Food Blog Soy milk

Soy Milk 

Adventures in Alchemy! 

I was lactose intolerant as a child. So we ended up getting goats and switching to goat milk. I "grew out of it" until I got a head injury at uni and all my childhood allergies went nuts, so to speak.
I had been vegi on and off most of my childhood and as I was so sick (like really) and way before it became a thing I went vegan. I switched to soy milk about 1999.
While I wasn't vegan for long (both pregnancies I craved meat, steak and chicken respectively) I never went back to regular milk. After my daughter was lactose intolerant too it seem a sensible idea. In that time soya milk has become better tasting and better quality. It has become easier to get too.
It was a thing I had to have. It was not a luxury, nor a pleasure.

Well I am food mad. I love to eat, cook, read and now watch youtube. My current "find" is Mike Chen (who has a squillion channels and it is just enough) especially Strictly Dumpling.
On one of his many food adventures he gets soy milk in a way I had never seen it and it looked GOOD!
I did some research and tried to find my own version. The first time worked well, too well! I was so focused on making (and then eating) I took no videos or photos at all!

I had been a bit worried that it might be "beany" or bitter so I rinsed the beans far more than was instructed.

I set up two sieves so I could keep my straining cloth (a super clean tea-towel) and measure out a single cup measure at a time of beans (so I didn't over fill the bowl and get my ratio wrong).

I threw away the soaking water and measured out (those are my darling daughter's hands) one cup of soaked beans.

We then added two cups of fresh water.

Now my stand mixer broke yesterday (just I was set up to blend in case you were wondering)!

The stick mixer to the rescue. I don't have very heavy bowls so I blended while darling daughter held the bowl! 

It got a bit messy but we made it. It got all foamy and cool looking.

The next bit required some prep.

This is another bowl a heavy sieve and the clean cloth. You can use cheesecloth, muslin but fabric is sort of essential for the next bit.

Carefully pour the mix into the cloth/sieve and let it drain a moment. Then gather the corners carefully and begin to twist. If you don't start high enough it will squish up instead of down and makes even more mess. Ring it out twisting the top and bottom in opposite directions. I then twisted the other way, just to be thorough. Next carefully unwrap the cloth and pick out the weird snowball of stuff. Apparently you can eat this too, but I have no recipes as of yet!

Instead I threw it onto the garden for the plants and birds (it composts well). I then repeated the whole thing with the remaining beans. Then I got my nice big pan added a tsp of salt and a 1/4 cup of brown sugar. I poured the soy milk into the big pan.

You have to stir constantly (I used a non-stick whisk) and simmer until "sweet". Mine was fine about a minute or so after I took it from the hob when it reached a boil.

It foams out a lot but I just kept mixing the hell out of it!

After a minute of stirring in the still hot pan my taste tester (aka darling daughter) said it was ready.

I added a pinch of pulverised vanilla powder and serve it hot and foamy!

You will need:

1 cup of dried soy beans

cold water to rinse and soak.

2 cups of water for every 1 cup of swollen beans (mine doubled and a bit.)

1 tsp of sea salt

1/4 cup sugar (sugar substitute to taste)

I hope this is helpful to you. It was a lot of fun to make and is so tasty. We even have beans soaking for tomorrow!

Home education is too important to takes seriously.

"Doing well at School"

A word to the wise.

If your child is in physical danger then they are not 

"doing well at school".

If they are anxious, depressed or harming themselves they are not 

"doing well at school".

If they are tortured, harassed or belittled they are not 

"doing well at school".

If they are screaming, crying and not wanting to leave your care, they are not 

"doing well at school".

That a child is still achieving, striving, learning despite the torturous space then that says far more about the child, then it does the school.
It is not school they are doing well at. It is learning. Now imagine that the terror, fear and pain, the shame and self-loathing is removed and try and imagine what they could learn.

"Doing well at school" has come to mean a child's academic ability. Yet the ability to learn is not rooted in pens and paper. The lessons they are learning stretch far beyond the subjects and tests.
If they are learning they are unworthy, hated, and undeserving, does that matter less? If they are told they are thick, difficult or "naughty", does that matter less? If they are learning that their safety and well being is not important, does that matter less?

To be truly "doing well at school" their safety, health and happiness has to be part of that equation.

If we were talking about adults in these situations and it was a job you would leave, and probably sue the company. Yet school is seen as a corner stone, "the norm" and everything that happens there is normalized. No matter how terrible it is.

It is not okay.
It is not "normal".

There is something you can do about it and when you are on the other side of it it will blow your mind you ever were the hand that helped enforce the system. You took them there, day after day. You had meetings and discussions and nothing changed, or it did for the worse.

