Queen B

Archive for the ‘Healthy shmealthy’ Category

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Lacto-fermentation

In Healthy shmealthy, Nothing to it but to do it, Stick a fork in it! on March 17, 2012 at 6:53 pm

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Another day, another trip to the Brew and Grow.

I have been brewing my kombucha so successfully and growing culture so regularly (yay!) that I now have the confidence to attempt to make some lacto-fermented soda. Simple, I’m told. I would much rather make ginger soda or sassafras than purchase syrupy sweet commercially produced root beer (the only soda my kids drink, really, save the occasional orange Crush). The photo shows the necessary equipment (except the bottles, which I already have), which meant that my husband couldn’t even complain about the startup costs. It cost me exactly $6.57, which could probably be reduced if you purchased a drink that came in a carboy at the market.

This evening I will start my ginger bug using the instructions my friend Jess provided on her website, in about a week I will start the process of making soda. Of course I’ll get into more of the specifics as the process takes place.

Also, we have iPad! It makes my $6.57 a rather paltry looking sum, wouldn’t you say?

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The experiment

In Healthy shmealthy, The little roomies on March 16, 2012 at 10:17 pm

I had read (probably via Pinterest, or one of the many blogs I follow) that drinking a glass of 100% grape juice daily can stave off the flu.

Well, my son left his Ultimate Frisbee practice early today feeling achy and miserable and fevered. Just the fact that he left early from practice is enough to guarantee it’s a true illness, but when he asked for me to bring the Advil with me, I knew it meant trouble.

As bad as he felt, I still had to stop at Jewel to get the grape juice. We’re giving it a try, hoping that whatever his bug is won’t get the rest of the family and/or will lessen the severity for A. This is a problem, because the boy has never been a juice drinker. He choked it down after giving me a suspicious look at the suggestion. I will say for him that he certainly is good about following my directions, even if he would much rather not. There is no better medicine than March madness, I’m told. I’ll let you know if we avoid contamination and the experiment is a success.

Since I’m not yet sick (fingers crossed) and I don’t need the medicine that is college basketball, I’m free to use the internets whilst enjoying the sweet, sweet tunes of Brett Dennen now that he’s finally been loaded onto my iPhone. I spent a lot of time yesterday synching my phone, updating the software, and finally putting a whole heapload of songs on it. I had this irrational fear of putting a ton of music on it until now, which I have gotten over to the tune of around 5500 songs. It makes me supremely happy. I just love having all of my favorite music at my fingertips, and it makes the 6:00am start time at work a lot less lonely.

Also, I have a new motto starting today: Keep it simple, stupid. This would be on account of my recent habit of getting ahead of myself and making things somewhat more difficult.

I’m working on it.  I’m not really stupid.

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The gross one

In Healthy shmealthy, Punishment for what?, Random nonsense, Self-deprecating humor, Stick a fork in it! on March 8, 2012 at 10:04 pm

I was able to bottle my second batch of kombucha after work today and start the third batch brewing!  I got a great suggestion from a friend and moved my jug to the top of the refrigerator for a little warmth, which reduced my fermentation time by half on the second batch.  Woot woot!  My mother yeast is fully developed now, and it makes for some tasty ass tea.  The process is much more streamlined as well, so it’s actually very quick work getting the scoby transferred to a new tea and the fermented brew bottled up.  It took me maybe fifteen minutes.  Two days of rest seem to create the perfect amount of carbonation and flavor before the bottles go into the fridge and we’re good to go.  Easy peasy.

This past week I have been drinking mostly GT’s Enlightened.  I was trying to conserve.  I had a bottle of home brew on Monday when I was at home sick, and one today.  On Tuesday morning I felt so good that I thought I had acquired the only four day cold known to man.  Of course, when I went to work Tuesday and sat in the recycled air for a few hours I changed my tune.  Tuesday and Wednesday I had GT’s Enlightened at work and felt pretty unwell.  Today I woke up feeling crappy and off.  When I left for work I forgot my ginger water with lemon, forgot most of the food I normally bring to eat for breakfast, and forgot my kombucha.  When I got home I drank a bottle of my own tea.  I feel better this evening than I have all week since Tuesday morning.  I think this stuff is powerful.  Tomorrow I am taking a bottle with me to work.  We shall see the effect of the canned air on my well being while on the juice!

What else am I doing?  Taking elderberry religiously.  Sniffing a Vicks stick, taking my vitamins, drinking plenty of water.  Snorting and gargling salted water and blowing my nose every three minutes.  Eating well.  I know it’s gross, but I also spit stuff out that comes out of my throat.  I know it’s TMI, but my grandma always always insisted that I never ever swallow sick.  So I don’t.

Did I ever tell the most disgusting story that I’ve got?

