SustainLife Blog

Blog Comment Policy

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We appreciate your comments on the SustainLife blog. All comments on our blog are moderated. This means that when you initially post your comment, it will be visible to you, but it won’t be visible to others who read the blog until after we have approved it. We approve comments as quickly as our workload allows.

When comments have errors in spelling, grammar or punctuation, we will typically correct them. In the unlikely event that we need further clarification on something in your comment, we may contact you by email. Some comments warrant personal or private replies. When moderating those types of comments, we will respond to you by email rather than post those comments onto the blog. We delete any comments that appear to be spam and may also delete other comments. At our discretion, we may remove outgoing links from comments.

You are welcome to link to our blog posts, and if you want to quote content from any of our blog posts, you may do so. We ask that you give proper credit for the quote and link to the original article on our blog so that people can read the context from which the quote was taken and can read the original post in its entirety.

Ploughshare’s New Classes for 2012

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We’ve expanded our class offerings for 2012.  Below is a list of new classes. To find out more about a class or register for it, click the class name.

Gardening

This comprehensive series of gardening classes will teach you how to raise a large portion of your family’s food, sustainably.

  • Gardening I – In this workshop, you’ll learn the foundational concepts and principles involved in gardening and how to select the best site for your garden. You’ll learn about soil and soil fertility, compost, growing beds, watering your garden, and pest control.
  • Gardening II – In this class, you will learn how to plan your garden, how to keep journals and records to improve your results, proper crop spacing, crop rotation, cover crops, how to start seeds, how to transplant, and ways to protect your crops in order to extend the gardening season.
  • Gardening III – The third class builds on the previous two classes. You’ll learn about saving seed from your current garden for next year’s or next season’s garden along with companion planting. We’ll also cover greenhouse design and how to do year-round gardening, so that you can get a food supply from your garden in all seasons.

Learning How to Make Soap at Home

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Homemade soaps
Homemade goat’s milk soaps

I learned to make soap about 18 years ago and for the past seven or more years have made all the soaps that my family uses. This includes soap for bathing, shampoo bars, laundry soap, soap for washing dishes, gentle soap for babies, and pet shampoo bars containing essential oils that help deter fleas and ticks. The photo shows soaps I’ve made in my home business, which makes and sells goat milk soaps.

In our one day course on soap making, we teach many of the things we have learned as soap makers. You’ll learn through hands-on training how to make soaps using the hot process and cold process methods.  Hot process soaps are usually made from tallow, which you’ll learn how to render. Cold process soaps are most often made from vegetable oils. You’ll learn about the advantages of each method, and at the end of the day, you’ll take home your own soap mold full of soap that you have made in the class. Half of the batch will be hot process soap and the other half will be cold process, goat’s milk soap.  After your soap has cooled and after you’ve cut, shaped, and aged the bars, they’ll be ready for you to use.

We have plenty of time in our soap making class for your questions, and we often cover topics like

  • “How can I make laundry soap?”
  • “Can I actually make all the different soaps that my family needs and uses?”
  • “What about homemade lye?”

We have several books available for purchase at each class so that you can further your soap making skills.  The books cover how to make shampoo bars, molded oval soap, herbal soap, and various other types of soap.

Best of Show at the Texas Furniture Maker’s Show

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Hand forged table
Hall table made of mesquite, steel, and copper

Caleb Nolen, our blacksmithing instructor at The Ploughshare Institute, won best of show in the 12th annual Texas Furniture Maker’s Show with his hall table. The Texas Furniture Maker’s Show is a juried show that features the work of the finest furniture makers in Texas.

The sides of the piece are hand forged in a serpentine shape that runs in fluidity to the bow front, bringing your attention to the center oval, which showcases a cluster of hand forged roses.

Hand forged roses

Caleb fashioned each rose and its stem from a single piece of steel. The leaves are individually shaped then forge welded to the rose stem. On either side of the oval is a hand hammered copper rose.

Copper rose

Mortise and tenon joints with hand-hammered rivets hold the table together, and the top is made of figured mesquite.

Side view of table

Ricotta: A Simple Cheese You Can Make at Home

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Fresh Ricotta with Blueberries
Fresh homemade ricotta cheese with blueberries

 

Ricotta is a soft cheese that you can easily make at home. It is excellent eaten fresh with fruit, or you can use it in baked dishes like lasagna or baked ziti.

The recipe below, based on whole milk, is one of the simplest ways to make ricotta cheese. In our one day soft cheese making class, we teach another approach, where you first make fresh mozzarella, then make ricotta from the leftover whey.

This recipe makes about 1 3/4 pounds or 4 cups of ricotta.

Ingredients

  • 1 gallon whole milk
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon citric acid

Instructions

Combine the milk, salt and citric acid in a large stainless steel pot, and mix the ingredients thoroughly.

Pouring the ingredients into a large stainless steel pot

 

Heat the mixture over medium heat on the stove top, stirring very gently to prevent scorching. Be careful not to stir too much because that will cause the curds to be too fine. Heat until the temperature reaches 195 degrees (F), but don’t allow the milk to boil. By the time the mixture reaches 195 degrees (F), the curds should have begun to separate from the whey.  When this happens, turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes.

Ricotta Curds Forming

 

Line a colander with butter muslin or fine mesh cheesecloth and set it in the sink (or in a pot, if you want to save the whey).  Scoop the curds and whey using a two cup measure and gently pour them into the colander.

Draining the Ricotta Curds through Cheesecloth
Draining the Ricotta Curds through Cheesecloth

 

Drain the curds until they are the consistency you want.  The longer you allow them to drain, the drier your ricotta will be. You can eat it right away or store it in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. It also freezes well.

The final product: 1 3/4 pounds ricotta cheese and 3/4 gallon whey
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