If you have a park or a garden, a library and google, some charity shops and a sense of adventure you and your children can learn almost anything.

Home education is far too important to take seriously.  

Beating Bullying:

Getting out

There is a big flux of folks reaching the end of their tether when it comes to bullying right now.
I've been there.
It's heartbreaking. It makes you feel helpless and angry and frustrated because they seem to care far more about protecting their reputation and the bullies rather than the victims. The school and the LA can make you feel crazy, as though there is something wrong with you or your child. They can be bullies in their own right.
My heart goes out to you and I will say do not wait another day.
Not one more moment.
The first thing you need to do (in England and Wales, it's more complicated other places) is send a formal letter of de-registration to the school. A sample you can find HERE 
After you de-register (and do make sure you get a dated receipt) my advice would be to join some local Home Education facebook groups. You might hear from the LA (Local education Authority) quickly or you might not hear a peep. Your local groups will be able to tell you far better than I can what to expect from the LA. After de-registration the school can not call, email, send letters, threaten or harass you but on occasion schools do. You do not have to answer them. You have not and are not breaking the law.
You never have to have the LA come visit you if you don't want to, and if someone doorsteps you (ie just turns up one day) you can politely tell them to make an appointment in writing to discuss things with you. In fact you can keep everything in writing should you desire, which is often a good idea. Some LA's are amazing but some are terrible and are not above bullying or lying. Do bear in mind that the LA only get funding from the government for each child AT school and they may have targets or external pressure to push for your child to be in school.

If your child has been bullied, it's going to take a while to heal, for your child, for you and as a family. You are going to need some time together to talk about things that might be difficult to hear, but you are going to need to hear it to know where your child is at. You can set aside time, one on one, to do this. Maybe once a week for an afternoon, or a little bit every day. It's not an easy thing but you have already done the hardest part.

The next bit is to de-school which I have written about HERE
While your child is focused on having some fun and healing this is a good time to research what kind of HE you will want to do together. Do want a bit of Classical Trivium or a Charlotte Mason curriculum? More on that HERE

The next part is a bit weird. You have to imagine what you want this journey together to look like (it might not ever look as you imagine). I would recommend learning something together (not you teaching) even if you suck at it. It helps to heal and repair trust in adults which have failed them at school so badly. It's also a lot of fun.You have to figure out what your goals are together and as individuals. At the end of the day a happy healthy and whole child with no qualifications at 16 is far better than someone who was miserable, hurting and hating with papers out the wazoo.

Home education brought us as a family a joy, a peace and healing I never ever imagined. My daughter may never sing the way she did before school (much to my heartbreak) but she not fearful, bruised or afraid any more.

Home education is far too important to take seriously.

A Control Freaks Guide to Unschooling.

A Control Freaks Guide to Unschooling

Unschooling is child-led or directed education. The level of depth or how "radical" you are is dependant on many things.
I am not radical. I am not a natural unschooler at all really. One of the ways I control my shame/blame/pain is to be busy, to organise and to control. Even talking about it makes me feel a bit icky. I like timetables and structure and plans because even though school was terrible at times for me, it was safer than home. It was predictable. In fact one of the few ways my Mum who was a teacher would engage with me was with a teacher/pupil mode.
I read a lot and when I became a parent I was young and without the support of my family (I was 22) because they viewed marriage as "slavery" and having children as "a waste".
Still despite or maybe because of this I found a fierce devotion and affection to my children and this became even stronger when my youngest child died.
I understood the importance of play and that it was key to learning. 
Yet school rolled around and she looked so cute in her little Doc Martins and dress. 
I won't go into the fresh hell that was school from day one because I feel I have talked about it a lot.

1) Trust your child.

I don't mean with white board markers or super glue (but you might). I mean that children have an innate curiosity until it is forced out of them. Until they have to learn stuff to "pass a test". I believe that you use a different part of your brain or memory when you are studying intently to pass a test. When you turn in that paper your brain removes the files because it knows it no longer needs them. That is why most folks don't remember what they learned at school, because it simply wasn't needed after the test. When kids learn organically for themselves (the Why stage) they retain it as useful information. If it is inspiring, playful and fun the brain seems to hold onto it in more than one place. So you have to chill. You have to understand that your fears and anxieties are that YOUR fears and anxieties. If you stop your child from "messing around" on Youtube "pointlessly" watching Japanimation they might never surprise you by speaking Japanese from reading subtitles. If you want them to "be clean" or "not play with bugs" they might never tell you all about the structure of bumble bee wings. Your job is to be their supporter, their cheerleader, to facilitate and to inspire.
You might not like it.
It might feel anxious and uncomfortable. Yet if you can take a moment and let go of the scary "what if's" it works. 

