Coconut Yoghurt

Short story: I made some yoghurt.

Long story:

My brother got an ice cream maker for his birthday, and the person who was more excited about it was me. One of the only seemingly pointless kitchen appliances I've been to scared to ask for! Sure, it's tiny, but I'll keep it churning!

My issue, however, was that we were out of any form of canned coconut, and I couldn't make the ice cream.

So on the weekend, I got dad to take me to the supermarket and I bought $20 worth of Aroy-D (I don't care about the unlabelled potassium stuff). Walking through the dairy aisle for dad's food, I saw a little expensive container, and I said Coconut Yoghurt. Last time I'd bought a coconut yoghurt it mysteriously disappeared. I decided to buy the orange lidded pot and keep it in my sights at all times.

And then it hit me. I had all this coconut cream and all these little bacteria. Why don't I combine the two?! It made sense to me. So I hogged the oven for 24 hours and followed the recipe that's posted on Michelle Tam's site but isn't hers.

You may as well go to her site for the guest post, I haven't changed a thing.

http://nomnompaleo.com/post/45263391503/paleo-plans-simple-coconut-milk-yogurt

It was pretty runny. However, if you put it in the fridge (as you should once it's ALIVE...) you'll get more creamy Greek style yoghurt on top, and a thickish probiotic coconut water underneath that you could have in smoothies or whatnot. Or toughen up and mix it together and pour it like (thin) heavy cream on your passionfruit and blueberries.

A note of... warning, however (it's not that bad). If you pour it on something cold like mango sorbet and let it sit for a bit, the delicious fat will solidify and you'll get an awesome cracked effect.

I'll definitely have to hog the oven some more.

Fifth Day of Spring

Like I said, it's the fifth day of spring and I have gazillions of bacteria and other general lifey stuffs in my jars!

Yesterday they didn't look so promising so I was glad that some bubbly action was going on when I had a look at them this morning. That and the combined effect of pretty much neglecting them opening-wise for the jars that are hard to open and not pressing the weird carrot salad thingos down once they started floating. I actually have no hope in that one.

And I tried an orange from the bag that the orange segment ferments are from. They are the blandest and least tasting oranges I've ever tasted! (however, I must admit my orange tasting hasn't been challenged much) So I also don't expect much from those. I did put a pinch of sugarcane sugar in them, but that doesn't mean it'll actually work.

Anyway, enough about my gloomy bacteria that are set up for failure:

I popped into the physics class this afternoon, just for fun. And even though I did gather a partial headache which barely happens to me any more, it was actually FUN. Yes, I am saying that learning about how wavelengths are entertaining and enjoyable. I learnt a heap of random stuff I won't be able to use apart from cool party trick conversations ('Did you know that that star is mostly helium?'), mostly that the visible wavelengths (light) that a gaseous element emits when heated is unique to whatever that element is (for example, helium emits orange, green and blue wavelengths, because of how far electrons jump across electron shells), that the word 'assess' in an exam question means that you have to state one side and give reasons for it, and that the elements that make up a star can be shown in the aforementioned 'blueprint' each element had.

And we had a discussion about whether copying someone's exact molecules and locations of such and whatnot, and replicating them elsewhere, was moral or not and if that's the same person or not. I don't think it would be. I think there's other things in the human that we have absolutely no idea about. Like why living outdoors more is better than living in the exact same way, but inside and all artificial and stimulated. There's gotta be stuff that we're missing out on when we chemically replicate stuff. For example (I'm just throwing this one out there), if there's some chemical or hormone or SOMETHING in breast milk or exchanged between mother and daughter when breast feeding that we just don't know about yet, and we give our babies formula made of all the stuff we do know, they're not receiving all that unknown good (or bad) stuff, and thus not being as nicely developed as another in the same environment but with a boob in their face instead of a plastic piece of junk. 

Actually, come to think of it, why the hell do we use friken PLASTIC bottles to feed our babies??

