Homemade liquid Soap/Bathwash

I love liquid soap, especially when it is liquid Castile. It gets used it for everything at our house... body-wash, shampoo, hand-wash,  washing up, washing liquid, stain remover and more. My problem is well the price... yes it is totally possible to get it for cheaper if you can buy it in bulk from places like Melrose here or Aussie soap supplies here. 

For the moment that is not an option for us; but reducing the things I need it for certainly is. I absolutely love The Road To Loving My Thermomixer blog and recipe here. I love Peta's laundry powder, I love the food recipes I have tried of hers... but I must admit I had trepidations about trying the hand-soap/body-wash recipe. The reason: way back in my uni days. a fellow student told me she makes liquid soap by mixing regular soap in the stove with water. I decided to give it a go and my family refused to use it... it went gluggy and smelly. 

I love my up-cycled funnel

But I also thought; what have I got to loose? If it works what have I gained? This recipe did not use the whole bar of soap. I cubed it and weighed it before adding to the MyCook jar. I used the MyCook to mill the soap and mix it with water. In under 2 minutes the mixture had dried out (I may have used about a cups worth, in future I will increase it to 500mL to start with.

I made it in the evening and allowed it to sit overnight so the mixture got about 2 stirs. I woke up to this, but popping it back into the machine just as Peta said, caused it to flow freely again. 

I popped the residual into an empty vinegar bottle. This blog will be a *living* document. I fully intend to keep testing the liquid to see how long it stays good for. 

Zote Soap - Australian alternative


If you have been looking for home-made cleaning products, it won't take too long to come across Zote soap.

It is and ingredient in many American recipes such as this one; but is not available in Australia (has anyone else felt the disappointment?). This fascinating soap features the ability to grow into a foam like substance when placed into a microwave (don't try this with sunlight, it just goes into brown lumps and is quite disappointing). When the foam cools it easily turns to a fine powder in your hands and it then mixed with other ingredients to make wonderful laundry liquids and powders.

I used Australian Botanicals soap to make the liquid soap. As stated above, it is slightly larger than a regular bar of soap. If you have watched the youtube clip... I am sorry but it is not a dollar either, but you are helping a worthy cause... saving orang-utans by using sustainable palm oil and giving people options to earn money without damaging their forests.

Again I had a few small cubes left and wondered if this soap would work... I popped it in the microwave for one minute... fed the cat who thought that the soap looked like a good meal (he had dine)... returned to this. It was very hot to touch but once it cooled down went to powder in my hands.

2-3 weeks on

I found one more pump bottle and decided to fill it with the liquid soap and top up the other pump bottles while I was at it. The liquid in the storage bottle had hardened to "not readily pourable" so I popped it back into the machine (kogan today) water spilled out first then the rest of the liquid came out in a snake like fashion. SEP and ECE parents/teachers this would be very cool slime for your kids to play with... particularly if they like sensory things. 

I use the body wash and hand wash daily. It still squirts with no hassles however I have noticed that the liquid has also hardened a little. In the beginning I was shaking the bottle fairly regularly to keep the liquid flowing... that has not happened in a while.

Quality MyCook thermalcooker... for a bargain in February

Are you tossing up about buying a thermal-cooker? The decisions between the quality you prefer and what your wallet can survive are huge. For some lucky customers, quality has never been more affordable. 

This beautiful machine has quite a following in France and Spain. Designed in France; manufactured in Spain, this little beauty is the reason that other Thermo-machines did not enjoy quite the same success in Spain that they have in other countries.

You may be sick of hearing me say it but I love my MyCook. If you are planning to buy a quality thermal cooker, with a powerful motor, high quality stainless steel, one button knead function and more... now could be the time to buy. For the month of February, a MyCook Premium could be yours for under 1K if you go here to te OzCook website.

I am not denying that there are other quality thermal cookers out there, and sometimes it can feel like its a "my cooker is better than your cooker" type world. 

Having a thermo-mixer keeps my sane on my gluten-free lifestyle. It means that I can enjoy fantastic food without the gluten or reactions my body has to eating glutenous food.  It is that simple.

Pros

• No reverse... that does not sound like a pro I hear you say. I didn't think so myself, at first. However the softest speed actually goes so soft that I have not missed a reverse function (even making creamy risotto and corn relish). In fact mince sauce stays nice (not over-fine) without having to cook it in the rice basket (which is stainless steel, not plastic).
• When chopping herbs; the shape of the jug (jar) ensures that the herbs stay closer to the blades. Which is perfect for making dips
• It can mill 500g of rice in one go
• It goes up to 120c and a one-touch sauté button that chops the onions and garlic as it cooks them at the temperature you determine. 
• One touch knead button
• One touch turbo/pusle button
• Well designed lid that ensures that less splash-backs and spitting from food
• In-built safety features such as lid can only be removed and put on when jar is in unlocked position, warm/hot food can only be cooked at speed 5 or below, to purée, press the turbo button while on sp 5 - perfect
• Inbuilt scales
• No electronic parts on the jar, safer in the dishwasher
• Fantastic easy-to-use recipe book with lots of great recipes
• Stainless steel steamer (tray and lid are plastic) which grips the jar for safety
• Induction heating cooks food faster
• Helpful facebook community here called Mycook Groupies.

