Cleaning Grease for Soap

I know this will come in bits and pieces because I'm kind of slow when it comes to prepping for making soap. I save grease/dripping in canning jars and then store them in bread bags in the freezer. When the time comes I thaw them to clean out the particles such as bits of meat.

Depending on the soap I am making it can take up to 5 pounds of grease. I have two partially filled cans of shortening that has gone stale so I have plenty but I still wanted to use the drippings first.
I should explain that each solid fat has their own property when it comes to soap making. The softer your fat is at room temperature, the softer your soap will be. That is why it is never recommended to make soap with just liquid fat (oil). Drippings are often firm enough to make a good solid soap but we don't cook enough fatty meats to get enough for a batch of soap. These two jars have taken us nearly 2 years to collect.
Cleaning drippings is easy but it takes a lot of time (mostly waiting). I made the mistake of starting with a pan that was too large. I had expected there to be more fat than there was.
Fill your pot with hot water out of the tap.

Add the grease.

Heat the pot on the stove until the grease is all melted. Do not let it come to a boil because the foam will cause the particles to sit on the top of the fat.
When the grease is melted, put the pot in your fridge overnight. I put mine outside since it's really cold right now with a towel over the top to prevent stuff falling into the pot.
Now you will see that I had particles float to the top. I left the pot on the stove for just a little too long.

If you use the right sized pan, you can remove the fat, sometimes in pieces and scrape the top and bottom to reveal a fairly clean piece of fat. In my case, my piece came out rather thin. You may have to repeat this process several times to get the grease as clean as possible. Knowing this, I cleaned what I could off the bottom of the fat and placed it all in a smaller pot.

The cleanliness of the oil will depend on where you get your drippings. We keep a jar by the stove (in the really hot season we put it in the fridge to prevent it from smelling). You can use rancid grease. It doesn't make pretty soap but it's still usable soap. We save oil that we deep fried with (straining it before pouring into a canning jar). We use oil that has gone stale.
Soon, I'll post the instructions for turning that grease into soap. I have posted a laundry soap recipe previously.

Orange and Walnut Scones

I finally took some time last night to play with the bisquick mix I made this past weekend. I started with making biscuits. The recipe is easy - 2 1/4 cups mix to 2/3 cups milk. I used my homemade yogurt because we are out of milk and I was feeling too lazy to make up a batch of powdered milk. The biscuits came out nicely. I don't roll out my biscuits so I let the dough stay sticky (bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes). The texture of the biscuits was probably the best I have ever made. They crumbled just a little bit but held up to buttering and adding honey. My only complaint is they were a little bland. Of course, that made them perfect for toppings but eating just a plan biscuit was boring. I think that comes from not adding salt and plain shortening to the mix.
However, this boring mix was the perfect vessel for making an amazing scone. I had gone on the bisquick site to get the biscuit recipe and there were a number of scone recipes. I took the basic information and created my own scone. The only difference with my recipe and the plain recipe is the addition of orange extract and walnuts. (I did add yogurt instead of heavy cream.) Feel free to change the recipe to suit your needs and your cupboards. I plan on playing with it lots more.

Orange Walnut Scones
2 cups baking mix
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 egg
1 teas orange extract
1/2 chopped walnuts
Combine baking mix and sugar. Make a well in the center. Add the yogurt and the egg. Mix well until the dry ingredients are wet, adding in the extract as you go. Mix in walnuts and stir to evenly incorporate them. Pat the dough into a large flat round (dust with additional mix to prevent sticking). Lay on baking sheet and pat flat (to about 3/4 inch to 1 inch thick). Cut into 8 wedges but do not seperate. Bake at 425 for 12 minutes.

Homemade Bisquick Mix

Making your own mixes opens up so many opportunities and makes it easier to cater to food allergies. This is a new experiment and I have not tried this gluten free but this week I hope to share things you can do with this mix. I have shared recipes in the past that use baking mix but this one simple recipe can open up so many doors.
Over time I will try for a gluten free variety and perhaps a Feingold version.
I will say that omitted the salt. We don't use salt at home and it seemed unnecessary.

Homemade Bisquick Mix
6 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup vegetable shortening
Add dry ingredients to a large bowl. Cut in the shortening with a pastry cutter or a fork until resembles crumbs. Use fingers to break up any large bits.

