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

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.

And The Pears Just Keep Coming!

 So I leave town for about 10 days to visit family and I'm dreading the look of the patio when I get home because I know it will be covered in pears starting to over ripen, full of fruit flies, and not an altogether lovely sight. However to my surprise its not so bad. There are a few over ripe pears, a few flies, but not the festering mess I was expecting. The tree however is still FULL of ripe pears and they are getting BIG! I climbed up a picked a few with the help of my sister and now between those and they rest I hadn't processed from before I left I once again had more than I know what to do with... SO

Puffed Pear Pancake (childhood favourite!)

• Pre-heat oven to 425 F
• Fill a greased frittata pan (or glass pie plate) with enough sliced poached (or canned) pears to fully cover the bottom - we used about 6/7 I think  but they were on the smaller side
• Beat two eggs
• Add 1/2 cup all purpose flour - whisk in
• Add 1/2 cup milk - whisk in slowly
• Add 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1 tsp cardammom
• Pour mixture over top of pears.
• Bake for 20 minutes
• Remove from oven and flip over (by placing a plate on top, flip the pancake, then slide it back into it's dish)
• Sprinkle with sugar and cardamom and voila!

AND

Ginger Pear Marmalade

• Zest three limes and set aside
• Juice three limes and put in large bowl
• Peel, core, and thinly slice 8 cups of pears
• Coat with juice from limes
• Add 3 tbsp of minced crystallized ginger
• Add 4 cups of sugar and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour

***meanwhile prepare canning jars

• Add zest to 1 1/4 cups of water and stirring frequently let come to a boil until liquid is reduced by half
• Remove zest and add water to pears
• Stirring frequently, boil pears for approximately 15 minutes
• Add zest back in and continue boiling for another 5 minutes or until mix reaches a gel stage
• Spoon into your canning jars leaving 1/4" room at the top, add sterilized lids and rings, and place in canner for 10 minutes

Enjoy!

Saturday Scrumptious Snacks!

Peppery Pear Salsa (courtesy of my mom)

1 cup vingear
8 cups chopped pears
3 finely diced red peppers
3 finely diced green peppers
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp salt
2 tsp dry mustard powder
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

- Bring everything to a boil and simmer for at least 5 minutes or until liquid thickens a bit.


  *Optional* I also added 2 jalapenos and 1 red onion to this recipe for a bit more of a kick and less sweet salsa 


Honey Almond Flax Granola

1 cup coconut
5 cups rolled oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1 1/2 cups almond meal
3 tbsp flax seeds
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 cup dried blueberries
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup honey
1/2 cup vegetable oil

- Pre-heat oven to 350 F
- Mix together all dry ingredients EXCEPT the dried fruit
- Combine honey, cinnamon, oil in a saucepan and bring to just boiling.
- Coat dry ingredients with honey mixture and spread out evenly in a cookie tray (or two)
- Bake in oven for 20 minutes (or until golden brown) stirring halfway
- Cool and add in dried fruit


Enjoy some Scrumptious Saturday Snacks!

Loves,
Sarah