Cons

• There really are not that many; Scales go up in 10g increments, however I was surprised to note that this has not really made any difference to the outcome of my cooking. For times that really precise measures as with my TM, I always use a kitchen scale, otherwise volume measures are handy such as Metric Cups, Tablespoons and Teaspoons etc. 
• Temperature measures the heat of the element rather than the heat of the food, so for rare recipes (such as yoghurt) when food temp is required, a food thermometer is handy 
• Not suited to raw-food preparation, if that is how you eat, as the minimum temperature is 40c not 37c

Happy shopping, no matter which machine you drool after and which one ends up in your kitchen all are welcome and will continue to be welcome on this blog site and in my facebook group Thermo-Science and Mixin-Fun here.

Cheats Bread... Round 2

A few weeks back, I blogged my fantastic experience with Cheats bread by Me and My Thermie blogger, recipe here. I liked it so much I made it again... This time a double batch MyCook/Kogan cook off. I had plans for one to be another sandwich loaf and the other to be a cob... Hoping that my friend who I call the "cob-loaf" queen could fill it with delish cob filling and we could pretend we were not Gluten-Free for a few minutes. I aimed to get it round by cooking it in the 3L slow cooker. 

It was a shockingly hot day; the beginning for many for CQ and the bread rose very fast. In future I will use less yeast on days like today. The loaf dough melted all over the edges in the slow cooker. This possibly would have been ok if I had popped it in the oven as it would have cooked faster.

The second loaf looked like an extinct volcano. Very disappointing. Possibly the problem here was that I had lifted the lid too early to check how it was going. Not to worry, breadcrumbs I hoped... Then the ants found both loaves as they were cooling... at least the chooks were happy. So fresh bread loaves go pretty-much straight in the fridge. 

If I try for a cob shape again I will cook for the first hour without the kitchen towel between the ceramic bowl and lid, so that I can see how it is all going.  

Results

MyCook got the job done faster, the kneading was done in 1.5 minutes. Kogan took about 3 minutes. But the doughs were pretty-much identical by the time they were done.

Kogan had the option to heat to 30c or 40c I chose 40c as that is the one the MyCook recipes use for bread. I was not sure that 30c would be warm enough.

Home-made Washing Liquid

This recipe is fantastic as it uses just 3 ingredients (other than water) and each ingredient is useful for many other things around the house.

This week on my FaceBook feed appeared a how-to for making washing liquid. I'm so excited to tell you about it as it has made a huge difference to my laundry.

I wanted to make it as soon as I saw it as I had all the ingredients just laying around the house... but did I have a tub? Check Honey's shed... Yes, we are on the money. He has a few re-purposed ex-food buckets with a fantastic seal.

If you are wondering, the recipe is by Bush Flour Herbals and the link is here.

Pros

Price, it works out about 13c per load (and that is not with buying castile soap in bulk... you could possibly nearly halve the price again with the right deal). If you don't have a thermo-type machine no worries the original recipe does not use one. It is fantastic as a pre-wash soaker.

Just remember; it is really not a "brightener" it is good for soaking out periferal stains and should be soaked for no longer than about a day-ish; I'm not sure on exact times, however, I can tell you from experience this week that three days is too long. I popped some in to soak on Wednesday and it smelled revolting by Friday night... like a swamp. I was used to soaking things in store-bought  nappy-soak which can be right for up to a week (when I was a nanny we used to do chux and socks for up to a week... not together). That is not for this solution.  Keep the soaks brief.  

Cons

Castile soap can be quite expensive to buy, if you are short on cash. However one $20L should last about 3.25 lots at about 50 loads per bucket. It is rather bulky, I stick it in my tubs so I don't have to bend down much, and the bucket takes up most of the tub room. If you don't have a Thermo-machine, you will need a stick blender  ;may not be a problem for you) or a whisk and some elbow grease.

Thermomachine method

1. Take your Thermo-device jar and pour about 2 cups of of lukewarm water in, it should reach the 500mL mark
2. Add the bicarbonate soda and washing soda.
3. Add more water to cover the sodas (about 1.5L altogether is good)
4. Set the timer for 2 minutes, speed 5 and blend the mixture until it is fully smooth.
5. Pop your mixture into the bucket 
6. Using your jar to measure (3x 2L of tap water into the bucket), fill your bucket up to the 7.5L mark with tap water (any temperature is fine).
7. Add the castile soap, and stir with a long-handled spoon.
8. Using the funnel, pour into your containers. (I kept it in the bucket)
9. Add your essential oil of choice. (I used eucalyptus)

I used my Kogan thermoblend 1 to make this recipe. The residue would have washed out with water and  cloth, however I was doing a load of dishes in the dishwasher and chose to pop it in with the rest. It came out sparkling clean.

 

3 ingredients toothpaste

I ran out f toothpaste a while ago and was a bit lazy about making more. Basically finding the peppermint and or clove bud oil was the obstacle... then I started thinking... why do I need clovebud oil? Why not just grind some cloves? I used a small mortar and pestle for this recipe and put the mix Into a spice jar.

1/4 tsp Himalayan salt... Celtic would work too

 4-5 cloves

1/4 cup coconut oil.

 It's runny mix. Stir sediment into oil. Carefully pour a little of mix on to tooth brush.

 Method

Half fill small jar with coconut oil

grind salt and add to oil.

Grind cloves and add to mix. Stir. 

If your not In the middle of a very hot summer and your coconut oil is not runny... melt oil over low heat and stir through ground salt and spice. Add to small jar. Dip tooth brush into mix to use.