Flirtations with Soybeans, Part 2

 It is now established that I both need and enjoy soy milk. The problem is that making it by hand is such a long process. While I have the time right now before school starts again to spend an hour or so every other day boiling, blending, and squeezing the milk from the beans, there is a much more efficient method of doing all of that: buy a soy milk machine.

The only reason I didn't buy one right away was because I wanted to make sure that my initial passion remained burning. I so often get excited about something, and then, once the honeymoon phase wears off (usually when I get frustrated with how consistently terrible my initial attempts turn out to be), I set it aside for a while. I don't love that about myself, so I'm trying to make myself finish projects and be less of a perfectionist (after all, if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly until you get better at it). In this case, however, making soy milk might be time-consuming, but it's very simple, so I haven't managed to mess it up. I absolutely love the resulting milk mixed with a dash of salt, a tiny bit of sugar-free sweetener, and a dab of vanilla extract. I crave it. I actually had a dream the other night that featured people made out of various concentrations of soy milk. I won't try to go into detail on that dream because it was really weird and I cannot make any sense of it; but that's how much I've been thinking about soy milk. 

I started looking for soy milk machines, focusing on the sweet spot between milk-making capacity and price. I was thinking something in the range of about $140 would be acceptable. Even if I had to clean the machine every time I used it, it would still save me a lot of time overall. Then, Husband, noting the toll the hot flashes are taking on me, and anxious to help me stop spending my days going slowly mad by having a mini sun burst to life in my chest and causing me to sweat copiously at least once every hour, got involved in the search. When Husband gets involved, things happen--and usually for less than retail!

Long story short, this miracle is arriving to our porch on Monday:

This cost way more than my original $140 budget, but, of course, Husband found it on sale, and we decided it's a good investment because I will use it every day. We were also lucky to snag the last available machine on Amazon (sorry, everyone else!). 

This sucker has ten functions (including making various types of vegan milks, smoothies, and soup), but the most important functions to me are these: 1) it makes soy milk from dried beans; and 2) IT CLEANS AND STERILIZES ITSELF! I spend at least fifteen minutes cleaning up the pot, colander, bowls, blender, other utensils, and the countertop after making the milk. I soak a lot of beans at once so I have enough milk to last a couple days, but with his machine, I can choose to make a liter of soy milk or just one cup at a time--and, like a coffee machine, I can program it to start at a certain time. 

I tried making tofu for the first time yesterday, but the milk just would not coagulate into curds despite all my efforts. I wasted three liters of milk! I'll try again with a smaller amount of soy milk after I finish writing this. I asked my mom for tips (she's made tofu for years), so, hopefully, I'll have better luck with her advice. Maybe the nigari salts (magnesium chloride) I was using as a coagulant were too old and ineffective. Or I stirred it wrong. 

Wish me luck. I would absolutely love not having hot flashes anymore. There's nothing fun about them. If phytoestrogens can help me out, I'm all for it. 

This Is Not What I Planned to Write Today

If you're like me, you tend to overthink things. It's so irritating that my brain can take positive interactions with people and turn them into haunting questions like "do they actually find me completely annoying?" or "am I so stupid that I don't get that people are just laughing at me, not with me?" Perfectly positive and upbeat interactions get twisted into depressing question marks. I know my brain spirals are not reasonable and are not based in logic because I am not completely un-self-aware (I'm way too self-aware, which is the problem), but emotion is frequently and frustratingly impervious to logic and reason.

I got a call today from one of the ladies I am somewhat acquainted with at church. She had made a comment during a discussion on faith in our class, and she had shared some concerns she was dealing with. She was calling me because, during her comment, the ladies sitting behind her had laughed, and I guess she had been stewing over the worry that they were laughing at her because they thought she was stupid for having the concern. She even got a little emotional on the phone, which both surprised and annoyed her. 

Girl, I've been there and done that! 

I was happy to reassure her that the women who had chuckled were doing so in solidarity, not in derision. She had described a concern that every one of us has faced, and I told her that I always appreciate when someone is willing to make themselves vulnerable in order to ask a sincere question. Even if we don't all face the exact same situations, everyone could relate to her general concern, and that was what the women were laughing about. They wanted to communicate to this woman that they understood and commiserated. 

