Homemade Yogurt Tutorial

I LOVE yogurt! In my opinion homemade yogurt is sooo delicious and I feel really good about knowing what exactly I'm eating. I started making my own a few years ago when I had this awesome old gas stove with a pilot light in it that made the incubating really easy. I stopped briefly when we moved from that house (and stove) but now have figured out a solution that will work ANYWHERE! so I'm pretty stoked about that. 

Step 1: Gather your supplies. You'll need:

- Pot big enough for the amount of yogurt you want to make. (A heavier bottom bottom will provide a more even heat so your milk doesn't burn as easily while you heat it)

- Whisk

- Thermometer (candy thermometer works great!)

- Milk (I use Organic Homogenized 3.25%)

- about a 1/4 cup of yogurt containing all the good bacteria!! (in the future you can just reserve a little of your last batch to make your next one.

- Cutting board

- Heating pad

- Towel

- Clean sink

Step 2: Pour your milk. You'll want to keep whisking/stirring your milk every once in a while as it heats. No need to stand over it stirring constantly, you just don't want it to burn.

However much yogurt you want to make. That is how much milk you need. Remember you'll need to have a large enough container to store your yogurt in afterwards as well! I usually make 2L at a time and store it in an old yogurt container from when I used to buy the big buckets of yogurt.

 Step 3 - Heat to 185' F - this ensures any bad bacteria are cooked and gone :)

Step 4 - Immediately Cool your milk to 110' F - I put my whole pot in the sink, run some cold water (you can even throw some ice cubes in) and take the lid off.

Step 5 - Add your yogurt and whisk it in.  You don't want to let it get too much below 110' F but adding the yogurt in too early when your milk is still too warm will kill the bacteria and you'll just get sour milk rather than yogurt. (If this happens you can either A) try again with the same milk (I've done this!) or B) use it for baking, smoothies, etc.)

Step 6 - Wait it our for 7 Hours - this is the hardest part. NO Peeking! Have your heating pad set up on top of a cutting board with your towel ready to go. Once you've added the yogurt then pop 'er on top and cover it all up with the towel. This should keep things nicely at between the 100'F and 110'F mark (which is your goal). The longer you leave it the more sour, but it needs 6-7 hours to do the magic.

Step 7 - Chill & EAT! - So YUMMY! I usually just throw my whole pot in the fridge and chill it that way first. You can totally transfer at this point you have your yogurt. However I find that by putting the whole pot in the fridge it continues to settle a bit and then if you have any whey (yellowish liquid) floating on top you can more easily pour it off. If you transfer early that whey will mix in and your yogurt will be a little runnier.

mmmmm Yogurt!

If you want even THICKER yogurt you can do a couple things. 1) Add some milk powder to your milk or 2) strain your yogurt through a cheese cloth or fine sieve - this takes a bit more time but you can get that greek texture if you're looking for the cream.

Enjoy!

-S

Furniture Upcycle

Here's the latest project! I had a blast refinishing upcycling this old desk into something more beautiful! 

Here's the before picture. Actually this is not quite the desk as you can see mine has a writing slide-out in the front. But being somewhat scatter brained as of late (I'll blame it on the baby) I forgot to take a picture of the before. However, this is almost the same thing. Pine desk from IKEA. Super boring, and kinda ugly... and definitely doesn't match the house decor or vibe we are aiming for around here.

SO.... I crammed it into my little craft room out back. This is a lovely space to work in. It's a little tight for furniture projects, but its all windows which feels awesome and I have a great view of the "mountain" to beat! This room used to be a deck that someone enclosed up with windows so it's a bit of solarium kinda feel. We call it the "inside outside room" and it's the perfect place for your mid morning coffee break. When it's not full of projects that is.

The supplies I used for this upcycle included:

stain: dark walnut (by minwax) This is my go to colour when I want something nice and dark but not too red or grey. It's perfectly warm, but still definitely brown. 

applied with a rag and just rub it right in!

paint: AURA edgecomb grey (by benjamin moore) This was leftover paint from our master bedroom. I originally though I was going to distress this up a bit, but after getting the paint on there I liked it so much I just left it clean. Nice and creamy without being yellow. It compliments the top well. 

applied with a brush. It took 1.5 coats,  but the wood was raw when I started so it really should have been primed first, but I didn't have any kicking around.

Lastly I sealed the top with a semi-gloss varnish to give it some durability and water resistance. I'm so happy with how it turned out! It's NEVER this clean and ALWAYS covered in papers, laptops and other signs of life, but I had to take advantage of the moment ;)

And just for fun a close up of my typewriter. Passed down from my dad from my grandmother. It needs a little bit of a tune up, but it still works. In fact this was the guest book at our wedding!