Lemon Cake

I took some time off yesterday and totally spaced writing any blog posts. I like having home time be home time but I hate forgetting to keep up here. Today I am sharing a lemon cake recipe I created a few weeks back. I love lemon cake - so much so that I asked for it for my wedding. My mom makes an awesome cake with lemon cream cheese frosting but she cheats and uses a cake mix. Her frosting is a homemade cream cheese frosting with lemon extract. This cake is a little drier and denser than a cake mix but comes together just as easily. Note that I use lemon juice and extract. That gave the cake an extra punch of lemon. Lemon extract is finiky. It doesn't always come through. The best way to add lemon extract to a recipe is to stir it in with the eggs. The protein in the eggs helps preserve the flavor so it doesn't bake out.

Lemon Cake
1 cup butter
1 ¾ cup sugar
4 eggs
1 TB lemon extract
1 teas vanilla
¼ cup lemon juice
1 cup milk
1 TB baking powder
3 cups flour
Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, mixing lemon extract into eggs before mixing into butter and sugar. Beat smooth. Add vanilla and lemon juice. Add baking powder. Beat well. Alternate flour and milk as you add them into the batter. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until firm.

Pancake Mix and Baked Pancakes

I used to make pancake mix and then didn't for awhile which is how things are in our house - I go through cycles. The last pancake mix we had was Mama's Gluten Free Mix which was a great pancake mix. I had 2 bags of her almond blend to use up and thought replacing the pancake mix was a great way to do so. Mama's Gluten Free Almond Blend is the only gluten free flour I have used to make this pancake mix - this is not a gluten free recipe but can easily be altered.
If using gluten free flours - add 1-2 teaspoons of xanthum or guar gum (I use guar gum because it's half the cost of xanthum gum).
I have made this mix with soy milk powder and powdered milk - you can not tell the difference except in the mix its self (soy milk powder is softer than powdered milk).

Pancake mix
8 cup flour
2 cups milk powder
½ cup sugar
2 tb + 2 teas baking powder
4 teas baking soda
Mix together and store in an airtight container

To make pancakes:
2 eggs
1 2/3 cup water
1/3 cup oil or butter
2 ½ cups mix

This weekend, my son had his cousin spend the night. They wanted pancakes for breakfast and requested cinnamon to be added to the batter. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use up some of the bananas in my freezer, especially since we are currently out of eggs. I freeze bananas in their peels so I don't have to really think about them. To peel them, I run them under hot water and remove the peels. Sometime the inside of the peel sticks to the banana and I use a knife to scrap it off. Because the bananas were frozen I stuck them in the microwave to thaw them after peeling.
So the recipe:
3 bananas
1 1/3 cups or so water
1/3 cup oil
2 1/2 cups mix
1 teas cinnamon
Mash the bananas, add 1 cup water and the oil. Mix in the pancake mix and cinnamon. Add remaining water a little at a time to make a pourable batter.
Now here comes the tricky part - I could not get the batter not to stick to my pan. To matter what I did the pancakes would not turn out. We were running out of time to eat breakfast before church so I turned the oven onto 400 degrees and poured the batter into a non-stick baking sheet that I rubbed with butter. About 10 minutes later I changed the oven to broil and let the top get a little golden. I'm not sure the broiling really made a difference.
Then I rubbed butter on the top before cutting into pancake sized squares. We ate them with peanut butter to find these were the best pancakes ever made. Each serving was perfectly cooked. I did slightly miss the crispy edge of fried pancakes but they were so good. So much so that my family asked me to continue baking them every time.