I was driving my Jeep in the summer with the top down and the doors off back in the day.  Someone in a car in front of me spit out of their window, and the aerodynamics of the cars and the wind carried it around my windshield.  I had sunglasses on and it went inside my glasses In. My. Eye.  Semi solid.  I almost caused an accident with my complete and total freak out.  I’m pretty sure that I had Suicidal Tendencies playing in the cassette player (it was stuck in the player on constant replay for a year or so) and I may have actually had suicidal tendencies at that moment.  Or rather, murderous.  I almost hurled.

So now you can rest easy that any other story I tell you will be tolerable, because you made it through that one.  Good on you!

Oh crap, I just realized that the kombucha/illness experiment results will be skewed tomorrow because it’s jeans day.  On account that jeans make everything better.

I hope you’re all wearing jeans.

Sorry for the loogie story.

Thanking God there are no pictures, aren’t you?

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Sick day

In Healthy shmealthy, Stick a fork in it! on March 5, 2012 at 3:44 pm

I am sick. After making it through the entire Chicago winter (admittedly mild), I have finally caught a cold. I am going to take this opportunity to be grateful for just a moment now that it isn’t the flu.

Moment over.

Staying home is for the birds. I’m fussy, and bored, and lonely, and I can’t even do anything fun. What a waste of a day off of work, huh?

The upside is, I’m using this opportunity to drink my lovely kombucha brew for the first time. I had to let it ferment in the bottle for a couple of days before I refrigerated it, to get enough fizz again after my bottling process. I may have been too careless or aggressive in my funneling and it lost a lot (all?) of the carbonation. Regardless, I’m pretty sure it will still make me all better by the end of the day no matter how carbonated it is.  Just kidding, it’s not a wonder drug.  I realize… no need to chastise me publicly, people.

(like my glasses?  i found them hiding in a box in the basement… no idea where they came from.  sorta a giveaway to our organizational level around here)

It turned out perfectly tart with just a hint of sweetness, it’s even a pretty amber color (sometimes people say it looks like I’m drinking a urine sample, so this is better). It tastes slightly fruity, maybe like cider. My daughter thinks it tastes a like the sparkling grape juice she loves to drink from fancy glasses when we have a celebration.  Highest praise.

Here’s to sparkly drinks that make me feel like I might live forever, even when I can’t muster enough psychological wherewithal to make it through a five-hour work day.

**hangs head in shame**

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Bottling day!

In Healthy shmealthy, Stick a fork in it! on March 1, 2012 at 2:04 pm

And now it starts all over again.  My one and only complaint is that my measly one gallon system only produces five bottles per batch.  I feel like my midwestern location and subsequent winter temperatures slow the process down considerably and I’ll be out of kombucha before the next batch is even close to being done.  I know… more of my first world problems popping up again.  Life is just SO HARD.

By far the most delicious kombucha ever made, probably.

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Facts and figures

In Healthy shmealthy, Nothing to it but to do it on February 29, 2012 at 7:31 pm

Related to the off-blog feedback and questions I’ve gotten about the milk…

I tend not to give a lot of facts on my blog. I do that for a reason. I’m not a dietitian, a nurse, a nutritionist, a doctor, or even a very good googler. I am writing about the things that I do, based on what I believe and the research I have personally done. You don’t have to agree, and you certainly don’t have to believe what I say (lots of people don’t!). My intention is to get people who read this to go do their own research and figure out what’s right for them.

That being said, I’m happy to point you in the right direction (based upon my opinion, of course, this is my site you know) if you need help! I’m not intentionally trying to withhold information from anyone who’s interested. I just know that the people who read this are uber-smart people who are also probably better googlers than me.

**on a side note, have you heard about the search personalization that’s gonna be happening on Google?  annoying!  i guess no more clicking on the stupid gossipy results first before reading the real results I’m looking for, going forward!  dammit.**

The milk:

In case you couldn’t tell, it was well received.  We haven’t had actual cow’s milk in the house for a number of years, so everyone was pretty excited.  The first glass we poured was shared between us, because we were all a little nervous about it.  Once we all tasted it, and realized that it just tasted like milk as we remembered, everyone wanted their own glass. There have been many requests for a glass of milk around here since we picked this half-gallon up on Saturday, obviously.  Gone in less than 48 hours, and costs me more than a gallon of gas (even at today’s inflated prices).

I’m not sure that I will continue to buy from this seller long-term.  The milk was fine, but that’s all they offer.  I am looking into more than just raw milk.  I’m considering joining a food club that also offers pasture raised animal products, eggs, raw milk butter and the like.  We’re going all in.

I have also found a local butcher who sells only pasture raised and finished beef.  I’ll count that as a major score here in the midwest, the land of the grain fed beef cow.

Man… when you know better, you do better.