2) Inspire and Support 

While it is not strictly "unschool" chic to do trips or go to educational places I have always liked galleries and museums. I like hiking too when I am well enough but museums and galleries give me a sense of peace in a busy city. I am a curious person. I am rather Hermione Granger, and I enjoy learning and exploring. I feel this is the biggest influence not in so much of what I study but my curiosity and genuine excitement about the world. 
From Anglo-Saxon living history exhibits to Spanish painters I feel like there is something special about museums and galleries. If you have never been up close to  Rembrandt sketches, or a huge Dali painting, it's hard to put into words. Being inspired and curious allows you to be an inspiration. It doesn't really matter what your passions are, so long as you educate your self and support your children's passions. 

3) Be Present

If you imagine your attention is like light, being open and present is one of the most valuable things you can ever give your child. It means putting down the phone, getting off facebook and understanding that housework and cleaning is a job that never ends.
Sitting down and connecting, talking and even just being with no distractions is more valuable than any toy, any book, and holiday you can give. This is it. This is their childhood memory of you. It will last their lifetime. They will remember. That doesn't mean you can't have rules (some unschoolers don't) or discipline (actions do have consequences). It means you have to shine your light of attention. Really listen. Be vulnerable and honest.
So many parents I know (especially ones who have kids later) seem to care more about "occupying" their child so they can "get stuff done" rather than being with their child. They fill their lives with business rather than read a book, sing a song, sit for a cuddle, join in the tea party. I can't remember where I heard it but I remember this from when my daughter was a baby.
"You invite your child into your life, be a good host."
No-one enjoys the dinner party where the host is frazzled and more worried about the "impressive" dish rather than spending time with their guests. In fact take-out and laughter is far more fun to be around.
That being said no-one wants someone to order for them, cut up their food and feed them. You have to balance distraction against the urge to do thing FOR your child. It may be irritating, slow, or "wrong" but failing is how we truly learn. Sitting on our hands and being present can be uncomfortable yet it is also the greatest joy.
A gentle "Have you thought of trying it this way?" Is much nicer than "your're doing it wrong!"

4) Research and Development

 Doing your research and developing good strategies for your "wobbles" can help you manage your control freak urges so they don't get in the way of your child's learning. Websites, books, TED talks and even home education groups online and irl can be a gold mine.
These things can be challenging and uncomfortable as well as inspiring and uplifting. It is a process and it is full of failure and emotional struggle and that is how you know you are learning. So instead of trying to plan things, write timetables or freak out write a blog, journal, meditate or research. If you do have a full blown freak out, understand that it is okay.
That it was a moment and it will pass. That the joys, benefits and learning you are doing out weight the anxiety. That it will be okay. 
Remember too that home education is far too important to be taken seriously.

Numbing and Home Education

Numbing:

In my facebook feed of all the various groups I am part of I see two themes and they almost always refer to boys. Some start at 8. Some in their teens.There is violence, aggression or they "disappear" into video games.

It is interesting because that is the age that boys are often told to "stop crying" and are often becoming aware of the "gender box" of masculinity. In blunt terms this is the time they are told culturally that "being a man" means not showing feelings (except anger or violence). The harder the push culturally, socially and within a family for them to "man up" the stronger the reaction tends to be.

This is not to say that girls do not have the "gender box". Their's is to be quieter, thinner and "nice" (shudder). This means their reactions are different. 

Numbing is a way to distract ourselves at the shame/pain/discomfort we feel. The stronger the feeling, the more we numb. Culturally Britain numbs with alcohol, even from a very young age but it isn't just about substances. 

Crazy-busy

If we stay busy enough the truth of our lives won't catch up with us. This was/is a great socially acceptable numbing. Look how hard we work! Look at all the hours we put in! If I keep at it until I am so exhausted I can't actually think I might sleep.

Gaming (especially OLMMO's) can part of this. Not content with being busy in this life (which is messy and lonely and painful and awkward) they are buried in quests, and where the rules make sense. Where they can interact as their best self (or even their coolest). In short where they don't have to feel. You can play games for pleasure, but if you/child as not meeting basic physical needs it is numbing behaviour.

In the same way as the kitchen will never be clean enough for the neat/cleaning number, so too, the dungeon/chase/quest will never quite be enough. As someone who used to get up at 6am on a Sunday to clean, this is about avoiding feelings.

