Flourless Carrot Cake Recipe: Made WIth Juiced Carrot Pulp

Do you like juicing carrots? Have you ever wondered if there was something you could do with the leftover carrot pulp to keep it zero waste? I have a good solution for you, a tasty flourless carrot cake. Our carrot shampoo bars are made with freshly juiced Organic carrots. I end up with a lot of carrot pulp from making our Carrot Shampoo bars and freeze the pulp for baking with later.

Flourless Carrot Cake by Aquarian Bath

2 cups cooked garbonzo beans

3 cups carrot pulp

5 eggs (try "flax egg" to make it vegan)

1 T molasses

3/4 c sugar

1/4 cup Organic Extra Virgin Olive oil

2/3 t pink salt

2 t Organic ginger powder

4 t Organic cinnamon powder

2 t baking soda

1 t Organic Stevia powder (green)

First mix the garbanzo beans in a food processor with olive oil until smooth.  Mix together with carrot pulp, eggs, sugar and molasses followed by the additional ingredients.  Bake in an oiled pan at 350 degrees F until the top becomes firm.  Test the inside of the cake with a tooth pick  or knife before pulling out of the oven. 

You can find Organic spice ingredients for this recipe at Mountain Rose Herbs. 

Carrot Shampoo bar with Lemon, Bay Rum and Cedarwood essential oils.

Plastic Free July Update Featuring Two Cracker Recipes

Sour Dough Crackers and Flax seed crackers may be able to replace bagged and box crackers for our family.

We are half way through Plastic Free July, so I felt it was time for an update.  The experience so far has been exciting, empowering, frustrating, depressing, inspiring and startling. Now that I have recovered from a bee sting on my foot, which kept me for 3 days from being my family's plastic cop and food preparer, I will try not to dwell on the depressing aspects. 

Aquarian Bath Update

I will start with the business end of the challenge for Aquarian Bath. So far the amount of plastic we have generated for business is relatively low, mostly clear plastic tape from suppliers or bags from bulk oils.  We try to buy the largest containers of oils possible to minimize packaging waste. Large hard plastic containers are repurposed for bulk grain storage, etc. I realized that one of our suppliers wraps the Dead Sea Mud containers that we order twice a year with a single layer of bubble wrap, even though the overall packing fill for the box is biodegradable. I contacted the supplier to tell them about Plastic Free July, and they have indicated that they would comply with my request to use minimal plastic packaging on all the items. The most startling experience that I had was to have an order from Mountain Rose Herbs come with plastic air pillows. My understanding from when I contacted them about it, was that they were reusing it.  I think this was meant to be a big lesson for me. I have been ordering from Mountain Rose Herbs for around 8 years. It was too ironic that they shipped to me with plastic fill for the first time during Plastic Free July. Usually they ship with a pretty green recycled paper that we in turn use to pack orders. The lesson of course is don't assume, always ask for biodegradable packaging. The good news is that Mountain Rose Herbs does primarily ship with biodegradable fill, and they have indicated that they will accommodate plastic free shipping requests.  I was worried that they had switched to 100% plastic fillers. The biggest dilemma that I have right now with Aquarian Bath's plastic "dilemma box" is our bagged Extra Virgin Olive oil. For years we had been buying good quality European Extra Virgin Olive Oil (but not Organic certified) in cans from a local restaurant supplier. We could even pick it up by bicycle. I really liked that option and felt comfortable with it. When that supplier became unreliable a couple months ago, we switched to QAI certified Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a bag which holds 35 pounds, the equivalent of around 143 of our Olive Oil soaps. Wanting to support Organic is important to us, so we have mixed feelings about whether or not we will be going back to the good quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil in cans. We are not at the level where I can take in an entire drum of Organic Extra Virgin. 