She was relieved and thanked me before we hung up, and I have been sitting here appreciating the fact that this woman had the sense to get someone else's more objective perspective in order to help her stop spiraling. I have an incredibly difficult time making myself vulnerable, and it fascinates me when people are able to let down their guards and allow themselves to be vulnerable--especially in public. I don't know if I can do that. I feel like I can expose only certain parts of myself, but there is a part of me I protect so fiercely that I doubt I can ever expose it to anyone, even Husband. I've gotten better, but when I was young, it used to almost put me into a rage if someone was able to guess what I was thinking about something that was a sensitive topic to me--only because I felt too exposed, and not because I have any rotting skeletons in my closet. I hid the rage, which I realized was actually fear, and I have become less anxious about exposure the older I've become, but I still feel like I too carefully curate my persona so that I can protect the tenderest, most vulnerable part of myself. Is that just me or is everyone like that? Am I emotionally stunted or is that merely part of my INFJ personality?

Anyway, let's be done with that. I managed to turn this into a bit of naval gazing, didn't I? The point is that I am in awe of this woman and her willingness to ask the question in order to get an objective answer. I was happy to be able to honestly and unreservedly reassure her that the women who laughed were on her side. I cannot imagine any of the women in that room would have purposefully laughed at her to make her feel bad. They just aren't like that. 

Sophia and Matt have come over to hang out and play Mario Party with Husband and the other kids, so I am going to go make some chicken parmesan to keep them here for dinner. Whatever else I am, I am pretty confident in my cooking skills. 

I Did Not Die at Girls Camp

 Did I think I was having a heart attack last Friday? Yes.

As you know, I went to Girls Camp last week. It was at a Church-owned high adventure camp perched on the side of a mountain at 7500 feet above sea level, which is about 1.5 miles straight up (2.3 km). At the camp, there were three different ropes courses, hatchet throwing, zip lines, and various other sports available. I don't know what good any of those activities are when you are gasping for air every time you exert yourself even a little, but we were lucky to get reservations and the girls were all very excited. I suppose we went in somewhat acclimated because, for us, it was only another 3000 feet higher from where we normally live. 

Adult leaders were encouraged to participate in all the activities, so I did. On our first day, we were scheduled for the high ropes course, the hardest of all the courses, with two levels of torture layered one on top of the other. You could either be really high up and scared or really, really high up and absolutely petrified.

One of the young women on the lower course moves her C-clamp around to get herself to the next challenge. 

Yes, I harnessed myself up and completed enough of the lower course exercises (three) to get myself around to the zip line that would take me back to solid ground. I may be old and fat, but I'm still ready for an adventure even when I have moments of "I've just made a serious mistake." I'm sure I looked like a beached whale that has been driven up a mountain and prodded up a ladder to flail--flukes a-flappin'--across ridiculously precarious cables and ropes. While it wasn't exactly fun, per se, it was very gratifying to have finished. 

A brave girl on the top ropes course.

That night, after having finally fallen asleep in my tent for a couple hours, I awoke in utter agony. I had sharp pains centered around my heart with shooting pain down both arms. There was no position in which I could get comfortable--even sitting up--and while I didn't cry, I did feel very sorry for myself for a good three hours. I reasoned that we were so far from any medical help that I might as well let everyone else get a good night's sleep before having to deal with my dead body in the morning. To make matters worse, my cell phone battery was dead, so I couldn't even use my phone to distract myself from the pain (I was one of the only ones who still had cell coverage at the camp). I just tossed and turned and listened to the pitter-patter of raindrops on my tent's fly cover and the small animals passing by my tent.

Around 5am, when the sky started lightening and the first bird woke up, it finally dawned on me (dawned, haha!) that this was not, in fact, a heart attack but deep muscle trauma from the ropes course. I had been holding almost my entire weight by my arms and shoulders for about 45 minutes the evening before, and that is not something I usually do at any altitude. Mentally comforted but still in physical agony, I decided it was late enough in the morning and light enough outside to go and rummage around for the First Aid box and swallow 800 mg of ibuprofen. Within an hour, I was feeling like I was going to live. I also felt pretty stupid, which isn't something ibuprofen can fix (alas). I should have packed ibuprofen in my bag.

