I WIN! :-D

I did it! IT did it! I did it! :-D I finally succeeded in making yoghurt!!!

Now, it’s not the smoothest stuff in the world, but it’s thick and will definitely work for smoothies! Woohoo! :-D

How to do this:


Take milk. Actual liquid milk, I mean. [EDIT: Note: The milk I used is that ultra-filtered stuff -- it was on sale so I stocked up 'cause I knew I'd be going through a bunch in trying this. So that's another factor to consider when I try this next time. That said, the below process of boiling it will probably mean it doesn't matter what "kind" of milk you start with. /EDIT]

3C milk from a carton

Put it in a clean metal pot on the stove and start boiling it. Heat it slowly (at first, though this isn’t strictly necessary).

Take about half a cup of the heating milk plus an extra half a cup of cold milk and put it in a little bowl with about half a cup of powdered milk (this is to help it thicken – it may not turn out to be necessary, but I thought I’d try it this time and it seems to have helped as the yoghurt *is* very thick).

Add the thick milk-slurry back into the heating milk in the pot and mix it thoroughly in.

Bring milk to a boil (be careful so that it doesn’t burn on the bottom and so that it doesn’t overflow, though if it does either of these things, that’s still okay).

Once boiled, take the milk immediately off the heat. Pour it into a bowl (or don’t, but that’s what I did ‘cause I’d gone and scalded it on the bottom) and allow it to cool part-way.
Basically, if you drip some on your palm, it should still be hot, but not so hot that it hurts. A bit like good bath water, basically.

Take some of this hot milk and, in a little bowl (why not use the one you mixed the milk slurry in, earlier), blend it together with some (~1/4 C) unflavoured organic yoghurt (I used the Liberty 2% stuff).


This is where things get slightly trickier. See, I have a yoghurt incubator. It’s basically a plastic jar that I put in a thermal sleeve (which was built for it) which plugs in.
So how I did this was to (A) make sure the sleeve was pre-heated and already hot when I put the jar in it, and (B) the following:

Pour half of the milk into the clean jar. Mix the yoghurt slurry into the remaining milk and then add it to the jar as well. Mix with a fork (or whatever) until things are well-blended (but not too bubbly).

Place jar in sleeve, cover part-way with lid (on enough to keep the heat in, off enough to keep the air circulating).

Wait 7.5 hours.

Take the jar out of the sleeve, place it in the fridge (with the lid part-way on, just like before) and let it cool over night.

In the morning you will, in theory (I’ve only done this successfully once), have a jar of thick yoghurt that is suitable for use in smoothies, tandoori sauces, and such-like.


NOTE: There’s a reason I say “use it in cooking” rather than “eat it straight”.

My yoghurt, while thick, is not the smoothest in the world and it’s just a little bit sour (as opposed to tart).

The sour may be because I left in on the heat more than six hours (allegedly, after eight hours, it won’t thicken any further it’ll just get more sour), or it could just be that this is home-made yoghurt for you. I seem to recall this from when my parents made yoghurt (with the same incubator) when I was a kid.

As for the not-so-smooth… Part of it is just that I thickened it with powdered milk and so occasionally I come across tiny beads of milk powder that didn’t dissolve when I first mixed it up. This is fairly easy to fix, I just have to do it like that next time.

So we shall see.


Anyway. Congratulate me, I am a Domestic Goddess. :-D


- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)

(no subject)

So.

This morning, I went on my walk.

I walked along Dows Lake and then up to Carleton U.
There was a couple fishing in Dows Lake. Three lines. They had a pile of fish and had probably been there for some time. Little perches and small-mouth bass.

I got to C.U. and then realized that I'd left my tape at home (woops). So no postering there today. But I left a poster at the used text-book store on Sunnyside and one at Mothertongue (which, granted, was closed -- hopefully it'll still be there when it opens).

I walked past the Sunnyside branch of the OPL. I really like that place. It's kinda pretty and I really like their garden. It's got poppies and sunflowers and corn and pumpkins and milkweed and mallow flowers and all sorts of stuff! I love it! :-D

I did *not* go to the house on Sunnside and Riverdale that has the bunch of in-fruit fig trees. More fool me. ;-)

Followed the canal back from Sunnyside to the Somerset bridge. Got to watch the Pretoria Bridge lift up to let a boat through (which was kinda cool).

Sat on the benches every so often. (Had raspberry smoothy and a cupcake. It was tasty). Drew a picture. (There are houses on Sunnyside that are sort of funky-industrial boxes with sheet metal and plexiglass and stuff on them. Kinda cool looking and kinda weird. I kind of like them. ;-) Contemplated landlordhood (yeah, right, but still. A day-dream is a daydream. :-)

Picked up orange juice, milk, frozen raspberries, frozen blueberries (frozen fruit = on sale at the hartmann's, btw), and icecream (same), and then headed home.

Groceries have been put away, stove has been cleaned (due to scalded milk from yesterday, I mean), and now I'm cooking curry-coriander pumpkin soup on the stove.
Have already burned things to the bottom of the pot, just a little (woops), but it should be okay. :-)
Here's hoping it tastes good. :-)

[EDIT: It tastes sweeter than I expected. A little lemon might help with that, or adding extra stuff like fresh herbs or sauteed mushrooms or something... But it's a good purreed-soup base. It's currently chilling in my fridge before going in the freezer. /EDIT]


Am also coming down from the hugely happy state I was in on my walk. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeenteresting. Hm...

Maybe I'll take another walk this afternoon and/or sit and write in a park or read tarot cards or something.

It's weird how that happens. How I get into the house and start doing things and, very, very quickly, I start fading like that. More than a little bit... worrying? Maybe that's not the right word. But... worthy of note, I think.


Anyway. Part of me want to try making a necklace for my mom (She wants an amethyst and pearls necklace using the beads from my great-grandmother's fake-pearl necklace. It's going to be her xmas present).


I also want to try making jelly. Which will involve going out and finding an old, threadbare cotton pillow-case to serve as my jelly-bag, and also harvesting a bunch of crab apples from Confederation Park and/or a bunch of rosehips from along the canal (they are SO bright and plump right now!)
I'm thinking crab-apple/cayenne/ginger for one. I think the rosehip jelly would involve apple juice and maybe a little lemon and... cinamon? Maybe? Not sure.


Anyway. Right this second, I'm eating cherry-chocolate-chunk icecream and thinking about going out again this afternoon with my tarot cards and my notebook and The Artist's Way which is, so far, proving not too terrible a thing to be doing. :-)

Sara may call in a little bit, though, so I figure I'll wait for a while. :-)


- TTFN,
- Amazon.