Individual/ Family Update

Since Aquarian Bath is a family business, it did not make sense for me to sign up only for the business challenge, but also the individual/family challenge. During the first half of Plastic Free July, I have noticed that the main source of plastic waste which our family of four is generating is from Organic produce, lids from coconut or hemp milk containers, and bags from snack foods, so I have taken steps to cut out the big ones, which is bags from boxes of crackers.  But before I go on about the cracker recipes we made partial success with, I just have to take a moment to wonder if our family will ever reach a healthy equilibrium with the quality of the foods we are consuming and the amount of waste we are creating. Overall as a family, we agree that we want to eat as low on the food chain as possible; a plant based diet. These are the many times conflicting issues we are already trying to work with in terms of food preparations for one or more family members:

Tendency to excessive weight gain

Tendency to excessive weight loss

Aversion to (gag reflex) Avocado and Quinoa (staples in many in vegan diets)

Aversion to Dairy and Meats

Craving for Dairy and Meats 

Priority on Organic foods 

Priority on non-GMO (un-poisoned, nutrient dense) foods

Inability to chew hard or crunchy foods due to medical history

General distaste for soups, even really good ones

No un-fermented soy

Tendency toward high blood sugar with family history of diabetes

Tendency to over eat

Tendency to forget to eat

This list could go on, but I will leave it at that. Having burned out multiple times over a period of years on trying to prepare regular family meals with all these factors under consideration, adding zero plastic to the list adds another layer of difficulty. 

Our biggest successes this month is to get the children to get over their *need* for straws at restaurants. The solution was to tell them before going out that there would be no using straws for them at the restaurant. Wow, was it really that simple? We have also brought back home grown sprouts as a staple, having a greater awareness that the sprouts will be eaten more often if they are served as a salad, rather than sitting in the fridge waiting to be remembered. Another success is that our CSA, Front Porch Pickings, was willing to start delivering our locally produced produce without plastic bags. They used paper bags for Organic cherry tomatoes which were produced locally. Some of the produce like apples and bananas only come with bags and plastic tape.  Not from the CSA, but frozen blueberries in bags is something the kids eat often. Being in Central Florida, we can get Papayas off of trees this time of year, even in the backyard, but the kids hate them. Go figure. I get stuck often on produce options. I've had bad luck with blueberry bushes, which I've been trying to grow for a few years. On the positive side, the child who was weaned onto wild cherry tomatoes and broccoli that she picked herself while just learning to walk now grazes on kale and tomatoes in the front yard.

Moderate Plastic Free Cracker Success

This week we achieved two homemade crackers, which were partial successes. The first is a sour dough cracker, and the second is a flaxseed cracker made with a dehydrator. I have another Plastic Free July participant and customer to thank for the inspiration to get a sour dough starter going for crackers, tortilla and bread making. Check out Anne-Marie Bonneau of Zero Waste Chef for details on how to make a sour dough starter and sour dough crackers. Sour dough was something I tried a few years ago with very bad results, so I was glad to get off to a good start with this starter.  I followed her recipe precisely:

Sour Dough crackers:

2/3 cup unfed starter (see Anne-Marie's starter recipe here)

3 tablespoons Organic coconut oil
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon salt (I use pink salt)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Extra Virgin Olive Oil for topping 
pink salt for topping 

First, I mixed the Organic Coconut oil with the starter. Then I mixed the other dry ingredients in a bowl and added them to the starter-coconut oil.  I kneaded them and let the dough sit covered with a towel at room temperature overnight. In the morning I rolled out the dough on a floured surface as thin as possible (1-2 mm), transferred it to a parchment paper on a cookie sheet and rolled it out a bit more. Then I cut the dough into squares and baked them in a 350 F oven until they were crispy, around 10-15 minutes.  I lost my timer at that moment, so I didn't time it exactly. Eight minutes, followed by rotation and again eight minutes was suggested.

These crackers taste really great, like Annie's certified non-GMO Cheddar Bunnies.  The only problem with these sour dough crackers was that for someone with chewing difficulties they were basically impossible to eat. I am not sure if there is something I can do to fix that. I didn't like the texture of the ones that were baked for a shorter time period.

