If you’re anything like me, you don’t always have time to make the soy concentrate needed to make mayo as I described earlier this month. So what do you do when you suddenly need some mayo right now? Well, use something else. Like I mentioned, you could use soy milk powder, but I never have any on hand, so here’s what I came up with.

1/2 c unsweetened soymilk (if you use sweetened, reduce the honey)
2 T oat flour (grind some rolled oats)

Blend well. While blending, add:

1 T honey
1/4 t. salt
1 manzanilla olive
1 t. onion powder
1/8 t. paprika (optional)

Continue blending, while slowly adding the following, one by one, in order:

1 T oil
2 t. lemon juice
3 t. potato flour

My husband actually liked this recipe, and it takes about 10 minutes (or less) to throw it together. It doesn’t make a lot, which is nice if you only need a little, and it’s easy to double or triple for other recipes.

Next month I want to share some of my favorite recipes for veggie meats. I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to pay for chicken patties and veggie meat loaf and canned or frozen gluten steaks. But over the last few years I have come across a number of very tasty recipes that our whole family loves, and I would like to share my for favorites with you. So tune in here next Monday, or just subscribe so you will be sure not to miss them!

This recipe is my modification of the Col Slaw recipe in the cookbook Total Health Cookery. The original recipe calls for yogurt in place of the soy sour cream. I’ve made a few other modifications as well.

 Several cups of finely shredded cabbage (I never bother measuring)
1 grated carrot
About 1 cup soy cream base with a little garlic and onion powder added
A little pineapple juice (1/4 cup, more or less)
Pineapple chunks (the smaller chunks)—as many as I feel like, half a can, maybe
1 heaping Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
several dashes each of caraway and celery seeds (either or both optional)

Combine all ingredients. Stir well. Chill and serve.

I should comment that my husband does not like this recipe. I should also add that he isn’t very fond of coleslaw in general, so that’s not very surprising. I, on the other hand, find it very delicious. Cabbage is very good for you, and this is a tasty way to get it down raw, where you can reap more benefits. It’s also very filling, since it’s got protein and lots of fiber. Add a sandwich and you’ve got a meal!

Next week I’m going to share my quick-and-easy, no-need-to-plan-ahead recipe for mayo.

One cloudy day last week, the fire alarm went off.

Or maybe I should say the alarms went off. There are 3 so far in our house, and they are connected in such a way that when one goes off, they all go off. And the one on the top floor has an automated feminine voice that urges “Fire, fire!” between earspitting beeps. My daughter covered her ears and went hyterical.

Once I realized that the automated voice was lying, I tried to figure out why they were going off. I quickly discovered that the cloud cover was forcing the neighbor’s fireplace smoke right into the open windows in my kitchen. No problem. Close the windows. Seconds later the alarms quit. Problem solved.

Or so I thought.

That was sometime around lunch. A little before 7:00 that evening, the alarms went off again. I checked the windows. All closed. And there was no smokey smell outside. I checked basement to second story; no fire or smoke anywhere. No logical reason for the alarms to go off. I wasn’t cooking anything, so no burnt toast or anything like that. Nothing.

I put the kids on Gislaine’s bed, as far away from the alarm as I could, and shut the door. Then I grabbed the phone book and my cell phone and went outside and looked up the fire department’s phone number. Of course, they had closed almost 2 hours before! So I called 911. A recorded voice told me that it is a misdemeanor to abuse the 911 service, then told me that if I needed help to say “help” after the tone. That confused me, especially when I heard a tone, so I hung up and called the fire department back. I couldn’t understand why 911 would have voice mail! I listened to the whole message that time, but realized that no one was going to answer, so I called 911 back. I thought that maybe it wasn’t voicemail afterall, but a voice prompt, like banks and such use, and so it proved to be. I think it’s a way of screening out calls by dogs and children.

Within seconds of saying a “help,” a lady asked me what my emergency was. First I appologized for calling 911, but I didn’t know what else to do. My alarm was going off, but I couldn’t find a fire or smoke or anything. My husband works an hour away and I don’t have a car to get the kids and me away from the noise. She took down my name and address and told me that if I found smoke or a fire to get everyone outside and call back.

Three minutes before the fireman arrived, the alarm stopped.