Now go get creating!
Sarah

Picture Frame Key Hanger

This was a fun project. Partly because it was so simple, partly because I LOVE these girls and it's a great memory! My bestest got married last summer and she sent me this framed super cute photo of us girls all being awesome and strong and super cool...  

The frame was already perfect and slightly distressed so I didn't have to do anything to is aside from make some even marks across the bottom where I wanted to screw in my hooks. So now I have this cute photo key hook right inside my front door which solves the problem of lost/misplaced keys and also gets them off the ledge where they inevitably add to the clutter which I am slowly but surely getting rid of one pinteresting project at a time!

You could do this with any frame you have around your house to add a personal touch to your entryway. So stats for this project are:

Time Spent: 15 min

Frame: FREE 

5 Hooks: $2 from Walmart.

Total cost: $2... doesn't get much cheaper than that folks.

Valentine's DIY

Cut out hearts from places you've been together for a fun Valentine's worthy art piece that has an extra personal touch!

Thrifted Frame $10
Poster board matting $2
Map printouts - free!

You can easily out this together and it's a fun memento of places you've been with your sweetie ♥

The "Busy" Season

This is an interesting article written about "busy-ness" A fellow yogi posted it a few days again and I just recently made the time to read it. It's worth a read, and a thought, and perhaps a challenge to yourself....

If you ask me to describe what my day is like with a 9.5 month old at home I would have said "BUSY!" He's keeping me on my toes like never before. Getting into everything and everywhere and when I'm not making a frantic run to keep his hands out of the toilet, diaper bin, or garbage can... I'm probably trying to make enough food to keep up with his insatiable teenager-esque appetite (read: this 9 month old BABY ate two cottage cheese pancakes, a mandarin orange, and a piece of watermelon for breakfast!)

But perhaps upon reflection busy is not the right word. Maybe I should be responding to the question "How's your day/life been?" and actually responding about the day rather than a general feeling.

I'm gonna try this for a month too. Time to open up the vocabulary vault. Stay away from generics like "busy," "crazy," "fine," & "good" and actually take a mindful approach to describing life.

Reusable Advent Calendar

'Tis the Season! 

I LOVE Christmas. The sights, sounds, and smells. The cozy feeling of settling in front of a fire with a warm mug of tea, (hot chocolate with Baileys...)  The business of downtown streets with shoppers looking for that perfect gift. I know, I know, who really likes the business... but I must admit I do. I don't particularly love the traffic that goes along with it, but thethe hustle and bustle on the sides walks I do enjoy. I love getting cozied up in sweaters, scarves, and boots. It's a lovely time of year.

I also love the anticipation. The waiting. The enjoying of every day leading up to the BIG one. So what follows is a DIY Re-fillable Advent Calendar.

Supplies Needed:

24 wooden clothes pins

1 - 1 x 6 x 4ft plank of wood

Wood Glue

Sandpaper

Number Stamps - (I used ones I had made out of corks. You can find the post for that here: DIY Stamps)

Red & White Paint 

Sparkles, Glitter, Ribbons, etc

Instructions:

Step 1 - Paint all your clothespins. I pinned them onto an old box so I could do the sides and everything all in one go. Don't worry about the backs you'll be gluing them down later. I did a mix of all red, white with sparkles, and plain wood with little snowflake punch outs.

Step 2 - Paint your board & let that dry completely dry (a few hours depending on the type of paint) I used some leftover house paint which actually dried super fast. I needed two coats to get a nice matte finish.

Step 3 - Finish off your board by added your number stamps and possibly some distressing with sandpaper if you like that look. With a 4 ft board I spaced my numbers a little less than 2 inches apart to get a nice even spacing. It's worth it to measure and mark this off to get it even. Otherwise you'll end up with a wonky looking board

Step 4 - Glue on your pins. Plain old wood glue works like a charm here. Make sure your pins paint is completely dry before gluing. And again, marking off your spacing will help keeps things looking neat.

Step 5 - Fill with treats of your choice. Chocolates, small gifts, notes, letters, or even spell out the advent story in 24 days to read aloud each day (Find a link for that story here: Advent Story)

Merry Christmas!!

Life Hack #1

Incidentally... During the making of the last post I discovered something I wish that I had learned long ago. I will take credit for this genius (so don't tell me if you already knew this because I'm living in the glorious cloud of discovery)

Nail Polish Remover (the I used had Acetone) ALSO removes that sticky, gummy, residue left from stickers/labels with ULTIMATE EASE!

I've never really been one for the life hack pins, but this is worth it. I never to need to struggle to scrap off that icky goo or look for the little bottle of goo-be-gone again!