once the jar is open, use immediately or refrigerate and use the following day.

Step 3 (Dealing with the juice)
Strain the juice through a jellybag, coffee filter or nylon sieve, retain what was filtered out and add that to any remaining stewed apple, place this in the freezer till you have enough of it to make apple cheese, (recipe will follow in a few weeks). You now have two choices, you can drink the apple juice or make it into jelly, follow link for a jelly recipe. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/10/apple-jelly-jam-recipe/, boil up a few crab apples in the juice and then remove their pulp before adding the sugar and making jelly, crab apples contain a lot of pectin and will help your jelly to set, especially as the first step removed the most pectin rich part of the apple. 
If you want to keep the juice for drinking later, you will need to sterilise it, this could be done by boiling the juice and immediately pouring it into a very clean, hot bottles, this should keep for a while, or you could can it.

Spiced apple jelly, plain apple jelly, elderberry jam, apple vinegar, stewed apple

So, five products from windfall apples
Vinegar, stewed apple, apple jelly or juice and apple cheese (paste to eat with cheese)

Nasturtium capers and haw-sin sauce

Two quick recipes today.

Nasturtium capers
Ingredients
Ripe, yet still green nasturtium seeds
Brine (100g salt/ liter of water)
Spiced vinegar (vinegar that has been steeped with a spice of your choice, eg. pepper corns, mace etc.)

Method
Pick enough nasturtium seeds as many nasturtium seeds as you would need
Wash them then steep them in brine
After 2 days, drain them and pack them into smallish jars, leaving 2cm between the top of the seeds and the top of the jar
Cover with cold, spiced vinegar and put the lid on
These should be ready for use after a month
Enjoy as part of tartare sauce or anywhere the recipe calls for capers

Haw-sin sauce (adapted from a recipe by Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall)
Ingredients

500g haw berries (berries from a haw thorn tree)

250ml cider vinegar (any fruit vinegar will do)

250ml water

250g sugar

salt and black pepper to taste

Method

Remove most of the stalks from the haw berries, rinse the berries in cold water
Put the berries into a pot with the water and the vinegar, bring to the boil. Simmer for around 30 mins till the skins start to split
Remove from the heat and rub the mixture through a colander to leave the stones behind, use a little additional water to wash as much of the pulp off of the stones as possible
Return the mixture to a clean pan, add the sugar and heat it gently, stirring constantly till the sugar dissolves
Bring to the boil and cook for another 5-10 mins till the sauce reduces and becomes somewhat syrupy
Season with salt and pepper to taste then pour into hot, sterilised bottles
Use where you would use hoi-sin sauce