So I went back inside and called the kids to help me pick up the scattered toys so the house wouldn’t look so messy when the firemen arrived. While doing this, I saw one of the fire rescue units (not the big truck, but a smaller, SUV-sized vehicle) drive past our driveway. He must have missed the numbers on the post. I told the kids he’d be back, and sure enough, half a minute later he passed us again going the opposite direction. Just before going out of sight around the corner, he figured out that he had missed us again and turned around. This time he came down the driveway and I met him at the door.

While he poked around, a bit firetruck showed up, and some men set orange cones around it (they weren’t about to drive it down our steep driveway!), then they too showed up at the door. I invited them in. One was dressed in the full fireproof suit, holding his helmet under his arm. Another had a carbon monoxide detector, while the third had a heat sensor. They headed down to the basement and detected absolutely nothing. They informed me that the hottest thing in the basement were the lights.

The first guy said he noticed the remodeling being done downstairs and guessed that one of the alarms may have gotten dust in them. That made sense, to a point; my husband had finished sanding in there almost two weeks before, and they never went off during that time. But that was the best he could do, since the alarms were new (less than two months old). He suggested cleaning them with a can of condensed air. And he told me to be sure to call back if something happened.

So they left. The alarms haven’t gone off since. I’m not sure where the condensed air is.

Well, that’s been my recent excitement. Now it’s your turn. Tell me what happened to you lately. I’d love to hear about it!

This recipe is very versatile. It is my version of a “sour cream” recipe that is rather tasteless as given (especially when I used canola oil), but can be flavored to suit many different recipes. Keep in mind that the oil you use will also affect the flavor and color.

1 cup chilled soy concentrate
¼ tsp salt
1 Tbsp oil (I like to mix extra virgin olive and grapeseed oils)
Lemon juice
2 tsp potato flour

Whip soy concentrate in blender until nice and fluffy. Add salt, then drizzle oil while blending. Then carefully drizzle in lemon juice, watching the consistency, until you see it thicken slightly. It won’t be thick, because it doesn’t have enough oil, but that’s okay. Don’t add more lemon juice, or it starts to get runny again. Alternately, you could use 1/4 cup of oil, and then you would be done, but I am into low fat lately, so I must go on to the next step.

Put the potato flour in one teaspoon at a time, waiting between each spoonful. It will thicken slightly for several seconds after you add it, so don’t add more unless you want it really thick! Add too much and you could almost slice it!

That’s it. That’s the basic recipe. Now, think what you could do with it. Add a little onion and/or garlic powder when you add the salt, and it will make a nice mayo. You could add a little bit of manzanilla olive juice when you add the lemon juice. It won’t help thicken, but it will add some flavor (we’re talking a teaspoon or less). You could even blend an olive up in it (add that early, so it gets thoroughly blended).

What about sweet creams? Cut down on the salt and add sugar or honey and vanilla. If you want it runny, cut down or eliminate the potato flour. I’ve never tried it, because I have a husband who is not into sweet meals, but I’ll that a nice creamy sauce made from this concentrate would taste delicious with strawberries over waffles. Someday I think I’ll just do it, whether he wants it or not!

Next week I’m going to post my Col Slaw recipe. It uses this soy cream base, so keep that in mind.

Note: The recipe this is based on comes from the Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Cookbook. They have a number of uses for soy concentrate, especially specific recipes for things like whipped soy topping or sweet soy cream. I highly recommend this cookbook! I’ll be borrowing from it again next month.

Have you ever wondered what Moses’ sanctuary in the wilderness actually looked like? Maybe you’ve seen scale models, but have you seen it in real life?

I have, several times. I was nearby when this group was building it. And today they’re in Portland, and I’m going to see it again! Today is the last day, and I really want my daughter to experience it. It will give her a new experience and be a springboard for learning more about Jesus and His love for her.

I want to encouage you to take a look at the Messiah’s Mansion website. They have some studies on the sanctuary that look very interesting. Then go to Facebook and find their page so you can keep up with what’s happening.

I haven’t done any tutorials since I moved into this home, so I figured it was time to do one. This method of making soy concentrate is going to be the basis for the next two recipes. Keep in mind that you could use it to make soy milk (by adding twice the water), but that is just too much work, in my opinion, especially when I have a soy milk machine. But I can’t use it to make small quantities of concentrate, so this is what I do when I need some.

