Marie Grace Designs

Adventures in homemade yogurt...

My kids can go through crazy amounts of yogurt.

I know its good for them, in theory, but store bought yogurt has its issues including preservatives and price not to mention all the packaging so I recently decided to jump on the homemade yogurt bandwagon.

If I had known how easy it was I would have done this years ago!

 There are basically 4 steps to the yogurt making process...

- heat milk to about 185 degrees

- let the milk cool back down to about 100 degrees

- add a small amount of plain yogurt to your warm milk (this is like a seed of yogurt cultures... you need to have cultures to make more cultures)

- then just wait... and viola... yogurt!

 Now, there's lots of variables that come into play if you do enough reading on the yogurt making process. You'll find some people prefer certain wait times and temperatures and it seems they all give similar results as long as you don't kill your yogurt cultures. Our first batch of crock-pot yogurt turned out okay... it had a good flavor and the kids ate it all but it had a curdy texture sort of like cottage cheese. Some research led me to believe it was due to a slightly higher than necessary temperature during the wait time.

I've now settled into a hybrid process. I use the crock-pot but I don't leave it sit all night as it just seems like too long. When the cultures are working to thicken the milk it seems there's a point at which its as thick as its ever going to be so leaving it longer is just not necessary. 

There's plenty of good info out there already so there's no sense in me reinventing the yogurt wheel.

Here are the 2 sites I found most helpful and to the point:

Crock-pot yogurt

No crock-pot yogurt

My process is sort of a hybrid and works well for me. I do use the crock-pot but not overnight. I've found that setting the crock-pot to low to heat the milk, turning it off for the cool down, and then simply wrapping it in 2 thick towels is sufficient for the wait time. The temperature stays just right long enough to finish with no need to mess with turning anything off and on. I've also found that it really only takes 4-5 hours to get finished yogurt.

The kids like the thick style yogurt best so I do use cheese cloth to drain a good bit liquid out of it. This can be done overnight while it sits in the refridgerator and means you wake up to a fresh bowl of thick, cold yogurt in the morning!

I'm feeling pretty good about this. I'm even going to show you the inside of my refrigerator. Because in there is homemade yogurt right beside some of the strawberry jam I made from the strawberries in our little berry patch which just happens to be one of the kids' favorite things to add to their yogurt.

Another good thing... the liquid that is drained off the yogurt is whey (the jar behind the yogurt with the yellow-ish liquid)! It seemed wasteful to just dump it and a little research seems to indicate it can be used to replace the water in baking recipes and lots of people use it in their bread making. Whey is full of good stuff especially protein so I'm going to use it for my next batch of bread and see how it goes.

Now go make yogurt!

Oh well...

Guess I'm just gonna have to eat strawberries and cake for lunch again. 

This country living can be pretty tough some days.

It helps to have a little country boy around.

He can help keep a look out for the local wildlife.

Who needs iPhones...

These 2 are outside with 2 cans and some string.

By the way... This is a test post. Please forgive any weirdness.

Is it weird...

Is it weird to head up a blog post with a picture of my lunch? Let it serve as an explanation for why its been so quiet here... I've said it before... the quieter here on the blog the busier at the house.

~ The garden frames are full of both new little veggie plants and small things ready to eat like the above strawberries and spinach. We've been able to pick a bowlful of strawberries almost everyday. And I'm attempting to stagger some areas of spinach plantings in an effort to never run out of fresh spinach again. Ever. Because I love it.

~ I've finally gotten into enough of a routine that we are completely off store bought bread products! With all 6 of us, 4 of which are adult-ish, its a lot of bread!

~ Have been spreading the wealth of homemade cereal I've making by passing on jars full of the stuff to friends.

~ After some half-assed composting we've finally gotten control of 2 full compost areas... one in the garden for regular kitchen composting of food scraps and peelings and 1 larger one near the goats for larger things like trimmed and fallen tree limbs. We even spent some time over the weekend reclaiming some dead-fall with a wood chipper and made our own mulch for around the garden frames.

~ I've finally convinced Bubba that wearing a hat is a good thing. All it took was the entire family acting like we've won the lottery every time he puts a hat on. Lots of cheers and clapping. Come to my house and put your sunhat on and you'll be rewarded with a standing ovation!

~ I've started on sewing summer clothes for the younger kids. Shorts for Bubba, more Skinny Tees (did you here that Rae is working on a BIG kid Skinny Tee pattern?!?), and jammies all around. Lots to do.

~ Drier... what drier? Between the washline and the rack inside I do believe my drier is gathering dust! I may never use it again.

The school year is almost over, Tater has her homeschool eval this week and the big kids will be done with their Cyber Chart in another 14 days, so we're all really restless and ready to run full on into summer and all the possibilities it brings. Bubba is big enough to really love being outside and its so good to see him happy and active. 

This may sound odd... or maybe wishy-washy... but it feels like there's another major shift going on around here. Maybe all families that have several kids, especially kids that are spread out as far as mine are, all go through this sort of thing. It just seems like things are always... shifting. With Bubba now firmly planted in toddler-hood it just feels like we're all on the move again after some span of relatively quiet hermit-ish living as is welcome when there's a wee one in the house. 

Somehow his transition from baby to toddler gives me some sort of piece of my brain back... along with the use of my hands. He's finally sleeping good at night and for a daily nap without me having to be with him (finally).

Now that my baby-having days are passed, I feel a sense of... moving on, perhaps? Readjusting? And yes, shifting. To watching my babies becoming... people. Wondering if I've set a good enough example. Wondering if I've taught them the important things and figuring how to sift the really important things out of the not-so-much. Spending time really enjoying them and watching and listening as much as guiding.

Wondering what in the world I will fill myself with when there's not so much handholding and diaper washing to do.

 

 

 

 

First of the season...

(photo heavy)

Its been a really weird spring. First unseasonably hot. Then cold. Then hot again. And dry. 

For the past few days its been cool and rainy and actually feels like a real spring. Seems the garden thinks so too because all the wee seeds we put in, that I was worried would never produce due to the crazy weather, have all emerged. There are tiny little sprouts of all sorts in the garden frames.

And the strawberries that have been growing plump are ever so slowly turning red. We have a quite prolific little strawberry patch but really my little crew tends to eat through them before I ever have a chance to freeze any. This year I'm playing strawberry guard in effort to put up some freezer jam.

Left unguarded...

Bubba has been a little uncertain about leafy edibles. I suppose if big sister will eat it he will too...

And Tater is very proud of her little herb pots which have all begun to sprout as well...