Fortunately, everyone had a great time at camp--though not during any of the times we had to hike up any inclines, and all of the trails were either steeply downhill or steeply uphill. (I did not know my lungs could hurt that badly trying to gasp in enough oxygen.) Pranks were played, fears were overcome, and testimonies were strengthened. Hopefully, next year's camp will be easier on me because I'm losing weight, but I'm pretty sure I would have been in agony no matter what weight I carried after doing that ropes course. The fact that the couple missionaries who run the camp are older than I am and were still shimmying around that &$*(# ropes course like it was nothing is just embarrassing, but it's a good incentive to keep going.

The two junior camp leaders having a cooling swim in a lake before we headed up into the higher altitudes. 

My Initial Flirtation with Soybeans

EDIT: I realize now that I am repeating myself a bit from my last post. Sorry about that. I don't tend to re-read my previous posts before starting a new one. 

I ordered some non-GMO soybeans and just finished making my first batch of soy milk. I am surprised to find that I like it.

I didn't always appreciate soy. In fact, for a long time, I have considered it dangerous in large quantities; but dealing with the return of hot flashes and doing more research in desperation has convinced me I was wrong -- at least for myself, as others may not do as well with soy. As a Blood Type A, soy is supposed to be more medicine than food for me, working miracles in my hormone-imbalanced, middle-aged body.

When I was growing up, my mom cooked healthy food. I'm talking crunchy granola, tree-hugging, hippy-type food even though she was not a hippy in any way. She ground her own wheat and made bread, we raised chickens for the eggs and meat, she grew a garden for years, and everything we ate was as natural as she could get it. Bean-cheese toast (on homemade wheat bread, of course) was a frequent dinner dish because it was a complete protein. She often said she only shopped around the edges of the grocery store, where all the whole foods reside. 

We were also not rolling in the dough, so Mom never spent money on the unhealthy convenience foods and sugary treats that my fellow schoolmates had in their lunches (which made me pretty jealous sometimes). I think I've mentioned before that my high school lunches (which she was kind enough to make for me even though she could have told me to be a big girl and make my own, so thank you, Mom!) always included a wedge of raw red cabbage that I was instructed to eat for dessert, as cabbage has enzymes to aid in digestion.

My mom's early flirtations with soybeans gave me food nightmares for years. In elementary school, I remember one day pulling out my lunch and finding that it consisted of a cup full of rice mixed with boiled soybeans, seasoned with some soy sauce. I liked rice and soy sauce, but I hated boiled soybeans. They made me gag every time I had to eat them. The slight crunch, the taste, the consistency of the pulp left in my teeth after chewing...everything about them repulsed me in a visceral way (to this day I cannot stand edamame). I gagged my way through a couple bites of the rice and soybeans before I gave up and sat in dismay in that cheery lunchroom painted with massive Peanuts characters, my lunch inedible. I felt pretty sorry for myself.

Around 2005 or so, Mom was going through menopause, so she pulled soybeans out of her arsenal again. This time, she made soy milk and tofu and ate them daily. Doing that prevented her from suffering from the symptoms of The Change, and though it was time-consuming to make homemade soy milk and tofu, it was well worth it to her to be able to control what was in the final products. We lived with my parents at the time, and I can testify that her firm tofu, fried with soy sauce and garlic, was delicious, though I wasn't as much of a fan of the plain soy milk. 

Fast forward to today, and my tastebuds must have changed because my body is desperate for the soy phytoestrogens it needs to balance my hormones. 

I soaked the beans overnight before rubbing off most of the thin bean skins and discarding them. Then I boiled the beans for exactly fifteen minutes before draining them and blending them thoroughly with some fresh water. I added a little vanilla and a squirt of liquid Stevia, and the resulting smoothie was dang good and very filling. The soy milk itself has a very neutral flavor with just a hint of sweetness. 

The nut milk bag I ordered with a tofu press and nagari salts (for coagulating soy milk into curds to make tofu) hasn't arrived yet, so I couldn't squeeze the milk out of the soybean pulp (okara); instead, I just drank the well-blended okara and milk together, which I enjoyed like a thick milkshake. Then I added a spoonful of peanut butter, a sprinkle of cocoa powder, and a pinch of salt, and that was also really good. 

I soaked a lot of beans and didn't use all of them for today's experiment. I will freeze the rest of the soaked, boiled beans to await my return from Girls Camp, which starts tomorrow.

 I'm trying to be excited. I better go pack.