Make your own Laundry Soap

I LOVE making my own homemade cleaners - it makes me happy in about a million ways: my home is less toxic, I save bundles of money, I have fun experimenting in the kitchen, I feel smart and I teach my kids good values and save the earth.  Oh, and it's a little more fun to keep the house clean.  What could be better?

Here's one of my faves.  I adapted some recipes I found on the web, with my own suggestions for which kinds of soap I like best, how I make it, and how we use it in our house.  Enjoy!

• 1 Bar of natural bath soap (recommended: Kiss My Face Lemon Sage or 365 Lemon Verbena)
• Borax*
• Washing Powder*

* Use equal amounts of borax and washing powder.  How much varies depending on the size of your bar of soap.  You can extrapolate to other sizes:

• 7 oz bar of soap    =   1 1/2 cups each of the two powders.  
• 4.5 oz bar of soap =   1 cup of each.  
• 8 oz bar of soap    =   1 3/4 cups of each.

You can find borax and washing powder at some grocery stores or hardware stores.  In my area, I had to look at a few stores to find both of them.  A box of each will make several batches of laundry soap. 

FIRST: Grate the soap - You want the soap really finely ground.  This is the best way I've found so far.  It's pretty easy.  Otherwise, you'd want to grate it by hand.
I do the following, in my food processor:

1. Put in grating blade
2. Cut bar of soap in half
3. Grate each half (the whole bar is too big for my food processor intake)
4. Move the grated soap to a large bowl.  Put in grinding blade
5. Put the grated soap back in the food processor.  
6. Add 1/2 cup each of borax and washing powder
7. Pulse grind the mixture until soap is as small as you can get in

Now add to the rest of the borax and washing powder:

1. Dump the soap mixture from the food processor into a large bowl.
2. Add the rest of the borax and washing powder and mix well.
3. It's ready to use!  Put it in a convenient container with directions for using.

I keep my laundry soap powder in a large clear tupperware on top of the washer, with a 1 tablespoon measure in it.  You could also use a coffee can if you have a spare one.  I wrote directions suggesting 2-3 Tablespoons per load.  In reality, you can use 1 tablespoon for a very light load, and 3 for a really dirty one, with maybe a little splash of commercial detergent if the clothes are super dirty.  

MAKE SURE to give it a little stir before using, so the bits of ground soap and the white powdery parts are well mixed.  The yellow of the lemon soap helps make it visible when you do this.  We also like the lemon scents better than most other soap we tried, but you can experiment and see what you like.  

How to Make your own Sleep Herbs

After the success of my homemade Adrenal Support herbs during the Summer, I thought it was time for another herb experiment!  I think this one may have turned out even better than the first.

What brought this on?  Well, I was just getting ready to spend another $24 on a bottle of Deep Sleep, which is a very nice herb sleep formula I've used, and decided it was time to save my dollars and try my hand at making my own sleep herbs.  I loved getting to know these herbs better, and I think it adds a very personal touch to my healing.  It's great to know that, even if the supplements weren't available anymore, I could make this for myself - very empowering.   The next step would be growing my own herbs.  Maybe next summer! 

STEP ONE: Get some herbs
Since I know which herbs work to help me sleep, it was fairly simple to make a list.  I chose herbs I have taken before, not too many, and fairly small amounts to make one jar of extract.  I spoke with my friend the Herbalist, to get a little guidance.  I keep glass spaghetti sauce jars, and for this project, I cleaned one out really well and ran it through the dishwasher to use to put this formula in.  I bought my herbs at the Herb Room, which is our best local herb place - open until midnight, if you can believe it!  Yes, Santa Cruz is that kind of town.  If I couldn't buy them locally, I would probably order them from somewhere like Mountain Rose Herbs.

I bought the following:

• CALIFORNIA POPPY, 1 ounce
• PASSION FLOWER, 3/4 ounce
• VALERIAN, 1/2 ounce

I had planned on also putting some other herbs in it - Milky Oats and Lemon Balm, but they were out of these, so I forged ahead without them.  I thought about adding Chamomile, too, but my herbalist friend informed me that Chamomile gets very bitter made into this kind of extract, so I didn't.  I thought about taking this in Chamomile tea, but it works great without it.

STEP TWO: Get some alcohol
I used brandy again.  Worked very well.  Still got more left for my next one!

STEP THREE: Sterilize a Glass Jar
Spaghetti sauce jar and top, very clean.

