Radish Greens with Sauteed Radishes

Recipe:
About 2lbs radishes
2 1/2 teaspoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 garlic clove (minced)
2 tablespoons red onion (chopped)
black pepper (to taste)

Wash radishes. Do I even have to say this?

I used organic french breakfast radishes from the garden, and I cut them into quarters. I cut them lengthwise first, and then chopped those sections in half.

I chopped the greens up fairly coarsely. They were prickly and unpleasant to touch, so watch it!

Heat the butter in a 12 inch skillet. I had my heat at "3", but your mileage will vary.

When the butter is heated up and the foam is almost gone, add the salt. Stir.

Add the greens and the radishes together. Dump in the garlic, onion, and pepper.

Stir while the greens wilt and the onions go transparent.

Serve. :)

If you like your radishes cooked a bit more, then you can cook them separately for a bit longer. When they are the right texture, you can add the greens. If you are particular about your onions/garlic, you can remove the greens and then saute those seperate and add them in later.


 Verdict:
I thought that this one was going to be a flop, but it was delicious! My husband ate half of it right away. I'd definitely do this again.

Radishes straight from the garden. YUM YUM! These are French Breakfast.

Wash them until they are pretty.

End result.

Following a Recipe: Baked Kale Chips by LucyDelRey

This year my housemate grew some organic kale, which is awesome...except that you can't really eat kale without doing something to it.

Well, I guess you can.

I just don't know why you would want to.

It is beautiful and easy to grow out here in the Pacific Northwest.

Behold the power of kale!

I was going to bring in a few plants and sauté them, but then things went sideways. I decided to make chips, and I found this recipe for Baked Kale Chips Recipe by LucyDelRey.

I didn't really follow the thing to the letter at all.

Here is the gist:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Get some kale, and take off all of the individual leaves. Wash the kale leaves, and sort of shake them dry. 
3. Take out the tough middle stem parts, and tear into bite sized pieces.
4. Put all of the leaf pieces on some cookie sheets covered in parchment paper.
5. Drizzle with olive oil. I am not good at "drizzling", so I pour some into a tablespoon and drizzle with the spoon. It helps me keep track of how much I am using, and limits catastrophes.
6. Shake some season salt over the leaves. (I think that in the future I want to experiment with my own mixtures of spices.)
7. Bake for about 10 minutes (or until edges are brown).

I think that I probably should have baked mine for less than 10 minutes, personally. They were definitely crumbly.

Verdict:  They made the house smell bad, in my opinion. They were pretty tasty to me though, and addictive. I ate about half the kale without even thinking about it. My child, who hates all green things, voluntarily ate some and liked them. My housemate wasn't pleased by these at all, and made some wistful comments about how it might have tasted if the kale was prepared otherwise...and compared the chips to eating dry tarragon. My mom thought that they were tasty. I'm not sure if I'll do this one again or not. It is definitely fast!

This is what the process looked like:

Raw Kale

Drizzled and Salted

Baked Kale

~ Patty :)

Wikipedia Article on Kale:
"Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium. Kale, as with broccoli and other brassicas, contains sulforaphane (particularly when chopped or minced), a chemical with potent anti-cancer properties.^[1] Boiling decreases the level of sulforaphane; however, steaming, microwaving, or stir frying do not result in significant loss.^[2] Along with other brassica vegetables, kale is also a source of indole-3-carbinol, a chemical which boosts DNA repair in cells and appears to block the growth of cancer cells.^[3][4] Kale is also a good source of carotenoids.^[5]"

"He's so greasy he glides when he walks. He goes to the barber for an oil change, not a haircut.'” - S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

I decided that I needed to make my own conditioner, or do some sort of at home deep conditioning.

I'm broke at the moment, and it was unlikely that I was going to get a chance to go somewhere to pick up jojoba.

So, I went to the kitchen and grabbed the virgin olive oil.

"I'll just add a bit to my ends."

Yeah, that is what I thought.

I spread some on my ends, and then sort of over my hair a bit. It seemed like it wasn't really doing anything. I didn't notice much.

"If a little is good, more is better."

This kind of logic sometimes helps to make me one of two things:

1. A happy hedonist.
2. A Regretful rethinker.

I warmed some olive oil in a bowl, and then dowsed my hair with it. Then, I wrapped it in a warmish towel for 30 minutes.

I surfed the internet while I had the towel on my head, and I saw something that disturbed me...and made me think that I might have benefited from some earlier research.

This doesn't bode well.

Hmmm....

Well, I read the article on getting olive oil out of your hair, and it was written by someone that was even more clueless than myself. They pretty much recommended napalm and a blow torch, so I didn't pay much attention.

Still, the idea sat with me and made me uncomfortable.

Then I went to clean my hair.

It looked like I had a bunch of greasy hair snakes spronging off of my head.

No problem, I was going to wash it all out.

I washed with the baking soda shampoo.

Nothing.

This oil was staying IN.

I washed with the baking soda shampoo again.

My hands were still oily when I was done.

Hmm...

I rinsed with the vinegar rinse.

A little bit of relief, but not much!

I rinsed with the vinegar again.

Still oily.

I rinsed my hair in water for awhile, and thought that when my hair dried it would get better.

Dry hair? HAHAH

It has been at least an hour, and my hair is greasy damp.

I'm glad that I don't have to go anywhere until Friday.