The next nearly plastic free cracker epiphany was courtesy of a mystery guest at Dr. Mercola's 60th Birthday party; (and yes I am proud to say Joe is also one of our customers). I never found out who brought the straight up flaxseed crackers, but they were amazing. I was excited to try making them, because we already get Organic flaxseed in 25 pound paper bags for our flax therapy pillows and hens. So it is not uncommon to have 50-200 pounds handy!  I searched pinterest for a how-to and found this recipe which I used as a guide. The recipe requires a food dehydrator:

Flaxseed Cracker Recipe

2 1/2 cups of Organic Brown flaxseed 

2 T Organic chia seed

1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes

chopped veggie bits: Organic onion, Organic tomato

Organic Onion Powder to taste

Organic Garlic Powder to taste

Pink salt to taste

The first step was to soak the seeds in water for about an hour and a half. You need a lot of water because they swell up. While the seeds are soaking, line the trays of a food dehydrator with parchment paper, but skip the bottom tray if you have the common round plastic stacking tray type dehydrators.  If you don't then the bottom tray could overheat.  A better quality dehydrator, if you can afford it, is sold by our friends at Fresh and Alive for $200. The trays are made with break resistant polycarbonator, however. I'm not sure what the best way would be to be to make these crackers without a plastic dehydrator. Maybe in a solar dehydrator with wooden trays?

After the trays are lined,  strain the water from the seeds and add them to mixing bowl. Mix in your other ingredients and give it a taste to see if you like it. Then make a thin paste-like layer over the parchment paper. After the trays are lined and the seeds are soaked,   It takes about 2 and a half days to dehydrate them.  They are delicate and crispy, a much better texture than the sour dough crackers.  

This recipe I filed under "Wow amazing, I can't believe everyone else in my family didn't love it." I'm going to try next to make a hybrid recipe between the flax crackers and the sour dough in order to try to achieve the same sour dough flavor with a better texture from the addition of flax seeds. 

My next goal for before the end of the month, is to try again with a granola recipe, since I caught us buying boxed and bagged Organic granola, because it was on sale. I know I used to make granola, but I don't quite remember what put me off the habit a few years back, though I am guessing it may have been the high sugar content. We currently buy the 50 pound bags of Organic oats for oatmeal and for our chickens, so I will try making it again to see if we can make some to have stashed for a special treat instead of overeating it.

Thanks for reading our update.  Please feel welcome to leave a comment.

Cory Trusty, president

Aquarian Bath

Aquarian Bath's brand new Lavender Vanilla Shampoo Bar is
made with the same base formula that we use for our
 Henna Shampoo Bars and Orange Lavender Shampoo Bars

So Good... Blueberry Vegan "Ice Cream" Recipe

Do you love ice cream, but want to avoid dairy or other troubling ingredients? When I have looked at the grocery to find a brand with minimal or no plastic packaging, no food coloring, no GMO corn syrup, no artificial flavors, and no conflict palm oil, big surprise, I'm always out of luck. That's why I was so happy to learn about this vegan 'ice cream' making method.  It tastes delicious, and is also easy on those with calorie restricted diets.  This ice cream doesn't store well in the freezer so it is best to make enough to eat as soon as it is finished. This recipe requires a high power blender, such as a Vitamix. 

Ingredients (serves 4)

5-6 bananas

1 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 -3/4 cup coconut milk

Preparation

First step:  Peel, cut, and freeze around 5-6 bananas.  Freeze or purchase other chunked frozen fruits, around 1 cup.  We used blueberries. Let the fruits freeze overnight or until they are hard like ice cubes.  

Step 2: When the bananas are hard add the chunks to your Vitamix or other high power blender. Use the pulse setting to break up the banana chunks starting on low power.  If the blades get stuck, you will need to stop and tamp down the banana pieces a few times.  With the bananas being so thick, it reminds me of making peanut butter, and you might find the directions for making peanut butter in a Vitamix useful.  Keep blending with increasing speed until the bananas are completely smooth.

Step 3: After the bananas are smooth, add your blue berries, blend and add your coconut milk.  You can start out with a 1/3 cup and add more until you reach the consistency you prefer.

Step 4: Serve immediately topped with blueberries and enjoy

Thanks to Moira Johnson of Organic Kitty Land for introducing me to this vegan Ice Cream making method.

