Make Your Own Soymilk and Tofu

With so many women rejecting Hormone therapy for Pre-Menopause and Menopause due to the obvious health dangers, many women are turinng to soy products for the phyto-estrogens in them. Also many people seeking to live more frugally have turned to vegetarianism and part vegetarian meals. Lets face it, Meat in large quantities is not just bad for you (sorry Dr. Atkins) but Really Expensive. If you want to lower your food budget cut down on meat.

So one way for the Frugal Cook to add protein to the family diet is to use soy products. If you live in a large urban area its easy enough to buy soymilk and tofu (also called dofu) cheaply on sale at many places as a loss leader. In many rural and suburban environments it might simply be easier and cheaper to make your own. I think making stuff from scratch is lots of fun as you may have gathered from my articles, so here are recipes to make soy milk and tofu in your kitchen. Then I list ways to stretch your budget by adding these cheap high protein products to your regular cooking. Like many traditional foods they are blessedly easy to make.

Soy Milk
3 cups of dry soy beans
3 times their volume in water
A grinding device
Fine straining cloth
Colander
A deep pot to boil the soymilk in

Soak the beans over night until soft. Grind them to a pulp. This can be done several ways. Long ago in the 1970's when a friend and I first tried this, we used a mortar, and a potato masher. Lots of fun, good exercise, and lots of work!. The easy way is to grind small batches with twice the volume in hot water in the blender or food processor. Pour the resulting mush into the cloth lined colander. When you have ground them all, let the liquid strain off through the cloth. This liquid is soymik. Give the cloth a good twist and squeeze to get the last of the liquid.

Pour the strained soymilk into a deep pot and bring to a foaming boil several times. The cooking is absolutely necessary. This inactivates an enzyme in the soy that would bind up the proteins (the reason you don't eat soy raw.) Cool. Sweeten to taste if you like.

Don't throw away the strained soy fiber solids. Use in any Zucchini bread/or cake/or muffin recipe to replace the zucchini. Tastes great. The muffins it makes are super.

Korean Recipe Soymilk
I found a different recipe for soymilk that is from Korea. Try both.

1 cup dry soy beans
 3 times their volume in water
A grinding device
Fine straining cloth
Colander

Soak beans in water overnight. The next day, put the soaked beans in a stove ready pot and add enough water so that you can bring them to a boil. Bring pot to a boil. Boil for 15 minutes. No longer. Strain off water for watering plants. Let the beans cool and then rub off the skins. Wash skins away with cool water. Grind beans in hot water three times their volume. If your blender is small like mine do it in thirds. Strain off the solids with a cloth. Squeeze to remove all liquid. If the milk seems to thick ad water to taste. Add sweetener and vanilla if desired. This is already cooked, so no boiling is necessary.

Tofu
Soymilk from above recipe
3 tablespoons of epsom salts
or
2 tablespoons of nigari (Oriental coagulant)
or
a half cup of lemon juice
or
a quarter cup of vinegar
Used butter tub with drain holes punched in bottom.

In separate cup dissolve the Epsom salts or nigari (do I really need to say you don't have to do this to the vinegar or lemon juice?) Add the dissolved coagulant to the soymilk. Mix well. Solids Will start to curdle. When well mixed, let it sit for a few hours. Then re-line your trusty colander with more fine cloth and strain. Place the curds and liquid in the colander. Let drain. You now have soft tofu. To get firmer tofu for frying, you need to press it. Take the mass in the cloth and press overnight between two tipped plates with a weight on it (soup cans work well), or --if you live in a house with cats, dogs, or small children -- put in the butter tub and place weights on it to force out the liquid. The resulting mass will be much more solid. If its hot do all this in the refrigerator.

While all this sounds time consuming you work around the other events of your day and make nice soymilk and tofu.

Or you can get a Soymilk maker. Many places sell them. Two places are listed below.

Amazon.com
Yep they sell them too! The cheapest ones I found were listed there.
SOYMILK MAKER

Soyloveusa.com
Also sells soybeans, and authentic oriental coagulant.
www.soyloversusa.com

USES for SOYMILK and TOFU:
1) Substitute Soymilk for regular milk in cooking and drinking. If your family objects, use half soy and half milk. In cooking people hardly ever notice.

2) Substitute Tofu for cream cheese, ricotta, cottage cheese, or part of the cheese in most recipes. Half cheese and half tofu will lower fat in most cheese recipies without compromising flavor.

For More Soy Recipes and Ideas of all sorts (tempa, miso, etc.) Go to:
http://soyfoods.com/SimplySoy/

Ten Tempting Ideas for Tofu
http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/food/414


Here are some more Recommended Soy Reading for you.

The Book of Tofu
"The Book" on how to make any sort of Tofu.
The Book of Tofu

Laurel's Kitchen
A wonderful family cookbook with lots of toothsome family type recipes that kids and Husbands love --completely unaware of how healthy they are. Very Subversive!
Laurel's Kitchen Cookbook

For more ideas Check out these Frugal Living Books!
Complete Tightwad Gazette
The Complete Tightwad Gazette

Declare Your Financial Independence
Declare Your Financial Independence

Complete Cheapskate
Mary Hunt's Complete Cheapskate

Miserly Moms
Miserly Moms

You Can Afford to Stay Home With your Kids
You can Afford to stay Home With your Kids

by
Lili Pintea-Reed
All Rights belong to the author