Home made soy milk

Last sunday, instead of going to the beach, I decided to make soy milk and I thought it can be interesting to show you how to do it!
First of all you need soy beans. Be sure they are not GMO (genetically modified) and preferably they can be from organic cultivation and/or from fair trade.
Put them in a big bowl with water for 18 hours and you can notice how much they grew up!



Now if you have a mixer you can proceed very fast. In my case, I had to adapt with a low technology equipment and I smashed the beans with that wooden thing you can see in the picture. After many hours of arm gymnastic, I obtained this mass; if you use a mixer, it will be more finely ground and that's better.



At this point you put to boil in a big pot an amount of water equal to 7 times the volume of the soy beans, add few salt and the soy mass. Let boil moderately for one hour and half.



Finally you need to filter the liquid from the mass. You can use a clean cloth or whatever can have this function. So now the water turned into delicious milk that you can use as you like. The remaining mass can be used in soup together with vegetables and cereals, or to make vegetarian burgers. With the soy milk you can even make tofu, that is soy cheese. This time I didn't make it, but all you need is lemon juice to coagulate the milk and obtain the cheese. Simple, isn't it?

Mount Dajti (2)

Two weeks ago I went for the second time to the Mount Dajti, the mountain next to Tirana, but this time I went by myself. I used the local public transportation: bus and cable car. It was more adventurous, but not difficult.
Bus tickets are very cheap: one ride is only 20 lek, around 0.17 euro! While the cable railway is pretty new and with European standards.





It was funny to see girls wearing high heels to go there!
I also saw for the first time a muslim woman with a burqa, i.e. completely covered, only a small opening for the eyes. It is also not so common to see women with the chador, head covered but face not.




I enjoyed a lot the sunny weather and I found a quiet trail in a forest of beeches (faggi) where to hike. I know there is a project for mapping and putting signages of trails but I couldn't find any. It is also annoying that often you find military zones and the path is interrupted.