First, you will need to soak soy beans. This is 1/2 cup of dry, organic Laura soybeans (the second best price and the best quality I have found), soaked overnight.

It is essential to think ahead for any recipe using soy concentrate. I suppose if you had some soy milk powder that didn’t have vanilla in it, you could double the amount of powder, but it would cost a whole lot more. I don’t happen to have any soy milk powder in the house! I either plan ahead or do without.

Once the soy beans are ready, bring about two quarts of water to a boil. When it’s just about boiling, turn on the hot water on, and when it’s hot, put the soy beans under it to rinse and heat up. The water should not be on strong enough to make the beans spill out.

If you time it right (which I never do, just so you know), the water should be boiling now (mine’s usually been boiling for 5 or 10 minutes). Fill your blender with the boiling water to warm it. Glass blenders are best, because they retain the heat longest. It will warm quickly—probably 30 seconds or less, and you want the water to be as hot as possible. Now get a strainer and pour your beans into the strainer, then quickly dump the water from the blender over them.

Now rapidly dump the beans into the hot blender and add 2 cups of the boiling water. Blend. Be careful not to start the blender on high, or at best you could have a very hot mess all over. ***Here’s how I like to start it. You’ll want to blend about 2 minutes.

I should make a comment on the reason for all that effort, as opposed to just rinsing the beans and blending in water. There is an enzyme in soybeans that is activated when the bean is broken. This enzyme is what gives homemade soymilk its “beany” flavor—the flavor that store-bought soy milk does not have. However, the enzyme can be killed before it reacts if the water is hot enough. That’s why we heat the beans, the blender, and then blend in boiling water. Soymilk made this way tastes better than anything my soy milk machine can make—it just takes too much effort to make it! Maybe when all my kids are grown and gone. . .

Let it blend for a couple of minutes. You want it very fine. Now, pour it into a 2-quart saucepan and slowly bring to a boil. I say slowly, because it’s already very hot, and soymilk will boil over very quickly (as it nearly did in the picture below while I toyed with the camera settings!), so you need to watch it. I stir with a rubber spatula, so I don’t scratch the bottom, but also try to prevent it from building up. You could use a double boiler and let it go 15-20 minutes (it probably won’t boil over then), but that uses more energy.

I cooked it with the fiber in it because it was just too hot to strain. If I were making soy milk, I would strain it out as best I could with the spatula, then put the pulp back in the blender with cold water, blend briefly, then I would strait it out well. But I’m making concentrate, not milk, so I am not adding water. Now I let it cool in the fridge. Within a couple of hours, it will be cool enough to strain through a cloth, but not too cold.

This should make 2 cups of concentrate. If it isn’t quite enough, top the jar off.

Make sure your concentrate is thoroughly chilled before using in recipes, unless it calls for hot concentrate. It should be chilled for making next week’s recipe, as well as mayo or similar recipes.

You could also use this in recipes calling for evaporated milk. You would want to add a little sugar to sweet recipes, like pumpkin pie, though for savory dishes, like creamy soup, you wouldn’t want to. Be sure to add an extra dash or two of salt to the recipe, especially if it is initially a tad low in salt, because this doesn’t have the salt content that store-bought soy milk does. Also, keep in mind that if you are going to cook it, you can skip the cooking in saucepan step; just chill in the blender (in the fridge—it cuts down on bacteria growth), strain, and use. But use within a day or two, because uncooked it won’t last very long.

Next week I’m going to share my recipe for a soy base that can be used to make anything from sour cream to sweet whipped cream to mayo.

Note: I got this method from the cookbook Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley, but I did not copy their text. I have made the recipe so many times that I just wrote it from memory, so I don’t think I’m breaking any copyright laws. But their book does have some excellent recommendations on using it, and I highly recommend it.

Lately Manny has been doing a lot of things. He’s learning to sign—he told Daddy he wanted to eat late one evening just before bedtime, and he knows how to say “more” and a couple other signs.

But what is so cute is watching him try to do whatever sister does. Lately she has been wanting to do her own hair. For example:

The problem is, all those tiny “clippies” tend to slip out and get lost. Then Manny finds them. Then he comes to me, holding one of them up to the top of his head, grunting at me, “Uh, uh, uh!” until I take it and clip it into his hair! I finally managed to get a picture of it on camera!

