Since purchasing a fairly large quantity of soybeans as part of our food reserves, we have been incorporating them into our regular diets (3-4 times per week). While the pressure cooker works great we have found that roasted soybeans are both easy and delicious and keep well without refrigeration (caveat: a batch has never lasted more than 4 days at this house)

Just soak the beans overnight in water, then spread them out on a cookie sheet or pizza pan (the ones with perforated bottoms work great). Salt and season to taste and bake in oven at 325 for approx 45 minutes. Towards the end of the cycle you'll want to stir frequently to ensure a uniform roast. Remove when they are fairly dark (a ligther roast if you like chewy beans - quite good also). That's all there is to it. They make a great healthy snack food and go good in salads.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), February 10, 1999

Answers

Arnie - Thanks for the tip. I saw an ad recently for a grinder to make soy milk from soaked beans. The only problem was it cost over $200 and was electric. Do you know a way to make the soy milk without such an expensive and, after 1/1/00/, useless piece of equipment? Thanks and God bless. Mary

-- Mary (SWEEP6@prodigy.net), February 10, 1999.

Mary,

Here is a recipe to make soymilk that I got out of a book called "TOFU COOKERY" by Louise Hagler (not me)

Start by rinsing and then soaking 5 cups of whole soybeans in 15 cups cold water overnight, or at least 8-10 hours. Be sure to keep the soaking beans in a cool place or under refrigeration if the weather is very hot so they won't sour. You can quick-soak your beans by pouring 15 cups of boiling water over the rinsed soybeans and letting them soak for 2-4 hours. Soybeans will double in size and be free of wrinkles when they are finished soaking. If you split one in half, it will have a flat surface inside, rather than a concave surface.

After the soybeans have been soaked, rinse them in a colander. Now they are ready for grinding. You can use a food processor, grinding 2 cups of soaked soybeans at a time into a slightly gritty or sandy paste. The grinding can also be done in a meat grinder, using the finer grind. If it is ground too smooth it will be hard to strain and the resulting milk will have a pulpy texture. If it is not ground finely enough, it will not give a good yield.

Using a large wire whip, whip the soybean paste into about 2 gallons of rapidly boiling water (3 cups boiling water to every cup of soaked beans). Bring it back to a boil, turn down to medium low heat, and let it cook at a low boil for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Watch the pot carefully, because soymilk can foam up and boil over quickly. Keep a cup of cold water next to the pot, to pour in if it starts to foam up quickly.

Set a colander over a large bowl or pot and line the colander with a large piece (about 2 to 3 foot square) of nylon mesh or several layers of cheesecloth. Pour or ladle the cooked soybean mixture into the cloth-lined colander. Gather up two corners of the cloth in each hand and raise the ball of pulp a few inches out of the colander. Roll it back and forth in the cloth by alternately raising and lowering each hand. This will release most of the soymilk. Set the cloth and contents back into the colander, gather up the ends of the cloth again and twist them together until the cloth tightens around the ball of pulp. Press the bundle with a wooden paddle or a jar to extract as much milk as possible. You can open the cloth up after you have pressed out all the milk, and mix 2 to 3 cups of boiling water into the pulp. Twist the cloth back up and press again. The pulp can be reserved for baking.

If you want other soy recipes, go to Gary Hansen's page

http://members.tripod.com/z2z/index.html He has a lot of good links at the bottom of his page.

-- Louise (~~~~~@~~~~.~~~), February 10, 1999.

Mary,

I have an old issue (1977) of Organic Gardening that describes in great detail how to make soy milk from soy beans the very low-tech way. I don't remember all of the details but it did not involve any electric appliances. If you would like, I could E-mail the information to you tomorrow or post it here. Let me know...

Mom

-- Mom (kitty@cat.com), February 10, 1999.

My tag line:

A day late and a dollar short...

Mom

-- Mom (kitty@cat.com), February 10, 1999.

A fairly low tech way of making soy milk that i have used is to soak 1 cup soybeans overnight. Put in blender ( 4 cups water), and blend until smooth. Drain in colander or sieve into container. Store in cool place.

-- Damian Solorzano (oggy1@webtv.net), February 11, 1999.