One Size Fits All

In an attempt to bring no new plastic into the house this month, I decided to make sriracha sauce instead of buying it.

I had alot of dried red chillis sitting forgotten on a kitchen shelf and thought it would be the perfect way to get use it up. I first soaked the chillis in a solution of white vinegar and water for one week turning the chilli peppers over once a day to let it soak in the vinegar solution. Today I ground it all up in a blender along with salt, sugar and garlic. I added some water to make the sauce more spreadable. The recipe I used is based on the one here. I did a taste test with the last bit of store bought, plastic contained sriracha sauce and the sauce I made has a more intense flavor. Mine is much, much better.

I think I’m going to try making soy sauce at home. I bought 30 lbs of GMO free soy beans a few months back. Making soy sauce will finish up some of the soy beans. Here is a howto with pictures!

This is the bread we’ve been making using a modified version of the no-knead recipe. We store it on the counter top in the kitchen and the bread last for more than a week without getting mouldy. 

We’ve been using grey water to flush the toilet, but I didn’t want our guests to bother with our flushing system which was broken. The toilet flapper, pictured below was missing a flapper seat. Note: I don’t know why the flapper has that yellowish tinge. Wonder if its because of the water quality being hard. And the flapper itself had a leak so that water was always leaking from the tank and wasting water and increasing our water bill. I went to Home Depot and purchased the Korky EasyFix Flush Valve Repair Kit. Using the easy directions at the back of the kit. I fixed our leaky toilet. Now we have a working toilet and I am happy. The Kit was under $10. I feel very proud

Below is the mess I made in fixing the toilet. The thing in the red package is a flush valve seal which I didn’t really need but I wasn’t sure what sort of valve to buy when at the store. But everything works now.

I’ve been making laundry detergent for almost a year now. I used almost the same recipe that was blogged about on the simple dollar except we use ivory soap. I also scent the final product with peppermint oil. I am not yet through with my box of borax and washing soda, I think I have a year’s worth left. Additionally, I use the borax for cleaning stubborn grease (like the stuff found on a stove). Its very effective.

Now that I have my new soy milk maker and nigari (a coagulant), I have begun making tofu. Its easy to make, saves money and removes the plastic packaging that tofu comes in (which cannot be reused easily). Below is a howto on making tofu (with pictures!). 1. First make soy milk 2. Heat soy milk 3. Prepare the nigari solution (dissolve a tablespoon or so in warm water) 4. Prepare tofu mould 5. Pour nigari solution into heated soy milk and stir. 6. When soy milk curdles, pour into mould 7. Cover the mould and place heavy object on the mould to drain water. I used a bottle of honey 6. Tofu!