Dairy Products

Sorry about missing yesterday - three day weekends make me lose Monday. I'm not complaining - I love having two Sundays. It gave me a chance to experiment with lemon cheese again.
I got to thinking about dairy products lately. After all the holiday baking and cooking our cupboards are looking rather bare. I spent an extra $45 stocking the house with produce (two bountiful baskets and 1 box of tangerines). But I still had only $90 to do the bulk of the shopping. That meant restocking and planning back on budget. We'll be looking for a little extra cash here and there to stock some other essentials but I still was limited.
Dairy products are big in our house. My son is drinking a gallon of milk a week and begging for cheese. Milk is about $2.50 a gallon and our powdered milk supply is dwindling (not that he really drank it straight but it still was going). Cheese, on a good day, runs about $5 for a two pound brick. We, also, buy yogurt at $1.85 for a large container of plain whole yogurt.
I got to thinking - could I use a gallon of milk and have the products cost less? The answer is yes. I made a batch of crock pot yogurt - super easy. I filled my crock pot with milk (supposed to be 1/2 gallon), heated on low for 3 hours then turned it off for two. I added about 1/2 cup of plain active culture yogurt (I keep this stocked so not an additional expense), wrapped the whole thing in a thick towel and let it sit overnight (it was overlooked so sat for an extra 8 hours). The end result was the equivilant to 3 large yogurt containers. The texture was different but the taste was the same. The great thing is I have yogurt and a substitute for sour cream.
I put together a batch of lemon cheese. A gallon of milk gave me a 32 oz container of cheese plus about 10 cups of whey. The lemon cheese is a great substitute for ricotta or cottage cheese. We will be experimenting to see how it does as a cheddar sub in recipes. It's a great snack cheese. The whey I used to oatmeal and can be subbed in baked goods so there's no loss of use there. For those 10 cups it's like I still have milk. I will say the oatmeal was a little bland but I think it's because I didn't use as much molasses this time. It was still tasty.
Tonight I am making au gratin potatoes using the lemon cheese. I can't imagine it won't turn out wonderful and I'll post the recipe tomorrow.
Personally, buying 4 gallons of milk vs buying 2 gallons, yogurt and cheese saves money. Granted I have less variety of cheese except I have all the control. I can make it savory or sweet. The homemade yogurt can be any flavor I decide. I've been eating it with just cinnamon, today - it's canned plums. I plan on trying to recreate some "dessert" flavors. I have apple pie filling in my fridge (fully canned) that might make a great addition to the yogurt. It's perfect to add to the oatmeal.
I promise tomorrow - I'll be back to recipes and save all the talking for another time. I'm really enjoying 2012 and have already lost 2 pounds. Maybe next week, I'll share my diet plan.

Make It From Scratch: Instant Oatmeal

One of the best ways to save money is make from scratch items you would purchase for convienence. It may seem like something that is difficult and perhaps more expensive at times but I assure you it is not.
I have put off making instant oatmeal for many reasons but the truth is making things from scratch can be intimidating. It's really easy just to pick it up from the store and I don't mind the generic versions of instant oatmeal. However, I'm kind of picky about the flavor and I would really like to be able to buy the higher quality versions but if I made my own then I could determine the flavor and what is in it. Homemade is so much better because there are less additives, maybe none. Organic/all natural instant oatmeal is expensive and doesn't always taste that good.
So, was instant oatmeal hard to make? NO! The hardest part was grinding up some oatmeal in my bullet-type blender. The rest of the work was dumping ingredients into a zip-lock bag. How did it taste? The flavor was actually pretty good. I think I'll still play with it but I planned on this when I made it. I made a fairly plan oatmeal with the idea that I could add apple butter or dried bananas at my leisure.
The only "problem" was figuring out how much water to oatmeal and whether or not I should have used less whole oats. My oatmeal this morning was a little on the tough side but I actually liked that. It wasn't the pasty texture of store-bought instant oatmeal. If you like that, then grind up more of the oatmeal.

Instant Oatmeal
4 cups rolled oats, blend 1 cup in blender until a fairly fine powder
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup powdered milk
1/3 cup flax meal (opt)
Mix in large zip-lock bag. 1/3 cup of dry mix makes 1 serving of oatmeal. Add up hot water and serve.
I didn't put the amount of water due to personal preference. The recommended amount is 3/4 cup hot water and I thought that sounded like too much.
This recipe is based on the following single serve recipe I found online but forgot to note where.

1/4 cup rolled oats
2 TB powdered oats
1 teas powdered milk
1 teas sugar
1/8 teas salt
Mix and add 3/4 cup hot water. Serve.

Homemade Mac and Cheese

It's sweltering hot outside and do you know what my family wants to eat - Mac and cheese. No box mac will work for them - it has to be homemade. What we make is nearly as easy as a boxed dish so I don't really mind. I don't bake my mac and cheese like many people do and we serve it just like any pasta dish - noodles with the sauce on the side, unless I'm serving a big crowd and then I mix them together. My son's really enjoying some rice shells we got at the beginning of summer. While the noodles might be gluten-free, the sauce is not. To make it gluten free - use the almond sauce recipe, omit the seasonings and add cheese.

