If Making Soap, Use the Stick Blender

I had intended to drive the three hours to Floyd, VA today, to attend a workshop on making Biodynamic Preps. At 11pm last night, Phil pointed out that he had a church meeting to attend, and with the truck inoperable, he needed the car. So I went with him, and a good time was had by all.

It was quite restful to have the afternoon and evening to ourselves. I continue to gradually scrape away the extra accumulation of our week away. I even decided to make soap again. The first time was only a week ago; I had availed myself of a real kitchen on vacation, and roped my family into making soap with me. Two and a half hours later, when the mixture finally saponified, we were all happy, if only because our arms were shaking from holding the egg beater so long.

Today, having gone through the process once, the soap making went off in fine style. I poured the lye into the water in the Pyrex measuring cup (safety goggles on, of course). After about an hour, the temperature had dropped from 200 to 120. I heated my Costco olive oil to about 120, slowly added the the lye mix, and used the missing ingredient from the first soap making attempt: the stick blender.

If you haven't seen these (as I hadn't), the ingenious device looks like a large travel toothbrush container. The bottom looks something like an inverted bowl, with a small blade in the middle, and a scalloped plastic edge that protects the pot from scratching damage. Brilliant, really.

Five minutes later, the soap was ready to pour into molds. I had come prepared for a much longer wait, magazines ready, and was astonished at how swiftly the stick blender worked. Wow!

In other news, though Bethany is now oozing mucus on her backend, there is not much news to report.