STEP FOUR:  Measure out the Herbs.  Then measure out the alcohol - 1 to 2 times as much as the herbs by volume.
The strength of herbal extractions is measured in parts herb to parts alcohol, and it's not by weight, it's by VOLUME.  Put your dry herbs all together in a glass measuring cup and see what line they come up to on the cup.  Now pour that same volume of vodka or brandy into another glass measuring cup.  That's how much you would need for a 1:1 extract.   The more herbs compared to the amount of alcohol, the stronger the extract.  You will see lots of 1:1 or 2:1 extracts on the market.  1:1 is very strong.  2:1 is less strong, but still very good.  I added about one and a half times as much alcohol as the herbs, to make a 3:2 extract - get it, 3 parts alcohol, to 2 parts herbs, right?  My decision was kind of a compromise.  With a 1:1, it's sometimes kind of hard to get all the herbs saturated because there's so little alcohol, and my jar wasn't big enough for 2:1.

STEP FIVE: Put your herbs in the jar.  Add the alcohol.  Get it all wet.  Shake it up.  Label it well
Mix the herbs together, then put them in the jar.  Pour in the alcohol.  Take a clean stainless steel spoon and stir it around to get all the herbs wet.  Don't rush  - this will take a few minutes.  Wet down any little pockets of dry herbs remaining.  Put the lid on tight.  Label it carefully with exactly what's in it and the date.  Shake it up for around 10 minutes, at least 200 times, all around, upside down, until it looks super wet and saturated.

Don't forget to label your jar.  Write on it the name, the concentration, the date, when it will be ready, and what's in it.  One reason this is important is because the next time you want to make it, you will have forgotten what you used, I guarantee it!   Also it's nice to know at a glance if it's ready to use  And if you don't like how it turns out, you'll know what NOT to do next time!

STEP SIX: Put it in a dark cupboard for TWO WEEKS.  Shake it every few days.
Keep it in a dark place at all times.  Your extract will take a full fourteen days to be ready.  You will want to give it about 50 shakes every 2-3 days.  No big deal - Just slosh it around, up and down, upside down, and put it back in the cupboard.

SEVEN: Strain it sweeten it (optional), and USE it!
After two weeks, you can strain all or part of your extract.  It is ready to use.  I strained a couple ounces into an old glass dropper bottle I had, and left the rest to soak, which it is still doing.   Strain it through a coffee filter lining a strainer, into a glass container.  It will take awhile.

I did not sweeten this one - it actually tastes ok on it's own.  At first I tried adding it to chamomile tea, but didn't really want to make tea every night, and it didn't work great for me that way.  What I finally ended up doing with this is using the little dropper to squirt this into empty "00" veggie capsules, and taking it that way.  I found that for me, 1 capsule didn't get me to sleep, but 2 did the job really well!  So now I have almost a lifetime supply of sleepy support that works for me, for less than $10 in herbs and alcohol! 

You would always want to fill these capsules right before you take them.  They would probably melt after awhile, even though they don't have any water in them.  The professional capsule companies have special ways of making and sealing their liquid-filled caps that make them way more stable.








Happy herbmaking!

DISCLAIMER: Note that there's a lot to the herbmaking craft that is not included here.  It's important to extract each herb in the way that is well-suited to it, and to carefully construct your blends.  This is just an example of a good beginners blend that might be useful.  Please read up on any herb you plan to use and make sure it is appropriate for you.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten free)

We love these, and they're gluten free and egg-free. If you need to make them without casein, just use your favorite butter subsitute instead of the butter.

2 1/2 cups almond flour*
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix almond flour, salt and baking soda. Cut in cold butter until it makes small crumbs. Stir in agave, vanilla and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto cookie sheet, pressing down each one with your palm. Bake 9-11 minutes, until golden . Let cookies cool on baking sheet for 20 minutes, until set.

* For these to turn out well, you need very finely ground almond flour, finer than the kinds sold at most health food stores. We buy ours at nuts.com.

Making your own Adrenal Support Herbal

As most of you know, I have fought my way back from adrenal fatigue, and now I help other people to do the same.  Adrenal support supplements of various kinds are very useful tools in this process.  Many of them use herbs that support the adrenals, such as ashwagandha, siberian ginseng, schisandra and rhodiola.

I decided recently to try my hand at making my own herbal extract for adrenal support.  This allows me to get to know these herbs better, save some money on supplements, and, my favorite part, to feel more in touch with my own healing.  I consulted with an Expert Herbalist who is a friend of mine in designing this remedy.

STEP ONE: Get some herbs
I chose the following for my herbal.  Mainly, I chose herbs I have taken before, not too many, and fairly small amounts to make one jar of extract, as this was kind of an experiment for me.  Where I live, I can buy raw herbs like these. Your other option would be to order them online.

I bought the following:

• ASHWAGANDHA 1 1/4 ounce
• SIBERIAN GINSENG 1 ounce
• SCHISANDRA BERRIES 1 ounce
• ASTRAGALUS 1 ounce
• MILK THISTLE 1 ounce

I had planned on also buying 3/4 ounce of Rhodiola, but the store was out, so my mixture does not have any Rhodiola in it.  Just a caution, some people really feel great taking Rhodiola and others don't, so make sure you have taken something containing Rhodiola with success if you plan to put it in your mixture.