Until then, I'll look like one of The Outsiders.

Cool. :/

~ Patty

Edit: I figured out that Dawn dish washing liquid would remove a large amount of the oil. It is still there, but MUCH better after using Dawn. Yeah, that is kind of like nuking your hair from orbit.

The Great Shampoo Experiment III !

Update to the shampoo recipe posted here.

I found out that the baking soda shampoo can leave a white powder in your hair too. I saw some on my brush all of a sudden, and was not pleased.

I used apple cider vinegar for the first time in the rinse recipe, and I noticed that I didn't like it as much. I ended up with the first residue in my hair, and sometimes I felt like the scent of vinegar was lingering a bit.

So, I started over and reduced the baking soda to 1/4 cup and went back to white vinegar in the rinse. I'm already feeling the results, which are very positive.

My hair feels far less heavy using this shampoo/rinse, but I also feel like it is a bit dry. I want to experiment with making a jojoba oil conditioner for occasional use.

My scalp is feeling a LOT more healthy using this shampoo/rinse, and my psoriasis is practically non-existent at the moment. I've also noticed that I seem to have less hair falling out.  Nice!

~ Patty

The Great Shampoo Experiment II

You'd be lost without this picture...I'm sure of it!

Shampoo experiment #2:

1/2 cup baking soda (Update: I now recommend 1/4 cup baking soda, due to this experience .)
 3 cups water

 I mixed this in an old Dr. Bronner's container by shaking it.

Rinsed with:

4 Tbsp white vinegar or apple cider vinegar (Update: I now recommend white vinegar over apple cider vinegar, due to this. )
3 cups water

Yup, I used another (separate) Dr. Bronner's container. I shake it up as well.

Verdict: 

It is very weird to shampoo with something so watery, and that has no lather. You have to shake it up every time you use it, and if it has been in the bottle for awhile it will get more gritty.

What the shampoo looks like if you let it sit for awhile

It will feel like you are dumping grit water on your head and then washing it off, which is pretty much what you are doing. That said, it seems to clean my hair pretty darn thoroughly.

I've been trying this one for a few weeks, and I really like it so far! This seems to work out a lot better in hard water, and I haven't noticed any build up on my hair or brush.

This is what it looks like when it is new and well shaken.

The rinse is really key, and so far I've only used the white vinegar version. It makes it smell like Easter in the shower for a few minutes, but once I rinse off the smell is all gone. I am trying apple cider vinegar tomorrow, so we'll see how that works out.

My hair feels lighter since using these on my hair instead of shampoo, and my scalp psoriasis has been clearing up. I have no idea if that is related to this, or just one of those things that happens sometimes.

I'm going to keep using this for now, and hope that it doesn't dry out my hair and make it brittle. I'll tell you if it does.

As you can see, I use fancy masking tape on the bottles to remind myself which bottle is which (even though it is actually pretty obvious).

Oh, and two fun tips:

1. Add the baking soda first, and then add the water. If you get your funnel wet and try to pour into it, the whole thing becomes a pain.

2. Don't pour vinegar into bottles while having them on top of a tablecloth. You'll inevitably spill vinegar and have to do laundry. Okay, maybe YOU won't...but I will.

~ Patty :)

PS  If it isn't obvious, you wash your hair with the shampoo first. Then, you rinse with water. After that, you use the rinse. Then, you rinse with water again (or you'll smell like an Easter Egg).

The Great Shampoo Experiment!

My husband isn't a fan of fake scents, and most shampoos have a scent. I found a few "all natural" and "organic" shampoos, but they were usually scented too.

So, I started thinking about making my own. How hard could it be, right?

I googled around for a bit, and it seemed like Natural Homemade Shampoo Recipes – How to Make Organic Hair Shampoo by Heather Levin was the most succinct and easy to understand version without adding a bunch of smells to the mix.

There are a lot of very good articles about this, but I figured that I'd mention the one that I actually used.

Homemade shampoo recipe #1 (in trial size):

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup liquid Castile soap (Dr. Bronner’s Organic Castile Soap Unscented Baby-Mild)
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

I mixed this in an old Dr. Bronner's container by shaking it.

Verdict: 

I tried this a few weeks ago, and used it for about four days. It sucks if you have hard water, as it will form soap scum on your hair that will become apparent when you brush (and see the film left over on the bristles). I don't know how it does in soft water, but I imagine it could be quite nice.

It made a very thin shampoo, and it felt like I had to use a lot to get all of my hair clean (although it actually didn't take very much at all when I measured). I thought about putting it in an old foaming soap dispenser to make it feel more like lathering shampoo, but I never got around to that.

It definitely cleaned my hair, so much that it squeaked all over. That is how hair screams, so I didn't really love that. Still, my commercial shampoo does the same thing.

I didn't use conditioner, and my hair felt pretty soft and brushed out easily. It didn't have a scent, and that was odd to me...even though it was my goal. (I was super happy about this, as I'd wondered if I was going to smell like olive oil.)

I have psoriasis on my scalp, so I was curious about how it would respond. It didn't irritate my scalp during the short trial.

(Dr. Bronner's website talks about the soap scum issue a bit, and it offers a rinse for those that want to use their soap as a shampoo. The thing is, those are scented rinses that I can't make myself very easily. So, that is the opposite of where I want to go for now...)

~ Patty :)