Homemade Mac and Cheese
16 oz bag of macaroni, shells or other small pasta
1/2 stick of butter
1/2-1 cup of flour
milk
shredded cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions. Melt butter in medium saucepan on a med high heat. Add flour until the butter is absorbed and you are left with a yellow paste (a whisk works best here). Slowly add milk (about 1/2 cup at a time) and stir into the paste until incorporated. It's best to work it until the paste is smooth to prevent future clumps but may not be easy with the first addition of milk. Continue to add milk 1/2 cup at a time and stir until the paste is smooth. At some point the milk will not turn into paste. It should be thick. Add another 1/2 cup of milk to make it slightly thin and stir until it thickens some. Add cheese.
The reason I did not say how much cheese is because this depends on taste and type of cheese. If I use a sharp cheddar, I add about 1 1/2 cups. Add cheese, stir until fully melted and taste. If you use a velvetta like cheese - melt about 1-2 cups in a glass container before adding to the saucepan.
Serve the cheese sauce on the noodles. You can serve with cauliflower or broccoli since you have cheese sauce. We had it this week with salmon patties and the sauce was better than tartar sauce.

White Bread

I adapted this recipe from Martha Storey's cookbook on country cooking. I highly recommend that cookbook, it's my go-to book, because it covers a lot of the basics in detail. I'm not going to share as much because I just don't have the time or space (that and blogger ate my first attempt to share this with you).
Bread is an intimidating product but it's really not that hard once you understand the basics. This recipe is super easy and over time you'll find playing with it will be fun. The bread that comes out is a basic white bread, great for sandwiches and toast. It's simple to turn into rolls and other baked goods.
Kneading is the hardest part of making bread (and the waiting) so here a good tutorial on kneading bread.
This recipe does not contain salt so the bread will only last about 5 days before molding. To extend the bread's shelf life, feel free to add 1 teaspoon salt.

White Bread
2 cups warm water
2 TB honey
1 TB yeast
2 TB oil or melted butter
5-6 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered milk
Heat water until it's a comfortable bath temperature, you should be able to comfortably put your fingers in the water. Mix in honey until melted. Add yeast and stir. You want the yeast to be fairly mixed in. Let sit until you get about 1" foam.
In large glass bowl, pour in oil, 1 cup flour and powdered milk. Add yeast mixture and stir. Add 1 cup flour at a time until you can no longer stir the dough. Pour up to 1 cup of flour on a clean counter top and set the dough on top. Knead the flour into the dough and continue to knead until your dough is firm and even. Clean the glass bowl, dry and oil it. Roll the dough into a ball and set in glass bowl. Cover with clean dish towel and let rise in warm place. I turn my oven on to warm while I mix the dough, turn it off and set the dough inside to rise.
Let rise until the dough has doubled. Punch dough down and knead for several minutes. I do this in the bowl to save time and messes. Form 2 equal loaves and set in oiled loaf pans. Cover with towel and return to warm area. Let rise until doubled. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes (do not open oven for the first 20). The bread should be golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. It is easier to remove bread from pan and slice when cold but it tastes so good right out of the oven.
To make rolls, use a 9x13 pan and roll the dough into equal balls (about 1/2 the size you want the rolls). It takes less time to cook so check them after 15 minutes.

Vanilla Ice Cream

I'm not as prepared today and I would have liked. I often write my blog at work so if I leave my notes at home then I am stuck. I didn't realize I hadn't shared my bread recipe here so I can't share with you how I turned it into cinnamon rolls but I can share with you how I made vanilla ice cream in my gel canister. I mentioned that the gel canister ice cream maker makes an icy sort of product. I read somewhere (wish I could remember where) that you can add 1 teas of Xanthum gum to make a creamier product. We don't use Xanthum gum in our house, always opting to go with the far less expensive Guar gum. The end product was a little pastier than I prefer so I am going to experiment with the amount and may be posting more on this as I figure out the perfect balance. I also don't use cream in my ice cream which means a slightly lower fat ice cream which changes the consistency as well. However, with all that said my family couldn't stop raving about this experiment.

