In The Grow Indie Test Kitchen: The SoyQuick

The SoyQuick

By Anney Ryan

Hey you! Non-dairy milk drinker!

You may not be lactose intolerant. You may not be vegan. Some of you are concerned with your health. Some of you simply want to eat wholesome, real food. And when you turn around your little boxes of Silk and Rice Dream and West Soy and read the ingredients – what do you see?

Take, for example, the ingredients of Blue Diamond’s Unsweetened Almond Breeze: Water, Almonds, Tapioca Starch, Natural Vanilla Flavor with other Natural Flavors, Calcium Carbonate, Sea Salt, Potassium Citrate, Carrageenan, Soy Lecithin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D2, and D-Alpha-Tocopherol.

And they call it “Natural.”

What is this stuff? Why do we feel like it’s okay to put in our bodies? How is it any better for us than dairy? Milk from a cow is more natural. And cheaper too.

Never have to run out and buy milk again!

There is an alternative: Buy a non-dairy milk maker. Make your own milk from scratch with just two ingredients—water and almonds (or soybeans, hempseeds, rice, etc., depending on your milk of choice).

I got a SoyQuick. It’s 179.95 and worth every cent. Seriously.

How many reasons do you want? Here are ten.

10. It comes with everything you need: strainer, pitcher, customary soy beans, even brushes and scrub pads to clean with.

9. You can make almond, hazelnut, sesame, macadamia, oat, rice, millet, quinoa, and a million other kinds of milk with it.

8. You can flavor and sweeten your milk any way you want… or not at all!

7. It comes with a recipe book, with tons of different recipes.

Almond paste is an added perk

6. The leftover pulp can be used to make vegan cheesecake, as well as many other baked goods.

5. The yield ratio is the same, or cheaper, than store bought milk.

4. You can make tofu and yogurt with it.

3. It’s better for the environment, using less energy, and leaving less waste.

2. It’s better for you. I can’t say that enough, sorry.

1. It tastes awesome. It tastes awesome. It tastes AWESOME.

Making a batch of Almond Milk

The lowdown: Now, I will admit, SoyQuick does take some work. The accompanying strainer leaves behind lots of grainy dust in the milk, so you’ll have to buy a nut bag (or use an old wife beater undershirt, like I did) to strain the milk. You gotta stand there, over your counter, and squeeze the be-jeebus outta that bag. It takes a while.

But good food takes work.

Clean up is no easy task either. But really, were you expecting it to be? If you are going to whine about convenience and time lost, then be ready to get some carrageenan in your system. If it’s worth it to you, you’ll take the time to strain your milk and clean your appliance lovingly.

Pros and cons aside, I will never live without another one of these again. The milk is so good; it’s worth the time spent.

Cost: SoyQuick Milk Maker, $179.95
Time spent: 30-45 minutes for 1 quart of non-dairy milk.
Complete control over what you put into your body? Priceless.

Make It: Easy DIY Rain Barrel

By Sara Elliott

Save water, save time, and save money by making your own rain barrel this year.

Even though the practice of harvesting rainwater has been going on for well over 4,000 years at last count, adding a rain barrel may be a novel idea in your neighborhood.  Water shortages, aging water treatment facilities and the growing cost of water across the U.S. are making the humble rain barrel an old idea that’s an enlightened solution for today’s resourceful gardeners.

No need to shell out hundreds for a rain barrel—you can buy all the materials from the hardware store to make one  on the cheap.  Here’s what you’ll need:

• 55 plastic gallon barrel with an opening and stable base
• Downspout extender
• ¾” faucet
• Roll of teflon tape
• Caulk
• Garden hose

To construct your barrel:

Prep your downspout. Once you’ve decided which downspout you’d like to place your rain barrel near, cut the downspout and add the extender. This will then go directly into your barrel.

Cut a hole in the top of the barrel that is large enough for the downspout extender to fit inside.