STEP TWO: Get some alcohol
My herbalist friend told me that brandy and vodka are great types of alcohol to use to extract herbs.  She thinks brandy works particularly well, and I had some in the cupboard for cooking, so that's what I used.  So basically, get yourself some brandy or vodka, it doesn't have to be particularly good quality to work well for this purpose, just whatever you can get.

STEP THREE: Sterilize a Glass Jar
You always want to extract herbs in glass, not other type of container.  Grab yourself a glass jar with a good lid, and get it very clean - put it through the dishwasher, or boil it.

STEP FOUR:  Measure out the Herbs.  Then measure out the alcohol - 1 to 2 times as much as the herbs by volume.
The strength of herbal extractions is measured in parts herb to parts alcohol, and it's not by weight, it's by VOLUME.  Put your dry herbs all together in a glass measuring cup and see how much volume they have.  Now pour that same volume of vodka or brandy into another glass measuring cup.  That's how much you would need for a 1:1 extract.   The more herbs compared to the amount of alcohol, the stronger the extract.  You will see lots of 1:1 or 2:1 extracts on the market.  1:1 is pretty strong.  2:1 means twice as much alcohol as herbs.  I added about one and a half times as much alcohol as the herbs, to make a 3:2 extract - get it, 3 parts alcohol, to 2 parts herbs, right?  Mostly, I did that because that's how much my jar would hold.

FIVE: Put your herbs in the jar.  Add the alcohol.  Get it all wet.  Shake it up.
Put the herbs in first.  Stir them to mix them up together.  Pour in the alcohol.  Take a clean stainless steel spoon and stir it around to get all the herbs wet.  It will take a few minutes.  Wet down any little pockets of dry herbs remaining.  Put the lid on tight.  Label it carefully with exactly what's in it and the date.  Shake it up for around 10 minutes, at least 200 times, all around, upside down, until it looks super wet and saturated.

SIX: Put it in a dark cupboard for TWO WEEKS.  Shake it every few days.
Keep it in a dark place.  Your extract will take a full fourteen days to be ready.  You will want to give it about 50 shakes every 2-3 days.  It doesn't need as thorough a shaking as you just did, just slosh it around, up and down, upside down, and put it back.

SEVEN: Strain it sweeten it, and USE it!
After two weeks, you can strain all or part of your extract.  It is ready to use.  I strained about 1/3 of mine, and left the rest to soak longer.  It's fine to do that.  My herbalist friend says you can leave it to soak for as long as you want.  Strain it through a coffee filter lining a strainer, into a glass container.  It will take awhile.  After that, you can cook it to reduce it down, or just sweeten it and use it as is. 

Add something to sweeten it to taste.  You can make up little "shots" to experiment with various sweeteners, such as agave, vegetable glycerine or palm sugar, date sugar, coconut sugar, stevia, maple syrup, etc.  Many herbalists will use a mixture of sweeteners to make it palatable.  I added a touch of molasses and some honey.  It tastes ok to take a dropper or two at a time, which is how much I take.

Put it in a sterile glass bottle with a dropper - I boiled an empty one I had from another herb.  Make sure to label and date your new bottle so you know what's in it.  Alcohol extracts stay viable for quite a long time, at least 3 years.  They do not need refrigeration.

At a professional herb company, they would typically strain the extract at least twice, to get it clear, flavor it, and bottle it into glass bottles that have been boiled. 


Note that there's a lot to the herbmaking craft that is not included here.  It's important to extract each herb in the way that is well-suited to it, and to carefully construct your blends.  This is just an example of a good beginners blend that might be really useful to you.


Happy herbmaking!

Kale Chips Recipe

“CHEESY” KALE CHIPS 
(vegan, no dairy)

 Looking for healthier snacks, I've become addicted to those great Kale Chips you can buy at the health food store.  

These taste just like them, and are so much cheaper and fresher!  Super-easy to make with a food processor  and a dehydrator, but you can also dehydrate them in your oven. 

1 large bunch of  kale
1 cup cashews, (soaked 2 hours)
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3-4 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 Tablespoon agave (optional)
2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon Himalayan sea salt

Rinse the kale and dry between paper towels. Remove the stems and tear into bite size pieces. Let the kale air out as much as possible before coating. Blend the ingredients for the cheesy seasoning in a food processor or Vita-Mix until smooth. Transfer kale and seasoning to a large bowl and mix well using your hands to ensure the leaves are well coated. Place the kale on dehydrator trays.  Dehydrate at 118 degrees or in your oven at the lowest temp, with the door a few inches open, for 8 hours or until coating is dry.  Slide onto mesh screens and dehydrate until totally crispy. 

Keeping them Crunchy
Take a small fabric bag, or small piece of cotton cloth and fill it with uncooked rice, tying up with string.  Place it in an airtight glass container or ziploc bag.  The rice soaks up any extra moisture, keeping your kale chips crunchy for days!