25 February 2008

scaling the okara mountain •





Blogs happen for many reasons. Truth be told, I never aspired to be...a blogger. I work on computers all day long. Every few years, a new software program comes along that I have to learn; more commands to command, more updates to remember...the last thing I wanted to do was run home and jump on my computer. I had too many hobbies already.

That all changed when I began to make homemade soymilk with my brand spankin’ new machine from Sanlinx Inc.—the SoyaPower™. Within no time I was holding two cups of okara, the by-product of soy milk making. “No problemo”, I said to myself, and promptly threw it away. On the second batch, my hand froze, it actually trembled, and my conscience got the better of me. This stuff had to be good for something! I decided to read the manual. It turns out that this okara, this soybean mush, is very nutritious. I diligently began to save it, scooping the okara into bags and chucking it into the freezer. The bags began to pile up, and I ignored them, too busy making soy milk to deal with it.

My hubby walked into the kitchen one day with a few bags in his hand. Turns out that my chest freezer in the garage was threatening to do what my hips have been in the last few years—blow the seams. Something had to be done. I started looking for recipes. I perused my vegetarian cookbooks—plenty of tofu, some cooked soybeans and TSP, slim pickings on okara. I googled okara recipes. Oh, I found a few, but I didn’t want to go out and buy too many odd ingredients, at least not right away.  Along with a hungry husband I have three kids to feed and needed recipes that they would eat, too. I am always trying to sneak more vitamins and fiber into them. And so Okara Mountain was born...a blog to save the recipes I test, to share the ones that pass muster. Let the Adventure begin!