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Going raw

In Healthy shmealthy, Stick a fork in it! on February 26, 2012 at 11:26 am

I don’t talk too much about it, but my health and general feeling of well-being weighs heavily on my mind most of the time. I have a great friend in California who has been instrumental in helping me with all of my medical tests (both in which tests to request from my doctor, and in how to read the results in ways my doctor never would), as well as in my diet (or lack thereof, ha ha) and supplementation. She has given me leads to almost everything I do to stay well and to feel good. I owe her a lot.

Her sister, however, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting, has some medical problems of her own. She has a blog that she started, writing about her own path to healing; one post in particular (watch the video embedded on the post in addition to reading her blog post) got me really thinking. I’ve watched the video myself several times, which led me to some online searches, and some reading, and more reading, and more reading… you know, it’s the internet. It’s infinite. I’ve been thinking and rethinking what I eat for a several years now, but this video really put a lot of what I was already feeling and thinking into perspective. The information is very palatable without being dumbed down. I want everyone I know to watch it.

You have to watch the video to understand what I’m going to start rambling about. Go now… watch. You can read this later!

The subject of our food supply is very important to me, and it’s something that I follow. I don’t speak much about it because it is a big political topic, really, and I don’t really enjoy talking (or rather arguing) politics. The corporate takeover of our food supply, and the history behind how it was allowed it to happen and allowed to continue is mind-boggling. I think that if people really looked into what they are eating and what it actually IS, or possibly what it ISN”T, we would all be up in arms about it! GMOs are a big deal. No, THEY ARE A BIG DEAL!! And truly that is just one teeny tiny tip of the iceberg example of what is taking us all down one bite at a time. It’s our food supply! Oh my God, it seems like no one even cares, it hardly makes the news radar. We’re so wrapped up in wars and gas prices and banning marriage between same-sex couples and GOD forbid allowing women to choose…

If you felt like I do every day, you would care. If it took you days to recover after you ate pizza, you would care. If you sneezed for half an hour after you ate something with preservatives in it, you would care. If you could block out the propaganda and the bullshit and see the truth in the statement “Everything they used to say was good for you isn’t anymore,” maybe you would care.

It’s true! Nothing is the same as it was, and its been changing (not for the better) for years!

Today I decided to stop reading and take some action. I went to a farm and bought myself some real raw milk. I feel that I am entitled to feed myself real food, unaltered by big business or the government.

I’ll let you know how it tastes. Maybe a little bit like victory, I’m hoping.

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Kombucha again

In Healthy shmealthy, Stick a fork in it! on February 17, 2012 at 4:21 pm

Well, the Kombucha experiment is still underway. For those unaware, I started my first batch of Kombucha at home on January 15, 2012, when I realized how much cheaper it would be to brew my own. I used a recipe I found on tribe.net (which still won’t let me join any flipping tribes, btw…) and a store bought bottle of GT’s Enlightened unflavored Kombucha Raw Tea.

The instructions said to be patient, that it could take up to 6 weeks for a good usable scoby to form. Admittedly that is a struggle for me, so I concentrated on only checking it every other day. Most days I failed at that, even. Whatever, it’s my nature.

Since I live in the midwest, and my house FEELS cold, I was prepared to wait a long time for the development of a good scoby to use as a mother to brew my tea. The last week or so I was feeling really good about what I was seeing. It was starting to become solid across the entire surface, and thickening up nicely in some parts. I thought maybe this weekend I would have a solid scoby that I could handle well enough to transfer to another batch. When I checked it this afternoon, it looked as if it was getting there but could probably use another week to really firm up. Unfortunately, the tea is starting to smell more vinegar-y, which leads me to believe that I have no choice but to start my next batch this weekend as originally planned. I don’t want to end up growing a mother of vinegar by accident.

I have my next tea/sugar mixture cooling on the counter at this very moment for the next batch!

Even though it isn’t exactly where I want it to be before I try to transfer the scoby, I’m hoping this won’t mess it up too much. If necessary, I will treat this second batch of tea as another throw away culture, just to get that mother ready for brewing. (I hope you know I’m not using the word mother as you would expect outta me… as in mother f**er. Hee hee.)

Here’s what the scoby looks like today prior to being transferred to the new brew.

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Ha ha ha, I know… I’m a riot.  I made it a little blanket to protect it from the brightness in my dining room.  Sorry, I just had to put that one in here.  Here is a top view of the scoby, for reals this time…

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So the big dark area in the middle is an air bubble.  You can see around that where the scoby is starting to turn white as it thickens up. Eventually it should be solid white across the entire top as the white spots come together.  I guess we don’t have time to wait for that right now.  Insert sad face.

My son just thinks it looks gross.  Maybe you do, too.  I think it looks like progress.