Vanilla Ice Cream
1 can evaporated milk
Enough whole milk added to the evaporated milk to make 3 cups
1 cup sugar
1 teas vanilla (I thought it really should have more since the flavor was rather muted)
1 teas Guar gum
Mix together until smooth and pour into ice cream maker. Process according to manufacturers instructions.
Something to note here - the guar gum made the ice cream fluffy and come right to the top of the container. I think it added 50% more volume to the ice cream which made a difference when I moved it to the container for freezing. My son got a bowl of ice cream out of the maker because I didn't have enough room to freeze it.
The final product is quite similar to store bought ice cream.

Ice Cream Makers and Almond Milk Ice Cream

There are two basic types of ice cream makers - the frozen canister and the one that uses ice and rock salt.
The frozen canister type (like we are currently using) has a thick bowl that sits on a motor which you remove and freeze. The bowl is filled with a gel that freezes and thaws as it makes the ice cream. There are some great advantages to this type of ice cream maker. It is often cheaper than it's counterpart, it's quiet and you can use it to make a variety of frozen treats from slushies to ice cream. The disadvantages are you have to re-freeze the canister after every use so only 1 recipe at a time and it doesn't make the best ice cream (but I am working on that).
The type that uses rock salt and ice often has a thin canister for the ice cream that sits in a bucket like structure which is all secured by the motor on the top. You pour a mixture of ice and rock salt around the ice cream canister and turn it on. The advantage is it makes nearly perfect ice cream without having to freeze the ice cream before eating. It's rather low tech. The disadvantages are it's more expensive and horribly noisy. The noise kept us from making ice cream as much as we would have.
I am playing with recipes and I have to say with a little experimenting I think you can get a really good ice cream out of the gel canister maker. I'm hoping because that's what we are using. With these, you need a seperate container to store the ice cream. I find that the Ziplock containers with the twist lids are perfect.
Our first ice cream we made was an almond milk - this is really simple and tasty. This version will make more of an ice milk than an ice cream but for those who can't do dairy it's wonderful.

Almond milk ice cream
3 cups vanilla almond milk
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
Mix together in large measuring cup and carefully pour into ice cream maker. Let stir in make for 25-30 minutes (or to manufacturer instructions). Pour into covered container and freeze overnight.

We did make a dairy version last night with some modifications that look promising so I can't wait to share them with you when I have them more perfected.

Homemade Marshmallows

I had a busy fun fourth of July weekend. I got time to do lots of cooking and creating which helps me move this blog forward. There's something about spending time in the kitchen when there's nothing that has to be done. We BBQ'd for the 4th but it didn't really require a lot of preparation so everything I did in the kitchen was because I wanted to.
On the Feingold diet we discovered that S'mores was not a possibility. The marshmallows and graham crackers both had things our son couldn't eat. I had made marshmallows once before with little success but I was willing to try again. I used this recipe from Alton Brown. It was quicker than I thought. My marshmallows didn't need all the mixing time stated which meant that my vanilla came in a little late but we'll know better next time. Within 2 hours the marshmallows were set.
I was excited to find that Karo syrup has gone back to a natural recipe - corn syrup, salt and vanilla. No more High Fructose Corn Syrup which kept me from having to come up with an alternative. I may still work on making golden syrup to replace corn syrup but I don't have to. I didn't really like the corn starch/powdered sugar blend so I may try it with just powdered sugar.
It did set up fast so I wasn't able to smooth it out to be pretty but it was sure easy and tasty - don't see any reason to ever buy marshmallows again. I used a stand mixer (just thought you should know) and I think the marshmallows alone will make that a must have. I think that if I don't let them set up right away I can make pretty simple rice krispie treats out of it.

