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.
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