Drill a 1″ hole towards the bottom of your barrel with a hole saw or drill bit where you want your spigot, just off the bottom of the container.

Add your spigot. To attach your ¾” faucet, wrap the threads in tape, caulk the taped thread and insert into the drilled hole. Once it’s where you want it, caulk the area inside and outside the spigot well to reduce leakage and let set. If you want to skip this caulking step, get a spigot like this one, that just fits right in the 1″ hole.

Place your new rain barrel under your downspout extender and wait for rain!

That’s really all there is to it.  If you’re an old hand at DIY projects, you can probably make your rain barrel in an afternoon.  Check with your local utility company to see if there are rebates or other incentives that could defray the cost of installing a rain barrel on your property.

This video covers it pretty well:

The Advantages of Rain Water

Rain barrel are a great way to harvest some impressive amounts of clean, neutral water with almost no effort.  After that, the way you use it is up to you.

Collecting rainwater is good for the environment too. Rainwater washing into storm drains is often routed directly into rivers and lakes together with any oil and chemicals it picks up along the way.  Before suburban sprawl took over, rainwater reached aquifers and rivers by moving through the soil, a natural filtering system.  When you divert some of that water into your rain barrel, you help reduce the overflow and keep surrounding ecosystems cleaner.

How Much Water Can You Collect?

Most rain barrel systems capture the water that washes off your roof by redirecting it from your downspout.  In order to do this effectively, the spout is usually shortened and an extension is added to divert the flow into an opening in the barrel.

Let’s do the math.  To harvest about 300 gallons of rainwater (1,135 liters), all you’d need would be a half-inch of rain falling on a typical 1,000 square foot roof (93 square meters).  Even if you have a weighted diverter on the system to bypass the first few minutes of rainfall and allow kinetic energy to scrub particulates out of the air and off your roof before you start collecting, you could easily harvest a 50 gallon barrel full of water in less than fifteen minutes.  With the cost of water rising, and drought conditions in many areas imposing limits on when and how water can be used outdoors, this is very good news.

Types of Rain Barrels

From a functional standpoint, size and convenience are big factors when it comes to rain barrels.  Beyond the diverter mechanism we mentioned above, rain barrel systems are available with elaborate filters, anti-bacterial lights and even pumps to make distributing the water from your catchment system easier.  Any rain barrel you decide to use should be constructed from food grade and rust resistant material, like plastic, especially if you’ll be using the water on edible flowers, vegetables or herbs.  For a long, reliable life it should also be UV protected, especially if it will be situated in direct sunlight for part of the day.

Out in the Grow Indie Test Garden

Well, it’s been a while but we’ve been busy getting the Grow Indie Test garden ready and planted, and we’re super excited about it. It’s all part of the master plan—Grow Indie will be debuting a brand new site this summer, including seed reviews and grow guides for the diy grower, urban dweller, suburban homesteader, country peep, you name it.

So, we are planting, growing, reviewing and photographing more than 300 types of heirloom, organic, non-gmo, and hybrid seeds for the 2010 season. Quite an undertaking, but we are delirious with getting the chance to grow so many varieties of vegetables this year.

Peaceful Valley Tendergreen Mustard starts

We’re planting on two half acres at the beautiful Kutztown University Heritage Center, and it’s the perfect partnership—-we get to use their space to grow and research and harvest our Test Garden, and they get to benefit from having educational programs and fundraisers to raise awareness of heirloom vegetables and homesteading. We are also planting an heirloom pumpkin patch for the Center this year as part of their Harvest Fescht featuring more than 30 types of heirloom pumpkins and winter squash.

The Center is a beautiful space, celebrating Pennsylvania German culture, complete with an original one-room school house, a stone home and barn from the 1800′s, and  chickens (!), like this one, who was checking me out yesterday:

We already have some lettuce coming up, along with radishes, mustard greens, lots of onions (from seed and transplants), broccoli raab, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, and more.

So, stay tuned…lots of fun stuff in the works.