Lemon Cheese

A few years ago I was working towards becoming more self sufficient and starting a little farm. We bought 2 goats and I got a catalog from cheesemaking.com so that I could learn to make goat cheese. I had lots of other plans but a house fire in June of that year put an end to a lot of those plans. Our goats, fortunately, were staying with a relative while we got things ready at our house for them. A week after the fire our goat gave birth and we suddenly had goat milk for days. Sadly, that goat died 2 months later because we didn't have a firm grasp on goat nutrition (many milking goats die of calcium deficiency but no one told us that). Anyway, during this time we were living in temporary housing and trying to use the goat's milk. We gave some away to family and friends but we were bringing home over a gallon a day. The cheesemaking catalog has some easy soft cheeses using lemon and vinegar - one lemon cheese and the other Queso Blanco. Over time, we just started calling them lemon cheese so this recipe is really a combination of the two. The process of lemon cheese is heating milk and then adding an acid that will force the milk to separate into curds and whey. Drain off the whey and press the curds into a cheese that resembles ricotta. You can add herbs to the mix but I never did. I did experiment with different vinegars and citrus acids. Each acid gives the cheese a unique flavor. We tried Balsamic vinegar and I have to say we liked it least but the cheese still got eaten.

Lemon Cheese
1 Gallon milk
2 Large Lemons or 1/4 cup vinegar (1/4 citrus juice works too)
Warm milk to 165-190 degrees F. For citrus juices you can stop at 165 but vinegar should be no less than 185. Stir often to avoid scorching the milk. Add the acid to the milk. Stir and allow to sit off the stove for 15 minutes.
The warm milk will separate into a stringy curd and a greenish liquid whey. Line a colander with cheesecloth and pour the curds and whey into the colander. Save the whey for baking bread if desired. Tie four corners of the cheesecloth into a knot and hang the bag of curds to drain for an hour or until it reaches the desired consistency. (I often would wrap the curds in the cheese cloth and leave it in the colander with a weighted plate on top to facilitate draining)
Remove the cheese from the cloth and place it in a bowl. Add salt to taste -- usually about 1/4 teaspoon. You may mix in herbs. Place the cheese in a covered container and store in the refrigerator. This cheese will keep up to a week.

This cheese freezes beautifully - make baseball sized rounds of the cheese, four to a one gallon freezer bag.

Corn Dogs

A year ago (or so) my husband bought me a corn dog maker for about $20 at Shopko. I still see these around and highly recommend them. They look like waffle makers with six depressions to make the corn dogs. They are not big enough for a whole hot dog but if you buy the bun size hot dogs and cut them in half - it's about perfect. I have bought regular sized dogs and cut off the excess and then used the little pieces in a corn dog and it worked out fine.
I have noticed that pretty much any corn bread recipe will work. We use the recipe that I shared in an October 2009 post (I'm not savvy enough to know how to link that to here).
You start with oiling the compartments and putting a spoonful of corn bread batter in. You can spread the batter evenly or press a hot dog into the batter to spread it. Top with a little more batter and close the machine. After about 5-6 minutes the corn dogs are cooked. It does take some trial and error to get it right but they are a great treat.
I have even put cake batter in the maker and made a version of "Twinkies". I sliced a line down the cakes and put vanilla frosting in the center and then frosted the top over the split. They tasted great but Chocolate versions get a lot of jokes which made me really not want to do that again.

Make your own coconut milk

I needed coconut milk for the Banana Coconut Stew (coming in next post). I went to Walmart because my son needed minutes for his tracfone and I really prefer one stop shopping (never happens with getting my groceries at Walmart but that's another story). They had coconut milk for under a dollar - well they had signs for coconut milk for under a dollar and not a can in sight. I ended up going to the grocery store I get most of my groceries to get meat and see what the coconut milk was like (I buy my coconut milk from an Asian store not the grocery store but I was not making another stop). The price was stupidly high. I thought - I have dried coconut (organic unsweetened) in the cupboard that needs using so I'll make my own coconut milk (how hard can it be).
I left it until the next morning to look up how to make coconut milk. Guess what - they all use fresh coconut. If I was going to use fresh coconut I should have just bought the coconut milk and save me the headache. I decided to try it with the dried coconut.
I boiled a teapot of water and filled a medium sized bowl with coconut. I used a little bit of large grated coconut and a small bag of a more finely grated coconut. I poured the boiling water over the coconut and made sure it was covering the whole mess. I let it sit until cool and strained with a jelly bag. The result was not bad. It was a little weaker than my usual coconut milk but I am sure it rivalled the Walmart brand.
I think in the future I will pour all the stuff in a pot and boil it on the stove to pull more flavor out of the dried coconut.