What do you get when Kath leaves for a couple days? A Soysage Party!!!

Well this is a unique post from Bantry Bay Farm. Kath has gone back to Fredericton to spend some time with her sister's. So this is BBF - 1. Today I (Brad) decided to make soy milk. I heard that this was quite a lengthy endeavor, so I began early in the morning...

I will go through the recipe and I hope to inspire others to follow along!

The recipe is found on pg.95 of "The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook: Revised Edition" which was given to Luke by Lucy.

preparation:
Rinse 2 1/2 cups whole soybeans and soak in 5 cups of water. Following one of the methods described below. After the beans are soaked, transfer to a colander and rinse again.
Soak Method I: Soak rinsed soybeans in a bowl or pot of cold water for 8-10 hours or overnight. In hot weather the soaking beans should be kept in the refrigerator to prevent souring. Slightly soured beans will make a thinner milk.
Soak Method II: For quick soaking, pour boiling water over rinsed soy beans and allow to soak 2-4 hours. Beans will double in size and be free of wrinkles when done. They will have a flat, not concave, surface when split in half.

Grinding the Beans:
Method I: Combine in a blender 1 cup soaked soybeans and 2 1/2 cups water. You can use either cold water or nearly boiling water in this step. The advantage of using hot water is slightly milder flavour and a shorter wait for your mixture to come to a boil. Blend the beans at high speed to a fine slurry (about 1 min). Pour contents into a large heavy pot or double boiler (it won't burn as easily) [Brad recommends a large pot double boilers take forever!]. Repeat blender process until all beans are blended.
Method II: Grind the soaked beans using a hand grain-mill or a food grinder (use the plate with the smallest holes). When using a hand grain-mill, set the grind pretty tight, so that it easily allows a fine but slightly gritty bean paste to pass through the stones. With finely ground beans, more protein will be released into the milk. However, if the grind is too fine, it will be difficult to strain and will cause a pulpy soymilk. Add the ground bean paste to a pot of 13 cups boiling water.

Cooking the Soymilk:
Cook the soymilk in a 1 1/2 - 2 gallon heavy bottom pot or double boiler. Set over a medium-high flame and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Watch the pot carefully. When the soymilk first starts to boil, turn down the heat immediately and simmer at a low boil for 20 min. It;s important to be right there with your pot at this step. Soymilk will foam up and boil over quickly, so watch it carefully. If you use an electric stove, remove the pot from the burner when it comes to a boil while you adjust the heat.

Straining the Soymilk:
Set a cloth-lined colander (thin cotton or nylon)[Brad used an old cut up thin white shirt] over a pot with at least 1-gallon capacity. After the soymilk is cooked, pour or ladle it into the colander, catching the pulp in the cloth and the milk in the pot below. Twist the cloth tightly closed. With a wooden spoon or a jar, tract as much milk as possible. To rinse through any milk left in the pulp, re-open the cloth, stir in 2 cups boiling water, twist and press again. Set pulp aside to be used later.

Cooling the Soymilk
You can drink the soymilk hot or you can cool it by placing the pot in a sink of cold water, replenishing the cold water as necessary. When cooled, transfer into covered containers and refrigerate or freeze. The quicker the soymilk is cooled and the colder it is kept, the longer it will last. It has an approximate shelf life of 4-5 days. If it starts to sour, use it for baking in cakes, biscuits, or bread.
Unlike cow's milk, soymilk contains very few natural sugars. For drinking, most people prefer to add a sweetener, vanilla or cocoa, and a dash of salt. Soymilk can be made thicker or thinner by adjusting the proportion of beans to water in this recipe. Soymilk can be used to replace cow's milk in any recipe.

So that is the end of the soy milk creation, but I was disappointed that the soy pulp was going to be wasted so I found a recipe (which is on pg 146 if you have the book, I hope some of you do!) for Soysage: a vegan sausage facsimile. So here is the recipe for that!

NOTE: You have to steam the soy pulp for an additional 1 1/2 hours, before making the soysage, so it can be easily digested! [I steamed it within the shirt and really squeezed it hard after to get as much of the moisture out as possible]

Soysage!

4 Cups Soy Pulp [the stuff leftover after straining the soymilk out]
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup oil
1 1/4 cups soymilk or other liquid [Brad used water]
1 cup nutritional yeast flakes [If you don't know what this is DO SOME RESEARCH :P]
1 tsp. Black pepper
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp oregano
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp yellow mustard
2 tsp allspice

Mix ingredients. Oil an oven-proof bowl or empty tin can. Fill it, and cover with tin foil. [I rolled makeshift logs up in tin foil]. Steam on a rack in a covered pot for 1 1/2 hours, or in a pressure cooker in 5 cups of water for a least 30 min. Let sit until cool then slice it and pan fry it in some oil. Yum!

So There you have it that is the soysage party! Here are the pictures of the spoils of soymilk (there is another full container of soymilk not in the picture plus an additional log and a half of soysage not displayed as well). Yes Brad and Luke are trying to grow facial hair (or is it just not caring about shaving), we are somewhat failing hahaha, but Mike has a nice beard a brewin. Luke can fill you in about the rest of the day and week.





Luke here. What a party! So all you out there who are justa itchin to sink your teeth into that soysage log(Ben, that's you), I highly recommend getting Brad to make you some. Yesterday we started more onions, and some celery. Today Mike mad a super cold frame for our growing number of transplants to go in once it warms up a bit. I carried seaweed up from the beach today. Up the stairs of cirith ungol(the stairs that go down the cliff to the beach), into the wheelbarrow, and up, up, up about half a kilometre onto our field, where I'm raising a tower of seaweed, which will hopefully reach heaven, provided our communication skills stay sharp. Then, we're going to use it as a mulch on our fields. It's suppose to be very beneficial. Then I crushed clam shells for a while during the soysage party. Still using the rock on rock method. Very time consuming. I like to think of it as character building work. Mike and I saw a skunk today! It was strolling across the field, and really didn't seem concerned with us(only about 25 feet away). Well, we didn't get sprayed, and he/she checked out our coldframes. Can't say he/she looked impressed though. Just kept on walking and sniffing. Tomorrow: up and down the stairs, into the wheelbarrow and up to the field.
P.S. Mike is watering our plants with a turkey baster.