Addictive behaviour

From coffee, energy drinks, smoking, sleeping pills, food and alcohol, we are a culture comfortable with numbing. 

It is how we "unwind". It's "social". It's in "moderation". If in order to tell "how bad your day was" you need a glass of wine, beer or tub of ice-cream, then you are numbing.

The trouble is numbing is not selective. When we limit our feelings we limit all of them. The stronger the cultural oppression of feelings are, the greater the numbing. The trouble with this is it makes us sick and miserable. Addictive behaviour starts at that moment when you feel uncomfortable/awful/icky and reach for something to make it go away. That's all addiction is. You can "not give in" but until you learn how to be uncomfortable you will have to fight with that feeling, forever.

We learn our numbing behaviour from the people around us. Our peers, parents, families and culture. If one numbing becomes unavailable we transfer to something else. 

Learning to Feel

Talking about our feelings and being vulnerable is so excruciating for most Brits we would do almost anything not to. Even avoiding eye-contact on the bus/train.

Culturally we avoid talking about anything important until we are forced to, or drunk. The narrow band of "acceptable" emotions is growing. Therapy and counselling is not unheard of or shameful to most folk under 35.

It's a process. Trying badly is better than numbing amazingly. The thing is if we want our children to be okay with their feelings, we have to be better at ours. We can restrict their access to things they are using to numb but without an outlet for their feelings they will find something else to numb with.

Children tend to "do what we do, not what we say". This means if you want to address their behaviour that is bothering you, you have to address your own first.  

Leaning into the discomfort

Being present and honest is uncomfortable. It is also necessary. It walks us back from the addiction line towards something else. It is imperfect. It's sometimes painful but it is also filled with joy and beauty. Some people have never felt joy.

Truly.

Or it was so long ago under so much "stuff" they can not remember that feeling. Feelings are the colour palette of life. They add shade and meaning. Tone and context. It is human and important to feel.

As parents we are still learning and we can change through changing our own numbing behaviours, and being present to how we are really feeling. This affect our children. If we see their behaviour as one about making uncomfortable, difficult and painful feelings bearable it is not so easily dismissed. It gives us more tools and more compassion towards each other and hopefully ourselves. 

  

Being mindful of the pleasure/numbing edge.

Looking at ourselves is not about policing ourselves into "good" parent behaviour. It catching yourselves thinking, saying or doing something and stopping. Understanding why you do it. It is not numbing. Not running away from our most horrible inner self and feelings. It is being braver and more courageous than we ever thought we could be. 

It is in giving ourselves permission to be whole. In enjoying the moments and being truly present when they are there.

Home education is far too important to take seriously.

Socialisation

Home Education but not at home

Socialisation is not the same as forced association. 

One of the best things about HE is that we get to travel to places, try new things, and meet interesting people. 

We meet children and adults of all ages and the only "issue" my daughter has is when men or boys try and mansplain at her. She is actually a great judge of character, loves to look after little kids and has manners that get praise where ever we go.

We didn't used to do much with other folks that HE. After getting called a "troubled family" and literally getting the "socialisation question" from my super fun and helpful LA bod* I decided to started a D&D group. It has since fizzled out, BUT we meet other HE friends and families on the way. Some stuck, some didn't.

We have a couple of events and meets we go to now. One is swimming on a Monday, and one is the park every other week.

It's cool and non pressure. It's fun to watch her like the a mother goose with all these goslings peeping and following her. She never gets mad and is kind and encouraging with them all. Last week a little girl was "stuck" up a large rope climbing frame and she carefully but firmly talked her down.

But HE kids are awful at people?

Our girl is a quiet bookish sort by nature but when she takes out the dog other walkers talk to her (some she will speak to, some she won't). When she goes shopping the clerks often chat to her too.

* This is sarcasm 

Our daughter has different levels of interaction with people all the time from many walks of life. She has good instincts of who and when she wants to talk to people, because I have never forced her to. 

I love museums and galleries. I love travelling though my health and budget don't always give me the miles I would want. There is something about being the the presence of great art and interesting objects that is inspiring. There have been so many interesting side paths, odd thought directions and fun from visiting and interacting with amazing things.

They take us and help us learn things I would never have imagined.

Of course I would love to go to Paris or Barcelona (outside the budget) but we are planning a London trip. Nation and Portrait Galleries and then China towns markets. Looking at all the great and good, the weird and wonderful. It's an adventure and one she will remember always. It isn't about me taking her to a place. It is about us discovering, interacting with this new stuff together.

HE is not about being shut away from the world it is about exploring it, getting messy, probably lost, and finding things about yourself and world you had never expected. 