Good thing he’s only 19 months! He’ll outgrow it soon enough. In the mean time, it makes him so happy, and it is cute, don’t you agree?

What is my purpose in life? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. So let me muse aloud here just a little.

Right now it looks like my purpose is to raise Godly children. And to please my husband. And to keep the house tidy and running smoothly. But is that really my purpose in life? Is that what God made me to do?

Let’s backtrack about six years. I was single—in love, but still single. I had a very determined goal in mind: I was going to study to be a Bible worker. I had just finished a summer of selling Christian books door to door—canvassing, we called it—and had been accepted for the winter/spring term in the Amazing Facts College of Evangelism. If you had asked me at that time what I felt my purpose in life was, I would have said it was to win souls for Jesus, to do outreach. I knew two languages and was working on a third, and I wanted to be equipped as a Bible worker with the training that would make me an effective soul winner.

I went to that college. After I finished, I did some more canvassing, then got married. After a blissful honeymoon, we moved down to the bottom of Texas to start our first assignment as Bible workers for the Texas Conference.

But things didn’t work out like we had thought. My health declined for some unknown reason (I still don’t know what it was). I was tired all the time and didn’t have the stamina to go out looking for Bible studies. Even though I was the one with the training, my husband ended up being the one who did the work, while I stayed home or went with him half of the time. Then our different personalities began to rub each other in the middle of doing God’s work. I was raised to be very punctual, and it bothered me to be late for appointments. On the other hand, my husband is much more relaxed—Hispanics tend to be that way, and we were in an area of Texas that has a very high Hispanic population, so I really had no reason to fret. But we decided that we just couldn’t continue as Bible workers. The pay was barely enough to make ends meet, and we had absolutely no savings to fall back on for emergencies. It’s easy to talk about making sacrifices, but reality is a while other thing, and we weren’t ready for it yet, at least, not as a couple.

So we told the evangelist we were working for that we would finish our term with this church and then we weren’t going to continue. He tried to talk us out of it, but we felt it was the best thing for us in our marriage, so we stood our ground.

The month that our term ended, I got pregnant. That put a new perspective on everything. I now was to be a wife and mother. I took a part-time job during my pregnancy, but have not worked outside the home since my daughter was born.

Now here I am with two precious children, considering my purpose in life. Why did God make me? Was I born here to gratify my desires and those of my husband and children? Is life just about keeping the house clean, cooking delicious meals, and raising godly children?

God made us as His children. He wanted us to be His special people on this planet, worshiping Him and making the universe a better place for our presence. But Adam ate the fruit, and everything changed. Or did it? Did God’s purpose for us change? In some ways it did. But ultimately it didn’t. When sin has been dealt with and is eradicated from this planet, God’s original purpose for us will be realized every moment for the rest of eternity.

Looking at the big picture helps me to see that it isn’t about me at all. It’s about God. God’s purpose for me is much more far reaching than simply my doing right. He wants me to live with Him forever. And He wants me to bring as many with me as I can.

So this morning after church I went to the pastor and asked if I could talk to him. I told him what I had been hiding: that I had gone to the Amazing Facts school and been trained as a Bible worker. He was naturally a little surprised, but he reminded me that now as a mother of young children it wasn’t necessarily practical for me to do active outreach, that I had a mission field right at home. I told him that I realized that, but I felt I could do more. He was already late to an appointment, so he just said a prayer and left, but he said he would talk to the lay outreach coordinator (personal ministries director, I think she would be called) and have her contact me.

I still don’t know what this will look like. I don’t have transportation during the week, so on weekends I have to get my shopping done, and that uses up all my time. If someone wanted Bible studies and could come to my house, I would be glad to help. But maybe there’s something else I can do. Maybe I could help with correspondence Bible studies. Maybe I could just witness to the neighbors. I’m not sure how to do that yet, but I’m praying about it every day.

So what is my purpose in life? It is to glorify God in everything I do. Whether that means giving a Bible study to the lady down the hill, or passing out tracts on a Sabbath afternoon, or making sure the house is tidy and the children so that my husband is refreshed and not stressed when he comes into the home—whatever it means, I must do it to God’s glory. And I must learn to avoid anything that would hinder my walk with God. Even good things. Christ must be my all in all.