Rosemary's Fire Cider Remedy Stimulates Digestion and Clears the Sinuses

Fire Cider is a traditional herbal remedy which is warming and stimulating to the body.  With ingredients like cayenne, onion and horseradish, it is very helpful for improving slow digestion and reducing sinus congestion with wet watery or white phlegm. This home remedy is in a vinegar base which is nice for people who cannot take alcohol based remedies. One version of Fire Cider was popularized by Rosemary Gladstar in her herbal classes and publications. I learned this recipe from the late great Lady Barbara Hall around 10 years ago on the Healing Wise forum. Your can watch Rosemary teaching how to make Fire Cider in this video, something she has been doing for the last 20 years.  

Unfortunately a young and unscrupulous company has connived to trademark the Fire Cider name while selling this product widely, despite protest against the trademark from Rosemary Gladstar. To add insult to injury, this company has also used this trademark to prevent other small herbalists from selling their Fire Cider products. Specifically, Etsy sellers were forced to remove their Fire Cider products due to complaints over trademark infringement.

The heat that this has created in the herbal community rivals the spicy remedy itself. For our part, as an herbalist owned business which cares about this remedy and other like it, we have signed this petition at change.org to request a cancellation of this trademark.  And more significantly we have educated the decision maker at the store near us which sells this product.  To that end, the buyer is now contemplating an alternatives to selling this company's product, such as a Fire Cider Making class or an ingredient display with Fire Cider recipe cards. If you happen to see "Fire Cider TM" in a store, please be sure to ask the store manager to either 1) boycott this company's product or 2) request that the company relinquishes the trademark.

This issue may seem small when there are so many other important issues that need to be urgently addressed today, however access to herbal medicines like these should not be blocked due to petty greed. We have never considering trademarking our herbal remedies, but I hope we are never asked to stop selling products like our "Black Drawing Salve," which is just one of many blacks salves that are commonly made by herbalists whose communities rely on these types of products.  I was startled to find out that the term "Soap Loaf" was trademarked a few years back, but the mark was forfeited under pressure from other soap makers.  The petition to revoke the Fire Cider trade mark currently has close to 8000 signatures.  Will you please sign the petition today, to help reach the goal of 10,000 signatures?

Thanks a bunch and I hope you try making this remedy.

Cory Trusty
president Aquarian Bath

Organic DIY Chicken Feed Recipe

A couple of months ago we switched from buying chicken crumble feed for our hens to an Organic mix of bulk foods.  Since we made the switch our hens have much darker yolks and they want to start eating this feed mix as soon as we bring it out to them.  They are mostly free range bird and had lost interest in the crumble feed, so it seemed like a waste to keep buying it for them.  This recipe is a modified feed recipe from Farhan Ahsan who is the owner at The Poultry Guide blog.  Farhan's original recipe also calls for corn, but we still put out a little bit of scratch grains for our birds. I am thinking to switch to Organic corn when we run out of scratch grains.  Last year I had some luck growing small grained Cherokee popping corn.

Organic Chicken Feed 

• 16 cups of Organic Winter Wheat

• 12 cups of  Organic rolled oats

• 4 cups of whole Organic green lentils

• 1 cup Organic Sesame seeds

• 2 cups Organic brown Flaxseed

• Quarter cup kelp* granules

*I only use Sargasso sea weed from our Florida beaches.  I am not comfortable using seaweed from the Pacific Ocean due to the ongoing radiation releases from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.  

The great thing about this recipe, is all these ingredients are whole foods that you can also use for the rest of your family.  We buy most of these ingredients in 25-50 pound bags at our local Organic grocery store.  The wheat can be made into bread, sprouted grain bread, wheat grass, or cat grass.  We use the Oats for either oatmeal or no bake cookies.  The lentils are great for sprouting.  The sesame seeds we buy in a bit smaller quantity from Mountain Rose Herbs.

Our 2 birds take about 1/2 cup of this mixture per day, plus garden scraps, weeds and other foods that they forage in our backyard.

In a Radioactive World Substitute Zeolite for Almond in your Bath & Body Recipes - modified Miracle Grains Recipe included

Since the triple meltdown and subsequent China Syndrome event at Fukushima Daiichi, we must be very careful as to choosing foods and bath and body product ingredients which have tendencies to bioaccumulate radionuclides.  Essentially, these are foods that have a chemical affinity for certain radioactive particles in the air, water, or soil, and will tend to accumulate these particles.  Generally speaking, the higher up the food chain you eat, the more radioactivity you will be exposed to internally through your food, but there are notable exceptions.