Home education is far too important to take seriously. 

Eight Things I don't get about School

Eight Things I Don't Get as a Home Educator...about school

1) Pen Licenses.

Say what?I truly had not heard of this until it was mentioned by a parent asking about it in a Home Education group. Apparently you have to "earn" a pen license and it can be revoked and you go back to a pencil. Not only is this shame culture at it highest but some kids are never taught how to use a pen properly. I also do not understand why the pressure to write is more important than having something interesting to say. In the world where everyone types, cursive and writing is a pleasure for journals and notebooks but it isn't something most kids will ever need when they leave school.
Learning is about mistakes. I learned how to write cursive and I wrote with pens at a young age. The big leap when I was in school was from ball-points to fountain pens (that always leaked). How we write cursive is a direct result of how ink pens work. I got ink all over my fingers, on my shirt sometimes but it was part of "school". Unless you write with ink many parts of cursive just seem odd.

2) Behaviour Charts- Punishments for not sitting still.

Kids fidget. Good kids, difficult kids, young and older. Stillness is something that children and even some adults are not designed for. Of course mindfulness and meditation help kids enormously, but we are not talking about that. We are talking about punishing kids, sometimes very young ones, for not being able to sit still. When a child gets restless, they as displaying their hard-wired physical NEED to play. This need is shamed and punished publicly which then leads to the shame defence called disengagement. You are send the message that THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU to kids all day every day, for their biological need to play.

Gillian Lynne also struggled at school with fidgeting and was taken to see a doctor. He and her mother left the room leaving the radio on. On seeing her dancing, the doctor told her mother to send her to a dance school. That there was nothing wrong with her, she was a dancer. She went on to have a long and amazing career in even being awarded a DBE (Dame Commander of the British Empire).

Imagine how Gillian would fare today? 

3) Uniforms

There is a running joke about the unofficial uniform of Home Educator is pj's. There is some truth in that. The dress codes for school seem to get weirder and weirder and are seemingly used to make small teachers feel very important. Uniforms are often expensive and even change over the time a kid is at school. (I think my mum had to buy three different sets of uniforms).Uniform is "supposed" to be an equaliser, but often it isn't. The colour of someone's socks is not an indicator of their ability to learn. Let's talk about P.E kit here also. Girls and boys PE uniforms are often completely inappropriate for the sports they are doing and the weather they are doing it in. This is not okay! Uniform over the well-being of children is idiotic. Tiny skirts and thin t-shirts while running around in the cold and wet is not fortifying it's awful.

4) Sitting for hours

If someone asked me to sit in a chair for two hours now without moving or fidgeting I think I would struggle. Especially in uncomfortable and often sweaty plastic chairs. I think most adults would. We'd want to get a drink, stretch our legs and shuffle to get circulation back into our backsides. It is not a normal situation even if you are used to sitting all day to do so without break or movement.
There are loads of studies that show sitting for protracted amounts of time is pretty awful for your health. Yet siting for hours is still standard school practice.

5) Not being allowed to pee

When I was at school I would deliberately drink less so I wouldn't have to use the toilets. The toilets were terrifying places that stank. Many toilets were locked and while girls tended to have less of a hard time leaving in classtime we still got quizzed and scolded. As someone with a kidney disease I look back in horror. The damage this does to your body is horrific. You need to pee between six and ten times a day. NEED. Breaks get smaller and smaller, you can't be late for classes, and get punished for your biology. In this regard it is more like prison than somewhere you learn.

6) Bans on strange foods/toys/slang

From sweets and crisps, to outside food at all; to toys, and slang and even noises schools ban some weird things. Prohibition doesn't work.

7) Electronic tagging

I'm not sure I even need to comment on this. I was a model student but had someone monitored me they would have seen I used the visitors loos (which were out of bounds) and sat in a "locked" drama hall to meditate most lunch times. I wasn't naughty I just like a clean safe loo and a quiet place to be. Prisons tag and monitor. The ONLY way this would be cool to me is they went off ONLY when someone left the school during the school time. (That said I often went to a my best friends house for lunch during our exams).

8) Touching (physical contact with other kids at all).
 

Touch is important. It helps us find our boundaries, bond and connect. It can also be used to harm, but in general physical contact is good and necessary. 

Threatening or aggressive behaviour is threatening and aggressive with or without touch. Sexual behaviour, is sexual with or without touch.

This is monstrously de-humanising and stops kids finding their own boundaries and learning where other people's are. It makes no sense to me.

I am sure there are many more things that I "don't get" and you probably have some of your own. Feel free to add your own!

Home education is too important to take seriously.