Korea's Hidden Superfood Meal

I must admit, this isn't a traditional bibimbap in the very least. I just got excited because I found some good kimchi yesterday. Since 'bibimbap' means 'mixed rice', this is definitely not that, but I've got some Korean ingredients (or just Asian) and raw yolks. It's the same concept, right? I wouldn't be surprised if Koreans had the best digestive systems in all the land. This stuff is so acidic! (Well, my random version was).

From the top going clockwise I had some funny brined mushroom things, a whole cubes avocado with apple cider vinegar to stop it from oxidising (and there was a LOT of avo by the time I'd mixed it all in), kimchi hiding under everything else, far too much wakame for my liking (but it hid well in the kimchi vinegary sauce), scrambled egg whites (I had to make something look like rice), fish sauce in the dish at the top, md of course raw egg yolks. I so want to try a normal version with some sliced beef or raw fish and rice to sop up all the vinegar. I'll have to get my Korean friend to take me out one day :)

Glorious Gelatine Mask

Like you all know, I'm over my eczema. It absolutely sucks, and I'm trying every sort of natural remedy to get rid of it. The only one that I SHOULD really be doing is stressing less, which is the reason behind my eczema anyway. But, nevertheless, I like smothering my sore skin with stuff that I just hope will make it go away. The hope is always there. And yesterday, that wishful thinking actually did something!

The funny mask was a recipe from the lovely Wellness Mama, but she didn't add much detail so I really wasn't prepared for what I was doing. Here's what I think would be the best way to go about this mask:
- Mix the warm water and the lemon juice together
- Slowly add them to the gelatine, stirring/whisking as you do so
- Once you've got a smooth(ish) paste, paint it on with a brush of some kind. Preferably not the same brush you use for basting a raw chicken with. But you have to do this step IMMEDIATELY and as quickly as possible. And if you're too lazy to use a brush, I'm sure lathering it on with joined fingertips will be sufficient (it was for me).
- Let it dry. I don't care how long that takes, let it harden. Meanwhile, don't move a muscle, because if it's wet, it'll take longer, and if it's dry, it'll crack and hurt your skin.
- Waddle over to the shower and use a nice, warm, damp face towel to wetten the gelatine back up again. Start wiping it off if you can, otherwise take a shower. It's pretty hard to get off with just a little towel.

And the results of yet another eczema-go-away treatment?

Day 2: I put it on in the morning yesterday, and my skin is STILL oily. Not oily oily, but it's not dry! It's incredible. Of course, it's not the entire area that is like skin that is better than the rest of me, but the bits that are, MAN are they awesome! A few flakes have started to appear since yesterday, but apart from that, it's still going great.

Day 3: Still looking good! Even more flaky bits have arisen now, but it's still making it's own oils. I haven't stopped putting avocado oil on it like I always have, but it's much less drier than it normally is.

Day 4: I had a massive stressful day yesterday, followed by four hours of running around following my stressful and logically, impossible, demands for myself. At least I know now to eat carbs and sleep in when that happens, because I feel great today. Anyway, my eczema today is starting to come back to normal, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. There's still a few patches of normal-skin-ness. And I've been eating a lot of gelatine (bone broths) too, so that would probably be helping it. I'm overall so surprised at how well this stuff worked.

Day 5: Another stressful night and next to no quality sleep, but my eczema patch is still patchy. Unsurprisingly, there's more eczema than there's not (and where there's oil-producing, smooth skin) but HELLO: I've gone nearly a week with a lot of stress and my skin has basically REPAIRED italics itself from one skin mask. Edit How crazy is that?!

Day 6: I'd say it's time to stop including updates here. There's definitely eczema on my arm again, and I can't comment on the severity in one word, but it's not as bad in some spots. It's improved, I must say. But it helped me come to a bit of a revelation: maybe I'm not absorbing everything as well as I could or should be. Eczema is a gut problem, and if I have a problem with my gut flora (which I do - I have a heavy reliance on sauerkraut) then I have to fix THAT to clear my eczema.

My little experiment also proved how absorbent skin is. Obviously I absorb more gelatine through my skin than my intestine (very thin skin at that), and my body likes gelatine. But it hardened! My mind just doesn't comprehend how I suck nutrients out of something that's rock solid!! I'll get it one day.