California strawberries, pistachios, almonds, and a range of other products have all shown elevated levels of Cesium-137, one of the aerosolized radionulides released en masse during the failure and immediate aftermath of the Daiichi reactor failures.  Further, the flow of contamination into the ocean and atmosphere from the failed reactors continues, with the accident remaining uncontained, and the infrastructure which maintains cooling to the spent fuel losing structural integrity.  Practically, this means that contaminated food is
not limited to 2011 harvests, as the source of the contamination continues to spread it across N. America.  The disaster is far from over.



The contamination being released into the atmosphere in an ongoing fashion begins a continual circuit around the pole, riding a weather pattern known as the tropopause.  Evidence of this contamination is abundant, as one need only watch the cold fronts sweeping south across N. America carrying contaminated air, and correlate that data with Geiger counter readings from publicly available monitoring networks.

California is a major producer of Almonds, and is also one of the areas hard hit by radioactive fallout. Radioactive fallout concentrations are predicted to become increasingly more toxic on the west coast of North America according to scientific models.  For this reason, Almonds is an food and body product ingredient that we have decided to avoid in our diet and in our formulas.  No raw almonds, Almond milk, Almond oil, Almond butter, or Almond Kernel meal.  Although I have not seen results published regarding Apricot Kernel meal published, we are reticent to use this ingredient, because Almonds and Apricots are both in the Prunus genus. I would be happy to learn if there is evidence that Apricot kernels do not accumulate Cesium similar to Almonds.   For body products requiring mild abrasive scrubbiness of Almond or Apricot kernel meal, we are now using powdered Zeolite as a substitute.

Zeolite is a microporous mineral, meaning it has regular patterns of holes in its molecular structure, and has the characteristic ability to chealate, or bond with and hold, radionuclides. It has been used in water purification, remediation of soil, and most commonly in laundry detergent and as horse stall freshener.

One very famous body product recipe which includes Almond Meal is Rosemary Gladstar's Miracle Grains Recipe.  It is often used as a gentle soap alternative, and  it can be modified with other herbs.  We found that coarse Zeolite powder is similar in texture to coarsely ground Almonds and makes a great 1:1 substitute in Rosemary's recipe. 

Modified Miracle Grains Recipe with Zeolite

• 1/8 cup Zeolite - moderately coarse powder
• 1/8 cup ground Organic Lavender Flower Buds
• 1/8 c ground Organic Rose petals
• 1 c ground oatmeal
• 2 cups white kaolin clay
• A few drops of essential oil, we used Rose Geranium

This also makes a nice scrub which can be used as a natural microdermabrasion, when you modify this recipe to use a high concentration of Zeolite and a lower concentration of clay,

Pumpkin Peanut Butter Soup

I recently posted to the EcoEtsy blog about one of my favorite things to do with pumpkins, which is making pumpkin peanut butter soup.  I included a recipe that I work from, but I have never followed the recipe precisely, and I have always had great results working with these ingredients together.  Check out the post and give this soup a try if you have a lot of pumpkin or even squash stashed from your garden harvest.

Easy DIY: Aromatherapy Ear Drop Recipe

Yesterday I made my first guest post at the Norwegian nature photography and simple living blog Kanelstrand.  The post includes an aromatherapy ear drop recipe that I have been using for many years.   How simple?  It just has 3 ingredients: Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Lavender essential oil and Tea Tree Essential oil.   Easy DIY: Aromatherapy Ear Drop Recipe | Kanelstrand  I will be writing simple home remedy posts at Sonya's blog once a month, and I'll be sure to reshare them here.  