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Well then

In Healthy shmealthy on January 30, 2012 at 6:42 pm

So we haven’t eaten the ox tail yet. That is tonight’s dinner after running the kids hither and dither.

It still smells divine, but let me say this now; Ox tail is by far the most disgusting meat I have ever prepared. I think I would rather clean raw chicken with my teeth than have to separate ox tail meat from ox tail bone and fat again in my entire lifetime.

Dis.Gus.Ting.

That being said, I’m sure it will probably be the most delicious meal ever to pass my lips or something. You know, on account that I want to hate it to justify never making it again.

We shall see.

And since we’re on the subject of disgusting, I wanted to update on my Kombucha scoby. The update is that there is no update. It has totally stalled out. My little jellyfish got all white and there were new little jellyfish starting and it was getting foamy bubbles across the top…. and then nothing. I mean everything is still there: the white scoby start, the jelly fish things, the foamy bubbles. But the bubbles don’t seem to be increasing or spreading or connecting, the scoby isn’t getting bigger, and the new little jellies aren’t pulling their weight.

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Proof positive that nothing is happening.  Sorry for the very glare-y and grainy iPhone photo, but you get the gist, don’t you? Adding insult to injury, Tribe.net won’t let me on the Kombucha thread (the last time I checked) to try to get some answers from people who might know something.  It’s obvious that I know nothing, and I am at a loss as to what has gone wrong, or more importantly, what hasn’t gone right.

Curses!

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Kombucha

In Healthy shmealthy, Nothing to it but to do it on January 21, 2012 at 1:07 pm

Well, there hasn’t been much posting lately, mostly because we’re up to our eyeballs.

It’s high time we started again on the basement, and I wasn’t exactly taking no for an answer. To date, DH has built a new laundry room wall. He decided that it was wasted space having an extra wide walkway/hall. He was so right. It only adds a foot or less, but it will make a huge difference in the laundry room setup. The industrial laundry bin will turn sideways and the ironing board will gain its own space. Laundry is so exciting, I’m not going to waste your time by mapping it out any further.  Also, the laundry room is still ugly with a capital U.G.L.Y., so no pictures.

The biggest part is the door. We opted for a 36 inch white six-panel door to the laundry that will open out into the hall rather than into the room as it was previously set up. No more hitting hubby in the back with the door as he irons in the morning. No need to turn the laundry basket sideways to squeeze through the doorway!! That’s going to be the best. Even better than that?  This will mean the removal of the last black door in the basement.  White doors will reign supreme in the basement!  Woot!!

**For the record, there are still two black stained doors in the house – the door leading to the basement and the door leading to the garage.  All other interior doors upstairs are dark brown… for now.**

We also purchased cabinets from our local ReStore that we will be painting and repurposing as the base for our office space. The idea is to have a counter that wraps the entire room using cabinets above and below for storage and support and supplementing with open shelving as well. Between the major purging we’re doing to gear up for this portion of the remodel, and the increased amount of organized storage this should create, I’m hoping everything will finally have a place when we’re done.

Aside from all of that, I’ve also got my own personal side project going on.  I’m attempting to brew some of my own Kombucha for the first time!  If you follow me on Facebook you already know that of which I speak, because of the gross-to-you photos I post regularly showing the progress.  I don’t know why, but some people don’t have the same level of enthusiasm for slimy scoby as I do.  You know I love a good science project.

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If you really study the above photo you can see that in addition to the fact that what was once just a clear jelly fish looking blob has started to become a solid white colored mass (which is good, I swear), there are small clear (for now) blobs beginning to form on other parts of the surface of the tea.  Right now is one of those moments where I wish I could work photoshop well enough to very quickly and easily add arrows to the photo to point out the beginnings of scoby in that photo.  But I know it would be neither quick, nor easy, so you’ll just have to really look and figure it out.  There are white spots on the glass from dried drips (which I would totally scrub off, but this needs to be left undisturbed and not jostled, so it’s a no-go.  ie. deal with the damned drip marks in the photo), and then there are white-ish tan-ish looking blobs in the liquid.  THOSE are the new growths.  You should be able to find three in the photo.  And YES… it IS exciting stuff to me.  Just tea and sugar and some yeast create sunshine in a bottle?  Why not?!  And yes, I know I’m a complete dork.  Some people have normal hobbies.  I grow various types of edible yeast every winter.  Sue me.

Finally, I just wanted to let you know that I do use other types of the internets for those interested (as well as YOU, stupid loser stalker who thinks I don’t know you’re watching… news flash, I KNOW and I don’t give a shit what secrets you think you’ve unearthed by reading my blog because it’s PUBLIC, dummy).  Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.  Yep, I’m there.  Find and/or follow me at thetinytyrant.  That is all.

Love you (non-stupid loser stalkers)!

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