My Summer Vacation: Almond Cow

First thing this morning I started making my first batch of soy milk with the Almond Cow. I soaked 1/2 cup of whole organic soybeans last night. I used a repurposed Sonoma Brinery raw sauerkraut container; it turns out to be perfectly sized for that use & the lid seals firmly. Kaitlin from Almond Cow said to remove the skins of the soybeans by just popping them in to the basket for the Almond Cow; easier said than done. After 15 minutes the still didn't quite cover the bottom of the basket so I decided I would see what happened if I kept the skins on. (The online recipe does not say to remove the skins.)

Starting to remove the skins.

Fifteen minutes later I decide to see if it really makes a difference.

I added filtered water to the body of the Almond Cow to the MIN line; I measured it out and it was 5 cups as noted in the instructions. I then added the salt to the soybeans in the basket; but since I am using stevia drops as a sweetener I skipped the pitted dates or maple syrup. I also decided to wait until later to add the vanilla. I attached the basket to the business part of the Almond Cow; there is a blade for slicing & stirring the beans that projects in to the basket. I put it on to the base, plugged it in, & watched the green light flash and the Almond Cow making some whirring noises. Two minutes later the green light was steady and no longer blinking. I thought that was rather fast but when I peaked in there was a bunch of milky water with a whole bunch of foam on top! So I guess it was done.

Getting ready to start.

All pau!

The recipe says to cook the resulting liquid for 20 minutes to increase the creaminess of the soy milk. I think they really need to tell people why they are really cooking it so they don't skip this step, thinking it it's too much trouble to cook it, then cool it, before they can enjoy it. Raw soybeans have several different compounds that are not good for humans if consumed in quantity or over a period of time; cooking for 20 minutes renders the compounds harmless. Don't skip this step if your soy milk maker does not have a separate step where it heats the milk. Here's information from Examine.com about those compounds as well as the nutritional value of soy products.

The bad stuff.

The good stuff.

More good stuff.

To me it doesn't look like the cooked soy milk is any creamier or thicker. I know some soy milks have things added to them to give them a creamier mouthfeel. Different brands use gellan gum, locust bean gum, or carrageenan as the thickener.

Hot soy milk on its way to the refrigerator.

By the way, the unsweetened plain soy milk I made tasted faintly of tofu. But once I added stevia sweetener, vanilla, & supplements there was not much difference. A half cup of dried organic soy beans, which makes a little over 1 quart, costs about $0.36 at Kokua Market. If I bought the soy milk I would have paid about $4 more for that 1 quart carton. Since I am drinking 3 cartons per week, I will recoup my costs (including the shipping fee) in about 5 months. Winner!

My 1st quart of homemade soy milk.

And now I have about a cup of the pulp that remains after processing soybeans for a variety of products. Although Almond Cow does not have any recipes for the pulp leftover from processing soybeans, I know there are a lot of things you can do with it. That pulp is called okara in Japanese and I remember Grandma making things with it but not exactly what she made; & I'm not sure where she got the okara from because I do not remember her making tofu. Googling "okara recipes" comes up with a lot of hits. I also found out how to dry okara to store it longer than a couple days in the refrigerator or about 6 months in the freezer & without taking up a lot of freezer space.

This is Day 7 of the Unicorn Challenge. The main event for today is fasting. The instructions say to hold out as long as possible; since I have fasted before I know I can go for 24 hours, no problem. I'm not sure which comes first, the fasting or the active resting. But that's what's on the schedule for today.

I finally figured out how to do screen shots from my phone! It's a swipe laterally across the screen with the blade of my hand. And I also found out where to find it to download it off my phone later. So now I can show you some of the information from the Tesla app for the solar panels for Grandma's house!

The dips are cloudy or rainy portions of the day.

The Roommates bought some Halloween decorations, including one that projects 2 ghost figures. The Roommate Who Likes To Wash Dishes tried it out on the cats. Keala was interested and was ready to pounce on them. S'mores was interested but also afraid; at one point as one figure moved towards her she backed up, bumped in to Keala who was behind her and scared herself so badly she went running down the hallway!

Keala is curious about this thing she sees.

S'mores carefully checks it out.

She's still not sure about it.

Shortly afte this she stepped back and bumped in to Keala and scared herself!

For those of you who are now recovered from COVID-19 there are still a lot of unanswered questions of what that means for you; especially about whether you are now immune. Because the SARS-C9V-2 virus has been in humans for less than a year there is not enough known about it to know for sure how long naturally-acquired immunity will last. Experts say, for now, act as if you could catch it again. Wear uour mask, keep at least 6 feet apart, wash your hands, choose outdoor venues over indoor ones, stay vigilant!

No state did everything just right, some states did better than others. Click here to find out which states had the best response.

There were 83 new COVID-19 cases today for a grand total of 14,031 known cases.And there was 1 new death reported bringing the total to 187 deaths statewide. The 7-day average for Oʻahu was 63 with a 3.0% positivity rate. There were 1241 active cases with an 80% recovery rate.