During cold damp winter months, it is important to keep your ears covered with a hat or a scarf. Exposure to wind can quickly lead to a chill.  When the body is chilled it is more susceptible to infections. This is something that has been understood in Traditional Chinese Medicine for many generations. It is always advised to protect the upper back or "Wind Gate" to avoid wind chills. Also importantly, do not go to bed or send children to bed with wet hair. It is too hard on the body to sleep with wet hair and it can often lead to stuffiness in the ears or head. After swimming one should take care to clear the ears of any water that has gotten stuck. This can be done after swimming by tilting the head to the side and filling the ear with a small amount of rubbing alcohol (Isopropanol) and then lifting the head to let the water drain out. If you are not comfortable using rubbing alcohol, then plain water can also work. Now that you know a few things you can do to prevent ear troubles, what can you make to have on hand just in case for ear aches?

Aromatherapy Ear Drop Recipe

• 1 oz Extra Virgin Olive oil 
• 18 drops of pure Lavender* (Lavandula angustifolia) essential oil 
• 18 drops of pure Tea Tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) essential oil

Add Extra Virgin Olive Oil and essential oils to an amber glass bottle.  Label the bottle with the ingredients and date and store in a cool dark place out of reach from children. I use this oil around 3-5 times a day if I have an ear ache.  If it is cold out, one should warm the oil bottle in the hands first before adding drops to the ear.   To apply turn the head to the side, add a few drops of oil to the ear canal until the drops are felt to 'fill' the ear. Put a piece of cotton gently outside the ear to prevent the oil from leaking out. Avoid stuffing a small piece of cotton into the ear canal where it could become stuck.

*It is important to choose pure esentials oils that have not been adulterated or extended for this recipe. There are many disreputable sellers who extend their oils with chemicals. You can test for purity of an essential oil by adding a drop of oil to a piece of paper. After 24 hours there should be no residue visible on the paper.

Pickled Purslane Recipe

Purslane up close under the Microscope prior to bloom phase by AquarianBath

Would you like to know what to do with purslane in your garden?  Did you know it is a tasty edible?  Check out my blog post at EcoEtsy on how to make pickled purslane stems and find out ways that other EcoEtsy members use edible weeds in their garden.  I am now a monthly food and gardening contributer at the EcoEtsy blog so I will be sure to share here when I post articles there.  

Read the article here: Edible Garden Weeds: Pickled Purslane and More

Kombucha Making Resources and Recipes

I started making Kombucha tea recently and it has been a lot of fun. I had been wanting to do it for a while, and now that I'm making it regularly I wish I had started sooner. I just wanted to make a blog post about it in case anyone else was interested to try it out.  Kombucha is a fermented drink made with beneficial probiotics. It's alive! The Kombucha is started from a SCOBY, which stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. There are many health claims for Kombucha. I can't say that I have experienced any health changes with it. I am primarily interested in it because I can make good tasting fizzy low alcohol drinks with it myself at home with Organic ingredients at low cost.

Getting Started: Acquiring a Culture and First Ferment

If you are lucky like I was, you can get a SCOBY from a friend. My gardening friend Suzanne had one that she traded me for a shampoo bar. She also pointed to this helpful video from Cultures for Health. Cultures for Health also sells dehydrated SCOBY or you can join the international culture sharing group on Facebook where there are many people who are willing to share. I recently free received water kefir grains from a very kind member of the group. Water kefir also makes a similar fermented beverage which is milder in flavor. Also for the Etsy shoppers, you can find SCOBY at Wells of Health. Wells of Health also has a wonderful range of yogurt cultures available.

For those who do not have access to youtube, I will summarize the steps for making Kombucha.

First you brew a strong tea of black tea, Oolong, or green tea. For 1 quart of green tea you need to add 1/4 cup of white sugar. Some people also use sucanat. I have used turbinado and brown sugar. The white sugar is supposed to work the best and create the most stable pH, which is important for safety, but I haven't had any trouble with the sugars I have used.  When the tea cools you can add it to a clean jar that has 1/4 cup of starter tea or 1/4 cup of vinegar. I have been cleaning my jars with vinegar which was suggested by my friend. I also rinse my hands and utensils with vinegar first.  Do not use metal utensils.  Into the clean jar you add the SCOBY and the tea. Next cover the jar with a coffee filter or clean cloth and secure it with a rubber band or string. Next you wait for a new SCOBY to form at the top of your jar. The amount of time it takes for the SCOBY to form depends on the temperature and the size of your starter SCOBY. The SCOBY should be off white in color and it will have a bit of a rubbery texture. Orange, Black or Green on a SCOBY is a sign of a mold contaminated culture that needs to be tossed out. I haven't had that problem. It takes only about 5-7 days for a SCOBY to form on top of my culture, but I have a pretty big starter and the temperature where I have the culture is pretty warm, on top of a refrigerator in a 81 degree house.

