I Did It, I Did It!

I am very excited. After having tried to make yogurt on 3 different occasions and wasting countless cups of milk (sorry cows, I know it was disrespectful of me to waste something that took you considerable energy to make), I've finally made a batch that worked! I credit my spiffy new digital thermometer and a more intimate understanding of the yogurt-making process.

I think the mistake I kept making was not waiting long enough for the milk to cool down before inoculating (isn't that gross? That's the word yogurt people use) the milk with the starter yogurt. This time I knew exactly what I was doing because I had my fancy schmancy thingamabob to tell me what was going on. I just stuck it to the side of the saucepan when I poured the milk in and it worked like a hot damn!

The other key to my success (I think) was my incubation device. Before, I was putting the inoculated (ok, I actually just like saying that word and I'm pretty sure the only reason yogurt people use it is because they are pretentious pricks and they like saying it too) milk in a bowl in my little picnic cooler with hot water surrounding it. Yesterday, however, I had the bright idea of putting it in my Laken thermos! How brilliant of me!

I made my yogurt with only two cups of milk because all my previous experiences have made me a little gun-shy. Next time I'll definitely use more. Here are the steps it took me to come to my delicious conclusion:

1. Sterilize the incubation device (so scientific) by boiling enough water to fill it and pouring it into the device, letting it sit for 5 minutes or until your milk is ready. You should also sterilize a little bowl in which you'll mix the starter yogurt and milk. This is to make sure no bacteria get in the milk and compete with the yogurt bacteria for growing room. I'm not really sure if this is actually an effective sterilization method, but it worked for me!

2. Heat two cups of milk (I used 1%, but I don't think the fat content makes much difference) to 170 degrees Fahrenheit, for the same reason as step number one. Stir constantly to prevent scalding and ensure an accurate read on your thermometer.

3. Take the milk off the heat-source and cool to 112 degrees Fahrenheit. While you're waiting for it to cool, dump the water out of the small cup you set aside earlier and put 1/4 cup of starter yogurt in it. It must be plain- no flavouring. I bought a single-serving cup of organic Olympic yogurt and used around half of it.

4. When the milk has cooled to 112 degrees, mix a small amount of it in with the yogurt in the small cup, working quickly so as not to let the milk cool below 108 degrees. Pour the yogurt-milk slurry into the saucepan of milk and whisk to ensure incorporation.

5. Pour the water out of your thermos and then dump the inoculated (hehehehe) milk into it. Tightly seal the lid(s) and wrap a terry bath towel around the thermos, securing it with an elastic band or two. I'm not sure the towel part is necessary, but I did that so I'm not going to take any chances by not fully disclosing my process. Plus, extra insulation never hurt anyone.

6. Let the mixture sit overnight, or at least 8 hours, without moving the container. After 8 hours you should decant your yogurt and chill it. It will be lumpy and slightly runny. I took an extra step, however.

Extra step: 7. (This step will significantly reduce your yogurt yield but also make it significantly yummy.) Line a mesh strainer with a large coffee filter as in the photograph above. Place over a bowl and pour the yogurt into the filter. Lucky for us, it will hold exactly two cups. Cover with saran wrap (not sure this is necessary, but whatever), bung it in the fridge and wait for an hour or so while it de-moisturizes. You will be left with very thick yogurt, like Greek yogurt but not as bad for you. Gently peel the coffee filter away from the yogurt (no need to scrape with a spoon) and discard the whey that has collected in the bowl. I can't wait to eat it!

Next time I think I'll double the recipe (4 cups milk, 1/2 cup yogurt starter) and add 1/3 cup of skim milk powder. This is supposed to give a thicker consistency, which may prevent me from having to strain the yogurt at the end and thus not waste so much.
Results!

Let Me Count the Ways #3

Top Ten Reasons Why I Love My Life

(In no order)

1. I make an amazing birthday cake. Evidence to the left from my little brother's birthday, which was yesterday.

2. GP does nice things for me, like cleaning the entire kitchen after I made the aforementioned cake (and when the kitchen was a MESS), EVEN THOUGH he wasn't able to come to the birthday dinner because he was working and EVEN THOUGH I told him explicitly not to clean it up because I would when I got home. It was kind of like having a house-elf, but GP is a lot more handsome and independent.

3. I look fabulous in most hats.

4. I'm good at things I don't even like doing, namely yoga.

5. Friskies does NOT like whistling, which makes for endless entertainment. If GP or I whistle, she tries to bite us.

6. I don't have to go to school or work right now. Neat!

7. I have a knack for finding great places to live just at the right time.

8. I've been pretty good about working out. In the past 90 days I have only missed 5 workouts of the 6 per week that GP and I have been doing. All but one of those workouts were yoga. Also, I've been getting stronger and stronger. I can do seven chin-ups now! I must say I've been finding it hard to stay motivated lately. I need a little pick-me-up. Suggestions, anyone?

9. I haven't gotten a sunburn yet this summer. That is good because my skin is very fair and sunburns are painful and do not bode well for future health or skin appearance.

10. I can speak French. That's awesome because I live in a bilingual country and I think everyone living here should be taught more of both languages.

What's for dinner?

A delightful pesto of spring greens, parmesan, sage, pine nuts and garlic artfully plopped onto perfectly grilled and succulent local chicken (see below), accompanied by garlicky sauteed bok choy and mushrooms. Sounds good to me. You can see the end result of this delicious creation at the end of this post.
I love dinner. I also love breakfast and lunch. And I love sharing these meals with people. Since moving in with GP I've been doing most of the cooking. I don't mind this at all. Sometimes I don't feel like cooking and we don't really eat dinner, but that's only happened maybe twice. God forbid I ever have children and I don't feel like cooking dinner: Future teacher: "Suzie, what did you have for dinner last night?" Future child: "Nothing, Mummy didn't feel like it and Daddy was at the office." How utterly depressing. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Anyway, what I was going to say was that I like eating and I like eating with people and I like eating with GP because it means I can cook more food more often. I have to admit I haven't been as adventurous as I'd hoped to be once I was cooking for two instead of one, but I am a work in progress after all.

Being a vegetarian is another thing I've had to struggle with of late because of this damned P90X. The diet plan is a bit confusing because it basically says to vegetarians "You're vegetarian, you know how to do this stuff already, so just adjust the meat recipes to be vegetarian". That's a lot easier said that done when I don't feel like eating tofu and "mock" meat has sooo many chemicals and is expensive. I miss my legumes. Alas, I don't feel like I can eat them because they have too many carbs and I don't want to have to do all that tedious math to figure out how much lentils I can have. So I guess it's back to meat for the time being.

I feel pretty crappy about this decision. It's not like I'd ever eat pork or beef, but even just going back to eating chicken and fish regularly is really not what I want to do. At the same time I don't want to have to rely on SO MANY soy products and fake food to get me through. I want the best of all worlds: I don't want to have to make animals suffer so I can get high quality protein, but I also don't want to have to do the mind-numbing calculations necessary to include legumes, which I'm not really sure I can do anyway even if I did do the calculations because they're simply too high in carbs, and I don't want to have to consume soy and chemicals all day long!! So I guess I just have to go the road of least resistance: find dead animals to eat that haven't been treated badly before they died. I foresee a lot of wild salmon in my future.