what to do with old flip flops?

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pesto x 3

For me the summer is pesto time. I recent saw a facebook friend's status about sundried tomato pesto and obviously I had to ask her how she made it. She told me to toss basil, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, olive oil and salt in the food processer. But that she sometimes makes it with parsley, walnuts and olives. Seeing as my poor basil plants are still tiny and I love parsley, I mixed up parsley, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes and olive oil in my immersion blender (I don't have a food processer). There wasn't any need for salt because the tomatoes were already very well dressed. You only need a little for each plate of pasta and it's so good!

Then there's obviously the traditional pesto alla genovese, not all that genovese (from Genova) when made by an American near Naples. Normally when the weather starts getting nice, I buy three basil plants and I put them in a huge pot and let them grow, grow and grow until they get to be something like a bush. Then I harvest and blend them with minced garlic, pine nuts (or walnuts, almonds, pistachios), grated pecorino (sheep's cheese) and olive oil, and voilà! Seeing as I make a good amount, I freeze it for the winter in little portions in those plastic cups for espresso covered with aluminum foil. But I hate using that disposable stuff so this year, if my poor little basil plants ever grow (they were given to me by a friend who grew them from organic seeds), I'll freeze them in ice cube trays and then, when well-frozen, will put the pesto cubes in a closed container so they don't lose their nice smell. This is what I did when preparing food for my daughter before she could eat "normal" food like the rest of us.

And lastly there's zucchini mint pesto, which that same friend of the basil plants taught me a few days before my daughter was born. You steam the zucchini, but not too much. In the meantime, put the almonds with their skins still on in a bit of boiling water for a little, just long enough so the skins peel right off. If you have almonds without their skins, you can obviously skip this step. Then into the blender go: lots of fresh mint leaves, the almonds (or pine nuts or whatever nuts you want), a little olive oil and a bit of the water from steaming the zucchini. When it's well-blended, add the zucchini, parmesan and pecorino (sheep's cheese) and more oil. You can also put in a little salt, but it's better to just get the right saltiness by adjusting the pecorino. But usually it's good to put the same amount of parmesan as pecorino. You can freeze it as with regular pesto or put it in a jar, cover with more olive oil and keep in the fridge. I wouldn't suggest keeping it frozen for very long, though, because with time all the flavor goes away.

missing in action

I'm sorry that I haven't been writing. I have been insanely busy but I'm also having technical problems with signing into my google account and getting blogger to work properly. Please do come check in again soon, I promise to work it all out soon! I will soon be writing about my cloth diapers, both the AIOs that we already use (that you can see hanging out with a nice view of Vesuvius) and my new pocket diapers that I'm now working on. And a bunch of other stuff. Don't miss out!

mint syrup

So I've already written about the wonderful elderflower syrup I made a few weeks back, which you dilute for a lovely summer drink. And I thought, there MUST be some way to make homemade mint syrup, like the ones you find in every Italian supermarket when it starts getting summery. I have a wonderful mint plant on my balcony that supplies me with more mint than I can ever possibly use. I googled it and found a good recipe on a great blog that I'd never seen before. Basically boil 1 liter of water with 100 grams of fresh mint leaves and 450 grams of sugar until it's reduced by half. Let it cool and put it in a bottle, straining the leaves. You can put a few extra fresh leaves in the bottle, but I find them annoying when I'm pouring the syrup. I actually made mine with only about 75 grams of mint leaves because it already seemed like an insane amount. But it really does need the whole 100 grams and after just a minute or so they wilt down so they don't fill the pot anymore.

Yes, I do realize that it's been raining constantly and is once again quite chilly and nobody's in the mood these days to drink a refreshing drink. But let's all hope that the good weather comes back soon!

new types of pads

Up until now I've made my pads with a top layer of microfleece or suedecloth (except for pantyliners). They're fabrics that you can't find in Italy (or at least I've never found them there nor have I ever heard of anyone else managing to) but they're great for cloth menstrual pads and diapers. They are wicking materials, meaning they pull whatever liquid that gets on them down into the absorbent layers below, leaving the the top surface much drier. It's really incredible to see how much a pad (or diaper) can get wet without feeling wet.

But quite often people aren't totally convinced because these materials are synthetic. In theory, fleece is made at least partly with recycled plastic bottles, so it's a little more ecological in this sense. But most people who use cloth products don't want to use synthetic things if at all possible. Their biggest worry is that they're imagining jackets and other things made with thick fleece. Microfleece is a totally different product. It's very thin (and suedecloth even more so) and really soft. It doesn't irritate the skin at all, nor does it make you feel too hot in the summer. Actually, disposable pads are much more irritating first because they're full of chemicals (read here for more on that) and, being made of plastic, they don't let the skin breathe and it can feel quite sweaty "down there."

But I decided to see for myself and try some pads without these wicking fabrics. After all, lots of pad makers don't use these special fabrics, including most of them at Cloth Pad Shop, where I am also a seller. So I made three new pads to try out personally. They are, from left to right, with cotton flannel, regular cotton and bamboo velour. And I found that they do absorb quite well and the bamboo velour one is super soft and makes you feel really spoiled. The velour is also organic and naturally anti-bacterial. But when these types of pads get wet, they stay damp on the surface. I still prefer pads with microfleece and suedecloth, but I've decided to start producing some pads without those materials for those who still really prefer not to use them.

bike helmet

Yes, a bike one. In Italy nobody uses one. Go figure, nobody even wears a helmet on scooters. But I don't care one bit and I go out and about my town with my daughter in her bike seat behind me, both of us with our helmets, and I pretend that nobody's giving us pitying looks.

Except the front inside pad had crumbled apart, leaving hideous black marks all over my forehead when I took off the helmet. So I made a new one. Two pieces of flannel, one of batting and a strip of touch tape (the resistent velcro that I use for diapers) to attach it to the helmet. And there you go! I just might make a new pad to replace the top one, just to brighten up that boring old helmet!

RIP puntino :(

Yesterday was a tough day, the due date of the baby that I lost in October at 9 weeks. Don't worry, I'm not going to bother you all with tales of the despair that a woman who miscarries feels nor how insensitive some people can be (though I should. It seems that few people realize how frequent miscarriage is. Some say up to one in three pregnancies end that way, but it often happens before the woman even realizes she was pregnant in the first place.). Instead I'll tell you a bit about what I did for a little emotional healing.

After losing a baby, many women feel the need to do something to remember it by. Some get a tattoo, others plant a tree or flowers. I've never been able to choose a tattoo that I would like to have for the rest of my days and I was worried that a plant could die on me. So I thought a bit. One of the things that I was saddest about was that I really would like for my daughter to have a sibling, someone to play with. So yesterday I sewed a doll for her. I bought the "John" pattern from the Etsy seller Bit of Whimsy Dolls, a PDF pattern, which is great because there's no need to mail it. I'd never made a doll in my life, but the instructions were really easy and it only took a few hours. I'd never embroidered either, for that matter, but I must say that I found it quite relaxing and I'd like to try more of it in the future.