The Fun Part: Secondary Ferment

Some people will tell you that the plain fermented Kombucha tastes great. I don't really care for it unless it has been flavored and bottled to make a fizzy finished drink. To make your secondary fermentation, you fill a bottle that you can seal tightly about 80% of the way full with your primary tea fermentation and then fill the bottle the rest of the way with herbal tea, juice, or fruit. I use Grolsh bottles.

Source: google.nl via Christian on Pinterest

So far I have made 4 different flavored Kombucha Drinks. I made up these fun free labels at Labley.com to go along with the recipes for them. So far my favorite is the Hibiscus Kombucha, which my Kombucha loving sister in law also likes. For this Kombucha I simply boil water together with a tablespoon or 2 of Organic Hibiscus sabdariffa powder from Mountain Rose Herbs  and a bit more sugar for about 5 minutes. With the Hibiscus Kombucha I let it sit for about 3-4 days before refrigerating and then drinking it. The top of the brew will have a little film of a baby SCOBY forming which you can strain off and compost. The Hibiscus gives the Kombucha a tart berry flavor. Hibiscus is fun to use to make a natural berry flavored glaze or frosting. I love so much I even made a Hibiscus Tooth Powder.

Holy Basil Kombucha is also really good. The flavor from the essential oil of the plant really gives it a lovely smell and initial flavor. I want to try Holy Basil together with other herbs next time though to give it a deeper flavor beneath the initial Holy Basil top note. My my sister said the Holy Basil Kombucha was the best she has ever had. I love that herb! To make it I simple gathered up tops from my plants and made a strong tea with it. When it cooled I added it to the primary ferment. This also takes about 3-5 days before fizzing up and being ready to drink. I check the top of the tea through the glass to look for bubbles to get an idea if it is ready or not.

If you want a very fizzy Kombucha, just add fresh cantelope. It will be wildly fizzy after only a short time. My bottles of Cantelope Kombucha can only ferment for a day or 2. Then they have to go into the fridge. I suggest opening them with a towel on top when they are completely cold, otherwise you might have an explosive fizzy mess to clean up. I lost a lot of tea the first time I opened one of them before it was completely cooled.

As gardener who always has a stockpile of Seminole pumpkin I'm always looking for something new to do with it. A couple of weeks ago I make a fresh batch of pumpkin pie soaps. I requests for whole pumpkin pie soaps last year, so I wanted to be ready for this Thanksgiving.

I had lots of puree left over and my first fermentation was ready to go, so I added pumpkin puree with shredded ginger. I can't wait to try again with a bit of cinnamon and clove added too.

Do you have a favorite Kombucha flavored tea? If so I would love to know what kind. Leave a comment to let me know. Drunk Off Kombucha

Happy Mother's Day: Bath Salt Recipe for Mom

Happy Day to all the Mother's out there. I just made myself a big batch of bath salts today. Maybe you would like to make some for yourself or for your mom. The ingredients are not hard to find. This recipe will fit in a 1 quart mason jar.

Lavender Bath Salts:
1.75 cups unscented Epsom Salts (available at drug stores)
1.5 cups coarse or fine Sea Salt
0.5 cup Borax (or Baking Soda)
0.25 cups Bentonite or Kaolin Clay
1 tsp Lavender essential oil.

Stir together and add to your mason jar.

Enjoy! This is a better recipe than what you will find at the corner drug store. Bath salts at the average drug store may have essential oils, but I challenge you to find one that has not been polluted with cheap chemical fragrance oils. For a review of why we want products with essential oils instead of Fragrance oils you can review this older blog post Comparing Essential oils with Fragrance Oils in Consumer Products, How and Why to Spot the Difference.

There are a million and one variations on bath salt recipes do you have one to share? Please feel welcome to comment with a recipe.

Photo by Rowan.M.McDonald. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license.